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. Abby and Lee discuss how they met and what’s changed since.

Chapter 1: Rooftop Reckoning

The fire escape groaned, a low complaint of metal under weight, as Abby settled against the railing. The city exhaled below them, a wet sigh of tires on rain-slick asphalt and the distant thump of bass from a passing car. Neon signs painted the puddles in bleeding stripes of pink and electric blue.

In the opposite corner, Lee was a silhouette drawn in tight lines, hood pulled up, knees drawn to chest. Their fingers picked at a flaking patch of rust on the railing.

“You’re going to get tetanus,” Abby said, her voice cutting through the humid night.

Lee’s hand stilled. “Maybe I want tetanus. Spice things up.”

Abby smiled faintly, nudging a can of cheap beer toward Lee with her foot. It scraped across the grating. “Less dramatic ways to do that. A roller coaster. Karaoke.”

“Pass.” Lee snagged the beer, cracked it open, and took a long pull. They didn’t look at her. “Heights make me puke. And my singing voice is a public nuisance.”

“Fair.” Abby sipped her own drink, something citrusy and clear. She watched the condensation slide down the glass. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was full of the eight months Lee had spent on the streets, and the three weeks they’d been crashing on her couch. It was a living thing, prickly and watchful.

“You get the job?” she asked finally.

“The delivery thing? Yeah. Start Thursday.” Lee tapped the beer can. “Thanks for the printer access. For the resume.”

“Of course.”

Another silence. Lee’s voice, when it came, was flatter, stripped of its usual defensive snark. “I used to do deliveries of a different kind.”

Abby waited. She’d learned that with Lee, you had to let the words come on their own time. Pushing was like poking a feral cat; you’d just get scratched.

“Not packages. Me.” Lee took another drink, swallowed hard. “There’s a Motel 6 off the interstate. Truckers, mostly. Fifty bucks for a handjob. Seventy-five for a blowjob. A hundred for the night, but I never stayed the night.”

The air left Abby’s lungs. She kept her gaze fixed on the distant glow of the city skyline, letting the information settle. It wasn’t shock, exactly. It was a cold, dull ache, picturing Lee at eighteen, nineteen, hollow-eyed and making calculations in a dusty parking lot.

“You needed a room,” Abby said, her voice carefully neutral.

“I needed not to sleep in a storm drain. Yeah.” Lee shrugged, a sharp, jerky movement. “It’s just a skill. Like forklift certification. You get good at it. You learn to disassociate. Mouth here, hands there, mind somewhere else entirely. Usually thinking about what I’d buy with the money. A hot meal. A new pair of socks. Sometimes just the room, for the shower.”

Abby’s throat tightened. She thought of her own sterile apartment, her balanced spreadsheets, her mild thrills measured in safe drops on a roller coaster. Her secret shame felt absurdly small.

“Lee…” she started, but didn’t know how to finish. I’m sorry was a worthless platitude. You didn’t deserve that felt too obvious.

“Don’t.” Lee cut her off, finally turning their head. The hood shadowed their face, but the streetlight caught a glint of a dark eye. “Don’t do the pity thing. It was transactional. Clear. Simple. I knew the rules.”

“It shouldn’t have been an option.”

“Lots of things shouldn’t be options.” Lee’s laugh was a short, dry bark. “Yet here we are.”

Here they were. Abby on her secure, if slightly lonely, perch. Lee on her rusted fire escape, still braced for impact. The power imbalance between them yawned, a chasm Abby felt guilty for even noticing.

“Why did you let me stay?” Lee asked suddenly, the question slicing through the night. “Really. You saw me at that bus stop. You came back with a fucking sandwich. You gave me your card. You didn’t know me. You don’t know me.”

Abby traced the rim of her glass. The city hummed. This was the ledge. She could offer a clean, simple lie. You looked like you needed help. That was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth.

She took a breath, the air cool in her lungs. “Your eyes,” she said, quietly.

Lee went very still.

“That first day. You had your hood up, just like now. But I saw your eyes.” Abby finally met Lee’s shadowed gaze. “They were… hollow. Empty. Like someone had turned all the lights off inside. I’d seen that look before. In the mirror. Years ago. Before I started estrogen. Before I even had the words for what was wrong. Just this… absolute void where a person should be.”

Lee didn’t blink. Didn’t move. The beer can hissed softly in their grip.

“I offered the couch because I couldn’t walk past that,” Abby continued, her words soft but clear in the space between them. “I walked past it in myself for too long. I couldn’t do it again.”

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the city. A siren warbled in the distance, fading. The first few drops of a new rain began to fall, pattering softly on the metal landing, smearing the neon below.

Lee looked away first, down into the dripping alley. Their knuckles were white around the can.

“The motel rooms,” they said, voice rough. “The sheets always smelled like bleach. Trying to cover up the smell of everything else. But it never worked. You could still smell the despair.”

They crushed the can in one sharp motion.

“This couch,” Lee said, standing up abruptly, the fire escape trembling. “It doesn’t smell like bleach.”

They didn’t wait for a response, just slid open the window and disappeared back into the apartment’s warm, yellow light, leaving Abby alone in the cooling rain with the echo of a confession and the crushing weight of what came next.