Barrel froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.

She was afraid of ruining things? Why would she need to? Did he do something wrong? Did he say something that made her think that? Barrel didn't think so, but his siblings always said he was the dumb one...

"You didn't!" he blurted out. "I'm...I mean...um..."

Barrel quickly shoved the bite in his mouth before he really said something stupid. He felt his cheeks flush and tried to bite it back.

Why did he have to be the one to do this?

He swallowed hard, then awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.

"...I thought things were going well. B-but if they're not...um...I'm...sorry? For whatever I did to make it not go well, and...um..."

Barrel felt the flush in his cheeks get warmer.

"I-I'll be right back," he said quickly. "I think something's burning."

Nothing was. He knew it, she knew it, and he didn't want to sit there and let his face grow anymore gray. Barrel quickly scampered into the kitchen. To keep up with the lie, he checked on the dumplings, then loudly closed the oven to be sure Agatha heard. He then went to the sink, flushed his face with cool water, then wiped it on his sleeve.

Damn it, he probably just screwed it all up. Barrel listened for a moment, and tried to clear his head. Or maybe he didn't? Just get in there and apologize. Get it over with. He carefully peeked out. Agatha didn't seem mad, so far as he could tell. Maybe...confused?

He shut the door and took a breath. Good, he could probably still salvage this. Barrel cleared his throat, put up a proper decorum, and went back to the dining room.

"Got it just in time," he said, to play on his earlier excuse. "So, um...I..."

Come on. You've got this. Barrel briefly recalled Lock's advice about sincere gestures and that things that made him feel better would make her feel better too.

"I guess...what I meant to say is I...I get it. I want this to go well too. So, um. Sorry. Again."

Barrel gave her an awkward grin to try to seal it.

Barrel froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.

"You didn't!" he blurted out. "I'm...I mean...um..."

Barrel quickly shoved the bite in his mouth...

Agatha blinked and stared at him. He was stuttering? Barrel didn't usually stutter when he was talking to her... She paused. Actually, now that she thought about it, he did stutter when he was showing off his muscles. And he'd almost completely lost his cool when his siblings came in while he was talking about potions... But he was usually so collected when they were talking in the shop. What had changed?

Suddenly he got up and rushed out of the room. She didn't smell anything burning, but... Wait, was he nervous? No, that wouldn't make any sense... What would he be nervous about?

He returned, his usual poised manner having been restored.

Mostly.

"So, um... I..."

Agatha perked up. Was he about to say what she thought he was?

"I guess... What I meant to say is, I..."

Yes?!

Suddenly he swallowed and changed tracks. "I get it."

...Wait? Get...?

"I want this to go well, too."

The witch nearly swooned in her seat as he smiled at her. He wanted their date to go well! She wasn't even upset how much he struggled trying to say the words he clearly meant. Such a declaration would be out of his style, so of course he wouldn't be able to say it outright while staying true to his nature.

She beamed. "Oh, I'm glad! I feel the same way! It's so good to finally just... confront it, rather than beating around the bush!"

A wave of relief immediately washed over him. She wasn't mad, and she accepted the apology!

"Y-yeah," Barrel said. "Guess I should've just gotten that out at the beginning, huh?"

He let out a few giggles as he walked back to the table.

"Dessert's almost done," he said. "And nothing burned. So at least we got that."

Barrel relaxed into his usual smile. He picked up his plate and moved closer to Agatha, solely so he could be close enough to lift his glass and toast instead of being at the other end of the table.

"To things going well?" he asked.

Agatha withheld most of her responding cackle, still trying to find the right level of subtlety, and politely chittered instead. "Well, things do weigh on a chest if they're left unsaid for too long," she replied. Her heart gave a twisting thump in agreement as he moved his plate to be nearer to her.

She grinned and chinked her glass against his for the toast. "To things going well!"

She couldn't wait to tell her aunts that she finally hooked him. She just barely caught herself before she started dancing in her seat. He was practically her boyfriend!

Barrel grinned and took a hefty gulp of his wine. He suddenly felt a lot better about the whole thing. Agatha's current good mood rubbed off on him, and throughout the rest of dinner, Barrel found himself actually enjoying her company once they got the awkwardness out of the way. Without the stress of worrying about screwing up, it was easier to just talk and relax, like dinnertime was supposed to be. By the time he brought out dessert - with a quick sugary topping he took a few minutes to pull together - he was damn sure they'd have access back to the shop by morning. Not to mention he had a new way to squirm out of trouble in the future. Barrel decided to keep Lock's advice of "sincere gestures, sincere intentions" in his back pocket just in case he ever needed it again.

He hoped he wouldn't need it. Tonight had been pretty stressful.

Barrel was still in good spirits as he walked Agatha home and bid her a good night. Lock was still gone by the time he got back. Barrel briefly wondered where his older brother had gotten off to, before he decided he didn't care. Mission accomplished. With Shock and Carver still at Medusa's, Barrel went to tend to the scorpion nests he didn't get to due to dinner preparations to get that out of the way before his older sister got back.

~~~

Over the next few days, Lock finally got Lillith to speak to him again. After two weeks of silent treatment, he was desperate for affection and putty in her hands to make it up to her. Shock and Barrel figured they weren't going to see much of him until the next band practice. For Barrel, it partially worked out because it meant some reprieve from drum practice and his older brother's frustration. On the other hand, it also meant there was less of a chance of Lock and Shock picking fights with each other, which in turn meant the time he spent tending to the scorpion nests came with a higher chance of Shock lurking over his shoulder and watching for any screw-ups.

If anything, his accomplishment at securing access to the witch's shop again greatly lifted Barrel's mood and made his punishment a little less stressful.

For her part, Shock was still somewhat pleasant thanks to their fun on Halloween, having feasted again on trouble after having to serve their punishment. That she didn't go out of her way to antagonize Carmilla when they crossed paths in town spoke well enough of it. Overall, it seemed that Jack's lesson stuck with the three of them...for now.

Two days after Halloween, Doctor Finkelstein called Carver up to the lab for her semiannual maintenance and repair routine. Spending as much time with the trio as she did, her cage and limbs tended to get dented, bent, scratched, rusted over, and generally beaten into some sort of less than perfectly functional shape if left unchecked for two long. She could oil her joints herself, of course, but the fine tuning was something she left to her creator. At least it was usually one of the few times he was mostly congenial with her.

Carver climbed up on the operating table and got comfy while Finkelstein retrieved a special potion from a dusty cabinet. She snickered quietly. After a few too many times where she had amused herself with his distraction, and the "unfortunate" discovery that metal bands and cuffs couldn't reliably restrict her vines, it had become standard procedure for him to temporarily paralyze her while he worked on her. She had grown used to it. But this time, there was an extra level of hilarity: she got to calculate how much of his continued use of the potion was out of fear.

Once she was properly paralyzed, the Doctor detangled the vines and splayed them out across the table, letting a few dangle off the side. He quickly detached her limbs.

"Hmmmm..." he said, turning one of her legs about under his spotlight. "You know, my dear... This is a rather old mechanism. I've been maintaining and replacing your limbs regularly over the years, but I haven't actually improved upon the design in a rather long time."

Carver perked up. "You mean I'm getting an upgrade this time?"

Finkelstein nodded, gathering up the rest of her limbs to put them in the pile of inventions waiting to be disassembled, melted down, and repurposed. "My new design will have increased strength and stability, and will be much more damage resistant."

"Sounds good," his creation replied.

He smiled. "Good. Then let us begin, shall we?"

Over the course of the next hour or so, he retrieved and assembled a number of large steel panels pre-shaped for this purpose, attaching them with rivets and gyroscopic ball bearing joints. Once the legs, lower torso, upper back, and arms had been put together, he removed Carver's pumpkin head and carried her cage over to the partially completed body.

