Crossed Paths

---

With the affected cheer of a self-checkout machine, the doctor asked, “How are we doing today?”

Jay Moriarty’s honest answer was, “Annoyed.”

His appointment was booked for 4:30 PM. The receptionist had sternly told him not to be late. Jay proceeded to show up at 4:15, only to sit in the stuffy, overheated waiting room for the next forty-five minutes until they finally sent him to an examination room. There, he’d waited for another ten minutes before the doctor showed up.

It was never the same doctor twice, so Jay didn’t bother to learn their names. This one was a woman of about thirty with a condescending air that put Jay on edge almost immediately.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The doctor crossed the room to sit at the small computer desk in the corner. “I’m afraid the delay couldn’t be helped. What brings you in today?”

Jay had no intention of being examined today, so he’d parked himself in the uncomfortable plastic chair by the desk. It squeaked as he shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “I sent an email last week, asking your office to forward my medical records. I was then called, this morning, and told I needed to come in and give verbal consent for the transfer.”

The doctor frowned—her first display of real emotion since she’d arrived. “We only need written consent—”

“I know that,” Jay interrupted. “Your secretary doesn’t, apparently.”

“Right. Well.” The doctor cleared her throat and turned to the computer. “I can put a note in. Where are the records going?”

“Stamford Medical. It’s a private surgery.”

“And what are you having done there?”

Jay took a breath and steeled himself. “A bilateral mastectomy.”

The doctor’s hands hesitated over the keyboard. “… Gender reassignment surgery.”

“Yes.”

The doctor turned away from the computer to regard Jay with a faintly disapproving expression. “A procedure like that has risks—”

“I’m aware of the risks.”

“I’m sure,” the doctor said, rolling right over him, “but the NHS has its own gender transition services—”

“I was referred to the gender clinic four years ago.” Jay held the doctor’s gaze, tension building in his neck and shoulders. “Still waiting on a first appointment. I was supposed to start treatment within eighteen weeks—that’s the rule. I looked it up.”

“Yes, well, the clinic’s resources are … limited.” The doctor was the first to break eye contact, looking down at her clasped hands. “I understand your frustration. It’s … unfortunate that you’ve had to resort to private treatment. But it’s my duty as your doctor to consider the medical consequences of what you’re doing. Long-term testosterone use could affect your fertility—”

Jay groaned. Inevitably, it all came back to that.

“—and a mastectomy means you’ll never be able to breastfeed—”

“I’m not getting pregnant,” Jay said. “Ever.”

“Well, you say that now—”

“All I need you to do,” Jay snapped at her, “is transfer the records. Are you going to do it, or not?”

The doctor’s mouth settled into a flat, dissatisfied line. She turned back to the computer and wrote up a quick note. “All right.” Then, in icy tones, she said, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

And with that, Jay stood and walked out.

Rage coiled up beneath his jaw as he made his way out of the clinic and onto the damp, chilly street. Fucking doctors. Fucking bureaucracy. This fucking country—millions of people who had more say than he did over his own fucking body—

Jay’s phone pinged, informing him that Sebastian Moran was within a kilometre of his current position.

His stride faltered, and he paused there on the pavement, phone in hand. When he’d set up the alert, weeks ago, Jay’s intent had been to avoid Moran at all costs; it was a fairly simple script that compared his phone’s GPS location to Moran’s, then notified him if they got too close to each other.

But one of Jay’s jobs had thrown them together again anyway. In the aftermath, he and Moran were—well, not dating. But Jay didn’t want to avoid him any more.

The alert only came through because Jay had forgotten to disable the script. It would, of course, be utterly perverse to look up Moran’s location without his knowledge and use that information to track him down.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Jay pulled up the coordinates.

---

The GPS in Moran’s phone led Jay across the canal and round the back of a modern but otherwise unremarkable office block. There he found a door and a sign that read, “McMurdo Martial Arts Club.”

The interior of the club was an open, warehouse-like space with an awkwardly low ceiling and rows of punching bags along each wall. Scattered around the room were maybe a dozen of the club’s members—a few of them women, but with men as the vast majority. None of them paid Jay any attention beyond a first glance at the new person in the room. He was, to them, unremarkable; a little on the short side, perhaps, but no more so than the smallest of the others.

It was a luxury Jay had gone without for most of his life: the ability to stand unnoticed in a room full of men.

An elevated boxing ring dominated the centre of the gym’s floor space. Within it, Sebastian Moran sparred with another man roughly his own size.

Moran fought with swift, simple, yet brutal strikes. It wasn’t a combat style intended for public performance; instead, Moran seemed intent on driving his opponent to the floor and keeping him there. This was clearly a friendly match, and yet Moran moved like an apex predator. Like something built to kill.

Jay was entranced.

Over his opponent’s shoulder, Moran glanced up and met Jay’s eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched, and his chin lifted in a nod of acknowledgement. His opponent, sensing the distraction, rushed in to take advantage of it.

Moran reflexively slammed the heel of his palm into the man’s throat, sending him to the floor.

