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There was a stain devil fruit. Or maybe a paint devil fruit, Zoro wasn’t too sure about the specifics because everyone else had ended up on the other side of town somehow and he’d arrived too late to hear the usual spiel explaining the guy’s powers. Not that it really mattered because Robin and Brook had already taken him out before his fingers had even brushed Wadou.
“Aren’t fruit users’ powers supposed to stop once they’re unconscious? What is this?” Usopp had already discarded what seemed to be paint thinner going by the smell and was already frantically rubbing at his skin with another liquid Zoro couldn’t, nor cared to, identify the same way.
Luffy, who had been inside a restaurant with Nami and Chopper and been spared the encounter, smiled wide. “You look good like that, Usopp,” he said. “You all match.”
They did, Zoro thought with some regret, all match.
Franky, possibly because there was just more surface area in his case, had ended up with more shades than the others, but they had all managed to get covered with varying splotches of green, yellow, blue, and purple. The shitty cook had also managed to catch some red on his neck and the right side of his head. His hair was clumping together because of it and a string of curses had yet to stop flowing from his direction.
“It’s not coming off!” Usopp whined, tossing aside another container of something that failed to remove the paint. “What the hell is it?”
“It doesn’t appear harmful, at least,” Robin said, taking up her usual spot and picking up her usual book. “It’s very likely it’ll disappear once we get far enough away from the user.”
Deciding that was the end of that, Zoro lowered himself to the deck, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back. The sun pressed against his closed eyelids, his nose, his cheeks. The sea lapped steadily against the sides of the ship as they made way. Luffy let out a hoot. Everything softened to a low buzz and he dozed.
*
The paint had come off nearly everyone, save Zoro.
“Just take a damn bath,” Nami sighed, “you look ridiculous.”
“No.” Zoro didn’t feel like taking a bath. And at least half his hair hadn’t ended up dyed pink, so he felt like being the only one charged with being ridiculous was a bit unfair.
He also didn’t feel like he’d really gotten the worst of it. It’d been largely blues and greens that the devil fruit user’d hit him with. He’d also been far enough back when the guy attacked that he’d only been splattered a little, and really only over his left arm. It really wasn’t a bad pattern, he’d thought by the second day. The sea had calmed and rather than use a coup de burst Nami had decided to wait it out a bit. He’d been doing pushups and staring down at the blue and green stains on his hands and realized that the nail of his index finger had ended up perfectly halved between green and blue. The others were speckled. It was nice to look at, he thought, counting down from 678, 677, 676. He’d yet to feel the slightest exertion and thought he’d do some weight training next when it suddenly occurred to him that it didn’t look right, just with the one hand dyed that way.
Usopp had paint, and Zoro was able to find it without too much trouble. The shades weren’t exactly the same, but that didn’t bother him too much. He made a mess of the first nail, trying too hard to get the split exact. Decided to cover it over with speckles and tried again on the next nail. Finally managed it on his ring finger and was able to finish off the last nail with more speckles to match the others. It didn’t look as good, but he felt a sort of accomplishment in it anyway.
What was better, was that his eye was no longer drawn repeatedly to the shock of green and blue on his left hand. He put the paints back, close enough to where he found them anyway, and went back to his training. No one even noticed.
*
Two islands later, they noticed.
Or Robin noticed. “I like that shade of blue,” she told him, “almost gray, like storm clouds at night.”
Chopper and Luffy were yelling about a fish Usopp had caught. Zoro cracked open his good eye and regarded her from where she was kneeling at his side, quietly smiling down at him.
“I thought you’d just bruised them at first, until I noticed the specks,” she confided. “Are they stars?”
Zoro considered her. Considered the glare of the sun, and closed his eye. “Yeah,” he grunted.
“They’re skillfully done,” Robin said. One of her toes popped as she rose. Zoro listened to her feet shush against the grass as she crossed the deck.
*
It was a little like meditating. Or it had the same effect. Mind cleared of everything except the current task. He’d found some gold lacquer on the last island and was streaking his nails in alternating lines of it. There was nothing in his head except the slow execution of the lines. Even breathing, keeping steady; a solid repetition.
He finished and leaned back, looking over his work. The gold was a bit darker than the gold of his earrings. Even the waiting for the lacquer to dry was a bit like meditation. The first few times he’d tried this, he’d immediately smeared his work because he’d been too impatient. The waiting wasn’t anything different from the concentration exercises he practiced at the dojo as a kid, and successfully translating what he pictured in his head to his nails had the same sort of feel as a landed blow. It was intent carried through to a satisfying conclusion, precise as every cut of his blades.
He was, when it came down to it, rather pleased with himself.
