Until You Will Laugh Again

A fan fiction by Crystalbluefox

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Chapter 8

Entering "Fist of Fire"

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The night's breeze is feeling cooler than usually, the temperature is falling drastically; with no doubt snow would come soon, making up for the los of not being there around Christmas Eve. Sitting at a rooftop across the old building in front of him, he had watched the commotion that had taken place this evening, unaffected at the weather blowing around him.

The kid in there were reliving the same horror that came to everyone who still tried to grasp tight to humanity, he couldn't see it from where he sat, but he could sense it and he could hear the screams. Chasing after him all this time had seemed to be difficult since the kid only now showed up in his own apartment and all the other nights, well, apparently all other places but here.

"Just as I've thought."

The commotion died down, everything would be all right for now, but yet he couldn't help but to snort at the mixed company; a bloodsucker, a canine and a slayer all in one room, normally the worst enemies against each other's race, and yet here they seemed to be closer than anything else.

Wicked.

The wind blows mercifully up against his face as he leans over the edge, never lets his eyes leave those windows. A form shows itself in the window. He smirks wide. All these years and the kid had grown into a man, a dangerous one to boot it with. Who would ever have guessed that the geek would have end up to become a muscle-freak like that? "So I found you at last…bro."

His keen senses catches a sound from somewhere behind him. A step, a brush of a foot against the asphalt on the rooftop, but as he turns around to catch a glimpse of the culprit, no one is around. Scrunching his eyes he stares deeply into the shadows, his ears peeks up, trying to catch yet another careless sound.

A snort, there very well could be mistaken as the sound of the wind howling, but he hears it and he is fully aware now.

"Get out where I can see you, you freak! Where are you?!" he calls, fists clenching, feet moving into a stand where he's ready to both defend and attack whatever there watches him from the shadows. He turns around fast as he hears a chuckle emitting from somewhere to his left, but then halts abruptly as he sees who it is there steps out to reveal themselves in the moonlight. Flames licks around the lean muscled man's arms and feet, melting whatever snowflakes there might come too near, on the ground there are footsteps melted into the mere millimetres of snow, creating a new one for each step –he hadn't even realised when it actually had started snowing.

And then, only then he feels it, senses the other's presence, his powers and the danger there hangs around this man.

"You!" He spits out in disgust and growls at the other's humouring black eyes. Thin lips pulls up into a too wide smile as those black eyes watches him with interest.

"Hello there, Raphael. What a surprise," he says, as though it was no surprise at all to see the vampire there to begin with. Raphael snarls.

"Fuck off, demon!"

The demon thinks about this, just to irritate the vampire even more, but then smiles wide, flames spreading, licking the rooftop surrounding the demon as he answers; "How insulting," he says, smiling, "Devil, not one of those lowlife demons. And no, I want to have some fun now and you are just what I need."

Raphael steps back, foot almost slipping off the edge behind him. He doesn't like the way the devil licks around his mouth. It's dangerous, it's too dangerous here, even he knows this. He looks down over the edge, a nice step of 40 feet deep, nothing special, no big deal. Then he looks up, just in time to feel those too warm arms sliding around him, almost burning him. A mouth is on his throat, fingers are already sliding through his hair, grabbing it, pulling in it, catching him -he would almost have gagged at this if it not were for that he already could feel his own lust, his own want grow intensely. It feels good, it makes him feel alive, the heat, the kisses, the growing arousal down south, the hand on top of his heart, making it beat so many times faster, almost like a normal heartbeat there flutters in the heat of lust. However, he knows that it's not real and he knows that he's slowly being spun into the spider's strangling cobweb, killing him slowly by draining his mind from any healthy thinking, before…before the spider would deliver its final blow.

Grunting in dismiss at his own stupidity and slowness, Raphael manage to get a hand in between the two of them and push the devil hard off him, catching the piece of shit by surprise.

"Go back to hell, demon!" he says with a smirk, before taking that step and jumps down from the rooftop. He's fast and soon disappears into the night, and doesn't realise that the piece of shit of a devil now have found interest in something new, something fresh; an almost newborn vampire.

He doesn't know anything about it… but he'll soon get to know.

"Devil, you lowlife fucker…!"

— «»»««» —

Zoro watches Sanji as he sits quietly outside on the balcony, not on a chair but at the railing itself, balancing on it, only having one hand grasping at it while the other laid sluggishly over one knee. He knew that those blue eyes weren't focused on the present, he knew that they were branded in the past, reliving and remembering each and every second of that certain night while the mind where trying to get a grip of the conclusions of it in the presence.

