Valentine's Day Town

"Why do we have to start with this one?" Lock complained.

"We have to start somewhere, so why not this one?" Shock said.

"Because it looks stupid." he sneered.

"Yeah, what even is this?" asked Barrel as he ran his hands over the rough, pink-painted bark of the carved holiday door in question. The children had never seen a heart before - at least not a stylized one like this.

"Who cares?" Shock said irritably. "Whatever it is, it's something different, so let's check it out and see what we can wreck there."

"Why can't we start with the firecracker one?" Lock complained again.

Shock frowned at him. Apparently she was the only one of them who grasped the concept of 'delayed gratification'. "Because we should save the best for last, dummy! And this way we'll be experts at going to other worlds by the time we get there."

"Ugh, you're just as boring as this dumb door…" Lock rolled his eyes, but followed her over to it anyway. Shock stepped up onto the round box wrapped in pink and white striped paper that served as the step, then turned the shiny gold handle and pulled the door open. They all three peered down inside, but just like Christmas Town and Easter Town, they saw only darkness. "This is going to be the worst place ever. I'm staying here, you two go have fun in the most boring holiday of all time." grumbled Lock, though he really had no way of knowing how boring or not-boring this place would be.

Shock gave Barrel a significant look and nodded her head towards Lock. Barrel immediately picked up on her clue and together they suddenly shoved their middle cohort right through the door. "Oh no you're not! You're coming with us!" Shock shouted down after him as he shrieked and cursed as he fell out of sight, and she and Barrel laughed before jumping in as well.

They spiraled down through the darkness that gradually gave way to a pinkish white light below and eventually landed gently on a soft, fluffy white cloud, then they bounced gently off of that into a field absolutely filled with thornless red roses and pink and red carnations.

"More flowers!" groaned Barrel. This place was even worse than Easter Town, and all three trick-or-treaters were glad that they'd taken their anti-allergy potion from Sally before venturing into this door or surely they'd all be sick for a month. The air smelled of roses and sickly perfume, but Barrel's keen nose also detected something else… "I smell chocolate. Do you guys smell chocolate?" He sniffed the air as he looked around, then spotted what appeared to be the main town - which also seemed to be where the chocolatey aroma was coming from.

"Yeah, I smell it, too." said Shock, looking over at the distant town. It seemed to be comprised of white buildings and pillars of various sizes, with lots of what she assumed were more rose bushes scattered throughout and lots of fluffy clouds all around it.

"Let's go check it out!" said Lock, deciding that just maybe this world wouldn't be 100% worthless and disgusting if there was candy here. They crouched low in the flowery field and headed the direction of the white buildings, and after awhile they saw their first creature: pairs of little white birds with soft-looking feathers flying and floating through the air together in a sort of romantic-looking dance, and the children were thoroughly repulsed. The little birds made a gentle cooing sort of sound and one pair made the mistake of fluttering down to circle around the trick-or-treaters heads. Lock reached out to grab one and managed to pull out a few tail feathers, which sent the little doves soaring back into the sky once more.

"I hope you don't get sick from touching that thing…" Shock said, eyeing him cautiously, but Lock felt confident that Sally's potion would prevent anything like that - after all, it had worked great the other times they had taken it. They reached two very tall, golden poles with very intricate floral carvings and a pink banner hanging between them that seemed to be the entrance to the town. "Valentine's Day Town?" Shock attempted to pronounce the strange word, and the boys took her word for it since that was still a tiny bit above their reading levels. Then they saw the shadows of something swoosh through the air above their heads and they ducked behind a tall, white, marble pillar nearby. When it seemed like the coast was clear, they poked their little heads out from behind the pillar and took in the sight of Valentine's Day Town: it was a lush garden constructed of white marble with crystal-blue reflecting pools and fountains, rose bushes, golden filigree decorations and lots and lots of the same heart symbol as the door to this world. There were tile mosaics of those hearts, doves, flowers and other similarly disgusting things… and worst of all, there were paintings and white marble statues of couples kissing, caressing and holding one another, and the children felt like throwing up.

"I told you this would be the worst holiday ever!" Lock hissed in Shock's ear, and unfortunately she had to agree with him. They crept through the garden, hiding behind those sculptures and roses while little pairs of doves and lovebirds flitted about snuggling and cooing together. Barrel was about to pull out his slingshot to try and hit some, but then he saw something else, something even better than hitting ugly little birds: candy.

