Chapter Text
Josie ^v^
@xxjozie
So I’m confused, all of the members of the pantheon use fake names??
Molly (PANTHEON FAN ACC)
@GoldenEyes replying to @xxjozie
Hey! So yeah, they keep their real names secret so they all chose roman mythology names
Josie ^v^
@xxjozie replying to @marsbars
wb the weird masks? what's up with that??
Ameliaa
@riot.grrrl replying to @xxjozie
Girl, she JUST said they keep their real name secret?? Also, they arent weird don't knock someone else's thing
Molly (PANTHEON FAN ACC)
@GoldenEyes replying to @riot.grrl
I love u
If anyone asked about the 5 young adults living in the brownstone on 105 Morton Street in the Village, most of their neighbors would say one word to describe them: Loud. 4 bedrooms, one living room, two bathrooms, one kitchen, and 5 people living on top of each other is hard to manage quietly, and given how each of them plays an instrument, and have strong affinities for music, that makes it even louder.
The Pantheon is a new group, having played in grungy dive bars and small punk events for two years, the 5 members weren't expecting much. They thought it would've been fun to make fake names, based on gods and goddesses of times past. They each went in their own directions at the start when they created their names. At first, they argued if they should all stay in the same pantheon, or branch out. They found a band manager during the weeks of this argument and took her name Minerva as a sign to go Roman. The obvious choices were out of the way first. The drummer, Barty Crouch Jr. claimed Mars, the god of war instantaneously. The keyboardist Regulus Black picked next, Pluto the god of death and riches. The vocalist Pandora Rosier decided on Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. The guitarist Evan Rosier picked Mercury, the god of trickery. The last to decide was their bassist, Dorcas Meadowes, who eventually decided on Diana, the god of the moon.
Midas!
Midas!
Midas touch!
Turned all solid by your Midas touch!
Glimmering and pretty
As can be
Out on display for your majesty!
On Display (Midas Touch) - Track 9/12
Dorcas
Dorcas woke up to a pounding in her head and her alarm trilling next to her ear like a jackhammer on concrete. The only bedroom in the entire house that faced the sunset belonged to her, and at that exact moment, she hated that she fought for it. Even if it meant better bathroom access in the morning, she truly despised her past self. A full night of playing at some stupid dive bar that Evan had insisted they tried to get a slot at. Didn't ever agree with how early Dorcas’s shifts started.
There was a banging on the other side of her thin wall, Barty or Evan, that shook the bedpost Dorcas was lying on. “Turn off your fucking alarm Cas!” came soon after, and Dorcas truly despised choosing this room for a second time, because it meant everything in her room could be heard by Barty and Evan, and vice versa.
Dorcas groaned, rolling over onto her stomach to turn her alarm off, blinking sleepily at the phone in her hand at the time. 6:45 am, in the middle of July. “Ten minutes won't set me back too much” Dorcas reasoned to herself as she set a timer. Clicking through her phone, Dorcas swiped to the photos from the night prior. Some were blurry shots taken in the colorful glow of the nightclub, some were sent to her by Minerva that she downloaded from her messages of the set. It had been the first night they played a song Dorcas wrote for their new, and first official album. All five of them on stage wore golden attire for her, Pandora going as far as to embroider her black eye mask with golden embellishments.
The timer went off, and unfortunately, Dorcas sat up. She swung her legs over to touch the floor and she shimmied into her slippers, two little ducks. Pandora had gotten a pair of animal slippers for everyone in the band, even Minerva, but Dorcas was the only one who wore them regularly. She liked ducks, so what? They didn't make quack sounds when she walked, and her headache thanked her for that as she picked out her outfit. Blue jeans and a form-fitting black T-shirt. Even if she had a million aprons, Dorcas never let herself wear anything she truly liked to the little doughnut shop she worked at. There was always the risk of coming home sticky with icing or batter, and Dorcas didn't want that chance to happen on a day she wore something she enjoyed seeing in the mirror.
