How long did you think we could make it?
How far did you think we could take it?
We couldn't be bothered, we didn't have time to think so far ahead...
The ship was crawling with guards. They swarmed the deck and the hull and had even started spilling over the side of the ship to search lifeboats and the waters below. Flashlights, lanterns, and even welding torches bobbed and weaved all around to turn the relentless hunting into a deadly, mesmerizing light show.
Sly watched it all from his safe perch on top of the highest chimney of the tallest building he could find. Smoke curled up and around him, thick enough to obscure him in case anyone thought to look up but not so heavy that it was choking. He curled his rigid tail a little closer around his legs as the radio in his hand – swiped off the first person he came across before it became too dangerous to try – crackled to life.
"Any sign of him?" Asked whoever was the newest overseer over these men.
A chorus of no's was the answer, and the first person growled.
"Keep looking. We'll find him – there's only so many places he can hide."
The raccoon would have been amused by that if there was any room for it alongside the fear. For all that people claimed to be observant, they never thought to look up until it was too late. He glanced up himself, reflexively, and stared at the sun barely starting to peek out through the waning storm clouds. There was no dark shape in the sky; no prominent shadow present that wasn't supposed to be there.
It did little to ease his mind as he looked back down at the deck and its light show.
When the storm machine began descending without any warning, a cacophony of confused voices shouted so loud that he didn't even need the radio to hear them, and multiple searchlights turned towards the blimp's windows as it touched down a little roughly at the ship's bow. Raleigh's goons were startled by the strange turn of events – and Sly could hardly blame them, since the frog almost never let his prized machine drop that low – until a new, horribly familiar voice quelled all questions instantly.
"No need for concern, chaps," Raleigh said completely unphased, as though it was his decision to land the blimp and Sly's hopefully-unnoticed partner. "If our little intruder wants to confront me directly, why should we deny him the privilege? Continue searching the rest of the ship in case this is a diversion, but otherwise leave my storm machine alone. We'll soon see if this is an act of courage or cowardice."
Sly gritted his teeth, equal parts angry and afraid, and took it as his cue to move. He crushed the radio against the brick beneath him with the blunt end of his cane, then dumped the broken tech down the chimney before heading across the rooftops towards the downed blimp. No one heard him and no one thought to look up just in case.
Just as their boss had ordered, there was not a single person hovering around the door to the blimp's interior. The raccoon tested it and found it unlocked, which only served to spike his anxiety even higher. If there had been any remaining doubts about where Raleigh had hidden his portion of the Thievius Raccoonus, they had been banished straight away by this open invitation.
Mere moments after he had the thought, rapidly approaching footsteps made him whirl around with his cane at the ready, just in time to see the shadow of Inspector Fox hurrying around the side of a nearby building. Eyes wide, Sly folded his cane and frantically stuffed it in his backpack – just in time for her to turn the corner and see him waiting for her.
"Thank god, you're still alright!" She breathed, audibly relieved as she came up to him with wary glances thrown over her shoulder. "I was worried the guards might've caught you before I could find you."
"Nah, they're too busy running around like headless chickens. It'll take a lot more than that to catch me."
Carmelita nodded like she hadn't expected anything else. It made his heart swell dangerously. "Back-up is on their way, hopefully within the next hour now that the storm is winding down. I thought I should go ahead and try to nab Raleigh before he has a chance to do anything. Feel like joining me this time?"
"I think I'll help you another way, actually. Those goons will come sniffing around here now that the blimp is grounded, and I don't want them going inside and overpowering you with numbers. When they show up, I'll play decoy and keep them away so you can stay one-on-one with the big guy."
The lie fell a little more sluggishly off his tongue, but he didn't let himself stumble over the words or why it was suddenly harder. Just to be sure he'd sold it, the raccoon made a meaningful scan of their surroundings as if worried someone might pop out any second, and he saw from the considering expression on his partner's face that it was a successful play.
