SD Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Cold Flame ❯ The Beginning ( Chapter 1 )

A/N: Okay… here's my finished first chapter! I'm sorry for torturing anyone who read this at first, since it wasn't even all the way done! But look on the bright side! I eventually finished it right? ^^

 

 

Disclaimer: I do not own SD Gundam. I don't even own the designs for the characters; they belong to Melady101.

 

 

Vampires, legendary creatures of the night; drink human blood to stay alive, and kill when they feed. They are much stronger and able to do much more with ease than regular humans but otherwise look the same, albeit paler since they can't go in the sun lest they fry to death. The sun is one of their few fears, along with garlic, crosses, and not seeing their reflections. The only way you can kill them is by stabbing them through the heart with a wooden stake or leaving them outside to burn to death in the sun…

However, what if I told you none of these things were true? Or… most of them anyway….

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“And for our main story today, there has been another fatal attack that took place in an alleyway along 21st street. The victim appears to have been drained of all his blood via two small puncture marks along the side of his neck. Reports show that these are the cause of death-”

A male with long, straight red hair to base of his back and held in a low ponytail sighed in exasperation at the large mob of people in front of him. They were all crowding around a small electronics store that had TV's hung up in front of their store, once again causing traffic in his way.

The redhead resisted his urge to swear and make a scene at the people blocking his way and chose to go around them, stepping out onto the curb to do so. As he did, a car came out of seemingly nowhere and deliberately drove closer to the curb, missing him by mere inches. Pausing a moment he turned around and quickly gave the car the middle finger before continuing on his way. Ignoring the newscaster who was still going on about the “Vampires, that some still believed were creatures of myth and therefore not real.” There were more important things to think about, such as a way to explain to his boss why he was late for the fourth day that week.

Training his red eyes forward, he caught sight of the familiar tall building that was made of blue reflective panels and had a few windows going up the sides. He jogged up the stairs and entered the building nonchalantly, like he wasn't over half an hour late, and headed toward the elevator. If he got to the small metal box, he would be home free. Today, just like all the others though, just wasn't his day.

“Sir Zapper Zaku,” one of the building's secretaries, a blue eyed lady with highlighted light brown hair, called over to him attempting to hide her amusement at his tardiness, “he's expecting you.”

The redhead's shoulders slumped and, secretly plotting the secretary's demise as she started laughing openly at him, entered the elevator and took it to the 26th floor where his office was situated. Once to his destination, he glanced to the left longingly, wishing for once he could go to his office without being chastised by his boss. Fate didn't agree with him though and he went straight, into the office of his boss, who was talking with another male with short spiky blue hair.

Zapper considered knocking after having a fleeting thought of hightailing it, but was cut off from doing either as the blonde spotted him in the doorway and beckoned him in, “It really is nice for you to finally join us Zapper, we were beginning to wonder if you'd been run over.” He smirked at the redhead, leaning back on his desk, which he was sitting on top of, and crossing his legs staring at the other expectantly through his light violet eyes awaiting a response.

Which did come, the blue haired male was smiling as well and turned around in his seat to better watch their verbal feud, Zapper spared the guest a glance before returning his attention back to his employer “Well, I'm really sorry to disappoint you, I'll try harder next time.”

The blonde shook his head, his wavy hair that didn't quite make it to his shoulders swinging around as he did so, “No, that's not necessary, I don't want to have to spend money on your funeral costs.” He smiled and continued on quickly to prevent another retort, “Zapper, I'd like you to meet Grappler,” he motioned to the blue haired male that was sitting in the swivel chair in front of him, then meeting the redhead's gaze with an amused smirk, “he is going to be working in that unused office next to yours.”

Cold eyes returned the look as Zapper silently searched his boss' eyes for some sign of the joke, he didn't get along well with others and he had no desire to change that. When the other showed no signs of smiling widely and laughing at him for believing such a thing, he sighed deeply, “Of course, Sazabi.”

The blonde smiled, “Wonderful, now get out of my office and show him to his.” Zapper nodded slightly recognizing the commanding tone his boss had adopted and turned to leave, not waiting but expecting Grappler to follow him, which he did.

Once out of the office they took a right and went down the hall in silence, which the blue haired male broke, “So… are you usually over 45 minutes late?”

The redhead froze and whirled around to face the person who he would hopefully not be dealing with for the rest of his working career, and who had the nerve to grin widely at him as if he were using him for his own amusement. His eyes narrowed in warning, “Why?”

