You'd better be good for goodness' sake

For want of a better idea, Merry trailed miserably after the scruffy, foul mouthed human, and tried to piece together the last half hour. One minute, he’d been riding comfortably in the sleigh on a recon flight. The next, he was lying dazed on the ground complete with tweeting birds circling his head. Fall from height very much implied, then, and he could only hope that the sleigh had still been at sub-magic speeds when he'd parted company from it or it could take the others all night to find him.

The human... child? Probably a child. It looked rather too small to be out alone with the night drawing in, but pots and kettles and all that jazz, and the fluency of its invective implied a certain maturity. In one sense of the word, at least. The human, anyway, had appeared at the edge of his vision, scowling at him in the dimming light, and lunged forwards with an arm outstretched before freezing. "Where'd they go?"

"Where did what go?"

And that's when Merry had realised the boy had been trying to catch the tweeting birds, which had of course disappeared as soon as he'd shaken his head. What he'd wanted with them, Merry could only speculate, but from the look on his face it was nothing good.

"Who are you?"

The human had leered at him. "Yeah, like I'm gonna tell a freak like you my name." He'd scratched at his head and pulled a face at whatever he found on his fingers. "Wasn't born yesterday."

"No, fair enough." Merry had considered offering his hand and thought better of it. "I'm Merry."

"Nathan," the small person had replied, automatically. Then, "Oh, bugger." They’d walked in silence for some time, after that slip.

"You're not real, though, right?" Nathan asked, suddenly. He scratched at his scalp again and then peered at his ragged fingernails and frowned. "Are you real? Because," he added, before Merry could reply, "I'm a bit old for the whole jingly shoes and sneaking round the house shit."

"Sneaking?" Elves didn't sneak. Elves were covert operatives in the slick, global operation that was Project Christmas, but they didn't sneak.

"Yeah, all that bullshit with cereal and... dinosaurs? Footprints in the butter? Glitter on the stairs?"

Merry’s mouth fell open. What in the sparkling snowflakes?! Any elf that left that kind of mess would be drummed out of Candytown before they could say Jingle Bells!

"Yeah, well, I dunno," Nathan muttered, suddenly sullen. Well, more sullen. "S'not like Ma does owt like that. Insta shit."

Merry looked around anxiously. That sounded unfortunate, and he couldn't see any bathroom facilities in the vicinity. Nathan was still talking, though, a little of his swagger returning.

"I mean, sittin' on a shelf's one thing but doin' mischief an’ that, if you were going for subtle..." He waved an eloquent hand up and down in front of Merry, who bristled.

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Seriously?" Nathan had given up his exploration of his nails and gone back to kicking randomly at the scrubby growth along the side of the path. "Tights?"

"What's—" Merry started, before subsiding. He'd been fully prepared to launch a defence of his stylish cap, with the bells that he'd earned fair and square, or the curled shoes which might look impractical but which held tiny heaters to warm his toes at the North Pole, or even the tunic that looked a touch too fancy for everyday wear but was actually very easy to move in and pretty forgiving of stains. The tights, though? "...You might have a point about the tights."

Nathan snort-laughed, a sound which suddenly made him sound almost as young as his years, before his sneer reasserted itself. "Yeah, well. Say you are real." Merry suppressed the very un-elvish instinct to pinch him hard just to prove how real he was. "What're you doin' here?"

That was... also a fair point. Santa, obviously, travelled to every place in the world and many had less to recommend them than others, but he couldn't help but feel he'd stumbled onto quite literally the wrong side of the tracks here, and that his companion was unlikely, by anyone's estimation, to make it onto the Nice List. As if to emphasise the point a train rushed past, inches from his shoulder, and Nathan's sneer made a reappearance as Merry flinched away from the roaring metal.

"Won't hit you here. Think I'm stupid? Workers use these paths, they ain’t gonna put ‘em where they'll get hit are they?"

Unsure who They might be in this context, and unfamiliar with railways in this particular part of the world, Merry was nonetheless pretty sure that railway workers wore hi-vis clothing rather than ratty black hoodies and jeans that had seen better days, and that the trains ran slower or not at all when they were working. And even without that surfeit of logic there was an uncomfortable ache in his chest that he recognised all too well as the signature of the Naughty List. "We shouldn't be here," he hissed, unsure why he was whispering when the train had just shattered the dusky quiet so comprehensively. "It's not safe!"

Nathan shrugged. "I ain't keeping you." He tugged the hood of his sweater over his tousled hair and quickened his pace. Merry scurried to keep up.

"Where are you going?"

"Places." He hacked and spat onto the rails.

"Shouldn't you go home?"

