The Naughty & the Nice - Santa Claus Gear - They know they deserve whatever your list says

It's Christmas Eve, so you go to bed good and early. A few hours later, Phoebe climbs into bed next to you, but it just makes the bed cozier and you fall right back to sleep. Gina and her friend are asleep downstairs in her room. So when you hear

*EEEeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhh*

from the wall beside your room, followed by a

*KERTHUMP* from the living room, you launch your adrenaline-blasted self out of bed and straight down the stairs, to find the strangest scene of your life on the carpet in front of the fireplace. You stand in your underwear, wielding a snow shovel you'd grabbed as you ran past the door. Below you on the floor is the crumpled, half-naked, soot-covered body of an old man with huge belly and otherwise totally jacked muscles.

"Fucked up my landing. Shit." He coughs and spews charcoal dust all over you. He doesn't look so good. You put down the shovel, not feeling too threatened anymore, and approach the distraught man.

"Literally billions of chimneys and I've never *blegh* never fucked one up like that before. NOPE." The stranger keeps coughing.

You're about to ask what happened, who he is, if you can help...any number of questions, but instead, he just blinks at you and says, "what are you Kwanzan? I'm motherfucking Santa Claus and I just broke all my *uugh* fuckin *blegh* bones in your *uuuuuurrhghhh* fuckin living room."

You don't know what to say. Santa steps in again.

"I'm fuckin' dyin' over here, and you just *bleghup* you just *blgh* nno, noo, it's fine, you can't do...you can't do anything for me now. I'm way too fucked up. Listen, just, just take care of the reindeer, the Misses, and all the *ughhhhhhh* all of the *ughhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH*

Santa Claus' superjacked muscles ripple and seize as he lurches around on your living room floor, gasping with his brutalized lungs for just one last ash-free breath.

"take care of all...the...*URGUBULGRGHL"

Thinking quickly, you grab the oxygen tank from the closet from when Phoebe's Granpappy visited in the spring and slap the mouthpiece on Santa's gasping face, cranking the valve as hard as you can.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh...yeah brother... good stuff...take care of all the ladies...the naughty...and...the... nice."

You're not about to deny the man his dying wishes, so you promise to take care of everyone.

Hearing this, he relaxes and closes his eyes. With one hand, he clamps the oxygen mask down tight on his mouth, taking a deep, deep breath. With the other, he takes his red and white Santa cap off his white-haired head, and plops it gently down on yours.

You watch this strange man's hair fade from white to brown, and his giant paunch shrink down to a reasonable beer belly while your own grows out three sizes. You feel your face wrinkling up as his cold visage grows younger. You don't have to look into a mirror to see you now have a full head of beautiful white locks. You just know it's true like you know Mrs Claus is waiting for you in the sleigh on the roof, like you know you have a lot of work to do. You settle the cap down on your head and grab your Santa sack full of toys and shit and march upstairs to put on some clothes. You're Santa Fuckin Claus, it's Christmas Eve, and you've got a list to check.

You throw on a bathrobe and toss your sack over your shoulder as you climb onto the roof to meet Mrs. Claus.