"Look!" he squealed excitedly, elbowing Shock in the arm and pointing to some white marble steps leading down to one of the pools, and she saw neatly arranged boxes of chocolates all over the stairs. There were also cute little stuffed teddy bears in whites, pinks and reds but the children ignored them, too focused on swiping some of those delicious-smelling chocolates.

"I'm gonna go for it, keep watch!" said Lock, but before he could even take one step in that direction they saw what had swooped over their heads earlier: two little human-looking creatures with blonde hair and white feathery wings, wearing little white garments that sort of looked like diapers, and the trio snickered to themselves because they looked so stupid. They were chubby and childlike with rosy pink cheeks and they were laughing and chatting together while holding hands before they flew down to land on the steps and dip their toes in the pool. Lock was frustrated that their plot to swipe the candy had been derailed, but the creatures looked pretty wimpy to him so he thought he could take them. "I bet I can beat the crap outta those things." he murmured, but Shock grabbed his arm before he could try.

"They have bows and arrows, dummy! Are you blind?" she hissed, and Lock was embarrassed that he hadn't even noticed that they did indeed have a golden bow draped across each of their backs and little quivers filled with golden arrows.

"You're the blind one!" he snapped back, but Shock ignored him.

"We need some sort of diversion." she whispered and wracked her brain for an idea, for she wanted those chocolates just as bad as the other two did.

"Let's throw Barrel in the pool!" snickered Lock, and Barrel shrunk back because he was afraid they might actually do it, but lucky for him Shock had a better idea. She pulled three little round things with wicks out of her pocket, and her cohorts grinned in wicked excitement.

"You brought cherry bombs!" exclaimed Lock, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

"That's right!" she smiled deviously, and held out her hand. "Gimmie some matches." she said, because he pretty much always carried some with him, along with his trusty lock picking set.

"Why do you get to do it?" he frowned, and a somewhat lengthy argument ensued over who got to set up the explosives. Finally Barrel got impatient with their bickering and in a rare move of pushiness he snatched the fireworks and matches right out of their hands. He was tired of waiting to get that chocolate.

"I'll do it since you two can't make up your minds!" he snapped, and normally the other two would have beaten him up for daring to do such a thing, but then they decided that was probably the best way to end the argument and get on with their heist.

"Okay, fine!" whispered Shock. "Go blow up one of those kissy-kissy statues over there, far enough away that those dumb little diaper kids will have to fly a long way to go see. Then me and Lock will go grab a bunch of candy and meet you back here, got it?"

Barrel nodded and snuck away from them, keeping close to the walls and pillars and ducking beneath the bushes, trying to be stealthy. Lock and Shock kept their eyes on the prize while they waited - the two little diaper kids had opened a box of chocolates and were now popping bon-bons into one another mouths and giggling together, and Lock put his finger in his mouth to make a gagging gesture and Shock giggled. Before too long there was an absolutely enormous 'BOOM!', followed by two more, and the explosions were so powerful that they made little waves in the pools and a few statues and large vases full of flowers fell over. All of the birds that had been sitting on the bushes and fountains took to the air and the two little diaper kids looked up in alarm before staring at one another for a moment. Then they took off flying in the direction of the noise, pulling their bows from their backs and each loading up an arrow, and after they passed by Lock and Shock made a break for the coveted chocolates. They each grabbed as many of the red heart-shaped boxes as they could carry before running back the way they came, but Shock took just enough time to kick the diaper kids' open box of chocolates into the pool with a wicked smirk. They ran as fast as they could towards the edge of town and saw Barrel's face poking out from behind a fallen marble column, grinning widely at the sight of all the boxes in his cohort's hands… but then his expression changed from excitement to terror.

"Watch out!" he cried out to them from behind his hiding place, but it was too late: a small golden arrow hit each of them right in their rear ends, causing them both to yelp in surprise - but oddly enough the arrows didn't hurt too much, merely a sharp, startling prick as if they'd been snapped by a rubber band, and then the discomfort was gone.

"We're under attack!" Lock yelled, grabbing Shock by her arm and pulling her beneath an enormous rose bush to hide, dropping half of his chocolates in the process, but fortunately no more arrows came at them.

"Good job, moron, you got us shot!" Shock hissed at him, even though it wasn't really his fault. She pulled the arrow out of her rear and tossed it aside, but then she looked right at him and a weird, funny feeling washed over her.