"…Okay," she conceded, giving him a searching, concerned look. "I trust you to handle yourself, but don't hesitate to get off the ship if it becomes too dangerous. I don't want you getting yourself caught because you're playing hero."
"I won't. Promise."
"Good."
Carmelita turned towards the door, hesitated, then turned back around to pull him into a hug. It startled him so bad that he let out a strangled squeak…but didn't push her away. She seemed to realize what she'd just done, because she let go of him almost immediately with her cheeks blazing red through her fur. They stared at each other in the silence that followed until she ran her hand through her bangs and pivoted on her heel, leaving him stunned and unable to do nothing but watch her disappear inside the blimp.
It took almost an entire minute for his brain to reboot, and that was just enough time for him to deem it safe to slip in after her.
Sly followed the fox at a distance, unable to see her but not needing to with the way she barreled down hallways and up stairwells on a single-minded mission. His face was aflame and his thoughts were racing, and the only thing keeping him silent through his distraction was hard-trained instinct.
She had hugged him. She had hugged him. Surely, it didn't mean anything. Surely that was something she did with all her work partners, just like the nickname thing. Surely, he was reading too much into it and turning it into something it wasn't.
But what if he wasn't reading too much into it? What if she – what if the hug actually meant something? The hug, and the compliments, and the sideways glances he'd been noticing lately that had seemed so weird at the time but now almost felt like –
He stopped moving. Took a few deep breathes, pulled out his cane and extended it, closed his eyes and grounded himself. It didn't matter what he thought it all meant. Right now, what mattered was that she take down Raleigh, and that he steal back his book without either of them noticing. He could tangle himself up in knots over her intentions afterwards, when they were both out of danger and with an actual chance to talk.
Newly concentrated on the more important, more dangerous task at hand, Sly hurried to catch up to his partner – or at least, catch up to the distance he had been maintaining behind her. One final doorway ahead, he heard her voice echo out, angry and resolute. It made him slow to a stop just outside the new room so that he could peek inside and gauge the situation.
Carmelita, standing on a large lily pad on the outskirts of another huge indoor swimming pool, with her shock pistol in hand and the blimp's windows forming a half ring behind her. Sir Raleigh, elevated at the far end of the room on a grandiose velvet throne with a sneer on his face as he spoke, letting the raccoon catch the very tail end of their back-and-forth.
"–obviously, I should have snuffed you out the minute I learned you had taken Muggshot down. So, without further ado, let me make amends by, what…?" He placed his hands together in gleeful anticipation and screeched, "bloating to gargantuan size, and squashing you like the insignificant bug that you are!"
Ruthless declaration made, the machinist's throat swelled up so fast that he was suddenly three times his original size before either Inspector Fox or her unseen partner could even blink. The fox shouted and began shooting at him as he launched himself off of his throne towards the lily pad closest to her.
Sly took that as his cue.
He inhaled as deeply as he could and concentrated, feeling the effects of invisibility shimmering across his body like an inverse stage trick, and edged into the room by the outer walkway circling the entire place. His eyes darted all around the area, trying not to get distracted by the sight and sound of the fight taking place when he had very limited time. Carmelita could take care of herself; she had already proved that twice over, and he was no longer worried.
What was infinitely more important was finding those missing pages before either of them realized he was here.
The raccoon darted around to the platform the throne was sitting on, hauling himself up to it and somehow not exhaling through sheer willpower. Only once he was safely hiding behind the gaudy thing did he drop the technique to catch his breath, listening to his partner's shouting alongside shock pistol shots and Raleigh's occasional grunt of pain. Just to reassure himself, he risked glancing around the giant chair to study the situation.
Carmelita was jumping from lily pad to lily pad, dancing out of the way of the frog's deadly hopping with ease and timing it with a barrage of electric bullets every time her feet hit solid ground again. Raleigh was tanking them surprisingly well, bloated as he was, and it was clear that endurance would be the winner of the fight.
