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Tommy set the box of Christmas lights on the kitchen island and slowly slid it over to Buck. Buck looked up from his phone, stared at the box for a second, then looked up at Tommy’s face. “What’s this?” he asked.
“What’s it look like? They’re Christmas lights,” Tommy said.
“I know that. But why are you giving them to me?” Buck asked.
Tommy made a panning motion looking around Buck’s loft. “I just think your place needs a little… Christmas cheer,” Tommy said.
Buck screwed his eyebrows. “Do you not like my place?” he asked.
“No, your place is great,” Tommy said. “Very neat, very homey feeling…” Buck nodded along, and looked at Tommy to continue his train of thought. “But it’s lacking… something…”
“Something…?” Buck asked.
“Like Christmas lights,” Tommy said, looking back down at the box of Christmas lights sat in between them.
Buck looked down and regarded the box for a moment. “This is the same thing you said when you brought the pumpkins over in October,” Buck mumbled.
“Well…” Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “You could do with some more… seasonal decor.”
Buck was silent for a moment as he regarded Tommy’s statement. He did have to admit that it was kind of nice with all of the Halloween stuff last October, although it was slightly annoying to need to put everything away at the end. But looking at Tommy’s face now…
“So you want to… hang lights up around my place?” Buck asked.
“... Well… to start,” Tommy said. Buck didn’t know what else Tommy wanted to add around here.
“Where should we put them?” Buck asked.
Tommy hummed as he looked around Buck’s place again. “Wrapped around the stair railing?” he suggested.
Buck looked across the loft. “That could work.”
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Two days later, Tommy came back to Buck’s loft, his arms full of the soft Christmas blanket he had gotten in a White Elephant gift exchange at Harbor a couple years ago.
“What do you have there?” Buck asked as he opened the door for Tommy to come inside his loft.
“A Christmas blanket,” Tommy said. “For the movie night you wanted us to have tonight.”
Buck cocked his head to the side. “But I already have some blankets,” Buck said. There was one on the couch already, and he had a couple extra in a closet upstairs.
“Sure, but none of those are Christmas blankets,” Tommy said.
“Why do we need Christmas blankets?” Buck asked.
“Evan, we’re not going to watch the Santa Clause 1 and 2 while cuddling under a blanket with a giant cactus printed on it.”
“Because snowflakes are better?”
“In the middle of December? Yes. They are.”
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The following day, Tommy arrived at Buck’s loft where they planned to meet up before they were going to head out to get lunch at a restaurant one of Tommy’s co-workers had suggested.
Based on the last two times Tommy had shown up at Buck’s place, Buck was already expecting Tommy to bring some sort of Christmas themed decorations over.
And he wasn’t disappointed when Tommy handed Buck a small cardboard box.
Buck took it as he examined it in his hands. “What is it?” he asked.
“Open it up and you’ll see,” Tommy said as he stepped into the apartment.
“This isn’t an early Christmas present is it?” Buck asked. “Because I don’t have anything to give you right now.”
Tommy laughed. “Are you saying everything I brought here hasn’t been an early Christmas present?” Tommy asked. When it looked as if Buck was about to say something along the lines of ‘I’m such an idiot, why didn’t you say something,’ Tommy continued. “Don’t worry about it. You can easily make it up to me.”
“Oh yeah,” Buck said as he walked up to Tommy. He leaned in close to the man and asked. “And how can I make it up to you?”
Tommy smiled, and poked the box that was still being held in Buck’s hands. “You can start by opening the box and seeing what’s inside first,” he said.
Buck smiled as he took a small step back, bringing the box up between them as he opened it. “It’s a fire truck,” he said as he brought it out of the box, noticing a little string coming off of the top, he put his finger through the loop and let it dangle from his finger. The fire truck was small, about the length and thickness of his thumb.
“It’s a Christmas tree ornament,” Tommy said.
“Oh,” Buck said as he watched the truck spin around in circles under his finger. “But I don’t have a Christmas tree.”
“I told you to get a tree last week, you still haven’t got one yet?” Tommy asked.
“They’re like… so big though.”
“Then after lunch we’ll find a small one,” Tommy said.
“Do they make trees small enough for one ornament?” Buck asked.
“Yes,” Tommy said. “If you ever went into the Christmas sections of stores this time of year, you’d see them.”
Buck put the fire truck ornament back in the box and put it on the table. He then grabbed Tommy’s hand and started to drag the man back to the doorway. “Then let's go,” he said. “Then afterwards you can show me where these ‘small Christmas Trees’ are.”
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Buck hadn’t expected the holiday section of Target to be so… BIG.
Sure it was one of the Super Targets, but there had to be like… ten aisles of Christmas and other holiday decorations. Christmas lights, stuffed animals, Santa hats, yard signs, yard animals, blow up animals. Not to mention all of the Christmas themed snacks and candy Buck saw as they walked past the food section.
Tommy caught him as his head was bouncing back and forth between a blow up snowman and a blow up penguin. They were both over twelve feet tall. Buck didn’t have a yard or anywhere to put these on… but Tommy did. He thought they would look good out in front of Tommy’s house.
