Until You Will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 2

The Green Old Bench

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The door to Zoro's apartment swings open and Zoro stands there looking like he had just roused from a way too short nap, even though it's almost eight in the evening.

"Yeah?" Zoro yawns loudly, blatant, and it's all Sanji can do not to launch himself across the threshold and slaughter him.

"Let me in, asshole," he grinds out through clenched teeth, and if he weren't so exhausted, he would even had snarled a little bit for added effect, but he is already slumped against the doorframe, and beside, the idiot in front of him never ever gets easily scared. It's just not a Zoro-thing to do.

Though he remembers he once had succeed in scaring the hell shit out of this man, once when Zoro had been drinking and Sanji didn't feel safe about sitting in the seat next to a driver who had been inhaling that much booze, even though the man could hold his liquid pretty well. Zoro had been clamping his nails into the dashboard and almost pushed his legs through the bottom of the car, while Sanji had been steering the Land Rover home to his apartment to pick up a large gift he had bought to Vivi's birthday. Sanji had laughed so hard that he almost had driven into a lamppost, when the man had shouted at him that he didn't want his car to turn into a coffin. Since then Zoro had made it a law never to let him drive ever again, "You're a fucking psycho when sitting behind a wheel, you out to kill us or anything? How the hell did you ever manage to get a driver license in the first place?!" Zoro had cursed at him, looking scared as shit –Sanji even had made fun of him about that he had pissed in his pants of pure fear, surprisingly the man was still in too much shock to do anything but sulk and mumble small curses his way. Since then Zoro made sure to either walk home with him or take a taxi or the bus if they had been out drinking.

God, he had never laughed so hard in his life… and probably never would again.

"You pushed it too much this time, Curlicue." Zoro says, who clearly can see through his dark sunglasses. Sanji glares at him through them, the red eyes shining dangerously; of course it does no shit to the other who just looks unaffected at him. "You can barely stand this time."

"Just let me in already, shithead."

Zoro steps aside and looks at him expectantly, a single eyebrow raised. Sanji glares even harder at him, pale and statuesque, until Zoro rolls his eyes and sighs, "Fine, fine. Come in." He walks away, leaving the door open.

Sanji enters and slams the door behind him with enough force to rattle the dishes in the kitchen, even those old windows makes a sound. Zoro does not even wince.

"Hungry?" Zoro's tone are never mocking when he asks the same question every time he comes, more like inquiring, and it always makes Sanji to hesitate, run a cold hand down his face, fumble with something while looking everywhere but at the man and nod silently in return. He steps further into the apartment, keeping to the walls, away from the lamplights. He stands there as Zoro pushes some stuff away from the old couch and puts them over onto an old bench there far from belonged to a living room, yet alone in an apartment.

Sanji remembers the day clearly when the two of them had literally carried that shitty old green-seated bench with them home to Zoro's apartment, because they both had found the old thing being very nice and comfortable to sleep on. Hell, they had been drunk that night, even Zoro. It was the first and last time he ever had seen the man drunk at all. The bench got its place in the corner of the living room, and Sanji had often teased him with that he should go get a lamppost instead of that floor lamp next to it. He even had bought him two flowered pillows for his birthday, to boost the man's anger, and yet the two old pillows had got their place on the bench. And the bench had gotten its place there in the corner, firstly; because it would be too big of a work to get it back down, secondly; because they had no hell idea of from which park it belonged to or where the heck they had gotten it from at all, and thirdly; it reminded the vampire hunter never to get that intoxicated ever again.

Zoro suddenly stands right in his view and takes off his sunglasses to inspect his eyes closely, apparently since the man had said something and Sanji hadn't been listening. "Four weeks are far too long to walk without anything to eat."

"I've eaten, ya know, I can cook food." Zoro rolls his eyes at him.

"You know what I mean. Beside; don't lie! Two weeks after you last got blood your stomach can't even consume food!"

Sanji shrugs, hates the man knowing so much about him, even when he hadn't even told him about it. "I can push it till five weeks the next time, no big deal. And I've gone hungry for much longer than a couple of weeks before."

"Don't be an idiot, five weeks and you'll barely be able to crawl anywhere. You'll be like an animal that will attack any living thing!" Sanji halts and bites the inside of his lips while looking anywhere but at the man in front of him. Zoro sighs and puts the sunglasses into his breast pocket "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay," Sanji says nonchalantly "It's only the truth, like hell I'll ever become like that." It gets awkward after that, so Zoro just extends his arm to him so they can get over with it. His eyes flick to the offered arm, the upturned wrist a web of white starburst of scars, old and new ones. He looks away again, suddenly feeling sick.

"You don't have to do this," he starts to protest weakly, Zoro cuts him off.

