I posted this on dA a wee while ago, but forgot to upload it here. I may or may not add to this yet – I don't want to take my focus away from Roofies again, but on the other hand, Trafalgar Law is just so much fun to write for!

By the way, the guy at the end is an OC of mine, who may or may not turn up in Roofies at some stage. He has some ties to Loki through her Devil Fruit, but neither of them know it. He's got a similar power to her… quite complimentary.

Gutter Black

The island lay well inside the dotted line on the map that delineated the North Blue's polar region, and perhaps not surprisingly, it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Bepo was in his element, but Trafalgar Law and the other human members of the Heart Pirates were close to following the monkeys' example.

There was nothing much of note, which explained why it was notorious as a pirate haunt, Law mused. If it had been any sort of important, the Marines would have chased the scum out long ago. Pirates lounged in every street corner and sheltered doorway, bundled up in rags and giving him the stink eye as he walked past. None of them made a move to challenge him; word tended to get around fast that you did not cross the Dark Doctor.

Nothing much of note, but plenty of pirates. And Law was here on pirate business.

Snow crunched underfoot as he turned down a rickety alleyway, weaving between trash cans and narrowing his eyes at a pair of streetwise foxes until they slunk off underneath one of the buildings. Animals hated Law – smelled the blood on his hands, or something.

Law always found the best taverns a street or two back from the main road. The main difference was that they were less crowded, because most pirates were too lazy to make any more effort than just finding the first place that stunk of beer. Law's crew (so far consisting of twenty-three men and a kickboxing polar bear) had already proved that rule amply.

The same rule held that you didn't find many idiots in the back alley taverns, but their place was taken by murderers, thieves, traitors and other undesirables whose lines of work meant they avoided unsure publicity. It was a few of these others, more or less, that Law was hoping to come across. The ones who, while not the sort of people who were generally welcome in the more popular establishments (tended to get kicked out by way of being the wrong colour – usually red – slash gender slash species, or a mix of the undesirable traits at worst), were not noxious bastards with chronic backstabbing disorder.

Law himself was a noxious bastard with chronic backstabbing disorder, but he was also smart enough to realise that this was not a desirable characteristic in potential subordinates. Which was why his crew was still so small. It was hard these days to find a pirate who wasn't a noxious backstabbing bastard.

Trust pirates to found a settlement where every second building had a dingy bar in the first level. The ones in between were brothels, gambling dens, and just occasionally trading posts. There were no locals, aside from the innkeeper who only survived, Law guessed, because he stank so badly even the most permanently sozzled lackwit pirate wouldn't go near him.

And the local wildlife, of course. A longhaired cat with a face like a rolled-up sock spat at him as he passed yet another brothel. Law didn't bother glaring at it; cats were masters of glaring back. Especially the ones with the faces like rolled-up socks.

Aha. This looked more promising.

Law left the track through the middle of the street to clump through the freshly fallen snow up to the door of a drinking den. The sign outside the door was black with age; the unbroken sheen or dirt covering the windowpanes was only broken by amateurish scribblings of something the unknown artist wished Law to do with his mother.

Perfect.

He turned the knob on the door, kicking it open when it failed to budge at all the first time. Inside, the barkeeper's head jerked up, bloodshot eyes wide, then narrowing as he took in Law's lanky form. There was a dirty oil lamp on the bench beside him, illuminating the bounty posters plastered like wallpaper to the mirror behind the bar. Rushes carpeted the floor, crunching underfoot as Law strode forward into the room.

"The Dark Doctor, huh?" the scrawny man behind the bar said, loudly and disdainfully. He hawked loudly, spat on the rushes, and gave Law a gappy, rotten-toothed grin. "How many people have ya killed then, Dark Doc?"

"Seventy-nine," Law replied with a slow grin of his own. "I keep a very thorough record, Mister Barkeep." Implied but not quite spoken were the added words: iWould you like to be the eightieth? /i

Another gob of spit and phlegm landed on the soggy rushes. "Feh," the man said, and looked back to the glass he'd been polishing. It was a small victory, but Law liked small victories. They tended to add up after a while.

Law looked away once he was sure the bartender had truly given up. The inside of the tavern wasn't much prettier a sight. There were six patrons, possibly seven – there was a pile of foul-smelling rags in the corner that just had to have something living in it. Whether or not that something was human-shaped was another matter. Sixty percent of said patrons were staring at him, while the remaining two were too involved in illicit activities in the corner to care.

The first, and most promising patron was a man sitting on his own at a corner table. He looked like he might have been lean underneath his layers of winter coats, so many scars crisscrossing his face that his beard only grew in scrubby patches between them. A sword at his hip, and the old brand on the back of his hand marked him as a pirate. He'd been reading a newspaper that looked about twenty years old.

Law dismissed the second and third patrons – a whore and her client, hard at work – immediately, although the floozy had a glint in her eye that might have been promising under different circumstances. The fourth was an old man surrounded by dirty hypodermic needles, and the fifth, a real giant of a man, seemed to be deep in conversation with someone who wasn't there. The sixth was younger than the average, with an impressively large and upturned nose, and a permanent air of having some sort of embarrassing venereal disease.

