A/N: Ahahah, I thought no one was going to read this. Now I feel like I kind of have to update. Although I'm not the kind of writer to withhold updates to get reviews! Only review if you want to!
On the plus side, I know how this is going to end, if I ever get around to writing more of it. Still no promises for regular updates.
Note: This is meant to be based off the book universe, but I might borrow imagery from the film because the animation was so damn pretty.
The candles burn with too much orange and blue and green, so bright they leave spots in Coraline's vision even when she looks into the shadows.
Her mother is singing, and her father is singing, and the rats are singing, and Coraline feels like the happiest girl in the world and she doesn't even know why.
She tugs at her mother's sleeve. "What's going on?"
Her mother ruffles her hair affectionately. "Silly! I can't believe you've forgotten. It's your birthday! Now make a wish!"
Coraline approaches the table. The cake is barely visible under the mass of candles. She counts them.
"But I'm turning nine," she says.
"Go on! Make a wish!" her father says.
"I'm turning nine," she says again.
Her mother laughs, almost sincerely. "I suppose you've lost track of the time. Just enjoy your birthday!"
Coraline shrugs, holds the wish in her mind - for each day to be as much fun as the last - and blows out all fourteen candles.
The cake is delicious, soft and floating, like bubbling melted chocolate. She eats and eats and never feels sick. The rats clear away their dishes, and her mother leaves and re-enters with an armful of presents wrapped in glittery paper.
There's stage makeup from Spink and Forcible, the kind that makes you turn into whoever you're dressing up as, and then the two women put on a show, right there in the kitchen. They bounce off walls as they leap around reciting lines of Midsummer Night's Dream, and Coraline claps her hands together, laughing, and it is all great fun.
Her father performs a song he wrote just for, about how beautiful her black button eyes are.
Her mother heaps presents upon her. Books with moving pictures and words, humming jewelry, all of it bright and loud and colorful. The last package is wrapped in bright green paper, and fittingly, and pair of day-glo green gloves falls out when Coraline rips it open.
She picks the gloves up, testing their weight.
"I thought you said I couldn't have these," she says.
"Silly Coraline," her mother says, ruffling her hair again, her eye sockets narrowing around the buttons. "You can have whatever you want here."
Later, in her bedroom, she tries on her stage makeup (turning into a fairy, a pirate) and she hums the song her father wrote for her, and she tries on the gloves and holds her hands up appreciatively in the mirror.
Fourteen. She can't believe she's fourteen. She's still barely an inch over four feet tall. No chest, no hips. Pale skin, hollowed in cheeks. She doesn't look like a teenager.
I look like a holocaust victim.
She doesn't know where that thought comes from, but it doesn't go away, so she lifts up her shirt to get a good look at her ribs. Her stomach is caved in.
It doesn't make sense. She eats constantly, both healthy and indulgently. It's almost like something sucking away from her.
But all of this is so very confusing, and it hurts her head, and she feels scared for a few seconds. And she knows she's not supposed to be afraid in this world, that this world is nothing but joy and warmth, so she goes looking for her mother.
Her mother is in the garden, weaving the edges of the world into the realities of the next one. Coraline watches for a few seconds, fascinating, as strands of black twist around her mother's fingers to mix with her hair, to burst from her mouth and eyes as flickers of color, becoming real things again once beyond. She's making a maze, doubtlessly the object of tomorrow's entertainment. It towers high above Coraline's head, stone walls ostensibly gray with inner, deep hues of cobalt blue and dioxazine purple.
"Hello, Coraline," her mother says, turning with a smile that reaches all the way to her button eyes. "I thought you wanted to play by yourself."
"I did. I-" Coraline hesitates, because there are no secrets between her mother and her, because as long as she keeps her mind open the thoughts are open, because she has no hiding places inside her mind anymore.
Her mother stops her work, the splurges of color fading, and turns to pull Coraline into a tight hug.
"It's all right," she murmurs. "You'll grow, I promise."
