#i guess ill look into it. and maybe a therapist to help with my insect phobia thing.

[pizzapizzadickz]

Mn. I really wanna leave and go somewhere. If I wasn't terrified of most bugs I probably would instantly. But where?

[lifeofroos]

Part 34: This chapter is made up of two parts: The first part is just your dose of This Might Be Crazy. The second part is a story I wrote years ago, which I think fits the main story. 

In short: Nico gets therapy from Dionysus. In this chapter, sits down for a talk with Hephaestus. The rest can be found on AO3 and FanFiction.net! Also in Tumblr tags like Nico di Angelo, Dionysus, fanfic etc. 

This Might Be Crazy: Chapter 34: Cappuchino 

I knocked on the gates to Hepaestus’ workshop. The doors opened without making a  sound. I peeked inside. There was no-one to be seen, but I did hear the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil. I didn’t know whether that was because Hephaestus was working on something or if it was just for dramatic effect. 

Slowly, I walked inside. As soon as I was a few metres in, the gates began to close, causing me to quickly jump further into the workshop. With a slow thud, the doors closed behind me. 

A little shaken through, I looked around. ‘Eh…’

Out of nowhere, an automaton in the shape of a giant insect appeared in front of me. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ 

I stared at it. ‘Not exactly…’

‘Then you leave.’

‘Hey! I did not come without cause! I got something for Hephaestus!’

The automaton did not budge. ‘No appointment…’

‘Let him in.’ The automaton dissappeared at once, while Hephaestus limped into the room. In the background, the hammering went on (Which meant that it was definitely for dramatic effect). 

Hephaestus studied me from head to toe. ‘Nico di Angelo, right?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I could not see his entire body. There wasn’t enough light. I wondered whether Hephaestus had done that on purpose. 

He scratched his ear. ‘What is it?’

‘Eh… I need decorations for a cabinet.’ I wasn’t going to mention that I got it from IKEA. 

‘I can do that. Is it at camp?’

‘Yes, in my cabin.’

Hephaestus nodded. He snapped his fingers and in a second my cabinet appeared. 

He laid his hand on the top for a second. ‘Hm. I know what I can do with this.’ He looked back at me. ‘Maybe you should come with me while I work.’

I nodded while I walked after him. 

After five minutes of watching Hephaestus work fast as lighting, I scraped my throat. ‘You know I get therapy from Dionysus, right?’

‘Therapy, is that what you call it?’ The blacksmith looked up from his work for a second. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Hm. When I had it, they just called it ‘dragging you back to your senses.’’

‘Ah-ha. Eh, that is what I came here to talk about, actually.’

Hephaestus let his work rest and leaned back for a second. His metal brace clicked. 

‘I am not ashamed that I needed his help. But neither am I ashamed of what I did that made him realise I needed it. It might have been wrong, it might still be wrong, but I am not ashamed.’

He meant tying Hera to her throne as revenge. Right. ‘I think I understand.’ 

‘I don’t think you do.’ He coughed and adjusted his leg brace. I did not see what needed to be adjusted, but okay. 

‘You probably know the story. All the gods try to get me to free Hera. They all fail, except for young Dionysus, who managed to get me so drunk that I willingly came along. Except, no.’

I was confused by the last sentence for a second. ‘He… you mean he didn’t get you drunk?’

‘Does he intoxicate you? Of course not. Neither did he intoxicate me. The other gods just couldn’t fathom the fact that he had been a puny mortal so soon before.’ Softly, his hands stroked the silver decorations he had just attached to my cabinet.

‘Eh, this does not surprise me,’ I said after a pause.

‘I am not surprised it does not. You seem clever enough.’ He coughed again. I moved back a little. 

‘Hm.’ He snapped his fingers. A table came walking over, with two cups of cappuccino on top.

I took my cup, even though I had little interest in drinking it. The last cup of coffee I had gotten from Hephaestus was abhorent. I did not expect this one to be much better.

‘I don’t think he knew what to expect when he came to see me,’ Hephaestus continued, ‘Maybe someone in a fury, maybe someone who was depressed. Probably something in between. But no matter what, he treated me like it didn’t matter. The way he would treat any other guy. Came by, helped out in the workshop…’ the blacksmith rolled his eyes for a second, ‘... So called help, at least. Half of the time he was ‘helping’ me, he was an inconvenience. But when I needed someone to talk to…’ he shrugged. ‘You know that yourself.’

‘Yes.’ I did. 

