AN: It seems that the so-called 'hype' can generate ideas difficult to get off your mind, so I thought I might as well go on with this one… here's the result. This story is set before the events of Crash Bandicoot 2, and how much 'before' is left to your interpretation.

The Flower

Ack! These 'float' variables are giving me a headache. Humph… let's see what we can do here.

Coco's fingers resumed their frenetic typing on the keyboard. Her eyes scanned the screen of her laptop, without losing even a single digit, and for the young bandicoot girl there was nothing in the world but the various lines of code she was going through.

Yep, she definitely loved technology. Even though she was far from being a genius (and given what she had been told about Cortex by Aku Aku, it was better this way) she did take pride in having a bit of an ability with the electronic contraptions the wooden mask continued to be wary of. Coco didn't really mind the floating protector's protests… as long as no one stopped her from actually getting immersed in it and Aku Aku kept suppling her with raw materials for her hardware experiments, he could try to talk her out of it as much as he wanted.

Speaking of which… a loud snoring was heard. Coco narrowed her eyes and decided to persist in her work, but another snore followed and then a third one came after the second. In a minute, the snoring was so loud it even began to scare the birds chirping in the trees around Coco.

Sighing, the female bandicoot settled in pausing her attempt at hacker mastery, putting the laptop away and momentarily closing the screen down. Keeping her sitting position on the ground, she looked at the obvious cause of the interference.

Crash really looked like he was the happiest marsupial in the world, and for a moment Coco considered the possibility to just let it go and lie down herself to take a nap. She quickly shook the thought away… no matter how inviting the earth with scattered grass could be, she had her doubts she could actually get some minutes of shut-eye like her brother easily did.

After all, the code was waiting just inside her PC and she was just a centimetre away from resolving that last array discrepancy… at least, she wanted to do it before the battery died out again. Maybe she had to ask Aku Aku how he obtained those things, since they kept frying themselves in no time.

Determined to put an end to her digital duel, Coco crawled near her brother and shook his shoulder. "Crash?" she called.

No response… not that it was surprising.

Rolling her eyes, Coco persisted in her attempts to wake him up. "Crash? Crash? Come on, rise and shine!"

Finally, the bandicoot hero who managed to single-handedly free the three islands of Wumpa Archipelago from the rule of Doctor Neo Cortex… yawned. Without raising his back, he threw a worried look at Coco.

"No, Crash, no flytraps in sight," Coco immediately said. Being sister of a brother who talked once in a blue moon sure helped her skills in guessing what was going on in his mind. He looked at her laptop and she made a hand gesture to say 'no': "The battery's good for now, Crash, thank you." Finally, Crash sat up and waited for further explanations on why his sleep had been halted.

"Well, you see, Crash…" Coco tried to be reasonable with her words, "I absolutely need to finish this last patch of code for my project… and I can't really do that if you continue to fill my ears with your snoring!"

Crash raised an eyebrow in confusion, and to her sister it was clear he had failed to get the point. "I just need a moment of peace… something like five minutes, ten at most. Think you can keep quiet for a little while, big brother?"

Crash made a double thumbs-up and grinned… then he proceeded to lie down again on the ground. The event made Coco lose a notable amount of patience: "No, Crash!" she said vehemently, sounding more annoyed than before. "Get up!"

Crash immediately stood up and looked around like he expected some kind of danger coming at them. "For crying out loud, I've already told you, the coast is clear! I cannot focus if you continue to sleep doing the same noise of a train engine straight from the nineteenth century! Why can't you just understand what I mean, Crash… You always act like this!"

This succeeded in getting Crash's full attention, but Coco was not finished yet. "For once in your life, listen to what I say and be quiet!"

The marsupial looked at his sister with a shocked face, then his ears tilted down and Coco immediately realized that maybe she had pushed it a little beyond the edge.

"…no, wait, I-I didn't mean to-…" Before she could finish her sentence, Crash's face turned its expression to a straight and neutral one… something that was really strange for him, enough to surprise his sister to the point of silencing her. Afterwards, he suddenly turned around and began to run into the jungle. "Crash? Crash!" Coco called, but her brother didn't stop and soon even his steps became unheard.

Oh, no… what did I just do? I've never see him like this. I didn't mean to hurt him… she thought. She considered moving to look for him, but she remembered Aku Aku telling them that at least this island had been freed from any kind of hazard… well, at least from the dangers that were Cortex's work. As long as Crash kept himself from actively looking for danger there was no way he could get in trouble, and as much as Coco was aware of the fact her brother wasn't exactly the brightest tool in the shed, she knew he was not a complete twit.

Her eyes fell on the laptop and eventually the desire to put an end to what had started the argue with her brother in the first place prevailed. She sat down and snatched the computer, turned it on and figuratively dove into the ocean of zeros and ones that was the binary numeral system. Faithful to her predictions, she managed to get rid of the last few errors in no time: thus, ten minutes later the new program was up and running without an error.

