The moon over paris (clean sly cooper ficlet)
Paris, France.
The Eiffel Tower dominated the night skyline, the moon shining brightly behind it like a celestial spotlight. The ghostly light illuminating each falling snowflake as if Paris were a huge stage and each snowflake was a dancer, twisting and turning its way toward its brethren on the ground. It was this setting that greeted the eyes of Sly Cooper, Master Thief, as he made a quick exit out of a skylight in the Louvre after what must have been his fifth burglary there to steal yet another precious item.
"I swear," he muttered to himself, "Either I'm getting worse, or she's getting better." He panted, his breath coming in great clouds before him as he caught his breath on the roof of the majestic building, snow melting into the fur of his ringed tail. The laser defences had mysteriously reactivated just before he could vault himself to safety.
"Either way, she got way too close to catching you that time, Sly! Why do you always have to hang back and risk getting hit with one of her stun bolts just to flirt with her?" a nasally voice belonging to the mastermind Bentley crackled over Sly's binocucom. "I really wish you wouldn't use the photo feature of your binocucom just to take pictures of that cop! You need that hard drive space for recon photos!"
"Yeah, yeah, but she's way too tempting for me not to take a picture now and then, Bent." Sly countered, a small smirk on his face.
The woman in question was none other than Carmelita Montoya Fox, an inspector within Interpol who was currently dashing angrily out the front door of the Louvre in an attempt to get to the roof to catch her prey before he could vanish into the night.
"Damn Cooper--always making a mockery out of me!" she muttered vociferously under her breath, red tail twiching behing her. "Aha!" she exclaimed as she spotted a maintenance ladder leading up to the roof. "When I get up there, you are as good as arrested Ringtail!"
Unfortunately for her, she failed to take into account the fact that Interpol issue boots aren't very quiet when one is climbing a metal ladder at full speed. This tends to be a problem, especially when your quarry is none other than Paris' most clever and cunning thief. This was her lucky day; as the thief in question was currently taking inventory of the prizes that he had lifted out of a high security display case not a half hour ago. Therefore, he didn't notice the metallic clanking that was steadily getting louder until it was almost too late.
"Huh?" Sly grunted out of surprise when he noticed that the normally quiet rooftop told of an angry inspector coming his way. "I'll be at the safe house soon Bent," he said quietly into his binocucom.
"Sly, for god's sake just come back! The more you flirt with her, the-" Bentley's voice was cut off when Sly switched his binocucom off.
"I've got you now, Cooper!" An angry Spanish accented voice echoed across the rooftops. "And this time you won't get away!"
Sly chuckled. "Really now? I don't seem to recall you ever saying that before," he sarcastically intoned. "I think it was really effective the last ten times you said it. While I'm on the matter, has anyone ever told you that you have lovely eyes?" He said this with a mischievous grin and a wink.
"Yes, you have told me that about a hundred times now cooper, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to stun your sorry ringed tail and drag you back to headquarters!" Carmelita snarled, holding her Inter-tec 211 stun pistol before her.
"Hmm, have I now?" Sly intoned with a hint of playfulness, completely disregarding the fact that he had a weapon pointed in his face. "Well I'll just have to find something else to compliment. How about your beautiful hair? The way your fur shines in the moonlight like an angel?" He took a step toward carmelita. "The way your tail moves through the air, as if dancing? Tres magnifique!" Another step, this time with waggled eyebrows. "The way you fill out that leather top? Ooh la la!"
Carmelita's cheeks grew slightly pinker after each compliment. 'It's the cold air!' she kept telling herself, though she knew it was a lie. Her aim grew gradually shakier as the charming --'why did I think that?!'-- raccoon steadily moved closer to her until he was less than six inches from her face.
"Cooper..."She began, but trailed off as Sly steadily moved his face closer to her own until there were but two inches between them. All the while Carmelita was waging an internal war. 'Why does he always make me feel this way? He is a CRI-MI-NAL! Although he is a pretty cute one. Why did I think that?! Ayyy Dios mio, what is going on with me?'
Sly, sensing her internal argument, threw caution to the wind and kissed her full on the lips. The mercurial vixed stiffened, her eyes going wide, ears flat against her skull, before finding herself leaning into his embrace, her tail wrapping around his ankle of its own accord.
All too soon, the moment ended as Sly abruptly broke away and said "See ya around, beautiful!" as he jumped on an adjacent telephone wire and dashed along it toward his safehouse. Carmelita just stood there on the roof with a dreamy expression until she violently shook herself awake. She mouthed words in disbelief until finally she shouted, "Why, God? Why do you have to make him my problem?"
Defeated, she climbed down the maintenance ladder, got into her red convertible and drove home to her apartment. She shut off her car and made her way to her apartment door. After unlocking the six deadbolts ("blasted ringtail"), she opened her door and went inside, making sure to re-lock all of the deadbolts and arm her three security systems.
She wearily made her way to her bedroom and took off her boots, jacket and gun, leaving then in an unkempt pile on the floor, and flopped onto the bed, not caring to change her clothes. She glance at her side table where her alarm clock boastfully declared 3:21 AM in bright red numbers. The vixen groaned and sat up, figuring she'd get a backache if she didn't change for bed, and slowly made her way into a black nightgown, laid down and immediately fell asleep. If she had paid any attention to her other pillow, she would have notice a large ruby carved in the shape of a rose with a blue raccoon shaped card on it. On that card was written:
"In anticipation of out next 'meeting'.
Sly cooper"
Boy oh boy, that was just awful wasn't it?