Nathan snorted. "Why?" He turned sharply and dodged into a gap between two bramble thickets that Merry barely recognised as a path. "It's early yet." The path, such as it was, led to a gap between two distorted railings that Nathan squeezed through with ease clearly born of long practice. Merry followed more carefully, loath to ladder his tights, something which didn't escape Nathan's notice if the smirk was anything to go by. "Why are you following me, anyway? You some kinda creeper?"

"What? No! I'm an elf!"

"Sure you are."

"I am! I fell out of the sleigh, and—"

Nathan shook his head, shouldering through the bushes towards flickering streetlights. "Gimme a break, dude. It's not even Christmas." He broke through the undergrowth onto the pavement as he said it, and Merry forbode from commenting since he felt the lurid flashing displays in windows all down the street rather made his point for him. Nathan followed his eyes and scowled. "Not for two days."

Merry huffed, his Christmas Spirit flagging in the circumstances. "Well. I'm not a creeper," he said firmly.

"Still following me, though," Nathan replied breezily, apparently unconcerned. He strode down the street and Merry followed in his wake, stopping captivated at each festive display and then scuttling to catch up as Nathan passed them without a second glance. The boy stopped when he reached a newsagent, hovering outside for a minute or two and then slipping through the door as two men left, talking loudly.

Merry hesitated for a moment before hurrying after him and then stopped and clutched at his chest as pain jolted through it. He caught his breath and looked up just in time to see Nathan slipping something into his hoodie pocket, before realising the shopkeeper was glaring at him from behind the counter.

"You alright?" the man asked, grudgingly. Merry dropped his hands from his chest and took a deep, tentative breath.

"Yes. Thank you."

The man grunted and turned his attention to Nathan, who was now sidling towards the door. "What you lookin' for?"

Nathan plastered on what he presumably hoped was a charming smile, but which looked more like a rictus of pain. "Sorry, mister, my mum sent me to get baking powder but it looks like you're all out."

The man's scowl deepened but Nathan was out of the door and round the corner before he got out from behind the counter and he huffed something uncomplimentary before glaring at Merry. "What about you? You buyin'?"

"Oh! Oh, no, I—"

"Piss off, then."

"Oh. Right. I... yes. Well, a very merry Christmas to you, young man!" he offered, and winced at the vitriol that earned him as he scampered after Nathan.

He caught up with the boy just before he could disappear round the next corner, and glared at him meaningfully. When Nathan completely ignored him and continued to eat his Mars bar, Merry cleared his throat. "You stole that."

Nathan's sneer came back in full force. "No shit, Sherlock. Man's gotta eat."

"But not by stealing."

"Look—" He cut off his reply as he rounded the corner and came face to face with a large, shambling man with a wide smile and a bobble hat. "Alright, Davy?"

The man grinned wider.

"You're out late."

Merry opened his mouth to say something about pots and kettles and then squeaked as Nathan elbowed him sharply.

"Bus."

"Bus was late?" Nathan had shifted without Merry really noticing, and now he was at Davy's side with a hand on his elbow. "It's pretty dark now, Davy."

"Dark," said Davy, somewhat mournfully. He brightened a second later, though. "Mars."

Nathan sighed, then dipped his hand back into his hoodie. "Here you go, man. Want me to open it?" Davy studied the wrapper for a long moment and then nodded, and Nathan handed over the opened Twix. "Come on. Time to go home?"

Merry brightened up at that. It wasn't particularly late, to be fair, but it was dark, and Nathan really shouldn't be out alone. Him going home was a good plan, even if it would mean Merry was left to his own devices until the sleigh came back. He followed the pair at a distance as Nathan gently turned Davy to walk back in the direction he'd come from. Five minutes later they arrived at a huge, mansion-like building and Merry felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He hadn't pegged Nathan for nobility, but anyone who lived in that kind of house must be...

The thought tailed off when the door opened and a harried looking young woman in a nurse's uniform looked out. Her face flooded with relief when she saw them, and Davy bounced on his toes before running inside with a wave over his shoulder. She turned to Nathan with a small frown, though, and he shrugged before she could speak. "Sorry. I was eating mine when he showed up. You know what he's like once it's in his head."

She nodded, and then reached out to ruffle his hair. To Merry's astonishment, Nathan didn't resist. "Alright. Thanks for bringing him back. Greg was just about to go out for him."

"No worries." Nathan hesitated, looking past her into the warm, bright building, and then squared his shoulders. "See you 'round, Alice. Merry Christmas."

"You too, Nate," she replied, but it was distracted and she was turning away before she finished speaking. The door had closed before Nathan turned back to Merry, and in the near-darkness his expression was unreadable.

"You shouldn't have given him chocolate!" Merry said, rubbing irritably at his chest. "She looked cross. Is it bad for him?"