Sanji had been embarrassed beyond anything, being found naked in the bathroom, screaming in agony, in pain while neither the mind nor any of his senses where reacting to nothing in the presence, but all caught into that horrible past. Sanji had led himself be carried into his bedroom, feet sluggishly being dragged along the floors. Zoro had declined any help from Chopper, who looked like just as big a mess like the blond, but while the blond were all silent and limp, Chopper were tense and crying his eyes out, whimpering lips caught in between white teethes to prevent him from putting too much sound onto his sadness.

Sanji had let him dress him, too caught up in his messed up mind, too embarrassed to move a muscle. After Zoro had dressed him into something warm, even though he knew that the young vampire wouldn't react to any temperature coming from the outside, but did just so that the blond could feel just that little bit more humanly. After that, Sanji had just stood up, went straight to him and laid his heavy head on his shoulder, just stood there and did nothing but that, even though that Zoro could swear that he had felt wetness growing into the fabric. He had let one arm carefully touch the other's back, who tensed at the contact but had let him do what he wanted to do, then Zoro had taken the other arm up and hugged him, pulled the limp body close against his and just held him there. And Sanji, Sanji had just absorbed the contact and then broke down.

He was glad for that the door had been closed, he was glad for that he had send Chopper out to get something even though that the kid himself had been a total mess. He knew that this would come and he knew that Sanji didn't like others to see his breakdown, no one but him were allowed to see, to know.

Zoro felt honoured that Sanji still had that faith in him.

Last time Sanji had been like this, was back to when they were sixteen and Sanji's heart had been broken by his first love. When he had realised that she just had been playing with his feelings for a nice two months, before revealing that she already was hooked up with someone else. The bitch even dared to come into the restaurant where the blond was helping out in, together with her said true boyfriend, after using the poor kid's body for a couple of weeks.

To boot it with she even had embarrassed him in front of every living soul inside the restaurant while telling off of how bad he was in bed, how weak his penis were and how horrible he was to give, while that was what he only had done.

Sanji had been a mess a whole year after that, traumatized by it all, but never showed anything to others what he did behind closed doors, didn't tell others why in the middle of class he all of a sudden needed some fresh air, no one was allowed to see, no one but him. Zoro had been there from day five, when he found the blond pressed up against the wall, sitting in a squat, trembling, arms around his legs, rocking on his feet while crying his heart out. Sanji had let him clumsily hug him, and had broken fully down then. He listened to his babbling words, heard it all, wanted to beat the hell shit out of that bitch for tearing down this humour-bomb into pieces, but Sanji had laid a hand on his trembling fist and told him not to, directly begged him not to – Sanji still loved her, that slug she was. Against his own will, Zoro did nothing, at least not to her. He left her a clear message when he left her boyfriend broken and smeared in blood on her doorstep; don't mess with my friends feelings ever again!

The girl kept a good distance from the two of them since then. A half-year later, she changed school.

But Sanji had still been a mess, no matter how much his friends tried to cheer him up, that hole in his heart where still growing in a speed that it even left a shadow cliff in his eyes.

The blond had started smoking that year and his first encounter with alcohol had been not long time after. No matter how much the blond laughed in front of others, Zoro could see the sadness – first love was the most horrible, if you weren't strong enough it could even kill you, but the blond wasn't that weak again, he kept on, tried to get back up and Zoro tried to help him. When a day he brought over a friend to one of their friends birthday parties, he realised that the lights in the blonds' eyes changed, they lit up and looked after her on a way they didn't do when looking at other women, Zoro finally saw a solution to all this mess.

Vivi was introduced to the blond the day after, Sanji had been a trembling mess, but not the way he had been before. He was like a kid who stood in front of a glorious angel and even was afraid of to speak to it. Vivi was an angel indeed, in mind and soul. She never would do anything to harm anyone, not even if she hated them, but thankfully the blonds' feelings were returned.

Sanji returned back to life after that, though the suspicious were still there. They didn't kiss before four months had passed, they didn't do anything else but that, before after a year. Vivi was understandable and was pleased to see that Sanji was no man who only just wanted that.

They were together for a whole of five years before Vivi broke up with the blond. No one but the two of them knows why, but Sanji took the break up much better than suspected, even though that the pain still was clear in his eyes a long time after.

Two years later, Sanji disappears.

Five weeks after that, Sanji knocks on his window, sitting on his windowsill with gleaming red eyes.

