Chapter Text
Mikoto had the biggest smile on her face as she fixed the hood on Hinata’s costume. “Oh, don’t you look just so cute? You will be nice and warm in that.”
Hinata looked up at her from the teddy bear costume that his mother had picked out for her. It did look really cute, but it was a little bit too big, so she was practically swallowed by the fluff.
Mikoto tried to fix the hood on Sasuke’s costume as well, but he swatted at her hand and put it up himself. “My little bear and dinosaur.”
Sasuke pouted up at her and crossed his arms. “I didn’t want to be a dinosaur.”
If it had been up to their mother, she would have had a matching teddy bear costume in a different color, but he refused, and when she asked him what he wanted to be, he said he wanted to be a ‘dinosaur scientist,’ but his mother misunderstood this as a dinosaur that was a scientist rather than a paleontologist, and so now he was in a plush green dinosaur costume with a white lab coat.
“I’m sorry, darling.” Mikoto tutted.
“What are you meant to be?” Sasuke gave Itachi a weird look as he looked him up and down.
“A pirate.” Itachi waved at his striped shirt and plastic sword that wasn’t piratey at all. It was actually a samurai’s sword that was for a costume from a previous year, but he did have a cheap plastic hook hand that he pulled out of his wool jacket.
Sasuke looked thoroughly unimpressed. “Aren’t pirates supposed to have peg legs and eye patches?”
Itachi shrugged. “This pirate has only lost his hand.”
“I don’t think that is even a real costume,” Sasuke grumbled.
“We should go before everyone runs out of candy.” Itachi changed the subject away from his lazy costume.
Mikoto made another noise of delight as Hinata sat down to put her shoes on. It was really cute, especially when Sasuke sat down and his tail squished out behind him. With the kids ready and their candy baskets in hand, his mother opened the door and waved as they headed down the street. “Have fun! Stay with Itachi.”
Sasuke walked ahead of him, effectively determining which house they were going to go to first. He stopped at the nearest house that had a light on and headed towards it down the sidewalk before turning around and noticing that Hinata wasn’t following him.
“Go on.” Itachi pushed her back a little bit to encourage her forward, but she leaned back trying to stay in place.
“I…” Hinata held her basket close to her chest.
Itachi was wondering if this was going to be a problem. As far as he understood, this was her first time trick-or-treating. Her elder cousin Neji thought it was ‘childish’ despite being a child, and her little sister was too young for it, and he honestly couldn’t imagine her father willingly walking around town with her to get candy.
Sasuke came back up the walkway with a sour look on his face, peeking out of the costume. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t… I don’t want to go.” Hinata retreated behind Itachi.
“If you go up to the door, they will give you candy.” Itachi placed his hand on the back of the fluffy hood to comfort her.
Hinata quickly shook her head and stepped back even more. “I don’t think I want candy.”
“She’s scared.” Sasuke mocked.
“Sasuke, be nice.” Itachi scolded him, getting a more sour look. “Hinata, you don’t have to go. Why don’t you stay back here with me, and it will just be a nice walk for us, hmm?”
Hinata nodded, tipping her head down low until he could almost not see her face.
“I am not sharing my candy.” Sasuke declared as he headed down the walkway to the door.
The neighbor that Itachi recognized placed candy into Sasuke’s basket and waved at him before he noticed little Hinata peeking from behind. “Does the little bear want some?”
“No, she is a big baby and won’t come,” Sasuke told them with his nose up.
“Here, why don’t you give her some?” They held out an extra piece for her.
Sasuke made a face, but he accepted it anyway. “Why should I? She didn’t come to the door.” He came back down the walkway with the extra piece of candy in his hand and tossed it into Hinata’s basket. “Here.”
Itachi felt as if this was going to be his attitude the whole time that this was going to be a long trick-or-treating session.
They came to the next house. This one had the extra delight of having a little pumpkin on the step that looked like it must have been carved by a child, because there was no rhyme or reason to the face. He wasn’t even sure it was supposed to be a face.
They continued down through the neighbors’ houses. Most of them were neighbors he knew, but as they got further out, the more he stopped recognizing faces.
