Disclaimer: I own none of the characters featured here.

Being a Friend

Coraline's eyes fluttered open, only to see a blur of shapes and colors, but after only a few moments her eyes regained its focus, finding that she is staring at a wooden ceiling. The wooden ceiling of the twins' room, to be exact, judging from some of the posters that she can see in her peripheral hanging on the wall. The slightly ragged but still soft bed below her smells somewhat pleasant, so she can only assume she's lying on Mabel's bed. Some sort of commotion is happening on the other side of the room, just outside of her field of vision. That must have been what woke her up from her nap. She can't help but sigh just a little bit. It was such a nice nap.

Coraline tried to push herself up to see what's going on, and she's quickly reminded why she is in bed in the first place as a sudden, searing pain from her lower left abdomen shot through her entire body. She grunted in pain, and she can hear a pause in the commotion beside her. Not long after, Dipper's face entered her field of view.

"Good to see you up. Kind of." he smiled. His expression then turned to one of concern. "Take it easy, though. You took a beating back there. You're probably bedbound for a few days."

"You're not the boss of me." Coraline weakly replied.

Dipper shrugged. "Your funeral."

His face then left Coraline's field of view. Coraline laid her head back, closing her eyes as the commotion continued for some time beside her. Eventually, the commotion died down, followed by the sound of footsteps leaving the room.

From the door, Coraline can hear the gentle and concerned voice of Mabel saying, "Rest up, guys. We'll be back soon with something that'll help you feel better."

"'Kay." A voice beside her said. Coraline just managed a grunt in reply.

She heard the door close, and for a few minutes after that, there is nothing but silence.

"I'm… glad you're alive."

Coraline turned her head to the source of the voice, finding it to be Neil, sitting on the edge of Dipper's bed with his right foot bandaged up. Apparently, he is her fellow injured Mystery Kid.

"Well… me too." Coraline replied simply. Usually, she would have said something better, but getting tossed around like a ragdoll doesn't exactly do wonders to your wit.

"Man, that was crazy." Neil said, combing a hand through his curly hair. "I think that was one of the roughest ones we've ever had."

Coraline one-hundred percent agreed with that statement. "And there's still plenty more where that came from." she said, followed with a dry, humorless chuckle.

"… Bring it on." Neil boldly stated with a grin after a moment of silence. "I'll probably regret that by tomorrow, but I don't care."

Coraline looked at him, sitting there, with a bandaged foot and a big grin adorning his face. She took a moment to observe him, to really, properly, look at him. A young kid, all smiles and grins practically all the time, who really has no business dabbling with the supernatural, even more so than the rest of the Kids. A kid with no strings tangling him to this secret, dark side of the world they live in. With all of that in her mind, a question formed.

"Why are you here?"

"Oh! Uh, I think I twisted my ankle."

"No! No, I mean-" Coraline cleared her throat, and then started again. "I mean, why are you here? With us? Doing… this?"

His expression turned to a frown. "Do you… not want me around anymore?"

"No, I don't mean that!" God, that's the last thing she wants him to think. "I don't mind having you around! Honest!"

"I'm just…" Coraline shrugged, trying as best she can to not move her body around too much, "… curious."

The frown on Neil's face now shifts to a look of confusion. Coraline then promptly continued. "You know… the twins and Wybie, they turned out to have family chest-deep in all this supernatural stuff, Raz and Lili are secret psychic agents, Norman is… well, Norman, and I've been marked by the Beldam, and apparently that's just the start. We all have a reason why we have to get involved in this. But you…" she weakly pointed at him with a finger, "Compared to us, you're perfectly normal. So, why? Why are you here with us?"

Neil was silent, eyes completely wide, staring at the ground. He looks absolutely flabbergasted. Coraline kind of felt bad just dropping that on him now. This is probably not what he expected from a conversation with her. She decided not to rush him and let him come up with an answer on his own pace.

About a full minute passed before Neil finally looked up at her again. "I'm just… friends with you?" he answered, not sounding too sure of his answer himself, "Well, I'm friends with Norman, and he likes all this supernatural stuff, and he's kinda been through a lot, so I just wanna be a friend for him and be there for him while he enjoys himself."

"And then I met you guys. I'm friends with all of you now, too. The more I know you guys, the more I realize that you all have been through a lot too. So, I want to be there for you too."

Neil scratched the back of his neck. "I know I don't really contribute all that much to the team. I'm not as strong as you or Raz, and I'm not smart like Dipper or Wybie, but I don't care. I just wanna be there for you guys and help out in any way I can."

"I just… want to be a friend." he finished, his expression now adorning a bright, beaming smile.

Now it's Coraline's turn to be speechless. She did not expect that at all from Neil.

"Wow. That is…" Coraline found herself smiling back to him. "Thank you."

At this, Neil suddenly sighed in relief and started chuckling. "So. That's… a question, alright."

"Yeah… sorry for suddenly dropping it on you like that." Coraline replied with a grimace, slightly embarrassed.

"Good thing I remembered about a song I really like. It helped out a lot." Neil grinned with a finger raised.

Coraline raised a brow. "Did it now?"

"Yeah, so it goes like, 'Right from the start, couldn't pull us apart…'".

"Oh, no, you don't have to-"

"…Nobody else ever gets me as well on this earth. Like rock and roll, Marshall's and telly's…"

Oh. Oh no. He's full-on singing. She can't get away. Her body still hurts all over. Oh, mistakes were made.

Coraline sighed. Live and learn, she supposed.

This one's based on a prompt I found on Tumblr.

Another quick one I made in about three hours. I really want to make more, honest, but the inspiration and the time for it is really hard to come by.

Anyway, longtime readers might have noticed a few chapters are missing now. That's because I deleted them quite some time ago. I just felt that they're not a good representative of my current writing skills, so I don't want to turn down new readers by too many subpar early chapters.

Hope you have a good day.