Guilt
Characters: Uni, Penguin, Law. Rating: K. Warnings: None
It was hardly the first time Uni had wished his Observation haki was a bit better… say… Shachi-level. Being able to actually detect things would be useful in just about any circumstances, but now he really wished he'd sensed whatever it was Shachi had sensed that had set him on his "I'm about to do something really stupid."
As it was, he'd been unable to do anything more than trust Shachi, keeping an eye on him and getting the message that the woman in the corner was bad news, and while he normally had no issues trusting the ginger (or any of his nakama), seeing him down a drink he hated – stolen from the captain, no less – before collapsing was not reassuring in the slightest.
Still, he had his job – the one Shachi had entrusted him with – and as the pieces of the puzzle slotted together to make a clearer picture, he couldn't really fault the ginger's attitude. Except for one thing, he decided as he overpowered the woman and stripped her weapons from her, conscious of his nakama now at his back. Did Shachi really have to knock back the drink? It would have been far safer to just knock it over, he was definitely capable of pretending to be that drunk.
Watching the captain worry his way through half an interrogation before giving up and leaving the rest of it to him, the seeds of guilt planted in his stomach began to grow.
He had been the one Shachi had told. Out of everyone, he was the one that knew what Shachi was planning, so he should have stopped him, or at least made him explain more, until he fully understood. And then stopped him, because drinking a spiked drink was stupid, and Law was far too worried for it to be a simple sleeping drug. The way Shachi didn't even stir as Law ran out of the room with him hardly boded well.
The rest of the interrogation passed in a flash – they were working alone, were just bounty hunters going after too-big fish – and Uni all but sprinted out of the room, his nakama hot on his tail. He had to see how Shachi was doing, if he was safe, or-
Or if Uni's incompetence had had disastrous consequences.
"Easy there!" Clione called as he almost overbalanced off the gang plank, and he looked up at his shorter nakama, who didn't seem overly worried. Uni's chest stopped constricting. That wasn't the face of a man with a dying nakama.
"One person in the infirmary is quite enough," Penguin scolded, and the words made the crushing start straight back up as Uni realised who the person in the infirmary was, until a hand clamped around his wrist and pulled him the rest of the way on board.
Penguin was smiling.
"How is he?" Uni asked, words garbled together because he had to know but at the same time didn't want to. "I'm sorry, he told me he was going to do something and I didn't stop him is he okay?"
"Breathe!" Penguin sighed, ruffling his hair and putting an arm around his shoulders in a one-armed hug. "The idiot's fine. Go see for yourself; Law's with him." Uni nodded and slipped out of the hold, making a beeline for the infirmary. "Oh, and Uni?" He paused, glancing back over his shoulder at Penguin. "No-one can stop Shachi when he gets an idea in his head. Don't worry about it."
Well, that was certainly true, but Uni couldn't fully shake the feeling that it would have been his fault if something bad had happened to Shachi.
Law was, just as Penguin had said, in the infirmary with Shachi. The ginger seemed to be asleep, and the captain was perched on a chair next to him, book in hand. He set the book down on the bed as Uni approached.
"He's fine," he said, before Uni could ask. "It was just a sleeping drug that he took too fast. It's all removed, and he's sleeping normally now."
"Sleeping again?" Uni asked. "How?"
"He claimed a hangover," Law replied, sounding amused. Uni pulled up a chair, laughing lightly. Shachi had been drinking some reasonably potent stuff, so that was hardly surprising.
"He told me what he was going to do," he admitted, watching his captain carefully for a response. "Not exactly, but I should have realised what he meant. I didn't think to stop him, and he ended up in danger."
"You can't control him," Law pointed out, echoing Penguin. "He was sure it wasn't poison, so his alcohol-addled brain decided it was safe to drink. There's nothing you could have done." That was true, Uni could concede. That didn't mean he liked it. "Yell at him when he wakes up," his captain continued. "He's already had it from me, and Penguin, but a third won't do him any harm."
Privately, Uni thought that if neither Law nor Penguin had made him repent, he wasn't going to have any luck. But he supposed it wouldn't hurt.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari