Disclaimer: I do not own anything

HildyaOrul: Haha. Thanks so much for your review! :) I highly recommend that you watch Pride and Prejudice. Its a great movie. Now, dont let my writing influnce your decision, though. My story my have some of the original plot, but I have my own stuff that is COMPLETELY different. As for who was following Sanji... well, no spoilers! I can tell you; however, it was nobody good. ;)


A One Piece Twist

Chapter 2

"Tell us where the money is kid," the scary man hissed.

Sanji's mind went numb with fear as the man pulled out a wicked looking knife. The fear was so strong that Sanji's whole body was shaking, yet he could do nothing as the man brought the knife closer to Sanji's left eye. His arms and legs strained against the ties that held him in place as the man used the knife to move the fringe of blonde hair that covered it.

As the man stepped closer, Sanji could see his face. It was terrifying, yes, but the look in his eyes were far scarier. Zeff's screams echoed in the abandoned building.

" One more time: Where. Is. The. Money," The man said again. " I don't know!" He choked out, sobs catching in his throat. "Wrong answer," the man said through clenched teeth and shoved the knife deep into Sanji's eye.

"Ahhh!" Sanji shot up from his bed clutching the left side of his face. "God, no!" He wailed, his half asleep mind still remembering the dream.

His breath came out in heavy puffs, and his heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest. He scrambled to turn on the light next to his bed, his right eye wildly looking around the room as he tried to calm himself. Sanji swung his legs to the floor and stood on shaky legs. He reached for the pack of smokes on his desk, jammed one in his mouth and lit it. 'God,' he shuddered, 'hadn't had a nightmare like that in years.' He supposed that the drama of yesterday brought it on, and by the time he walked back over to his bed to check the time, the sleep from his mind had cleared, and the details of the dream were almost forgotten.

The clock read 2 a.m. Damn, he slept over 12 hours. He rubbed his wrists and ran his fingers over the scars on his pale skin. 'Well, since I'm wide awake I might as well start to make preparations for this afternoon, right?' He said to himself.

He ran a hand through his hair as he went over to his wardrobe and opened it. From it he withdrew a pair of black slacks that really made his legs and ass look great, and a bright teal blue button up shirt that clung to his torso in all the right places. He was about to head to the bathroom to go take a shower when he remembered the bandages. Sighing he went to the bathroom and instead began to carefully wash himself with a wash cloth. This was going to take forever...

The first person to come downstairs was Mihawk. Sanji didn't even know he was there until he turned around to grab another carton of eggs and saw the dark haired man leaning against the kitchen door frame. Neither one said anything.

Sanji and Mihawk's relationship was a lot like Sanji's Zeff's had been, just without the kicking and insults. They didn't speak a lot, but when they did, they knew their words for each other were sincere and important.

" You had another nightmare," the tall man stated, getting right to the point. Sanji stilled, but wasn't surprised. After all he was called 'Hawk Eyes' Mihawk for a reason. Sanji grunted, not wanting to speak.

He heard Mihawk shift behind him and then saw the man's gold eyes as he stepped up beside Sanji. "You know," he said quietly, "That Shanks and I... We care for you, Sanji. If you need to talk to us about anything, please don't hesitate to come to us."

Sanji stopped cutting up the green peppers for the quiche he was making, and turned to Mihawk. Sanji didn't know if it was because the older man reminded him so much of Zeff, but he had been the first person Sanji had talked to weeks after the accident. Mihawk was a man that Sanji respected almost as much as he had Zeff. The man's quiet power spoke to the young Sanji, and even now when Sanji was almost 21, he still went to Mihawk with problems he had no way of fixing or just for advice. He smiled tiredly at Mihawk and said, "I know. You and Shanks are my parents, and you guys took me in and cared for me at my worst. I can never thank you guys enough, but please, don't take it personally when I say I don't really want to talk about it."

Mihawk just nodded before awkwardly patting Sanji on the arm. Sanji almost chuckled at his discomfort. "Can you get the other knuckleheads up for me? I know you and Shanks were put behind schedule because of me, so I want to make sure that we have an early start. Robin-chawn's party is the first of the season, after all, so it's pretty important."

Mihawk grunted in acknowledgement and headed out of the kitchen to get the rest of the crew up. The blonde chef watched him go, then turned back to his peppers with a small, but sad smile. He wanted to talk to Mihawk and Shanks, he really did, but how could he talk about things that he didn't understand or remember himself?

The doctor said it was a defense mechanism and that he had blocked out the memories and feelings of the accident from his conscious mind, forcing them into his dreams. As a result, over the years he had dreamed some pretty nasty dreams. For a while part of his therapy had been to write down his dreams as soon as he woke up, and in as much detail as he could. After the first few times of doing this, even Sanji, who was no therapist by any means, could see something was messed up in his head.