Grappler ignored the warning, “Well, if you are, why do you still have a job?”

Zapper turned back around and started walking briskly, “Because I'm more important here than you could ever be.”

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Arriving at the indicated office Zapper opened the door to the left of his and sighed heavily as he walked in, “This is going to be your very own office from now on.” The redhead went to the larger of the two desks in the room and cleared off the boxes that were piled around the computer, moving them to the side of the room. After that was done, he proceeded to turn the computer on and waited for the electronic device to start loading up, “Your directions on what you need to do will be mailed to you from Sazabi so you shouldn't need to bother me. I'm very busy at all times so don't ever come into my office.”

Grappler nodded slightly and looked at the boxes cluttering up his floor, “And those?”

“Just leave them there, they'll be taken care of by tomorrow,” he turned to leave and almost made it to the door before the blue haired male managed to stop him.

“One more question,” Zapper turned around as Grappler smirked slyly, making the redhead notice that the other had his blue bangs covering his left eye as he stared into the red eyes, and pointed to the door to the right side of the room that connected their offices, “Where does that door lead to?”

Zapper glared back icily, “A room that will bring you a very slow and painful death.”

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Later on that afternoon Zapper was spacing at his computer with an unrealistic hope that it might do his work for him. What he was supposed to be doing was creating different combinations of characters for a virtual game that their company was putting together for the Internet. So far, all he'd gotten done was the basic outline of his character, and tried a couple different outfits on. Unfortunately for him, his mind kept going blank, causing him to stop his work and wait for his mind to re-motivate itself so he could continue working. He stretched and sat up, his thoughts re-activating and was about to start working again when the person he never wanted to hear from again interrupted him with a sarcastic whisper, “You must be one hell of an important person if you have the power to sit and do absolutely nothing for the majority of the day.”

Startled by the sudden noise, Zapper turned quickly to find that the blue-haired male was actually bent toward the computer screen right behind him. The redhead gave a shout of surprise and sprang from his chair, “What the hell???”

Grappler smirked at his reaction, “Were you really that out of it that you didn't even hear me come in the room?” Blue hair waved slightly as he shook his head in mock disappointment.

Zapper fumed, not even acknowledging the other's comment, “What are you doing in here??? Get the fuck out!”

The blue-haired male frowned at his coworker's use of inappropriate language, “Come now, is that really any way to speak to the person who works in the room next to yours?”

The redhead grabbed the front of Grappler's shirt with menace, making their eyes meet as he spoke in a warning undertone, “You better tell me what the hell you want before I throw you out of my fucking window.”

Grappler sighed, finding Zapper's wall much more interesting to look at, rather than the enraged red eyes of his co-worker, “I was just wondering if you'd gotten Sazabi's message about the employee meeting after work, but obviously you didn't, seeing as how you've been sitting on your lazy ass all day doing absolutely nothing… and why does your room have a window?” He asked in an insulted tone as an afterthought when he noticed the view of outside.

Zapper dragged the other to the door that connected their two rooms and shoved him back through it, “Figure it out for your fucking self!!” and slammed the door shut.

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As scheduled, later on that day, Zapper closed down his computer and left his office. He shut off all the lights in the room before heading down the hall, “So, did you end up getting all your work finished?”

The redhead bristled, “Do you have a habit of following people who would rather you died horribly painful deaths?”

Grappler smirked back, somehow finding humor in the question, “Of course, I get intense satisfaction from it. Joking aside, unfortunately for you, I'm new here so don't know the entire layout of the building yet, and since we just so happen to be going to the same place…”

“Don't remind me,” Zapper groaned, as if the mere thought of being anywhere near the other was revolting, before sighing and continuing to the elevator. Once there, Zapper pushed the number of the floor they were supposed to go to, the blue haired male coming in to stand beside him, and they journeyed to the floor the meeting was to be held on.

As soon as the doors opened again, the redhead left the small compartment immediately, making Grappler have to jog a ways to catch back up. Traveling half way down the hall and taking a right, they entered a large meeting room. However, it looked less like they were going to be having a meeting at all and more like a party was going on. Balloons and streamers in many colors hung around the room, desserts and other foods were along the wall on a long table and some sort of punch was on a separate circular table with plastic glasses stacked next to the glass pitcher.

Their boss immediately spotted them on entrance, giving neither of them a chance for escape, and approached them happily, “Zapper, Grappler, so glad you decided to join us.”