“Hey, Evan, I found some of those small trees,” Tommy started, holding up two small artificial Christmas trees, each about a foot tall. One was a normal dark green, the other a dark green, with white flecks on the ends of the branches to simulate snow.
Buck looked away from the blow up animals to Tommy and the trees in his hands. “Those are so small,” Buck said.
“And perfect for your singular ornament,” Tommy said. “And your small loft.”
That was something Buck had talked about as they drove from the restaurant to the Target. Buck thought his place was ‘too small’ for a full on Christmas tree. And Tommy had told him the store would have smaller ones that would fit his small fire truck ornament perfectly.
Buck took one of the trees and held it out in front of him. “I didn’t know they made them this small,” he said.
“Well here they are,” Tommy said. “Now pick one so we can get other decorations for it.”
“Other decorations?” Buck asked. “Like what?”
“Evan, all you have for it right now is a singular ornament, you need more.”
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Tommy turned over the small stuffed snowflake in his hands. It was cute.
The thing was cute, Tommy had to admit, and he didn’t know where Ramos would have found one of these things…
But Tommy had no idea what he was going to do with it.
There wasn’t really anywhere in the station to put it. His house was full of stuff.
It was a week before Christmas, and Harbor station had just completed their annual White Elephant gift exchange. Tommy ended up with a stuffed animal white snowflake thing. Well, not a stuffed animal, Tommy told himself, snowflakes aren’t animals.
Tommy wasn’t the type of person to collect stuffed animals and the sort, so he had little use for it. Then as he set it on the top shelf of his locker, a text message came to his phone from Buck.
Well, there were a lot of places he could stick it around Buck’s loft.
As he stopped by Buck’s loft the next morning, Buck wasn’t at all surprised to see him carrying another thing in his hands.
“Oh come on,” Tommy said. “You can at least try to act surprised that I’m still bringing things over.”
Buck simply shrugged his shoulders. “I think I’m used to it by now,” he said. “In October you did the same thing with the Halloween decorations, I figure I’ll ask when you’re going to stop if you’re still bringing stuff after Christmas.”
“After Christmas is when everything goes on sale.”
“So you are saying you’ll still be bringing things over,” Buck said.
That was when Tommy showed Buck the snowflake. “I’ll just say that for this one, it isn’t a Christmas decoration, but a winter decoration.”
Buck rolled his eyes as he leant into Tommy and wrapped his arms around him in a hug. “So you’re just saying you’ll move on to bringing over winter decorations then?” he asked.
Tommy's eyes lit up, a thought coming to his mind. “Now that you’ve given me the idea…”
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Buck looked around his loft and couldn’t help but notice all of the numerous Christmas decorations that had been added to his apartment (most of them Tommy’s doing) in the time since Thanksgiving.
He had stockings now… stockings.
They were hanging from his windowsill.
One for him, and one for Tommy.
Buck now had three stockings: one hanging from the windowsill of his loft, a tiny one on one of the notice boards at the 118 with tiny stockings for everyone else, and another stocking at Tommy’s house.
Buck knew that Tommy had kept repeating that these things weren’t ‘Christmas presents,’ but at the same time, he felt like he really should be getting Tommy something to decorate his own place with. The only problem there was that Tommy’s house was thoroughly decorated for Christmas already, something Buck was quick to notice when he visited the first week of December.
But there was one thing that Tommy’s house didn’t have, Buck remembered.
An hour later, Buck was back at the Super Target he and Tommy had gone to the week before, and he was back in the exact same position he had been in before Tommy had found him to show Buck the Christmas trees.
Buck still debated with himself whether he should get Tommy the penguin or the snowman. There was also a reindeer and Santa Claus in stock today too. And since it was closer to Christmas, they were all on sale for 10% off as well.
Buck had no idea which one he should get his boyfriend.
Which one went best for Los Angeles’s warm and sunny climate?
That eliminated the snowman and penguin. And the reindeer was cuter than the Santa. Then Buck looked at the shelf behind him and saw yet another blow up, this one had Santa flying an airplane.
Buck’s eyes lit up upon seeing it.
Sure, it sort of dispelled the legend of the flying reindeer, and it didn’t have the twelve feet of height the other blow ups did. But this one was perfect for Tommy.
After buying it Buck took the blow up straight over to Tommy’s house. Tommy wasn’t at home right now, but that wasn’t really a problem. He had given Buck a key to the place a couple months ago, but Buck didn’t even need to go in the house to plug the blow up in. The power cord was just long enough to reach the outdoor plugs on Tommy’s wall if Buck set the blow up in the middle of Tommy’s yard.
Buck smiled as he stood on Tommy’s driveway and watched as the blow up slowly inflated. Just as it fully expanded, Buck heard the sound of Tommy’s truck drive up to the house.
“Evan?” Tommy called out his name and asked as he got out of the driver’s seat. “What is this?”
Buck had a large smile on his face as he turned around. “I saw it in the Target when we were getting the Christmas tree,” he said as he ran up to stand next to Tommy. “I just had to get it for you, it was perfect!”