Work Text:
“Glow Sticks?”
“Check!”
“Pumpkin bucket?”
“Check!”
“Extra sweatshirt?”
“Check!”
“What about-”
Seungmin shakes his head and picks up their son who’s been helping triple check their trick or treating supplies for tonight. “Min, I think we’ll be fine. Even if we forget anything we aren’t going farther than maybe six blocks. It won’t take long to get home.” He smiles at his husband, watching as he immediately brings his hands up to his chest to start picking at his fingers anxiously.
Rearranging Jeongin on his hip, Seungmin reaches for Minho’s hand. Once he has his husband's hand in his, Seungmin pulls it up to press small kisses to the tips of each finger. Minho scrunches his nose up but Seungmin can easily see the smile slipping through. “I’m just nervous,” Minho mumbles.
“I understand that love,” Seungmin nods lightly, leaning in as Jeongin reaches up to rub on the cartilage of his ear. “But I promise we can do it, and even if we can’t do everything without a couple bumps in the road, that's okay.” Seungmin smiles at him as a way to reassure him. It has Minho smiling back.
Jeongin is set back down on his feet, promptly screaming loudly and shaking his hands around in excitement. The loud noise shocks Minho, pulling his hands up to cover his ears and scrunching his eyes up as Jeongin continues to yell. Seungmin crouches down and catches Jeongin’s attention. The little boy giggles and shakes happily as he yells again but this time at his dad. “Halloween!!” He says.
Smiling, Seungmin reaches out to hold Jeongin’s waving hands. “Innie, I think you’re scaring poppy.” He looks up towards Minho where he’s covering his ears and shaking his head. Jeongin’s eyes follow Seungmin’s and he stops yelling quickly. He pulls his hands away from Seugmin’s grip to cover his mouth. Minho opens his eyes and slowly pulls his hands off his ears.
Jeongin moves over to hug Minho’s legs. “I’m sorry poppy.” He rubs his cheek against the soft fabric of Minho’s costume pants. “I get es-cited.” He looks up at him and pouts. It’s easy to see Jeongin is genuinely upset so Minho reaches down to pet his hair and press his thumb over Jeongin’s cheek lovingly.
“It’s okay baby, poppy isn’t mad.” Seungmin smiles at the interaction as he stands and picks up Jeongin’s candy pale and glow sticks. Minho is picking Jeongin up and pressing small kisses to his nose and cheeks when the doorbell rings. The noise has their youngest cat, Dori, trotting down the stairs happily to greet their guests. He brushes past Minho and stares at the door curiously while he cocks his head to the side.
“Who could that be?” Seungmin says, exaggerating the question to catch Jeongin’s attention. The small boy is twisting in Minho’s hold and asking to be put down. Seungmin takes the couple steps towards the door to open it but Jeongin beats him to the door once Minho sets him down.
Jeongin throws the door open excitedly making loud noises again, Minho hanging back to not cause a scene by getting overwhelmed again. “Hyune!” Jeongin exclaims as he opens the door. His best friend, a boy from his class with choppy, short blonde hair smiles at him.
“Innie! Hi! Happy halloween!” He smiles wide and shows off the spaces between his teeth from all his missing baby teeth. Seungmin smiles down at the interaction. “Your costume is so cool!” Jeongin giggles happily and looks back at his poppy. Minho had made the entire pill bug costume himself, stitching and hot gluing everything for the past two months. Minho smiles back at his son.
“It’s nice to see you guys again,” Seungmin says to Hyunjin’s parents, Chan and Changbin. While their son is dressed cutely in a blue Cinderella costume, the little headband looking so cute on his head, Chan and Changbin are dressed as Gomez and Morticia Adams. Chan’s drawn-on mustache makes Seungmin want to laugh while Changbin looks really good in the Morticia costume he’d thrown together.
“Thanks for inviting us.” Changbin smiles. Chan wraps and arm around his husband’s waist as the two first graders continue to laugh together. “You both look good!” He smiles as he looks over 2min’s costumes. Seungmin looks down at his costume, he’s dressed as his favorite baseball player and he even smudged a little eye black on his cheeks. Minho on the other hand is dressed as his favorite member of his favorite kpop group, Apink. His outfit was half handmade and half upcycled pieces from the thrift store.
“So do you guys.” Minho smiles. Chan and Changbin smile politely and say their thanks. Hyunjin reaches up and tugs on the hem of Changbin’s belled sleeve. He opens his hands and smiles. Changbin smiles back and is pulling two battery operated, light up necklaces. Hyunjin laughs excitedly as he puts one over his own head and passes one to Jeongin.
