In hindsight, Apollo thought he should have fixed them up with some more furniture before they moved in. His own standards weren’t too high, he was in this for the experience. For the authenticity. After all, they didn’t have recliners back in ancient Greece, he could take what he got. Sure, he would make sure to get some of his things. He couldn’t leave his lyre and stereo on Olympus. But the furniture, he wanted to find that himself. He wanted to do as the mortals did, search through adds and go to IKEA.
Dionysus said he couldn’t very well take his things, because it wasn’t all his, it was theirs, his and Ariadne’s. And Hermes, well, he had just shrugged.
“Why would I want to bother moving all my things when I can just go and steal some more?”
No one had bothered to discuss it.
Not that the couch wasn’t great, but it got a bit crammed with three grown gods.
Especially with Hermes hugging the blanket. Didn’t those thieving fingers ever sleep? He had to settle for Dionysus as a cuddly cover, and had woken up with a grape stuffed up his nose.
As soft sunlight streamed through the bare windows, he felt the energy return to his body. He was useless at night, unless there was a good party or a concert going on. But mornings? He lived for mornings. It came with the job.
The sun would do fine without him, he knew that. Especially with the sun chariot on autopilot. Life was a lot easier with autopilot. It gave him the freedom to do other things. Like cooking breakfast.
From deep down in his gut came a loud rumble.
While Dionysus just grumbled, Hermes’ eyes shot open.
“Time to run!”
He threw off his blanket - which very uconveniently landed on the floor out of Apollo’s reach - and jumped off the couch to stretch.
“Run? You do not have cops after you already?”
“Never know, bro. Got to stay in shape. Also, running is just a way of traveling in your neighbourhood. Highly recommended.” He crouched down by his duffle bag and started rummaging through it. There was a suspicious sound of metal against metal. Then he dragged out a runner’s outfit which colours gave Apollo vivid flashbacks to the 80s, and a handfull of pennies fell to the floor. He briefly considered asking why on earth Hermes had a duffle bag filled with coins, but thought better of it. Sometimes, you didn’t want the story. Sometimes, it was better not to ask.
He had learned that the hard way.
“I am going for a jog,” Hermes explained and carried the clothes to the bathroom, leaving a trail of pennies.
On Apollo’s chest, Dionysus mumbled again, shifted, and started snoring silently. Apollo sighed.
Alright, he needed coffee now. Not to wake up, he never had problems waking up, but to feel like a decent godly being again. To be able to restrain himself from burning Hermes’ outfit, which, surely, only belonged in certain themed clubs and not on the street in public.
“Hey, Dio,” he whispered, but there was no answer. Then he tried poking Dionysus in the ribs, but it only earned him an especially high snore.
“Alright. New plan.” As carefully as he could, he started wriggling whilst pushing his brother off him. It left him in an awkward position halfway off the couch, but since there still wasn’t any reaction from the other, he decided to drop the politeness. In one quick movement he pulled away, ending up on the floor, leaving Dionysus to flop down on the couch.
Still there was no reaction except for an increase in volume. Apollo sighed in relief.
“I am off,” Hermes proclaimed and showed up in the doorway to the living room.
Ouch, those colours were loud.
“Yeah, alright. Just. Don’t tick off someone with epilepsia, okay?”
“That only happened once!” Hermes grumbled as he disappeared out the door.
Apollo picked up the abandoned blanked and threw it over his sleeping brother, who kept snoring with his face in an unflattering angle. Without hesitating, he found his phone on the floor and took a picture to send to Ariadne. Just in case she needed something to remind her that alone time did have its perks. Also, he did owe her for allowing Dionysus to move with him. He owed his brothers too, he remembered. The least he could do was make breakfast.
In the kitchen, he opened the door to the fridge, only to remember that even though they were stocked with kitchen utilities left by the previous owners, they hadn’t actually bought any food yet. Right now, the only edible thing they had was Dionysus’ grapes.
It dawned on him - pun intended - that this also meant something much, much worse.
He groaned loudly and hit his head against the fridge.
It was one thing to forget beds. That could happen to better gods. But to forget coffee? That was unforgivable. And that was how he found himself out on the streets in the early morning, three large bags of groceries in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Usually he would have preferred breakfast before doing anything at all, but as long as there was coffee, it should be enough to get him as far as to the stove to make some pancakes. Then, they would have to start thinking about how to find some fur-
Apollo stopped in his tracks as he rounded a corner. There, lying on the sidewalk, was a huge pile of beanbags in various colours. For good measure, he took a huge sip of his coffee. After all, it could just be a trick of the light, and caffeine should clear that right up.
