Just The Beginning... (Solangelo)

Chapter 33

Third Person POV:

   They left Nico alone for a bit after that, seeing that he needed some time to process. Eventually, the conversation picked up again. The probably spent a lot of time talking to each other; it didn’t really look like there was much to do otherwise. Nico wondered how they’d managed like this for so long, some of them having been here for a few years already. But at some point, even that wound down as one by one each person (person? Could he call them that if they weren’t human? Probably...) went to sleep. There were no windows so he couldn’t tell what time of the day it was, but he was tired enough to follow their lead. Or at least he tried to. But as the hours -he assumed it had been hours- passed, his attempt to fall asleep proved futile.

Now there were several possible reasons for this. It could be that anyone would find it impossible to sleep on the sheet of barely padded metal they expected him to call a bed. It was held to the wall by two chains that looked like they would break the moment he put his weight on it, and they creaked ominously every time he shifted.

It could also have been that he’d become much too accustomed to Will’s presence and he’d reached a point where he couldn’t sleep if the vampire wasn’t near. That seemed very plausible, considering that his scent was fading more and more by the minute, and he wasn't really sure what he'd do when the last of his link to the prince was finally gone.
It was also possible that he couldn't sleep because of the weird feeling on his skin. And no matter how many different positions he tried, he couldn't get it to go away.

He'd given up on pretending to try to fall asleep and just lay there, staring up at the bare crumbling ceiling, letting his mind fill with fantasies of Will coming to save him.

"Hey Nico?" A voice called. It was quiet, an attempt at a whisper, but it was loud enough in the silence that had overtaken the place.
He turned from where he layed and saw Percy looking at him from between the bars of his own cell.
"Do you have a minute?" Well, there's not much one can do in jail, he wanted to reply, but decided against it. He moved to the edge his own cell so he could sit pressed up against the bars like he had been earlier. It made it easier to see and hear the other boy.

"I couldn't fall asleep on my first day here either," he said, a small sad smile on his face like he was remembering.
"How long ago was that?" Nico asked. He didn't remember exactly how long it had been since he'd met Percy, but he also didn't know how long it was after that he'd been taken. He didn't want to imagine that he'd been here for the whole two years.
"I don't know, actually. There isn't really any way to know when the days pass. We used to just ask Annabeth, but we all got sick of it after a bit. Got too depressing to know another week or another month has passed without any sign of getting out of here."
Nico could understand the feeling. It was the same for him when he'd been with Luke. Knowing days were passing by without anyone coming for him, without anyone that would even look for him.

"I... I wanted to ask you about Will. You said you lived with him?" Percy started carefully. Nico hadn't been expecting the question, but if this Percy was the same Percy Will had told him about...
"I was. He's been taking care of me for a while now. I suppose I should start from the beginning. It's kind of a long story." He took a breath, preparing himself for the unpleasant memories.
"I wasn't in the best place when you and I met as you could tell..." He told Percy everything that happens from when he left,  to getting kidnapped to getting rescued.

"I wasn't expecting to be saved. I wasn't exactly sure what I was up against back then, just that they drank blood, and there was a lot of them, but I was hoping I'd get myself out regardless."

"Then I met Will. I was so scared. I didn't know where I was or how I got there or who the people around me were. All I know was that they were the same as whatever it was that had me before and they were dangerous. But Will kept telling me I was safe, that he would protect me. It took a little while but I started to believe him." He explained how he became the prince's official bloodslave. He could see Percy's shock at that too. Will really hadn't been kidding when he said he'd never had one, nor had he been planning to.
"So that's it. That how I ended up there. Then I get kidnapped again and ended up here," He finished. Percy had listened to his whole story with rapt attention. It was probably the first he'd heard of his friend since he'd left. Speaking of...