It was…remarkable, truly, to see one of the monsters who had controlled his life for so long forced to cede ground to the whirlwind of a woman who was Inspector Carmelita Fox.
He crouched back down before he could be mesmerized by her actions, kicking himself for getting distracted, when he noticed a knob in the base of the throne. Daring to hope, Sly ran his fingers carefully around it until he found confirmation – four barely-perceptible lines formed a rectangle around the knob. It was a hidden safe, and there was only one thing he could possibly think of to be inside.
It was so much harder to open this one than Muggshot's, and not only because of the battle raging just outside his flimsy cover. Raleigh, the paranoid tinkerer that he was, had turned the damn thing from a simple built-in safe to a complex mess of gears and locking bolts. Sly laid down on the cold metal floor and pressed his ear against it, forcing himself to block out everything that wasn't the imperceptible click of a hundred tiny pins.
When he finally found the last gear and felt the lock give under his touch, Sly silently swung it open and could have cried in relief to see the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus sitting inside. He pulled them out, holding them just as reverently as all the others he'd retrieved, and started putting them into his backpack as he pushed the safe door closed with his foot. The sounds of fighting were still ongoing, and he glanced out to watch again.
Raleigh was significantly worse for wear; he was barely keeping his enlargement beyond his regular size and even at a distance, the raccoon could see the sheen of sweat and stress-mucus across his entire body. Carmelita, breathing heavily but looking mostly uninjured, had put distance between them again to reload her weapon. The former was shaking with exhaustion and rage, and the latter was shaking with tired triumph.
It was too far for the frog to jump to reach her before she could. The battle was almost over, and it was clear to both fighters and their hidden audience that the inspector was probably going to win it. Sly inhaled, half out of relief and half to trigger his invisibility again to sneak back out –
And then lost his breath entirely as Raleigh's tongue flew straight out of his mouth, hitting the fox's pistol with perfect accuracy.
The weapon was ripped from her hands by the sticky, muscular force, sent flying to the other end of the room and landing on an empty lily pad too far for her to reach in time as the machinist took advantage of her shock to bear down on her. He slammed into her so hard that she went flying as well, and Sly could only watch in horror as Raleigh cackled and poised himself for a jump that would surely squish her.
His cane was suddenly in hand. A scream crawled up out of his throat – a single, begging, terrified word.
"Carmelita!"
Carmelita watched her shock pistol disappear from her grip as though it had happened to someone else. She had been so close to winning, so close to knocking the pompous criminal out for the count that his surprise attack had genuinely caught her off balance. She gasped, brain stalling on her lost weapon's trajectory like a rookie fresh out of the academy for half a second too long, and half a second was all it took.
The full weight of the bloated frog rammed into her, sending her skidding backwards until she was forcefully stopped by the nearest wall. Her head smacked against metal and stars exploded across her vision. As the fox struggled to get her scrambled senses back under control, she felt rather than saw the shadow that fell over her from above.
"Carmelita!"
Sly's shout was like a shock of static in her mind. She rolled sideways out of reflex, just in time for Raleigh to slam the ground beside her with enough force to make the ground shake. A cold, slimy hand shot out and grabbed her by the throat before she could react again, hoisting her up to the tips of her boots.
"Do my ears deceive me, or did I just hear our lost little vagabond?" He sneered, holding her aloft as he looked around the deceptively empty room. "I wondered how you could have possibly made it out here alone. Have you been gallivanting around with this trollop while she's been taking us out one by one?"
He shook her. Carmelita grunted and clawed at his grip to no avail. It was getting hard to breathe.
"I don't have time for games, Sly. Come out, now, before I pull this wench's innards out through her –"
There was a flash of gold and blue out of the corner of her eye, moving with the speed of a bullet as Sly came flying down like a targeted missile – and that target was Raleigh. The raccoon swung – something, in his hand – in an arc, and it made contact right between the frog's eyes with all the force his lithe body could muster. Raleigh staggered backwards, dropping Inspector Fox with a disoriented shout of pain and anger, who got her hands under her just before her head could hit solid ground for the second time in minutes.