“Fuck!” the man choked out, clutching at his neck.

Moran was instantly apologetic and rushed over to help the man to his feet; they exchanged a few words before Moran patted him on the shoulder and made for the edge of the ring. He hopped down and strode at a leisurely pace meet Jay, unwinding the wraps around his hands.

Some weeks ago, Moran had suffered three lacerations to the side of his face. They’d mostly healed by now, leaving pale, raised scars that gave him a certain rakish air. He was smiling, but nervous tension lurked beneath it. In a low voice, he asked, “Everything all right?”

Jay—who had, up until that moment, been thinking about licking the sweat from the hollow of Moran’s collarbone—said, “What?”

“The last time you came and found me somewhere, it was because the building was about to burn down.”

“No, everything’s fine,” Jay said, in a flustered rush. “I was—” he realised how trite it sounded as he was saying it, “—in the area.”

The tension in Moran’s expression eased into wry amusement. “Still tracking my phone?”

He’d only asked because he knew the answer was “yes.” Moran wasn’t stupid; he could’ve taken any number of steps to keep Jay from tracking him, if he really had a problem with it. But he hadn’t.

It was possible he actually liked it.

“I’m about done here,” Moran went on. With an inviting grin, he added, “Wait for me?”

Jay nodded. “I’ll be outside.”

As Moran headed for the locker room, Jay ducked back outside and took a steadying breath of cool autumn air.

Within minutes, a freshly-showered Moran came to join him. His arm went around Jay’s waist, hand braced at the small of his back, while he leaned in and brushed a kiss against the corner of Jay’s mouth. Jay glanced to the side, where a wide picture window left them in full view of anyone inside the club. Whatever Moran’s relationship with the people here, he wasn’t afraid to let them see him kissing another man.

In a low murmur against Jay’s ear, Moran said, “Dinner?”

Jay bit back a groan. The idea of sitting across from Moran in a crowded London restaurant, intimately close but not allowed to touch, was absolute torture.

“Takeaway,” Jay insisted instead. “Your place.”

Moran didn’t seem to mind that idea at all.

---

It was still dark out when Sebastian woke. The nights were getting longer, but twelve years of military-enforced wakeup schedules were hard to shake.

Jay was out cold, sprawled next to Sebastian in the bed; he was a restless sleeper, and at some point the sheets had slipped down to his waist, exposing the smooth, bare skin of his back. Sebastian smiled and reached over to trail his fingers down the curve of his spine. Jay sighed in his sleep, but didn’t wake.

There was a relentless energy in that thin, wiry body, even at rest. It was an energy Sebastian particularly enjoyed when it was directed entirely at him; he was tempted to reach over, kiss Jay awake, and pick up where they’d left off the previous evening.

Unfortunately, he was dying for a cigarette.

They were still in the pocket of Sebastian’s jeans, discarded on the floor next to Jay’s side of the bed. Sebastian stretched across Jay’s body to reach them, plastered against his back; Jay stirred as Sebastian’s weight settled over him, groaning a muffled protest.

Sebastian dropped a kiss onto Jay’s shoulder. “Just going for a smoke,” he murmured.

Jay hummed in response and relaxed into the mattress.

Cigarettes retrieved, Sebastian rolled out of bed. He pulled on some track pants and a t-shirt before heading out to the back garden; the walls were high enough to afford a healthy amount of privacy, but his upstairs neighbour had a balcony and a thoroughly Victorian sense of propriety. Settling onto the garden bench, Sebastian knocked a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he really knew very little about the man asleep in his bed. This wasn’t uncommon; Sebastian didn’t usually know much about the men he slept with. The life he led wasn’t exactly conducive to long-term relationships. But a one-night stand with Jay had only left him wanting more, and now he was in deep enough to sense just how much further there was to fall.

This was, in all possibility, a bad idea. Sebastian wasn’t sure he cared.

The cigarette had burned down to the filter; Sebastian stubbed it out and went back inside, straight through to the bedroom.

Jay was awake, sitting up in bed with his back to the headboard and his knees folded against his chest. He held his phone in both hands, thumbs tapping frantically at the screen. There was a hollow, stricken look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian asked.

Jay startled a little, like he’d forgotten where he was; he turned that stricken expression on Sebastian and said, “Something’s happened. It’s—I need to go.”

Sebastian knelt at the edge of the bed and reached out to wrap a reassuring hand around Jay’s ankle. “Want me to come with you?”

Jay’s next breath shuddered out of him in a grateful sigh. “Please.”

---

Sebastian called them a cab, and Jay told the driver to take them to an address in Islington.

The cab let them off on a street lined with narrow Victorian-era office buildings, red brick and limestone all crammed together like a disorganised bookshelf. Jay led the way to a particular building largely indistinguishable from the others, ignoring the bustling restaurant on the ground floor in favour of a side door that led to the building’s upper levels. A flight of cramped, creaking stairs brought them up to an equally cramped, wallpapered hallway with office doors lining either side.

