A/N: In this, one could argue that Coraline is extremely OOC. In my defense, one becomes a completely different person when drunk.

There weren't any bugs in the room. It was… just like how the Other Parlor looked on her first visit. She crawled out, looking up at the portrait of the child about to eat his ice cream.

"Hmm. This is odd."

The cat slid out of the tunnel, followed closely by Wybie. Coraline looked down, frowning. "Where did all the bugs go? How did she recreate all this? I thought I took her powers away when I found the ghost eyes…"

"Apparently, she had enough power to manipulate more children into her grasp. Or there is something else happening." The cat looked around suspiciously, sniffing for danger.

Wybie looked around and shrugged. "Looks pretty innocent to me, you know?"

There was a gentle humming coming from the kitchen, and the smell of cooking steak, potatoes, and garlic wafted through.

"Coraline! Time for dinner!"

The cat frowned, brushing against their ankles. "She knows you are here. Stealth is not going to be effective. Go to her and give her a chance to make her intentions clear. I will be there."

Wybie frowned, awkwardly looking at his feet. Coraline took his arm securely in her own. "You can go if you're scared, Wybie."

He looked up at her, steeling himself and shaking his head. "No, that's okay. You're not going to have to face her alone this time."

They smiled at each other, and both led the other by the arm to the kitchen. Neither was sure who was supporting who.

When they entered the kitchen, the Other Mother had her back to them. Coraline was surprised to note that she was back in the form that looked like her real mother. The Other Mother turned around, smiling and with a bowl of batter in her arms, and Coraline heard Wybie gasp softly at the sight of her button eyes.

"Oh! You brought a friend. Wonderful." She turned around again, humming softly and stirring the batter. "Go into the dining room. I'll serve you both dinner."

"Where's Wybie and my Other Father?" Coraline asked coldly, shifting subconsciously so she was ready to run at a moment's notice.

The Other Mother looked back at her, frowning slightly. "Now, now, that's no way to speak to your mother. Especially with company." She looked at Wybie, dipping her head and smiling. Wybie returned the smile hesitantly, grip tightening on Coraline's arm. "We will talk about your friend at dinner, although I'm afraid that your father is beyond discussion."

She got a disturbing smirk on her face and fingered a pair of spectacles on the counter. Coraline knew who they belonged to. The Other Mother gripped the spectacles, breaking them in one hand. "Now go to the dining room."

Coraline felt her throat closing up and her face draining of color. Wybie let out a very soft moan of fear and took her arms gently, leading her in the direction the Other Mother gestured.

"She killed him, oh, she killed him…"

Wybie stroked her arm as she led her to the set table, sitting her down. "Jonesy, I can't believe I am about to say this, but you need to be brave and show her nothing. This… Other Me is still in trouble."

She nodded slowly, her eyes glazing slightly with stress. "Yeah. Wybie. I need to save him. He saved me so many times."

Wybie swallowed nervously. The look in her eyes disturbed him. He suddenly knew the meaning of fear and trauma—he was seeing it in his friend. And believed that he got a little glance of the reason Coraline had sunk so deeply in her spiral of self-destruction.

There was a tapping of heels on the kitchen floor, and Wybie hurriedly sat down next to Coraline, keeping his gaze squarely on her eyes. The moment the Other Mother stepped inside with the food, the line that was obviously so close to snapping in Coraline's eyes was gone. The blind fear and desperation of a cornered animal were buried away. All that was left was cold, unfeeling determination. She had her mind set on saving this Other Him.

Wybie found himself wondering how far her relationship with his Other ran.

He looked up as a plate piled high with garlic pasta, steak, and a potato was placed in front of him. As an ingrained instinct, he looked up and thanked the Other Mother politely. She smiled at him, the light reflecting off her button eyes disturbingly. "How polite."

She gave food to Coraline, scowling slightly when all the gratitude she got was a small glare. "Coraline, you should be with your friend more often. Maybe you would learn some manners."

Coraline said nothing. Wybie kept watching her eyes for any sign of instability. He was afraid, and the fear wasn't entirely of the Other Mother.

"I want to see Wybie. I want to make sure he's alive and okay."

"He's right there, Coraline," the Other Mother said, smiling and gesturing to Wybie. Wybie flinched slightly, desperately wanting to get out of the spotlight. There was something wrong with the Other Mother's smile, but he was struck by how… well, if it hadn't been for the button eyes, he would have thought he was actually talking to Mrs. Jones.

"I mean the Other Wybie. The one you made mute. The one you sewed the smile on."

