Chapter Text
“Alright, Minho, kitty, can you hand Bubba the blue tack?” Changbin requested, currently balanced on top of a step-ladder as he held up one end of a string of paper bats.
Minho glanced up at the bats before pouting. “Why bats, Bubba? Bats scawy. Kitties cute, wike Minnie.”
“We already have so many kitty cats, Minnie,” Seungmin argued, coming around the little to hand his hyung the sticky tack. “We have a lot of kitty cats on the front lawn, and Mama and Mummy are hanging up kitties right now in the kitchen.”
As if on cue, Hyunjin called, “Any more and we’ll be up to our ears in kitties!”
Minho stomped his foot. “No such thing as too many kitties,” he said.
“Minnie, baby, that better not be an attitude that Mama and I are hearing!” Felix warned, his voice carrying from the kitchen.
“No, Mummy, Minnie being good kitty!” Minho argued.
Chris giggled from his spot on the living room floor, just a tad too little to be helping hang decorations. “Minnie cute kitty.” He let out a small gasp, eyes widening with delight. “Minnie kitty fow twicks o’ tweats!”
“That’s a great idea, Chrissie!” Felix said, ruffling his hair as he passed by to grab more tacks to pin growing numbers of animals (or rather, cats exclusively) to the wall. “And what about you, little one?”
Chris pressed a finger to his lips before exclaiming, “St’awbewwy!”
“Is that because of your hair, baby?” Felix called over his shoulder, now handing the tacks to Hyunjin. Chris nodded enthusiastically as a response, and Felix assumed the silence was confirmation.
Seungmin looked over with a raised brow when he felt a tug on his sleeve. A confused Minho stood right beside him, a small pout forming on his face. “Aw, what’s the matter, little kitty?”
“Minnie don’t unda’stan’ Mummy and Chwissie, Puppy,” Minho whined.
Chris tilted his head cutely, like a puppy. “Wha’ doesn’ Minnie un’ewstan’?” he said.
“Chrissie, can you take out your paci and say that again?” Jisung asked, finally looking up from his phone. “None of us can understand that.”
After a hesitant whine, he handed his pacifier to Jeongin, next to him and more or less supervising, and said, “Minnie, wha’ don’t chu undewstand?”
“Wha’s t’ick oh- twick ah-” Minho huffed. “Mummy, wha’s twicks ow tweats?”
Felix hummed from his spot in the kitchen as he assisted Hyunjin in tacking up the banner of “spooky” kitties. “I could’ve sworn I explained it before.”
“That was probably to Minho, not our little kitty Minnie,” Jeongin teased. He joined the two in the kitchen. “I can give you a break if you want, hyung.”
Before Felix could make a move, Hyunjin was taking advantage of the offer, groaning and whining dramatically. “Innie, please take over, my arms are killing me! Here, just -” he shoved what was left of the banner into Jeongin’s hands and practically fell off the stepladder he and Felix had been using “- take this, and help Felix put it up! Thanks, Innie, you’re a lifesaver!” He collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table as Minho and Chris giggled in the other room.
“Mama ‘s funny,” the latter observed sagely.
Felix rolled his eyes. “Annoying and unhelpful, maybe, but I wouldn’t say funny,” he muttered under his breath. He raised his voice to say, “Will someone else take over helping Innie with this so I can explain trick-or-treating to our little kitty?” No one moved. Not even Jisung, who had yet to actually help out with the process of decorating. “Well, don’t all of you jump at once.”
Changbin smacked the back of Jisung’s head. “Come on, go take over for Lix, the rest of us are doing our part,” he said.
“Chwissie isn’t!” Minho cried, but Seungmin quickly shut him down with, “Chrissie is a baby berry today, he can’t.” Chris gurgled happily at the pet name.
Once Jisung (albeit very begrudgingly) took over for Felix, the younger of the Aussie boys approached the littles with a soft smile on his face. “So, our little kitty’s confused about trick-or-treating?”
Minho nodded, a pout forming on his face again. “What’s twicks ow tweating?”
“It’s a Halloween tradition, kitty,” Felix stated. When Minho’s pout didn’t disappear, the caregiver continued. “Trick or treating is when people dress up and go from house to house to get candy. You knock on the door and shout ‘Trick or Treat’ when the people open the door. Then they give you candy.”
“But no eating it until we’ve checked for bad things!” Hyunjin chided, somewhat paying attention to the conversation. “Mama doesn’t want to take his babies to the doctor’s because of a meanie.”
“How much candy we get, Mummy?” Minho questioned. His pout was nowhere to be seen now, and he seemed fascinated by what Felix was telling him.
Felix snickered. “It depends. When Mummy was younger, there were some years I’d get enough candy to fill a pillowcase!”
Minho and Chris gasped at the very idea of so many delectable sweets. “So much candy!” Minho cheered. He looked around the room, smiling at all of his caregivers. “Can Minnie and Chwissie do it? Can we?”
All six caregivers gave each other wary glances as they gravitated towards the living room, though Felix and Jisung’s looks veered towards the side of, “Sure, why not?”
“I mean…” Hyunjin began biting his lip. “I’m sure they won’t be the only littles out, right?”
“Would anyone even be doing trick-or-treating?” Seungmin questioned.
“Of course, there would,” Changbin argued. “I remember seeing kids and littles going trick-or-treating last year.”
Minho, who had since conned his way into a place on Seungmin’s lap, looked up at Jeongin with bright eyes, blown wide and practically sparkling with the idea of getting a whole pillowcase full of candy. His dark, glittering irises that bled right into his pupils begged silently for a chance, even a small one, to experience this.