*
The hinges of the shop door creaked as it opened, the screen shutting behind him with a slap of protest. The shop smelled odd, of oil and powder and a dozen other things he couldn’t catalogue, and the aisles were narrow, causing him to hold his swords tight to his side to keep from knocking anything down. He found the lacquers jumbled all together on a shelf in the back under a window pasted over with faded posters.
He took his time, holding the bottles up to the few streaks of light that made it through the layers of ads. He’d found out pretty quick that it was hard to tell the colors of these things just by eyeballing it. They changed in the light, in different kinds of light. This black he was looking at now, he was pretty sure, wasn’t actually black at all but a dark blue. He unscrewed the cap, inhaling on the sharp scent of the lacquer that immediately filled his little corner of the store. Turned his hand sideways and swiped the brush across his thumbnail; held it up to the poor light.
Dark blue.
Smirking to himself, he screwed the cap back on tight and replaced the bottle on the shelf. He had a dark blue. Plenty of dark blues. Dark blue was easy, every one of these little shops he set foot in had a dark blue.
It took almost no time at all to sort through the rest of the little bottles, striping his nails with colors he wanted to get a better look at, grabbing a few to take up to the counter with him. The woman at the counter gave him a paper bag to keep them in, which he pocketed easily enough. Back on the ship he could transfer them to the box with the others; not a large collection by any means, but growing.
*
“What are you doing,” Nami demanded, but within the same breath, “you’re ambidextrous? No, of course you are. Why are you so good at that?”
Zoro capped the lacquer, leaning back and watching her approach him, knowing there would be no getting her to leave unless she wanted to.
“You are really good at that,” she repeated, squinting down at the half-completed waves on his right hand. After a moment, she looked up, catching his eye, but he didn’t have anything to say to her. “Alright, alright,” she said at last, reaching behind him to grab a sheaf of papers off the shelf before turning on her heel and leaving the storeroom.
He figured that would be the end of it, but a few weeks later they’d stopped at an island to resupply and Nami turned on him.
“You,” she pointed, “are coming with me.”
“But Nami-san,” the shitty cook started.
“You,” she pointed, “are staying here and watching the ship.”
“Why me,” Zoro demanded over the tired strains of the shitty cook carrying on.
“Because you were supposed to be on guard the night someone ate over half our stores in one go, and so now you get to help me correct your oversight.”
“No,” he had said when they were still on board the Sunny, and then “No,” again when Nami’d reappeared with a case of small lacquer bottles, and then “No,” even more emphatically once he found himself in town and somehow holding the box of lacquers.
“One,” Nami began, holding up a finger to illustrate, “we have virtually no money. Two,” another finger, “this is the quickest thing I could think of to get us some cash so we can stock up and leave. And three,” a third finger, “I will not ask you to do this again.”
Nami’s collection of lacquers was far more expansive than his own. She tended more towards reds and pinks, but there were some shades he’d never seen before. He shoved the box back in her direction. “No,” he repeated.
Nami pursed her lips, added a fourth finger to the count. “You can keep whatever colors you want.”
*
It had taken him some time, but he’d finally figured out how exactly to render the jellyfish the girl had asked him for. The shapes weren’t the problem; they were easy enough. It was the matter of keeping a degree of transparency. He’d managed it eventually, leaning over the girl’s hand with the sun beating down on his back. “There,” he told her when he was finished. She thanked him, gushing, and paid Nami. Another girl was in her spot almost immediately, asking him for something “floral.”
“This is probably the last thing I’d have pictured you’d be into,” Nami said after the girl had picked out her shades and Zoro had gotten to work. When he didn’t deign to respond, she kept going, seemingly content to keep up the conversation on her own.
“I mean, I guess it makes sense when I think about it.”
Zoro didn’t much care for “floral,” or for the shades the girl had picked. “It’s just something I do. Hell does it matter?”
“Anyway,” Nami continued, bouncing her foot, seemingly unconcerned that he’d spoken at all, “It’s a good thing you’re so good at it. If the pirate thing doesn’t work out, we could always start up a business, you know.”
“No,” which was, at this point, starting to lose any sense of its original meaning.
Nami shrugged, “Shame. Such a waste of talent.”
*
Robin complimented him sometimes, when she thought a design was particularly complex or she liked a color he had chosen. Usopp had seen him painting once too, but aside from initially goggling, had merely noted which brands of lacquer he found to be of better quality. And Luffy’d only noticed because Franky’d been yelling Super! too loud, which had drawn his attention, as it was prone to.
“Can you do mine like that?” he’d asked.
Zoro would have regardless, but he’d known what design he wanted to do as soon as Luffy’d said anything, and soon enough they were sitting in the sun by the prow, leaning over Zoro’s collection of lacquers between them as Zoro worked the first coat onto Luffy’s nails.
Luffy kept up a running commentary as Zoro worked, “Are they going to be as cool as yours? Make them as cool as yours!” Franky echoed him as Zoro started in on the design, “That’s some really detailed work!”