Wybie stiffened, blinking and gripping his arms tightly in surprise and fear. What was that? Mute? Sewed on smile?

Coraline was icily calm. She felt the same way she had when she had said that the Other Mother wasn't her mother. The way she had when she challenged her. The same way she had when she tricked her into opening the door.

The Other Mother smiled, taking a sip of water before putting her glass on the table. "Ah. That one. He's been a very naughty boy, but he is alive." She laced her fingers together, tilting her head and still smiling. "He's been sneaking off and going to you in your dreams, as I'm sure you know." She chuckled softly. "I thought I would be able to relax until you were fifteen, Coraline. But boys seem much more assertive than when I was a child."

Wybie choked. Coraline's nose wrinkled slightly. "That's gross. Nothing like that has ever happened. He's visited me. That's pretty much it." That was a total lie, but that was okay. Not like she'd had sex with him or anything (was that even possible?). Come to think of it, she'd never had sex with someone she actually liked. Before the last Other Mother incident, she had never had sex at all.

"Well, you've certainly been a bad girl lately, but we're not here to talk about that." She smiled again, tapping her fingers on the table. "He will be able to keep visiting you. That is how you'll know he is alive." Her smile darkened fractionally. "I'm sure you brought the vermin with you; he can tell you that I am telling the truth. I can't recreate puppets and I can't do anything other than visit dreams. If someone comes to you, they will be as they seem. There is just a teeny 'but' in this equation."

Coraline steeled herself for the buttons.

"You must come back, Coraline."

She frowned in confusion. "What?"

"You defeated me." A dark shadow came over her face, and Wybie squirmed in fear. Coraline didn't even flinch. "That means that you inherit the power of this world, and of me, as we speak. You need to learn, Coraline. It would be… difficult for you if you refused. And especially for your friend." She smiled and leaned forward, her fingers becoming suspiciously thin. "You simply come here every night. And if you complete your training, I'll let your friend go."

Slowly, her smile spread out, dangerously sharp teeth glinting in the light.

"Coraline…" Wybie couldn't help but blurt softly. The Other Mother glanced at him briefly, her button eyes glinting in the light, and looked back at the girl, holding out a hand.

"Do we have a deal, Coraline?"

Coraline hesitated for a moment. Wybie wanted to jump up, grab her wrist, and run for the tunnel. But he couldn't. He was too scared. Her eyes were dead, and somehow, he knew that something awful was happening inside of her.

He watched in horror as his friend reached out, clasping the Other Mother's thin fingers. "For Wybie. We have a deal."

The Other Mother smiled, dipping her head and releasing Coraline's hand. "You know I love you."

"Yeah. Right."

Coraline stood, frowning, and gestured for Wybie to come with her.

"Don't forget what will happen if you do not come back," the Other Mother said sweetly, taking out a needle and thread with a disturbing smile on her face.

"I won't. He never forgot what would happen if he stood by and looked away," Coraline said coldly. Wybie stood, hurriedly going to his friend's side, and they left without touching the food.

Coraline was barely aware when the cat brushed by their ankles, alerting them of his presence. She was barely aware of Wybie at her side. All she could see was poor Other Wybie's sewn-on smile. She was only abstractly aware of the fact that regular-Wybie was leading her to the tunnel.

"Wybie?!" He tried to hide the grotesque smile from her, but she took his arms away. She tried to be gentle when she undid the stitches. "Is that better?"

He made a desperate 'shushing' gesture, looking around fearfully.

She felt like she was in a bubble. She was in a milky bubble, completely blocking her from anything at all. She didn't remember the present anymore. She was just floating in memory, her eyes frozen open and watching.

"He pulled a looooooong face, and Mother didn't like that."

Her heart was beating in her ears.

"Sorry. So sorry. Mother making me. Don't wanna hurt you…"

No. No.

"She said that she loved us."

"But she locked us here."

"And ate up our lives…"

How many people had this woman killed? How many people had died for her, Coraline, specifically?

"It didn't hurt when she made you mute, did it?"

She was crying. The pain was tangible around her.

"Come on! She'll kill you!"

Wybie shook his head, taking off his glove to show a shriveled hand and blowing it away like so much dust. They locked gazes for a too-brief moment, and all the words Coraline wanted to say ran through her mind. And she could see that he wanted to say something too, but that witch had taken that right away from him.

"HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY YOUR MOTHER?!"

He shoved her through the door, shutting it tight behind her.

MAKE IT STOP!

"Don't remember our names, but I remember my true mommy."

GOOD GOD SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!

"Coraline!"

