Gears and Steam

Breakfast

Edmund

"I like him. He's mean and closed off but I think it's all an act. It's some sort of defence mechanism for him, but I like him." I stopped short when I heard those words come out of Jules's voice. I had been almost to my room, but Jules wasn't very good at whispering. He liked me? He wasn't supposed to like me. He was supposed to hate me.

Theo gave Jules some response that I couldn't make out. I scurried into my room before they reached the top of the stairs and saw me standing there. I didn't know what to do about someone actually liking me. It was strange. I was supposed to be finding a reason to fire him.

He probably didn't really mean it anyway, I thought as I collapsed on top of my green blankets. Everything in this house was green because we had left Freddie in charge of design, and green was her favorite color. Theo and I didn't care.

Needless to say, my bed was a lot more comfortable than my workbench. I fell asleep almost instantly without even changing out of my clothes.

...

I woke to a blaring alarm, and my curtains being opened. While it was nice to see my alarm system worked, I was not too happy at being woken up. I groaned and sat up, waiting for the alarm to stop on its own. The contraption I built pulled my curtains open when the alarm went off. There was one in every bedroom.

My alarm stopped, and I dimly heard Freddie and Theo's clocks stop about a second later. I didn't bother to change my clothes. The only other outfits I owned were a set of nightclothes, which I almost never wore, and a suit that was for special occasions where my oil-stained shirt wasn't appropriate, along with two extra shirts and another pair of trousers. I walked out into the hallway and was met by Theo whose room was directly across from mine. Freddie took longer to get ready.

We passed Jules's door on the way to the kitchen. His door was ajar and I could see him sitting up in bed, looking rather frightened. He was wearing an oversized nightshirt. Jules had unpacked about half of his stuff last night. There was an open suitcase on the ground next to his bed.

"It was just the wake up alarm that Edmund built," Theo called, understanding why Jules looked afraid. He must not have been warned about the system last night.

Jules nodded and quickly scrambled out of bed to get ready. I allowed a small smile to cross my face as Jules tripped over his suitcase. He might just be as clumsy as Freddie but it was possible that he would be a good assistant.

I tore my gaze away from Jules when I realized Theo had already wandered into our small kitchen. As Theo was the only decent cook amung us, he started making breakfast while I slumped into one of our four chairs. Freddie, always adamant about me needing an assistant, always made sure we had four of everything in the house. Four chairs at the table, four bedrooms, four coat hooks next to the entrance, four of everything. It was almost like her way of convincing me that we needed a fourth, even after we lost my first assistant. She didn't like it when I overworked myself or didn't sleep, and she thought that me having an assistant would fix that.

Jules stumbled out into the kitchen, still looking groggy. He had on a black ruffled shirt, grey trousers, and tall black boots with a ton of buckles. "Where's Freddie?" he asked.

"Still getting ready," Theo answered, pulling random pans out of our cabinets. "She cares about appearances, says it's family conditioning."

"She also says that her mother would die if she ever met me," I chuckled, shaking my head.

"Yes, she would, you slob," Theo gestured at me with a frying pan.

"Hey, I am not a slob," I insisted. "My shop is an orderly mess."