~ Birthday Surprises ~
By CJ Moliere
This one shot is another part of the Raphael Sbarge birthday tribute in a FB group I own and admin. There is also a Valentine's Day companion piece Little Things and my co-author Snapegirlkmf has written Unwrapped for the Rumbelle fans for their anniversary. The next full length Unexpected book, A World of the Unexpected will bring the whole crew back this summer!
For the Hoppers and their close circle of friends, birthdays were as much of a cause for celebrations as Christmas, Easter, New Years and Valentine's Day and there was always a surprise in store for someone's special day. While the spouses always planned something romantic, Emma, Regina, Robin and Jeff supplied the laughs with their gag gifts. Archie's birthday was the first one celebrated after the curse was broken on the town so he was the first victim of the group's strange sense of humor. They brought his gift in a box large enough to fit a TV but that wasn't what he found inside. No, inside the box was a collection of gear labeling him an old fart though he wasn't even fifty yet….at least not now that his aging process had been restarted and thanks to the goddess Ninja he now had the lifespan of a sorcerer.
"Oh come on!" he protested, holding up the card that had Happy Birthday You Old Fart written on it and glowered at his giggling brother-in-law. "Hah! You're older than me! You should be getting this!"
"But I didn't, did I dearie?" Rumple teased.
There were plenty of items in the box reminding him he wasn't a young man anymore. Slippers, pants an apron and a parking sign all labeled him an old fart. Still, he had a much better life in his late forties than he did in his twenties. Gone were the days of traveling across the realms in a small wagon conning people out of their hard earned money with the poor excuses he had for parents. Now he was a successful therapist with a wife and an adopted daughter he loved more than anything and soon Marie would give birth to their child.
"We're making it a tradition: every year for your birthday or Christmas, you get gag gifts from all of us…and Archie, you're the first," Emma announced.
"Oh I feel so honored!" he groaned, dreading what the following year's gag would be.
"You have to admit it, baby…it was funny." Marie said.
"The Christmas gifts ought to be…interesting," mused Rumple.
"God help us all!" Archie muttered.
His best birthday surprise that year came four days later when they brought their son, John Wayne Hopper into the world.
The second year their gag gift was the cake. Rumple wanted to make the cake himself but Jeff asked him not to, saying that their group would buy it. The poor sorcerer had made the mistake of forgetting that it was a bad idea to leave that task up to a group of practical jokers. It was not one he would make again.
Everyone was gathered at the Hoppers' Dutch Colonial for Archie's birthday and he'd just finished unwrapping his gifts, shocked when all he got from the 'Mad Crew' as he now called the Hoods and the Hatters, was a set of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books.
Gisella looked at them and shook her head. "Daddy isn't in the bathroom that long!"
"No but I've heard these books have some interesting topics in them," her father chuckled.
"That was one of our gifts…the other one is the cake. " Robin snickered.
"Oh, what did you do, get me one the looks like a graveyard?" Archie inquired.
"Nah." They were going to ambush Rumple with that one on his birthday if they could get away with it without him hexing them.
"We want some cake an ice cream!" Adriana cried, indicating herself, the Happy Army and the other children. "Papa, where's cake?"
Rumple scowled at the group. "You told me you were handling the cake this year. Don't tell me you forgot!"
"Ummm….umm…" Emma spread her hands helplessly. "We got it but…."
"Then bring it out!"
"Rumple, maybe we should wait til later," Regina suggested.
"WANT CAKE!" Jonny yelled from his father's arms.
"Quit stalling and bring it out or these wee imps are gonna be havin' a fit!" Rumple snapped.
"We really should wait…" Jeff stammered.
"Now, Hatter or Belle and I are getting the brooms!" Marie threatened.
"Jeff for the love of the gods go get the damn cake because you DO NOT want that broom at your ass!" David cried.
"Says the man who needed to be beaten with it three times to learn his lessons!" teased Snow. He glared at her.
"Ummm…"
"Hatter you have til the count of three to get the cake in here or your ass will be blistered. One!" Belle yelled.
The portal jumper got out of his chair and raced into the kitchen along with his co-conspirators. "We're going to get beaten anyway if we bring it out with the kids in the room!" he cried. "Regina…Emma…one of you change it!"
