Title: Not A Sissy Cullen Romance
Rating: T
Pairing: Zoro/Sadi-chan, implied Sanji/Gin
Warnings: AU. Blood/Gore. Perversion. Swearing.
AN: The third instalment. This too is a pairing requested by Penniless1. I'd also like to mention that I abhor Twilight. This is my non-sparkly, as-far-from-stupid-useless-sod-Cullen-as-you-can-get, Vampire One Piece AU. It's got, like, blood and stuff. Hope you enjoy. :3
Horror/Possessiveness
Like a soldier's tall gaunt lance, the imposing form of Big Ben impaled the sky, its moon-round clock face glowing eerily yellow through the fog-laden night of All Hallows Eve, 1876. Upon the hour, she sounded off, her giant bells ringing out twelve times before all fell silent again.
This being the night of the devil and his minions, the vast majority of London's populace had retired for the night, doors and shutters barred against the chilly air, though several unsavoury characters remained to haunt the streets beside their reputed ghostly companions. One such man lingered in a shadowy ally within the Whitechapel district waiting for his prey to pass by.
What could be seen of the man's hair was dark, dirty blond, and his clothes, though patched and well-worn, were spotlessly clean. His clean-shaven face twisted with a monstrous sort of joy as a prostitute, with pouty lips, a swan-like neck, masses of golden curls and enormous breasts almost bursting out of the strapping scarlet corset dress she wore, passed in front of him and he stepped out silently behind her to pursue his quarry.
Mary Jane Kelly would not be the last...oh no...she was hardly even the beginning. Simply cutting throats and taking souvenirs wasn't enough for him anymore...oh no...after Kelly he'd found that the messy brutal approach was a much sweeter escape from his fastidiously neat home life...he'd make this new whore look like so much mince meat when he was done. The manic grin grew wider as he quickened his step and reached into his cloak for his dagger.
How pretty her blood would look, splattered across the cobblestones and collecting in a lovely red pool around a mangled mess of her carved flesh and tattered pieces of fabric...
The thought was never finished, the gruesome sixth murder never completed, for at that moment another young man lunged from the shadows and floored the would-be murderer with a vicious kick that snapped his spine in half before yanking the man's head back and sinking razor sharp fangs into his jugular, tearing the throat to pieces in an instant.
This bloodsucker, blond, impeccably dressed, and clean shaven save for a small scruff adorning his chin, moaned wantonly as the hot coppery liquid spilled through his parted lips and down his throat, bathing his insides with heat comparable to a gulp of fine whiskey. The dark haired man twitched and gurgled horribly under his clawed hands, blood gushing forth in torrents from his ruined neck and gaping mouth. Indeed, it was a small miracle the vampire was not positively drenched in blood as he quenched his thirst.
Popping out of shadows appeared to have become a popular trend; for no sooner had the blond's victim finally stopped squirming and gone as still as the grave did yet another young man, brawny like a bull, as tan as anyone from the Orient with hair the exact shade of summer grass, spring forth and seize his blond companion, dragging him away from his bloody prize.
"Uwah! What in the blazes do you think you're doing you putrefied piece of moss?"
"Saving your life idiot, now get up there!"
"I'm still bloody eating!"
"Now Sanji!"
The newcomer bodily threw his considerably wirier partner up onto the dilapidated roof of a nearby building and jumped up after him, acutely and wholly uncomfortably aware of appraising eyes on the back of his neck.
-X3-
"Heavens above, what a waste," Sanji lamented, wringing his hands at the thought of the rapidly cooling body he'd been forced to leave behind. "I'll tell you something right now, you malodorous oaf, if you ever make me abandon a perfectly good meal again, I'll kick you all the way to Her Majesty's Indian subcontinent."
His green haired companion just grunted and slumped down on the cobblestoned pavement of the Westminster Bridge. It's not that he was out of breath after their three mile sprint...
"Getting old Zoro?" Sanji smirked, carefully removing a few flecks of blood from his cheek with a lavender silken handkerchief.
...it was just that this newbie (well, he was after only a century of being turned) kept running him ragged, making him pursue the blond across London and back, trying to keep him out of trouble.
"Hardly."
Sanji didn't deign to join him on the pavement, instead choosing to conjure a fine enamel pipe out of nowhere, light it, and give it a few hearty puffs.
"Good to see you're off the opium now, cheese-head," Zoro huffed grumpily. He didn't take kindly to comments about his age.
"Quiet low-life, I'm drinking in the air that I'd rather you not pollute with your foul temperament."
Zoro snorted.
"Where are your swords by the way?"
He was of course referencing Zoro's katana, three priceless gifts bestowed unto him by the late Vampire Duchess Kuina, a shadowy stall merchant, and the infamous Vampire Slayer Ryuuma, respectively, as he travelled the Orient. The swords bearer fingered his right hip briefly, missing his three sharp-edged companions as dearly as he might miss his own head. For his mission tonight though, wearing such weapons would be detrimental.
