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“Let’s get married, Philly!”
The eleven-year-old looks down at his younger companion, the boy with the honey-chocolate eyes that practically drool innocence, and can’t help the smile that claims his face; his little next-door-neighbour couldn’t get any cuter unless he sprouted bunny ears. Phil’s thought about Dan being cute before, much cuter than any of the icky girls at his school, but he’s never had this funny feeling in his tummy before at the sight of the light in Dan’s eyes, at his childish grin that tells the world he’s a kid and doesn’t have a care in the world.
Unsure of how to react to the funny feeling, Phil just ruffles a hand through the younger boy’s sleek flop of dark brown and smirks playfully at his scrawny friend. The small affection clearly makes Dan’s day as he sees fit to thank Phil for it by the way of hugging. Or rather, by the way of glomping Phil’s stomach. Taken aback by the action, the eleven-year-old simply blinks before wrapping his arms around the boy and making a content humming sound in the back of his throat.
“Can we, Philly? Huh, huh? Can we?” Dan all but yells at the (blushing?) big kid, face stretched with childish enthusiasm. When Phil just blinks in confusion, Dan puts on a pout that all but turns Phil into a pile of living mush. “Can we get married? Please, Philly, please!”
“Um, what?”
Phil knows it’s the wrong answer when Dan’s lower lip starts trembling and his faces blanches of all joy and, for some reason, it makes Phil feel like he’s just committed a murder. So he pulls Dan back into their hug in the middle of the park, even though some of the other big kids are laughing at them and calling them bad names, and nods.
“Sure we can, Danny. Sure we can.”
Dan unsticks himself from his bestest friend in the whole wide universe and skips over to a nearby tree and beckons for Phil to follow. Cringing slightly at his companion’s other-enthusiastic and ever-so-slightly girly behaviour that will no doubt get them both teased at school on Monday, Phil follows without question. Dan reaches down into a hole in the old oak and pulls something out, before throwing Phil the most blinding beam of a smile Phil has ever seen, even from Dan.
It’s a daisy chain.
A shoddy, scruffy attempt at a daisy chain but a daisy chain nonetheless. And Phil can practically see how much love and effort Dan’s clumsy little hands put into making it, how proud he is of it even though it isn’t exactly perfect. Apart from, to Phil at least, it is perfect. Because little Danny Howell from next door made it. For him.
Dan holds the string of flowers out to the bigger boy, looking ever so slightly anxious that Phil might laugh at him or not like his small offering. Needless to say, Phil takes it without so much as a second thought, trailing the tiny flowers through his fingers like he’s never seen anything so beautiful in his eleven years on the planet.
“It’s a daisy chain.” Dan says matter-of-factly, nodding to himself and looking so serious that he may as well be talking about algebraic division or electrolysis or some other boring adult thing. “I made it for you, Philly. So you can wear it and people will know that we’re married. Because rings cost too much and they’re too girly!”
And daisy chains aren’t, Phil can’t help but think. Not that he’d ever say that, not to his Danosaur anyway. He still isn’t quite sure how he wound up being best friends with the younger boy, just that he is and that he gets teased for it. Because apparently it isn’t ‘cool’ to hang out with so-called ‘babies’.
Well, Phil can’t see the sense of hanging out with jerks when he can be having fun with Dan instead.
Phil looks up from the delicate treasure in his hands to smile his approval to Dan, making eye contact and holding it until that funny feeling in his tummy starts flaring up again. He keeps smiling though, knowing that Dan thrives off of his praise. Hell, the kid practically hero-worships him. Not that Phil minds in the slightest.
“Do you like it, Philly?”
“Of course I do, Danosaur.” Dan giggles a little at the nickname, burning a bright red that serves to only amplify his overwhelming cuteness. “I love it.”
“And it means we’re married? For ever and ever?”
“You bet it does. For ever and ever and ever.”