Until You Will Laugh Again

by crystalbluefox

We never thought that they were here, only mere stories we heard about in the darkest hours of night. But they are here, among us, some hidden, others blatently walking at our sides. Sanji never thought that there was any good to his new life, but thanks to his old friend Zoro, he can still manage to stay partly sane... but will he ever get to become himself once again?

5. A Doctor's Conclusion

Until You Will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 4

A Doctor's Conclusion

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There is an immense headache as he wakes up. He can't even remember when he last has slept, for not to speak about going to bed being completely smashed.

Had it all just been one horrible nightmare?

Then why does his heart feel so deeply burdened?

And why does the smell of blood hang so heavily around him, like he is bathing in it?

He looks around. It's not his place… it's Zoro's, or rather; right outside of Zoro's place. Did he fall asleep on the way in? How'd it happened? And, why did the floor feel so soft to lay on? He still feels kind of drowsy as he looks down at the mattress, there shows up to not being a mattress at all. Sanji's eyes widens as he takes in the scene underneath him and freezes in place, as the memories hits him like a hailstorm.

It hadn't been a dream, It all had happened. The last eight months had not been a dream; it had been a living nightmare!

Sanji stumbles back as he stares horrified down at the body beneath him, all bloodied, bitten, flesh torn. Silent. Silent as a dead man.

"Oh God, no, nonononono! What-?"

He reaches a shaking hand out for him, and then stops as it touches the other man's face; there is blood on that hand, blood as he touches his face. There is blood everywhere around them. Zoro's blood. He feels it building up inside of him, the dread, as he tries to shake the all too quiet body awake, the feeling is choking him slowly, he wants to cry but he feels no tears in his eyes, instead he feels that craving urge to taste more, to literally lick the body underneath him clean for any traces of blood.

He shakes his head to get that horrible thought out of his mind and reaches out to the man's throat, to try to stop the massive bleeding, but with no such luck; the blood keeps oozing out from between his fingers. Though, if it is still oozing like that, then it must mean that he is still alive…right? "Zoro. Zoro! God damn it, Zoro, don't… don't you dare die on me, man! Shit! I need bandages!" He moves up and hurries to his friend's door, but suddenly is stopped by an immense force. "Argh! Shit!" An electric shock shoots through his body the second he tries to step over the threshold. "God damn it! I need to –he needs-!" He tries again, clenches his teethes hard together as he pushes on, forcing himself through it, trying to get through that invincible force there keeps him outside, only to feel the level of the electrocution to intensify. His vision blinds into whiteness and he has to step back before it will make him fully blind. Panting he looks horrified at his friend, white stars are blooming and exploding in his vision, the corridor is a long white nothingness with a blur of a human body laying unmoving right in the middle of its clearness, as it had done in those fifteen too long seconds. Warily, a bit shaken he steps to his friend's body and scoops him up into his arms. He can't get into his apartment, he hasn't got his permission and would never get it in the state he is in now. Instead, he has to take him to the hospital; he had to take him to Chopper. Chopper, he is the only one who could help a man like Zoro.

Everything is a blur, he gives no shit in that as he runs downs the streets in a speed there should be inhumanly impossible, he is running even as fast as a car, without bragging about it. Any other time he would find it cool, this ability here, but now, right now where he tries to have a steady hold on Zoro's body there lulls lifeless in his arms as he runs, he gives no shit. People turns their faces his way, no doubt wondering about what just passed them, and those who turns before he passes them does not believes their own eyes.

He can hear the man's heart beating; it's weak, dangerously weak.

This is taking too long!

He hurries further, pushes himself to his limits, more, even more, it almost feels like as if he's flying, faster, faster, faster!

Finally the hospital comes into vision. He hurries but skits to an abrupt halt there literally makes marks in the pavement as he stops before its white gates. White gates. The red brick-building of the hospital never had white gates before, it wasn't even white to begin with. Why did it have white gates? He takes a daring step closer to it, barely two meters away and he can already feel the tense in the air as the electricity spikes in the air around the freaking whole place. Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit! He hadn't even thought about this. Bloody mother fucking shitty curse of being a… of being a –damn it!

"Hey! HEEY! SOMEONE THERE?! HEY!" he calls, hoping to drag someone's attention, and of course he does as he bellows even louder, interrupting the peace in the shallow night. A man comes out through the glass doors, no doubt a guard of somewhat, and curses at him how the hell he dares to scream up like that, before he halts in midsentence and takes in their conditions. He steps back a little, as if they had the flu, but then steps forward and gapes.

