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. They have 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 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 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. They strongly dislike it. They’re slowly becoming less malnourished, which they appreciate. One night, Abby goes to the Triangle with Lee. After a drink or two, they use a word Abby recognizes. “You’re not a ‘hon’. And get off 4chan.”

Chapter 1: A Word at the Bar

The Triangle Bar hummed, a low electric buzz beneath the crackle of vinyl and the murmur of half-empty conversations. Peeling posters of drag queens and punk bands watched from walls the color of a faded bruise. The air was a familiar cocktail: stale beer, sweet patchouli, and the sharp, metallic tang of spilled whiskey. That last note came from the glass in front of Lee, neat, untouched for the last twenty minutes.

Abby traced a finger through the condensation on her own soda. The ice had long since melted. She watched Lee’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, his eyes fixed on some middle distance only he could see. The bar’s dim light caught the shadows under his eyes, deeper than they’d been a week ago.

“So then the guy says the alternator’s shot, which is bullshit, because I just—” Lee’s voice was a raspy, performative thing tonight, a shield made of sound.

“Lee.”

“—and I told him, look, I know a shakedown when I—”

“Lee.”

He blinked, his gaze snapping to hers. The defensive curtain lifted for a second, and she saw the exhaustion, the raw-edged fear. Then it dropped again. “What?”

“You’re spiraling.” Her voice was quiet, a contrast to the music bleeding from the ancient jukebox. “What’s really up?”

He picked up the whiskey glass finally, his long fingers pale against the amber. He didn’t drink. Just swirled it, watching the liquid cling to the sides. “Nothing’s up. Just tired. People are idiots.”

“You’ve said ‘hon’ three times in the last ten minutes.” Abby set her glass down with a deliberate clink. The sound was a period at the end of a sentence. “You’re not a hon. And get off 4chan. It’s a cesspool.”

Lee froze. The swirling stopped. His eyes, a dark, liquid brown under the fall of his curly black hair, widened with a flash of pure, unguarded panic. It was like she’d reached over and ripped a bandage off a wound he’d forgotten he had.

The panic hardened into something else. A brittle defiance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” She didn’t look away. She held his gaze, feeling the heat of her own boldness flush her neck. It was a risk, pushing like this. He was a stray cat she’d brought in from the rain eight weeks ago—all ribs and flinch and carefully crafted snark. One wrong move and he’d bolt.

His gaze dropped from her eyes. Lingered, just for a heartbeat, on her lips. Then it skittered away to the safety of his drink. “Why do you care?” he muttered, the words barely audible over the thrum of the bar.

“Because you’re better than that self-loathing garbage.” She softened her tone. “And because you’re my friend.”

He winced at the word ‘friend’, or maybe at the kindness. He always did. He finally took a sip of the whiskey, a real one, his face contorting as it went down. He had the lowest alcohol tolerance of anyone she’d ever met. Two sips and his walls got porous.

“It’s just facts,” he slurred slightly, already feeling it. “The algorithms. They know. They can clock anyone. It’s over before it starts.”

Abby’s heart ached. This was the leak in the dam. The careful, methodical part of her brain, the accountant part, wanted to lay out a logical argument about selection bias and hateful online echochambers. The other part, the part that went into abandoned buildings just to feel the silence, just listened.

“Who told you it was over, Lee?”

He shrugged, a stiff, jerky motion. The name ‘Leeroy’ hung unspoken between them, a ghost he carried. His mother had screamed it, they’d said, during the final, violent fight before the streets. “Everyone. Everything. You don’t get it. You pass. You have a life. You’re… real.”

The word hung in the sticky air. Real. It was a knife. She knew what he meant. She had the degree, the apartment, the steady hands that never shook. She had the body that felt like hers, most days. She had the privilege of a boring, ordered existence. He had a duffel bag in her spare room and eight months of survival etched into every cautious glance.

“I’m real,” she said softly. “And so are you. Right here.”

He looked at her then, really looked, his defenses washed away by the cheap whiskey and a loneliness so profound it filled the space between them. His eyes were swimming. “Sometimes,” he whispered, the sarcasm utterly gone, leaving his voice young and terribly vulnerable, “I think you’re the only real thing I’ve got.”

He reached for his glass, missed the handle by an inch, and knocked it over. The whiskey spilled across the scarred wood, the smell erupting between them—sharp, medicinal, a smell that suddenly reminded Abby of fear and waiting rooms.

“Shit. Sorry. God, I’m so sorry.” He fumbled for napkins, hands trembling, a frantic energy overtaking him. It was more than spilt drink. It was a metaphor he was drowning in.

“Hey. It’s okay.” She stilled his hand with hers. His skin was cold, despite the bar’s heat. He went perfectly still at her touch, like a wild animal deciding whether to freeze or flee.

He didn’t pull away. He stared at their hands, hers small and smooth over his long, knuckly fingers with their bitten nails. A tremor ran through him.

“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.

“Let’s go home,” Abby said. Home. Her apartment. The safe, tidy space where he was slowly, so slowly, beginning to leave a痕迹—a jacket on the back of a chair, a specific brand of tea bag in the cupboard.

He nodded, silent. When he stood, he wobbled. She caught his elbow, a steadying touch. He leaned into it, just for a second. The weight of him, the sheer physical reality of him trusting her not to let him fall, sent a current through her that was equal parts protective and something else, something more complicated.

They stepped out into the damp night air. The city sounds were a relief after the bar’s close atmosphere. Lee took a deep, shuddering breath beside her, his shoulders hunched against the world.

“Abby?” His voice was small in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

He didn’t look at her. He stared at the cracked pavement, his words barely a whisper, carried away almost by the breeze. “I hate my name.”

It was the truest, most naked thing he’d ever said to her. It wasn’t about 4chan, or passing, or any of the other shields. It was the core of the wound.

She didn’t say it was okay. She didn’t offer a new one. She just tightened her grip on his elbow, a gentle pressure, and started walking toward the car.

“I know,” she said. And in those two words, she promised to hold that truth for him, until he was ready to hold it for himself. The engine coughed to life, and the streetlights painted stripes of gold across his silent, turned-away face as they pulled into the stream of late-night traffic, the momentum of the night carrying them toward an uncertain, shared tomorrow.