But no, once he had emptied half the cup, the pile was still there. There was even a handwritten sign on the top of it.
Free
Alright, so it wasn’t a mattress or a dining table, but beanbags did apply as furniture. Didn’t they? There were only a couple of blocks home, so he didn’t even have to carry them very far. He looked at his bags of groceries and his cup of coffee. He sure couldn’t carry seven beanbags in addition. He couldn’t even pick them up!
But from behind, he heard the steady sound of someone running towards him.
“Hey, man. Oh, you got food! Great!”
Apollo turned to see the very brightly coloured Hermes, not a drop of sweat on his face, but his cheeks slightly reddened. There sure were a lot of perks to being a god.
“I think I found us some furniture too.”
Hermes studied the pile of beanbags. “Free stuff? Free stuff is nice. Not as nice as things that were not supposed to be free, but you know.”
Apollo managed to grab one in the same hand has the grocery bags.
“Take the rest and let’s get them home before anyone else finds them.”
“Dude, you are just taking one? I can’t carry six beanbags.”
“They don’t weigh a thing, come on.”
“Uh, not fair.”
Apollo rolled his eyes. “I have groceries and coffee. You can take the bags. Just… Stack them or something.”
“Why don’t you pour the coffee out, man. Then you have a free hand.”
His cheeks flushed and he could practically feel himself radiate at that.
“How dare you tell me to pour out perfectly good coffee.”
“Then just finish the coffee first.”
“I am going to enjoy it, not just chug it like a beer at a frat party. I payed money for this!”
Hermes groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Apollo, we are gods. We can just conjure money.”
“Says the guy with the duffle bag full of pennies.”
“I have a perfectly good reason for that, thank you very much.”
“Why pennies? Why not notes?”
“I said, I have a reason.”
“Hermes…”
“Yeah?”
“Just grab the beanbags.”
“... Alright.”
By the time Dionysus woke up, Apollo had already made a stack of pancakes the same height as their stack of beanbags, which Hermes had actually managed to hoist home. Dionysus blinked and considered both stacks on on the floor with tired eyes.
“What have you two done now?”
“Nothing!” Hermes grabbed a few pancakes from the top of the pile and threw them in Dionysus’ lap. “Why do you always assume we did something bad? Why can’t it just be that we did something weird?”
“You sure did something weird. Why did you stack seven bean bags on top of each other on the floor?” Dionysus asked them and started munching his pancakes.
Apollo was sitting on the couch, eating his own food from a plate. He had taken the liberty to pick some grapes from Dionysus’ hair while he slept to eat with the pancakes. Then it almost looked healthy and balanced. Unlike someone - he scowled briefly at Hermes who was eating a whole pancake at once by stuffing it into his mouth - he knew how to savour breakfast time.
“It is art. Hermes bet me I couldn’t make a stack of pancakes to match the beanbags.”
“But when did we get beanbags?”
“Just now. A lot of things happen while you sleep.”
Hermes swallowed his mouthful of pancakes. “You would be too easy to rob, Dio. I bet I could have stolen your underwear while you are out cold.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I was rather thinking of it as a challenge.”
Dionysus grabbed his pancakes and got up to inspect the beanbags, his eyes still bloodshot and tired. Then he toppled the stack over with a light push.
“My art!” Apollo complained. He had known this had to happen sooner or later, but he was rather proud of having stacked the beanbags by the colours of the rainbow. He was less agitated when he saw Dionysus crawl into the heap and settle on it with a content hum.
“This is not too bad,” he said and closed his eyes. “Hey, Mimi, get me a glass of wine for breakfast?”
Hermes tried his best to answer around his mouthful of pancakes - really, breakfast was wasted on his man - but realized he had to swallow before anyone could decipher his speech.
“No. Get it yourself. You’re being lazy.”
Dionysus just huffed, and vines started sprouting from underneath the beanbags. They grew over the floor and into the kitchen, and Apollo could hear the door to the wine closet open and close. Soon the vines retreated, dragging a bottle of wine, a glass, and an opener over the floor. They even opened the bottle with a pop, and poured it into the glass, handing it to their master, who took it. After a sip, he sighed happily.
“It’s like sitting in a pile of grapes. I could get used to this. Though, I am not a big fan of plastic. I think I would prefer some in fabric.”
“I am sure we can find that somewhere.”
“I am sure I can steal that somewhere.”
Apollo cut a piece of his pancake and chewed it slowly, savouring the taste. He looked around their small living room, which suddenly seemed a lot more cozy with the smell of pancakes and the colourful pile on the floor.
They could make this work.
