Drink

Characters: Law, Shachi, Penguin. Rating: T. Warnings: alcohol

Law realised something was wrong when he caught a glimpse of Shachi's teasing grin. He'd been on the receiving end of it long enough to know when it was fake, and the grin Shachi flashed him as he downed the drink he'd just swiped was definitely an act. Law had Scanned his drink subtly the moment he'd got it; it had been exactly as it should have been – a simple pint of cider – and he hadn't thought anyone had got close enough to him to tamper with it since then.

Shachi didn't even like the particular cider Law had ordered that day, though, and those two facts combined led to the realisation that the ginger didn't think it was safe for him to drink, and had taken matters firmly into his own hands to make sure he didn't.

Clione caught him as he stumbled backwards, and Law hadn't been paying that much attention but he was sure Shachi shouldn't have been drunk yet. Then Shachi went completely limp, and all doubts fled as he scrambled off his stool to help Clione lie him on the floor.

"Shachi!" someone else exclaimed, and the entire crew present in the pub abandoned their own drinks and conversations to cluster around. Law was about to send them away, instruct them to find whoever it was responsible for the spiked drink, when a ruckus kicked off the other end of the room. Looking over, he saw Uni grabbing a woman in a headlock, as her male companions drew weapons. It didn't take a genius to work things out from there.

Shachi had been sat next to Uni. Clearly, he'd managed to pass on the information before pulling his stupid stunt, and Law wasted no time in directing his crew to help Uni subdue the crowd. Only Clione stayed with him as he returned his attention to his unconscious nakama. He'd have loved nothing more than to lead the crew in restraining the perpetrators, but he didn't know what had been in the drink and what it was doing to Shachi.

"Why didn't you just knock the damn thing over?" he demanded of the ginger as he summoned a Room, searching for the invasive substance. "What the hell possessed you to drink it?" Predictably, Shachi didn't answer. Law found the drug and frowned. He didn't recognise it, but it didn't seem to have done anything beyond knocking Shachi out, which meant that it was either some form of sleeping drug, or very slow acting. Either meant it was safe to get him back to the Tang, so he turned to Clione.

"I'll stay with him," the smaller man reassured him before he could even open his mouth and Law nodded sharply before finding his feet. A small shick of a blade being drawn behind him as he walked away reassured him that Clione was not taking any threats lightly. They'd be fine.

His crew had been successful in their endeavour, and by the time he reached the commotion, all of the perpetrators were face-down on the ground in submission holds, their weapons neatly piled out of reach. He crouched down in front of the woman Uni was still holding.

"What did you use?" he asked her, only to get snarled at as she strained against Uni's grip to no avail. He let a grin paint his face, even though mirth was the furthest thing from his mind. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," he told her, and she spat.

"Go to hell! Damn pirates, scum of the sea! I hope he dies, I hope you all die!"

Maintaining the grin was difficult, but somehow Law held it because the alternative was showing how much she'd scared him with those words. He'd thought the drug wasn't likely to be a problem, but now he was second-guessing himself and torn between finishing off the group now and turning tail back to Shachi so he could treat him properly, now.

"He won't die," Uni cut in, slamming her face into the floor. He sounded certain, and Law envied his faith. "He's not alone."

"What's that got to do with anything?" the woman managed around a mouthful of splinters, but the words hadn't been meant for her in the first place, and Law let himself relax again. Of course, Clione was with him. If something wasn't right, he'd alert them straight away.

"I won't ask again," he said instead, summoning his Room and picking up a knife. Her eyes opened wide, but she didn't say anything so with a single slash he took off all her fingers. She shrieked, although Law knew from experience that the action wasn't accompanied by any pain. He supposed the shock of seeing your fingers part company with your hand could be reasonably intense, though.

"Just a sleeping drug!" she garbled. "I don't know why he collapsed! It shouldn't have taken effect that fast!" Law didn't like the sound of that one bit, his mind automatically springing to the idea of an overdose. The desire to get the hell out of there and return to the Tang now rose its head again.

"How long should it have taken?" he managed to ask instead, quelling the instinct for the moment.

"An hour!" she admitted, her eyes fixed firmly on the knife in his hand. Law was almost disappointed she was talking so easily. "It should have built up gradually!"

They'd been trying to get him weakened slowly enough that he wouldn't notice until it was too late, had they? Law frowned; he needed to break his habit of drinking his way through a pint slowly, if that was what they'd been aiming for. If Shachi hadn't interrupted, then it might have worked, and that was an idea that didn't sit well with Law at all.

"Finish up here," he told his crew, straightening back up. There was so much more he needed to get out of them, but overdoses could be serious and he was the best suited to dealing with them. His crew knew enough about gathering information to know what sorts of questions to ask. He returned to Shachi's side, where Clione reported no change in his condition, and pulled the ginger over his shoulder.