Nathan shrugged. "Worse things in the world than a chocolate bar. When are you pissing off home?"

"Oh. Well, the sleigh should be back soon and—"

Nathan groaned. "Forget I asked. Fuckin' weirdo." The last was muttered under his breath and Merry scowled as his chest panged.

Nathan went to the park. There was no obvious reason to go to the park in the dark, and the gates were padlocked. He hopped over a fence which seemed more like a token effort than an actual barrier, and Merry rubbed at his chest and wished he would stop doing that sort of thing. Although, to be fair, he could just leave. Nathan wasn't his responsibility. Far from it – with that kind of behaviour he wouldn't be getting a visit two nights from now either. But something about the strange, angry lad was weirdly compelling, and Merry found himself following him over the fence.

He laddered his tights in the process and thought some very un-Nice List things about that.

There was a burnt out fire pit in the trees at the edge of the park. Nathan headed straight to it but his pace slowed as he neared and he stopped, looking strangely lost, once he was there.

"What now?"

Nathan turned, his expression invisible in the darkness. "Just fuck off, will you?"

"Why? What were you looking for? Were you looking for someone?"

"No." Nathan shrugged his hoodie higher. "No. Why would I? Nearly Christmas, innit? Families an' shit. No one's out here."

"You're out here," said Merry, and it was only when Nathan's silhouette went very, very still that he realised that might not have been the most tactful thing to say. Before he could apologise Nathan was moving again, back out of the park and towards a high street lit with more twinkling, festive lights.

Nathan hunched deeper into his hoodie, almost flinching away from the displays, and Merry frowned. Who doesn't like Christmas? Even if he didn't actually celebrate – and while Operation Christmas operated at a purely secular level, Merry was peripherally aware of the religious connotations of the date – surely no one could take offence at brightly lit snowflakes and shimmering bells. Could they?

An older man was hunched in the doorway of Iceland, a security guard conspicuously turning a blind eye as he huddled in the scant shelter the position afforded from the biting wind. Naughty List protocol might not apply to adults, and Merry was spared any twinging from his chest, but his brow still furrowed in distaste. There must be somewhere else the man could go. Mustn't there? A... charity or something? A church? There was a badly scrawled sign beside him protesting his hunger, and an empty paper cup beside it.

Merry's heart ached suddenly in a way that had nothing to do with protocols and was all the more painful for it.

Nathan rooted in the pocket of his jeans and produced a crumpled scrap of paper. When he slid it into the cup with a rough, "Evening, Alf," Merry's mouth fell open.

"You've got money!"

Nathan cut him a glare as the security guard looked round sharply. His face softened in something like recognition, though, and he nodded almost imperceptibly before looking back into the store.

Merry lowered his voice. "If you had money why did you steal the chocolate?"

Nathan's lip curled. "Why waste it?"

"Well, why give it away?"

"Some stuff you can't lift, ain't there? Needs it for the shelter."

"But..." Merry floundered for a second. "But what about you?" A soft tinkling of bells registered on the edge of his hearing and his heart sank. A minute ago he would have been overjoyed to hear the approaching sleigh but now? He was suddenly aware that he was teetering on the precipice of something very important. "Nathan? What about you?"

The kid shrugged. "Can't get in a shelter, can I?" He waved a hand up and down his body. "Don't take kids."

"But you have a home, right? Nathan?" The boy's expression shuttered, fairy lights playing across his gaunt cheekbones. "Nathan?"

"Yeah." He cleared his throat, his voice rougher than it had been all night. "Sure I do." He turned away. "For what it's worth."

"Nathan—"

"Your ride's here," he threw back over his shoulder, and sure enough the sleigh materialised in the street beside him. The security guard and the beg— and Alf paid it no mind, of course. Which proved it, didn't it? A child.

"Come on, Merry!" Tinkling laughter danced round the words. "We don't have all night!"

He climbed slowly onto the runner and hopped over the side, his eyes locked on a small, hunched figure making infinitesimal progress along the street. Two more steps and he stopped dead, one foot ankle deep in a freezing puddle. Merry winced at the memory of trainers that were more hole than shoe and told himself he was imagining a breath that was more of a sob. And then a much louder stream of creative cursing floated back towards the sleigh.

The elf at the reins pursed her lips, rubbing at her chest. "Well, he's one for the Naughty List, and no mistake!"

Titters rippled around the sleigh as the others brushed off the encounter and set their sights on the gingerbread houses and bustling workshops of Candytown. Merry tore his eyes from the rapidly dwindling scene below and cleared his throat. "Um. Look. About that?"

Six pairs of eyes looked at him sharply, and he swallowed.

"I think we might need to make a few... er, million more presents?"