"An Unwelcomed Surprise"

Rated: T

Pairing: Hopper Croakington II X Meeshell Mermaid

Summary: Hopper Croakington II has found himself the perfect Hexmas gift to surprise the beautiful Meeshell Mermaid with. However, he may soon learn to regret it for some reason...

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Ever After High or any of its characters. It is owned and associated by Mattel and the respective co-authors of the EAH books, Shannon Hale and Suzanne Selfors. Since Thanksgiving is all but over and Christmas is just about to get started, why not fuel up the holiday season than a nice little holiday fic featuring my one true pairing, Hopper Croakington II and Meeshell Mermaid? So, if you're up for a little Aquashipping, than here you go everyone! I still don't own Ever After High though. But if I did, I would at least give it better treatment than Mattel ever did.

The smell of delicious cinnamon-encrusted egg nog had filled throughout the dorm room of one Hopper Croakington II (and Daring Charming if you count being his roommate), who was busy doing something important with his best two hands that could make the slightest of miracles. Sitting beside him was decorative wrapping paper in which he cut out a good portion of to wrap around a small rectangular box. He was doing it in the privacy of his own coffee table while sitting next to a window filled with snow and festival decorations full of lights and candy canes.

With the combined efforts of snow, red/green lights and candy canes, Hopper and the rest of the student body at Ever After High had assumed it was Hexmas Eve, the only time of the year where students gave back to others with a whole lot of gift-giving and a whole lot of heart. It was no surprise that Hexmas Eve was Hopper's favorite holiday next to True Hearts Day, because that way Hopper could give his special someone the gift that they needed. So far, the last two Hexmases for Hopper had been nothing but disasters in every way.

On his first Hexmas here at Ever After High, he tried to give his old crush Briar Beauty a bouquet of fabulous pink roses. What happened to those roses, you may ask? Well, Kitty Cheshire was at her trickiest when she replaced the roses Hopper got with exploding roses that she had bought at the Village of Bookend's local joke store. The result was a huge slap to the face courtesy of Briar's huge handmark. So that didn't go well.

And neither did his second Hexmas with the girl who had a crush on him, Ginger Breadhouse. Hopper had proceeded to give Ginger a new blender for Hexmas, knowing that the old one she had broke down on her. So Hopper decided to do the gentlemanly thing by buying a $79.99 blender with pure thin-cut blades and excellent processing power. Hard to believe he saved up his own money to get something thoughtful for someone who was basically going gaga for him. Yet, just like his first Hexmas here in Ever After High, something would go horribly for him.

Enter Kitty Cheshire, who with the help of a very trusty wrench, decided to disassemble Hopper's gift one piece at a time in order to have the entire blender fall right to the floor after Ginger had opened it. The result from that horrible fiasco had forced Ginger to kick Hopper right between his legs, giving out drama to the groin for good old Hopper himself.

But this year's Hexmas was gonna be different.

This time, Hopper had planned to get the perfect Hexmas gift, but this time, it was for a brand new girl that Hopper had recently been crushing on for quite sometime. In fact, it was his third month that he had been dating her. It was also by that time his wooing also improved, therefore now having the courage and strength to talk to pretty girls without ever having to turn into a frog. In fact, it was clear that the gift that Hopper was wrapping for belonged to the one girl that was read right on the nametag:

For Meeshell

Seeing that name right on the tag definitely lit his froggy face up like a glamourous Hexmas light. He just couldn't think straight without thinking of that beautiful pink hair, those gorgeous pink lips, that voluptuous face and that unbelievable singing voice of hers that makes his heart stop on impact. It was those kinds of thoughts that made it complicated for Hopper to finish wrapping her Hexmas present. Finally, only after one hour, he had finally got it.

"There we go, it's finally done..." sighed Hopper, who put away the wrapping paper and gazed instantly at the gift with a huge smile on his face. Satisfied at the work he put into, he added with such relief, "I hope she loves this."

However, his gazing into the gift wouldn't last long as all of a sudden...

*RING RING RING*

His MirrorPhone had rang onto his little moment, forcing him to put down the gift and answer the phone right away.

"Hey, what's up?" Hopper asked to the phone.

"Nothing much, Hopper. What about you?" The caller replied, revealing to be one of Hopper's good friends, Sparrow Hood.

"Same here, just finished wrapping my girlfriend's gift." Hopper said, lifting up the present in hand.

"Man, I can't believe you got a good catch with her." Sparrow said, referring to Meeshell Mermaid. "I tried hitting on her myself, but all she did was slap me."

"That's because you kinda turned her off with lame pickup lines," Hopper replied truthfully, "I mean, Meeshell would never wanna date someone who says, 'Hey girl, I'll treat you like I treat my thronework, I'll slam you on the table and do you all night long'."

Sparrow Hood quickly laughed and said, "Yeah, that slap still stings my face to this very day."

"So, I hear you and Duchess got back together," smirked Hopper, "Getting her something this Hexmas?"

"Eh, I can't decide if she either wants two rock tickets to my concert or get her one of those pricey ballet shoes she's been nagging me to get." Sparrow groaned out of regret.

Hopper then said out of regretful rememberance, "I can't believe her old shoes got destroyed though."

"Well then, how was I supposed to know that my loud music woke Cerise's pet so loud, she started chewing Duchess's crappy-ass shoes?!" Cried out Sparrow in frustration of what happened, "Anyway, I gotta get those stupid shoes for Duchess now so that she'll shut the hex up. Good luck getting some tail with Meeshell."

"I didn't even have sex with her yet." Hopper muttered in annoyance.

"Ain't my fault ya wouldn't man up. Later!" Sparrow said before hanging up the phone on the crimson-haired prince.