He took a sip of cappuccino. ‘Well, slowly, we get onto the subject of Hera. Why I had chained her up, what it did with me to live with my actions, and what would be the best thing to do next.’ He took another thoughtful sip. ‘Dionysus did not want to talk about what would be best for the universe. He meant what was best for me.’ Hephaestus shrugged. ‘Now, that turned out to be the best for the universe as well. Yet, I know I would have been worse off if I had kept Hera chained up.’

I raised my eyebrows. The universe would have been worse with Hera chained up?

‘You can look at me like that, but it is the truth, young man.’ 

Sure, sure, balance and all that. I took the tini-tiniest sip of my cappuccino. And would you have it, it actually tasted good. 

‘Eventually, I was the person who said we should go back to Olympus. Now, that wasn’t easy for two outcasts. We had to travel by donkey, which…’ he sighed. ‘But still, he kept helping me. Kept talking to me. And I began to feel like we would get to Olympus, and it would be fine.’ 

There was something in his tone that got me concerned. ‘What happened next?’

‘You’re an observatory young man. What happened is that your therapist, as you call him, caught a horrible fever, so that I had to take care of him instead of the other way around.’ 

Wait. What? Dionysus had been immortal at this point. ‘How did he even catch a fever?’

‘He must have been more mortal then he seemed. I…’ the god sighed, a little sad. ‘I was worried. It might have been the most worried I have been in my entire life. He was terribly ill and I was afraid I would lose him. After all that happened, I couldn’t afford to. If he would have died, I would have gone back.’

‘But… he didn’t.’

‘No, he didn’t. That is why I am the blacksmith of the gods, Hera is free, nature grows as before and my friend got to live his life.’ 

The god took a sip of his cappuccino.

‘Sorry for asking,’ I muttered. I stared into my cup.

‘It’s okay. I was actually expecting you to come over someday, after what I said when you were here with Hades.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And I know you won’t blab.’ 

‘Of course not!’ 

‘Good.’ He looked at my cabinet. ‘I just need a few more minutes.’

‘Take all the time you need.’ 

Indeed a few minutes later, my cabinet was just the way I wanted it. ‘Here. I hope you get some use out of it.’

‘I will.’

‘Good.’ He wiped his hands on a cloth. ‘I also hope you learned something today.’

‘I think I did.’ 

‘Hm. If you take away anything, please let it be that Dionysus wants to help you for you. Not for anyone else.’

I nodded, a little slow. 

Hephaestus gave me a single nod. ‘Okay. Then Sierra will see you out.’ 

The automaton from earlier appeared in a second.

Swiftly, I stood up. I scooped up my cappuccino and took a large gulp. ‘Okay, Thanks, bye!’

‘The cabinet will follow you.’

Thanks, that is horrifying. I walked after the automaton, to the gates of the forge. 

When I was back in my cabin, I stared at my cabinet and thought. Yes, I learned something today. 

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A/N: Bonus chapter, maybe? Anyway, Leo and Hephaestus story, which I wrote ages ago and I thought fitted the This Might Be Crazy chapter. 

Leo was alone in bunker 9, repairing something for Frank which he had promised to repair ages ago. It didn’t go so well, even though repairing a sword was usually brainless work. His mind was constantly trailing off. A lot of things went wrong the past few days. Aside from screwing a few screws the wrong way and latting a vat of mild greek fire explode, he had forgotten Annabeth’s birthday, camp half-blood’s 3900 year anniversary and the weekly get-together of the Hephaestus cabin, and who knows what else that people just had not told him about yet. 

The third time Leo accidently hit himself with his hammer, he screamed and angrily threw it across the room. ‘Curse this whole damned world and everything that can go wrong in it!’ He screeched. 

‘That’s not very nice. I didn’t expect to hear that from you.’ Leo gasped and turned around. Hephaestus had appeared behind him. 

Leo lowered his arms. ‘I am sorry if....’ 

Hephaestus shook his head.  ‘I think you are having some problems with the world around you.’ Leo nodded.

‘I just can’t seem to remember my appointments, I drop everything I hold and now my thumb is bleeding as well.’

‘We can fix your bleeding thumb.’ Hephaestus pulled a band-aid out of thin air and put it around his sons’ finger. ‘So. Slightly better?’ 

Leo shrugged. ‘I guess it is one issue less.’

Hephaestus nodded a bit. ‘One step at the time. Someone told me that once.’