One door hung loosely on broken hinges. Someone had kicked it in; someone else had, unsuccessfully, tried to close it again.

Jay approached the broken door and eased it open to reveal what had once been a small, tidy reception area. Papers littered the floor: pamphlets, torn up and scattered. One, next to Sebastian’s foot, was titled, “10 Ways to Support your Transgender Child.” There had been similar posters on the walls, now no more than scraps of text and colour hanging from the tacks that had held them in place. Whoever was responsible for all this had also tried to set a fire and failed, leaving scorch marks on the walls and floor.

Jay stood at the centre of the destruction, his face blank but his fists clenched at his sides, trembling slightly.

The tense silence was broken by a clattering noise. It came from the far end of the room, behind another half-closed door.

Jay took a step forward, but Sebastian put out an arm to stop him and stepped in front. Slowly, he approached the door and nudged it open just far enough to peer through.

The inner room—an office of some kind—had also been trashed. A middle-aged woman stood in the midst of the chaos, attempting to sort what was salvageable from what wasn’t. She was small and plump, her frizzy greying hair barely contained in a loose bun; she wore a pair of reading glasses on an elaborate beaded chain and a flouncy, mid-length skirt with dinosaurs printed on it.

The woman looked up, spotted Sebastian in the doorway, and yelped with sudden alarm.

“Ruth! It’s okay!” Jay shoved Sebastian aside and moved to stand between him and the woman. “It’s just me.”

For a moment, the woman—Ruth—stared at Jay with blank incomprehension. Then recognition dawned on her face, and she rushed forward to drag Jay into a tight hug. Jay let out a quiet grunt as Ruth’s arms squeezed around him, but he made no effort to wriggle free. After a second or two his arms looped around Ruth’s waist, loosely hugging her back.

Ruth pulled away and clasped Jay’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length as she looked him up and down. “God, look at you,” she said, in a slight but distinct Geordie accent. “You look amazing.”

Then her gaze shifted back to Sebastian, still standing there in the doorway.

Jay glanced over his shoulder; there was a nervous energy about him as he met Sebastian’s eyes. “Ruth, this is my—” he stumbled a little around the word, “—friend, Sebastian.”

Ruth shuffled around Jay to extend a hand to Sebastian. “Ruth Sumner.”

Sebastian shook it and replied, “Sebastian Moran. Lovely to meet you.”

“Ooh. Prince Charming, this one.” Ruth shot a teasing glance in Jay’s direction.

Jay, apparently eager to change the subject, said, “I came as soon as I saw your post.” His usual, carefully bland accent had started to shift, drifting further north. “Any idea who did it?”

Ruth shook her head. “The police haven’t even come by, yet.”

“They won’t be much help,” Sebastian offered. Ruth seemed like the kind of woman who valued honesty. “You’ll get a report number for the insurance, but that’s about it.”

Ruth made a wordless noise, indicating she’d expected as much. “I suppose this would’ve happened sooner or later,” she said. “With Anya Clay harping on about us, day in, day out—”

Confused, Sebastian said, “Anya Clay, the writer?”

“Yes,” Jay replied, but didn’t explain further. To Ruth, he said, “How do we fix this? What can I do?”

“There’s nothing to be done, pet.” Ruth patted Jay’s shoulder. “We’ll just fix the place up and get back to it.”

Jay seemed profoundly dissatisfied with that answer. Ruth pulled him into another hug, more gentle this time.

“Call me if you need anything?” Jay mumbled into the top of her head. “Please?”

Ruth released Jay, giving him a nod and a wobbly smile.

Jay turned and strode from the room as quickly as possible.

Sebastian stared after him, then looked back toward Ruth with an apologetic expression.

“He does that,” Ruth said, her tone one of fond resignation.

“He does,” Sebastian agreed. “I should—” he gestured awkwardly over his shoulder.

Ruth shooed him away, and Sebastian made his exit.

He found Jay outside, both hands braced against the wall, head hanging low between his shoulders. There was a seething rage about him—the kind that Sebastian knew well. The kind that churned around, gnawing at the inside, until it found somewhere to go.

Sebastian settled in next to him, lit up, and cast his eyes over the store-fronts on the other side of the street. One of them, an imports shop, had a small consumer-grade security camera mounted in the window.

He gestured toward it with his cigarette. “Get me faces and names. I’ll take care of it.”

Jay looked up at him, blinked, then followed the line of Sebastian’s arm and immediately spotted the camera. A brief laugh burst from his mouth—a noise of stark relief—but a second later he shook his head. “Ruth’s right. If it hadn’t been this lot, it would’ve been someone else. Useful idiots, following orders.”

“From Anya Clay, apparently.”

“Yeah.” Jay looked back at Sebastian, chewing thoughtfully at his lower lip. “She needs to hurt for this.” His eyes were intent, pleading, and Sebastian felt himself fall just that little bit further. “Help me do it?”

This wasn’t going anywhere good, and yet Sebastian found himself nodding anyway.