Once Hopper hung up too with a roll coming from his annoyed eyes, he looked at the clock therefore alarming him right away.

"Oh, it's 7:00." Hopper said to himself, "Time to surprise her now."

The handsome red-haired prince had immediately grabbed her gift and headed out the door right away, not leaving one footstep behind. Once he shut his dorm room door behind him, he immediately headed straight for the dorm room that was resided by one Meeshell Mermaid, who had just recently got back from having to sing at the Spellatorium from one of the plays she was auditioning in. Much to his luck, her dorm room was left wide open for Hopper Croakington to see his crush fix herself a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Hopper immediately fixed himself up pretty quick, hoping that not one messy strain of hair appeared out of his crimson-colored mane. Luckily, he didn't suffer any flaws so far except he forgot to dust his jacket off, which he managed to do already. Once that was finally settled, an anxious yet calm Hopper managed to put a very swag look on his face as he entered inside her warm cozy aqua-inspired dorm room. Right now, Meeshell had now put the entire mug of hot chocolate into her microwave for only two minutes. That gave Hopper enough time to sneak up on her like the sneakiest ninja he could ever be. He made a good job trying not to make one peep such as one loud foot step.

Once she was behind her, Hopper worked out his arms before finally wrapping them tenderly around Meeshell's waist. But once he did though...

...

...

...

Meeshell had unexpectedly flipped him over right on his back, forcing his momentum to crush the little gift he had promised to give to her!

"Ohhhhhh..." he groaned in pain while Meeshell reacted in shock.

"Oh my hex, I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean to do that!" She apologized, trying to get him back up.

"Eh, it's alright." nodded Hopper. "This tends to happen to me like that sometimes."

"I hope I didn't break anything of yours." The mermaid gulped, fearing for the worst.

Once she got him back up to his feet, Hopper looked down to the gift in pure horror and disarray, seeing it all crumpled up and mangled for his own two eyes to see. Meeshell could definitely see the combination of sadness and shock going around in his face. He had fought so hard to get the gift that he had wrapped for her, only for Hopper to relinquish the thought of seeing his gift broke to pieces.

Gulping from the inside, Hopper immediately unwrapped her gift in front of Meeshell, therefore finally confirming the worst to happen. The images of a pearl necklace with a pearl-encrusted dolphin right in the front were broken in half definitely horrified Hopper right to the core. Heck, he felt like he was about to cry as a result of his surprise present for her being broken.

"I'm really sorry I broke it," She apologized. "But you seriously scared me there. I thought you were some kind of robber."

After taking some time to console the loss of her present, Hopper finally came forward.

"No, it wasn't your fault." He sighed, "I could've thought something else instead of frightening you like that. I don't know what the hex came over me when I managed to surprise you. But it looks like that didn't go too well. I just wanted to surprise you the best way I know how, and now look where it got me now. Nothing more than a bashed up broken necklace that I know you would've loved. So much for that..."

Once she saw him throw that smashed-up present into the ground, Meeshell couldn't help but feel sorry for what she had done to him. But she shouldn't have to blame Hopper to be honest. All he was trying to do was surprise her the old-fashioned way. If anyone felt sorry, it should be Meeshell herself for having to over-react the thought of Hopper being such a creep or a robber. Oh, why did she have to use those self-defense skills she was taught by Ramona Badwolf in the first place?

For some reason, she managed to look up towards the ceiling and down towards a deflated Hopper with a sigh.

"Well, it isn't all bad." Meeshell shrugged before adding, "There is one good thing about this though."

"What's that?" He rolled his eyes out of pity.

Before Hopper could get a response from her, Meeshell approached him close up...

...

...

...

...and planted a very sweet kiss around his lips, leaving Hopper stunned and weak all across his froggy legs out of response.

He couldn't believe how much her sweet strawberry shortcake-flavored lips were trapping his out of unexpected fashion. He knew that the longer the kiss went, the more faster the images of his crumpled-up present were slowly dissolving through his brain. Hopper tried to fight out of it the best that he could, but the passionate force of her kiss forced him to feel calmed, relaxed and to put it truthfully, breathless. After only a good fifteen seconds of that kiss, Meeshell finally broke out his lips and gave him quite a comfortable smile, saying with one big blush:

"At least you get to kiss me under the mistletoe."

"Wait, what?" Hopper stuttered before looking up his head to see an actual mistletoe standing before him, "Um, how did that get there?" He pointed up top.

"Just a guess." The mermaid shrugged with a carefree smile.

"You know, I guess this Hexmas won't probably be this bad for me. At least Kitty didn't prank me this time." He whispered to her while chuckling.

Nodding in unison, Meeshell decided to treat his red-haired boyfriend with another kiss under the mistletoe one more time before sharing a cup of delicious hot cocoa. Hopper knew that his third Hexmas wouldn't turn out to be bad for him after all. Thanks to Meeshell, she helped him found something good under this situation, and he couldn't be more joyful about it.

Well, this was pretty cute and sweet for me to write, truth be told. Really brings out that Christmas feeling inside of me that I can't even describe. I know this didn't make sense a little bit, but hey, I still think it was cute myself.

I hope you'll have an awesome Christmas season. Of course, it's gonna be hard considering how that asshat Ajit Pai and his favoritism-centered FCC are coming this close to killing Net Neutrality come December 14th unless we stop it by making our voices heard. But regardless, no matter what happens, I will always find a way to bring you the most awesome stories this side of the Ever After High fandom. You can count on that, my fellow fairy tales.

Anyway, read, review and have yourself a very Merry Early Christmas!

(Or as they say it in the land of Ever After, a very Merry Hexmas.)