"So, Doc, what're you here for?" The bartender spoke up again, punctuating his question with another gob of spit. Saying 'Doc' seemed to amuse him – Law briefly debated permanently separating the man from his tongue if he used that peremptory tone again, but decided to play along instead. That game seemed to unnerve people.

"I'm recruiting, as a matter of fact," he said, adopting the friendly tone that made everyone with half a brain cell immediately sit up and pay wary attention to him. "You can't take the Grand Line lightly, after all, and that's where we're headed." He glanced at the organic pile in the back. "Although I can't think why I bothered to try in here."

The implied insult was enough for at least two of the men to rise to their feet, weapons in hand. The scarred man had drawn his dagger so fast Law almost hadn't seen him move. Impressive.

"You've got some reputation, Dark Doctor," he said, with a certain amount of wariness underlaying the swagger in his voice. Law decided that this was one of the old pirates you got sometimes – the leftovers from the Pirate King's time, the ones who had survived by getting very, very good at not being killed. "Reputation enough, I'd think, for the young bucks to be queueing up to join you."

"I don't care if they want to join," Law said affably, searching for a good nickname – hm, Scarface would do. "I'm looking for- ah… special qualities."

"Such as?" said the other man, the one with the nose. He might as well have been spitting tacks.

"Strength, of course." Law nodded slowly, watching his audience closely. "I'd say intelligence, but that rules out ninety-nine percent of the people on this island plus you, so let's just say cunning, because the requirements for that aren't quite so strict. And, of course, a talent for not getting killed. That's essential for a Heart Pirate, I'd say."

"That what you're calling your crew, is it?" the man sneered, nostrils flaring impressively. Law assigned him the nickname Pig Man.

"Hearts have a rather different meaning to a doctor," Law said silkily, watching as the man with the prostitute shrank back in his chair. The barman and Scarface narrowed their eyes and said nothing, while Pig Man proved Law's assessment of him having less brains than the average seagull. If he opened this man's skull up, he'd have to dig around for half an hour before he found anything.

"Yeah? Well, I think you got a smart mouth, Mister Dark Doctor," he said, his voice rising slightly in both pitch and volume. Law mentally diagnosed him with idiot syndrome, which had a variety of incisive cures.

"Really?" he said, and let his smile widen slightly. "I hadn't noticed. You, on the other hand, have a stupid mouth, and I'm afraid as a doctor that I can't help you with that." He tipped his hat to Pig Man, an almost reflexive insult, and turned to Scarface. "I don't suppose you know this man?"

Scarface shook his head mutely as Pig Man charged. Law waited until the last second, and ducked aside, leaving one foot in just the right position to send Pig Man sailing into a table, which is not a happy occurrence when you have a rusty cutlass in both hands. Ignoring the whimpers, he stepped up to the bar. "How much for a round of drinks, Mister Barkeep?"

Mister Barkeep gave first Law, and then the prone Pig Man a long look. "Sixty beli."

Law chuckled to himself. Mister Barkeep had balls. Sixty beli was about the usual price in any establishment frequented by pirates – any cheaper, and your clientele would walk all over you; any more expensive, and they'd cut your head off and serve themselves. Law was kinder than most; sometimes he put people's heads back on afterwards.

"You're a doctor?" The voice wasn't loud, but had the same effect as a shout inside the suddenly quiet bar. Law looked over his shoulder in idle curiosity.

The speaker was the man who had been talking to himself. He'd half risen to his feet, and Law realised that his initial assessment of the man as being unusually large wasn't quite accurate. Bepo would have been staring this guy in the chest; Law himself probably barely came up to his elbow. The thick traveling cloak wrapped around his shoulders might have given him the appearance of being more bulky than he really was, but in Law's expert opinion, it probably didn't make much of a difference either way.

"For a given value of the word," he answered, and smiled his best friendly smile. That usually scared all but the bravest (or most suicidal, but that had only happened once so far) away. This man barely seemed to notice it.

"I've been looking for a doctor," he said hoarsely, standing up fully and shuffling closer to Law. "They say the Dark Doctor is one of the best."

"Do they now?" Law's smile turned amused. "I have to warn you, my services don't come cheap."

The old man with the hypodermics giggled loudly. Law glanced around the bar, and saw that their conversation had garnered an audience. Scarface, Barkeep, the whore and her client, and even Pig Man seemed to be paying intent attention.

"Whatever it takes," the man coughed, lines of pain briefly appearing on his face. "Whatever you want, I can find it."

"Can you? I'm almost impressed," Law replied easily, leaning back against the bar. "For a man who sounds that sick, you seem quite convinced you'll be able to do it without keeling over dead halfway through."

The man blinked dull eyes at him – and burst into a spate of almost hysteric giggles, surreal coming from a man that size. He shook his head slowly; it was all that he seemed to be able to do.

"So long as you're sure," Law said, his grin deepening. He should be able to find some use for this loony – alive or otherwise.

"Mister Loony, it's always a pleasure to find someone brave enough to face up to the Dark Doctor, let alone ask him for a favour." Law extended a thin hand towards the man.

"You have got yourself a doctor."

Word Count: 2197