They were everywhere. Bond noticed them only because he'd used them in the past. Slip a bit of local currency into a dry, dirty hand, and all sorts of information could come to light. And he'd been one of them, at least on the surface, because rags and filthy wigs could hide weapons and sharp eyes. Urban camouflage at its finest.

There were, he had learned, all sorts. The addicts. The prostitutes. The ones still trapped in nightmares of war or trauma. The young, the old, the ones who were in-between. The ones who were simply down on their luck.

But this one caught his eye and held it, because this one was... well, obviously one of the crazy ones, probably off his meds. Or on other chemicals, Bond thought, because this one was standing out in the late night snow wearing what had once been a gorgeous dinner suit, complete with a formal top hat — and no shirt underneath. Bond might have thought him a prostitute or stripper, in fact, but he wasn't wearing a bow tie, and sex workers always wore bow ties for that sort of costume, as if it were a law.

The thought made Bond laugh to himself, and a rare pang of pity went through him. Some might have said it was the spirit of Christmas that moved him to dig in a pocket and find a tenner, but Christmas meant nothing to James Bond. In fact, the closest he got to Christmas spirit was usually volunteering to take a shift on the Critical Comms desk — which was where he'd been tonight, giving Violet a chance for some family time with her husband and two kids. The closest thing Bond had to family was Alec, and his pyro tendencies usually made Christmas a little too exciting.

He diverted his steps to pass close to the kid. Skinny thing, really. Couldn't be more than sixteen or eighteen, he thought at first, though he revised that estimate up as the kid passed close to a tree that had been enthusiastically strangled by strands of white fairy lights. The light picked out eyeglasses and high cheekbones and a gorgeously sculpted face, jaw shadowed by dark stubble. Maybe twenty-five, Bond thought, which brought the youth perilously close to not-inappropriately-young-after-all territory.

And hell, he had to be strung out on something. The shirtless dinner suit wouldn't have kept him warm on a cool spring evening, much less the middle of a December snowstorm. No gloves, hands not in pockets... And he was muttering to himself in a way that would have once alarmed Bond, making him think of earwigs and secure comms, but now just meant Bluetooth earpieces and pocketed mobile phones. These days, everyone had a bloody mobile.

"... a reindeer, not a bloody golden retriever. Reindeers don't play fetch — and now I'm late," the kid was complaining as he paced, staring down at the prints his scuffed, muddy dress shoes left in the slush.

So, not a mobile, Bond guessed. Reindeers playing fetch was definitely off-his-meds territory. Bond nearly changed his mind about the tenner — no sense in funding a drugs habit — but he was within arm's reach now, and he figured what the hell? He slowed his steps enough to tuck the tenner into the kid's jacket pocket.

"No, I — What?" The kid's head snapped up, jostling his top hat, and Bond saw a little square of translucent tinsel sellotaped to the brim of his hat, hanging down in front of his eye. Absurdly, it reminded him of that Google Glass headset he'd been seeing on the news lately.

Beyond the tinsel, Bond noticed absolutely captivating hazel eyes.

"I — Oh," the kid said, and those eyes went wide, locked onto Bond's. "You're early. Shit. No, not you," he added in exasperation.

Another stab of pity went through Bond. The kid's skin was pale, not reddened and chapped from the freezing night. His body temperature was probably dropping critically. Hell, he'd probably stripped off his shirt due to paradoxical undressing, as it was colloquially called. A high percentage of hypothermia victims stripped off their clothes, for unknown reasons, rather than staying bundled up for warmth.

If Bond didn't do something, this gorgeous, fragile young man would end up dead.

"Come with me," he said, reaching out slowly, so he didn't spook the kid. Dressed (or undressed) as he was, he'd never be allowed near the hotel restaurants, but Bond could at least get him inside and call someone to pick him up. If nothing else, spending the night in a cell for a drugs arrest would keep him alive.

"That would make this easier." The kid's eyes were surprisingly sharp and aware, all things considered. He didn't flinch when Bond put a hand on his elbow and started guiding him towards the hotel. "I'm terribly sorry. You'd imagine that our transport division would actually not lose our reindeer, especially not on a night like tonight, but — well, obviously —"

"What would make what easier?" Bond interrupted, finally catching up with the rapid-fire words. A prickle of alarm went through him, but it was habit, not actual instinct. If this kid was an assassin, Bond would eat his bloody Walther and retire.