With great care, he divided up her vines into four large groups and fed them down into the hollow space inside the new limbs. Once that was done, he attached her cage to a stand inside the chest cavity and connected the front chest pieces to close the whole thing off. Finally, he mounted a new metal head on her neck pipe and riveted it to the chest to ensure it couldn't be taken off or destroyed.

"The paralysis potion should be wearing off any minute now," he informed her. "There are handles inside each of the limbs that you can pull on to make them bend and move. The head is directly connected to your cage, so you should be able to control it naturally."

Carver blinked slowly, getting used to the mechanical eyes, then tilted the head downward to examine her new body while she waited for her vines to finish waking up.

The first thing she noticed was that the new body had been painted orange. The second was that, instead of spreading the tips of her vines to create stumps to stand on or any number of tentacly finger-like digits, she now had actual feet and hands.

The third thing she noticed was the polite curve shaped into each side of her chest: her creator had made a subtle but definitive attempt to hint at femininity. The pumpkin creature slowly raised a corner of her new zigzag mouth. Time to switch pronouns!

Carver wiggled his vines a little bit inside the body, then searched for the handles Finkelstein had mentioned. Upon finding them and maneuvering a vine into place for each, he awkwardly bent the arm to bring his new left hand up where he could examine it better. The Doctor had been meticulous in the design and construction of this hollow body; with one vine on each handle, he had exactly enough vines left to fill and control each of the fingers. He moved and flexed them in turn, testing the joints out, then reached farther upward to feel the top of his head. A solid, twisted piece of metal had been welded to the top to form the resemblance of a pony tail.

Finkelstein watched with smug pride as his creation got used to her new body. Now he would have a constant reminder to take into account her womanly variables, and manage her properly.

"Well?" he asked. "What do you think?"

Carver tried to shrug, but failed. He tried to turn or tilt his head to see what the problem was, but the neck was too stiff to see its own base. He closed his eyes and reached out with his other sense instead... Ah, there was the problem. The location of the shoulder joints was farther out than expected. He opened his eyes and shrugged successfully.

"It's weird, but I get what you mean by more damage resistant. It'll take some time to get used to."

Finkelstein nodded. "Of course, of course, my dear. Now, why don't you get some practice walking, and go show your hooligan friends?"

Carver was delighted to discover that his mechanical eyes were fully capable of rolling. It was a bit jerky and slow going at first -- and he nearly tripped going down the spiral ramp -- but by the time he got to the treehouse he mostly had relative control over his movements.

The trio were down in the lair, doing some band practice. Barrel was actually playing on rhythm for once, before Lock called it off when Shock missed another note. The two of them argued as Carver came in. Barrel, calmly leaning in his chair behind his drums, noticed the orange creature first. The stem-like ponytail was his first clue to the thing's identity, then its relative size.

"Whoa - Carver, is that you?"

Lock and Shock stopped their bickering for a moment to glance over. Sure enough, the fight was quickly forgotten in place of curiosity. Shock ran over first, with her brothers not far behind her. Even with the pumpkin creature's new form, she picked up on it just as quickly as Barrel did. Closer now, she saw the rivets keeping the orange flesh - was it flesh? - together, the slight curvature like a doll's body, the strange face with its jagged mouth. The false flesh didn't quite hide the bolts keeping the jaw attached, giving Carver a small lump on either side of the face.

"The hell happened to you?" Shock asked. "Where's your cage?"

Lock came up next.

"Actually, where are your cargo pants?"

The edges of his mouth quickly lifted into a grin as he examined the body and quickly noticed a design flaw in the new body.

"New upgrade seemed to fall a bit short, didn't it?"

That got Shock and Barrel to laugh. Barrel sobered first.

"It's great, though!" he said. "You're a whole new monster!"