She looked up, vision no longer swimming, and saw Sly half crouched in front of her, a protective barrier between her and Raleigh. The fur all along his neck was stiff and prickly, and she could now clearly see the thing he was holding; a golden cane with a long brown handle, at the ready for another swing. It was familiar in a way her mind refused to process, too delayed by the blow to her head, and the fact that he was here, had just saved her life, and…
And that Raleigh…knew his name?
The frog had deflated from the blow, and now he stared at the spectacle before him with a hand at his head. His expression twisted from furious pain to cold, calculated understanding in seconds.
"So that's how it is," he sneered. "I knew Muggshot and Mz. Ruby had been brought down way too easily, and now I know why."
Raleigh somehow sounded both angry and delighted. It sent a shiver up Carmelita's frozen spine, and she could see Sly beginning to minutely tremble.
"You traitorous little whelp. What did they offer you to sell us out, hmm? Money? Reduced sentencing?"
His eyes danced with terrible joy.
"Freedom?"
It was like a spell had been cast; Sly went completely stiff, and the criminal smirked. Inspector Fox struggled to make sense of everything as her eyes darted between Raleigh, and her partner, and the cane he was holding.
It was familiar. Why was it so familiar?
"Do you really think they're on your side? That they won't turn on you for who you are and what you've done? Do you think that she –" he gestured to Carmelita, still uselessly gaping, "– won't cast you to the sharks as soon as you outlive your usefulness?"
The raccoon didn't turn his head to look at her. But she could see his cane lowering, bit by bit, and she would have yelled at him to keep his guard up if not for the way her gaze couldn't seem to leave the thing in his hands.
It looked like…
"You're lying." Sly's voice was shaking.
"Am I?" Raleigh gave him a pointed, smug look, then made a show of looking the fox up and down. "I recognize you. You're that new inspector Interpol has been toting around. What was it they called you? A 'perfect paragon of law and justice'? Please."
The frog turned back to Sly.
"Someone like her isn't going to give you what you want."
"And I'm supposed to think you are?" He asked, a hysterical edge to his voice even as they both watched the fight slowly drain out of him. "I know what you'll do to me. I know I won't get any mercy from you."
What the fuck is going on? Her mind screamed for an answer as if either of them could hear it. What are you talking about? Why do you know each other?
Why does that cane look like –
"Oh, quite right, I won't be merciful in the slightest. But at least I'm honest with you, brat, and I can honestly say that I'll let you live despite the stunt you've pulled. We both know your fate will be so much worse if you keep doing what you're doing. Or did you already forget what happened the last time you tried to –"
"Don't," the raccoon whispered. He sounded on the verge of a breakdown. Carmelita could relate.
"Then stop pointing that bloody cane at me and come here." Raleigh snapped his fingers like he was summoning a butler. "If you do that right now, I promise I won't let it slip about your little…escapades. Give me the cane, and all the pages you've stolen, and the status quo continues without a word of your failure to my dear old friend."
Stolen. Sly had stolen something from the others. He had stolen from these criminals with that cane.
Realization was a bullet hole through her heart.
Inspector Fox watched in disbelief as her partner – the raccoon – the thief – began to shuffle towards the grinning frog, tail limp and body resigned. Closer and closer, never once looking back at her, until he was nearly in Raleigh's reach. Then he finally looked at her, and she wondered what expression was on her face for his to close off so thoroughly.
Then, with whatever fight was left in him, Sly swiveled around and swung his cane so hard and so fast that it was a golden blur that collided with Raleigh's temple. The machinist crumpled where he'd stood, the last of his strength spent with that final blow, and the raccoon stood over him looking white as a sheet.
Finding it hard to get her feet under her with the way her legs still turned to jam, Carmelita forced herself to stand up as everything around her bled away except for Sly in front of her and the perfect clarity now inside her head.
"…Sly," she said, if only to finally find her voice. "What was that."
