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Atlas told him he was going to kill himself late on a summer night.
Juno was sitting on the couch in the basement when his brother said it, legs crossed and leaning against the armrest. He was idly listening to Atlas play a Sonic game on his Nintendo 64, fidgeting with his sleeves. It was calming, the only sounds being the chiming of rings and upbeat music to combat the sound of the warm breeze that flowed through the open basement window.
Juno didn’t believe it, of course. Atlas wouldn’t be that foolish, he wouldn’t do such a thing. He was happy here, content in the quiet life they live. Right?
Atlas had smiled when he said this to him, a look in his eyes that took Juno’s warning as a taunt. A challenge. It made him scared.
“You know I’m a fool, Juno.” He said, turning back to the video game. Juno frowned, going quiet and leaning down to put a hand on Atlas’s head. He didn’t move, letting the other mess with his dirty curls as his sunken eyes focused on the game.
“I’ll love you no matter what, you know that?” Atlas said after a while of silence, looking up while the next level loaded, ”You’ll always be my brother.”
Juno nodded, humming in affirmation at his words and instead laying down on the couch further and curling up. They stayed like that for a while, listening to the music change and sound effects blare from the shitty speakers until they fell asleep.
___
They found his body on the floor of his bedroom, pill bottle in hand and a smile on his face.
Apollo let out a staticy yell, low and squealing against his voice modulator, that made them both flinch back. He opened his mouth as if to say something before rushing over and kneeling down as Juno stood staring in the doorway. He was frozen, arms pulled close in shock at the still and blurry mass below them.
He had done it. He had fucking done it.
Juno stood for what felt like eternity, begging himself to move slowly towards the lifeless body in Apollo’s arms. Apollo started doing chest compressions, begging him to wake up, looking up at the bottle before shoving two fingers down Atlas’s throat. When he didn’t find a gag reflex, throat still, he stopped and pulled the body closer to his chest.
Juno turned and walked away from the two people before him, one limp and one long past the point of trying to get the other to wake up. It was no use. Apollo simply sat and held Atlas’s body, shakily breathing and letting out small sobs that rarely went heard in the usually busy house. There was no letter, no sign except his warning to Juno. Was it his fault if he didn’t say right or wrong when he still had the chance?
Juno made his way down to the basement, padded feet on the hardwood stairs barely making a sound. It was still, his hands running across the worn couch warm with sunlight. It was comfortable. It made him want to cry.
He knelt down in front of the tv box, feeling around the top before flicking on the Nintendo 64 and inserting the one that felt like the Sonic game cartridge. Atlas wiped them before he left, it seems, and the sound of a fresh game booting up crackled through the old speakers as he sat down on the floor and leaned up against the couch. He leaned his head back to listen to the opening soundtrack play over and over again, interwoven with the sound of the speakers glitching and heavy footsteps from upstairs.
Apollo didn’t call out his name from the top of the stairs. They both knew that their realm would collapse without its keeper and there was no use doing anything about it. Apollo would come down to the basement after a few hours, sighing and sitting on the couch opposite the other. He would smell like vomit and death, eyes dull from hiding his tears. Juno wouldn’t have it any other way.
Apollo would pick up the controller from the ground beside Juno and began to play, the transition to the start of the game’s first level booting up making him startle. He would reach a hand up until he felt Apollo’s gloved hands on the controller, freshly changed out for cleaner ones not covered with spit and sweat. Removing his hand, Juno would settle back against the couch, listening to the other try to play the game. He wouldn't be sure he knew how to, the sound of his character falling off the map one too many times making him smile ever so slightly for the first time in hours.
He knew he would fall asleep here in the comfortable melancholy, head going slack and slipping into a less permanent unconscious. Apollo would pause the game and save it, tired hands shutting the television off. The room would settle into silence, darkness surrounding them with the sun barely starting to rise through the small window. He would sigh, feeling his eyes grow heavy not only from exhaustion but from the walls starting to fizzle around him. Lack of sleep, he would assume, laying down on the couch and reaching down to put Juno’s hand in his, limp against the floor, clutching it as he fell asleep. The world would grow dimmer.
There would be no funeral for their oldest brother, no party and no gravestone. There would be no reminder of his betrayal, leaving them in bearable agony in exchange for an eternity of rest. They would bury him in the morning, they resolved, leaving his body under the oak in the backyard to rest under the stars one final time before digging a hole in the garden. They would adjust to life without him, slowly.
They didn’t know that in the morning, they would see their Atlas alive and well. They would smile, memories reset and clean of his sin. He would smile back, introducing himself and watching the two settle back into the pattern again. It would be normal, in a sense, forgetting he ever tried to leave them forever.
All they knew how to do was sit in grief and sleep, together, waiting for a morning that will never arrive.