Chapter Text
Evan Pancakes is eight years old when he first realizes that Dab Howlter is safe.
They're neighbors, so they've known each other since they were toddlers- and from the start Dab is something else.
He is excited, glowing eyes and huge, impish grin, curly black hair flying everywhere as he shrieks and runs happily through the house and the yard. Evan is quiet, fingers tight in his mother's loose jeans as he peeks out from behind her legs, watching with a ticklish heart at the way Dab exudes light and joy.
The year Evan turns eight, his mother throws him a birthday party.
Dab is the only one who turns up, beaming with a clumsily wrapped gift in hand.
It's already nearing an hour after the decided time for his party, and Evan is near tears when the doorbell rings and his mother opens the door, hurrying after her with his heartbeat speeding up- He sees Mrs. Howlter first, with her dark hair and kind eyes greeting mother by the door, the two women exchanging hugs.
"Thank you for showing," Eliza whispers to Tabitha, giving a worried glance towards her son. "I was getting worried and he was miserable."
"It was our pleasure." Tabitha murmurs back, gently pushing Dab through the doorway towards Evan. "It's those other boys' losses for not showing up to such a wonderful kid's birthday party."
"Go play with Dab, Evan." His mother smiles down at him and ruffles his black hair, and Evan nods and turns to Dab.
"Happy Birthday!" Dab says, eyes crinkling into what appears to be a million different colors, ebony hair haloed by the sunlight pouring in through the door over the bizarrely high roof of the house across the street.
"Thank you." Evan says softly in response, startled by the way his face feels a little warm at the sight of the boy in front of him.
"Here!" The other boy's entire being emanates energy like sunlight, his voice bright and echoing. "You're eight now, right?"
"Yeah."
The sunshine joy of Dab's mood must be contagious, because Evan finds his own heart soaring in response to the other boy's sunny disposition.
"I'm nine! C'mon, I brought my legos!"
And Evan, Evan who couldn't even look at another child his age without stuttering helplessly, Evan who hid behind his mother's legs at every occasion and shrunk away from older boys, finds that it's surprisingly easy to let Dab Howlter take his hand and pull him through his house.
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The year that Evan enters year 5 Dab is a glowing Year 6 student, already a presence that draws the eyes of everyone around him.
Teachers adore the boy, who is clever and enthusiastic and laughs like he'll never laugh again every time. Evan watches from as close as he dares, hunched in his hoodie with his dark hair falling over his eyes.
Nobody really acknowledges him except his teacher, who allows him to sit in her classroom during lunch because he has nobody else to sit with. He's usually alone but honestly he doesn't mind it, because loud noises and fast movements tend to put him on edge.
Other than his teacher, there is Dab- who doesn't so much as blink at the strange looks he gets when he waves in large, happy movements to Evan, who falls into step beside him when they're going to and from primary school.
Sometimes Dab will sit at the top of the jungle gym, high above the rest of the children and shining from his perch. His curly hair flutters in the wind and his cheeks and nose are tinged rosy in the chill, his ear tips just slightly reddened as he laughs delightedly at just about anything and everything. He finds joy in the way daisies bob in the bushes and the way butterflies flutter over his head and land on his fingers.
Evan thinks that Dab is the coolest- Dab is cooler than motor cars, cooler than trains or snow, shines brighter than the sun and is prettier than all the flowers in his mother's carefully groomed garden.
When the younger Howlter spots him, he'll give him a smile that he doesn't give anybody else, a smile like bubbles and raspberries and fresh grass on the school fields.
And on their walks home, he finds comfort in the safety of his hand in Dab's, looking like moonlight shining on Sahara sand.
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"The Wilsons got a new dog," Evan says softly. "He's a little norwich terrier"
"I saw." Dab tilts a shoulder up, dark curls falling over his eyes- he brushes it out of his face out of habit, tucking it behind his ear. "My granddad stole him for an hour."
Evan eyes the boy next to him quietly, desperate to start some sort of conversation, any sort of conversation, but he hasn't a clue where to start.
The thing is that Dab Howlter is very, very strange. It's not that he's particularly weird, but just that all sort of bizarre things seem to happen around him; and that he seems entirely unfazed by them.