It wasn't a question. He didn't respond.
"What the fuck was that?" She repeated, as clarity drained into shock into anger into heartbreak into anguish. "You knew each other. You knew each other. He called you by name. You – he – you worked for him. You've been working for him! You've been working for all of them!"
His fingers clenched tighter around that cane, but he still didn't answer. Didn't even look up.
"And then you – he said you stole something. What did you steal?!"
Silence.
The fox could feel tears gathering in her eyes. "All this time. All this time! All this goddamn time we've been working together, and you acted like you wanted to help me! You acted like you weren't just playing me like a fiddle this entire goddamn time!"
She curled her hands into fists, digging nails into skin, trying desperately to keep the tears from overflowing and wishing they were only there because she was so angry.
"Was I just a means to an end for you? Some – some overly-trusting cop you could use to do the dirty work while you stole from your fellow criminals?"
Sly stared down at the frog at his feet. Carmelita wanted to scream; to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he at least gave her the courtesy of looking at her.
"Tell me right fucking now, Sly!" She growled. "Was it all just some elaborate con?!"
"...At first it was." And oh, how she had to strain just to hear that whisper. "When I first helped you find Muggshot, in Mesa, I thought I could just wait for your raid party to show up. Get what I needed during the chaos while you were all too busy killing each other to notice."
He finally looked up at her, and suddenly she wished he wouldn't.
"But then you went in and fought him on your own, and – and you won." The awe in his voice was just as potent as that night in Muggshot's hotel lobby. She didn't know whether to cry or curse. "So then I thought, "maybe I'll stick around her for a little while". Just a night or two until things had cooled down. Until I was sure it was safe. It was better than being out in the open, right?"
The fox wasn't sure if he was talking about Interpol, or the gangsters, or the Five themselves. And the way he said it – as if he expected her to sympathize with his deception – made her want to vomit. When she didn't respond, Sly made a twitchy movement with his head like he was a marionette. Like he was the one who'd been strung along all this time, and not her.
"You have to understand," he pleaded, a desperate edge to his voice while she could slowly but surely feel herself turning to stone. "Carmelita, it was about survival. I had never met anyone strong enough to stand up against them and come out alive. When I saw you coming down those stairs that first night, I thought – I could get out with you. I wouldn't have to do anything they said ever again."
You're saying it like you didn't already have a choice, her thoughts rang out in her head. If they got loud enough, maybe he would hear them. You're saying it like you couldn't just decide to stop being a criminal and turn your life around.
Carmelita's eyes broke from his to fall on the disastrous aftermath of the fight with Raleigh.
Her shock pistol, halfway across the room.
"Then why come with me?" She asked, quick, before he could see where her attention had gone. "If you were so desperate to get away from…'everything', why didn't you just leave after Mesa? Why join me on a case that would put you in danger if you really wanted out of it?"
Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Sly flinched under it.
"Because they all took something from me," he said, and she could see stained papers just barely peeking out of his half-unzipped backpack that surely had not been there before. "And with you, I knew there was a chance to get it back."
An open wall safe and a broken window. Snuffed candles surrounding an empty pedestal. Private, printed emails. Insight about the Five that the public had not been privy to. Stealth and surefootedness and secrecy.
That cane. That cane. That cane.
Sly was staring at her. Waiting for her to say something, or do something. Absolve him of guilt, perhaps, for the part he'd played in all of this. He was staring at her and waiting – hoping – for her to save him, like she had on an abandoned street in Mesa.
But he had been a civilian back then. And now…
"I…I have one more question, Sly." It came out as a whisper, but it rang through the still air like a gunshot. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pounding in her chest.
He looked at her.
She looked at his cane.
"What's your last name?"
It was like she had slapped him. His expression was perhaps one of the worst things she'd ever seen. Slowly, his arms – that cane – fell to his sides, and the reeling betrayal twisting up his face fell away into the cold, flat stare of the criminal he truly was.
"I think, Inspector," resigned, deadened eyes met her own, "that you already know the answer."
