A/N: A sudden inspiration to try my hand at another multi-chapter modern AU. We'll see how it goes!
Myth and legend tell of many gods, many brothers, many voices crying out for power and greed, and love.
And there were gods, and there are gods, and they live and walk as men do, in the same worlds, burning with the same furies, crowned by the same desires.
But as for brothers, there were only two.
i.
The knife slashed deep.
Persephone picked away at the packing tape and frowned ruby-red.
The shoes were beautiful; gold was too simple a word. They were star-studded, with tiny gems constellating along the heels, pointed toes capped in a liquid turn of metal.
She had told him to stop sending gifts.
Persephone tossed aside the knife, tossed aside the box, tapped across glossy parquet in shoes that were almost as beautiful, and skimmed a languid finger over the surface of her phone.
His name wasn't Apollo in her phone. His name was Adam, like that first and fallen man.
Stop.
He was typing in instant. It was like he was waiting for her. And wasn't everyone? Her mother; the web of power—not a family, more of a dynasty, or a curse, that linked them. They all stood waiting for this youngest hope to step up. To take on her mother's gifts as though she wanted them. Oh, she was tired of gifts.
Stop keeping me awake at night.
As though the god of the sun did anything but find his own lights by night.
It was May. She no longer had school to keep her occupied. Somehow, that made Ap—Adam's advances more taxing. As though he wasn't several thousand years her senior. Didn't he ever get tired of being a perennial frat-boy?
Across the hall, she could hear her mother's voice, and she moved towards it, with a wayward glance at the free and ignorant city, silhouetted beyond the picture windows against a sky that held too much for her.
She found her mother in the dining room. Demeter was dressed in green. Demeter was always dressed in green. She moved her stylish, non-prescription frames down her graceful nose and said, "We're going to the country."
She must have seen the box, and known who sent it. "I thought," Persephone said deliberately, "That you wanted me to stay here and make…connections."
"It's summer," Demeter said, folding her arms. Her nails, unpolished, tapped absent and silent against the folds of her silk sleeves. "Summer means you're all mine."
And it always had. Persephone was twenty-two, and a year behind everyone else at Columbia, studying literature and hating it. But when she was nine, and her father left—wary of deities, as she had no right to be—he could never keep for her long, even then. Now, as then, Demeter's hands reached for her; she pulled her perfect daughter against her softness, and murmured, "You can't grow up yet."
"I'm not going to leave you to rule a world," Persephone said. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to gaze out these floor-to-ceiling windows, wanted to stay with her sleek white grand piano. The country was too much her mother's territory, warm and all-consuming.
"I don't trust Apollo."
"Don't you remember? He doesn't want to be called that."
The maids had boxes ready for them by seven o'clock. Persephone went out as Paige, Paige who went to Columbia, and drank with her friends.
The world spun a little, but only a very little. She cursed at the bathroom mirror in the dive bar, thought of taking her fist to it, making something uneven of all that glass.
It would hurt her. But she had her mother's blood, and that meant it would leave no scars.
ii.
When the most powerful man in the city bit his thick lower lip and pressed pen to paper, it almost elicited a smile. But contract coup or no—victory or bliss—there were appearances to keep up. The victor only rocked back slightly, all arrogant, excellent posture and a level gaze to match, and said, "Thank you, Mr. Donaldson."
Mr. Donaldson was represented by counsel. Five lawyers; and so four too many. Too many cooks—too many coroners—what was the expression? They shuffled him out of the room before he could burst a vein, or tear up the contract he had so unwillingly signed.
"Sir?" Alys was at the door, furrowed brow in full effect.
"What is it?" He straightened the square of black silk in his suit pocket.
"There's someone to see you."
She always had the same tone to indicate that particular visitor. He turned, looking at inky windows, beyond which the city was aglow, and said, "Show him in."
The footsteps were silent, but he could count seconds.
"Hermes."
"Hades."
Hades turned. Hermes, as usual, was all pinstripes and wryness. "It's been a long time."
"Alys remembered you."
"You're being gracious."
"It's turning to impatience. What has my brother done now?"
Hermes ran a hand through his hair, which, like its bearer, was always springing in different directions. "He says he's found Olympus."
That was enough to still Hades' hand, pouring an amber stream into two cut glasses. Other people would have said what the hell. He disliked the irony.
"Where?"
"He hasn't told me that. Hasn't told anyone. Didn't even tell me about this." Hermes shifted from one foot to the other. "I overheard."
"Of course." When one had been a god for centuries, with very little to do for the last several dozen, it was utterly without point to get ruffled over family infighting. Inwardly was nobody's business.
"He sees it…"Hermes shook his head. He was getting more restless by the second; it meant he wanted to go. He had never liked anything but open spaces. "He sees it as his duty."
"There is something disgustingly literal," Hades said, "About this particular golden child." Then he smoothed a hand through his dark hair—the only unruly part of him—and turned on a leather heel.
Hermes' voice held him a moment longer. "Zeus believes your father has woken."
Hades stiffened, shoulders hard. "Olympus is gone," he said steadily, but not, as Hermes likely perceived, without effort. "We are little more than ageless men, and my father will never wake. I have seen to it."
Hermes shrugged. "You've kept your world," he said. "They'll never let you be the only one."
He was gone before Hades could kill him.