"We can't! It has a damned spell on it that prevents it from being altered. I could just kill that damned witch Elvira! I'm dropping a house on her if we get beaten!" Elvira was the former wicked witch of the East, now a baker with a sense of humor as twisted as those of her customers.
"TWO!" Marie hollered from the family room.
Emma picked up the cake and the group marched off to their impending doom.
"You're lucky, " Marie growled. She and Belle were waiting for them with the dreaded Bordreaux brooms in their hands. Bae and his teenage friends looked disappointed. They always enjoyed seeing someone get a beat down with the brooms or Rumple's cane.
They set the cake down in from of Archie and backed away. He lifted the lid off the box and gasped in shock. "Jeff!" he cried.
"Oh my God! Daddy they got you a BUTT cake!" Gisella exclaimed.
"I told you we should've waited!" Regina protested.
"Yes, you should have…Johnny don't touch that!" Archie grabbed his son's hands as Jonny reached into the box and tried to grab at the cake.
"Want cake!" he wailed.
"You'll get some cake in a bit. "Henry, Gisella, would you and Grace please help Mary take the kids into the other room?" Archie asked the two eldest Hatter children and his daughter.
"Yeah. C'mon Ellie," Henry picked up one of his sisters while Grace picked up Maggie. Gisella held Jonny while Mary picked up Neal and carried them into the playroom.
Once the children were out of earshot, Archie frowned at his friends. "A butt cake! With kids around!"
"We were planning on giving it to you after we put them down for their nap but some people, namely your wife and in-laws, made us bring the damn thing out!" Robin argued.
"We're lucky it wasn't one of the other parts of the anatomy or we would've scarred our children for life!" Marie cried. "And I am not serving my children a piece of ass so I suggest you whip up another cake and be quick about it before we have a riot on our hands!"
Emma and Regina, with Rumple's help, created a second cake that they gave their children while they ate the joke one later on, admitting that it was hilarious.
The third year they celebrated his birthday at Belle Reve. Since Valentine's Day was two days later all the couples wanted to spend some time back in their old world. The enchanted objects loved a party and had their own ways of making the guest of honor feel special.
He was seated at the head of the dining room table, Rumple's usual place. Gabby lay under his chair, the little hassock puppy content having Archie's feet propped up on his back while he "talked" with Pongo and Major. Tobias and Wesley, the salt and pepper shakers insisted on being near him while he unwrapped his gifts, as excited as they would have been for their own birthdays were they still children.
When it came time for the 'Mad Crew' to present their gift, Archie frowned at them. "Do we need to send the kids away first? I don't want another incident like last year!"
"The butt cake!" his son giggled.
"No, it's kid friendly this time." Emma assured him.
He unwrapped it to find a Mason jar with a label on it that read: The Jar Of Nothing and underneath it was the following message. Did you say nothing when you were asked what you wanted for your birthday? Well this time someone heard you, searched high and low and found the perfect gift!
The former cricket burst into laughter. "Where did you get the idea for this?"
"Pinintrest," Regina replied.
Jonny shook his head. "Daddy that sucks…there's nothin in there!"
"It's a joke Jonny. There isn't supposed to be," Gisella explained.
"Why you pullin a joke?" Wesley asked the group.
"We do it to everybody."
"I want a jar!"
"Me too!" piped up Tobias.
"And just what do you think you'll do with jars? You're shakers," Cogsworth demanded imperiously.
"Lotsa stuff!"
"Yeah!"
"We could put candy in them," Archie suggested.
"But, lads that doesn't mean you can go hog wild and eat them all at one time," Rumple said firmly.
"We won't," they promised.
Archie unwrapped his second gift. Unfortunately he'd taken a sip of wine while doing so and spit it out…all over his wife!
"Archibald Hopper! Do you want a date with the couch tonight?"
"Sorry darling," he said sheepishly as he looked at the oddest gift basket that included an enema kit, a tube of Preparation H, Polygrip, Bayer aspirin, vitamins, Band aids, Pepto Bismol and a set of teeth.
"You guys…" He was laughing so hard he was in tears.
"What is all the stuff, Unca Archie?" Neal asked.