Minho tapped Chris, still on the floor, with his foot, and he whined until he got the memo and copied Minho’s puppy eyes. Chris’s gaze wasn’t quite as piercing, but still adorable, and God, two pairs of shimmering eyes on Jeongin and pleading desperately without sound? He had melted the second Chris decided for his long lashes to flutter apart.
“I think they should be able to go.” Jeongin spoke almost mindlessly; he was still transfixed by Minho and Chris’s gazes.
“Yah! Jeongin, are you a man or a mouse?” Hyunjin snapped, a small glare on his face. One look at Minho and Chris, though, quickly changed his tune. “Okay, I get it. Mouse all the way for our babies.”
Jisung snickered until Hyunjin and Jeongin both scowled at him. He cleared his throat. “Come on, why shouldn’t they be able to go?” he said with an easy smile, and Minho and Chris’s faces lit up. “We can go with them to make sure everything goes smoothly, and besides, they’ll look super cute! How could you say no to a little strawberry and kitty?”
“You just want to get a pillowcase full of candy, too,” Changbin deadpanned. Jisung pressed his lips into a thin line and spoke no more.
Felix chuckled. “It would be pretty easy to get them costumes.”
“Dwess up,” Chris gasped, eyes sparkling.
“Yeah, Mamas and Daddies and Puppy and Bubba all dwess up too!” Minho cheered. Chris nodded enthusiastically.
Changbin, humming, picked Chris up and pulled him into his lap. “Really? What do our kitty and strawberry think Bubba should be?” He pressed a kiss to Chris’s cheek and melted when he giggled.
Chris pouted, sticking his thumb in his mouth as he thought. “Uh...uhm...Chwissie t’inks...a bunny?”
“Bubba should be a piggie,” Minho argued. He gave his headspace brother a small, but cute glare that earned the little a warning tap on his bottom from Seungmin. Crocodile tears sprung up in the little’s eyes as he looked at the caregiver. “No spankies, Puppy, Minnie be good.”
Chris, however, seemed to be thinking again before gasping. “Bubba a pabbit!”
While the other caregivers quietly snickered, Changbin chose to ignore those traitors and have some fun of his own. “Okay, babies, Bubba could be a pabbit. Maybe…” His eyes travelled across his boyfriends before locking onto his target. “Maybe Papa could be a little squirrel.”
The other caregivers broke out into laughter while Jisung’s eyes widened. “What? No, I couldn’t -”
“Papa can be a squirrelie!” Minho squealed, bouncing on Seungmin’s lap. He gasped, spinning around to face the caregiver. “And Puppy be puppy!”
“Puppy’s gotta be puppy!” Chris seconded before Seungmin could get a word in. “An’… maybe Dada is a fox?” He frowned. “Ow Mama?” He pursed his lips for a moment, then turned to Minho with a pitiful look. “Minnie, help, p’ease. Is Dada ow Mama a bettew fox?”
Minho tapped his chin before gasping. “Mama can be llama, and Dada be fox!”
Felix snickered. “And what does that leave for Mummy, babies?”
“Uh...uhm…” Chris pouted around his thumb as his eyes trailed off. They eventually found a focus point via the TV, where his bubba had earlier put on My Little Pony for the two littles. As Chris focused back on the episode, his eyes widened. “Mummy- Mummy, wook!”
All of the caregivers turned their focus to the episode just as the character Fluttershy opened her mouth and a deep voice left the pastel yellow pony’s mouth. Everyone burst out into laughter, including Felix himself. He leaned over to his little berry and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “Do you want Mummy to be Fluttershy?”
“Mummy be the best Fwutta-shy!” Minho cheered while Chris nodded with a gummy smile.
“He’s right, you really will make the best Fluttershy, hyung,” Jeongin teased him.
“Hey, our babies know a good idea when they see one,” Felix retorted, a smile on his face. “I was about to suggest the exact same thing.” He gave the littles a wink, earning delighted giggles from the boys.
“Chrissie -” Chris’s wide eyes snapped to Jeongin, who was holding his phone and biting his lip “- when you say you want to be a strawberry, do you mean, like, a real strawberry, or…” Muttering under his breath, Jeongin opened up an image in his camera roll of a simple outfit and showed it to Chris. The outfit in question was a red t-shirt with yellow spots, though they were shaped more like teardrops, on top of a sparkly green tutu. “Do you want to wear something like this?”
“Let Minnie see!” Minho whined, squirming in Seungmin’s lap. Jeongin chuckled as he showed his screen to Minho. A bright smile broke across the little’s face. “Chwissie should do that! He’d be a cute bewwy!”
Chris nodded, his smile growing as he started babbling happily. “Aw, someone’s getting really small, huh?” Changbin cooed.
“Oh, oh, if Chwissie’s weawin’ a tutu, can Minnie weaw one too?” Minho asked.
“Of course, kitty!” Jisung reassured. “You can be our little princess kitty!”
Minho’s mouth formed a comical O as his eyes shone. Changbin threw a hand over his mouth to suppress a snort. Unfortunately, in his usual fashion, he wasn’t at all slick and Minho’s expression shattered like glass as he said in accusing tone, “See, Bubba weally is piggie!”
“Pabbit!” Chris babbled as the others politely tried to pass off their laughter as violent coughing fits. (Jisung, Felix, and Jeongin were having a significantly harder time than Seungmin and Hyunjin.) Changbin could feel his soul leaving his body.
Hyunjin cleared his throat. “Should we look for costumes online?” he said, and Changbin looked at him like he was a saint, complete with starry eyes and an awed, grateful expression.