"Great!" she exclaimed, satisfied with her work. "Crash! Look, I finally managed to-…"

She had been able to immerse herself so deep into the code sea she had completely forgotten about her brother. As the realization hit her, Coco brought a hand over her mouth. Ironically, she was going to let him know about the same achievement that had made her rebuke him just minutes before.

Guilt slowly made its way to her heart. Coco removed the laptop from her lap and got her knees to her chest before resting her arms and head over them. She remained this way for a few minutes, staring at the forest in front of her, deep in thought.

…

Ugh.

She messed up, big time. She really needed to apologize to him. Her passion sometimes really got the better of her!

Before she could even stand up to start the search for the other bandicoot, Crash suddenly appeared out of nowhere… only to be followed by a pair of spike turtles!

"Crash!" Coco suddenly shouted in alarm, but the male marsupial seemed to be far from being preoccupied. Keeping a huge grin, Crash jumped around the clearing, keeping the turtles' attention on him and away from his sister, before suddenly jumping backwards and landing on one of the turtles' shells. The animal yelped and retreated into its shell along with its sharp spikes, a chance that was not left unused by Crash, who immediately spun his fists into the stunned enemy. The shell was literally fired into the second turtle which could only frown before it was hit by its flying companion, sending it into the air as well. Moments later, the shells of the two turtles disappeared behind the leaves of the forest.

Crash rubbed his hands, his usual grin still plastered on his face, and he walked towards his sister, who was giving him a cocky look. "You know I coulda helped, do you?" she said, "I'm not just your little sister, you don't need to protect me like I'm some sort of damsel in distress!"

Crash simply shrugged, but Coco wasn't done. "And what did we say about getting in trouble, Crash? We've already discussed this with Aku Aku. There are more creatures and machines coming from the other islands and he will need some time before he manages to free the rest of the archipelago from the remains of Cortex's reign."

The grin disappeared, and Crash rubbed the back of his head, his ears down once again. Seeing him so blue a second time had quite an effect on Coco, who remembered what she had decided to do moments before. "Hey… you don't have to feel that downcast. Everybody can do a mistake."

He looked at her with a defeated look, making it clear he wasn't exactly agreeing. "Crash… Look, I'm sorry. For telling you what I said earlier, I was just… a little too much into the computer thingy and I lost control of myself. I shouldn't have told you off… It's not true that you don't listen to me, on the contrary, and saying so was just stupid of me."

Crash's sad look persisted, and Coco sighed. How she was going to console him if admitting her own fault didn't work, she had no clue. "At least tell me you didn't get yourself pursued by those turtles and who knows what else I did not see just because of me…"

Instead of shaking his head, Crash immediately nodded. But before Coco could shout her disapproval, Crash raised a finger and hushed her. He suddenly began to navigate in one of his pockets, looking for something, and after some seconds of rummaging his grin returned and he revealed the object.

Coco's eyes became wide open when she saw a little flower in Crash's right hand. It wasn't a particularly beautiful flower to be honest. Pretty, sure, but like tons of flowers which looked like it. Coco observed the pink petals of the corolla before looking at her brother, his teeth shining in happiness. "Crash, what? That's a lovely flower, all right, but I don't understand how-…"

The sentence remained unfinished as Crash, without notice, raised the flower and carefully placed it on Coco's hair, on the left side of her head. Shocked, the female bandicoot slowly moved one of her hands to the foreign object now stuck in her hair while keeping her confused stare on her brother. Yet, Crash didn't seem fazed at all by her reaction: he merely continued to grin as he made a step back, contemplated her for a second, then clapped his hands in approval.

Finally, Coco managed to get some words out of her mouth. "How… but where… why?" she stuttered.

Crash simply nodded towards her laptop. In the fraction of a second, Coco put two and two together. "This is your… uh, your way to say you're sorry?"

Crash gave a thumb-up, and before Coco could continue on with her questions, he turned away and escaped into the jungle, this time in the opposite direction. She knew he was returning towards their hut now… and that she better follow him. Considering that he had probably just made mad an entire swarm of those half-cyborg turtles just to get her a stupid flower, there was no way to tell what was going to be Crash's next move. Not to mention how much Aku Aku would get worried by seeing him returning alone.

Shaking her head at her brother's antics, Coco surrendered to her destiny and picked up her laptop from the ground. He made two steps before she realized she had already forgotten about the flower Crash had left in her hair. Once again, she brought a hand to it and touched the frail petals, to find out it had already stopped to be foreign to her in a matter of seconds. Now it felt… natural.

Her hand moved down to her side and the flower was left alone. Coco's efforts to remain neutral proved futile and her indifferent mouth slowly turned into a huge smile.

That was just silly, Crash. Silly indeed… big brother.

END

AN: The colour of the flower was chosen based on the N. Sane Trilogy design, and I personally imagined the versions of the characters appearing in said game while writing this story.
Minor corrections have been made since the first date of posting. Thanks to 'Cinerea Mayia' for the heads-up in his/her review.