If you're reading this right now, thanks for clicking into this little drabble. If you've gotten here by mistake, I'd suggest you flee quickly, for this is a fan fiction dealing with the potential imagined relationship between Doctors Neo Cortex and N-Gin. Uh-oh. Anyway, in Crash of the Titans, we find out that Neo Cortex can kinda play the piano, and do so quite well. I tried to be a bit clever with this fic, in terms of being allegorical. Anyway, blathering on far too much. Here's the fic.


Doctor Neo Periwinkle Cortex is playing one of his tunes.

A little while ago he decided that his flashy new hideout needed a piano–a grand one, like the sorts he had played back when he was younger–and got a hold of a suitably impressive piano of his own as soon as he could. And so, whenever the mood took him, he would go up to that piano, and he would play.

N-Gin–and some of the others–would often sit in and listen to their Master's playing, as long as he was in a good mood. For if he was in a good mood, oh, you could feel your heart soar along with the music–no matter how dark or rotten your soul was. Seeing and hearing Neo Cortex playing his piano in a good mood was one of the highlights of knowing him–a ray of sunshine in an otherwise general pit of disappointments. He would just come alive, fingers flying gracefully across ivory keys, tunes bouncing and joyful. The mood was, for the most part, infectious. It was difficult not to crack the tiniest of smiles (well, except for Uka Uka, who loathed any of Neo's music with a passion, and often left immediately whenever he played). It hardly mattered that Neo Cortex never acknowledged the others–unless they praised him–because that was exactly how he treated them anyway, playing music or not. N-Gin, personally, felt the anonymity comforting. How he loved to listen to Neo play! Sometimes it would just be the two of them: Neo playing and he listening, and that was all. Neo usually didn't even know he was there, but N-Gin didn't mind. He would just slip off again before Neo's final crescendo. He still got to hear the music.

But oh, when Neo Cortex was in a bad mood…

The music was beautiful, as it always was, but it had an edge to it. Hard, cold and frantic. Fingertips flew, punching each key as if squashing down an enemy; an insecurity; a doubt. The piano remained intact, but the sound of the notes screaming at near breaking point was unnerving, like the screams of eighty-eight little souls (if you wanted to be melodramatic about it), crushed and bruised under vengeful hands. It was dark, beautiful music.

N-Gin was almost always the only one to listen to that music. It wasn't joyful or peaceful. It put you on tenterhooks, instilled a fearful anticipation of the unknown. N-Gin was the only one with the firm devotion–the sheer madness–to listen to him on those days. Some days Neo would play in brooding silence, while on others he would stop–mid-chord–shouting for N-Gin to get out, sometimes even bothering to throw things (often the teacup that N-Gin had dutifully brought in hours–or days–earlier). N-Gin hurried out, but did not complain. Nothing less should be expected of a right-hand man, especially one of Doctor N-Gin's variety. Besides, N-Gin took any form of abuse–either verbal or physical–as at least a semblance of feeling other than narcissistic formality. Dancing to Neo Cortex's complicated tunes was what kept him in his company, for the time being, and it's a small price to pay in return for the odd happy tune that the Doctor might decide to play for him.

Perhaps in the future, relations–and songs– will change, for better or worse.

But for now, Neo Cortex plays the same as he always has: predictably, governed by his moods.

And N-Gin remains just as he is, listening only to his Master; an outsider watching in, on a concert meant only for one man.