"It's too dangerous to wear them around these parts; I might draw unnecessary attention to myself while I'm running around the scabby areas keeping your arse safe from nasty men with a taste for pretty blond boys. Do you realise how much safer and easier it would be for you if you just snuck into some fancy Kensington abode, knocked a couple wenches unconscious and took a pint or so from each one?"
"Oi," Sanji uttered threateningly, shoving a steel-capped toe menacingly under the other man's nose. "As a human I never once laid a hand on a woman to harm her, and I don't intend to start now as a bloodsucker."
They lapsed into silence once more.
"What were you doing in Whitechapel anyway? We don't hunt in the same area anymore."
Sanji winced, remembering the trashed buildings that baffled the public police force come morning and the vicious reaming out the two had received from their clan leader Juraquille.
If you two can't go a moment without competing over something entirely ludicrous, I forbid you from hunting within a mile of one another!
Zoro was quiet, mulling things over. He figured he didn't owe his fellow bloodsucker the truth and hitched a smirk onto his lips.
"Like I said, I was watching out for your pretty little derriere as it were."
Sanji's one visible blue eye seemed to glow red in the dim lighting. Zoro rolled his eyes but heeded the wordless warning.
"I dunno. I guess our paths crossed is all."
"Hmph. Damn shame they did. That scumbag didn't taste half as diseased as the other squatters around...too bad you chased me off before I could drain him fully. Well, at least I was doing that lovely...er...lady of the night a favour. That wretch would have gutted her groin to sternum had I not intervened..."
Zoro almost tore his viridian hair out in frustration.
"Damnation Sanji, let's just call you the bloody Vampire Prince and be done with it! Has it ever occurred to you that some women don't need protection? Especially not from the likes of us?"
Sanji bristled, his sharp teeth bared in a blood-stained snarl.
"How dare..."
"That so-called prostitute was Sadie Chandler, a goddamn vampire slayer you moron! One of the best in the trade too! Why else do you think I got us out of there so fast? Or do you want to end up a pile of charred ash in the dirt?"
A brief pause as Sanji contemplated this.
"Well, I'd rather die at the hand of a delightful buxom beauty like her than a wrinkled old-timer reeking of mothballs and tobacco."
"Tch. You would. Look, that woman can sense one of our kind at fifty paces. And when she does..."
Zoro wasn't squeamish by any means, but remembering Gin's smouldering, stinking remains was enough to turn the stomach of any hardened vampire. He stood, brushing off his pants with a few half-hearted swipes.
"...it's not pretty. You remember Krieg's right hand, yeah?"
Sanji abruptly snuffed out his pipe, the embers scorching a hole near straight through the thumb of his leather glove, and turned away. The smoke must have stung his eyes or something to make them water like that. The last time Zoro accused Sanji of crying the blond had broken his nose and sworn he'd choked on his last sob a century ago when his only father figure in the world wasted away from consumption and died of starvation on the streets.
They left it at that.
"So, you still hungry?"
"What I siphoned off that last bastard was quite sufficient."
"Need I hold your hand while you walk back to Lady Kalifa's house, mamma's boy?"
Sanji promptly kicked him into the Thames.
"Speak for yourself daddy's bitch, or did you forget about Big Papa Juraquille? Don't talk to me like I'm four!" the blond hollered after him as he soared beyond the glow cast by the streetlamps into the pitch black waters below.
When he resurfaced, Zoro was soaking wet, bruised on his left buttock from Sanji's wicked kick, and smelling faintly of eau de sewage. But he was satisfied. While dragging up the subject of Gin to the foolish blond never truly sat right with him it was necessary.
Zoro Roronoa wasn't any ordinary vampire. He didn't go for dainty, weak-willed women. Unlike his partner Sanji, he didn't like the flouncy, fickle women of high society.
No. He liked strong women, born and bred in the dirt, those who clawed their way up the food chain and sat themselves on top of the pecking order; hunter to all, prey to no-one. In other words, a vampire slayer. It was imperative that that loose woman's attention was not flagged down by the flashy blond fool. Doubtless, the love-struck moron would kneel at her feet and kiss her pointy leather shoes if she so commanded, and Zoro had worked far too hard to seduce her to ever allow that to happen.
Zoro's grin was feral as he set off for the Whitechapel district once more.
Stay up for me Sadie.
So who doesn't love a good gory gritty vampire romance set in Victorian London, eh?
So yeah Mary Jane Kelly is reputed to be the last known victim of Jack the Ripper, legendary serial killer of prostitutes in the Whitechapel district in London (not a very nice place apparently, due to overpopulation). Records of the murders show that Jackie boy seemed to devolve the more he killed. He started with slashing a poor girl's throat and gutting her. Then he escalated to slashing throats, gutting, and taking souvenirs (as in body parts). Finally, Mary Jane Kelly was found completely mutilated (face hacked to pieces, torso ripped apart, horrible stuff) with her heart missing.
R.I.P Jack, you malodorous ol' son of a bitch you. :D (Fuck yeah, vampire!Sanji would annihilate his ass!)