There were faint sounds from below her feet, and then the telltale sign that Regulus was downstairs by the faint melody of an aria starting from their ancient vinyl stereo. Only two people listened to any form of classical music in the house and given that one was currently tucking her duck slippers next to her bed, Dorcas was unamused and unsurprised when she found herself staring at Regulus making two large cups of coffee.
“You’re a saint,” Dorcas picked up her blue mug filled with two sugars, one splash of cream, and beautiful, beautiful coffee. Regulus waved her off and started sipping from his mug as they both sat down at the small kitchen counter where there was only space for two stools, yet they’d crammed a third in there. He looked to be in about the same state as Dorcas. The pair normally took turns making coffee for themselves in the morning and going to their respective minimum-wage jobs together. Sometimes one or two of the others would join, but it remained a ritual for Regulus and Dorcas.
“I get to order Oscar Wilde today, Parker is agreeing to add him to the classical lit section.” Regulus mused between sips of his coffee. Dorcas hummed appreciatively and thought about how if she could, she’d quit Fresh Baked in an instant to work at the bookstore Regulus worked at if not for actually liking her boss.
They didn't talk much after that, both still waking up and mentally preparing for the day ahead. Dorcas inhaled and exhaled deeply before finishing off her coffee, standing up to put the cup in the sink. The home was small, their cabinets needed either new hinges or some WD40, and the walls needed to be repainted and plastered over the small cracks and chips that’d occurred over the years. It was too small, but there was so much life in their little home. Wooden floors creaked when Dorcas walked to the corner dirty with everyone's shoes, a simple rug from a home goods store that was splayed out in the living room, and a large sectional couch that Evan had scored from his job at the flea market nearby. There wasn't much space on the walls with pictures and hooks in odd and narrow places. Nothing was left to the imagination, and it was packed with creativity.
“Hurry, we’re gonna be late for the 1,” Dorcas reminded Regulus as he walked to the shoe corner. Dorcas had slipped into her black Converse easily, but Regulus insisted on his Doc Martins, even if they took ages to lace up. In the end, Dorcas and Regulus were the last ones to run onto the 1, and Regulus’s left doc’s laces were still undone.
The bakery was always warm when Dorcas entered in the mornings. Her boss, Poppy, lived above the small shop and would start baking probably around the time Dorcas woke up. Entering and readying herself with her apron, Dorcas wished Poppy a good morning.
“Minnie was home late last night, a sign of a good show I’d hope?” Poppy asked as she twisted her wedding ring off to knead a big ball of dough in front of her workstation. Minerva had agreed to be The Pantheon's manager at first out of love for her wife, Poppy. Evan had commented once that Dorcas had the most important job of the group- keeping Poppy happy so Minerva wouldn’t drop them. Dorcas knew Poppy well enough to know how true that statement was. For the strong person Minerva was, she melted like putty in Poppy's hands.
It never failed to make Dorcas laugh at the number of times Poppy changed Minerva's mind with a single look. Dorcas knew that look, like the one she received at the current moment when Poppy watched Dorcas slowly get to work. She sped up after that. “I hope we did well, lord knows how much money we paid to even get on the setlist. But, supposedly it's a launchpad club so…” Dorcas trailed off as she started pulling a tray of doughnuts from one of the large cooling racks to start icing items.
Sometime later Poppy spoke up again as Dorcas started to fill the display wall with the first tray of doughnuts, “Could you do me a favor, love?”
Only Poppy and occasionally Pandora were allowed to call Dorcas ‘love’. Dorcas peeled off her plastic gloves as she spoke. “Yeah, what's up?”
“Could you give Molly a ring?” Molly was the weekday Cashier when she wasn't in school, but summer break had started so the small redhead 15-year-old was normally there at 8 am sharp every morning. She was the younger sister of twins, Fabian and Gideon, who owned ‘The Order’ where The Pantheon had a weekly timeslot. Molly didn't know it was Dorcas who played the bassline she raved about in the mornings sometimes, and Dorcas preferred it that way.
“Yeah, is it already 8?” Dorcas asked fishing her phone from her pocket. Her phone, everlasting on silent mode and void of social media opened up Molly's contact and clicked ‘Call’. The line trilled for a few moments before someone picked up.