Zapper remained expressionless; “You never said anything about a party. Where's the meeting?”

Sazabi's smile broadened, “This is a meeting! Everyone's meeting everyone else.”

The redhead stared at his boss, using any means necessary to attempt to get out of this planned social gathering, “I've already met everyone here so… I guess I'll be leaving…”

Before the other could even turn around though, Sazabi fixed Zapper with a stern glare, “No, I'd guess you'd be staying here and participating in this nice little party I have put great pains to arrange…” With that said, the blonde disappeared, leaving Grappler and his companion in mild confusion as to where their boss could have went so quickly. The mystery was solved promptly however, when they spotted him bouncing happily toward another male that had just entered the room, “Gerbera! You made it!”

Both co-workers were left speechless for a moment before Grappler broke it, a shocked/disbelieving expression on his face, “How did He manage to get so high in the corporate world?”

Zapper shook his head, not having the slightest idea either before his cold demeanor returned. He glared over at the person that had not moved from his side, “And why are you still near me?”

The blue haired male's expression barely changed, “Because it annoys you.”

The redhead glared, fire behind his crimson eyes before Sazabi's stern light violet eyes caught his own in an unspoken threat. Zapper sighed deeply, cooling down immediately, and headed for the punch bowl he knew very well had some sort of alcohol put into it. His reasoning for knowing this was very simple: Tallgeese was in the room. He'd spotted the red-eyed blonde earlier on because of his two lovers, Mercurious and Vayeate, who were also there. The three of them, since they work in the same building, live in the same house, have the same lunch hour and because of that don't spend enough time together, were using their time wisely and spending some “quality” time together. Not that the redhead was looking or anything, but in his opinion they would probably be leaving fairly soon.

Once he made it to the alcoholic punch, Grappler still following him, he quickly poured two glasses shoving one into the other's hands, “There, now go converse and meet people. This party's probably intended for you anyway.” Downing his glass of punch, he poured himself another, for once glad that Tallgeese didn't skimp on the alcohol, and moved over to eat some of the desserts. Almost dejectedly, Grappler left at his request in favor of spending his time some other way.

For a few wonderful seconds, Zapper enjoyed the party. This was partly due to the fact that the alcohol was working fabulously and the rest due to the fact that Grappler was not around him. The redhead didn't know why, but his blue-haired co-worker had struck some nerve and he didn't like it. So, while he had time, he looked around and as he'd predicted the three who had previously been all over each other, were now leaving into another room.

Just as the redhead was beginning to feel the light tingling of the alcohol, he felt Sazabi's gaze upon him once again. Sighing, he refilled his empty glass and went over to the blonde, who smiled as he arrived, “Zapper, this is Gerbera, have you heard of him?”

Zapper looked up at the man he'd been introduced to, he was taller than Sazabi with slicked back black hair that went halfway to his shoulders and two strands that didn't seem to want to stay down with the rest of his hair, making it seem like he had two antennae. The dark haired male, his deep red eyes behind glasses, also had a short goatee and mustache. Zapper nodded in greeting to the other before turning to his boss smirking and replied sarcastically, “No, of course not Sazabi, you never speak about him at all. It's not like you haven't said to me a million times how nice his house is or what kind of furniture he has, or what's in his room, or what happens in his room…”

The blonde pouted while Gerbera smiled slightly before Sazabi brushed off the comments and continued on, “Well, if you didn't hear of it, he's also one of the lead scientists researching the whole vampire ordeal.”

“Really?” Zapper paused to take this in, staring at the scientist curiously, “And what are your views on it?”

The dark haired male seemed to put serious consideration in the question before answering, “Personally, I don't think it was vampires who put the murders together. However, if these vampires are even real in the first place, I don't think they'd want to bring themselves out in the open all of a sudden like this. I also believe vampires would be a lot more careful then to just leave their victims lying around in the middle of an alleyway. If I had any say in the situation, and could find some concrete evidence to prove it, I'd say that this was just the work of a couple of bored, mentally ill people trying to scare the city and put us all on edge.”

The redhead nodded in somewhat understanding, “Quite a few people seem to like the idea though, of vampires being real and prowling about.”

Gerbera smiled and glanced over at the wall clock, “I know, which is why it will probably be extremely difficult to convince them that they don't.” He turned his attention to Sazabi, “Well, I'd better get back to work, my lunch breaks can only last so long,” pulling the blonde to him, he placed a sweet kiss on Sazabi's lips, “See you later tonight?”