"Shit! What in the name of -happened to you two? Oh God, let me call the nurses! Just wait-"

"I don't have the time to wait. Just let me in!" The man raises a brow at him, no doubt taking him for being some kind of lunatic. Sanji almost can see the words "The doors are open to pass through any time, idiot" running above the man's head, but he says nothing, nods and says those words;

"Come on in then, kid, I'll call the doctors," The white gates opens for him to enter, gates that no human eyes ever would be able to see. The electricity in the air is gone as well. Sanji doesn't hesitate one second as he hurries inside, though he has to slow it down enough so he wouldn't pull unnecessary attention. "I don't need doctor's, I need Doctor Chopper! Call him!" He calls as he speeds down to where he thinks that their little friend is. He sniffs the air, but it's too thick with the smell of blood, illness, sterilisation and medications. The smell is so heavy that breathing has become almost too impossible, he could just stop breathing, but breathing was what kept him being close to being humanly. Body starting to feel heavier for each speeding step he takes, he tries to concentrate, concentrates on one specific smell. People gives off a scent there can make dogs track them down even through a meat-store, this shouldn't be any more different for him. And then, finally, it's there, among all those strong smells, smells from other humans as well, he finds that familiar scent there no doubt can be no one else but their old friend.

Chopper stands in the middle of the corridor among nurses and busy doctors and helpers, with a white "brick"-phone almost plastered to his one ear, no doubt just been called by the guard. Those large brown eyes widens as they sees him and the young doctor almost drops his phone out of his hands. The guard is yelling at him through the thing and Chopper barely mumbles something incoherently back.

"Sanji!" He beams happily, almost jumps his way, before he halts and stares at him in horror, and then down at a lifeless dangling Zoro. "Zoro!"

Everything goes fast from then, if his mind had been in right place he would had found the whole ordeal going pretty slowly. With the help of another doctor, Chopper takes Zoro from his arms, puts him onto a bed and hurries away while another one pushes the bed forward as nurses and doctors pampers around the man in the sickbed. Someone yells "We have to stop the bleedings at first!" before another one comments that "the young man would impossible survive this" and "lost too much blood". A third one whispers a pray of some kind, in a language there are strange to Sanji's ears. Sanji is right behind them all the way, but slowly sags behind as fatigue weighs him down, for then to stop him fully, just as the doors to the operation-room almost slams him in the face.

Now he can do nothing more but wait…and pray.

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

The night is silent says for distant mumbles and moans. Baby-cries and the sounds of new-birth mothers shushing them to be quiet is also to be heard in the far off distance. A man couching, nurses, helpers or doctors talking somewhere far down a corridor hitting up to the one passing by this room. He is sitting alone in the waiting room with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands; he has been sitting like this for hours, more exact; four hours, fifty minutes and twenty-one seconds by…now. Unmoving, still as a statue; that is the power of a vampire. What only has been moving was his barely heaving chest, as he breathes in shallow breath. It irks him, pulls in his every nerve, in his every molecule in his entire fucking body, it's close to impossible to keep still, and it's close to driving him mad.

This, this thick tempting sweet smell of blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Sanji pulls in his hair, pulls it until the roots screams at him to stop, and then he pulls even more. It's only thanks to the heavy medical smell in the air, that he can keep himself from leaping up and kill everyone in this place.

Concentrate. Focus. Focus!

Flashes of Zoro laying beneath him on the cold floor, unmoving and bleeding, bleeding too freaking much passes his consciousness; it's like being there all over again, seeing it again, feeling it again, tasting it again.

He stands on top of a building, watching the streets beneath, keeps an eye at a specific window three floors beneath the building right next to the one he's standing at. The hunger has craved him, controls him –this was what Zoro had meant about 'to die'; it was on the inside, not on the outside, not his body, but his mind. The body does everything it can to survive, and that means to 'kill' its soul as well.

Then teeth flashes as they seek down and breaks skin, a scream rips through the empty corridor and echoes through his mind, as sharp teethes punctuate the pulsing vein.

Sadly, people had already learned to mind their own business and keep away, if a neighbour or someone else should be in trouble outside their very front door. Each human is taking care of himself or herself. In this case, that was maybe good or Sanji would not dare to imagine what then would have happened… probably a bloodbath.

Tears is building up in the corners of his eyes, for then to release and roll down a burning cheek. Shouldn't this be impossible for creatures like him to do? To still have these kinds of humanly reactions created from such feelings? No, no he had cried once before, in many days straight, in the beginning of this living hell.

