** A young woman sees a walking dead in the open streets of Whitby. A train full of corpses crashes into Kings Cross. In an Asylum, a gruesome nightmare becomes horrible reality.
All this should have been a warning to Kyle and his partner Benjamin...
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While Dr Archer was speaking, Kyle had removed his silk tie, tails, and waistcoat and opened his shirt to his navel. The raven black strands fell over his eyes and covered the otherwise clear blue of his eyes. His slender neck was visible without the high shirt collar, flowing in soft lines into the narrow shoulders that Crowford usually hid carefully under his clothes.
He was just about to push the last button of his shirt out of the placket. The sprint had taken its toll, and the air felt uncomfortably cold on his slightly damp skin. Goosebumps crept inexorably across the back of his neck and arms, raising the fine hairs as he sighed deeply and finally pulled the shirt apart to make it easier to see the injury.
When Kyle lifted his head, he realized Ben had turned to face him and was staring at his body. Inevitably, Kyle's gaze slid down exactly where the doctor had been looking. But there was nothing there except bandages wrapped tightly around his chest—bandages that he put on himself every morning and that hid one of his greatest secrets.
'What the...?'
For nothing in the world would Kyle have admitted that his pulse quickened at that moment, and the pounding in his chest became a thunderous gallop. Instead, he raised an arm to cover himself, almost ashamed, and the mage's narrow eyebrows formed an indignant expression before he cleared his throat very deliberately.
"You're staring again. I thought we were past this?"
Benjamin winced as if he had just been caught with his fingers in the biscuit tin. Caught off guard, the tweezers with the cotton ball dipped in iodine slipped from his fingers and fell onto the side table among the utensils with a thud. But the doctor quickly caught himself again.
"I apologize; that was extremely improper and unprofessional. That's not how to behave..." Ben swallowed briefly, "...towards a lady."
They were both quietly aware that the doctor knew the truth. It was one of those strange topics that was better left untouched. Despite Archer's expert eye and his experience of human anatomy, it had taken him a surprisingly long time to realize that Kyle didn't have Adam's apple. Or that, despite being in his mid-twenties, he never needed to shave...
Kyle Crowford's real name was Kaylee Ashcroft - and 'he' was, in fact, a young woman.
Open and exposed, her secret, usually carefully concealed under layers of clothing, ties, or scarves, was right before the Doctor.
Benjamin Archer had a unique talent for consistently ignoring things that made him uncomfortable for long periods. However, when a matter was so unveiled under his nose, he was inevitably overcome by the urge to address the obvious, regardless of whether it was his business or not.
"I just can't believe that no one but me has noticed," the doctor said, shaking his head. But you had to give her credit; Kaylee's disguise was excellent: her slender physique and feminine forms, bound with bandages and concealed under straight-lined men's clothing. Always meticulously groomed and, in the eyes of others, simply a vain cock. Scarves and the demeanor of a dandy and money. A lot of money. She was also helped by the rigid social norms: no self-respecting gentleman or lady would dare to say aloud that the gentleman might be a woman.