“Hi! I know I’m late i’m so so sorry! I got distracted by Tiktok-”
“What's that again?” Dorcas asked holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she pulled a second tray of cooling doughnuts away from the rack.
“We’ve been through this- are you just fucking with me now? It's an app where you post quick videos-”
Dorcas, with a wide smile on her face who was indeed fucking with Molly, asked, “Like vine?”
“Like vine, but longer,”
“How’d it distract you?”
Molly's voice cut out for a moment and the doorbell for the front door rang. “I’ll talk to you when you get here, Molls, customer,” Dorcas said before quickly hanging up as she walked through the swinging door in front of the store.
In the doorway stood Minerva, holding her phone in her Pajamas of red and gold plaid and a sweater. If it weren't for the shocked look on Minerva’s face, Dorcas would've quipped at her.
“You need to see this.”
Regulus
“Fuck,” Regulus muttered to himself as he rummaged his bag. Despite being almost positive he’d brought his portable charger, he couldn't find it in his bag. His phone was narrowing the 10% marker, and being 8 am on a weekday, no one was perusing the small bookstore he sat at the front of. He just sighed and rested his head on his chin, opening up a well-loved copy of ‘The Outsiders’ that had so many annotations in it, that those put together could be a book on their own.
Regulus was on his fifth re-read of the book, and every time he reread it, he found something new to love about it. This time, he felt such an intense love for the aspects that family is who you choose to be. That blood doesn't always run thicker than water. The front door didn't have a bell on it, so as Regulus was absorbed in the book, being able to see in his mind's eye the scene between the three brothers where Darrel hit Ponyboy, Someone was looming over him.
“Good book?” Regulus nearly fell backward, lurching back and standing up so harshly that the chair he’d been sitting in fell to the floor with a harsh crack!
Standing in front of him now, was Barty. His lean pale figure was standing with his hands in his pockets, in a black hoodie and baggy jeans. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, almost staple for him. When Regulus went to sleep was probably hours before him, at this point Barty was nocturnal. “Barty!” Regulus picked up his book, smacking Barty with it. “You son of a-!”
Barty was able to escape Regulus’s rainfall of insults by putting his hands up and shouting “Sorry! Fuck, okay! I’m sorry! I gotta show you something!” Regulus finally let up, staring at Barty with one quirked eyebrow, crossing one arm under the other, doggy earring the page in his book. “Look,”
Opening his phone, Bartys cracked screen and played a video. A TikTok, actually. Regulus peered at the screen, realizing it was ‘The Pantheon”’s official account open, a video of the five of them standing on stage clad in gold, with Pandora singing harshly into her microphone as the band played ‘On Display (Midas Touch)’
“Yes, Barty, we played last night. See? That's you,” Regulus pointed to Barty on the screen before getting his hand swatted away.
“No, look at the likes,” Barty hissed, and that's when Regulus’s eyes went as wide as saucers.
@ThePantheon - 5hrs ago
♡10.2M
🗨4.1M
>7.4M
“What-” Regulus almost asked what he was looking at, but he knew. He saw the little symbols and clicked off the video to see they’d gained 4.2 million followers overnight. Regulus tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to catch on his teeth. His mind felt vibrated, like how it feels after you spin around really fast, his hand reaching up and pushing through his hair. He blinked, swallowed, opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Minerva insisted on running the band's social media presence, but their performances were normally always posted like this. How did this one video gain so much? How did it skyrocket in the five hours it had been since 3 am when the video was posted? Only five hours, andRegulus looked down to the screen, and back up at Barty.
“Do you even know how this happened?” Regulus asked, his voice coming out shakily. Barty had been friends with Regulus for a long time, the first person Regulus met when he left home at 18 with no money, and no possessions except a suitcase of clothes. Barty was the one who let Regulus stay with him and had seen him through enough shit. There were few and far between times that Barty had nothing to say, and he just shrugged. “Is it still going up?”
Barty nodded, pocketing his phone, “It's been going up slowly since I first saw it, 500k new likes an hour at the lowest point is what Evan said when he looked into the analytics.” Regulus nodded, hoisting his chair up before he sat down on it and rested his elbows on the desk.
