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Pico hadn't planned on buying nail polish.
Actually, he hadn't planned on buying anything. He had gone to the drug store to loiter and kill time, because it was the middle of the night and he couldn't sleep, and it was the only place open. He had meant to wander the aisles until he got bored, maybe grab a snack and a soda on the way out, and then head back to his apartment.
He found the bottle sitting on a shelf it didn't belong on, tucked between the side of the shelf and a box of off-brand candy. He picked it up absentmindedly, tilting it back and forth in his hand. As he watched the glitter sparkle under the fluorescent lights, he spotted a clearance sticker on the bottom of it, marking it as only costing a dollar.
He wasn't sure what made him decide to buy it. Maybe it was the late hour getting to him. Maybe it was the fact that it was his favorite shade of forest green, or the fact that it really did look pretty when it sparkled. Or maybe it was the obnoxious part of him that could never pass up a bargain, no matter how pointless.
Either way, it didn't really matter, right? It was a dollar bottle of nail polish, and the cashier may as well have been asleep on his feet for all he reacted.
He'd gone home after that, had tossed it aside and completely forgotten about it.
It was maybe a week later when he found out how useful such a little thing could be.
It was a bad night. One of the worst he'd had in ages. It was a night that left him shaking on the floor, unsure of who or where he was, unable to tell nightmares from hallucinations from reality. Thoughts chasing each other in circles until all he wanted was for everything to stop.
He wasn't sure what he'd been looking for, when he found it. Something to distract him, maybe. All he knew was that he'd been digging haphazardly through a drawer when his fingers had closed around a familiar bottle.
He picked it up and just stared at it for a long moment, and the absurdity of being mid-panic attack, standing in his bathroom, clutching a bottle of nail polish like a lifeline, was enough to startle him into a slightly less shitty state of mind.
Fuck it. There were worse things to do at two in the morning.
He walked (Stumbled, really) into his living room, and practically collapsed to the ground in front of his cluttered coffee table. Shoving aside the dishes he really needed to wash, he unscrewed the lid of the bottle and tried to steady himself.
He worked slowly, hands clumsy at the unfamiliar task. He was finding that he didn't mind too much, though. The smell of the polish was surprisingly comforting, and the focus he needed to not get it all over his fingers was a welcome distraction. Losing himself in the repetitive motion, the noise in his head quieted down, a little at a time, until it reached something bearable.
Not silent, not on a night like this, but a damn good improvement from where he started.
It took longer than he'd really care to admit, but eventually, he sat back to let the polish dry, and examined his work. It... wasn't great, if he was honest with himself. Shaky hands and precise tasks that he'd never done before were clearly not a fantastic combination. But it really was a pretty shade of green, and it felt nice to do something with his hands.
Maybe it wasn't a cure-all, but he felt like he could breathe again, and that was good enough for him.
Hell, he might pick even up some more colors the next time he visited that store.