‘Someone did?’ Leo looked up when there came no answer. The gods’ gaze was muddled, as if he was somewhere else with his thoughts. 

‘Thetis, I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you allowed me to live in your house but I have to leave. I need to get back to Olympus.’

 Hephaestus looked at the nymph in front of him, who was rubbing her hands together.  ‘Are you sure about this, Hephaestus? Your mother threw you out, back when... aren’t you afraid she’ll do it again?’ The god shook his head. 

‘I have a plan. It will be okay.’ The nymph sighed. ‘Take care and don’t forget that if things go wrong up there, you’ll always have a place here, where I live.’ She gave him a small smile. 

‘I will. And I’ll never forget that you were the one who raised me and cared for me, I promise.’ 

Thetis’ smile became broader. ‘Have a save trip, Hephaestus.’

‘Dad? Dad!’ Leo’s voice brought Hephaestus back to reality. 

‘What? Oh, I was just thinking about something.’  the god scraped his throat. ‘Have you taken a moment to think about why you have been forgetting your appointments?’ He asks. Leo shrugged. 

‘Not really, I guess. It just keeps happening.’

‘Maybe you should think about it for a little while.’ 

‘Alright.’ Leo looked at his hands, and quickly trailed off in thought, not realizing that the same happened to his father.

The other Olympians stared at Hephaestus with wide eyes. Some of them backed away. Hephaestus was looking at his mother. She was furious, afraid and a little sad at the same time. Hephaestus took a deep breath. ‘Once again, thanks for the way you treated me, mother. And to the others: don’t try to release her, because nothing will work.’ He looked around the room one more time, before walking away. No-one dared to say anything.

With a start, Hephaestus looked up. Leo was talking.

‘I did have a lot of appointments the past few weeks and I must confess that I didn’t write those down anywhere. Yet, that doesn’t explain why I forgot our cabin meeting or the anniversary of Camp Half-blood, because everyone was talking about those all day long. It is not like I had a lot of projects that were distracting me. I mean, maybe…’

Four gods had already tried to persuade him into freeing Hera. Ares had threatened him, Athena had tried to reason, Poseidon had told him he would flood the forge and Demeter had said she would let all the plants around the forge die. None of it had had any effect. 

Hephaestus looked over at the door, just as the fifth ambassador walked into the workshop. He looked extremely young and somehow didn’t feel like the others. He wasn’t mortal, but he wasn’t fully immortal either.

He didn’t say anything, until Hephaestus spoke: ‘If you are here just to ask me to free Hera, just go away already and don’t waste my or your own time.’ 

‘That’s not why I am here.’ Hephaestus shook his head. 

‘Then why are you? Listen, kid, four gods have tried to persuade me the last few weeks. So just get onto that, alright?’ The stranger chuckled.

‘My lord, I am not here for that, and even if I was, I do not think there is a lot I could do. I do not have Athena’s wit or Poseidons’ power over the sea. And I could not try fighting you if I wanted to. Why, you are at least fifty centimetres taller than I am.’

‘I…’ Hephaestus stopped talking. He hadn’t realized that this stranger was, in fact, very small compared to him. Actually, he seemed to be the same height as most mortals (maybe even on the slightly short side), which confused him even more. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You might be right. Tell me your name and what you want.’

‘... and I think that might be why I have forgotten nearly everything in the last few weeks.’ Hephaestus jerked his head up. He hadn’t heard anything Leo just said. His son sarcastically raised his eyebrows. ‘So I think I might get a diary, ask people to remind me of my appointments and make sure I work extra carefully the next couple of days.’ Leo smirked. ‘You know, dad, you were right. This whole thinking thing really works. Now, can you tell me what you were thinking about?’ 

Hephaestus shrugged. ‘You notice more than people think.’ Leo nodded.

‘I tend to.’ 

‘We are really walking all the way from Lemnos to Olympus, so I can free Hera from her throne.’ 

Dionysus sighed. ‘True. It is strange that we are technically helping the other Olympians now. I mean, what have they ever done for us? We are outcasts, we don’t have any fancy flying chariots or great magic like they do and they are still relying on us for help!’ 

Hephaestus laughed. ‘I guess that is the Olympians for you!’ He sighed. ‘Another thing. Deep inside, I want to be an Olympian and I don’t know why. Maybe it is the feeling of inclusion?’ Hephaestus turned his head to his companion, who had stopped walking. ‘Dio? What do you think?’ The other god sighed as well. 

