Santa's Helper Revisited by FOXX [This story was originally written in 1987, and is the follow up to the Santa's Helper story.] 'Twas the night before the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring... except me, that is. Laying in bed, tossing and turning, it felt like I was never going to get to sleep. And there was only one reason. The same reason that had kept me sleepless around this time of year for the past three years! Sean Claus, Santa's nephew! It felt like I was going bonkers! I could never tell anybody what happened! They'd think I was crazy, anyway. I would too, but all I have to do is look at the ID bracelet around my wrist that he left for me in that little green box under the Christmas Tree four years ago. It had his first name, Sean, inscribed on it. I haven't taken it off since... He never came back, although I stayed awake every Christmas Eve waiting for him. I even went so far as to send him a letter, a few months ago, addressed to Sean Claus, c/o Santa Claus, North Pole. But he hadn't answered. I bet some postal worker got a real laugh out of that one... Am I going to stay up again this year? Is he going to come back? I couldn't get him out of my mind as I continued to toss and turn in bed. I think I had finally started to drift off to sleep when I awakened all of a sudden, not knowing why. Darn, I said to myself, I was almost asleep! Then I heard it. Someone was knocking on my door. That's why I was awake! I squinted at the clock. 1:30! Who would knock at my door so late? I heard it again. He's pounding now, it must be important. I grabbed my robe as I got out of bed, and headed out the bedroom and down the hall to the front door. Angrily, I opened the door and was ready to yell at whoever had woke me up, but instead, my jaw just dropped and I couldn't say a word. It was him! "I didn't know what to do... You don't have a chimney any more!" he said, then he smiled that electric smile and my knees got so weak I felt like I was going to collapse. He came in and we hugged for about two or three days. Well, I guess it just felt like three days. We finally broke the embrace, and he took off his winter coat as we went over to the coach to talk. "Wait a minute!" I realized all of a sudden. "You're early! Christmas Eve's tomorrow!" "I know," he said, his face getting serious. "Dave, we have a problem. You're practically the only person who knows about me, so you were the only person I could think of to help..." "My god, there's nothing wrong with Santa, is there?" I said. "Oh no, it's nothing like that," he said. I relaxed a bit. "We need you to come up to the North Pole. It's urgent! Only, it's kind of like against tradition to ask an outsider to work for us, especially at this time of year, so that's why I feel a little funny about asking you, but it's really important!" "Well Gee," I said, "why do you need ME?" "You're into computers, right?" "Well, you should know! Santa got me a really great new one last year! What does that have to do with this?" "Well," Sean went on to explain, "you see we've been computerized up at the North Pole for a couple of years, now. The elves really took to it. But this morning, all of a sudden, we can't access the Christmas Present List Database and nobody can figure out what's wrong! If you can't come with me to the North Pole and fix it, none of the kids will get any presents this year!" "But what about your back-up?" "Back-up?" Sean replied with an empty look on his face. Never mind... "What if I can't fix it?" "I believe you can! You HAVE to!" "OK, I'll be packed in 15 minutes!" "No, we don't have time! Throw some clothes on, grab a heavy coat, and let's go!" Sean said as he started to get up and walk me to the bedroom. He watched as started to pull on my 501's. My cock got rock hard. He came over and stroked it through my jeans. "Mmmmm," he said, "but there 'll be plenty of time for that later... We really gotta go!" I threw on a shirt, jumped into my boots, grabbed my brief case/tool kit and we headed for the door. I looked around as I was locking my front door but couldn't see the sleigh anywhere. "Where's the reindeer, Sean?" I asked. "What? OH! Sorry..." and he pointed to the street where a cab was waiting. "That magic only works on Christmas Eve. We have to do this the regular way!" And so we were off in the taxi. "Back to LAX," Sean told the cab driver. We were both pretty quiet all the way to the airport. I guess I was a little disappointed we weren't going on the sleigh. But as Sean and I were walking through the Airport, my feelings started to pick up. I was going to be up at the North Pole with Sean! A quick check of the flight status board showed we only had a few minutes and we had to run to make the plane. We almost missed it! I think I fell asleep on the flight up to Nome. All I remember was my head leaning on Sean's strong shoulder. Then it was a small propeller plane from there to the North Pole. It was snowing and I didn't think they flew in weather like that, but Sean whispered to me not to worry, that the magic wouldn't let us down... Mrs. Claus and a few elves met us at the North Pole airport. We hurried up to Santa's workshop in their Jeep Cherokee. The place was a mad-house, bustling with activity. Many more elves came over to greet us. "Where's Santa?" I asked. "He's inside trying to redo the lists from memory," Mrs. Claus said, and one of the elves butted in, "But even he doesn't think he can do it in time!" We went in and Santa looked really worried, but came over to me and thanked me for coming all the way up to help. Then we all went into Santa's office and looked at the computer. It was an 386 compatible with an 80 meg hard drive and a VGA monitor. His database program was intact, but the data file was just gone. Norton Utilities' Quick Unerase didn't work, but with closer examination with Norton Utilities' main program, I found that the data was still on the disk, and with Santa and the head elf's help, we slowly but surely reconstructed the data file. It took hours but by morning it was all done and working. The last thing I remember was backing it up a second time onto floppies... I woke up under a heavy comforter with Sean's arms wrapped tightly around me. I could see out a big picture window the workshop over on the other side of the yard. All was quiet. "Where is everybody?" I asked. "All is done!" the hunk in bed next to me said. "You slept all day! It's Christmas Eve and Santa's out on his rounds! And now it's just you and me... " I brought my head back down next to his chest and snuggled closer. "Santa said you really deserve something special this year for Christmas. Do you have anything in mind?" "Oh, I don't know," I kidded back, and we both dove under the covers...