“Matching!” Jeongin exclaims as he turns to Seungmin to help him put it on, his little headband making getting anything over his head difficult. Once the necklace is placed around his neck Jeongin lets out another loud noise, making Minho take a step back. He catches himself though and is quick to quiet down this time. “Can we go daddy? Can we go now?” He looks up at Seungmin.
“Of course buddy,” Seungmin passes him the pale and Jeongin takes it happily. As Chan and Changbin move down the porch, encouraging Hyunjin to follow. As Hyunjin walks down the stairs, Jeongin follows excitedly. Seungmin smiles down at the sight of his son, reaching out to hold Minho’s hand. “Let’s go honey,” He pulls Minho forward and presses a kiss to his forehead and Minho laughs lightly.
“You’re such a sap.” Minho walks through the door and hold his keys in hand. Seungmin follows him, pulling the door shut for Minho to lock.
“You love it.”
Minho watches anxiously as Jeongin follows Hyunjin up to each house, excitedly waiting for his candy and happily stimming as he looks through the bag. Seungmin holds Minho’s hand lovingly. “He’s doing well hon, don’t worry so much.” He brings Minho’s hand up to kiss the back of his hand. The older man squeezes Seungmin’s hand as he starts shaking his other hand anxiously.
“Trick-or-treating was always so hard for me growing up.” Minho mumbles. He follows Jeongin with his eyes as he and Hyunjin are switching tootsiepops, his red for Hyunjin’s blue. “I’m just scared he’s gonna have a bad experience. Halloween can get overwhelming so easily.” The sadness in his voice makes Seungmin want to make every halloween perfect for him forever.
“Everything will be fine honey,” Seungmin pulls him in for a small kiss, Minho almost melting immediately. As they pull away, The children are running back with binchan hot on their heels. Jeongin is holding out his arms, spreading out the two extra arms Minho had sewn on so he had 6 legs all together on his costume. He’s giggling happily and waddling around while Hyunjin is going on about some halloween movie he’d watched with his dads.
Jeongin stops in front of Minho, holding his candy pale with both hands and holding it up for his dads to look inside. “Poppy! Daddy! Look at all my candy!” He says. His smile looks so happy and Minho can’t help but smile back. Jeongin starts talking about the houses in the cul de sac where they live and the way all the decorations were so cool. They walk down the sidewalk as he starts raving about the giant spider inflatable the neighbor across the street has, stopping at the end of sidewalk at the crosswalk. Jeongin reaches up and grabs both of his dads’ hands as they wait to cross. He’s humming to himself, happily bobbing his head and excitedly squeezing his dads’ hands.
Minho can feel the way his heart clenches in his chest. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with his love for Jeongin, his love for Seungmin. His love for their family and their lives. As they start to cross, Jeongin jumps from white line to white line across the intersection, Minho and Seungmin helping him by swinging him forward each time. When they make it across the street, Jeongin lets go of his dads to grab Hyunjin’s hand. They walk slightly in front of their parents, laughing and joking with each other.
The next couple houses go by smoothly, walking down the street and making small conversation with Chan and Changbin about the school’s new policies or the way this one mom flirts with their sons’ teacher so badly. Jeongin and Hyunjin will come back to them after every house, exclaiming about candy and decorations. They all seem to be enjoying themselves and that makes Minho happy.
They turn the corner onto the connecting street, Chan explaining to them about the music production company he works for and how he’s been able to help with a bunch of big projects recently. Hyunjin and Jeongin are running up towards the next house, through the giant fabricated arch the people put up and towards the stairs. There’s someone sitting there with candy, smiling at them. Minho turns his gaze back over to Chan to engage in their conversation for just a moment before he’s pulled back.
The loud noise of a chainsaw revving makes Minho jump, his hand pulling away from Seungmin’s to cover his ears as it doesn’t stop after just one round. There’s screams accompanying the noises but until he hears the loud, high pitched screams of Jeongin he doesn’t realize the sounds are coming from the house the boys have gone up to to get candy. Minho's heart starts to beat fast. He takes a step forward to go get Jeongin but Seungmin tells him to stay, stepping towards the yard with chan as Minho starts making small noises. He’s scared. He’s scared because of the noise but also because of his son.