Carver knocked on his chest. "Dear old dad thought I needed an upgrade that's more damage resistant, or whatever. Cage is mounted inside. Cargo pants are still here; I hadn't gotten a chance to retrieve them yet, remember? Or have you not noticed I haven't returned your pajama bottoms either, baby l-- HEY!"

He grabbed Lock and yanked him close to compare their heights. Upon finding the devil was now a whole three inches taller, he let out a frustrated shriek and shoved his friend to the ground. "Shut up! I didn't get to pick the size this time!"

He grumbled quietly, then looked over to Barrel. "Oh yeah. Speaking of which. Remember how I started using feminine pronouns to piss Funkyfart off for calling me an 'it'?" He flicked his new chest curves. "I'm switching to masculine ones, now. I think he's forgotten I'm not actually a girl."

Lock laughed harder as Carver pulled him closer, then shoved him down. He got back up and pumped both fists in the air.

"I'm not the shortest anymore!" he declared. He grinned again. "And speaking of damage resistance..."

Lock tackled Carver, then threw a punch as hard as he could. The orange "flesh" was durable, a little rubbery, even, but he could still feel the metal underneath it. Nevertheless, he was used to it from punching Carver's metal limbs over the years.

Shock rolled her eyes at Carver's announcement.

"Great," she said. "Now there's three dumb boys here."

Barrel started to laugh, until he got it.

"Hey!"

Shock grinned, then reached up to pat his head.

"Don't worry," she said sweetly. "Carver's still leagues ahead of both of you."

Lock tripped her with his tail when she wasn't looking. Barrel teamed up with him to shove her away.

"Three on one!" he cried.

Shock collapsed to the ground, but braced herself for an incoming attack from any one of them.

"You think I can't take all of you by myself?"

"One way to find out," Barrel said with a grin.

It didn't take long for him to join the fight.

Carver moved to knee Lock in the stomach as he fell backward. The leverage required to bend the leg and bring it forward was still fairly unfamiliar, but the ease and smoothness of the new joints made up for that; there was almost no friction slowing him down as he threw a couple good kicks and punches of his own.

"Shock," he snapped, "stop playing with the tub and grab the mouse's tail!"

Lock grunted in pain, but quickly shifted to protect the softer parts of his body from Carver's attacks. He punched the new face a few times, mostly to get a feel for it.

Shock curled in her legs as Barrel dove for her. She kicked him off before he could utilize his full weight against her. She got back on her feet, but stomped down on Carver's shoulder to keep him down for a second.

"Don't tell me what to do," she said.

Nevertheless, she grabbed Lock's tail in both hands. With a heave, she lifted him off of Carver and flung him straight into Barrel, who had barely gotten back on his feet. Shock then let Carver up. Barrel partially caught Lock and was partially knocked back by the incoming devil, but steadied himself on his feet enough to throw Lock back at Shock and Carver. Lock corrected himself on the trip back, aiming to crash into Shock, and knock her into Carver behind her.

The two besties went crashing to the floor like a pair of bowling pins, with Lock sprawled across them. Mostly. His tail was pinned under one of Carver's legs. The pumpkin creature grabbed Lock's arm and tried to roll to get completely on top.

Lock seemed satisfied enough to have taken out two bats with one stone, and was already righting himself before his older sister could recover. Before he could stand, Carver grabbed his arm. Shock managed to sit up and grabbed his waist. Only due to that was Lock able to manage to stay on top of Carver, though with his body pulled more between the pumpkin creature and his older sister.

A shadow loomed over the three of them, then FWOOMP! Barrel dove for them, and belly-flopped over the group. Lock found himself pinned under Barrel's stomach, with Shock caught under his hips and Carver under his chest. Barrel stretched out his arms and legs and let the brunt of his weight pin his siblings and their friend.

Lock tried to squirm his arms free from under Barrel's flabby stomach. His legs helplessly kicked at the air.

"B-Barrel!" he cried.

Shock was pinned on her stomach, with one arm free and the other still partially around Lock. She turned her fingers to grab at some of Barrel's fat and dug in.

"Get...off!"

Barrel either didn't notice or didn't care. Shock kicked the heels of her feet into his side to no avail.

