Kotir and Velt were sitting by their fire in some grassy area of the Clockworks (they hadn't been paying much attention to which one), waiting for their chromalisk to finish cooking. The thing was a bit smashed, but that was to be expected when Kotir did the hunting; it was better than letting Velt do it and being unable to find anything left to cook once his explosives took effect.

"I've got it!" Kotir exclaimed out of the blue, waving the stick he had been poking the meat with decisively.

Velt had been leaning back against a rock, his eyes half closed, when he was startled into alertness by his friend's unexpected outburst. "Get what?" he asked, undecided whether or not to be suspicious of Kotir's enthusiasm.

"Well, we've been wondering what to do about getting a place, right? You've been meaning to get out of your parents' house, I want to give Kex and T'Keva their privacy in the interest of having some nieces and nephews to spoil soon, and getting an apartment would be dumb because we're in town so infrequently."

"I remember," Velt answered flatly, wondering where this was headed.

"And then it hit me:" Kotir continued. "Vakren."

His friend made a face. "That doesn't sound like the answer to anything."

* * * * *

Vakren was, once again, trying to install some additional lighting in his home.

His confidence had been given a boost by the Foreman needing his expertise several days ago (even if the foreman was his sister's mate), and the boost had only been increased yesterday when everything he had said had been proven exactly right. He was, therefore, ready to give electrical work another shot, but it wasn't going particularly well this time, either.

There was a knock on the door.

Vakren sighed and put down the perplexing bundle of wires he had been trying to shove into the ceiling in some sort of meaningful way before heading over to answer it. T'Keva's patients seemed to have figured out she was no longer here by now, so he didn't have the slightest notion of who it could be.

The two large gremlins at the door turned out to be Kotir, to whom Vakren wasn't quite clear on whether or not he was related, considering their siblings were now mates, and the burly thwacker's quiet friend. Vakren couldn't remember the latter's name, but did recall that he was an expert in explosive demolitions.

"You guys do remember T'Keva moved in with your brother, right?"

"Of course," Kotir answered, nonplussed. "We came to see you. You busy?"

Vakren was startled into honesty by that revelation. "Just trying to install some lighting ... T'Keva didn't need it ..."

"Great!" The thwacker gave him a broad smile. "Velt can help you with that."

"But Velt builds bombs ..." Vakren answered, trailing off as he moved aside to let the two in.

"Which makes him an excellent electrician," Kotir told the bewildered gremlin as he and the demo stepped into the house. It was mostly the same as it had been last time he had been there, except for the shelves; where there had once been medical supplies arranged in perfect order, there was now a collection of books, papers, and other research paraphernalia that appeared to be stacked in some sort of controlled chaos.

Velt looked over the mess of wires and electrical fixtures that Vakren had been trying to make sense of, rolled his eyes, and shot Kotir a look that clearly meant 'I blame you for this' before getting down to work. He made more headway in the first ten minutes than Vakren had in the past three hours.

"So, why are you really here?" Vakren asked Kotir after a few minutes of watching Velt splice wires and attach connectors, none of which he understood.

"Because we thought you could use some roommates," Kotir answered casually.

"You," Velt amended around the screwdriver clenched between his teeth. "You thought he could use some roommates."

"What?" Vakren was baffled all over again.

"Hear me out, man," Kotir started. "You skip town on research trips for ages at a time. You don't want your place to sit empty while you're away, do you? We come and go, and don't spend more than a few days at a time in town; long enough to make sure everything is good here, but not long enough to warrant keeping a place."

Vakren was intrigued by the idea, but not entirely convinced. He had been wondering what he was going to do with the place next time he headed out into the Clockworks, but had figured he would just have his sister drop by every so often. "What's wrong with where you're at now?"

Kotir shrugged. "Velt needs to get out of his parent's home." Velt shot his friend a look from behind a light fixture, and Kotir walked over to hold it up while it was being connected. "And up until now, I've been staying at Kex's place, just like you've been staying at T'Keva's. I think we can both agree that they need their privacy."

"Why's that?" the researcher asked dubiously. Kotir groaned.

"I thought we went over that days ago, man."

"You also got him drunk directly after," Velt supplied, finishing the fixture he was working on so that the thwacker no longer had to hold it up.

Kotir turned to face Vakren. "I have one word for you, man: Babies." He emphasized the last word with what was probably unnecessary intensity, causing Vakren to stare at him and Velt to let a chuckle slip; he had heard this rant before, and it always sounded ridiculous coming from an enormous gremlin with an equally enormous thwackhammer slung across his back.

"Can't you just imagine it?" Kotir started in. Vakren thought he looked a little crazed. Velt just rolled his eyes and went back to work. "A whole house full of cute little nieces and nephews to spoil, with their cute little fuzzy ears and baby talk and ..." He paused. "Anyway, Kex and T'Keva's work keeps them busy at odd hours enough. I don't want to delay their getting a family started any more than necessary," he finished matter-of-factly.

"You're totally crazy," Vakren said in bewildered awe.

"He just knows he's terrible with ladies but wants gremlinites anyway, so this is the next best thing," Velt told Vakren with a shrug as he moved the ladder.

"Hmph." Kotir decided to change tactics. "If we live here, you'll never have to pay for repairs; I'm almost as good a carpenter as Velt is an electrician."

Vakren looked somewhat more interested in this offer.

"And we'll bring you samples from our Clockworks expeditions," the thwacker added slyly.

"Done," Vakren said quickly, not wanting to miss that particular opportunity.

Velt just shook his head, sighed, and rolled his eyes as he spliced a pair of wires together.

* * * * *

Vakren had figured that if one of his new roommates was going to drive him crazy, it would be Kotir. He was wrong.