Everywhere that Dab goes, disasters and strange shenanigans follow. Objects disappear and are replaced by completely different and useless things, things are set on fire or moved to the other side of the house.
Evan is almost used to the trail of destruction that Dab tends to leave in his wake, despite his mother's warnings about the entire Howlter family.
It's something he notices gradually, often too distracted by the way Dab's eyes shimmer a hundred different colors in the sun and his black hair bobbing around his cheeks and ears and catching the sunlight like stars.
It starts off as little things, like when he notices that Dab's giant stuffed dinosaur has changed overnight, or when he notes that things in the Howlter household go missing and bizarre things appear, coming and going without any of the family batting an eye. It grows though, into sparking radios at random moments and furniture bursting into flames, the sink suddenly spouting water all over the floor, or paintings disappearing and queer, flickering machines scattered around the house.
As time goes on, parents pull their children away from Dab. Whispers of accidents at the park and fires at the museum follow him like shackles around his ankles. Evan sees the way Mrs. Howlter's kind eyes are weary with concern, the way Mr. Howlter can fix and repair just about anything around the house like he's been doing it all his life.
He also sees the way Dab's smile dims, the way he no longer is the glowing center of his classroom or the beaming favorite of the headmaster.
But Evan also sees the way Dab's eyes go radiant when he sees a dog on the street, the way he laughs and immediately starts dancing when he hears music, the way his eyes go all soft and gentle when his fingers slide over the books in the shelf of Mr. Howlter's study.
And these are the things that tell Evan he must stay, he absolutely must stay by Dab Howlter's side.
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There's one memory that Evan recalls especially vividly- he'd been walking home with his hand in Dab's like he always did, always had done- when the flower he was gripping in his hand had slipped and fluttered to the middle of the road.
Half in instinct and half because the flower was from Dab, Evan had let go of the older boy's hand and hurried after it, trying desperately not to let the thing fly out of his grasp. It landed right on the center of the asphalt, it's yellowish petals swaying weakly in the wind, and he leaned over because it was right there-
The moments following were vibrant flashes of ice cold shock and terror as he heard Dab scream, "EVAN!" and the sound of a blaring car horn and an engine racing towards him-
And then he was off balance, gasping as he landed safely out of the way of the car and against something soft but firm.
It takes a second for him to realize Dab had grabbed him and yanked him back, was currently staring up at him from where he was half on the pavement and half still on the road with wide, pale eyes and a look of alarmed terror that had Evan's entire mind reeling.
"Are you. A bloody. Idiot?!" The boy snarled up at him, and Evan flinched, finding there was a sting at his shins and at the backs of his eyes.
"I'm sorry." He whispers weakly, and it makes Dab deflate immediately, grabbing his shaking hands and steadying the boy as he sits up, carefully looking him over for hurt.
"It was just a silly flower." The older boy mumbles, eyebrows furrowed in an expression that looks both furious and terribly, terribly sad.
Evan doesn't say that it was the one that Dab had handed him jokingly as they passed each other in the halls, doesn't say it was the one he got when he felt warm fingers brush across his knuckles out of sight of everybody else.
"Let's go home, silly." Dab says finally, and he stands, brushes himself off and Evan too, gently taking his hand again and leading him home like he always had.
It sends his mother into a tizzy for a bit, and he's banned from seeing Dab (as if that could ever stop him) for a while.
When he explained it to his friend the boy had only smiled at him sadly and shrugged. "Happens all the time, mate."
And Evan thought it was awfully sad that someone so beautiful and radiant would have people taken from him over and over because some asshole of a spirit had decided somewhere that Dab would be followed by atrocious luck and clumsiness at all times.
"I'm dangerous. It's alright, I'll understand."
But the way his voice shakes Evan knows that Dab needs him just as much as he needs Dab- so he stays.
He stays.
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They're older now, smack dab in the middle of the most awkward stage of life- teenaged and gangly and just doing their best. Unlike him, Dab is aging gracefully, soft skin and graceful limbs, all the dainty features of his mother with the charming dimples and impish grin of his father.
It doesn't help how appallingly inferior he feels sitting beside the older boy, doesn't like how his own black hair hangs limp around his face and sticks out above his ears when Dab's hair falls around his face gracefully and bounces when he shakes with laughter.
