Chapter Text
Since going on estrogen five years ago, Jaime Wilson had put on a bit of weight. Living with House had only exasperated the issue as she cooked more than she ever had—she used to cook for her wives on occasion, but if she didn’t feed House he wouldn’t eat. Wilson didn’t consider popping Vicodin “eating.”
She wasn’t sad to see most of her clothes go, but the day her McGill sweatshirt stopped being comfortable was more than a little depressing. She wasn’t fat, she just wasn’t a stick of a man anymore. And, to use House’s words, she had a nice rack. Men’s clothes just weren’t meant for her anymore.
She fought her way back out of her McGill sweatshirt for the last time before throwing it on top of the donation pile, chest heaving and flushed. She was planning on donating another pile of clothes, now that she was ready to let go of her more questionable pieces of early transition fashion. The pile was a lot smaller than she had expected. Wilson finished buttoning her shirt and left her room to grab a trash bag to shove it all in.
Before she even opened the cabinet, her pager went off. She sighed, dropped what she was doing, and made her way back to the hospital. House was probably just fucking with her because he knew she’d have to drop everything and show up at the hospital regardless.
It was worse than House paging her all the way back to PPTH just to bitch about a patient or his protégés. House hadn’t been there at all. According to Cuddy, he didn’t even have a case. Wilson wondered why she was still friends with House for about half a second before thinking about more important things: what to make her and House for dinner.
When Wilson saw House’s bike parked out front, she decided she’d dramatically storm upstairs to tear him a new asshole before she started dinner. If he wanted her out of the house to fool around or think or whatever he could have just asked.
Before she swung their front door open, she had braced herself for any of the varying horrors she was at risk of witnessing. She fully expected to walk in on House with at least two hookers, but instead the apartment was quiet. House wasn’t gloating on the couch or obviously up to anything. Wilson froze, taking in everything and the complete lack of anything.
Then she heard a creak from the direction of her bedroom. Wilson opened her door to the most surprising thing House had done in a while. He was stood in front of her mirror in her McGill sweatshirt and an old skirt Wilson had hated the fit of. On House, it just barely covered the scar on his leg from the infarction. House maintained unwavering eye contact with his reflection.
“Why are you wearing my sweatshirt?” Wilson asked.
“I’m trying to understand what you get out of this,” House replied.
Wilson studied him again, knowing he wasn’t talking about the sweatshirt. House seemed so serious. She couldn’t see where he was going with this, from a prank perspective, so she decided to continue to humour him. He knew how to get a rise out of her without resorting to a delayed transphobic outburst.
“Well,” she started, “is this for a case? Or have you been stealing my clothes to get off for years?”
At that House met her eyes.
“What do you think? Is this my color?”
“Yeah, my pit stains really make your eyes pop.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” House said.
Wilson grappled with what to say next. She didn’t want to misstep and send House back into the closet. If House was having a gender moment and not just being House, that is. The idea of House being more closeted than her almost shocked free a hysterical giggle. He was the one who had called her a closet case for the better part of their friendship—from her bisexuality to her transness, he saw it first. If House was trans too, Wilson would savour her vulnerability. House was already the neediest person she knew. Fuelling the flames of her neediness with transness would sustain Wilson for the rest of her life.
Jaime Wilson needed neediness.
“Are you just keeping the sweatshirt or are you going to keep the rest of the outfit, too?”
House hummed in thought and Wilson felt giddy.
“I mean, obviously, you’d have to find a better top to go with that skirt. The length on you is good, though.”
House turned to Wilson and grinned, suddenly snapped out of his daze. He was back to normal in every way, except he was wearing a black pencil skirt and Wilson’s McGill sweatshirt.
“Can I keep the panties, too?” House asked.
Wilson opened and closed her mouth like a fish before making an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. She didn’t remember throwing any panties into her donation pile.