"Some of it's for your butt," answered his niece Maggie Hatter. "Daddy hadta use some once cause he couldn't potty."
Archie looked over at Jeff who wanted to crawl in a hole. "You sure you don't need this?" he asked, holding up the enema.
"You're real funny Hopper!" Jeff grumbled.
Bae and his Scorpion friends nearly fell out of their chairs laughing as did the rest of the adults.
"He needed an enema a few times for the things he's pulled," chuckled Rumple.
"You wait Gold. We've got a damned good payback in store for you on your birthday!" taunted Jeff.
"Bring it on, dearies!" he challenged.
Rumple was hosting Archie's birthday party at the Victorian this year but Marie and the kids had their own plans for their favorite person before the big party later on that evening. For her part Marie decided to let her husband sleep in and cook breakfast herself. She'd improved her culinary skills under her husband's tutelage unlike her sister who still couldn't cook to save her life and made stoves fly away in terror. She wasn't as good a cook as Archie but at least their daughter wasn't declaring her efforts roadkill anymore.
She was in her fourth month of pregnancy and finding items in her husband's kitchen required some lifting and stretching so she enlisted the help of her childrens' Happy Army bears and the ones named after couple, all gifts from her niece Adriana. Majors Archie and Marie had been living with the Golds and only popped in when they were needed but now that there were going to be more children in the house, the bears were sent to live with the Hoppers full time.
Majors Duke and Tom helped Marie in the kitchen while Majors Archie and Marie decorated the living room. Jonny and Gisella raced upstairs to wake their father up with Pongo and Perdy trailing after them. Jonny's garter snake Zach was draped over his shoulders and his cricket Mickey was sitting on his hat.
Normally Archie was the early riser in the household, even waking up before his alarm clock but Marie turned them alarm off before he went to sleep and the Couvade Syndrome made him more tired than before. Children and pets crept into the room. Gisella stood beside her father's side of the bed while Jonny crawled under the covers on his mother's side.
"Rise and shine Daddy it's your birthday!" Gisella whispered in his ear as he did on her birthday.
"Good morning Princess," he said sleepily.
"Mornin' Daddy! Happy birthday!" Jonny called out, poking his head out from under the nest of covers.
His father laughed and gave both of his children a hug. "Mornin' pardner. Where's Mommy?"
"Cookin with Duke an Tom."
Archie trusted Tom in his kitchen but not Duke. That bear could be a menace when he wanted to be and his antics last Christmas were evidence of it. He and some of the other bears had gotten drunk at the Rabbit Hole when Bae left them there alone and he went home and vomited all over the carpet and he and Archie fell down the steps twice, doing an impromptu reenactment of Archie's favorite movie McLintock.
Zach slithered off his master's shoulders and onto Archie's arm, hissing a greeting.
"Zach says Happy Birthday Daddy," his son translated. Mickey hopped off Jonny's hat and onto Archie's shoulder, chirping at the former cricket. He smiled. Listening to crickets was a favorite past time of his before he became one and though his wife didn't like insects, she was unable to say no to her husband and son when they wanted Mickey to live with them.
"Thank you Mickey."
The cricket flew off in fear when Pongo and Perdy jumped on the bed and started licking Archie's face.
"Awww guys you scared Mickey!" Jonny complained.
"Okay…okay! Thank you!" Archie laughed as the Dalmatians gave him their own birthday greetings.
The dogs barked several times. "They said you're not stayin in bed all day Daddy. You gotta get up an open your gifts," Jonny informed him.
"Let me get a shower first and then I'll be down." Archie got out of bed and went into the bathroom to shower, the kids and dogs downstairs to watch a cartoon. Gisella took the day off school to be with her father on his special day as she did every year. Thankfully no one minded it, knowing how much the girl loved the man who was more of a father to her than the one who sired her, Gaston Devereaux.
Three of the family's bears sat in the living room with the kids while Major Marie helped her human counterpart set the table. "Can you see if Archie is awake yet?" Marie asked the bear. "I told the kids to get him up…"
"Not a problem. I'll fetch your mate for you."