After the one-sided hug, Sanji disappeared out onto the balcony and had been sitting there ever since, watching the city below while 'thinking', as the blond put it when Zoro went out to ask.

"Zoro?" Chopper asks carefully as he tugs at the man's blouse, Zoro hums to indicate that he was listening "Will Sanji ever return back to normal? I mean, like the Sanji as we know of?" Zoro then finally looks down at the slightly smaller teen, Chopper looks pleadingly back at him. He lets a hand brush over strands of curled hair, petting him like he would pet a puppy and smiles encouraging down at him.

"I don't know," he answers honestly "Maybe. Maybe he will. It doesn't freak you out anymore of what he have become?"

"No, not anymore. I mean I was scared in the beginning, but after talking with him I realised that Sanji was still, Sanji… and then again not. You get my meaning?" Zoro petted his back.

"Yeah, I get you."

"Zoro?"

"What, Chopper?"

Chopper hesitates for a moment and suddenly Zoro knows what the sandy-haired teen is going to ask him about – honestly, the kid wasn't anything but just a kid, despite his age.

"What happened tonight?"

And Zoro has to tell, and he does. He tells him mostly of it, just enough for the other to understand, without telling too much. "It's mostly the first two to three years that such flashbacks can occur." He goes on as they now has taken place at the sofa arrangement. Chopper looks devastated up from his black cup of coffee. "They're clouded in a heavy depression in those years and… often tries to do many stupid things, really stupid things."

"But but! Sanji loves life! He's strong!" the teen argues, Zoro pulls his shoulders.

"Yeah, he is… but he's still just a human, who has gotten his life taken away on a very brutally way. And those last hours are what will haunt every one of those who have been infected." Chopper looks down, but nods in understanding.

"I never thought it was like that."

"It drives most of them into madness, others simply choose to let go of that humanly side of themselves and becomes those monsters that you know of from those horror movies."

"Sanji will never become like that!" Chopper says pointedly, his eyes looks determined up "Sanji's not like that, and he has us!"

"Yeah, yeah he has us." Zoro agrees, but still feels a bit unsure 'But when will he start to realise that?'

— «»»««» —

It was hard to comprehend it all.

Sanji stares as a young couple passes by down at the streets, running to get the early morning bus there was about to leave. It was… doing something to him. Watching them like that, smelling them; they were reeking of human blood, so much that it made him want to jump down and attack them. Even from this distance it did something to him, it was why he kept far away from any places full with humans. It was why he had kept away from his apartment all this time and only came over to Zoro's place just when it was necessary.

He swallows hard and clenches his fists hard around the railing he was sitting on. Their hearts. Each heartbeat of every human down at the street were drumming in his ears in a cacophony of mixed beats, and if he closed his eyes and concentrated well enough, he even could pinpoint a single person's heartbeat out of them all.

He opens his eyes to shake the sounds out of his mind. Without even noticing it, he had not only closed his eyes to concentrate, but also stopped breathing and there on stopped his own heart's beating. His throat was already going dry, hungry for something to wet it, hungry for blood. He rests his head into one hand and sighs. "Shit, what am I thinking?"

"Hey! You Sanji, right?"

Sanji almost doubles over the railing as a face suddenly appears right into his own face -and no, it's not a whine there emits from his throat, definitely not! It was… from when his hand slid on the steal of the railing! Yeah, that's was it, or, that's what he tries to convince himself with. Sitting in and almost vertical position, both hands gripping tight around the railing to stop himself from falling any further, the youngster leans towards him to sniff the air around him.

"You sure like smells like him."

"Wha…who are you?" Sanji asks, and then glances down the teen's body; the kid is sitting at nothing but air. He scrunches his face "Or rather; what are you?" he says in a darker voice. Every alarm bell rings in his head, as he can't even seem to find a smell emitting from him, for not even to say hear a single heartbeat. The teen, however, breaks his face into a large grin, like he knew that Sanji wouldn't be able to detect him if he hadn't seen him and Sanji finding out, only humours him.

"Name's Mikey, I'm a tracker!" He says proudly.

"A…what?"

"Mikey!"

"No, not your name, idiot. A 'tracker'?"

Now he was thinking about it, there was something very familiar with that fading green hair as well -actually, everything about the kid seemed faded out. Thinking about it, how could he even float in the air?

"I'm like a ninja on constant stealthy mode!" He says proudly, grinning even bigger.

"You're a ghost!" Sanji realises, the kid snorts and even pouts, clearly not happy for the name.