“Same time, same place as always,” he replied back suggestively.

The Gerbera then broke away and turned back to the redhead, “And it was a pleasure to meet you as well.” Zapper nodded back in acknowledgement before the scientist turned around and left the party so he could return to his wok.

To keep the conversation going, Zapper turned to his boss, “I thought you believed in vampires.”

Sazabi nodded in a somewhat day dreamy state, “I do, but, when he says it like that… doesn't he just sound so convincing?” the blonde became serious once again, “besides, I know they're real.”

Zapper put little thought into this last statement and took another drink of his alcoholic punch. Sazabi took a long look at the glass before venturing out and asking, “Did Tallgeese get a hold of that?” the redhead smiled somewhat and nodded making his boss continue in concern, “Then don't drink too much of it.”

After reassuring Sazabi that he wouldn't get himself too drunk, and neither of them believing a word he said, Zapper went back to enjoying the party and drinking more of the free alcohol anyway. By his now altered opinion, anything that made you feel better and less stressed was a very good thing. This is what he was still doing by the time Grappler wandered back to him. Deciding that he didn't really hate the blue haired male that much anymore, he decided to make conversation and actually be nice, “So, Grappler, are you enjoying your party?”

His co-worker took one look at Zapper's somewhat flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, and wide smile to realize that he'd probably had one too many glasses, “Shouldn't you stop drinking pretty soon?”

Zapper continued grinning and waved off the suggestion, “Nope, I feel just fine,” his eyes traveled around the room as he took another drink of his almost empty glass, “You wouldn't happen to know when they changed the lighting would you?”

Grappler took away Zapper's glass and set it on the nearby table that Zapper just happened to be leaning against, much to the redhead's disappointment, “I think you're done drinking and partying for the night.” He stopped his co-worker before he could say anything, “I'll be taking you home, where do you live?”

“I can go by myself, I live pretty close.”

Grappler shook his head making his hair move every which way, this action seeming to captivate Zapper as he started staring at it, “I don't think so, you'd probably get kidnapped and killed before tomorrow. I'm not going to be accused of murder because I'm the last person anyone remembers seeing you with.”

The redhead smirked, poking him playfully, “Aww, you're worried about me, that's so sweet. I think I can make it to my own house though so-” but he was cut off from any further argument as he tried to stand from his leaning position, swayed momentarily before falling, and was caught by Grappler.

Zapper pouted, his eyes rolling up so he could better see his “savior.” Then he sighed and resigned himself in the other's arms, relaxing. The blue haired male stared at his co-worker's complete change in attitude with bewilderment before lowering him back to his feet, “As I was saying, I'll bring you to your house.”

After clearing everything with their boss and prying the address from him, because Zapper was having a momentary memory lapse and couldn't remember what street his house was on, they both managed to get to the house unscathed. Standing in front of the homely one story house, Grappler patiently waited from his companion to fish the keys out of his pockets. The redhead sighed in exasperation and frustration, “Where are those fucking pieces of metal?? They were in there this morning!” Finally Zapper let cried out joyfully, pulling out his house keys, smiling and humming as he inserted them into the lock on his front door.

Grappler shook his head in amusement as Zapper opened the door and stumbled in, sitting on the stoop inside his house before fumbling with getting his shoes off. The blue haired male smiled, leaning against the doorframe watching the other, “You know, you should drink more often. You really are more pleasant to be around.”

Zapper grinned at that, walking back over to his company, “Really? You think so?” he turned around and headed back into his house, “Hey, why don't you come in? I can-” but again he was cut off from finishing the thought as he tripped over the stoop and fell face first into his own house.

Grappler rolled his eyes and went into the house, poking the drunken idiot, “Zapper? You okay?” but he received no answer. After some minor searching, he discovered that the other was unconscious. Grinning deviously as a sudden thought struck him, he picked up the other and carried him into the house. Eventually finding a bedroom that, by process of elimination, appeared to be the redhead's. After a couple more seconds of contemplating and more searching, he forced himself to slowly undress Zapper and put him into a loose fitting shirt and pants, since he couldn't find any trace of pajamas, before tucking him into his own bed and leaving the room to go occupy himself with something else while his co-worker was sleeping.

 

A/N: And… I'm done! Yay! Please review!