Sanji runs his fingers deeper into his hair, searching further behind to grab the hair at his neck, and scrapes his nails along his scalp as he pulls his hands back. A sob threatens to shake through his body, wants to, but his body is so in control that he only can imagine it happening.

He sucks in a breath. An hour more has definitely passed without anything has happened, beside the hands of the old wall clock moving their steady way forward; filling the air with the second hand's constant ticking for every passing second.

Oh God.

Had he really killed his best friend? No matter how nagging the idiot could be, no matter how they used to fight, jump at each others throats just over small useless things, Zoro was no less his friend. A good friend to boot it, he would even dare to say that the man was somewhat like a brother to him… and now he is misusing that relationship between them to use him as a living meal that he always can return back to. Is? No, did! Not can, but could. There's nothing more now, there's nothing left of life for him, Zoro was the last part and that last part he probably just have killed, murdered like an animal, like a monster!

Sanji feels sick within himself about that.

Six hours has passed now since he entered the building and they drove Zoro away into that operating room. It must be close to morning by now.

Something changes in the air all of a sudden. The clock stops its ticking. The temperature in the room has dropped drastically. Sanji holds his breath and listens. There is a sound all right, more like a white noise. He slowly tilts his head to look up, hands slides down along his cheek. He stares, can't understand what should be wrong. Eyes widens as they finally register what they actually are seeing.

A woman stands in the middle of the room, dressed in a green torn dirtied dress. Her hair is wet, like she just had come inside from a heavy rainstorm. She looks pale, lips a deeper blue than the rest of her body.

He blinks, once, twice.

He can see the old clock through her transparent body.

A ghost? For real?

She looks straight at him, as she opens her mouth to speak; air bobbles searches up to reach a surface there is not even there. Her hair flows around her as if she's in the middle of the sea, the air is now as cold and damp as was he braced by the blue freezing waters of the ocean.

She is solid now, solid enough for him to see all of her blue marks, all the traces of blood running down from none existing wounds, ripped skin with a sickening almost black blood in the deeps of her deepest wounds.

Then, all of a sudden, the feeling is gone, the air is once more at a normal temperature and the woman has vanished.

Instead, where she once stood, now stands a young doctor, a few years younger than him. Bright brown wavy hair falls a bit over steady dark caramel eyes. He looks exhausted, no doubt from working hard the whole night.

"Chopper," Sanji says relieved as he stands up and are about to ask how Zoro is, but a movement catches his eyes and makes him hold his breath. He looks from his friend's eyes and down to what is grasped in those thin steady hands; glaring at him is a deathly black hole from a gun directed at him.

"Don't move." Chopper whispers and sniffles loudly. Sanji looks hesitantly up to meet two tearful eyes and a quivering lip grasped between two set of teethes.

"Chop –I'm not-"

"Don't move!" There is sorrow in his voice and he steadies the gun right in front of him, grasping the little black thing tightly in both of his hands. The doctor isn't looking him in the eyes, but… further down. Sanji looks down at himself, then touches his mouth as he realises what it exactly is that the doctor is looking at. He snaps his head to the side, only to be met by a very transparent image of himself in the glass windows in the walls; dried blood has marked a way from his mouth and all the way down the front of his shirt, like a once powerful deluge, he is literally bathed in the stuff.

Zoro's blood.

Oh man, why hadn't he thought about it somewhat before to at least wash his face clean and hide the bloodied shirt underneath his black suit-jacket, that he was already wearing? Chopper's eyes is glued at the horrific colours, as his breathing becomes unsteady. He can hear the smaller human's heart making a polka-dance inside of his constant heaving chest, going even faster as he clearly tries to avoid his eyes.

Sanji takes a step forward "Chopper, I-" an ear deafening sound cuts him off immediately. His keen senses could make him move out of the place in time, but the action in itself shocks Sanji to the ground and he stands frozen in place. The bullet embeds in his upper arm and the pain explodes inside of him. Gritting his teethes he grasps the mutilated flesh tightly in his hand, as he tries to keep himself from making any sounds beside the small whine there manage to escape from clenched teethes.

Fuck it hurts! His fingers makes an unconsciously spastic movement, what sends a serene pain through his arm, where he can feel something embedded in the middle of his muscles slightly scratching against the humerus.

