#at minimum

The man stood stiffly beside the chairs, leaning against the wall, and closed his eyes. He kept his back very straight and folded his arms tightly over a nice blue sweater. He looked about Javier’s age, probably a college kid home for the holidays.

“Tailbone?” Javier asked.

The man opened his eyes. “Sorry?”

“Broken tailbone?” Javier asked again. “That’s what you’re here for, right?”

The man stared at him for two cold, silent seconds before replying, “No.”

Fine. He didn’t have to make conversation. Javier pulled out his phone and opened instagram again, clumsily scrolling with his left thumb. Maybe someone had posted something interesting in the last two minutes.

“Actually, you know what?” the man said abruptly. “Why not? Someone might as well get a good story out of this.”

Javier set his phone down on his leg and sat up a little. “Sure, yeah,” he said, completely lost.

“Do you want to know why I’m here in the emergency room on Christmas Eve?” the man asked.

Javier tried to make a “yeah, obviously” gesture, but moved his right hand in the process and winced. “Yeah. Ow. Yeah, just making conversation, but if you— ”

“I stuck a Christmas ornament in my butt.”

He must have misheard. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

“I stuck a Christmas ornament in my butt,” the man said again. He stared straight ahead as he made this proclamation, staring daggers into the wall.

Javier opened his mouth to try to speak, then tried again. On the third try, he finally managed, “Why?”

“Revenge,” said the man in a low, aggrieved growl. The word hung heavy in the air for a second before he added, “And sex reasons.”

Javier leaned forward, awkwardly extending his left hand. “I’m Javier.”

The man hesitated before extending his own hand. It was a nice hand. His nails were neatly trimmed but not manicured, calloused fingertips, clearly moisturized. “Tim.”

They shook hands. Javier settled back into his chair, grimacing as he jostled the arm. “Tim, consider me intrigued. Tell me more about this butt-related revenge.”

Tim almost smiled. “It sounds even stupider when you put it that way. It didn’t work, obviously.”

Javier nodded thoughtfully. So is it like a nutcracker or something?”

Tim took an affronted step back. “Why would I put a nutcracker in my butt? And how?”

“I don’t know, man, I’m honestly drawing a blank on what else it could be. Cause there’s like those shiny balls you hang on a tree and that can’t be it. And I’m really hoping it’s not a star.”

“It’s an abstract Christmas tree,” said Tim, speaking the words as if they were a curse.

“A what now?”

“I’ll show you.” Tim pulled his phone out of his front pocket, tapped for a few minutes, and extended his arm, displaying a picture of a -

“Oh,” said Javier. “Well that makes a lot more sense.”

“Yes,” said Tim.

“That’s a butt plug,” said Javier.

“Yes, said Tim again, putting his phone away.

“Wait, wait,” said Javier. “Let me see it again?” Tim obliged, and he took a long, critical look. It was green with a smooth, tapered shape. There was even a flange at the end. It would not have been out of place at a sex toy shop. “They called this a Christmas tree?”

“Thank you!” Tim gestured beseechingly at the heavens. “That’s what I said, and my sisters-” He stopped abruptly, glaring daggers into the wall again.

“Not enough of a flange, though,” said Javier. “It needs to be wider than the widest part of the plug.”

“Yes, I realize that now,” said Tim, putting his phone away again. “But it’s a lot more reasonable than a nutcracker.”

“Sure, sure, yeah.” Javier thought about pressing his luck. On the one hand, Tim was almost certainly gay. On the other, I bet I could get that out with some poppers and enough lube if you want to try was too bold for him. Too bold for anybody, probably. “So how’s that revenge?”

Tim was silent for a long time. Too long.

“Hey, we don’t have to talk about it.” Javier lifted his right arm, wincing. “I slipped on the ice while I snuck outside to get away from my family and smoke a bowl. I think it’s the ulna. Right here.”

Tim winced sympathetically. “Did you at least get to smoke that bowl?”

