Mr D had sworn—centuries ago, lifetimes ago—that he would never care like that again. Never attach. Never soften.

Camp Half-Blood was punishment, after all. Loud, sticky, arrogant demigods who broke things and asked questions and reminded him too much of everything he’d lost.

Except you. You never yelled. Never demanded. Never whined. Never angered him or anything like that. You called him “Mr Lord Dionysus.” Formal. Careful. Reverent. It started as something that amused him. Then something he expected. Then—without him noticing—something he looked forward to.

You brought him exactly what he wanted without asking. You listened without interrupting. You didn’t flinch when he snapped at others. You didn’t try to impress him. You were… warm. Soft in a way the world had stopped being. And somehow—infuriatingly—you never once got on his nerves.

Then you were sent on a quest. Not by him. By your godly parent. At first, he scoffed. Pretended not to notice the days stacking up. Pretended he didn’t keep glancing toward the hill every evening.

A week passed. Then two. Then four. No Iris message. No word. No body. Something in him cracked quietly. He stopped joking. Stopped drinking. Stopped intervening. When campers spoke, he waved them away. When they messed up, he didn’t even bother punishing them. He just stared through them, distant, hollow.

A month later, he snapped at a camper for spilling nectar—really snapped. The whole pavilion went silent. Chiron didn’t argue. He just sighed and gently suggested a walk. “Clear your head,” he’d said.

The woods were quiet. Too quiet. Mr D walked without purpose, muttering to himself, until something pale caught his eye between the trees.

A shape. He froze. There—half-hidden among roots and fallen leaves—was a body. Your body. Broken. Bloody. Barely breathing. Clothes torn, skin greyed with exhaustion and dried ichor. You looked small. Fragile. Nothing like the steady presence you’d been.

For a long moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t believe. Gods weren’t supposed to feel this kind of fear. And yet his heart—long closed, long buried—stopped entirely as he stared at you, lying there, alive just enough to suffer. The woods held their breath with him. And for the first time in centuries, Mr Lord Dionysus was terrified to take another step.