Boyfriend Does My Makeup Challenge!
I had this story lying around, hidden among the other stories for a while in my folders and I can't remember for the life of me if I've ever introduced this short piece to the public. Well, here it is!
Edit: This piece has a few months ago been written for a challange that the author Hanzatsu-Hime issued on her ZoNa tumblr website.
Summary: Nami and Zoro have gotten into a bit of a lover's spat and the navigator is looking for a way to reconcile with her disgruntled lover. Entering a contest promising a prize of a 3-night stay at an exclusive hotel seemed to be the perfect solution. But when you add a swordsman and makeup products to the mix, always expected the unexpected.
Rated T
You've got to be kidding me." Nami muttered as she stared in horror at the way Zoro was holding the mascara wand - by the brush- and held it up close to his eye to examine it, "he's going to gouge my eye out!" Robin hummed in amusement and inspected the flier explaining the details of the contest,
"They're surprisingly serious about this competition. The couple who manages to complete the given look will be rewarded with a Christmas Holiday chest full of belies and a free 3 night stay in one of their most exclusive hotels on the island along with a chock full of other benefits." The archeologist turned in time to see Zoro and his captain dump a cloud of powder onto the ground. There was a loud squawk as an attendant hurried over to remove the products away from their curious hands.
"I rather take my chances with Sanji!" Nami hissed as she watched the cook utilize his time-honed hands to elegantly trace a liquid line of eyeliner onto one of the practice mannequins. Beside him, Usopp and Franky took to creating their own decorations with the sample products on their own dolls.
"Sanji would be too distracted to finish the job and Usopp and Franky would do much more than what the directions require." Robin smiled and gazed up at one of the mock photos displayed on the screen, "think about what they would do to your face if you asked them enter the challenge with you. Not only that, the challenge specifically asks for you and your significant other to enter. They most likely would have some kind of sensor that will check." Nami fumed and glared at the swordsman who now stood to the far-side, uninterested in the clamor.
"I really want those passes to their hotels." The navigator stared longingly at the reward temptingly displayed beside the screen, "it would go a long way to fixing this mess." She sighed and turned toward Zoro, "but he most likely won't enter it."
The two had gotten into a stint that had erupted a few days prior to their arrival to the island and Nami was looking for an opportunity to break the tension. A few nights with nothing but time and each other would hopefully do the trick.
"Last call for any willing contestants!" Robin raised a brow and looked at Nami, reading the indecision on her face,
"Well?"
After the attendant managed to usher Luffy and himself out of the tent, Zoro found himself in a surly mood. The crowd of couples milling around him only served to further irritate him. It didn't help that his eyes were having a hard time staying away from the one woman whom the atmosphere called for. He expected her to be scrupulously avoiding him and was surprised to see Nami staring at him, her expression all but confident and the way she was worrying over her bottom lip spoke volumes about her subsequent move. Ah, Zoro watched as the navigator inhaled before she squared her shoulders and began to make her way towards him.
He was acutely aware of the nervous tension that hung on between them. Yet the swordsman didn't move, even when she stood so close he sensed the way she shifted her weight from side to side and felt the subtle scent of her own femininity emanating from her. He kept his arms pressed to his side and forced his face to go slack to prevent the myriad of emotions tumbling around within from spilling out. Hazel orbs and obsidian jade clashed and a reminiscent flashed in front of him:
"Why do you always have to put that gunk on your face?" Nami shot him a look and rolled her eyes before she presented her bare back to him,
"Because women like me put 'gunk' on our faces to not only make ourselves feel confident but because we want our man to feel proud that they have a beautiful woman at their side." Zoro frowned and shoved his fingers through his hair as he gazed at the wreath of orange fire curling down the small of her back,
"You don't have to go that far. I already do." He rolled off the bed and bent to search for his clothes when a warm body slammed straight into his shoulder sending him tumbling back into the mattress. The swordsman grunted in surprise when the slender arms around his neck tightened and he found himself locked in a blistering kiss that shot a bolt of desire down his body. Zoro released a rumble of pleasure and took over the kiss, tangling his hands into her hair and tugged her head back wrenching a gasp from her swollen lips before the first mate bent down to devour her again.