She snapped to awareness, belatedly realizing that she was back in her room, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. Her head was spinning and her throat was burning, but she didn't give a damn. All her thoughts were fuzzy. It'd get her mind off the Other Mother, that fucking spider bitch…

Wybie slowly stood from the ground, his eyes wide and fearful as blood trickled slowly from his lip. She took the bottle from her lips, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She was swaying on her feet, and had she been sober she would have been able to see that her friend wanted to come forward and help her stand, but she wasn't sober right now.

"Fuck. I gave that to you, didn't I? That fucking cut on your lip."

"Of course you did. You're just a destructive force of nature. Everyone who cares about you gets hurt. Just like the Other Father. Just like Other Wybie."

"I-I-I w-was j-just trying to g-get you t-to sn-snap out of it and p-put the b-bottle d-d-down…" Wybie said nervously, edging towards the bed slowly.

"FUCK!" Coraline slammed the bottle against the wall, letting the glass shatter and the remaining liquid splash to the floor. "SHE DID THIS TO ME! Look at me! I'm a mess! Just one big fucking mess for that goddamned spider to eat like so many eyes and buttons or whatever the hell she takes away after she claims a kid. I hurt my friends, I drink, I do drugs, I fucking have sex with whatever bastard I don't care about…"

"Wait, what was that last part?"

"All 'cuz I was too fucking curious…" She swayed violently, slamming against the wall and stabbing the bottle's shattered neck into her hip. Wybie let out a shriek, abandoning all concern for himself and darting forward at near super-human speeds, ripping the bottleneck from her. Blood ran freely. Did the Others bleed when they died for her?

She wrenched herself from Wybie, stumbling out of her room. The only thought circulating right now was that she needed to get away from the house.

Two people were in her kitchen. In her haze, she barely recognized them. They both looked up, and the vision of the same people looking up from a picture flashed in her mind's eye.

"Where are your buttons, Loper?"

"Yeah, don't you want to stay with us?"

"Surprise! Loper—"

Coraline slammed her fist into the girl's face before she knew what she was doing. Instinct took over. Where eyes and looks of surprise and hurt were, buttons and fury replaced them. Vera and Alfred weren't her best trolls. They were her puppets.

"Stay away from me, button-eyes!" she shouted, her eyes blazing with an intoxicated rage. Vera scrambled up, staring with wide eyes as the friend that she and Alfred had come all the way from Pontiac to give a surprise visit to ran out of the door into the rain. A mystery boy ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and paused only briefly to give them an apologetic look.

"Really sorry! She's really upset and sort of been drinking too much and I sort of need to find her now bye!"

"Drinking?!"

But Wybie was already out the door, sliding in the mud and sprinting after Coraline.

"CORALINE!"

He mused in the back of his mind as he picked his bike up from the side of the Pink Palace. He was always the one chasing her, trying to bring her back from something. The one time she chased him, the one time she needed help and assurance that she wasn't insane and completely alone, he had run and called her crazy.

Well, now he was right, wasn't he? Coraline was going insane. And he couldn't do anything about it.

The cat was running besides him, keeping pace with his bike with unrealistic ease. Hey, if the cat could talk, Wybie was willing to accept that it could do anything. He vaguely wondered who the kids in the Jones' kitchen were, but his main concern was his friend.

He skidded to a stop in the middle of the woods by the brook. It was a little down the hill from the old well. Coraline was leaning against a tree, splashing her face with water despite the rain and not caring that it was drenching her just-dried pajamas. At this point, Wybie noted that the pajamas were probably beyond saving.

"Fucking bitch… wants to teach me, huh?... If Wybie wasn't in the balance I would cut off her other fucking hand…"

Wybie nervously stood out of arm's reach, keeping a careful eye on Coraline's bleeding hip. "Hey, Jonesy, this isn't like you. You don't spout swears easy as breathing like Kyle Nichols," he said, smiling slightly when he incited the name of one of the dumbest jocks in their school.

"Kyle can go fuck himself." Coraline picked up a rock, throwing it at a tree across the water. She missed miserably, but she didn't seem too aware of it. It struck Wybie that she hadn't eaten anything that day—the alcohol had a one-way ticket to her head. It'd explain why she was so completely wasted. Maybe the swearing was a side-effect of her anger and the whiskey.

"You must really like this other me."