He kept a journal for years and even now, once in awhile, when a dream was new or particularly nasty, he wrote it down out of habit more than anything else. After the first dream he never showed his dream journal to anyone, scared what they might think of him. He used to read them over constantly when he was bed ridden in the hospital, trying to find any clues to help unlock his memory, but nothing worked. If anything, rereading the dreams gave him worse nightmares.

His face turned red with embarrassment as he remembered all the times he woke up bawling his eyes out, or to Shanks or Mihawk soothing him. At least now the nightmares were familiar to him and most of the time he could force himself awake if they got too bad. Last night had been the first nightmare in years that he had woken up that shaken from.

Shaking his head, Sanji threw the papers into the quiche mix and put it into the oven. He just needed to focus on preparations for the party tonight and think about all the lovely ladies that would be there. Everything was going to go perfectly, he would make sure of it.


Sanji was brushing out Chopper's shaggy hair that had gotten all matted from working with that witch Kureha, or as Chopper called her, Doctor Rine. Sanji suppressed a shudder of horror at the thought of that old, wrinkly witch coming to the party tonight. Chopper invited her after Sanji walked to Kureha's clinic in town to get the young teen. She smiled a cat like grin at Sanji and asked if he would save her dance. Sanji, never being rude to women no matter how old or ugly, agreed reluctantly. Now he had been dreading the time he would have to spend with Chopper's boss.

Finally, Sanji got out the last snarl and began to give his little brother a haircut. The teens brown locks fell to the floor with every snip until the blond chef was satisfied.

"Are you done yet?" Chopper asked as he fidgeted in his seat.

"Yes," he chuckled as he spun his kid brother around to the mirror.

" Oh, Sanji!" He exclaimed happily, "It looks great!" Sanji nodded smiling. Chopper did look good, he looked grown up. "You should show off those baby browns, little man, not hide them behind that mop."

Chopper beamed and tackled Sanji in a gentle hug, mindful of the bandages. "Thanks, Sanji!" He blushed and raced off to get dressed. Sanji smiled as he swept up the soft brown types of hair into a pile and threw them away,then he went downstairs to the kitchen to find a crowd around Shanks.

"What's going on?" The blonde asked as he made his way over to the redhead.

Shanks smiled a face splitting grin, crinkling the the three gashed scar across his left eye. "My nephew Luffy is coming to visit for the summer! Oh, it's been over 11 years since I've seen him, but I bet he's still the same. Even if he has been in Europe this whole time."
"Luffy? The eats -everything -in -sight Luffy? The idiot -who -always- gets- himself- into trouble Luffy? THAT Luffy?" Could this day get any worse? The stories Sanji had heard about Luffy and his stupidity could fill at least three Merriam Webster dictionaries, the very thick dictionaries.

"Why, yes! And apparently he's going to bring Ace and a few friends he made abroad! Isn't that exciting?!"

"Extremely," Sanji grumbled, but the sarcasm was wasted on Shanks. "When is he coming?" He asked reluctantly.

"Tonight! Just in time for the party!"

Sanji choked on his own spit. "WHAT?! Shanks, you can't just-I mean- HOW am I going to cook enough food for tonight? If Luffy eats half of what you say he does, then we dont have nearly enough!"

Shanks waved his hand in dismissal, still holding the letter, "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Sanji sighed heavily in exasperation, knowing persuing this conversation was pointless. He threw his hands up in the air and stomped to the kitchen. "God!" He exclaimed, " Why are you so freaking impossible?!"

Chuckles followed him to the kitchen, irritating him all the more.

Over the next two hours that remained before the party, Sanji whipped up as much food as he could while the others finished setting up the decorations inside and outside on the lawn. Thankfully Mihawk had the fore sight to hire almost thirty people from town to help, so the group could split up and get more done.

Finally, when 2 o'clock rolled around, Sanji was satisfied and finished setting out the food. He fixed his hair and unrolled his sleeves as he walked outside, buttoning the cuffs closed. After a half hour the guests started to arrive in droves and Sanji greeted beautiful lady after beautiful lady that passed by. It was all going well until Kureha showed up. Sanji forced himself not to cringe as she sauntered over to him, very aware of his discomfort.

"Dortor Rine!" Shanks greeted the old lady happily, " I'm so pleased to see you! Chopper talks of nothing else but the quality of your work!"

'Damn you, Shanks!' Sanji thought bitterly, 'Now she'll never leave!'

Kureha returned Shanks's greeting, then turned to Sanji. "Don't forget about out dance, " she mocked, fluttering her eye lashes, and winked at him suggestively as she walked away. Sanji couldn't supress the shudder.

Shanks added to it by barking out a laugh and congratulated the blonde on his 'fine catch'.