She ran.
Ran for the other end of the room towards her weapon. The whistle of something flying through the air was her only warning to duck as a golden blur swung right where her head had just been. She used the momentum of the dodge to turn the forward stumble into a roll, narrowly avoiding another swing that had been aimed at her legs.
Her pistol was right there. She stretched for it, desperate, when he physically collided with her and sent them both sprawling. They wrestled in a tangle of furious limbs, each grappling for the upper hand and terrified of what might happen if they didn't get it.
She was stronger than him, with more hand-to-hand combat training. Her legs wrapped around his knees like a vice to stop his kicking, and she rolled them both over to press her full body weight on top of him. Her hands reached for his left arm –
Cold metal touched her neck.
Carmelita froze, staring down at the heaving raccoon who had hooked the crook of his cane around her throat just under her chin. He was still pinned, but his hand was tilted at just the right angle that a single jerk of his wrist could snap her neck. Time stopped as they stared at each other.
"Let – let me g-go," he commanded quietly, voice trembling but devoid of emotion.
She gave a shaky exhale.
"Let me go or I'll kill you."
She wanted to call his bluff. She wanted to roll her eyes and tell him he wouldn't ever do anything like that, and then they'd both get up and laugh about it and move on like they always did. Forget this moment and this day and every decision she'd ever made to step foot on this godforsaken ship.
Neither of them was laughing now; she could see the fear and desperation in his eyes under that careful layer of blankness. There was no joke about this.
He would kill her.
Slowly, the fox pulled herself off of him, painstakingly aware of the metal pressed flush against flesh. Their eyes never separated as he shimmied out from under her, and his taut grip on the cane never wavered. Once they were no longer touching, she sat back on her heels and carefully raised her hands in the air.
"Put them on your head."
She did so.
Everything about Sly was robotic. His eyes were bottomless pits of nothing. "I'm going to stand up, and you're going to stand up with me."
They got to their feet together. Her neck was starting to ache. She didn't dare move further.
The raccoon, the criminal, finally broke eye contact to look down at the ground. The shock pistol was sitting practically at their feet. She had been so close to beating him, to catching him. He looked back up at her and she almost swore she saw some of that detachment in him crumble.
Just for a moment, he looked sad. So very, very sad.
"Goodbye, Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox," he said, and she tensed as she felt the shift in him. Her instincts screamed as she prepared herself for the worst.
He drew his leg back.
"It's been fun."
Sly kicked the shock pistol as hard as he could. It skipped across two lily pads and slid to a stop right on the edge of a third one, teetering over Raleigh's personal pond. His cane came off her neck at the exact same moment, and he bolted.
They both did.
Inspector Fox ran after her pistol a second time, but the raccoon didn't follow her. She jumped on the pad her weapon was balancing on and immediately dove to catch it before it could fall into the water. The sound of shattering glass rang in her ears as she turned with her weapon held high, just in time to watch him throw himself through the broken window of the blimp.
She sprinted for the gaping hole, staring down at the dark ocean waters below and searching for any sign of the partner who had betrayed her on every conceivable level.
But there was nothing to find.
Sly Cooper was gone.
How bad did we want it, and good did it feel - driving fast, until we crashed into each other's hearts...
A/N: So uh. Is now a bad time to say I'm going to be on vacation till the end of October?
I promise I won't leave y'all on such a horrible cliffhanger for that long. I'm planning to update again this Wednesday night as a sort of apology gift before I go, and hopefully that will tide folks over until I get back. I swear to god I did not plan it out this way, but the last two hiatuses pushed everything down farther than I expected, so it was just a not-so-happy coincidence.
Anyway, this chapter. Ohhhh this chapter. I've had the reveal planned since the beginning - the scene where Raleigh outs Sly was one of the first things I wrote when I started giving the AU more thought, and that was over a year ago now. I've been sitting on this for a while. Hopefully it was just as soul-crushing to read as it was to write.
