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Summary
Neil was eleven the first time Aaron saw him steal cough medicine.
Not from a pharmacy. Not from a store.
From a church donation bin behind a food pantry in San Jose, California.
The boy moved like he expected to be hit for existing.
Too thin. Too alert. Dark hair buzzed unevenly like someone had cut it in a motel bathroom. He wore a sweatshirt three sizes too large despite the heat and kept looking over his shoulder toward the road.
Aaron only noticed him because nobody else ever looked nervous in the church parking lot except addicts and social workers.
The boy spotted Aaron instantly.
Their eyes locked.
Aaron expected him to run.
Instead the stranger said, “You gonna tell?”
Aaron shrugged.
The boy stared another second, suspicious and sharp in a way thirteen-year-olds weren’t supposed to be.
“You look worse than me.”
Or: Aaron and Neil meet pre-canon.