Shachi didn't react to being moved, not that Law had expected him to, and he headed back to the Tang with Clione.

"Shachi!" Penguin exploded as they boarded, sprinting over to them. Clione peeled away to man Penguin's post as the older man promptly stuck himself like glue to Law's side. "What happened?"

"Someone spiked my drink," Law told him, shifting Shachi until the ginger was now bundled up in his arms, where he could see his face. There was no change. "This idiot decided drinking it was a good idea."

Penguin groaned, reaching out and taking Shachi's hat off his head. The ginger always seemed smaller without it.

"Why didn't he just knock it over?" he lamented rhetorically.

"I plan on asking," Law assured him as they finally entered the large room. "It appears to just be a sleeping drug, luckily, although it wasn't tailored to be drunk in one go." He set Shachi down on a bed, watching the ginger's head loll slightly to the side on the pillow, and plucked the shades from his face.

"So, are you taking it out or letting him sleep it off?" Penguin asked, his tone clearly showing which direction he would have picked. Law summoned a Room in answer.

"It's acting like an overdose," he said. "He can probably sleep it off, but I'm not patient enough to wait." Penguin made a noise of acknowledgement and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Law as he got to work.

It wasn't a difficult extraction. The sleeping drug had been exactly that, not even causing any other damage to Shachi's body. After the various poisons Law had been extracting from his nakama over the years, it was almost easy. Once he was done, he put Shachi's shades back on his face and jostled him.

"Wake up," he ordered, Penguin assisting by way of several pokes to Shachi's side, and the ginger groaned, swatting at Penguin's finger.

"Tired," he complained.

"I'm not surprised," Law replied scathingly. "Idiocy is tiring, from what I've observed." He was glad to see him awake and acting normal, but he wanted to get to the bottom of Shachi's stupid decision before doing anything else.

"Idiocy?" Shachi parroted with a yawn. "What did I do this ti- oh."

"Oh," Penguin cut in, agreeing. "What the hell, Shachi?"

"Well, I was fairly sure it wasn't poison," the ginger shrugged. "So it probably wasn't going to do any harm, and I was right about that, so-"

"You could have just knocked it over," Law pointed out, and Shachi paused, clearly thinking hard.

"I… yeah… I had a reason for not doing that," he mused, pulling himself into a sitting position and resting his chin on his palm. "What was it..?"

"You'd had too much to drink?" Penguin suggested disapprovingly. Shachi flapped a hand at him.

"I was only on my second pint," he defended himself. "Oh yeah! Figured we should find out what they'd slipped you so we knew what they were after," he steamrollered on, drowning out Penguin's suspicious "of what?".

Law agreed with Penguin. Depending what Shachi had been drinking, two pints could have left him completely sober or teetering on the edge of drunk and not capable of rational decisions. He had to admit he didn't remember what the ginger had ordered, but Shachi's argument held no water at all when he knew who had been the culprit. It would have been simpler and safer just to question them from the start.

From the dawning look on Shachi's face, the realisation was sinking in at last.

"Okay, that wasn't my smartest moment," he admitted, slinking back down on the bed. "I'm just… just gonna go back to sleep now."

"Haven't you slept enough?" Penguin asked, amused, and Shachi sent him a withering look – the intent obvious even with the shades – before pulling the blanket over his head. Laughing, and therefore clearly no longer worried at all, Penguin stood. "I'll go tell the others," he said, and Law nodded, watching him leave the room.

Turning back to Shachi, he tugged the blanket back down, revealing the shock of ginger hair.

"What?" Shachi grumbled, resting his arms over his eyes, despite the fact he was also wearing his shades. "Yeah, sorry, I messed up. You'd already noticed it anyway, hadn't you?"

It was Law's turn to perch on the edge of the bed.

"I hadn't noticed at all," he admitted, finally able to say what he wanted to now he knew Shachi had just been a little too affected by the alcohol. "Thank you."

Shachi let his arms drop away from his face, one reaching up to muss Law's hair. Law caught the hand disapprovingly and placed it back on the bed.

"Always gonna watch your back," Shachi said. "I got you. Now can I go to sleep? I'm feeling a hangover approaching. That cider of yours was gross as always, by the way. How do you drink that stuff?"

Law ruffled his hair, only to get swatted at.

"Just sleep it off," he said. "And don't do that again."

Shachi muttered something under his breath as he rolled over, and Law hoped it hadn't been what it had sounded like.

Better me than you.

Follow on from yesterday - it was noticed by some people that Shachi's decision was not the smartest one yesterday and now you know why he didn't do the obvious thing.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari