"That's probably a good idea. If you happen to go back the pumpkin patch, can you grab me another head? I'd like to have actual eye holes again. I'll go back to get the other stuff from my place, later."

Carver yanked on a vine she thought might be the key strand to unraveling a particularly complicated knot, but all it did was cause her to lose her balance. She couldn't even flail as she fell off the couch.

That set the brothers off again. Barrel nearly joined her on the floor, he was laughing so hard. Once he composed himself, Lock turned to Carver.

"Sure thing," he said. "In celebration of you invoking Shock's wrath for once."

~~~

Over the next few days, the trio took turns gathering the forget-me-lots, with Shock helping Barrel study between practice sessions. By the time the next practice day came around, all three of them were in good moods as their plan clearly began to come together.

Shock helped Lock set up while they waited for the vampire twins to arrive. With her focus on the prank, and aside from Carver's slip-up from visiting the Finkelstein home, she was pleasant enough that Lock was confident there would be minimal issues with Carmilla. She even halfway decently greeted the vampires when they arrived. Barrel practiced a set properly for once while he waited, which said all it needed to.

Lock smiled when he saw the bats fly in. Hopefully, Lillith had a chat with her sister.

Carver didn't bother asking them to help her back on the couch. She was mildly bruised all over and thoroughly annoyed by the time she got herself properly untangled. When Shock had finally gotten herself wound back down and came into the lair, Carver was vehemently stabbing her knives into the side of a tall pumpkin.

It took her a few days to turn the stab marks into six angular eyes and carefully carve out a detailed alien face with ridges and skin folds that followed along with the curves of the eyes. The mouth had two pairs of fangs on the upper and lower jaws, which would overlap like crocodile teeth when she closed her mouth. She even payed the witches to make a custom daphnius potion to turn the soft flesh of the fangs into wood, to hold their shape and prevent rot. The whole head got a bleach bath and a thin coating of protective slime before she put it on. It was finally ready to wear the morning before the next band practice.

Lillith landed first, turning into her humanoid form a few feet in front of Lock. "Hello. It's been a while. I haven't seen you since last band practice. Have you been too busy to see me?" She crossed her arms and looked at him, too dignified to pout.

Carmilla landed behind Lillith and walked over to her synthesizer. She wasn't interested in getting wrapped up in relationship drama, and wanted to avoid trouble as much as possible. She had her song to think about, after all. The second twin looked and Carver and gave a short, approving nod. "Nice head."

Lock glanced up at Lillith - one of the few benefits of his short stature - and then subtly pointed his tail towards Shock, who was currently going over song notes and mentally reviewing the practice sessions with her brothers over the last few days.

"If you mean working on what we discussed, then yeah, I've been busy."

The fact that Shock and Carmilla hadn't started their usual sniping at each other yet said enough. Of course, Lock wasn't about to spill that it was due to the efforts of their upcoming prank going smoothly, which always made his sister a lot more pleasant to deal with. He gently placed his hands over Lillith's waist, then stood on his tiptoes to better face her.

"But I'll make it up to you," he said, and made sure she could feel where his fingers were so she knew he wasn't crossing them. "No tricks. Just say where, when, and how."

Lillith tapped her chin thoughtfully, then slowly smiled. "For the where, I choose the Serpent's Tongue. For the how, I'll explain when we get there. And for the when..." She grinned down at him deviously. "I choose now."

