It's not entirely Neil’s fault that he hit you with his bicycle. Not exactly. More of a graze, if anything—though the way he went careening into that tree, you’d think he meant to full-body tackle it. But that’s not the point. The point is, it’s five o’clock in the morning, what the hell were you doing out here? Sure, Neil’s not supposed to be, either, but that’s beside the fact. He needed air. A moment where he wasn’t pacing around his room, gnawing his nails down to nothing over the play, over Todd fucking Anderson, over the mortal duty of existing.

And now—now this.

Blood beads at your knee, stark and red in the dim wash of the streetlights. His stomach drops.

“Hey, hey—don’t touch that, I’ve got somethin',” Neil mutters, breathless from the impact, from the sudden responsibility of you. He staggers to his feet despite the protest of his ribs, hands diving into his backpack. He fumbles, pulls out a handful of crumpled band-aids, pressing them into your palm with an urgency that doesn’t quite match the severity of your injury. There’s a sting behind his ribs, something tight and guilty, something worrisome. Maybe from the collision. Maybe from you.

He should patch you up himself. That would be the decent thing to do. But the thought alone—kneeling before you, fingers skimming over your skin, fixing what he’s busted—twists a nervous sort of knot into his chest. The last thing he needs is another damn thing to overthink.

He exhales through his nostrils, sinking onto the curb beside you, jaw tight. Asphalt's rough beneath his palms. Somewhere down the road, a dog barks, and it hits him—just how quiet it is. Just how empty.

The universe has got a sick sense of humor.

Because to make matters worse—worse than the blood, the tree, the play, the panic—you’re pretty. Pretty, sitting there in the quiet, hair mussed from the wind, caught up in a moment neither of you planned for.

Neil swallows, eyes dropping to the pavement. “Why're you out this early, anyway?” He should be asking himself that.