"I know, you're not making me, I'm offering to you."

"You always say that."

"Because it keeps on being the truth, and you keep on forgetting it every time, idiot."

Sanji has nothing to say to that and moves to sit at the old couch that the other has cleaned for stuff to make room for the two of them. Zoro moves along and takes a seat right next to him.

"You'll tell me if I'm taking too much." he says sternly, looking anywhere but at him. Zoro shrugs.

"You always say that."

"Because I always want to ensure that you're ready to stop me!" he snarls, showing off two white pointy teeth there has grown to fangs -they does that every time the hunger for blood comes- though it does nothing to scare the other who doesn't even flinch.

"Just shut up and eat."

"God, sometimes you're a real pain in the ass." Sanji says and takes hold of the extended arm, the skin are almost burning hot in contrast to his dead cold fingers. When he moves the wrist up to his lips, he can hear the warm blood rushing through the veins right underneath the skin, welcoming him, calling for him, tempting him.

"Oh? Only sometimes?" Zoro says and gives him a shit eating grin "Now I have to do something about that," Sanji glares up at him through his bangs of light blond hair. While mumbling about "shitty idiots with shitty attitudes" he bites down, breaks the white skin on the wrist, and has to hold back for not to just suck it, but drinks it carefully. Zoro are absolutely still in his seat.

He drinks, thinks of nothing but of what he is doing. He is entranced in the task as he feels the blood pass down his throat, down into his stomach and from there spreading out into his system. He can feel himself getting stronger from each mouthful he drinks, he can feel the cold cease away and the warmth return back into his body, the tiredness retreats and he's in absolutely bliss.

Zoro lets him drink what he needs, more than that, even further than that, until Sanji realises it and flings himself off the man. "Shit, you asshole! I told you to stop me if I was taking too much!" Sanji says terrified, barking at the man.

"I was handling it." Zoro insist, slurring, as pale as the walls around them, the perfect picture of someone who is about to pass out.

"Like hell you were, you fucking retard!" Sanji darts out to the bathroom, returns in a blink of an eye and flings the first aid box open to get the bandages out. He cleans the wounds, while Zoro's swaying in his seat. "Shit!"

"You needed it."

"Shut up! I'm not talking to you now!"

Silence, until:

"I can't feel ma hand anymore. Blondie, you cutting off ma hand. I nee that hand for tomorrow." Sanji glares at him, about to bark something back, but holds back as he sees the state his friend is in and gives in. "Thanks."

"Shut up!" he snaps back automatically and gets a chill as he feels some kind of Déjà vu. Almost like the first time. "I mean, I'm sorry, I –shit." he stands up to walk away, to disappear out through the door, for this time to not return back, like he had done all the other times; not wanting to return back, not wanting to hurt his friend anymore, yet here he was. But this time, this time he meant it for sure, he has done enough damage as it is. But Zoro grabs hold of his wrist before he can get anywhere further away and looks up at him with a serious look on his face.

"Make me food."

"What?" Sanji stutters, looking milder bewildered at the man.

"You deaf?" The other says, one eyebrow moving up.

"No, I mean; what the fuck are you all of a sudden talking about?"

Zoro lets go of his hand and points to the kitchen "Food," he points at the blond "you," then reaches his one arm out and makes a motion like steering into something "cook," and finally points at himself "for me."

Sanji has to hold himself back to not just attack the man and rip his head off. "Fucking idiot, I'm not a slow retard as you are!" he growls out through his teethes and flings out to the kitchen before he leans in to the temptation to kick the fuckers face, as he gives him a shit-eating grin in return and opens his mouth with a "mwah," like a shitty bird waiting to get feed.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

It's almost like in the old days; him standing in the kitchen, the idiot snoring his time away on the couch, though this time he has a really good reason to do so. Sanji frowns at it and moves the pan away from the burner, for then to replace it with a kettle of water. He stands there for a moment to take in his surroundings, while his body works on its own as it has done the same movements so many times, that he practically can do it with closed eyes. He'd bet that the man hadn't even moved any of his stuff in the cupboards, and just so, his mind-lost body finds a heating-bowl just at the second shelf in the cupboard right next to his head. He pours the food up in the bowl and places the glass-lid on top so it can keep warm for a longer time, while his mind has wandered far away; to a time where he actually had a life and didn't have to drain one of his friends from blood and energy.

