Jove opened the shed door and slowly stepped inside. Andromeda was exactly where she'd been the previous night, curled into a ball next to one of the snowmobiles.
He debated with himself whether or not to uphold his promise to his mother and not interact with the AI. Ultimately, there was nothing he could say that would change the situation. He'd have a better shot of talking his mother into leniency if he stayed on her good side, regardless.
He took the snowmobile Andromeda wasn't next to, stopping to close the shed door behind him. Setting out across the snow with the weather as nice as it was felt pleasant, almost recreational. It was still cold, but not bitter cold, not punishingly cold.
He spotted Eve enjoying herself in the far distance, hardly more than a dot on the horizon. Her tracks were easier to see than she was. Jove pulled the headset up to his ear and was rewarded with the sound of her physical exertions on the open channel. It was oddly compelling to listen to, a mixture of heavy breathing and tiny grunts of effort.
He slowed to a stop next to the flipped snowmobile. Jove couldn't help but recognize that it was the second snowmobile he'd wrecked in under a week, even if it'd been for a good cause. Ideally, it would make sense for their family to have at least four on hand. He took a closer look at the damage.
It wasn't actually so bad, mostly superficial breaks in the plastic. One of the treads looked like it was offset at a bad angle, but he was fairly certain it could be fixed. He connected the tow strap and fiddled with the controls of the downed snowmobile until he was fairly sure he could start moving it.
Flipping it back onto its treads took patience and some careful finagling, but he eventually managed it. Afterward, it seemed obliged to drag along behind his working snowmobile, though the going was fairly slow.
Jove glanced back out to confirm Eve was still visible every minute or two. He brought the headset back up to his ears to hear how she was doing, but either the batteries in hers had died or she'd turned it off.
She'd begun skiing in his direction when he saw her take a fall. It wasn't into a crevasse, thankfully, but she landed hard on her side and didn't immediately get back up. Jove shifted his route to draw nearer to her, though it was a slow affair with the weight added by his towing.
"What happened?" he called.
"Nothing!" snapped Eve. "I'm fine."
He watched her struggle to stand up only to immediately tip over, holding her knee.
"Yeah, you certainly look fine to me," he said, dryly.
"Shut up." Eve let out a long sigh and brushed a few dark strands of hair out of her face. "It's my knee. It's been acting up a bit since I started skiing again."
"You're allowed to take it easy, you know," he said. "It's not like you have any races coming up."
"Wow, I feel so much better now that you've reminded me of that," she muttered.
"You know what I mean. If your knee is making it painful to ski, you have the option of simply hanging out inside."
She looked at him, face flushed and intense with emotion. "Little brother. This is just about the only thing keeping me sane right now. So no, hanging out inside is not really an option."
"You should look into developing better coping mechanisms."
"Right back at you," muttered Eve. "Arguing with Mom while flirting with Aunt Aster will lead to a disaster eventually. They already have knives at each other's throats half the time."
"I have not been flirting with Aster," he said, face conspicuously hot.
"That's debatable," she said, with an odd smile. "Relax. I'm just teasing. Give me a ride back to the station?"
"Sure. Can you stand?"
She could, but walking was still painful. Jove leant her a shoulder and helped her over to the snowmobile.
"Also, can you not tell Mom about this?" asked Eve. "She's already so weird about letting me out to ski. I feel like a dog on a leash and it will only get worse if she starts thinking I might collapse and strand myself on the ice."
"Is that not a concerning possibility? What would you be doing right now if your awesome brother hadn't swooped in with a snowmobile?"
"I would have managed somehow," she muttered. "It would have just been at the expense of my overall health."
The already slow going with towing the broken snowmobile became an outright crawl with the addition of Eve's weight. Jove felt far too aware of her presence on the saddle behind him.
Her arms were wrapped around his midriff, and even through all the layers, he could feel her breasts pressed into his back. Her breath on his neck and cheek was regular and distracting, warm and faintly humid against the Antarctic cold.
Jove gripped the handles of the snowmobile tightly as they traversed a particularly rough patch of ice. The uneven surface jostled them, causing Eve to squeeze into her hold around his waist. He tried to focus on the path ahead, but the constant bumps and the warmth of her body against his back made it difficult to concentrate.
The broken snowmobile they were towing added to the challenge, its weight causing the back end of their vehicle to fishtail with each bump. Jove leaned forward, attempting to maintain control and keep them on course. Eve's breath hitched as they hit a particularly large bump, her arms constricting around him reflexively.
"You okay back there?" Jove called over his shoulder, raising his voice to be heard over the whine of the snowmobile's engine.
"I'm hanging on."
She tightened her grip a little more, and it genuinely felt like they were locked in an embrace. Jove felt a stirring of excitement and tried to remind himself of the wisdom of her earlier words. Flirting with Aster was a bad idea and so was letting himself see Eve as anything other than his competitive and occasionally bossy older sister.
They hit another bump. One of Eve's hands slid from where it was around his waist, briefly touching his thigh and crotch as she rebalanced. Jove let out a groan as he felt his cock rising to the occasion.
"Be more careful!" snapped Eve.
"Don't be a backseat driver."