“No. It would hurt a lot less if I had,” he grumbled.

Tim eyed him thoughtfully before asking, “Is your family bad?”

Javier shrugged one shoulder. “They’re family. They don’t really. I mean, you know. It’s the first Christmas I’ve been back since I came out. They’re all at mass right now, with my nieces and nephews. I hadn’t figured out how to tell them I wasn’t going with them, so at least I saved myself some trouble there.”

They sat in silence for long enough that he started to wonder if he’d gotten it wrong, if Tim was actually a freaky straight guy, when Tim finally spoke. “I came out last Christmas and they’re just pretending it didn’t happen. They keep talking about girls I dated in high school and making allusions to when I have a wife, shit like that. And if I correct them they just talk right over me. They pretend I didn’t say anything. It makes me feel crazy, like truly crazy.”

“That’s truly fucked, man.” Javier meant it. At least his stepbrother said slurs to his face instead of gaslighty mind game bullshit.

Tim nodded. “Even my sisters, who support me completely. They’re great the rest of the year, but they don’t have it in them to stick up to Mom and Dad. So it’s been three days of feeling like I’m not even really there, like they’re all talking to a cardboard cutout of me instead of the actual person. And then the whole time, they have - ” He pulled the phone out again. “Look! There’s a set of them!”

Javier leaned in and laughed out loud. There was a set of five green, silicone, abstract Christmas trees artfully arranged on a snowflake doily. “That’s so many butt plugs, man.”

“The whole time they’re ignoring the fact that I’m gay, they have five fucking butt plugs on the dining room table!” Tim pointed indignantly. “Five! Butt plugs!”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Tonight they all went out caroling with their stupid church, and I refused to go with them. So I was just sitting in the house alone, staring at the butt plug ornaments. And I thought, well, I thought.” He trailed off.

“Hey, three days of that would make me go a little crazy, too,” Javier said. “I think I get it. You were like, I can’t make them see the truth, but I can prove it to myself. You can gaslight me all you want but I can prove that these are butt plugs.”

“Yes.” Tim’s expression had changed completely. He even cuter, now that his eyes were wide and his scowl was gone. “I know that there’s something queer in this house, even if they won’t see it.”

Javier thought of his own family, laughing together as he snuck outside unnoticed. He thought of how his mother kept pulling him into the kitchen away from the men, where no one would bring it up or start a fight. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence once more, alone together.

“Did you at least wash it though?” Javier asked.

“Wash it?” Tim looked offended. “I didn’t know where that thing had been! I put a condom over it!”

That was too much for Javier, who doubled over with laughter.

After a few minutes, Tim joined in, then yelped in pain. “Don’t make me laugh!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you put a condom on the abstract Christmas tree?”

That was, of course, the moment that the X-ray technician opened the door. Ignoring their hysterics, she called out “Javier Vega?”

“Oh, hey!” He stood up too quickly, jostling his arm. He followed her in, then turned around. “Hey, uh, it was really nice to meet you, Tim.”

The tech closed the door on Tim’s reply.

-

Javier had broken his ulna pretty cleanly, which was good news for everyone. He got a cast and a couple of pills for the pain, so at least his arm felt a bit better as he sat in the waiting room for another hour. It was cold outside, after all. No reason to rush.

Tim walked through the door with a completely different posture. He spotted Javier immediately and stopped mid-stride. “Did you wait for me?”

“You know, I figured that if you were brave enough to tell a stranger the truth about what brought you into the ER, I could be brave enough to ask you to out for dinner.” He checked the time on his phone. “Or breakfast, I guess.”

“It’s Christmas. Nothing is open but Waffle House.”

Javier shrugged. “How about some hash browns?”

Tim smiled. “I’d love some hash browns.”

They walked out into the snow together. On impulse, Javier took Tim’s hand, and Tim squeezed his in return.

“So,” Javier asked. “Do you think the Waffle House puts Christmas decorations on the table?”