Carver and Carmilla both turned to watch them. The pumpkin creature wanted to watch Lock splutter and try to choose between his girlfriend and his band, while Carmilla was more worried about losing her chance to sing this week despite planning on being on her best behavior.

Shock and Barrel glanced over at the love-bats, Barrel out of curiosity, Shock because she sensed something about to go down.

Lock smirked at the "where", gave her a devious grin at the "how"...and instantly looked like a vampire caught at sunrise at the "when".

"Now?"

He briefly noticed Shock's amused smirk in the corner of his eye. Great. If he gave in and went with Lillith, he wouldn't hear the end of it for at least a week, but if he chose the band...was this an actual test, or was Lillith willfully fucking with him?

Lock quickly gestured to both of their sisters.

"And leave them alone unsupervised in the same room for half an hour?" he asked, as he tried to worm his way out of answering either way. "Talk about living dangerously!"

Shock's amusement quickly faded.

"Hey!"

Lillith smirked. "Now," she repeated.

Carmilla scowled at the 'living dangerously' comment and glared over at Shock. She hadn't even done anything yet! Why was Lock acting like they were already at each others' throats, and why was Shock apparently offended at being implicated too? It took two to fight, it wasn't just Carmilla pulling shit!

Carver pulled a small bucket of popcorn out of her cage, and offered a handful to Barrel.

Barrel happily accepted the offer. Carver seemed to have a sixth sense for when something was about to go down. He grabbed a handful and shoved it in his mouth.

Shock noticed Carmilla glaring at her. She glared right back and crossed her arms, then made a subtle nod of her head towards Lock. She then moved a hand to her throat and slid a finger across it. In a rare moment of truce, she seemed to agree, especially since she hadn't started anything yet, either.

Lock looked decidedly uncomfortable as he ran a hand over Lillith's hip. He briefly cursed his "no tricks" promise, because if he faltered now, he'd never get away with it again. Knowing better than to delay any further, Lock gently took her hand and kissed it.

"Fine," he said, "but if we come back and this place is a crater, don't say I didn't warn you."

That got Barrel to laugh, though if it was due to the thought of Shock and Carmilla destroying the place, or if it was because Lock gave into his girlfriend, and thus delayed band practice, it was hard to tell. Shock, on the other hand, gave Lock a stone-cold glare. Lock just stuck his tongue out at the her.

Lillith chuckled. "I won't."

She lifted him up to give him a kiss, tugged his tail while she was at it, then set him down and flew out. Lock stared at her in bewilderment for a moment. Crap, it wasn't a test... He actually had to follow through with it. He shot Shock an apologetic glance before quickly climbing the ladder to follow his girlfriend.

Carmilla watched them leave, then slowly turned to Shock. "Truce? Until they've both been sufficiently reprimanded, that is..."

Shock glowered as she watched the little devil scurry up the rope ladder and through the lair's window. Barrel downed another handful of popcorn as he looked over at Shock and Carmilla, obviously in anticipation of an inevitable mushroom cloud. To his legitimate surprise, Shock turned to Carmilla and gave the vampiress her sweetest smile.

"I think we can work something out," she said, in a syrupy-sweet voice that made Barrel freeze mid-swallow and nearly choke on his popcorn.

Oh, bones, was Lock in for it later! Barrel quickly tried to clear his throat and not spew popcorn sludge all over his drums. Shock ignored him and simply flipped through her sheet music until she found "Siren Song."

"There's a few notes that I'll need to warm up on first, but I'm sure I can handle Lillith's part for the moment."

Barrel actually looked nervous at the sudden camaraderie. It was as if the Pumpkin King suddenly re-grew his flesh!