‘Could be. For me, I think... I just became a god, you know. No warning, no-one asking me if I even wanted to, nothing. Maybe I am reaching for Olympus because if I have to be a god, why not go the full way?’ 

Hephaestus nodded. ‘You might be right. So, how far do you think we can get today?’

‘I was thinking about my own past. I was cast out as a small child and it didn’t seem like I had anybody I could trust on Olympus.’ 

Leo slowly nodded and beckoned his father to continue. ‘After chaining Hera up and retrieving to Lemnos, I only really cared about my forge, not about anything else. Not even myself.’ Hephaestus thought for a second. ‘Well, I think I cared about Thetis and about my donkey. Yet, Thetis wasn’t there, and my donkey… was a donkey. The person who showed me how to care again was Dionysus. He hung around the blacksmith just because he appreciated me and he was the one who got me so far that I admitted I wanted to go back to Olympus and right what I did wrong. He showed me some people did care about me. About me, and not just about what I did. It made me care for him as well.’ 

It was nighttime, but Hephaestus was wide awake. A few metres away from him, Dionysus was finally asleep. They were close to Olympus now, only about two days of walking away, but they had not moved forward at all in a week. Dionysus had caught a fever, and there was no way he would be able to climb Olympus in his current state. 

Dionysus moved and yelped in his sleep. Hephaestus sighed. He didn’t know if fever dreams were always this bad, or if they were worse because of Dionysus’ relation to madness. With a scream, his friend woke up, just half an hour after falling asleep. Hephaestus quickly moved over. Dionysus stared at him with damp eyes. ‘Dionysus….’

‘It will go away, it always does.’ He shivered and Hephaestus quickly put another blanket over him. ‘Are you sure? I did occasionally meet mortals every now and then, back on Lemnos, you know. A lot of them had relatives or friends who had caught a fever, and they had...’ Hephaestus swallowed. ‘I don’t want you to die, Dionysus. Please, you can’t die, you can’t.’ Dionysus closed his eyes. Yet, he was smiling. 

‘I probably could have gotten that from anybody else as well. But I didn’t. I began to trust Dionysus and he never broke that trust once during our entire trip from Lemnos to Olympus.’ 

Hephaestus walked into the throne room, with Dionysus by his side. The gods turned their heads, every single one of them surprised. Hephaestus didn’t say anything. He walked over to Hera’s throne, spoke a few words and the cables loosened. It took a few seconds before she felt comfortable enough to step down. ‘Thanks...’ 

‘Keep your thanks,’ Hephaestus muttered. The other Olympians began crowding around Dionysus, glad that there was someone they could safely call a hero. The wine god looked over at Hephaestus, who nodded. 

‘After I got back on Olympus, the other gods quickly got used to me. Hermes and some others made the effort to get to know me, and slowly I found my place. Sometimes, I still feel like I don’t belong, or that I am just a nuisance. But then there is always Dionysus, who is there to support me.’ Hephaestus stopped talking. Leo was listening with his mouth open.

‘That was a wild history lesson, dad.’ Hephaestus smiled. 

‘I hope you learned something from it.’  

‘I sure did.’ He jumped up. ‘But now I have to go buy a diary in the store and apologize to a few people. Thanks again, dad. I hope you’ll come visit me some more.’ Leo ran out of bunker 9, leaving his dad behind. Hephaestus hardly noticed his son was gone at first, until he sighed, with a little smile. 

‘You are a god.’ Hephaestus nodded, while he looked into the gorgeous eyes of Esperanza Valdez. The woman stayed calm, as if she knew all along.  Hephaestus laid his hand on her cheek. ‘I can’t stay for much longer.’ He tried to smile. ‘Please stay safe, Esperanza. I want you to live a happy life.’ She laughed. 

‘I hope so, too.’ She gave him a kiss on the cheek, before he left. 

From up on mount Olympus, he could see her. She stood by the door for a long time, with a hand on her belly, before she walked back into the house. 

A/N: I freakin’ love the tale of Dionysus and Hephaestus. If I ever write a retelling of greek mythology it would be about the tale of Dionysus and Hephaestus. They are my boys.  

Okay so, myth-accurately, Dionysus gets Hephaestus drunk. Except I dislike that version so I made my own (sue me). Also Dionysus didn’t catch a fever, that is just for the drama (again, sue me).

I must have written the second part at least three years ago. Of course, I re-wrote it for a bit, but it surprises me how many elements of it survived the test of time.