actually I also wanna talk about the part where Percy convinces Bob to kill Hyperion because even though Percy never says anything outright sinister, the way he handles the entire situation with such cool ease, playing on Bob’s emotions... its so insane???
Because Annabeth’s reaction to the three of them encountering Hyperion reforming is: “oh this is bad we need to get out of here” She knows if Bob remembers himself, that it's not going to play out well for Percy and her. She also thinks about how they're being pursued and don't have a lot of time. Her solution to the problem, seemingly, is to leave.
But Percy's solution is to work the situation to his advantage. He re-affirms Bob's loyalty to him:
Percy then re-establishes Bob's moral code: "Some monsters are good. Some are bad. This Titan is bad. He tried to kill me and a lot of people. He's not good like you are."
And it ends with Percy leaving the choice of whatever to do with Hyperion to Bob but of course, is it really what Bob chose to do? Bob decides to kill Hyperion. It's not what he may have done, if Percy hadn't intervened. But it's exactly what Percy was oh-so-sweetly leading Bob to do.
And listen, I'm not claiming that it was exactly morally bankrupt of Percy to take advantage of a once-evil titan who could get him and his girlfriend through hell in one piece. Percy, Annabeth, they manipulate monsters and enemies all the time. Annabeth ended the previous book with manipulating Arachne into weaving her own web. So it's not exactly like she's against using manipulative tactics, in theory.
But Bob, at this point, is not just some monster. He is so painfully sincere in his belief in Percy and their friendship, so yes, it does feel a bit sinister whenever Percy uses Bob... and he really uses Bob.
And I think what makes the scene so unsettling, it isn't just that Percy manipulated Bob, its how well Percy manipulated him. He manipulates Bob so well that Percy doesn't even have to kill Hyperion... because Bob does it for him. He manipulates Bob so well, that Annabeth couldn't tell if Percy was purposefully trying to manipulate the situation. (Newsflash, he most definitely was). Like holy shit.
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Will knows who it is at the first light brush on his shoulders.
He tips his head back back, bumping his boyfriend’s hip, leaning into the hand on his trapezius, his scapula, the base of his neck.
“Hi,” he says, grinning.
“Hi,” Nico says, leaning down to press his smile onto Will’s forehead. His hair tickles his cheeks, and he smells like woodsmoke and citrus, and Will slides his hand across his jaw and tugs him closer.
“Errand done?”
“Yep.”
“Lord Hades pleased?”
“As much as he ever is.” Nico shifts, kissing the corner of his mouth, the curve of his chin, the shape of his jaw. “My ears are ringing from five days of quiet. Even the echoing sound of lost souls cannot compete with your constant blabbing; I hardly knew what to do with myself.”
“Oh, shut up. You love my chatterin’.” He smacks the side of Nico’s head, but it’s hard to play mad when he’s smiling, shameless, wide enough that his teeth nick Will’s cheekbones, that his snickers are muffled into his skin.
“If I wanted to be stuck with someone who yaps nonstop I would’ve stayed down with Cerebus. In fact he might shed less, and he doesn’t drool when he sleeps.”
“…I do not shed.”
Nico plants both hands next to Will’s head, heaving himself up, and scans his camp shirt. Within three seconds, he locates a strand of hair, pinches it off, and flicks it at Will’s face.
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, for the love of — get over here,” Will demands. Laughing, Nico goes where Will tugs him, curling up next to him on the bench. “You’re such a shit. Normal people are much kinder to the significant annoyances they leave behind for five days, you know.”
“Are they.”
Nico lifts his arm in offering and Will accepts with relish, tucking himself under it and making certain to drag his curls down Nico’s face in the process.
“Yep. In fact I was expecting hand-written letters by day two, honestly, telling me how much you missed me and how the distance was physically painful, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe a sonnet or two. Italian, preferably, Elizabethan are not my favourite.”
“You’re very picky.”
