palpitations (phan)

eleven

once again, reuploading works from my ao3 to this account because i'm having midlife crisis. i'm still active on ao3 under the same username :)

The summer after Phil turned eleven, the Watkinsons, an elderly couple who had lived across the street, moved into a retirement home in the next town over. Phil had been slightly disappointed, as Mrs. Watkinson often made the area smell of freshly baked cookies and other sweets, but he was also excited.

You see, one evening Phil's mum had brought him the exciting news that their new neighbors had a son his age, and that was enough to make him almost completely forget about any worries he'd previously had about the Watkinsons leaving.

This new family, the Howells, consisted of two very young parents, a boy, and a dog named Colin. Phil still remembered marvelling at how strange and mundane of a name that was for a dog. Colin was the first of the Howells to officially meet Phil, as he had forcefully ran at him one afternoon while he'd been retrieving the mail for his parents. Behind him, the little dog had pulled a measly brunette boy with big, brown eyes and a Pokémon shirt that Phil was sure he had somewhere in his closet as well.

Colin jumped on Phil's legs, the eleven year old laughing and leaning down to pet the dog. The small tibetan terrier growled briefly before whimpering loudly as the brunette boy harshly yanked him back by his lead. "Bad Colin!" The boy scolded, pouting exaggeratedly at the dog. He then diverted his attention up to Phil, smiling shyly and giving him a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry about him, he's not very good with strangers."

Phil smiled back. "It's okay," he assured the boy. Phil settled himself down onto the rough pavement in front of the feisty pup, ever so slowly reaching a tentative hand out for Colin to sniff. Colin hesitated a moment before leaning forward a bit and sniffing Phil's small outstretched fingers, his wet nose tickling Phil's hand.

"Hello, Colin," Phil spoke gently. "I'm Phil. It's very nice to meet you."

Colin recoiled a small bit but quickly got back to smelling Phil's hand, as if he were trying to analyse every aspect of the unfamiliar scent. After a moment, he lifted his small head to look Phil in the eye, giving him a look that said 'I like you but that doesn't mean I trust you'. Phil perceived this as a success, nevertheless.

The brunette boy picked up the dog from the pavement and held him at an arm's distance away from himself, giving Colin a dirty look.

"It took you a whole month to warm up to me, but it took only a few seconds to start liking him? I see how it is," he muttered.

Phil laughed again. "Maybe he only sees you as a boy slave," he suggested.

The boy faked an expression of bitterness before laughing as well, and shaking his head fondly at the small dog. "Oh, probably. I'm Dan, by the way."

Phil stood, seeing as not only was it a bit awkward to still be on the ground when Colin no longer was, but his leg muscles were beginning to get sore, too. This was probably due to the lack of exercise he received combined with the large amount of hours he spent indoors playing video games by himself.

"It's nice to meet you, Colin's boy slave. I'm Phil."

Dan pouted again. "I know."

"So are you the Howell boy from across the street?" Phil asked, hopefully not too intrusively.

Dan's eyes lit up at the mention of his last name. "Yeah! How'd you know?"

"My mum went over to meet your mum last night and showed me pictures of Colin. I also just saw you walk out of your garage, so there's that, too."

"Makes sense," Dan laughed, stroking the slightly matted fur on top of Colin's head.

"I like your shirt," spoke Phil.

"You like Pokemon?" Dan asked enthusiastically.

"Yeah, like, a lot!" Phil hesitated but only a bit before asking Dan the next part. "Would you maybe wanna come over to mine for a bit and play video games with me for a while? I have Mario Kart and Crash Bandicoot."

Dan grinned, "Yeah! Just let me go put Colin back inside and tell my dad where I'll be. Thanks Phil!"

Phil grinned back, even wider than the brunette. "No problem. I'm gonna go take the mail in, so just knock when you're back, okay?"

"Okay!"

Dan did knock not ten minutes later, and after quickly meeting Phil's mum and older brother, they ventured up into Phil's room to play enough rounds of Mario Kart to make their fingers numb. Dan was actually quite good, and Phil joked a few times about hating him for it. That wasn't the case, though. In fact, that was merely the beginning of Dan and Phil's long friendship.