The bear looked in the bedroom but didn't see him in bed. She walked down the hall to the bathroom and tried the door, finding it unlocked. She opened it and gasped in shock and so did Archie since he'd just gotten out of the shower and the wrong Marie was getting a sight she shouldn't have.
"Oh!" the bear cried and covered her eyes while a red faced Archie grabbed a towel to cover himself. "I'll ahhh…go tell Marie you're awake!" She scurried off.
"Well…that was awkward…" Archie mumbled. Now he was certain he'd scarred the bear for life.
Marie noticed that the bear was slightly flushed when she returned to the kitchen. "Are you okay? You look like you're about to faint."
"Don't kick me out of the house...it was an accident. I didn't know he was in there..." the bear pleaded.
"Calm down honey and tell me what happened. Is Archie okay."
"I ahhh...was looking for him and the bathroom door was unlocked so I went in...and he didn't have his fur on!" the bear cried.
"Didn't have...oh!" Marie started laughing, realizing what she meant.
"It's not funny! I'm not supposed to see your mate without his fur on!" the bear protested. "My mate will be furious when he finds out!"
"And mine's face is probably as red as his hair right now. Go on in the living room with the kids and I'll go up this time."
"I won't be able to look Major Archie in the face!" the bear whined.
"Oh, he'll get over it or he'll just think it's funny. Stop fretting."
Marie was still chuckling when she found her husband in the bedroom getting dressed. "You can leave your fur off around me anytime you want..." she cooed. He had his back to her and panicked, thinking the bear was in the room again since she sounded exactly like his wife.
"Major Marie...will you please...Marie! That's not funny. You scared the hell out of me!" he cried, turning around and seeing his wife there much to his relief.
"You certainly put a new spin on the phrase birthday suit," she teased, enjoying the view of his chest through his half buttoned shirt.
"You're never going to let me live this one down, are you?"
"No...not really. Come on, breakfast is ready and the kids want you to open your gifts before we head over to Rumple's."
His stuffed counterpart, kids and the other bears were all laughing when they walked into the living room a short time later.
"What were you doing parading around my mate without your fur on?" Major Archie teased.
"She walked in on me!" Archie cried.
"Better knock next time or you'll catch him and Mommy doing something else," Gisella warned Major Marie.
"Gisella!" her parents exclaimed.
They opened his gifts after breakfast. Marie bought him some books to study for an exam for his certification. He may have gotten his degree from a curse but he'd expanded on his knowledge throughout the years and was now board certified through his own merits. Many of the other professionals in town were inspired by him and Rumple and were going through the process of earning their degrees through proper channels. Johnny and Gisella made him a sign that said THE BEST DADDY IN THE WORLD with pictures they drew and copies of snapshots from the family album. He hung it on the wall in his office so that he would look at his family and smile even when he was having a difficult day.
Later that evening they all went to the Victorian. The Golds had a new desk delivered to his office in town to replace the old one he'd been using since they all were brought to Storybrooke and the old one would be converted into the log playhouse Archie's son wanted so much through Rumple's magic that they would present to the toddler on his birthday. The Nolans' gift was a set of beach chairs with umbrellas and beach towels the family would take with them on their summer vacation in Greece and Italy.
Regina stood up holding the 'Mad Crew' gift in her hands. "We had to add one in here...after hearing a bit of gossip from the bears this evening..." the former queen said with a smirk. Archie groaned and opened the box. The first item was a coffee mug with a prescription label on it. He started laughing. "The things you guys find on the internet."
The next gift was a large bottle of M&Ms with a mock Tylenol label that read Maximum Strength Stress Buster. Take as Needed.
"Chocolate!" Marie cried and tried to reach for the jar.
"Oh no you don't darling...these are mine!"
She would get her own supply on Valentine's Day.
The last item in the box was a sign that read: Never Go Out of the House In Your Birthday Suit! Everyone at the table started cracking up while he and Major Marie were embarrassed.
"It was an accident!" Major Marie cried.
"If we would've caught you it was going on Facebook!" Jeff warned with a glint in his eye. Plans were already in motion to catch a certain sorcerer running around in a gold speedo for his birthday surprise.
"Thank the gods you didn't!" Archie shook his head. Though he was another year older, his family and friends always found ways to make his special day a memorable one with their surprises.
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