Sasuke stopped at the end of the walkway at one of the houses, and he turned around and grabbed Hinata’s paw. “Come on.” He demanded as he started dragging her down the sidewalk.
“Sasuke, she doesn’t want to do it.” Itachi called after him, but he didn’t want to pull her back because he didn’t want to knock them both over.
“She’s just being a baby.” Sasuke dragged her up to the door and kept her there until the door opened.
Hinata successfully stuttered out a trick-or-treat and received her candy. She came back to him, looking into her basket. It seemed like she liked the idea of getting candy, but not enough to get over her fear of going up to the door.
“What are you scared of anyway?” Sasuke asked her as he started off to the next house.
Hinata tried to look at him, but turning her head just turned it directly into the hood, so she had to turn her entire body a little bit while she walked. “There are monsters out on Halloween, real ones, and demons.” Now, who would have told a kid her age that?
Sasuke shook his head. “That’s stupid.”
Well, that was mean. “No, she is right,” Itachi told him.
“Really?” Sasuke squinted his eyes at him, not believing him.
“Yeah, but they’re not out to be mean. They want to play for their one day of the year. That’s why we give out candy in costumes. You can’t tell who is a kid or who is a demon getting candy.” Itachi smiled down at Hinata, but Sasuke was still giving him an unsure look. “It’s true. Maybe we have already seen some, and we didn’t even know.”
Hinata seemed to believe him. Now, instead of looking incredibly skittish, her eyes were wandering around at the other costumed children, wondering which one of them was the nice monster that he was talking about.
Sasuke stopped at the end of the next walkway with a light on. He turned to look at Hinata with a sour look on his face. “Are you coming this time?”
Hinata looked at the door and collected her courage. “Yeah.” She is determined. She hurried to catch up with him, grabbing onto the arm of his costume, for which he gave her a look but didn’t rip his arm away. She got her candy, and she ran back to Itachi with a proud smile on her face, holding the basket up to him to show it off. He knelt down and gave her a pat on the head. She’s at a good job.
Lie, well done.
With her confidence built and some idle conversation about who they thought was actually a demon and who was wearing costumes of the people that they passed, they were able to get through a couple of houses without any problem. It was cute to see the trail of Sasuke’s little green tail swaying back and forth, and Hinata practically waddling in her puffy costume.
He wished he had brought a camera. His mother would have started crying if she saw this. Maybe not then. She would replay it in the middle of the day and start crying again, and he didn’t want that to become a regular thing.
It was all going well until they came across one of the porches that had a take-one bowl. Some people didn’t want to spend the whole night giving out candy, some people were taking their own kids out to get candy, and some people had work and couldn’t be home.
And some people just liked to scare children.
As Sasuke and Hinata came up to the bowl and each reached in to get their piece of candy, out popped a man in a mask who lurched toward them and yelled loudly. It could barely be heard over the high-pitched scream that came out of Hinata as she dropped her basket and ran back to Itachi.
He knelt down with his arms open to receive her, and she quickly buried herself into his coat as much as she could as she wailed.
“You jerk!” Sasuke yelled, rushing forward and kicking the man in the shin before grabbing Hinata’s basket and running back to them.
“I don’t like demons! I don’t like them!” Hinata’s cries got worse as she gagged on her sobs.
“That wasn’t a demon. It was just a man in a costume.” Itachi tried to reassure her, rubbing at her back, but there was no consoling her until she cried herself out.
“Give me your sword.” Sasuke held his hand out for it. “I’m going to go beat him.” He declared clearly that he was upset with just how much it had upset Hinata.
“No, let’s keep going,” Itachi told him. The last thing he wanted was his little brother and a dinosaur costume chasing around a man with a plastic sword.
“I don’t want to anymore.” Hinata whimpered, hiccuping as she used the back of her paws to try to wipe her eyes.
Itachi continued to rub her back. Poor thing was having such a good time, too. “That’s alright. You were brave to go to a few houses.” He was actually quite proud of her for going at all, but now she was far too miserable to keep walking along with them, so he got down on his knee and had her get on his back, hoisting her up so he could carry her along.
