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Some days were worse than others.
Most days were fine. He’s passed for so long that no one doubted his identity anymore. It was strange, but it felt right. More than right – it felt good. He was able to live as the man he always was without being questioned. Some of those days, it even felt exhilarating. Like he was still young and getting used to being treated like a man. Most days, he was happy and comfortable in his body. Most days were a dream for his younger self.
That was only most days, though.
Some days, it would all come back to him. It wouldn’t take much to remind him. A shirt that formed a shadow at the wrong place. A sideways glance at himself in a mirror that looked a bit too much like he used to. Or just an overwhelming feeling of hypocrisy. Sometimes he thought that, if he still kept track of his periods, those days would land on his luteal days, which just made him feel worse.
However, the worst days were usually caused by House.
He’d lost track of the many ways House had caused him to spiral in dysphoria. It was either his hair that he excessively styled (“not even hookers care as much as you do”), or his carefully tailored and coordinated outfits (“do you want to look like a pretty lady?”), or his weak, pushover nature (“you’re just as desperate as your ex-wives”), or his too-sweet, kind, pathetic, feminine feelings (“you whine and cry like a bitch.”), or any other aspect of himself that House decided to pick on that day. He usually handled his demeaning comments well, but some days they were too much.
But sometimes, it wasn’t what House purposefully did, but what he subconsciously did. How comfortable he acted in his own skin – a feeling Wilson couldn’t always say he shared. The constant confidence and arrogance that he carried that only a lifetime of privilege could plant in him. His gross attitude towards women that he couldn’t share because he had been on the other end of it. On those days, not only did the dysphoria make him sick, but also the envy. Gross, all-encompassing jealousy that he could feel growing through him, enveloping and stabbing him like thorny vines. He wanted, no, needed to be him. He needed to be the man that House was: an impulsive, headstrong, selfish man, so sure of who he was it disgusted those around him. But he would never be.
House reminded him that no matter what he did, no matter how long he was on hormones or what surgeries he had, no matter how many documents he changed and people he convinced, he’d never be a real man. Real men don’t worry if those around them secretly knew they weren’t men. Real men don’t have their personalities tainted from being a girl. And his had been too tainted. He couldn’t take a step, say a word, form a relationship, or do anything without revealing his past. All of his attitudes and decisions were formed by how he was taught to grow up to be a woman. He’d never be able to shake off who he was originally born to be.
Oh, and how he wished he could tell House. He wanted to explain those days where he avoided him just a bit more than usual, when he snapped at him a bit harsher than he usually did, when just the mere mention of him angered him. He was sure he knew the reason already, but a part of him (the girly, sappy part) wanted House to know from him anyway. But he could never tell him. He could never endanger himself so recklessly, just because of his pathetic feelings. He’d already learned his lesson years ago. House had probably forgotten, the memory lost in a haze of constant opioids and offenses. But it still haunted Wilson.
One day, while Wilson checked up on him after his infarction, House offhandedly suggested going on a walk. The weather had finally started clearing up after a cold and bitter winter, and he just needed to walk around to get used to his new condition, he reasoned. But Wilson didn’t buy any of it. He thought House was still punishing himself, and this was a fancy new plan he came up with to do it, so he tried to refuse. But just like he would continue to do, he gave in to House, and went on a walk with him.
He quickly realized his ulterior motive. Offending people through a window in his apartment was nice, but pointing them out while walking by them was infinitely more entertaining for House. This way, he could see their exact reactions to “calling them out on their bullshit,” as he eloquently told Wilson. For Wilson, it was the most cruel he’d seen House act towards total strangers. (Later, he realized it was probably the most tame he’d seen him act to them since.) Thankfully, most of them couldn’t – or chose not to – hear House, or just took pity on him because of his leg, which caused him to act out more and more.
One such victim of House’s malice was a tall blonde woman walking on the other side of the street from them. Wilson hadn’t noticed her, too worried about House’s posture or something silly like that to see her, but House had. So, to point her out to Wilson, he leaned towards him, nodded his head at her, and whispered conspiratorially “Look at that tranny.”
Wilson almost froze. He’d heard House say countless horrible things in the past, even to him, but none had hit so harshly and so close to home as this one. He started to panic in a way he hadn’t in years, remembering everything that that word usually accompanied for him. House was waiting for an answer, he reminded himself. All he could muster up, though, was a chastising “House!” It took all he had to pretend to admonish House simply because of the language he used and not its effect on him.
“What? It’s not like it isn’t true.” House replied, almost looking offended. He looked back towards the woman. She hadn’t seemed to have heard them; Wilson was internally grateful that at least that could go his way. “Look at him.” House continued. “No, seriously, look at him.” God, why did he have to continue? Before he could reach out and twist Wilson’s head towards her, he pretended to indulge him and looked back at her. In a sick twist, he almost found himself agreeing with House. She didn’t have any prominent features that would point to her being transgender. But upon closer inspection, he noticed some that captured his attention. None of them were definitive signs, he countered. But nevertheless, they were signs. And most damning of all, House was a genius, so he was probably right.
“Trying to trick everyone into thinking he’s a woman.” House kept going, seeing Wilson’s increasing distress and itching to make it worse. “And I bet a lot of people believe him too.” He paused, waiting for Wilson to turn back to him. When he did, he leaned in to him again, making sure he saw the conviction in his eyes when he told him, “But I can always tell.”
Wilson’s heart leapt to his throat. That look of conviction was dangerous - he knew from experience. Everything in him was telling him to leave, to run and never turn back. But he couldn’t back down. Not to House. He was a shark on the hunt for blood, and Wilson couldn’t reveal his bleeding heart to him. So he sucked it up, shaking his head and making an unbelieving remark that he’d forgotten to time, and just kept walking. He walked beside him that day, and the next time he asked him to go on a walk, and when he got tired of walks, he sat beside him watching episode after episode of bad TV dramas. But he didn’t forget.
And now, as he laid in bed curled in on himself, with dried tear tracks and an impending headache, he still hadn’t forgotten.