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Week's Writing Challenge: What happens in the north pole after Christmas night?

"HO BOYS! Let's bring her in slowly!" Santa's once a year run was over, all the presents were delivered to all the good children around the world in a single night. The sleigh was much lighter than starting the day, the reindeer were sweaty and panting as their long day finished. The boys maneuvered Santa's sleigh into the barn with practiced ease of a thousand years. The reindeer unbuckled themselves from the yoke on the sleigh. Their muscles rippling and quivering under their matted wet fur from exhaustion. Rudolph was the first to unbuckle and dropped his trace on the ground and quickly made his way back to the barn.

"Hey boys, let's get the yolk and trace's put up then hit the showers. Great work tonight!" The reindeer made quick work of unbuckling themselves from the traces and the elves hoisted the yolk back into its rack on the wall.

Comet dropped to the ground and bellowed in pain as one of his hamstrings cramped and locked down. The elves ran over and started unbuckling his harness. Santa grabbed the back of his harness and felt the camel pack in the center of the back of his harness. "Comet, I have told you a thousand times, you need to stay hydrated all night. You have not even drunk half your electrolytes. This happens every year."

Comet looked up in pain his eyes watering, "I know but every time I do, I feel like I need to vomit."

Santa knelt down and scooped up the reindeer up and Comet wrapped his arms around Santa's neck. "C'mon let's get you in the shower."

The rest of the herd discarded their harness and hung them up in the barn in their appropriate spots. Santa followed the rest of the boys in the locker room. As Santa entered the locker room, he tripped over one of the boy's harnesses and nearly fell on Comet. He caught his balance and looked down at the harness. He moved it around with his foot to see the name plate. He bellowed out loudly "DASHER! HARNESS NOW!"

Dasher scrambled to the door and nearly knocked both Santa and Comet over as he grabbed the harness and with a flash, he was out the door running back to the sleigh barn. He yipped "Sorry Santa" as he blew by.

Santa set Comet down on a locker room bench and then he hung up his jacket and stripped off his shirt and thermals. Santa had a big muscular pot belly, but the rest of him was built like a power lifter from hundreds of years of training. "Come Comet lets get you washed so we can get you in the hot tub to work the knots out of your legs."

Santa picked Comet back up and carried him back into the gang shower. He could hear faint heavy metal playing. The had one of his elves come into the shower and start rubbing his leg down.

"Yo Blitz did you check me on that naughty kid's roof? I totally shit down his chimney!"

Blitzen was chuckling at Dasher; "Dash I totally yeeted my piss all over Big Ben as we flew over."

Cupid has his back to the herd in the shower in the corner. He was clearly over cleaning himself under the hot water spray. Santa looked up and barked at him; "CUPID! NOT in here! What you do in your room is your business. You're plugging the drains up, knock it off!"

All the boys turned to look at Santa as he barked again, "Where's Rudolph?!"

Vixen cautiously piped up with his ears folded back, "He's probably in his room Sir."

Prancer stepped up beside Vixen, "He doesn't even want to be called Rudolph anymore. He wants to be called Red."

Santa grumbled to himself. "I'll go find him. Boys to the hot tub now. Carry Comet." Santa quickly made his way out of the gang shower and down the hall. He could hear Dasher and Prancer mocking him as he left.

"Carry Comet, he is a broken reindeer huck him into the tub Nick says!" All the boys started bantering and laughing among themselves.

As Santa made his way down the hall to the boys' individual rooms the heavy metal music started getting louder and louder until he got to Rudolph's room. Santa knocked on the door to no answer. He knocked again then slowly opened the door. Rudolph's room was destroyed. Bed overturned holes ripped into the mattress; his lamp was smashed in the corner. Pieces of what looked like a wooden chair were spread around the room. Rudolph was panting with his head down in the center of the room limply holding the remote to his stereo.

Santa bellowed over the noise of the music. "...IT OFF".

Rudolph killed the power and dropped the remote on the ground with out moving his arm. He was still panting as he was standing there in his full leathers and ears and shoulders drooped and wide eyed.

Santa said quietly "Rudolph.." He moved in closer and started unbuckling his leathers.

"Hey, let's get you out of these. C'mon. It'll be alright." Rudolph started shaking and sobbing as Santa stripped his leathers off and discarded them onto the floor.

Rudolph whispered between sobs, "It's never been alright." his head hung lower as he looked at the floor, tears dripping around his hooves.

Santa wrapped his big arms around the lithe muscular deer and tilted his head up to look him I the eye. "I'm here for you. I always will be."

Rudolph started sobbing more and with a broken voice He whispered softly "I see shit. Every. Time." Rudolph started shaking in Santa's arms and whispered again.

"You don't know. You don't know what it means to bend space time." Rudolph started sobbing and heaving again, his eyes wild with fight.

Santa pulled the reindeers head against his brawny chest and started caressing his back slowly. "Shhh.. it'll be ok. Your job's done. It'll be ok."