No matter how many rumors trail after Dab, he still charms people without the slightest effort, still smiles easily and brings stars to peoples' eyes with just a few words and laughs. Mrs. Howlter jokingly says he gets all that charm from her, because Mr. Howlter is about as graceful and charming as a box of cereal.
The older boy has an effortless charm to his every move. He bats his eyes and bares his teeth in a grin, dimples and eyes deepening like the atlantic ocean when he does. People flock around him despite his affinity for chaos, drawn to his sunshine-y energy.
Evan Pancakes would give anything to be more like him, to be rid of his awkward gait and timid half-smile, to not constantly be hunched beneath disdainful stares and the tutting tongues of his neighbors.
Everybody adores Dab, and Evan is no exception.
Evan has an absolutely pathetic crush, and he has no idea what to do about it.
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"You're really quiet, you know that?" Dab says once, startling Evan out of his own thoughts at some party or other that the Howlters have thrown again. He'd been staring at the rippling light that shone out of the pool in the back yard, feeling the thumping of the music through the wall against his back.
"....Sorry?" The younger boy grimaces at the shake in his own voice, the way it tapers off weakly at the end and at the way a small line appears between Dab's eyebrows.
"Well it's hardly anything to be sorry about," The boy says, as he takes his place beside Evan and leans against the wall. "Just an observation."
"Um." Evan says, ever so eloquently, but it must not have been the wrong sound to make because Dab laughs softly, eyes crinkling and nose scrunching up and his tongue appearing between his teeth in the cutest expression Evan has ever seen on anybody.
"You've always been like that, Ev." The older boy says, and when he turns to smile at him his eyes seem to glow with warmth. "It's what makes you so charming."
The youngest Pancakes flushes, his hands burying itself into his hoodie pocket and his chin sinking against his chest so that his hair shields his eyes.
"Oh, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" Dab sounds flustered, and Evan already knows that the other boy's ears are stained red, the way they always do when he's embarrassed or alarmed.
"No, it's. Um." Curse his inability to speak around cute boys! Evan internally smacks himself. "It's fine. Uh, Thanks."
For a moment Dab is quiet, and then the boy turns back to the pool, shoulder brushing Evan's.
"Alright then." There's an awkward laugh as Dab settles comfortably against the wall. "You're welcome?"
The two boys spend the rest of the party in a just slightly uncomfortable silence, their hearts beating to the music against their backs, the bizarre pool lamp ("it's a hover lamp," Dab had explained peacefully once) in front of them creating patterns across their faces like constellations.
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Evan finds peace at Dab Howlter's side that he doesn't quite find anyone else. At home he feels the chilly echo of an unhappy marriage in the air at all times, heavy and suffocating around his shoulders, weighing down his feet.
In the Howlter House (Known around the neighborhood as That Hideous House at the end of the street, a title that the family embraces with pride), the air is warmth and sugary cookies, full of Tabitha's soft touches and gentle words and Dil's fascinating gadgets and echoing laughter.
The Howlter House is bizarre roof and funny windows, strange lawn decor and whimsy and colors, and Evan feels safer there, beside Dab, than he does in his own home.
He looks over from where he's sitting on Dab's bed, legs straight and heels hanging just slightly off the edge, to where Dab is stretched out on his floor with his legs propped onto the bed and his feet rest against Evan's knee. His eyes trace the daisies stitched into his baggy black jeans and the way his loose shirt spills across the floor like he's laying in a pool of the soft material.
He looks to Dab's face, soft and angled, long, long eyelashes and curls around his head like a halo. The way Dab's feet are pale beside his scraped knees, a warm chestnut shade that he gets from his dad.
There are flowers in his hair that Dab laced together from the flowers he stole from old Granny Lewis' garden, a jacket draped over his shoulders that he's borrowed for so long it smells like both of them, cinammon and vanilla.
And he thinks again, to the rhythm of the music that spills softly from the radio sitting on Dab's desk, that despite any rumor that may nip at his ankles and despite any whispers that may hang from his shoulders, Dab Howlter is the safest place that Evan Pancakes will ever have.