Nami's eyes were flushed bright when he finally released her, her chest was heaving, the pulse against her neck pounded a wild rhythm coaxing him to lean in and take another sip,
"Thank you." A brilliant smile lit his navigator's face and she reached up to wipe away a dark streak of eyeliner from his cheekbone,
"For what?" Zoro groaned as Nami nipped the underside of his jaw; his body primed and ready to sink back into her,
"For being you." The navigator rose over him, her fiery locks cascading over her shoulder and landing on his torso. Zoro's hands slid up to gently cage her throat and Nami met him halfway, their foreheads pressed tightly against one another as they paused and took that precious moment to breathe…
There had been absolutely nothing between them then. Where she stopped to face him now, a few inches separated them. For Zoro, those scant inches made him feel as if he was standing on the other side of a chasm.
"Zoro." The second his name slipped from her mouth, he found himself stepping forward to close that damning gap. He could hear her just fine among the clamor but he ached to be closer and bent his head till the tip of his nose leveled hers.
"What is it?" He didn't miss the shudder that followed the hasty inhale and the wild flicker of the navigator's eyes as she struggled to compose herself. He watched her take another breath,
"Will you enter the contest with me?" the first mate blinked, startled; him? Enter a beauty contest with her? His immediate and instinctual response was to flare up at her refusal to apologize and shut her down but Zoro stopped short. He scrutinized his lover, absently wondering what she was up to. Under any circumstances, the navigator would never let him near her vanity desk, -not that he cared- but to ask him to participate in a competition involved in utilizing the things she used in her desk was definitely not something he would be caught dead doing.
However, Zoro knew without a doubt that the navigator would never request such an irrational partnership unless she held an ulterior motive behind the inquiry. The whisper of hope flitting across her face as he pondered became his answer; he'd do it even if it killed him.
Despite his mind's frantic protest, Zoro found himself grabbing Nami's wrist and guiding her toward the entrance,
"Please place your right hands on the sensor. If you are trying to bring someone who is not your significant other in, the scanner will detect that and you and your partner will receive a severe shock. Please take this time to reassess your decision." Zoro squeezed the navigator's hand and stared directly at the attendant,
"We're together." His palm flattened underneath the low vibrating hum of the sensor and after a second, the light flashed green and the bars slid open,
"Thank you for entering! Please wrap these number encoded wristbands around your wrists. A helper will guide you to your seats. Enjoy!" The usher quickly led them to a low seated table with two padded cushions on either side. Two wired containers neatly folded open revealing an astounding assortment of makeup products. At the very front of the room was a large screen along with a podium. To the right was a roped off space that allowed the media to film the entire show and to the left allowed the audience to watch. There was a shrill echo of feedback before the host with a top hat clicked his way up to the mic and took a deep breath before shouting into the microphone,
"Welcome to the contest "My Boyfriend Does My Makeup!" In this challenge, we will be testing just how skilled are your man's hands!" He coughed in his fist as a low chuckle swept the room, "Please pull your heads out of the gutter!" he laughed, "My name is TOP and I will be your host for today!" He gestured to the padded cushions in front of him, "Let's begin! May I ask the women to sit on the seats with their backs facing the screen and the men to sit in the other." Zoro released the navigator and gingerly knelt, his eye scanned the contents in front of him and he felt himself break into a cold sweat; what the hell was he doing?
"Don't worry, I'll help you." Her reassurance quelled some of his fears and Zoro swallowed and nodded,
"Don't blame me if we lose." A maniacal gleam struck the corner of Nami's eyes as she twisted to look at the large prize before turning to face him, her eyes taking on the form of swirling money signs that did little to conceal the whirl of those "hidden motives" he suspected of her having.
"WE. HAVE. TO. WIN." The swordsman grimaced and shook his head; she was going to kill him when this was over.
"The goal here is to recreate a look that will be displayed onto the screen. As the title suggests it is up to the boyfriend to create the look on their girlfriends! Ladies! You cannot look behind you at the screen! Doing so will result in immediate disqualification! You are allowed to give verbal instructions and your partner can describe the picture to you but nothing else! The top 10 winning pairs who can finish the fastest and the most precise will receive the Holiday Gift Basket and the organization will make a grand donation to charity!" TOP gestured to the screen, "You have 45 minutes. REAADDDYYY? GOOOO!"