He looks in disbelieve up at his friend who holds the smoking gun in his trembling hands, fat tears finally releases and rolls down red cheeks. Sanji looks back down on his arm and removes his hand to reveal a black hole. It hasn't closed yet, no doubt because of the bullet. He prods the hole tauntingly, hisses at the pain there amides from it, then takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes and prods his fingers into the hole. He can hear Chopper gasp as he pushes his fingers in deeper, trying to find the bullet among blood, tendons and muscles. It sickens him and hurts like hell, but he has to get it out. 'There!' The tips of his fingers brushes lightly over the cold metal, he can even feel his own muscles around the bullet trying to push it out again.

No sound emerge from his mouth, beside a small whine and a grunt, as he grabs the bullet and pulls it out fast. Opening his eyes slowly as the throbbing pain makes itself known, he looks down at the little red bullet laying in his flat hand.

He looks at it as if his brain really can't comprehend what just happened, as if he can't really understand what the thing is, or that he just have pulled it out from his own upper arm. Looking at said arm, he can feel the torn muscles and tendons starting to recreate themselves and slowly closing. Blood still pours out, until there is nothing but the hole in his shirt left, there can tell from that he just had been pierced by a bullet, fired from a gun there was held in the hand of one of his closest friends. He drops the bullet on the ground and then looks up again.

"Please, just go," the young doctor literally begs him and sniffles a string of snot back into his nostrils. Any other time, he would have thought that it looked adorable, but now... Sanji just stands there, staring blindly at him, still not comprehending what just happened or rather; don't want to believe it. "GO!" Chopper stresses and fires yet two more shots as Sanji takes one step closer to him; one going pass his shoulder, and one embedding in his abdomen. Chopper cringes but still holds his ground, gun still pointing at the blond.

Sanji drops his head, blond hair covering his pained expression as he turns around, bullet grinding against muscles and tendons, this time hitting something fragile there normally would have killed a human. It hurts, it hurts like hell, but what hurts even more is that Chopper fired it at him. Sanji does not look back up at him and then disappears like a gust in the wind, as he speeds out through the door, down the corridors and out, out of this horrible place were he is far from welcome.

He does not stop before he is far out of the town and stands in the middle of a thick forest he doesn't even remember nor care what name it had. Panting, he feels the salty tears running down his cheeks, the bullet torturing his insides, makes him sick, but he ignores it, even though his body tries hard to push out the unwelcome object, he doesn't care. If possible, he would just have left it there, he deserves nothing else but pain. Not after what he had done to Zoro, yet his fingers reaches for the wound, prods it, hesitates but pushes far inside of the hole. He coughs, gags and wants to throw up. He can feel the acid from his stomach nip at his fingers as he searches for the bullet inside of him. Then he finds it, grabs it and pulls it out none too gently. He throws up at that, acid and precious blood mixes up, he dry heaves, no food is filling his gastric, nothing has been able to stay in there for almost two weeks, if not more. He doesn't even know if he ever will be able to eat food again.

The wound closes inside of him, but another one gets ripped up even larger.

It's nothing compared to what he'd done to Zoro.

He hiccups just by the thought of that name.

Zoro.

Oh God.

He had killed Zoro!

Zoro was dead because of him!

Crouching down he sniffles into his hands.

He had killed his best friend.

Murdered him in the most horrible way possible. Why else, beside that Sanji was… was a –he swallowed hard- a freaking vampire, would Chopper have shot him like that? The last bullet would even had been deadly, had he still been a human being.

He was nothing.

Yes. Yes, he was something. He was a murderer!

Grabbing his hair in a tight grasp he pulls his head back and cries out into the growing morning.

A morning with no life.

A morning with only death.

Crows flees from the treetops at the sound of a young vampire's painful cries, echoing through the old forest, scaring little animals back into their holes, scares them to run far far away.

He was a murderer!

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

Chopper stares at the door broken off its hinges, looks longingly down the way he saw the black and blond blurry disappear down at, for less than fifteen minutes ago. Gun drops out of his trembling hands, before said hands searches up to his mouth as he falls to his knees and cries out loud in despair. Hands silencing him the best they can, since he wants no one else to find him like this.

"M'sorry, S-Sanjii-!" he hiccups and takes in a sharp breath of air and cries more. "Sorry, sorry."

What had he done? He was so happy to see his friend again, but… but…

Chopper whines, arms sneaking around his own smaller frame, as he lulls back and forth, trying to comfort himself. Then the feelings builds too much up in the back of his throat and he cries out loud.

Like his two friends used to say; Fuck what others thinks!

"SAANJIIII!"

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

To be continued

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A.N.: Wow, that was hectic. But I hope you guys liked it, 'cause there'll be many more scenes like this.

…and Zoro…well, have faith. ;-)

See you next time!

Love

Crystalbluefox