"You. You're James Bond, aren't you?"

Assassin, Bond thought, disappointed. His well-trained mind supplied him with a dozen options, all of which would end with the kid dead at his feet or in MI6 custody.

But it was nearly midnight, and Bond was tired. He wanted a drink and a late dinner and his warm bed — possibly with this slender young assassin. Bond had nothing against sleeping with people who wanted him dead. Hell, his sex life would be ninety per cent more boring if he restricted his activities only to allies or friends.

So he just sighed and said, "Yes," and kept walking for the hotel. If they were going to kill each other, so be it. He'd just prefer to have their fight somewhere warm.

For an assassin, the kid was surprisingly tractable. He accompanied Bond through the hotel, into the lift, and down the hall without another word, and he never tried to pull away from Bond's guiding hand. The only suspicious thing he did do, in fact, was to flip the tinsel up onto the brim of his hat, rather than plucking it off to discard in a rubbish bin.

Bond let go only when they reached the door to his suite. He swiped his keycard and pushed the door open, holding it for his 'guest' to enter first. The view from the back was more than a little appealing, even if the assassin's disguise was filthy. Mucky snow had soaked his trousers to mid-shin, and he must have spent time rolling around with a dog or something, because shed fur covered every inch of the once-black fabric. Bond had the irrational urge to fetch a lint brush.

Because it was late, Bond cut right to the chase: "What would —"

"You have no —" the kid said at the same moment.

Bond hesitated. The kid turned. Their eyes met.

"Sorry," Bond said courteously, thinking this assassin was stunning. He'd need to find out who'd hired him and send a thank you card. "Please, continue."

That got him a radiant smile with an enticing hint of mischief. "You have no holiday decorations. Not even one of those little tabletop trees."

Whatever Bond had expected to hear, that wasn't it. "I don't do Christmas," he said bluntly.

The kid blinked. Apparently, that wasn't what he'd expected to hear in return.

Thinking this was a bit surreal, Bond got back on track. "What would you like first? A drink, a shag, or for us to try to kill one another?"

"I'm — I'm sorry, what?"

Bond sighed and took off his overcoat. He hung it by the door and unbuttoned his suit jacket so he could get at his Walther more quickly. "Scotch all right?"

"I... suppose? I've never indulged. Well, other than some grotesque peppermint concoction. I was sick for weeks. Allergies, I suspect."

Maybe this wasn't an assassin? Wondering how the hell an ordinary homeless junkie might have got his name, Bond went to the bar. He definitely needed that scotch now. "There's no peppermint in it, I assure you," he said, pouring two glasses. When he turned back, he saw the kid had wandered to the little dining table by the window. "Here — What's your name?"

"Oh, sorry." The kid turned back, smile lighting up his eyes once more, and started walking towards Bond. One long-fingered hand dipped beneath the lapel of the dinner suit, heading either towards an inside pocket or a concealed holster. Light flickered at the kid's back — light not from the street but from the table.

Fire, Bond thought, and dropped both glasses. A heartbeat later, the Walther was in his hand, trigger cool beneath his finger. The world slowed as adrenaline sang through Bond's veins.

The kid froze in mid-step. "That's not a toy," he said, and now his hand was moving out.

"Don't," Bond warned, but the kid was still moving. Bond nearly pulled the trigger, but he realised that the kid wasn't going for a weapon. Instead, he was holding a piece of paper.

Bright green paper. A business card. A gaudy, bright green business card.

"This will perhaps explain," the perhaps-not-an-assassin-after-all said, and extended the card to Bond.

If this was an assassination attempt, Bond thought distantly, it was the strangest he'd ever seen, and this after a long career punctuated by strange killings.

He holstered the Walther and took the business card.

Q, Holiday Specialist
Enterprise Logistics and Fabrication Division
Santa's Workshop, North Pole

Bond read it three times, looking for hidden meanings, for codes, for the electronic circuits that were causing the gilded letters to twinkle with multi-coloured sparkles.

Then he turned, set the business card on the bar, and picked up two fresh glasses. Now he really needed that drink.