~~~

Lock kept Lillith in sight as he followed her to the hidden hideout.

This better be worth it, he thought.

Shock wasn't going to let him off with just getting a few more forget-me-lots. Hell, he was probably going to be the one powdering them, mixing the bonding agent, and prepping the fog juice - and that was on the lower end of the scale of not only ditching the practice he set up, but forcing her to deal with Carmilla.

Carver and Barrel were going to have a damn field day, too, because they wouldn't be at the top of Shock's vengeance list for a good, long while. Lock groaned at the thought.

Well, too late now. Hopefully, Lillith would make it quick, and they'd be back soon.

When Shock mentioned covering the vampiress's vocals, Carver looked over the theremin. "The focus is more on the theremin with only occasional xylophone, so if we move the xy closer and detach my legs, I could probably play both sufficiently. Plus, Lillith probably will be really annoyed when she tries to play it and finds it's been adjusted."

Carmilla's gaze sharpened. "Excellent. I won't let any of you mess with her directly -- that's my job, when it has to be done -- but I haven't forgotten whose idea it was to fly off right as practice was suppose to start."

Carver narrowed the bottom two of her eyes at Carmilla, while raising one side of the uppermost brow line. "How about indirectly, then? Just to... assist."

"And what can I do?" Barrel asked.

"Play the drums," Shock said, sweetly. "Perfectly. Won't Lock be just delighted to hear he missed it? And just to make sure he can't claim we're lying just to fuck with him..."

She left the room for a moment to go to one of the storage closets in Oogie's lair. She came back with an old-fashioned tape recorder.

"...Here's our proof. When I feel like giving it to him, anyway."

Barrel grinned when he saw what his sister came back with.

"A perfect band session--" he started.

"--And perfect vengeance--" Shock contiuned.

"--To start with," they finished together.

Shock would think of something more creative to really stick it to him later. Right now, this would be fitting. Taking Lock's place for the moment, she started the warm-ups, and then began to direct the band.

~~~

It took a while to get to the Serpent's Tongue - for those without wings, anyway. There was a bit of cutting through the sewers, then climbing up to the hidden place to get there. Lock figured Lillith would beat him there. He'd long since abandoned any thoughts of mercy from his older sister, and decided to just focus on what Lillith wanted from him. Worrying about what was coming later wouldn't do him any good.

"All right," he said, once he got inside. "I'm here. No tricks, as promised."

Lillith hung in bat form from the ceiling in the shadows, waiting for him to arrive. When he did, she dropped silently just outside his line of sight. She shapeshifted a hair's breadth above him, and did nothing to slow her fall in the process.

WHOMP!

He landed face down on the floor. She sat casually on his back, her ankles cross gracefully between his legs, and twirled his tail between her fingers.

"Took you long enough..." she said sweetly.

"Aaaugh--!"

Lock gracelessly fell forward as Lillith pinned him down. Her massive hips and ass nearly fully covered his back. He hadn't decided yet if he minded or not. Either way, he didn't seem to mind her playing with his tail - or, more accurately, he hadn't gathered his bearings just yet.

"Not all of us can fly," Lock muttered.

"Well, if you had bothered to call me this week, we could have set up a proper date, with a pre-determined time, which would have allowed you to calculate when to leave to get here on time." She tugged on his tail as she spoke to accentuate a few of the words.

At the first tug of his tail, Lock decided that yes, actually, he did mind, and tried to squirm out from under her. He pitifully clawed at the ground as he tried to knock her off of him, to no avail. Lillith had perfectly shifted her weight to prevent just that. His legs flailed on either side of her in desperate attempts to push himself free.

Lock finally gave up his struggle as a lost cause after a moment. He braced one elbow against the floor and propped his head in his hand. He then drummed his fingers and winced as she tugged his tail again.

"All right, point made," he said.

He sighed.

"Of course, you had to give me this lesson the one week I managed to get Shock to behave for longer than five minutes..."

Lillith smirked down at him, not that he could really see. "I teach you when you need to learn. You are the one who picked this week to turn into smoke. Not even a, 'Sorry, Lillith, I need some time to get my horns out of my anus, I'll make it up to you later.'"

She waited another moment before rising off of him.

"Yes, Mother."

He decided to leave it at that. Lock pushed himself up when she got off of him. He dusted himself off as his tail twitched in irritation. It hadn't hurt when Lillith tugged on it, not really. Just annoyed him. Still, he wasn't out of the peat bog just yet.

"Anything else I can do to make it up to you?" Lock asked.

Lillith wasn't going to be satisfied with just a lecture. Might as well start sucking up.

Lillith walked over to a pillar and pulled a basket out from behind it. "While you were taking your sweet time getting here, I was able to fly home and make us a picnic."

She brought the basket to the center of the chamber and started unfolding a black blanket.

"I tried to invite you out to the spiral hill last night, but Barrel told me you were too busy -- wouldn't even let me ask you myself -- and then Shock told me I wasn't welcome in your home." She gave him another haughty-almost-pout.

Lock watched her bring out the basket. He'd already written off Shock's wrath as an inevitably. Might as well enjoy their date.

"Yeah, she's...got something going on at the moment, and doesn't want intruders peeking in," Lock said.

He took a seat on the blanket.

"It's temporary, and nothing personal," he assured her, "but like I told you last week - we all have to be in agreement about who comes and goes."

He crossed his arms. Lock suddenly felt less guilty about ditching practice.

"Both of those jerks could have at least told me you stopped by, though."