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All Chase had wanted was some damn fairy bread.
That’s all he wanted. It’d been however many years of living in New Jersey — of living in America — and he still couldn’t get used to the bread. He was stood in the middle of the bread aisle in Walmart, two loaves in hand as he tried to decide which looked the most like Tip Top.
It’s not that big of a deal, he knows. It’s just bread, and it didn’t taste that different, in all honesty, but there was just something about it.
Something not quite right.
He didn’t miss Australia often and he loved his life in America, his work, his wife, but…
Sometimes a deep longing for, well, home swelled in his gut and there was little Chase could do to stop it. Eating something from home did the trick often enough. His sister sends him a care package every couple of months. It always contains the largest jar of Vegemite, so he’d never have to pay the exorbitant import fees. Barbecue shapes, chicken Jumpys, Caramello Koalas, Cherry Ripes and Violet Crumbles. Last month, she’d shipped him a bottle of shiraz from the McLaren Vale, where she’d moved a few years prior. He had so many snacks from home in his pantry and still all he could think about was fairy bread. Like he was a child at a birthday party.
So. Bread aisle. Wonder Bread. (Which, despite the name, tasted nothing like the Wonder bread he grew up eating, just so you know.)
He’d just about decided to go for the left-hand loaf when he heard the familiar voices of one Doctor House and one Doctor Wilson in the aisle over.
“I swear to God, House,” Wilson was saying, “you have got to eat better.”
“That’s what you think,” House replied, voice betraying the petulance Chase was sure coloured his features. He could picture the arms crossed, bottom lip jutting out stance he was sure that his boss had adopted with almost startling clarity.
“You’re a doctor! How the fuck are you still alive?”
“Vicodin and spite,” House replied.
Chase snorted, despite himself. He tossed the bread into his basket, on top of the plastic tube of hundreds and thousands he’d miraculously been able to find in the baking aisle. He should walk off, leave them to it, but something about getting a tiny insight into what his boss was like outside of work appealed to him. He stayed where he was.
“Fruits,” Wilson said, “Vegetables. You know, nutrients?”
“Sounds fake,” House replied.
“Sweetheart,” Wilson said, and Chase froze in place. Sweetheart? “It’s in my vested interest to keep you fed and healthy, you can’t keep living on frozen pizza when I’m not around to cook for you.”
“I could.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t, how about that?”
House sighed, loud enough that Chase heard it from the other aisle.
“So, what? You’re gonna meal-prep for me?”
“Well. Yeah, I guess?”
Chase shifted, weighing his choices. He gave in and moved quietly down the bread aisle and into the adjacent, walking down just enough that he could watch the two from the corner of his eye, but still maintain plausible deniability if they noticed him. He pulled a random box off the shelf, studying the ingredient list dutifully, as if he cared about the caloric count of gluten-free spiral pasta. He wasn’t even gluten-free.
“Why don’t you just move in with me? You’re over six days of the week anyway.”
Wilson dropped the box of pasta he was pulling from the shelf. It landed on the floor with a bang, and Chase relied on all of his doctor reflexes to not jump.
“…What?”
“What?”
“You… want me to move in?”
“I mean, I’m already banging you on the reg’, figured we could make it more official,” House said.
Wilson scoffed, “Nice, House.”
House sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Look,” he said, turning with soft eyes toward Wilson. “I’m in love with you, I thought that was obvious considering I decided to implode our decade-long friendship by kissing you. You kissed back. We’re not just friends. It seems like the natural next step, don’t you think?”
“You’re in love with me?” Wilson asked, voice strangled.
Chase’s eyes widened, and all of a sudden he wished he was anywhere but in the pasta aisle of a Walmart with his boss and his boss’s…boyfriend? This wasn’t meant for him to hear. He shouldn’t be privy to something so important, something so vulnerable.
“Are you stupid?”
“We’re in the pasta aisle of a Walmart, and you decide now is the perfect time to tell me?”
“I thought you knew!”
“I fucking didn’t!”
They’re both quiet for a long moment, and Chase realised he was holding his breath. And then, House laughed. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
“You are stupid, oh my God.”
Wilson’s face was bright red, he buried his face in his hand. Chase was openly staring now, they still hadn’t noticed him.
“I’m in love with you,” House said, and pulled his face from his hand.
“I’ve been in love with you,” House repeated, “for almost as long as I’ve known you.”
Wilson jerked a hand out to rest on House’s shoulder and pulled him in. He kissed him softly, in the middle of the pasta aisle. Chase shoved the box into his basket, and high-tailed it out of there, toward the register.
When Chase got home, he called out to Allison.
“Babe?” he called, walking into the kitchen with the bag of groceries, “you will not believe what just happened to me.”
She walked into the kitchen, drying her hair with a towel. She was wearing only one of his t-shirts, and for a moment he forgot everything else. He reeled her into a kiss, she went willingly.
“Hi,” he murmured, breaking away.
“Mmm,” she hummed, “Hey.”
She stepped back, and leaned against the counter. He began unpacking the bag, pulling out the bread and hundreds and thousands. She watched him, eyebrow quirking, but said nothing.
He grabbed the butter from the fridge and zapped it in the microwave until it was soft enough to spread.
“House,” he said, as he spread butter onto four slices of bread, “and Wilson. At the store.”
“So?” she asked, watching as he liberally coated the buttered slices in the sprinkles.
“They were bickering, like an old married couple.”
“They do that all the time, and they’re friends. Probably the only friend House has, are we surprised that they hang out outside of work?”
“No,” Chase replied, cutting the fairy bread slices into four triangles until he had a plate of them.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she said, “What the fuck is that?”
“What? Fairy bread? It’s delicious,” Chase said, before continuing, “we’re surprised by the ‘sweetheart’ and the kissing, though.”
Cameron dropped the towel, eyes widening.
“Kissing?” She whispered.
Chase nodded, and took a bite of the fairy bread. It didn’t taste exactly like he remembered, the bread was still wrong, but a piece of his heart relaxed. He smiled around it as he chewed, anyway. He walked from the kitchen into the living room, Cameron following close behind, and sat on the couch, flicking on the T.V.
It was movie night, after all. He offered the plate to Cameron.
She grabbed a slice, looked at it in much the same way she would look at a slide under a microscope, and took a careful bite. “It’s good,” she said, and then, “kissing?”
Chase nodded, “Apparently House is in love with Wilson and has been for God-knows how long.”
“Right. Okay. Well. Good for them, I suppose.”
Chase nodded. Yeah. Good for them.
He put the plate of fairy bread on the coffee table, stretched his arm over his wife’s shoulders, and pressed play on the movie she had set up for them to watch.