Abigail Brooks is an intelligent, kind 25 year old accountant. She’s content with her methodical job, but also enjoys seeking mild thrills, such as roller coasters and urban exploration. Abby’s a trans woman and has been out and on estrogen for years. Her family is accepting. She has long, dark brown hair with blunt bangs, dark eyes, and a petite build. Lee Mateo is a snarky, avoidant individual who recently got a job as a delivery driver after being homeless for eight months. This was after an altercation with their mother regarding their gender identity in which they pushed her to the ground. They’re currently crashing at Abby’s place until they can afford an apartment of their own. They’re an extremely closeted trans woman. Lee’s preferred pronouns are she/her, but they currently use he/him with most people. They sometimes hang out at the Triangle Bar, an unofficially queer establishment, with friends, despite their low tolerance for alcohol. They have curly black hair that they’re growing out, which usually covers their eyes, and a tall, lean build. They frequently wear hoodies for the purpose of “boymoding”. Lee hasn’t had actual sex. Like, penetration or whatever. And they haven’t done very much in the context of a relationship. Making out and grinding, probably, and that was a while ago. They have, however, given handjobs and sucked people off for money. They’ve gotten pretty good at that. But intimacy and anything beyond a blowjob are uncharted territory. Lee is 22. They generally view Abby as a good Samaritan who gains nothing out of helping them. Abby did gain something: Lee. They met while Lee was living on the streets. In hindsight, Abby probably should have been more concerned for her safety than she was. She feels bad about being attracted to Lee, like she’s taking advantage of the power imbalance inherent to letting someone with nowhere else to go stay in your home. Don’t use they/them for Lee in the story. They’re used here for ambiguity’s sake, but they don’t actually use them. Either go with she/her to reflect her identity or he/him to reflect his closeted status. Or use both depending on which seems more appropriate for the context. Lee’s first name is actually Leeroy. Even without the gender stuff, they would strongly dislike it. They’re slowly becoming less malnourished, which they appreciate. Write in third person. Drunk, Lee makes a comment that suggests he thinks Abby is cis. She gently corrects that assumption.

Chapter 1: Midnight Roof Access in the Financial District

The ladder shuddered under Abby’s weight, each rusted rung groaning a protest into the brittle night air. Above, the rooftop awaited—a kingdom of cracked tar and forgotten satellite dishes. Her fingers, cold and precise, tightened their grip. This was her kind of thrill: calculated, solitary, a secret rebellion against the spreadsheets waiting on her laptop at home.

“This is legitimately insane,” a voice floated up from below, snarky and sharp-edged.

Lee was a silhouette against the dirty brick wall of the alley, head tilted back, hood pulled up. Abby could just make out the glint of their eyes in the ambient glow from a distant streetlight.

“It’s stable. I’ve checked it before,” Abby called down, her voice calm. Accountant’s calm. She ascended the last few rungs and hauled herself onto the gravel-strewn roof. The wind hit her immediately, biting through her thin jacket, whipping her blunt-cut bangs across her eyes. She turned and peered over the edge. “Coming up, or are you staying down there with the dumpsters?”

A beat of silence, then the ladder groaned again, more violently. Lee climbed with a clumsy, hurried grace, all long limbs and jerky movements. They spilled onto the rooftop beside her, catching themselves on their palms with a muttered curse. They stayed crouched for a second, breathing hard.

“See? Alive,” Abby said, offering a hand.

Lee ignored it, pushing themselves up. “Don’t sound so disappointed.” They brushed gravel from their jeans—old, worn thin at the knees. Their posture was a closed loop: shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a bulky grey hoodie. The word ‘Boymode’ flickered through Abby’s mind, a term she’d learned in quiet online spaces. It fit Lee like a second skin, this deliberate, defensive camouflage.

“This way. The view’s better on the west side.” Abby led the way, picking a path around puddles of stagnant rainwater. The city unfolded around them, a symphony of gridlocked light and noise. From up here, the honking cars were toys, the people invisible. It was just the pattern, the glow, the hum.

