Jove fell into his usual evening routine, relaxing in the common room, playing vertimon without really paying much attention. Eve was also in-game, though he only knew this from her status on his friends list.
A message notification suddenly appeared in the corner of his screen. He tapped it, aware that there was only one person it could have come from.
Asshole. You told Mom about my knee.
He exhaled, guilt tempered by annoyance. He did feel a little bad about it, but apologizing to Eve felt far too much like handing her a victory of sorts. He ran through a dozen possible rebuttals in his mind, along with a couple of apologies, before finally settling on something.
Sucks when someone rats you out, doesn't it?
A minute or two passed before footsteps sounded outside the common room and announced his sister's arrival. She came over and sat down heavily on the couch without saying anything.
"Can I help you?" he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Eve made as though to stare at her phone and ignore him, but set it down and crossed her arms, mouth quirking. "I want a fucking apology. That was seriously uncool."
He exhaled, annoyed at how part of him agreed with her. He wanted to explain, and yeah, maybe even apologize. But he wasn't about to be her doormat.
"Yeah, well, what you're experiencing right now isn't even a tenth of what I went through when you called the cops on me," he said. "How about you apologize for that?"
"God, you're like a broken record," she said. "That literally happened years ago. In a world that doesn't even exist anymore."
"Why is it so hard for you to just admit you fucked up, then? That you did something that had an intense negative impact on my life."
"Stop talking."
"You're the one who came out here."
He seethed and tried to orient his head so she was completely out of his field of view. What irritated him most was the fact that they'd more or less been getting along until a day ago.
"How about we settle it with a vertimon battle?" suggested Eve.
He narrowed his eyes, aware that she wouldn't make the offer without having something else up her sleeve. He beat her twice and suspected that she'd been grinding relentlessly in the time since. The game might be a silly Pokemon knockoff, but with apologies on the line, the stakes were simply too high.
"Not interested," he said.
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Aster surprised them both at the door leading to the hallway. "I thought I might borrow my nephew for some line reading, if he isn't too busy."
"I'm not busy at all," said Jove brusquely.
Eve glared at him and suddenly stood up, stomping her way out of the common room with more anger than the moment really called for. Jove took an instant of pleasure in her annoyance, but it faded into a more muted sense of sympathy as quickly as it arrived.
"What did you do to get her so riled up?" Aster took a seat on the couch next to him, sliding in close.
"It's complicated," he said.
"I'm a good listener," she said. "Pour out your heart and bask in your aunt's cultured wisdom."
She was wearing her robe again, hair still damp from the shower, with the smell of soap and shampoo wafting off her like perfume. Jove leaned in closer and smelled her.
"Can I just bask in your beauty, instead?" he suggested. "Talking about Eve gets me all riled up."
"Is that really such a problem?" She smirked, and her voice took on a husky quality. "I like you when you're riled up."
He sighed and gave a small shrug. "Eve's knee has been bothering her. I noticed it a while back, and she made me promise not to tell my mother."
"Ah. But you let it slip."
"Not intentionally," he said. "It's just hard to keep secrets when we're all together, all the time."
He winced slightly as he realized that he'd also come way too close to giving up his and Aster's secret, or having it drawn out of him by his mother. The fact that Kira hadn't confronted Aster about it yet was a good sign, however. He hadn't actually outright admitted to anything.
"You should talk to her," said Aster. "If it really was a mistake, then what's the harm in apologizing?"
"The harm is that it's Eve we're talking about. Everything is a competition to her, with a winner and a loser."
"You know you contribute to that dynamic just as much as she does," said Aster.
"Maybe. But still. It's not just about this one incident." He shook his head, not wanting to hang on the topic. "You mentioned reading lines?"
"I did. I was trying to get the printer in the command center working so I could churn out a pair of copies of the script of the first episode.
"Want me to take a look at it?" he asked.
"If you don't mind." She gave him a hug from the side, followed by a soft kiss. "I love you, Jovian."
He noticed that there was something different in how she said it this time, and she also noticed him notice.
"As your aunt, I mean," she added, quickly. "I love you deeply and care for you and appreciate you, yes?"
"Aster." He let his thumb touch her lips. "I love you, too."
She blinked, staring at him as though his words were still echoing off the walls. He meant it in the same way she had, which was to say that he could feel his face getting hot, as the hardwired moralistic depths of his mind demanded that he clarify what he meant. He wasn't sure he even knew what he meant — only what he felt.
"Well then," she said. "Let's, um… go read some lines."
She squeezed his knee and quickly stood up. Jove followed her out of the common room and down the hall, his eyes captivated by the way her thighs and hips moved underneath the short robe's thin fabric.
"It gave me this error when I tried to print," said Aster. "Code E07."
"It's probably low on ink." Jove crouched down, confirming it as he pulled out the cartridge. "There's got to be more somewhere around here."
"More of what?" Kira came into the room, frowning as she looked at Aster and Jove standing near one another.
"Ink for the printer," said Jove.
"What are you trying to print?" asked Kira.
"Ah… it doesn't really matter," said Aster, a little too quickly.
Jove made a defeated gesture with one hand, aware that there was no real getting around telling his mother what they were doing. "Aster found a pdf of the script for Rose of Redding season two. We were going to print off the first episode and run lines together."
Kira looked as though she'd tasted something sour, but her voice was level as she spoke. "We may need that ink eventually for something that actually matters. Just read it off your phone."
Jove shook his head. "What else are we ever going to need ink for?"
"Printing maps? Or letters, pamphlets, even, if we needed to share information with a larger group of people?' Kira shook her head. "It's not about having a specific need for it right now, but the fact that it's probably irreplaceable. When it runs out completely, we can't get more."
"Right," said Aster, in a sarcastic tone. "That's what this is about. Funny how your practicality so perfectly aligns with an opportunity to be dismissive of my acting career."
"The world has ended, Aster," said Kira. "Not that your acting career had all that much gas left in it beforehand."
"And there it is," said Aster. "You just couldn't resist, could you? Green has never been your color, Kira, regardless of the intensity of your unending envy."
Jove massaged his temples, sick of all the sibling animosity, pointless bickering over nothing. But an idea suddenly came to him, and he knew exactly what to do.
"Why don't you join us, Mom?" he suggested. "There has to be more than just two roles in the script that we'll have to act out."
"That's… an idea," said Aster, sounding uncertain.
"I'm busy," said Kira. "There's lots of work to do within the station."
"Like what?" asked Jove. "Andromeda's cooking dinner. We have food and heat. The solar panels are mostly clear of snow."
"We could do it as a family play night, assuming Eve could be convinced," suggested Aster.
Kira had the expression of a shy teenager being dragged by her friends to a party. She let out a sigh far too dramatic for the situation, or perhaps just dramatic enough if she was already getting into character.
"I… suppose that could be entertaining for a night," said Kira.
"So can we print the scripts out?" asked Aster.
"No." Kira held up a single finger with a sly smile. "There's an old projector in storage. We can take that out and put the script up on the wall. It'll be like having a teleprompter."