"He saved my fucking life, Wybie. I was trapped with all the ghost children in the mirror. He knew that the bitch would kill him if he interfered. He still reached in and took me out of there. I slammed him into the wall twice before I realized who he was. And he had an awful stitched-on smile because of me." She sneered at the water, throwing a rock in it to distort her reflection. Apparently, it wasn't distorted enough from the rain. "Because he pulled a looooooong face, and Mother didn't like that…" she recited in a voice that seemed like a twisted version of her father's. "Then he helped me to the door. I wanted him to come with me. I tried to get him to come. But he just… blew his hand away like it was sawdust. Other Mother was coming for me. He knew what was going to happen. I should've just dragged him in. But he shoved me into the tunnel before I did and closed the door behind me. And I just left. I just fucking left him to die."

She let out a furious howl, standing and flinging a rock at the trees. The rock ripped a sizeable chunk of bark from one of the trees, but her anger wasn't sated. "The next time I went, his clothes were hung like some sick symbol of victory where Mr. B's flagpole is. I thought he was dead." She threw another rock, and another, and another. "EVIL BITCH!"

Wybie winced, paling noticeably. "Uh, ah, he was… he was brave…" He nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "I… uh… can see why you want to save him so bad. But I promised that I'll help you. And I will. Just… you need to get your hip looked at, drink lots of water—I, uh, heard that was good for, um, hangovers—and sleep."

"You expect me to sleep after all this?" she snapped, swaying and stumbling despite the fact she wasn't trying to walk.

"I dunno, Jonesy. You drank a lot. You'll be out like a light," Wybie said, smiling a smile that was a cross between playful and sad. "We can talk and strategize and stuff after all that."

"Oh yeah. And you can explain what's going on to us," someone snapped.

Wybie looked up sharply, but Coraline was too busy swaying to really process what was going on.

Vera and Alfred looked down at the two, crossing their arms and frowning. "What happened to her? She socked me in the jaw!"

"I thought you were one of the button-eyes!" Coraline spun around again, nearly falling at the sudden movement. "She's back. That fucking doll was her spy. Maybe you are too. I'll be sorry for the punch and happy that you're here when I'm sober. I'm not, right now, so I'm concerned with the button-eyes."

Vera gave her a weird look, then she looked at Wybie, glaring. Alfred mirrored her movements, only his glare was triple the intensity. "Did you do this to her, creep?"

Wybie flinched away. "Who, me? N-No. Y-You're all from, um, P-Pontiac? I'm Wybie. I'm, um, Coraline's friend. Uh, l-listen, um, Coraline's bleeding and it doesn't take a lot to know that she, um, needs that to be looked at. Let's just help her to her home, and d-don't take anything she s-says s-s-seriously. She gets r-really, um, different when she's drinking."

Coraline wasn't paying attention anymore. She vaguely felt like someone was watching her. It wasn't the cold, predatory gaze of the Other Mother. It was a familiar gaze that never had a voice. She knew that her friends were talking. She knew she should be upset. She had punched out two people she cared about. She knew that she would be furious at herself because of it when she woke up next. But that didn't matter right then. She was already furious with herself.

She barely paid any attention to what happened after all that.

---

"So, Coraline, why do you think that your nightmares have changed?" Dr. Windsor asked, leaning back in his chair and watching the girl carefully.

She didn't bother making up a lie. He thought she was making it all into one giant metaphor to shield herself from the truth anyway. "One of the people the Other Mother made for me is visiting me. He's protecting me from the nightmares. He wouldn't let her sew the buttons into my eyes."

"Hmm." Dr. Windsor dipped his head pensively. She hated it when he 'hmmed' at her. "You seem to have a lot of confidence in this boy."

"He saved my life."

"How?"

"He took me out of the mirror and pushed me through the door. He knew that he would die."

"Yet he is visiting your dreams." Dr. Windsor sipped delicately from a thermos on a small table next to his cushy chair.

"Turns out he's not as dead as I thought."

The psychiatrist nodded slowly, keeping his face expressionless. Coraline always found him to be more doll-like than most of the Other people. All he needed was a pair of buttons. He'd fit right in.

"Did he help the ghost children as well?"

"By extension. He saved me and I saved them."

"You say that you are going to save this boy?"

"Yeah. The Other Mother says all I have to do is learn how to be like her. And she'll let him go."

"Do you love him?"

If had been anyone else, Coraline would have stuttered and punched him out. But he was like an inanimate object. It was like talking to a dog.

Well, actually, it was easier than talking to a dog. If a cat could talk, who's to say that a dog couldn't?

"I don't know. The only love I've experienced is love for my mom, dad, and friends, you know?"

The psychiatrist nodded slowly. "And this Other Mother is teaching you her craft?"

"I guess. I don't know."

"Are you afraid you will turn out to be like her?"

"…"

"Coraline?"

"…"

"Coraline…?"