Lee followed, their steps hesitant. They stopped a few feet back from the low, crumbling parapet Abby leaned against. “You come up here a lot?”

“When I need to think. Or not think.” She pulled a tightly rolled joint and a lighter from her pocket. “Deterrent against thinking, part one.”

A short, dry laugh escaped Lee. “Yeah. Okay. I’m familiar with that program.”

Abby lit the joint, the tip flaring orange in the dusk, and took a shallow hit. The familiar, earthy smoke mixed with the cold air. She offered it. Lee stared for a moment, then accepted, their fingers brushing hers—cold, and rough. They took a deep, practiced drag, holding it in before exhaling a slow, curling plume into the wind.

They settled on the edge, legs dangling over the five-story drop. The neon from a bail bonds sign across the street painted Lee’s profile in intermittent pulses of sickly green. Up close, Abby could see the fading shadows under their eyes, the gauntness that eight months of instability had carved into their cheeks, which were just starting to soften again with regular meals.

They passed the joint back and forth. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile. It was a thing they were sharing, like the heat from the burning paper.

“Your family,” Lee said abruptly, not looking at her. “They’re… cool with you?”

Abby watched the traffic, a river of red and white. “They are now. Took my dad a minute to swap the pronouns. My mom bought me my first decent bra.” She said it plainly, a simple fact. A privilege she never mentioned, but which hung in the air now, thick as the smoke.

Lee just grunted, taking another hit. The weed was doing its work, loosening the rigid set of their shoulders. Their gaze was fixed on the middle distance, on nothing and everything.

“What’s yours like?” Abby asked, though she already suspected.

“My mother,” Lee began, their voice gone flat and metallic, “said I was a demon wearing her son’s skin. That Leeroy was dead.” They handed the joint back. “So I left. Demon didn’t need a roof, apparently.”

The name ‘Leeroy’ landed between them like something foul. Abby didn’t flinch. She just held the smoke in her lungs, letting the burn distract from the ache the words caused. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Lee pulled their knees up, wrapping long arms around them. The hoodie sleeves swallowed their hands. “Your couch is better than a bus shelter. That’s the math.”

It was always like this with Lee. Every gesture of thanks was wrapped in barbed wire, every vulnerability immediately countered with a reminder of the transaction—a roof for… what? Abby’s quiet company? Her leftover pizza? It felt unbearably unequal.

The joint was down to a roach. Abby pinched it out and flicked it into an empty soda can she’d brought up for the purpose. The high settled over them, a gauzy filter that made the city lights streak and bloom.

Minutes bled by, marked only by the distant wail of a siren.

Then, so quiet the wind almost stole it, Lee spoke. Their words were slurred, soft, directed at the concrete between their feet. “I wish I had your body.”

The air left Abby’s lungs. It wasn’t a leer. It wasn’t a pass. It was a raw, gutted thing, full of a want so profound it sounded like grief.

Lee’s head snapped up, eyes wide with instant, sobering horror. They scrambled back from the edge as if burned. “Shit. Fuck. I didn’t—I’m high, I didn’t mean—” They started to stand, poised to flee.

“Lee.” Abby’s voice was steady, but her heart was hammering against her ribs. This was the ledge, the real one. She looked at them—really looked. At the pain in those shadowed eyes, at the way they held themselves like a creature expecting a blow. This was the thrill she hadn’t calculated for, the one that terrified her. It wasn’t about rusted ladders or five-story drops.

She took a slow breath. The neon pulsed. Green, then dark, then green again.

“I can help you get there,” she said, the words leaving her lips before her internal audit could stop them. “If you want.”

Lee froze, half-crouched. The wind tore at their hood, whipping curls of black hair across their forehead. Their expression was sheer, unguarded panic—and beneath it, a desperate, hungry hope. They stared at Abby, searching for the joke, the pity, the trap.

Abby just held their gaze, the offer hanging in the cold, vast space between them, as fragile and permanent as the city lights.