Caught With His Pants Down

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Two

"Put your pants back on."

Sanji frowned. "But you worked so hard to get me out of them last night."

Sugarlips glared at him, shoving the gun forward. "Pants."

"Yes, Sugarlips-chan."

"Put the damn pants on, pirate."

Sugarlips tossed him his pants, which Sanji struggled to get into with his hands still bound – he was going to have to solve that problem quickly if he wanted off her boat. Well, they're rope – I can't break them but maybe I can find something to cut through them? He finally managed to pull the zipper up and button the fly closed.

Sugarlips placed the gun at the base of his neck. "Move."

"Where?"

"Bedroom."

"You're insatiable."

The bounty hunter was starting to lose her patience. "I'm tying you to the bar in my closet – I'll give you food three times a day and one cigarette between meals – I'm not dealing with withdrawal – and let you out for regular bathroom breaks because if you do . . . that . . . in my closet I will be collecting 53, 900,000 berries instead of the 77 million."

"Huh?" asked Sanji.

"I did the math. That's seventy percent of your bounty. It's what they pay for dead pirates."

Sanji swallowed. "All right, when nature calls you'll get a call, too."

Sugarlips had Sanji open the closet door and shove aside several items of clothing. Nami would kill for half of these shirts, Sanji noted to himself. She then produced a pair of handcuffs from her dresser drawer. The cook snickered. "Didn't we go through that game this morning?"

"Stuff it." Keeping the gun on him, Sugarlips slipped one cuff through the nylon surrounding Sanji's wrists and attached the other to the closet bar. "There. That should keep you for the next five days."

Sanji raised an eyebrow. "Five days?"

"That's how far we are from the nearest Marine Base," she said, reaching into the pocket of her shorts for a pack of cigarettes – Sanji looked at them longingly, suddenly craving one. "If we had a bigger boat we could get there in a day or two but this one isn't terribly fast, I'm sorry to say. So I'm stuck with you for that long."

Okay, five days. The Thousand Sunny is pretty fast so if the others did figure out what happened they might be able to catch up to her. Nami-san is smart enough to realize she'd head to the nearest Marine Base and she could get the others there easy. But I can't rely on that – especially if that means the muscle head sees me like this.

Actually . . . Sanji wondered as Sugarlips left to get breakfast, what is everyone else doing now?

As the sun rose over the horizon line, there was still no sign of the Straw Hat's chef returning.

Nami blinked sleepily and worriedly at the boarding plank of the Sunny. She'd had watch duty that night and, unlike a normal shift, everyone had agreed that Sanji was probably the most important thing to keep an eye out for when they realized it was after midnight and he still hadn't shown up.

He was in fact the only thing to look for – the island was very small, quaint, and quiet and was lacking in the usual oppressive rulers, Marine Base (the nearest one was, at the Sunny's fastest speed, a day's sail away), and other pirates. When the Straw Hats made no trouble, the islanders seemed to think leaving them alone was the best thing to do. With really no fear of being attacked by, well, anything, Nami was basically just waiting up for Sanji.

And he still hadn't come back.

Nami swallowed. Something was wrong. They'd lost track of him at the tavern the night before – no one in the crew had seen him leave but when it was time to go he wasn't there. The Straw Hats had search the tavern for a good ten minutes (which, considering there were eight of them searching, was actually pretty thorough) and then checked the streets around the tavern. No sign of Sanji. Thinking he might have returned to the ship early the crew tried there, only to find the ship cook-less.

"Sanji's pretty strong – he'll probably be okay for one night," Luffy had concluded. And the rest of the crew – even Zoro – had to agree. Sanji wasn't entirely stupid and he was one of their stronger members. He'd be fine, they were sure of it. But just in case, Chopper left a first aid kit with Nami before he went to bed and Usopp offered to be a second pair of eyes.

Nami sighed as she realized the others were starting to wake up. Something was definitely wrong.

Sanji stared at the handcuffs Sugarlips had chained him to the closet rack with. She'd closed the door on him so it was hard to see, but he was pretty sure he knew the brand. They weren't good handcuffs – they didn't look like they were made of a particularly strong metal – he might be able to get out of them, even without the key.

After all, Sanji was very good with his hands.

Sanji reached up to the cuff attached to the closet rack – that was the biggest problem at the moment. The knot was in a just awkward enough place that he couldn't get to it with his teeth, otherwise he would have been untied already. He was going to either need to move the knot with something or cut the rope with something. If Sugarlips was indeed a bounty hunter, she might have some kind of sharp weapon lying around, or even just a regular razorblade.

He startling jiggling the cuff. It made a satisfying "click" and fell from the bar, open.

Well, that was way too easy, Sanji thought, letting himself quietly out of the closet. Sugarlips wasn't in her bedroom, so he was free to look for something sharp. The door was closed, so that might muffle any sounds he made – hopefully she assumed he was standing there like an idiot in the closet, waiting for breakfast or something.