"Ninja on constant stealthy mode sounds cooler though!"

"But you are a ghost…?"

"Nah, not really."

"Then, what will you call this?" Sanji asks and points out their now very weird position; Sanji hanging upside down from the railing, and the kid hanging upside down to be face to face with him, while still floating in the air, while still 'sitting' in a legged position. Mikey looks down at himself curiously but doesn't get it… not before after a whole of five seconds, and then breaks out to his trademark grin.

"Oh this? I'm a tracker!"

Sanji can't help but smack himself in the face.

"Again, the heck is it?"

"It means that he's above a normal ghost and is used like a somewhat spiritual dog to track down people." Sanji looks up at the new voice and now finds a total stranger sit at the railing beside him, in a normal position. The air has suddenly turned lukewarm around them, and Sanji can't help but feel that he should be wary around this guy, but the feeling soon smoulders away with the swept of the wind. He lets himself fall onto his hands, leans over until his feet meets concrete, and stands fully up. However, he does not see as the other licks his lips while watching him. "A tracker is more bodily and more independent than an ordinary ghost," the man continues, not hiding that he's staring the blond down "and are freer to travel wherever they want to, they're not locked into one place or into one mind as most ghosts are. But still so manipulative." He adds almost in a whisper.

"And why the heck is a tracker tracking me, of all people?" Sanji asks warily, as he lights himself a cigarette, then smirks around the smoking stick "I'm just an ordinary person who's taking some fresh air out on his balcony." There was something with the guy's face. Sanji was sure about that he'd seen it somewhere else before, but couldn't recall it right then and there.

The raven stranger laughs "You, ordinary? The son of the country's best chef, ain't just an "Ordinary guy". Beside," he says"I send him," and points at the tracker called Mikey, who only smiles wider, almost proudly of doing a good job for the man… or what the heck this guy now is.

"Flattered. And you are?" Sanji asks, one curled eyebrow curls even more. The raven man turns around in his place and allows the light from inside the apartment to illuminate his face, and Sanji then knows.

"Name's Ace," the man says and offers his hand with a crooked smile, his freckles on his face almost makes the man more gorgeous.

"You're the front singer of 'Fist of Fire'." Sanji realises, his smoke already forgotten. Ace smiles an almost devilish smile as he grabs Sanji's hand to shake it. Sanji's about to protest and pull it away, but for some reason halts and just stares at their connecting hands. Something is tingling in his hand, almost like a stream of heat is pulsating from the others hand, into his own and slowly is spreading out into his whole body. Looking up, mouth agape, he stares at the other person's dark burning orbs, and his body suddenly feels lighter than what it had done for the last six months. Or seven. For some reason he doesn't even remember it any more. The man speaks danger, oh, he knows this, hell, he could feel it in his veins, but there is something… about this man, something he really couldn't pinpoint at. The more he stares, the more it works. Sanji tries to pull his hand away, but it's locked in that warm burning cave of a hand. Something in his mind tells him to trust this guy, no matter of what. Something inside of him tells him to do whatever he tells him to do and Sanji is more alarmed than ever, but can do nothing about it. Tilting his head, Ace's smile changes to a more humanly friendly version, as he tilts his head to one side, hand letting go of him it moves up to his shoulder as he speaks.

"Care for a drink?"

Sanji, just barely, manage to let go of those tranquilizing eyes as he stares behind the man's back to look at the still floating tracker's worried face. Sanji's lips moves, his mind is blank for any awareness, any alarm bells he had before was torn off and thrown in to melt in the steaming hot fire.

There's angst in those blue eyes, there for some reason stood out clearer than anything else about the teen.

The teen was scared, horrified to say the least. He knew something bad would happen, but just like Sanji, he could do nothing about it.

Mind feeling infected, Sanji still felt okay, still felt like himself as he shrugs his shoulders, takes a deep draw of his almost forgotten cigarette as he says; "Why the hell not?"

Why the hell did he even answer?

Ace smiles pleasingly.

Mikey drops his head and floats away, excused from his job. There is no more need of him… for now.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

To be continued

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Author's Note: Whew! And here came chapter 8 (finally)! Can you see a connection with some things? *chuckles* Sorry for the long wait everyone, had a lot to do with my education and such, but now I have some time that I want to use for writing again. All the other chapters there's here has been rewritten -especially the prologue, now it at least read-able! Hehe!

Now… is there some different names in this chapter that sounds pretty familiar to you? *winks*

Hope you liked it, see you all in next chapter! R & R.

Loves

Crystalbluefox