"Whatever, it didn't even hurt, you're such a wi-…" Lock stopped mid-sentence and paused with his hand around the golden arrow in his backside when he looked at her, and he suddenly felt warm and weird all over. "-mp." he finished as he finally pulled out the arrow, and he had no idea why his face felt so hot. "Uh… are you okay?" he asked sheepishly.

"I think so…" Shock said uncertainly, utterly perplexed by his question. Since when did Lock care if she sustained such a minor injury? "Are you?" she asked back, and she had no idea why she cared about him, either, nor why she felt like her heart might flutter right out of her chest.

"Yeah, I think so. It didn't really hurt much." he replied, staring into her coal-black eyes and all of a sudden he realized that she was rather pretty. How had he not noticed before how nice her sickly green skin looked, or how much he liked her dark, wild hair? And how her nose that he usually liked to make fun of had such a pleasing, witchy shape to it?

Shock was having similarly alarming thoughts as she gazed into his yellow eyes. How had she never noticed how nice they were? Or how much she liked his styled-up hair that she usually enjoyed making fun of him for being so fussy about? And how the sharp points of his nose and chin gave him such an attractive, devilish look? All of a sudden she realized that he was rather cute, and she was struck with a bizarre and overpowering urge to kiss him, but instead she just took hold of his hand. "Thanks for pulling me under here so we wouldn't get shot anymore." she said shyly.

"You're welcome." Lock said just as shyly, and before he could stop himself he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. He pulled away from her, blushing fiercely and worried that she would punch him for kissing her… but instead she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek right back. When she pulled away he saw that she was blushing too, and he was just about to lean in to give her another kiss when suddenly Barrel was under the bush with them. He had waited and watched from his hiding place until the little flying children had flown away, and when no more arrows seemed to be coming he scurried over to his cohorts as low to the ground as he could get to make sure they were alright.

"Are you okay?" he asked them, not yet noticing their hands clasped together.

"Yeah…" they both answered in rather dreamy voices, still gazing into each others eyes.

"Really? You got shot in the butt!" Barrel exclaimed, but then he realized they were looking at one another in a very, very strange way. "Uh… guys?" he asked uncertainly, but they didn't pay any attention to him, they were too busy staring at each other with what could only be described as goo-goo eyes. They'd seen Jack and Sally look at one another like that before but Barrel was completely and utterly perplexed to see his friends looking at one another the same way, and he wondered if they were playing some sort of joke on him.

"You're really pretty. And really smart, way smarter than me." Lock said, staring at Shock adoringly.

"Thanks. You're really brave and tough. And really, really cute." Shock said back, completely enraptured, and Barrel wasn't sure whether to laugh, vomit or panic. What in the world was going on? Lock and Shock were usually at each other's throats nearly 24-7, so why were they acting so lovey-dovey with each other now? Out of all the scary things that Barrel had ever been through, this was the scariest. Scarier than when Lock got his tail chopped off. Scarier than when Shock nearly blew herself up with that failed time bomb she made. Scarier than the time he himself had fallen out of that tree and fractured his arm. Even scarier than that time Oogie had beaten Lock so bad he passed out. Living with them if they were always going to be talking to each other like this would be intolerable! He'd have to move out and live on the streets or something. But then it got even worse: suddenly his cohorts leaned in and kissed each other right on the lips and Barrel's jaw nearly hit the ground. This definitely wasn't a joke.

"WE'RE LEAVING NOW!" he yelled in horror, yanking both of their free hands and their lips pulled apart with a disgusting 'smack' and he frantically dragged them along towards the holiday doors, completely forgetting about the chocolate. This was an emergency and Barrel was desperately thinking about what to do as they ran through the flower field… he could only hope that somehow Dr. Finkelstein or the grown-up witches could fix it, or Jack, or Sally, or anybody. Lock and Shock stumbled several times on their way to the doors because they weren't looking where they were going, they were still gazing at one another with those horrible lovey-dovey expressions as if there was nothing in the universe except each other. Barrel flung open the Jack-o-Lantern door and pushed them both in, and they hardly seemed to notice or care that he'd just shoved them. Then he jumped in after them, hoping against hope that their terrible condition could be fixed.

They landed gently in the middle of the ring of trees in their own world and Barrel found Lock and Shock sitting next to each other on the ground with rather stunned expressions on their faces. Barrel watched them cautiously for a moment, holding his breath and bracing himself for more kissing, but then his cohort's eyes widened in absolute horror as the effects of those little golden arrows wore off.

"Holy crap…" Shock said as she brought her hands to her mouth, remembering the feeling of Lock's lips and feeling like she wanted to barf.