The researcher stood in the doorway between his room and the front living area, scowling at the piles of parts arranged on the otherwise-empty supper table. Velt sat with his back to Vakren, whistling tunelessly as he rapidly assembled those parts within flat casings and dropped the finished products carelessly into a haversack sitting on the floor.

"Are you building bombs in the living room?" Vakren asked incredulously after a few moments of watching.

The whistling stopped. "The table in the bedroom is too small," Velt answered without either looking up or stopping, and dropped another flat explosive into the bag next to him.

"But you're building them in the house!"

Velt pause, looked up, and turned to gaze at Vakren as though he were a little crazy. "The porch is also too small."

Vakren threw up his hands and snorted in disgust, knocking his spectacles off of his nose as the demo went back to his work and the whistling started up once more.

* * * * *

When Vakren returned from his errands the next cycle, he found the front door unlocked. Both Kotir and Velt had seemed conscientious about locking it when they left, so he hoped this was more of a momentary lapse than something that would become an ongoing problem.

Sighing and rolling his eyes, the researcher pushed the door open and stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was the strange gremlin sitting casually on a bench, sipping a drink and wearing nothing but his fur. Vakren stared incredulously at him for a moment, but he took no notice.

"Who are you?!" Vakren demanded hysterically after a moment of stunned silence. "What are you doing i- Why are you - Did you rearrange my furniture?!"

The strange gremlin turned his head toward Vakren and seemed to be studying him as he took a long, deliberate drink from the cup he was holding. He looked fairly young.

"Hey, man," came Velt voice from behind Vakren. "You seen my keys? Must have lost them between here and - Ugh." Velt glared over Vakren's shoulder at the gremlin on the bench. "Belken, put your coat on, fix the furniture, and go home," he ordered.

"You know this guy?" Vakren exclaimed.

"What are you two doing standing in the doorway?" Kotir asked from behind them at the same time. "Heh, it's Belken," he added with a chuckle. "Put some pants on, man!"

"Would someone please explain to me what's going on?" Vakren whined.

"That's one of Velt's little brothers," Kotir explained as Velt strode into the living room, picked up an unfamiliar long coat from the back of a chair, fished his keys out of the pocket, and tossed it at Belken. "Dude just doesn't like clothes. That's why he doesn't leave the house much."

"I want to move in with you guys," Belken muttered, looking truly pathetic with his coat on his lap as he stared up at his older brother.

"Absolutely not," Velt answered, pushing the furniture back into place. "Put that on and help me out."

It took quite a bit of aggravated hounding on Velt's part, but Belken eventually donned his coat and helped to put the living area back to the state in which he had found it. It was not without complaint, however, and when they were finished, Velt grabbed his younger brother by the scruff of the neck and marched him out the door.

Kotir laughed under his breath as he watched them disappear down the street in the direction of Velt's parent's house. "Velt is the middle gremlin in a family of seven boys, and all three of his younger brothers still live with their parents," he remarked to Vakren, who was standing in the middle of the room staring at the spot on the bench where Belken had been sitting with a wrinkled nose. "So you can see why he'd want to move out."

* * * * *

"Y'know man, between your bombs and your brother, Vakren's getting ready to pop a sprocket."

Kotir and Velt were walking to Durst's place to pick up something for supper; Vakren had seemed like he needed some quiet time.

"Yeah, I owe him one," Velt answered his friend, his shoulders hunched and his hands stuffed in his pockets. He was still miffed about the incident with Belken earlier that afternoon, and the two were silent for the rest of their walk.

When they arrived at the shop, Durst's niece, Dinae, was at the window. She was very pretty, but neither Kotir nor Velt much liked her; she usually juggled seeing four or five gremlins at once, and was entirely self-absorbed. It had been her roommate that had gone missing a decacycle or so ago, and she had merely remarked on the extra privacy in the apartment when Kotir had asked her about it.

Dinae looked up from her nail file, saw who it was, and sighed disinterestedly. Neither of these two ever responded to her flirting. "You need something?" she asked in a bland tone.

"Got a prepped chromalisk?"

"Dunno," Dinae answered. "I'll check with Uncle." She wrinkled her nose. "He's back there fussing over a bunch of eggs."

"What sort?" Velt asked, his ears perking up; eggs sounded as good as chroma did, at the moment.

The girl shrugged. "Klepto, I think. His new wild-caught just laid them and he doesn't want that many in his breeding stock."

"Can I talk to him?" The idea that was forming in Velt's mind now had nothing to do with supper.

Dinae wordlessly opened up the side door to let him through and waved him back before returning to filing her nails, ignoring Kotir. Kotir, for his part, shrugged as he watched his friend disappear into the building with mild puzzlement, then leaned against the counter to wait.

It wasn't long before Velt emerged with not only the chromalisk they had come for, but a pouch he was gently cradling in his coat.

"What's that?" Kotir asked suspiciously.

"Gotta keep the eggs warm," Velt answered, handing over the meat. "Figured Vakren'll want 'em."

"What if he doesn't?" The thwacker eyed the pouch dubiously as he tucked the packed under his arm and started for home.

"Breakfast."

* * * * *

Velt was just finishing with the heat lamp setup that Durst had described as being necessary when Vakren emerged from his room. He had been drawn out by the smell of the chromalisk that Kotir was preparing, but paused his curious sniffing to eye Velt's new project suspiciously.

"Now what are you building?" he asked.

"Brought you something." Velt stepped away from the setup and crossed his arms as he examined his handiwork. Vakren watched him for a moment before turning his attention to the project, approaching the table with extreme caution.

"Are these kleptolisk eggs?" The researcher's eyes widened.

"Durst didn't want 'em," Velt answered. "Figured you might."

Vakren didn't answer. He was too busy fussing over his eggs.