The lights on the table came from a tiny fibre-optic tree, no more than a foot high. That would have been fine, except that the tree wasn't plugged in, nor was there anywhere to conceal a battery. Bond had checked.

Nor was there any way that Q — he insisted that was his name — could have smuggled the tree in. The dinner suit hugged his slim, muscular body to the point where he could barely have concealed a razor knife much less a miniature Christmas tree.

And the tree was stubbornly still there, even after Bond finished not one but two drinks in hopes that this was some sort of sobriety-based hallucination. Perhaps he'd finally cracked under the strain of his job. After years of paying no attention to Christmas at all, he'd chosen tonight as a dramatic way to announce that he'd gone mad at last.

"This is very good," Q said as he finished the last sip of scotch. He was still on his first glass.

"It is," Bond agreed, picking up the bottle to pour them both refills. The multi-coloured lights glittered on the bottle, turning the amber liquid strange shades. No, not strange. Pretty. If he actually was going mad, there was no reason not to indulge. "I'll admit, I've outdone myself."

Q picked up his glass and took another tiny sip. "Pardon?"

"You. You're bloody gorgeous, you know."

Outside in the freezing cold, Q's skin had been pale and bloodless. Now, he flushed a gorgeous shade of pink. When he looked down modestly, Bond found himself staring at long, dark eyelashes. "So it's not me."

"I'd very much like it to be you," Bond riposted, though even he had to admit that made no sense. Two drinks plus insanity had apparently broken his usually-quick wit.

Q gave him a curious look. "Then you don't like me?"

"What?"

"Well, if it is me, I can get someone else assigned to you."

"Assigned?" Was he an assassin, hallucination, or prostitute? "Did Alec send you?"

"Who's Alec?"

"Never mind. Assigned to me for what?"

"Christmas, of course." Q sighed and gestured over at the bar, where his business card still rested. "As your holiday specialist."

"Is someone —" Bond shook his head, thinking this was the most surreal conversation he'd ever had. "Did someone make you come here?"

"You did. Or, well, you've been ignoring me all these years, so I had to find out why."

"I've never seen you before." Bond found himself reaching out to touch Q's face, needing to assure himself that this was either real or a convincingly tactile hallucination. Q's skin was warm, and he turned into Bond's hand like a cat demanding to be stroked. Happily obliging, Bond said, "If I had, I would most definitely remember."

"You've ignored —" Q cut off with a stuttered breath as Bond's fingers reached the corner of his mouth. "Every Christmas..." He fell quiet, allowing Bond to tip his chin up. His throat was soft, with silky skin and only the least hint of roughness from stubble. "That's... distracting."

Mad or not, at least Bond remembered basic seduction. He slid his hand back over Q's racing pulse and inched closer. "You're distracting," he said softly as he combed his fingers through the long, soft hair at Q's nape.

Q's whole body shuddered. "Christmas — it's —"

"Tonight," Bond said helpfully, eyes fixed on dark, beautifully curved lips. He leaned in for a soft kiss, and Q made a tiny sound. "Care to be my Christmas present?"

"That's —" Q gasped as his lips moved against Bond's. His eyes had gone very wide and dark behind his glasses. "That's very..."

"Hm?" Bond encouraged, brushing Q's lower lip with his tongue. Another little sound, a soft whimper that went straight through Bond. If this was madness, Bond was quite happy to never be sane again.

"Yes," Q whispered.

"If I'd known that was what you wanted, we could have been doing this for years," Q purred against Bond's chest. He was wrapped around Bond's body like an octopus, still a bit out of breath but bonelessly sated. Bond couldn't stop petting him.

"If you'd tell me who you actually are, we could be doing this for years more," Bond offered, pulling Q even closer.

Q lifted his head, frowning at Bond. "You know who I am."

"You," Bond said, twisting onto his side so he could kiss Q's pouting lips, "are a beautiful mystery."

Q sighed, though he returned the kiss, leg rubbing against Bond's, fingers pressing against Bond's back. Only when Bond pulled away did Q say, "I showed you my card."

"It's very eccentric. Creative."

"Accurate." Q inched back so he could better meet Bond's eyes. "I'm Q, your personal holiday specialist, ELF Division."