Will sniffs haughtily. “Well, I’m a catch. You have lots of competition, you know. I was fighting them off while you were away but now that you come back and insult me upon reunion, I shall reevaluate my options.”
He feels more than hears the quiet laughter Nico presses in his hair, thumb brushing his collar, dipping onto bare skin.
“Is that so.”
“Indeed. My suitors have even offered a dowry quite handsome. I’m worth twenty-seven goats, didn’t you know.”
“Oh, well then. I might as well return what I brought for you, since I’m not sure I can outshine two dozen goats.”
The cool thing about being a son of Apollo is that Will has range. His dad is the god of arts, generally, up to and especially the dramatic ones. Will knows how to school his face into the perfect mask, how to smile on command and cry as desired, how to deliver a line and bow with a flourish. Playing a part comes as naturally as breathing, as naturally as healing.
“A present?” he asks, checking his nails as if the mere thought bores him. “That’s interesting, I guess.”
Nico doesn’t even bother to indulge him.
“Here, you massive dweeb,” he snorts. He hands over a small paper box, hand-folded and thin. “I can practically feel you vibrating.”
There is only one thing in this world, quite possibly, that Will likes more than proving Nico wrong, and that is letting his boyfriend spoil him. In all honesty it’s a real challenge sometimes, because Nico is really very good at being everything Will has ever wanted even if he has wrong opinions on most movies. Truly Will’s life is a joke at which the gods must howl with laughter.
Eagerly taking the box, he holds it up to his face, carefully inspecting every corner. The paper is regular printer paper, slightly waterlogged (from the Big House printer, then, ‘cause Will was carrying a giant bag of saline in from storage when he was eleven years old and tripped on the shipment of office supplies that someone had left, for some reason, in the middle of the fucking hallway, and the bag had exploded on impact all over four boxes of printer paper holding one thousand pages each) and carefully bent into shape. He recognises Nico’s handiwork from the dozens of origami paper sculptures he’s been gifted over the past few months.
“Open it.”
“What is it?”
Nico rolls his eyes. “What did I just say.”
“No, I mean — it’s not my birthday or anything.”
“So?”
“So you’ve wrapped me up a present! I want to know why before I open it.”
“Just because,” Nico mumbles, pressing a kiss to his temples. “Not everything needs a reason, nosey.”
“If nothing had reason then we would still be premordial soup,” Will mutters, but pops open the lid anyway.
He gasps.
“Oh my gods, Nico, you —”
Nico’s smiling smugly, but Will barely notices. Inside the box is a black chain darker than shadow, so dark it doesn’t even glint in the heavy sun, and dozens of little charms, from polished obsidian to a ball of slowly flickering flame.
“You like?”
“It’s gorgeous!”
He makes a triumphant nose, pumping his fist, and says, “Fuck those suitors, I fucking win,” and the funniest part is that he’s damn serious. There’s a glint in his eye identical to when he wins a sword fight, to when Connor loses a bet to him, to when twenty-odd bets are stacked against him and he’s got a full house. Something dangerous and wild and superior and Will is not an enabler, okay, he is not, but he is only so strong and there is only so much he can do when pretty boys wrap their arms around him and smirk at him and bring him bracelets they made in the Underworld. He’d like to meet someone who wouldn’t fold, actually.
“There were no suitors, you loser,” he says, but he’s flushed, pleased smile stretched wide across his face, and Nico’s grinning that too-wide grin and tilting Will’s face closer with the edge of his thumb, like he barely had to try. And there’s always a little bit of shadow leeching off him when he comes back from a quest, an aura surrounding him like he’s squaring off to the sun, and of course the wild churning in Will’s stomach has nothing to do with that but what’s he to do, really? What is a warm-blooded person with eyes that can see to do when faced with such a look?
“Of course there aren’t. They know I would reap their actual souls.”
“Possessive, much.”
“You’re literally going red.”
“Shut up.”
And he does, but only because Will makes him.
Although judging by the hand he shoves in his hair, he doesn’t seem to mind.
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