Sanji started opening drawers, trying to find something useful. Mostly he was finding clothing, including a drawer full of panties Brook would have died – again – to riffle through. He bit his lip in frustration. Didn't she have a sewing drawer or something? Nami had a small sewing kit in her room and he had definitely seen scissors in there.

Finally, Sanji found the sewing kit he was looking for just in time to hear the click of Sugarlips' matchlock. He stood up straight, turned, and smiled nervously at his captor, who had a very not amused look on her face and a plate of pancakes in the hand not holding a handgun. "Hi, Sugarlips-chan," he said, trying to pretend he hadn't just escaped from her closet and was now rifling through her things.

"How the hell did you get out?"

"The handcuffs got loose," he said.

She put the pancakes down on the dresser and stepped forward, placing the barrel of the gun on his chest. "Oh really? How did they get loose?"

Sanji saw no reason not to be honest with her. They both knew what had happened – lying would make her angry. "I jiggled the cuff and it came undone."

Sugarlips glared. "Go sit down at the desk – I brought you breakfast."

Sanji raised an eyebrow as he looked at the pancakes. It was a pretty tall stack. "Why so much?" he asked. "I thought I was your prisoner." Sugarlips started to herd him to the desk, bringing the plate of pancakes (already drowning in syrup with a fork stabbed in the top) with her. Sanji pulled out the chair with his foot and sat down, letting her put the food in front of him. The cook looked up at her questioningly. "It's not poisoned, is it?"

Sugarlips rolled her eyes. "No, it's not. I'll take the lower prize if I have to, but I would prefer to keep you alive and get the whole pot," she said. She leaned against the wall, still pointing the gun at him. "And as for the food, consider it a bit of a thank you gift."

"What are you thanking me for?" Sanji asked, suddenly confused.

"For last night," she said. "You might be a scummy pirate but you were FANTASTIC in the sack."

Sanji couldn't help but beam at her. "You thought I was fantastic!?"

"You were there – I don't start crying out like that unless I'm enjoying myself."

If he wasn't tied up with a gun pointed at his head, Sanji would have started dancing around the room. Instead he just grinned and clumsily started to cut into the stack of pancakes – his stomach was growling at him, and even if it was from someone who was, indirectly, trying to kill him, he didn't want to starve himself during this ordeal.

He took a bite and closed his eyes, chewing the food carefully and analyzing the taste. "Scratch," he said. "Definitely not boxed – you used real flour for this – maybe cake flour, since they're thick but it works. Little bit of vanilla and cinnamon for extra flavor, but not so much it overpowers it. The syrup's the good stuff, too." Sanji turned to Sugarlips, grinning. "They're really good. Mind if I have the recipe?"

"What would you use it for?"

"Making pancakes, what else?"

"What the hell kind of prison cell do you think you're going to?"

Sanji frowned, looking at the pancakes sadly. Right.

"I am flattered, though – it's not every day my cooking gets complimented by a cook. Even if it is just a pirate ship's cook. How the hell did someone so low on the roster get such a high bounty anyways?" she asked, lighting a cigarette.

Sanji furrowed his eyebrows. "Cooks are very important on a ship – you should know that if you live on a boat," he said. He took another bite of the pancakes, chewed, and swallowed. "If you don't get all the proper nutrition your body needs, you die – even the best doctor in the world can't help you if he doesn't have the right things to feed you. My job is to make sure my crewmates don't drink themselves to death or stuff themselves silly with bacon. Our doctor's good but I'm the first line of defense against illness."

Sugarlips grinned, patting him on the head. "Of course you are."

"I mean it, Sugarlips-chan. Just try going a month without any fruits or vegetables and see how you look and feel after that," Sanji said. "Your body can't live like that. You'd end up dead or very, very sick and you're much too pretty to end up dead this young – how old are you?"

"None of your business."

"Thirty-six it is!"

"I'm twenty-two you jackass!"

Sanji grinned while Sugarlips fumed. "I'm nineteen. You've laid yourself a younger man."

"I'm not old!"

"Older than me. But we younger men like them older sometimes – experience, you know."

"Are you calling me a slut?"

"No, but which one of us brought home a criminal?"

"Which one of us went home with a bounty hunter?"

"Touché."

They sat in silence while Sanji ate. Sugarlips wasn't a bad cook – they weren't the best pancakes he'd ever had (the best pancakes he'd ever had were made by a girl he'd dated about a year ago until he found her in bed with, of all men, her COUSIN) but he still wanted to experiment with the recipe. They might be nice with some of Nami-san's tangerines.

The plate was soon finished. "Stay put," she ordered. She kept the gun on him as she backed towards her bed, reaching underneath with one hand as she kept her eyes glued on Sanji. She pulled out a small trunk and kicked the lid up, pulling out several more yards of the blue rope his hands were tied with. "I was hoping to keep my desk open for use – well, the chair at least – but since you came out of the closet this will have to do."

Sanji made a face. "I'm not gay."

"Shut the fuck up."