"That was the most disgusting thing that has ever happened, ever, EVER!" Lock said angrily as he roughly scrubbed his face with his sleeve until his white skin was pink and his blue lips were purple. What had he been thinking? How could he ever have thought she was pretty, and even worse, how could he have kissed her and let her kiss him back? It was just too repulsive to think about.

"You're telling me! I'm gonna have to take a bath in boiling bleach just to get your gross boy cooties off of me!" Shock said in a tone of utmost revulsion as she got to her feet. What had she been thinking? She couldn't believe she'd let Lock's horrible lips touch her, and even worse, that she'd touched his annoying - and definitely not cute! - face with her own.

"Well I'm gonna be puking for weeks because of your nasty girl cooties, so there!" Lock fired back as he got to his feet as well, and Shock was about to retort but then they both noticed that Barrel was giggling at them.

"I can't believe you guys kissed, that's soooo grooooss!" he said happily. Now that he knew it wasn't permanent, it was truly the most hilarious thing he had witnessed in a good long while.

"SHUT UP, BARREL!" they both yelled at him, their cheeks going red.

"And you held hands, too!" Barrel squealed in delight, now laughing even harder. It wasn't often that he got to embarrass his two older cohorts, and now he got to do it to them both at the same time. It was too good not to savor.

"Shut it, midget, or I'm gonna punch your lights out!" Lock snarled, baring his teeth and balling his fists, and Shock was fully prepared to help him.

"Shock and Lock, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-…." Barrel singsonged, but that's as far as he got because Lock made good on his threat and clocked him right in the face. Barrel stopped laughing for only a moment because it hurt, but then he started laughing again because the hilarity outweighed the pain and he continued his teasing. "N-G! First comes love, then comes marriage…"

"Then comes my foot up your butt!" Shock yelled, and she was so mad that she actually tackled him. Lock dog-piled onto both of them, but then realized that he didn't want to touch Shock again for as long as he lived so he quickly rolled back off again and let her deal with punishing that stupid little ghoul. Shock wasn't satisfied until she'd given Barrel two black eyes and a puffy lip, and she finally got off of him when he promised not to tease them anymore… though Barrel decided that he didn't even need to cross his fingers to break this promise later, because making fun of them for kissing and holding hands would give him ammunition for months.

"We can't go back to that place, no matter how much chocolate is there!" Lock said firmly as they walked back towards home.

"We must have been under some sort of spell… there had to be some sort of love potion on those arrows or something." said Shock, trying to make sense of what had happened. She couldn't make spells or magic potions herself, but she knew enough about them to imagine that such a thing existed. "It had to be that. There's no way I'd kiss your dumb, gross face without something like that."

Lock was about to argue back that her face was dumber and grosser than his, but then Barrel interrupted: "Yeah right, I bet you totally wanted to kiss before you got a magic arrow in your butt…" he snickered, quickly holding his hands up to his face in a defensive gesture in case one of them punched him for making fun of them again, but Shock hit him in the gut instead and he wheezed and doubled over. It was still worth it, he thought, but then Lock came over and karate-chopped him hard in the back and Barrel fell to the ground, now thinking that maybe he actually should stop teasing them for the time being if he wanted to get home in one piece.

The trek back home was awkwardly quiet, with Lock and Shock keeping as far away from each other as they could on the narrow path and Barrel trying his hardest to hold in his giggles as he trailed along behind them. When they reached their treehouse Lock and Shock drew straws to decide who got to use the bath to wash each others disgusting cooties off first. Barrel grabbed some crayons and paper to draw pictures of them kissing with lots of those little heart symbols all around them until Lock saw and forced him to tear up the drawing and throw it in the oven, giving him a few more punches for good measure. When Lock and Shock had both finished scrubbing themselves as clean as possible, another distraction was desperately needed.

"Let's go spray-paint some swear words on the Mayor's house." Lock suggested, eager to get back to their normal activities.

"Good idea." said Shock, and she pulled out the cans of paint that Oogie Boogie had given them from the trunk in the corner.

Barrel just grinned and didn't say anything as they headed for the cage elevator. Even though he was pretty beat up, he wasn't done teasing them quite yet. He knew what he was going to spray paint on the Mayor's house, and it definitely wasn't swear words.

Author Note: After all the misery I've been writing lately I felt it was time for something silly and light-hearted... although I suppose Lock and Shock were still pretty miserable here, LOL!