“How the hell am I going to work now? My phone’s about to die- there's no way I’m getting through a shift,” Regulus sighed, shell-shocked by the numbers, trying to focus on the day ahead of him. He looked up to Barty, who was looking back down at him with… “No. What’re you thinking?”
Without warning, Barty stood and socked Regulus square in the stomach. The plan became frankly obvious to Regulus now. No cameras in the small bookstore, which means if Regulus is bent over like a lawn chair clutching his abdomen (he is) and his long-time friend comes to take him home (he will) then they’ll make it out without a trace.
That's exactly what happened. The pain for Regulus eased up halfway through the bit, but he knew how to keep the charade going long enough to be out of view from the store and down the street. Barty’s shoulders dropped, and Regulus stood up to his full height. “Home?” Barty asked, but Regulus shook his head.
“Dorcas,” He’d replied, grabbing Barty's arm and pulling him to the right to turn down the street Fresh Baked was located on. It’d been a few days since he’d been to Fresh Baked, but entering always made it feel like the first time all over again. The sweet scent of sugar in the air, the warm yellow counters and tables, and a frazzled redhead behind the counter scrolling on her phone. Regulus opened his mouth to ask where Dorcas was, before getting a thumb pointed behind her where if he listened closely, Regulus could hear Minerva talking.
Saying a quick thanks, Regulus walked into the back rooms. Barty didn't, staying by the counter and asking Molly to get him a doughnut while fishing his old leather wallet from his pocket. Poppy and Minerva never actually let any of the small groups pay the full price. The back room smelled like intense dough and flour layered on top of the sugary smell from the front of house. Dorcas sat on the ground by her workstation while Minerva paced while talking to someone on the phone.
“Can I..?” Dorcas turned her head to Poppy who nodded.
“Hi, Regulus. Get outta here, Cas.”
Taking the 1 back home was quiet, slower than it had been just an hour prior when Regulus and Dorcas rushed their way to work. Walking back to the house, Dorcas and Regulus stayed silent while Barty rambled on about how he called out of work last minute to the small auto shop he worked as an apprentice, and how Pandora was lucky she didn't have any clients at the tattoo shop she worked at. Evan was between jobs, and mostly just sold random trinkets at the flea market when he could, so they never really worried about scheduling with him.
“Honey, we’re home!” Barty joked, kicking his shoes off aggressively, hitting the wall where the blue paint was faded by how many times Barty kicked his shoes off to hit the wall over the time of the five living there. In the living room, Pandora sat on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest as she braided a piece of her long blonde hair. Evan was in the kitchen and the sounds of sizzling filled the home with the scent of bacon.
Their small ecosystem had tilted, not shattered. Yet still, it was a change and no one quite knew what to do with themselves.
Pandora
The morning was something ordinary for Pandora, she woke up with a small white cat curled into her side under her outstretched arm. She shifted and inhaled her first breath of the day, making the little ball of fur stretch and make a small squawking sound. Pandora blinked once, twice, and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling above her bed.
“Good morning stars,” She murmured to the ceiling, sitting and stretching just like the cat sitting upright, blinking slowly. Pandora reached out, cupping her hand and running her fingers through the fur, “Good morning, Popoki,” Popoki meowed back to her, and she smiled down.
Evan had found Popoki shortly after the siblings moved inland. Pandora had been struggling with switching between English and Hawaiian at first, so when she first saw the cat, her 18-year-old self murmured, “Popoki,” as she stroked the small cat. Over the years, Popoki never grew, just stayed the small form it had been as a kitten that day two years ago.
The morning routine pandora had was familiar, like a path where grass knew not to grow because of how many times it had traveled. She woke, stretched, took a boiling shower, and went downstairs to feed Poppoki. Nothing had been out of the ordinary until she sat down for breakfast and opened her phone.
Pandora was the first one to see them blow up, the first one to click on the comments and scroll until Evan came downstairs to find her hunched on the stool, her toast cold and forgotten as she scrolled.