"Shut up," Sanji whined, "Why does that old bag of bones love to torment me everytime she sees me?!"

The red haired man shoke his head. "Why do any of us torture you, Sanji? 'Cause it's fun!" The man cackled as he spun away into the crowd to avoid Sanji's kick.

Sanji pouted with his arms crossed over his chest, carefully minding his injuries, as he stalked over to a willow to have a smoke and calm down. He jumped onto a low branch and tucked a leg underneath himself while the other dangled over the side. Then he lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

After about an hour and three cigarettes later, a man made his way under Sanji's perch with a bottle of beer in each hand and a peculiar case slung over a shoulder.

"You know," the blonde called to the man below him, "a lesser man would take offense to someone drinking so early in the party."

Sanii watched in mild amusment as he saw the man below start in surprise, and whipped around to find the source of the voice. Sanji supressed a laugh. " Up here, baka."

The head snapped up to glare at Sanji, who was just lazily blowing out a long cloud of smoke, and raised a curly eyebrow. Dark green met cerulean as Sanji looked at the man curiously.

The man was about Sanji's height with a natural golden tan, his muscles saying he was no stranger to hard work. He held himself like he was someone you did not want to mess with, almost like a thug, but his air spoke of someone that was upper class, like so many of the rich pricks that occupied the country club.

He wore white shorts that brought out the glow of his skin, and his green polo shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and chest quite nicely. His matching white and green straw fedora did little to cover the green hair on his head or cover the scar over across his left eye, stretching from his eyebrow to the top of his high cheek bone. The mans scowl made it look well placed.

Sanji had to admit that this man was ruggedly handsome, scars and all, and sighed mentally. After jumping down lightly and landing in front of the man, Sanji turned to stub the rest of his cigarette on the trunk of the tree and threw it away. When he turned back to the man, his dark green eye was still on Sanji. Sanji's hand went to the hair infront of his own left eye, making sure it was in place.

"Can I help you?" He asked, uncomfortable under the mans searching gaze.

The marimo seemed to realise he was staring and snapped his eye away from Sanji, raising the open bottle of beer to his lips.

"Hn. Nope," the mans deep voice said flatly.

Sanji rolled up his shirt sleeves, getting ready to walk away, then shoved his hands in the pocket of his slacks. His irritation from earlier was growing again. What was this guy's problem? After starting to walk away the man spoke to Sanji again.

"Why were you hiding?" The marimo asked, taking another sip of his beer.

Sanji's neck almost snapped as his head swivled around to face the man again. " I wasn't 'hiding', you bastard!" Sanji snarled, realizing too late that his voice was raised too loudly.

"Sanji!" Kureha's voice called as he stepped through the tassles of the willow. The said man suppressed a groan. "I've been looking for you everywhere! You promised me a dance, remember?" She smiled wickedly like a cat that had found a year supply worth of cream and shimmied her hips at Sanji, the beads on the bottom of her knee length skirt clacking together loudly. Behind him he heard the shitty moss head snort into his drink.

Before Sanji could reply or think of an excuse to get out of the horrible predicament he was in, the witch grabbed Sanji's wrist and dragged him to the patio that also served as an outdoor dance floor. After that things just got worse: Kureha insisted on dancing lead, leaving Sanji to the female role. Several dances (and ass squeezes) later, Sanji was able to break free from the crazy old hag and ungracfully stummbled to the food and refreshment table. His back was hurting like hell, but he ignored it, pissed off more then ever before.

"Damn that fucking hag!" He said venomously as he gulped down several cups of lemonade and then two shots of some type of blue, fruity liquor.

"Relationship problems?" A deep voice snickered.

Sanji whipped around and in the fading light saw the grass head. "Shut your shitty mouth!" Sanji hissed. The man didn't seemed offended by Sanji's course language. Instead he just smiled smugly at the blonde, but didn't speak again.

"God damn it!" Sanji mumbled under his breath as he leaned against the table, his sweat stinging the cuts under the bandages. He ran a hand across his face, easily ignoring the marimo. "Some ones gonna die tonight, specifically someone named Chopper, for inviting that old hag in the first place!"

He straightened, the scowl dropping off of his face when he saw Robin making her way toward him.

"Robin-chawn~!" He called happily, leaving a unfinished drink on the table, and headed toward her. He lightly kissed her on the hand. "Please do me the honor of dancing with me. You must help me regain some dignity! " he begged, laughing, but was completely serious.

The raven smiled. "Are you all right from yesterday, Sanji?"

Sanji straightened and laughed again lightly, "I'm fine. Just a few scrapes and a headache."

Robin looked at him skeptically, but nodded and took Sanji's outstretched hand. He gave a genuine smile and lead her onto the dance floor.


Hehe. Okay, guys, tell me what you think! Dont forget to review! Your words encourage me! :)