"ELF — Christmas elf?"

Q nodded.

Irritation scorched away the pleasant haze. Alec. This had to be Alec's fault. His idea of a bloody holiday joke or something.

"You're angry." Q rolled out of Bond's arms and fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table. "Shit. I've done it again, haven't I?"

"What?" The self-recrimination in Q's voice made Bond scramble after him. He caught Q around the waist before he could leave the bed. "Done what?"

Q's body had gone tense, shoulders hunched. "Ruined another Christmas. Damn! What am I doing wrong?"

Bond sighed and sat up without releasing his hold. "You've done nothing wrong. I don't —" He cut off, thinking it more than a little crass to say that he had nothing against prostitutes. He pressed an affectionate kiss to Q's shoulder. Even if Q had been hired for tonight, he seemed to be taking his perceived failure personally. "You were wonderful, Q."

"But it wasn't a special Christmas Eve," Q complained stubbornly.

"It was."

"Oh, don't lie to me, James. I'm a specialist, not Tier 1 Holiday Help Desk. Almost twenty years ago, you were assigned to me as one of our problem cases, and I've —"

"What?"

Q turned, breaking Bond's hold, and put on his glasses. Even naked, hair mussed from sex, he managed to look stern. "You," he said bluntly, "hate Christmas."

"I —" Bond snapped his mouth shut.

Q arched a brow expectantly.

Unaccountably guilty, Bond said, "I don't do Christmas. But I don't —"

"No lies," Q warned.

Bond huffed out a breath and looked away, wondering how in hell he'd got himself into this situation. "I dislike Christmas," he admitted grudgingly.

"Precisely. And you still dislike it, even after that."

"'That', as you put it, was sex. Not Christmas."

Q huffed. "It was Christmas sex."

Bond couldn't help the choked laugh that escaped. "And it was brilliant Christmas sex," he admitted, grinning at the adorably indignant look on Q's face.

"Don't patronise me! You're supposed to enjoy Christmas. It's my job to help."

"You did." It was Bond's turn to huff in frustration. He sat up next to Q and said, "You were fantastic, Q. What more do you want?"

"A little belief, for a start!" With a surge of energy he shouldn't have been able to manage — not after such athletic sex, anyway — Q pushed up off the bed and paced away. He turned back, reaching out a hand —

And offered Bond a plate of biscuits. Cheerfully iced holiday biscuits, to be precise.

Bond stared at them. Gingerbread men and frosted Christmas trees and candy canes of bright red and white sprinkles.

"Don't like biscuits?" Q tossed the plate on the bed, and biscuits bounced out onto the sheets. He gave an odd little twist of his fingers, producing a clear glass mug of hot cocoa, complete with marshmallows and a festive dusting of red sprinkles.

Automatically, Bond took the hot cocoa before Q could throw that as well. "Thank you," he said, thinking he much preferred the madness that had them in bed together.

Q's eyes narrowed. "Still not enough," he muttered, and snapped his fingers.

The air filled with the scent of fresh pine as Q sidestepped the Christmas tree — the full-sized, living Christmas tree, covered with ornaments and tinsel and twinkling lights — that could not possibly be there.

Either Bond was insane or this was all real.

Bond looked from the tree to Q and back.

"Christmas elf," he finally said.

"Your bloody Christmas elf," Q said dryly.

Bond slowly nodded. "Enterprise Logistics and Fabrication Division?"

"Wide-scale solutions for gift optimisation and delivery."

"My Christmas elf." Bond took a sip of the hot cocoa. "Real cocoa?"

Q sniffed. "As if I'd use that horrid stuff in packets?"

Slowly, Bond smiled. "Put the tree away and come back to bed."

As dawn rose, painting the window a cool, steely grey, Bond asked, "Do you do any other holidays?"

"No. But I have three hundred sixty-three days off a year," Q murmured, lifting his head enough to meet Bond's eyes. "Three sixty-four on leap years."

Bond grinned. "In that case, I suppose I can put up with you having to work on Christmas. Care to do Times Square for New Year's Eve?"

"I've never been. What's it like?"

"Crowded. Loud."

Q bent his head to press a kiss to Bond's chest. "How about we just watch it on telly from a hotel room instead?"

"Agreed."