Without really realizing it, Minho's hands start hitting against the side of his head and his ears as he’s letting out small mmmmh’s over and over again. His brain feels full, like he’s weighing him down and his chest feels tight with anxiety. It makes him mad. It makes him mad that he has to be scared, mad he can’t help Jeongin, mad he feels so bad right now. Changbin reaches a hand out to pet over Minho’s back but he just grunts and shakes his head. The sound of Chan yelling has Changbin taking off towards the yard, taking a crying Hyunjin from Chan’s arms as he yells at the guy in a mask holding the chainsaw about how he needs to be careful and how big of an asshole he is for scaring such little kids. If he wasn’t having such a big freakout, Minho would probably be laughing at how scared the guy looks as Chan yells at him.
Seungmin and Changbin exit the yard, holding their sons and Seungmin walks straight to Minho. He’s cradling Jeongin head against his shoulder as the young boy cries softly and grips the material of Seungmin’s jersey. “Hey, Min, it’s okay.” Seungmn says calmly. “Everything is okay now, everyone is fine.” He reaches out to hold one of Minho’s hands so he stops hitting himself, pulling his hand to kiss over his knuckles. Minho grunts again, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. The frustration is getting to be too much, he doesn't want to be here anymore.
Seungmin kissed the side of Jeongin’s head lightly. “Are you ready to go home, Innie?” he asks. Jeongin pulls his head out of Seungmin's neck and nods. When he catches sight of Minho he reaches for his poppy.
“Poppy, want hug,” Jeongin says with a sniffle. Minho starts to breathe, his hands moving down from against his head and he shakes his head around to try and stop his body from tingling. His eyes are still prickled with tears but as he takes a couple shaky breaths, he reaches for Jeongin. His son comes to him easily, hiding his head in Minho’s neck as he sniffles and clutches the fabric of Minho’s top.
Minho’s arms wrap about Jeogin, holding him tightly. Changbin holds Hyunjin against his chest as he sniffles and whines about how scared he is. Chan tries to sooth him, petting his hair and helping take off his headband and his clip on earrings. Seungmin looks over to the other adults. “Well, I guess it’s time to call it a night.” His eyes look over the way Hyunjin rubs his eyes sleepily and yawns before looking over to see Jeongin playing with the small amount of hair at the back of Minho’s neck.
Changbin nods. “Despite the ending, the boys seemed to have a good time.” He smiles as he rubs Hyunjin’s back. “School tomorrow too, heading home sounds like a good idea.” He leans in to kiss Hyunjin’s head. “Doesn’t it, baby?”
Hyunjin nods and picks his head up enough to rub his cheek against his dad’s as a sign of affection. Seungmin smiles at how cute he is, turning back to check on Minho and Jeongin. Minho is whispering to Jeongin who looks just about ready to pass out. Seungmin reaches out to pat Jeongin’s head and places a kiss on Minho’s head. “Why don’t you say goodbye to your friend Innie? Say thank you for coming,”
Jeonginsleepily picks his head up and rubs at his eyes. “Bye-bye Hyune. I’ll see you tomorrow at school. Thank you for trick o treating with me.” Hyunjin calls back a similar goodbye and then the two families are parting ways to head home. Seungmin keeps a hand in Minho’s on the way home to make sure he doesn’t get spooked out again. As their home comes into view, Minho lets go of Seungmin’s hand to reach into his pocket and pull out his house key. He passes it to Seungmin who opens the door and lets them all in.
Minho takes Jeongin upstairs to get him into a quick bath and some jammies before bed. Seungmin unbuttons his jersey and takes off his baseball belt. He walks to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He doesn’t make much noise as he moves through the kitchen and makes Jeogin a cup of half water-half juice. Seungmin doubts he’ll even drink much of it with how sleepy he was. The dinosaur patterned cup sits on the island as Seungmin moves to make Minho a cup of coffee. He expects Minho to call for him in the middle of the pot brewing but he doesn’t hear anything. Not wanting to assume the worst, Seungmin just guesses that Jeongin’s bath is taking a little longer than usual.
Once the pot of coffee finishes and Seungmin’s poured Minho's cup and put the right amount of cream and sugar in it, he grabs Jeongin’s sippy cup and makes his way upstairs. The door to the bathroom is open and the light is on, but Seungmin can’t hear Minho singing to Jeongin like he usually does when he’s in the bath. When he pushes the door the rest of the way open, Seungmin gets his answer as to why.
Minho had gotten in the tub with Jeongin, letting their son lay against his chest as he helped him wash up. But both of them seemed to have been lulled to sleep by the lavender bubble bath and vanilla scented body wash. Seungmin smiles and snaps a picture of them for his memories album before he’s picking up Jeongin’s hooded towel that looks like a moth and starts waking up his boys and ushering them into bed.