Evan had confiscated her phone after that and told Pandora to go sit in the living room while he sent Barty, who’d hardly woken up yet, to get Regulus and Dorcas from their jobs. At first, she tried to watch cartoons, but couldn't grip her focus on it. Pandora was physically in her living room, her fingers were winding her hair into braids, one after another after another. Her pajamas were still on, and her toes curled into the soft rug below her. In all aspects except mentally, Pandora was in her living room.
Mentally, Pandora had retreated into her mind. She was in a forest, wandering over mossy floors. It didn't matter what she looked like, she was just a soul in this forest. Going through the trees, watching the sun overhead through the leaves. Her happy place was one way she viewed the forest inside her head. Sometimes it wasn't happy, the sun disappeared and rain poured down.
This time, she wasn't able to see the sun. It was there, but there were too many leaves and bramble above her to shine the light on her face. She only existed physically if she wanted to feel the sun on her cheeks, the moss below her feet, the rough bark of a tree.
“..adora? Pandora, are you in there?” Regulus placed a hand on her shoulder, and she was back in the real world. Regulus, whose eyes were grey and looked like two full moons. Pandora nodded, smiling up at him with the corners of her mouth. She’d always been a space cadet, preferring the fantasy worlds in her head to the real ones she lived in. It was an escape, somewhere to go when things outside felt wrong and different.
The insides of Pandora started bubbling. She felt words music and notes all inside her head, creeping up her arms and her legs like little ants consuming her. So much was inside her, so many things that flew around her head that it would've made her dizzy if it wasn't so beautiful to see a song create itself inside her head.
“Do you have paper?” She asked, watching Regulus sit down cross-legged next to her. The world slowly seeped back into her until she felt the tips of her fingers brushing her hair. Regulus nodded, pulling his notebook and a pencil from the tote bag that he’d set down beside him. Pandora didn't think of much else besides the words.
My love don't fly,
don't fly to the sun.
My love, you fell
You flew and you fell
You tried to fly
Now your time is done
Pandora started humming to herself, letting the words overtake her as she wrote. When she was done, she felt emptier than before. In a good way, she looked down at the paper, ripping it from the notebook and handing it to Regulus. She watched him read it, nod along, then take the pencil from her fingers and start writing some cords, a beat, a melody.
Barty sat down too, starting to find rhythm in the words, and before Pandora realized it the group of five sat in a circle in their living room, and completed their first album. They knew they wanted 12 songs on it, and had only figured 11 out. The 12th, magically came on the day ‘The Pantheon’ amounted to 31.09 million views across social media platforms.
At the time, none of them knew that. They were just a small family, five people, sitting together.
“I feel like you guys… you have a claim on my soul.” Pandora spoke, her head in Regulus’s lap as he ran his fingers through her long hair. The day had passed them by, and they’d hardly moved the whole time. Enclosure is what they needed, Pandora knew how to see that. Everyone felt untethered, and Pandora knew how to gather them back together.
Pandora reached up to touch lightly on the tip of Regulus’s nose. She’d always liked his face, despite what he said about looking too much like his family, Pandora was able to see with clarity how achingly beautiful he was. How all of them were, truly. “I’d be honored, Dora.” Regulus said, reaching to her hand and holding it, pulling it away from her face, instead interlacing the fingers.
Pandora and Regulus had been oddly intense, matching each other on a weird level of knowing, since they first met. The first day she met him, she felt like he opened up and swallowed her whole. Or maybe she swallowed him. Maybe they fused into one soul, a kindred spirit that she’d always known—the yin to her yang, such a weird combination of strangeness.
Evan had never understood her like that. Her brother, her protector, older by a year, had loved Pandora, even if he never understood her. Even if she never understood him. Barty seemed to match with Evan seamlessly though, which always made Pandora feel a spark of joy. They meshed like Pandora and Regulus had, but in a different light. One that made them want and need each other in ways Pandora didn't know if she had ever felt if she ever would feel.
She knew for certain a few things, of course. Her family consisted of 5 people, all in the room with her. All holding a piece of her soul, her being, in their hands.