When they came to the next house, Sasuke marched up to the door on a mission with both baskets in hand. He did this for every house, and at one, he asked if he had two baskets. He would point back at Hinata and say that she was attacked by a demon.
Itachi smiled at the confused look on the neighbor’s face, but Sasuke got his pieces of candy and brought them back to display for Hinata, who quietly thanked him before they went to the next house.
“I think that’s all the houses in the neighborhood,” Itachi told him as they got to the end of the block. “Why don’t we head back home?”
Sasuke nodded, but at this point, it was hard to tell if Hinata was even awake back on his shoulder. The only way that he knew that she hadn’t fallen asleep was that Sasuke hadn’t commented on it, and occasionally, he still heard a sniffle from her.
Sasuke got down into his basket for candy, and he pulled out a lollipop, ripping the wrapper off before holding it up past Itachi. “Here,” he told Hinata. “This is cinnamon.”
Aw, he remembered what was her favorite flavor was. This was extra cute to him because Sasuke didn’t add his usual comment about how disgusting he thought cinnamon flavoring was and how he didn’t understand how she liked it.
Hinata accepted it, putting it in her mouth and letting out a soft: “Thank you.”
With both Sasuke and Hinata focused on their lollipops, the walk home wasn’t very eventful. Once they got back to the house, Itachi got inside. He put Hinata down, and he could tell that she had been worn out by the crying, more so than the walk itself.
“How did we do?” His mother asked, and she came down the hall to meet them with a smile.
“It could have gone better.” Itachi told her honestly.
Mikoto’s face changed to concern. “What happened?”
Itachi waited until they had the kids set up in the living room, where they could dump out their candy and take stock of what they had, before he whispered to his mother what had happened. “Hinata was a bit too shy and scared to go up to the house, and then when Sasuke finally got her doing it, some porch man scared her so bad she wouldn’t go back anymore.”
“Aw… poor thing.” Mikoto tutted.
“I feel bad. I told her a bit about how nice demons come out to get candy.” Itachi detached his plastic sword and put his hook hand to the side.
Mikoto patted his arm with love. “Oh, it’s not your fault. You were just trying to make it nice for them.” She passed into the living room, crouching down to see all of the spoils they were able to collect, and she placed a hand down on Sasuke’s head, smoothing down some of his hair that had stuck up underneath the costume. “Don’t eat too much candy. Save it.”
“Itachi, you didn’t get any candy.” Hinata commented before looking down at her pile and taking a collection to hold out to him.
“He didn’t go to the houses. He shouldn’t get any candy.” Sasuke told her.
“I don’t get any for taking you?” Itachi teased him.
Sasuke shook his head. “No. You’re too old for trick-or-treating.”
Itachi accepted the handful of candy that Hinata offered him mostly because he knew turning her down was going to make her sad, and she had already had a bad enough night.
He headed to the kitchen with his mother while the kids swapped their candy. Lucky for Sasuke, Hinata liked all of the odd candies that he didn’t like, like hard caramels and cinnamon lollipops.
After a while, it had become incredibly quiet, leading his mother to peek her head in to check to make sure they hadn’t squirreled away, but instead of catching them doing something they shouldn’t, she let out a motherly squawk. “Aw… Itachi, look.”
Itachi followed her over to find that Hinata had curled up close to the couch, all of her candy was put back into her basket, and because of the costume, she looked like a big ball of fluff on the floor, like an ottoman or a big pillow.
Leaned on her, and his big green tail, Sasuke was also asleep, but with the plastic sword that Itachi had put down earlier in his hand. “He’s guarding her from the demons.” He chuckled.
Mikoto placed both of her hands over her heart. “Oh, she has to be warm in that costume, but she looked so cute.” She cooed.
Hm. Itachi thought about it. If he was willing to lie about the demons, maybe he could push it a little bit further. He crept over to them while they were still asleep and placed some of the candy that Hinata gave him back with a note.
‘Sorry for scaring you. We only wanted to play.’
Hopefully, with a little encouragement, she would have enough confidence to join them again next year.