"Thought you could take all three of us?" Barrel asked calmly.

Lock burst out laughing, before he tried to twist free again. Shock curled her free hand into a fist and punched at Barrel's legs.

"I will when I get out of this!"

Barrel rested his head in one hand and grinned, content to keep his siblings contained for a moment.

"Mmmmmmph! Gnnngt WFFMRR!" Carver helplessly squirmed under Barrel's weight, his cries of indignation muffled by the biggest trickster's chubby chest. He did what he could to punch anybody he could reach, but lacked the leverage or space to do anything more noticeable than be a mild annoyance.

"You know," Barrel said casually, "this is so comfortable, I could just..."

He let out an exaggerated yawn.

"...Fall asleep right here."

Shock kicked him harder.

"Get off, deadweight!"

Lock shifted and tried to free his arms. He dug his shoes into the floor to try to push himself out from under Barrel.

"Come oooon!" he whined. "You win!"

But Barrel simply curled his arms into a makeshift pillow. He let the pattern of Shock's kicks lull him into a catnap.

"Did he really...?" Lock asked after a moment.

"He better not have!" Shock cried.

She tried to free her other arm, and tightly pinched Barrel's leg. She was greeted with a loud snore.

"Motherfucker..."

The two older siblings tried to wriggle free. They wouldn't get their chance for a good fifteen minutes when Barrel started to shift in his sleep.

Luckily for Carver, Barrel's nap tossing shifted him into a position that freed him first, giving Shock and Lock each a chance to have their airways cut off as he rolled further onto them. Once the pumpkin creature was free, he gave the big oaf a good kick in the head before helping pull Shock up.

"Stupid external plating," he mumbled. "I could have reached out with my vines to grab that skull drill and cracked him with it..."

He moved over to Lock next, but just stood there for several minutes with a smirk, waiting for the devil to actually ask for help. Or beg. Or grovel. Or bribe. Or some combination thereof.

Barrel responded to the kick with a hefty snore. Shock, having somewhat gotten herself free, groaned when Barrel rolling over ruined her work. Lock gave up a while ago, though when Barrel started to roll over, he found the bottom part of face buried in Barrel's chubby waist. He muttered out some muffled curses.

Shock accepted Carver's help. She cracked her back once free, then kicked Barrel's side as hard as she could.

"Damn boulder."

She glanced down to Lock, who she guessed was trying to get them to help him and started laughing. Lock growled and glared at her. She picked up on Carver's blatant refusal to help Lock and grinned, before she turned to Carver.

"Your cargo pants are still up in the tree house," Shock said. "And I'm pretty sure I have an old tank top that'll go with it."

Lock tried to scream something at her. His legs and tail both flailed on the other side. A devious smirk crossed Shock's face.

"We can let my brothers get some rest."

"Sure, sounds good. Thanks."

Carver bent down to give Lock a gentle pat -- making sure to retract his hand just quickly enough not to get swatted with the tail -- and followed Shock out of the lair.

A few minutes later, he twisted and turned, trying to get a good look at himself in his temporary outfit. He made a note to get a new pair of pants, as his new legs were a good foot shorter than the old ones; Finkelstein hadn't shortened the body a lot overall, but he had definitely messed with the proportions of the torso and legs.

"I dunno..." he said thoughtfully, tugging at the bottom of the tank a bit. "Do you think the shirt makes the boobs stand out more? Or is it just the contrast of the purple and orange?"

Lock gave a muffled scream at them both, but ended up resigned to his fate. At least until Barrel shifted in his sleep again.

Shock helped Carver locate the cargo pants, then searched the pile of clothes for the tank top she outgrew and tossed it at Carver. It took some careful maneuvering to avoid tearing it on the metal pumpkin stem.

"They're gonna stick out no matter what," Shock said with a shrug. "I'm actually surprised it even fits."

She thought for a moment.

"We can always get Sally to make you something looser so they're less noticable."

"Eh, I don't really care either way. They don't bother me, they just look weird. Not used to them, and all that. Honestly, they're made of metal; I could probably still get away with going around shirtless half the time. Still, though... Think we could get away with a mortal world trip to go shopping some time?"