“Mr. Swordsman is really skilled at it,” he heard Robin telling the cyborg, whose response he was more than happy to tune out. Luffy’s hand was warm in his, his fingers spread comically wide apart, as Zoro’d told him to be careful not to smear the lacquer. He kept up a string of requests for designs alternating with guesses at what Zoro was painting. Brook was playing somewhere on the aft of the ship, and the tune was carried towards them. Luffy hummed along with it, occasionally singing his guesses to the tune.
Zoro leaned back when he was finished, “Now just. Sit. Here. Don’t move until they’re dry.”
“Oh,” Luffy breathed out. A smile stretched across his face. “My hat,” he said, looking up.
“Your hat,” Zoro agreed.
He sat with Luffy as his captain impatiently waited for his nails to dry, half wanting to make sure Luffy didn’t smear the lacquer, and half of him content enough to sit in the sun, pleased in his work.
He gathered up the small bottles of lacquer, feeling the cool of the glass against his palms. Brook was playing a different song, but Luffy still had hold of the previous tune, and continued to make up lyrics to match it. Franky and Robin were chatting nearby, and when he stretched out on the deck the wood was warm and smooth against his back.
*
As it turned out he missed the spiel the second time around too.
He’d been debating whether to finish off the design he’d been thinking up for Robin with a matte or not, a different brand of top coat in each hand, when the sun pouring through the window to his left was suddenly blotted out. He turned, bottles still in hand, to find the glass completely smeared with purple. The shopkeeper was already pushing towards the door, muttering curses, and Zoro followed after him.
The pair paused in the open doorway just as Luffy swatted a man into the dirt. Zoro’d had his suspicions on seeing the purple--it was a rather distinct shade, and he felt himself particularly well versed in colors at this point--but the blotches of paint his crewmates were splattered with left little room for doubt.
“Who the hell is gonna pay for this window?” the shopkeeper was already heading out towards the street. Zoro caught a green-flecked Nami moving to intercept him and stepped out from under the shade of the shop’s awning into the unforgiving sun. He could feel the heat of the sand even through his boots and decided he’d go with a glossy finish for Robin’s design because matte really wasn’t worth another moment on this desert island.
He passed Nami just as she’d caught up to the shopkeeper, doing everything to keep his attention on the unconscious paint fruit user. Luffy’d caught sight of him by then, beaming and lifting a hand in a wave. Zoro felt himself smiling in return. Luffy must have gotten hit with the worst of it, looking like Zoro’s entire lacquer collection had been tipped over onto him. His hat the only part of him spared.
“--will be more than happy to pay for the damages. Once he’s awake,” Nami’d already corralled the shopkeeper, turning him bodily back to his store. He could hear Usopp’s dramatic moan, and the chime of Robin’s laughter, everything slightly painted with the whisper of the sand under his boots as he came to a slow stop in front of his now-frowning captain.
“Did you just stand there while he threw paint at you?”
“I didn’t get to see his ability last time,” Luffy started, immediately interrupting himself to shove a hand in Zoro’s face. “He messed them up!”
Capturing Luffy’s hand and turning it over for inspection revealed a red and--particularly distinct--purple mess. The only bit spared of the fish design Luffy’d asked for was the pufferfish on his pinky.
“And the other one too!” Zoro trapped the second hand flung towards his face with the first, both held firm between his own.
“I can redo them for you.”
Luffy puffed out his cheeks, brows furrowed under the brim of his hat. “I liked the fish.”
“I can redo them.”
Luffy flexed his fingers and Zoro loosened his hold, but he was merely turning his hands to link his fingers with Zoro’s. “Nah,” he said, looking up, “I think something different this time.”
“You’ll have to touch mine up, too,” Usopp said, hurrying towards them. He jerked his head back towards the direction of the dock. “But on the Sunny. Nami’s giving us the ‘flee, morons, before we have to pay for something’ signal.”
“Did Chopper get his plant? The one he was looking for?” Luffy asked, fingers trailing through Zoro’s as they separated.
“Yep, all medicinal ingredients accounted for,” Usopp confirmed.
As they crested the hill, leaving the town and the sounds of the irate shopkeeper behind them, they were hit by the glint of sun off waves. Luffy was smiling when Zoro turned back to him. “You should pick it out this time,” he said. “The design.”
Zoro thought about it as they boarded the Sunny, as they set off from the island, sun setting at their backs. The day cooled into a dusk as Luffy joined him at the aft, fresh from a shower he’d only been coerced into by Nami pointing out Zoro couldn’t fix his nails if he were covered in paint.
His skin was still tinted a dozen different shades, which even in the fading light Zoro could make out. Luffy leaned into him, yawning, and Zoro kept thinking of all the designs he could paint. Every small curve and angle and accent, all of it shaped by the deft precision of his brush.