"I know! It's just, this has to be abnormal, what is wrong with me-"
Her mother strokes her hair, and rests her forehead on Coraline's so they are staring into each other's buttons.
"You'll grow," she says, so confidently that Coraline has to believe her. "And anyway, what do you want to grow up for, anyway? Don't you want to be mother's little girl forever? Aren't you happy the way you are?"
"That's true," Coraline agrees, and she doesn't know how why she was even worried in the first place. She fits right in with this world. It was built around her size and she's never needed anything else. As long as she doesn't change, none of this will have to, either.
"Good," her mother says firmly. "Go back inside. How about you wait for me in the kitchen and we'll have a midnight snack together. Does that sound good? I just need to finish my work."
Coraline agrees again, because she knows it is the way of adults to always have work to finish, even in a perfect world like this.
The blues of the kitchen are almost overwhelming in shade. She closes her eyes to adjust before opening the refridgerator in search of milk. Everything here is so saturated. She can hardly stand it; she doesn't know how she lived without it.
She drinks straight from the carton, and even with the reassurance that she can do whatever she wants in this world, she still feels guilty. She puts the carton down and she stares at her day-glo green gloves.
And she remembers.
It collides into her, so fierce and painful it leaves her gasping. The memories cut through the fog and suddenly she's been here years, so long that she almost doesn't know anything else, except she does, she remembers a time before that with rainy days and parents who said no and parents wihout cruel black button eyes.
Her fingers tremble. She slumps against the counter, panting. Her mind only has a few seconds to process. Then she hears footsteps outside and knows the Other Mother will soon find her.
She sits at the kitchen table, arms crossed, for the first time truly aware of how bony her fingers and forearms are. How could the Other Mother let her get like this?
She's dying, she realizes. The Other Mother is slowly sucking the life out of her, and it's killing her.
It's all she can do to slack her hands against the table, instead of reaching up to yank at her buttons for eyes.
The Other Mother enters with an almost jaunty step, but the moment her foot crosses the doorstep she begins to move with more stealth, as if she's sensed the tension in the room. She digs around in the pantry and comes out with a bag of chips.
"Did you enjoy your party, Coraline?" the Other Mother asks.
"Yes, very much," Coraline says, struggling not to default to the reserved politeness she uses when scared. Struggling to stick to the act of a shrunken nine-year-old, relatively easy manipulate, instead of a fourteen-year-old teenager, so fucking furious it makes her fingers tremble.
She smiles and reaches her hand into the bag when offered. Beetles crawl over her fingers.
She does not show fear.
She feels the Other Mother probing at her mind, checking up on her, so she gives little hints to make it seem like she's not hiding anything. Little lies on the surface of her mind, like how beetle is her favorite snack.
The horrible thing, she knows it is, that is has been for more than five years. Maybe button-eyed things like them.
"I'm a bit tired," she admits, "but I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Are we going to play games in the maze you made?"
She pulls out a handful of saccharine-blue beetles.
"I made a labyrinth," the Other Mother says, "and yes, we will be playing games."
Disgust twists in her stomach, but she shows nothing other than a cheery child's smile. It's another contest, another competition, the Other Mother looking for some sign of rebellion and Coraline desperately trying to keep her out.
She's sure she could win this one fairly, too. But that's not enough. She'll have to cheat.
"So," she says, holding the beetles in her fist, feeling their bodies crunch into her palm. "What kind of game will it be? A finding-things game?"
The Other Mother's expression does not change, and Coraline feels another probe at her mind, but again, she gives her nothing but lies. The beetles are frantic, trying to free themselves. They are both looking at the insects clenched in her hand, now. Waiting to see if she'll really swallow them.
"I'll be chasing after you, I suppose," the Other Mother says, smiling to ease the tension. "See who can find who in the maze first."
"I suppose," Coraline says, and throws the handful of beetles into her mouth, chewing noisily. She manages not to smile at the expression on the Other Mother's face; she'd been so sure of herself, so sure she'd caught Coraline in the lie.
"But I'll win," Coraline says, and reaches for another handful.