The hate chip gets a glitch.

The cold heart of hate infatuated.

I don't believe Clorkwerk actually loves Sly Cooper. It's actually closer to the animal instinct to mate and protect mate. Why? Because I don't think he can actually love or could ever love, he has always seemed... Inhuman like that. Like a dragon with robotic intelligence. Mimicking the nature of heart and soul in twisted parodies of humanity. Something so like a person but so very unhuman on all levels. While the nature of human is to be between animal and what is beyond, he only shares the animal and beyond traits in the most fundamentally wrong ways.

With or without Love Bugs, Clorkwerk is truly the embodiment of cold hate. He is a villain long beyond the reach of redemption. There is nothing left but all which isn't human. No matter how much that glitch makes him pretend, his "love" is a crude, twisted, mocking, joke. Now, isn't that the most unsympathetic heartbreaker you've ever heard?

From King Francis Petty.

To Reader.

Now to our regularly scheduled nightmares,

Clorkwerk cuddled Sly Cooper in bird in his giant nest. Electric daydreams of making and caring for their spawn fluttered about his computing system. Forming ideas of his selected mate being safe and happy as they stayed together. Sly on the other hand was laying in a nest with his childhood monster, confused on a wide range. Despite the giant owl's lack of familiarity with how affection is supposed to work and cold hard body, the bird cuddles felt nice. If he pretended it wasn't coming from his parents' murderer. And that said giant owl was probably thinking about... That.

It was rather conflicting. The monster from every single nightmare he ever knew to fear was snuggling him and rambling off about how it wanted to make him feel safe and loved. At least this confusing nightmare would end soon. Bentley and Murray were coming to the rescue. They had assured him as such over the phone. Unlucky that it would take quite some time given that him and the clockwork owl were in a different country from the volcano. Speak of Sly Cooper and Clorkwerk, the metal terror was using his huge wings to hug the Cooper close yet soft. As if the situation wasn't uncomfortable before.

"Soft, warm, raccoon. So vulnerable. I wish I could hold you safe forever. Why must you leave me so quickly? When I could provide you with everything you could ever need and immortality?" The ancient monster questioned, gently moving it's wings to simulate a more mammalian cuddle. While Sly does in fact need a hug, this was probably the worst way to give him one. The not evil criminal in the conversation reminded him, "Because you murdered my father in front of me, claimed my family's legacy for your own, and lack any soul or heart to speak of." A breath was mimicked as the metal, death, bird tried to clean the thief carefully.

"♪Oh can't you see? You belong to me. My poor heart aches with every step you take.♪" The text to speech voice sang mainly to himself, puzzling how to comb the ears with his large, murder, beak without harming said ears. Flesh was so fragile but it felt so good and soft and warm to be pressed against. It made him miss his old body a little. For one, it won't need additional work done on it to provide his mate with what he needs. Since there was a noticeable lack of things between his talons that would be incredibly instrumental to do the required task. Something he thought unessential and needless.

That thought was becoming a bigger regret. Amongst many, many, many, regrets. Sure, he had all the time in the world to wait for his mate to be ready but raccoons don't live forever. This one had no offspring, the Cooper bloodline could die with him. Especially with the reluctant display to immortality.

The raccoon pondered what exactly happened in that chip based brain when he hit the murder bird with his family cane. What was so easily flipped that had kept the owl ever seeking Coopers to destroy? What cruel, cold, calculation logiced away the switch from hate to infatuation? What exactly was this ancient nightmarish beast going to do to him? You know, normal things people think when the source of their lifetime trauma decides to nuzzle them. Like you do.

The sun was up and it was warmth. In the oversized nest, the villain and hero lay together in one sided embrace. Help was coming. Yet it wasn't here yet. A man who lived in the shadows and the crypid that haunted the night watched the sunrise end. Neither loved the other, still their parody of love was warm despite beating within a cold heart of hate.

The End.