Mind wandering further away it comes to a time he has tried to suppress too many times. Dark shadows in an alley. It was the night of celebration, everyone together, some of them not seen each other's for months. He was alone that evening and he was going to pick her up. Then he found her, on the floor in her own kitchen. Loud music playing. He ran, never felt so scared in his life before. Then the attack. Blood. Pain. The absolutely horror. Dying, facing his murderess who laughed at him, at his misery, before one dug down and-

"Argh shit!" He hisses and curses as he stares down at his burned hand. He had subconsciously grabbed the still burning hot pan in a tight grasp, there in exchange had burned his hand so it now was flaming red, literally had burned down to the third layer of skin and created small blisters. Hurriedly placing the pan aside he hurries to the sink to cool the skin, but only after a small of forty seconds, the red skin and the second degrees burning slowly grows smaller for then to fully disappear, leaving no traces left of that the hand just had been burned by the stupid shitty pan. Sanji moves the hand out from the streaming cold water and just stares at it; no wounds, nothing. It's both a nice side-effect of being a vampire and a bad one; wounds healing too fast keeps on reminding him that he are no longer a human like his friends. It's the same with his sight; everything seems sharper to him, his vision are clearer and even his hearing has become so much better that he literally can hear every little sounds there is inside of this apartment and if he concentrates himself enough, he even can hear what people in the apartments two levels down are mumbling about. It's both interesting and annoying as hell.

Zoro's breathing is changing, he's about to wake up. Sanji straightens himself up and makes the table ready, he could finish it in a blink of an eye, but it would only make him feel less human. So he takes his time, how dreadful it might feel, and just as he places the last silverware on the table, Zoro is sitting on the cough, face turned to look over its back to look straight at Sanji's doing. Sanji gives him a small smile as he turns around. "Your lazy ass finally chose to wake up?" Zoro grumbles in answer. He stands up; swaying just a little as he moves to the table and all the words that Sanji wanted to say dies on his lips, because he knows that the dizziness and the uncomfortable his friend feels is his fault.

He sits down and watches as Zoro digs into the food placed onto his plate, but suddenly Zoro halts. His brows furrows as he looks like someone who doesn't know if they should swallow what they had in their mouth or spit it back out.

"Is it that bad?" he asks worriedly "I forgot that my taste buts need stronger flavour now, so I didn't realise that-"

"It's good." Sanji halts in his speech.

"R-really?" Zoro nods and Sanji can now see that he is actually savouring the food in his mouth slowly, carefully.

"Strong in taste, but good. Really good." Sanji want to beam a bright smile, but gives him only an apologetic small one and looks down on his own empty plate. Can he eat it?

"Thanks." He murmurs before allowing himself to digging in as well. He can taste the food, but only if it gets a strong flavour in it. He doesn't hunger that much for actually food anymore, therefore he way too often forgets to even eat. When he doesn't eat actual food for a longer time of period, the hunger for something else starts growing. Therefore he tries to remember to eat meals like he always did in old times, just so that the hunger for something else will take a longer time to show itself to him. He wasn't like them, he didn't want tobe like them. but if he waits for too long to feed his other hunger, the taste for food disappears, his stomach can literally not handle it and pukes it all out again, and he starts to fade as Zoro puts it. But whatever, as long he can save the other from being bitten too much of him, he'll take the pain himself. He'll go hungry for the sake of the others wellbeing.

But he can't keep pretending all his life, or for that matter; all his afterlife.

He don't want to turn into more of a monster than what he already is. Damn, death is so complicated!

The kettle whistles, waking him up from his deep thoughts. He goes to take it off but halts as he catches himself staring into the blue flames created by the gas. Fire. It reminds him of something, like back in the second grade in school where his classmates had dared him to hold a hand over a flame of a candle as long as possible, even to move a finger into the fire without pulling a face. He always lost in those competitions, his mom even scolded at him as he once came home with a large burn covering the inside of his left hand. He stares at that hand where the old scar was almost not visible any longer, there was only a slight change in the skin there stretched tight over the palm, but it was there. He couldn't stop to be too entranced in that blue fire. Would the mark fully return back to his skin if he touched the fire this time? Or would it disappear, like the last drops of his humanity?

"For God's sake, SANJI!" He distantly hears a chair scramble to the floor before his hand is being ripped out from the blue flames. He isn't even at his full senses as he is being pulled to the sink, only when he sees Zoro's panicked face staring directly at him while trying to stop the fire there has caught on his sleeves. "The fuck you think that you were doing? You ought to-" kill yourself? They both knew that that would have been the next words. Sanji gasps as he finally realises what he just have done to himself. Zoro curses as he holds the hand underneath the cold running water from the tap. "Shit! This doesn't look well at all." He more says to himself than anyone else, since he has caught on that Sanji is in mild shock himself.

The hand is bright red, burned till the blood has boiled, burned until it has turned into a disgusting black crisp. He wants to throw up. Even the horrible disgusting smell of burned flesh emitting from his hand, tricks his senses to want to throw up.

"It's okay," he hears himself saying, even though he is not sure himself "It'll heal again."

Zoro just stares at him like he is some big idiot -and he probably is. The hand in the water trembles as it finally registers the pain it had been put through. He wants to throw up.

"I need to-" is all he says before he faces the sink and empties the contents of his stomach into it. God. He feels sick, but a vampire doesn't suppose to feel like this, right?

"Shut up and get it out." He hadn't even realised that he had voiced those words out loud, but doesn't complain and takes a second round into the sink.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

Sanji was starting to get a bit nervous as the time stretches to hours. Zoro had lost his appetite for now, he had said, since his whole apartment now smelled of burned flesh and puke. He stored the food away for when his appetite would return with the smell of fresh clean air. Sanji's hand had only changed a little bit, but it was taking too long.

"What did you expect?" Zoro says, glancing his way as the blond, sitting on the old green bench tries to flex his hand, but with no such luck "That it would suddenly 'pouf' heal and your hand mobile in a matter of seconds?"

"It didn't take that long last time." Sanji murmurs, Zoro only raises a brow in honour for him.

"That was like just a hot pan, this was directly into the fire. Idiot!" Sanji doesn't say anything and just stares at the still crisp-burned hand. He pulls a small smile some time after.

"It's not as black as before, it has even started to heal a bit around the wound."

"You know, it's creepy seeing you sitting all still like a statue over there, staring at your own hand." Sanji just glares at him.

"Aren't you supposed to sleep somewhere? I thought that even plants needed rest."

"Stop teasing my hair."

"Oh, so you knew it was your so called hair that I was talking about?"

"Oh, shut up."

Silence.

"How long time has gone?"

"What?" Zoro nods to his burned hand.

"Since that."

"Oh," he looks up to find the clock, though he has a feeling that he doesn't need a clock to look at.

"No, don't look at the clock; tell me exactly how long time has gone."

"The hell? Want me to make a guess or something?"

"You know it," Zoro looks straight up at him from his slumped place at the sofa "right?"

Sanji swallows, closes his eyes and thinks. "Two hours, twenty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-"

"Yeah okay, that's enough." Zoro interrupts, before the blond turns into a living clock, an annoying clock on top of that. "Thirty-three minutes more to go then."

"What?"

"A burn normally takes about three hours to heal, depending on how bad it is."

"Three hours?" Sanji questions, Zoro nods tiredly. The man is still way too pale and definitely needs rest. "Do I even want to know why you know such facts?"

"No."

"Thought so."

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

It takes exactly three hours, eleven minutes and forty seconds before the hand is completely healed. Sanji is still a bit freaked out about that he can tell the exact amount of time there has passed, Zoro says that it's just a vampire-thing, end of discussion; the man is too tired to want to give a lecture in anything at all.

Zoro stands right in front of him, swaying on his feet and are more than ready to pass out, but the man is too stubborn to give in to such a little thing as sleepiness, that jerk. He inspects the hand from one side and another –Sanji is happily surprised to see that his old burn mark from second grade has returned to his skin. Zoro points out that the body memorize its old wounds and returns them back as they once where, unless you get your hand fully chopped off and tossed it out into the suns strongest beams of light. Now that would be a problem. Sanji tells him to go suck himself, since he doesn't need to hear such things right now. The idiot only gives him an annoying smirk, goes back to the sofa and almost falls asleep before he even lands on the thing.

Sanji sits there on the old park-bench and watches the man snoring away. He has to go, he knows that he needs to, but he can't find himself wanting to move up from this old tree-bench. Memories from when they brought this shitty old thing up through the long stairs, there that time seemed to have no end to it, makes him want to stay on it. He remembers now that one of the apartments neighbours had opened the door just as they were about to pass him and had asked what the hell they where doing. Sanji remembers that he had smiled brightly back at the man and said that "It's a ve-y ve-y niceee benk thes hear." Zoro had chirped in with that it was indeed a niceee benk and a "very, very frienshy, frendy, something-one as well."

The neighbour had just shook his head mumbling about crazy young people these days, while he disappeared back into his apartment.

Sanji had been the one falling asleep on this bench, once they finally had gotten it up, Zoro had laid on the floor, exactly four feet away from the bench, nose buried into the carpet.

Sanji settles himself on the bench, lies down on his back and looks up onto his now fully healed hand, staring at the still weakly visible old burn scar. That scar, together with the one he had on his back, third vertebra from below, and the one Zoro had given him after a little fight there included swords and naked feet, is what is left there reminds him what he once had been and what he somehow still is; a human. He touches his shoulder just where that old scar is; a stab from a sword. He closes his eyes and tries to get into something there reminds him of just a little bit of sleep. He wants to keep that feeling, of still being partly a human.

He likes that lie.

~.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

To be continued

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