"Describe the picture to me!" Nami demanded. Zoro squinted at the screen,
"She's some sort of winter queen? Her skin is kind of light blue and she has white on her eyelashes and some sort of dark blue and grey color on top of her eyelid and shiny things all over her temples…" Nami muttered a curse and her hands dove for a short tube and uncapped it,
"This is called primer, it keeps the color from leaving my skin, put it all over my eyelids." Zoro fumbled at tube and applied pressure to the container,
"Not too much!" Nami shrieked. There was spurt as nude color liquid splashed out and coated his hands. Another string of profanities followed as Zoro wiped his hands down with a tissue and the navigator took hold of his wrist, "put a little bit on my eyes." The first mate gritted his teeth and nodded as his hand cupped her cheek and carefully smeared the product over her closed eyes.
"Next." Nami carelessly shoved more make-up out of the way and pulled out a set of much larger tubes of color,
"If her face is light blue, we're going to have to do some body painting." Nami dumped a glop of the cerulean blue tinted with titanium white onto a plate and handed it to him, "take a sponge and put that all over my face." Zoro stared at her for a second, a wicked idea taking root. He decided to forego the sponge and instead, filled the plate partially green and slicked his hands full of the paint and began spreading it all over her face. Nami let out a yelp when his hands closed over her and she all but pulled back,
"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, "you're supposed to use the sponge!" Zoro snickered,
"Stay still." He was beginning to enjoy this as she grumbled under her breath but held still. As he continued to cover her entire face with paint, the swordsman couldn't help but notice the way she seem to follow the caress of his hands as Zoro manipulated the curve of her neck transforming her into a completely unidentifiable creature.
Oh shit. He had to dissolve into a hysterical coughing fit before he burst into howls of laughter when she opened her eyes. Between the suppressed chortles, Zoro managed to form a coherent reply,
"I'm done. What now?" Nami searched through the basket and pulled out a long white stick and popped it open. She swiped the point over her wrist,
"You said the color was white right?" Zoro quickly looked up, making sure to avoid looking too closely at her face; he'd die laughing if he did.
"Yea." The woman sucked in a breath and handed the stick to him,
"Put the thin side on the inner corner of my eye and draw a long line to here." She grabbed the swordman's finger and traced the curve of her almond eyes till it reached the other end, "be gentle, and try to not poke my eye out okay?"
"Got it." He didn't realize his hand was slightly trembling and Zoro forced down a deep breath and clenched his teeth together, his eye fixated at the closed end of her right eye. A soft hand wrapped around his wrist and steadied him as he traced a wobbly line from one side to the other,
"Thicken the end and make it a tip." Nami's mouth parted open and Zoro licked his lips as he did everything in his power not to fling the damn stick away and bolt. If it took his entire concentration to draw one damn line over her eye, how the hell was he going to be able do the other?
"Blow to dry it faster." Again, he dry-swallowed and leaned closer to push air from his lungs onto the liquid. He was close enough to see the navigator's body tremble in response and Zoro pulled back, feeling his own body stir to her reaction. He managed to not only succeed in drawing another uneven line on Nami's left eye, but staining his hands in the process of forgetting which side was the ink on.
"Good. We have less than 20 minutes. Now we need eyeshadow." She inspected the numerous pallets and searched for the color he described to her before she handed to him a thin plastic container and a brush, "Remember, be gentle. Take some of that dark blue-grey color and use the brush to put some of it onto my eyelid" With unsteady hands, Zoro grasped the pallet with one hand and made an attempt to dab some of the pigment onto the brush,
"Like this?" he poked at her eye and Nami's head shot back,
"No! Like this." Again her hands guided his in a firm, sweeping motion across her closed eyes till he was sure he applied an enormous amount of blue onto her eyes.
"Here be careful with this." The navigator gingerly handed him a piece of –
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" Zoro flinched and whipped his hand back as if struck as he stared in horror at what seem to be-
"They're fake eyelashes." From the mess, Nami procured a tiny tube filled with some sort of clear liquid, "you need to glue these over my own lashes. Make sure that they stick before you let go." Zoro slammed his jaw shut as he forced his fingers to hold the very end of the lashes and with another hand, tentatively spread a thin line of glue on the very edge of her long lashes. Tongue between teeth, he carefully pushed the fine hairs onto her skin. He didn't realize until he was deep in concentration that he was pressed so close to her their faces nearly touched. He pulled back abruptly and this time, he was prepared as Nami ruffled through the pile for a tube of white mascara. Under her threats of retribution should he ever gouge her eye out, Zoro managed to stick her lashes onto the false pair. It was only when he finally lifted her lashes with the eyelash curler –he'd accidentally snagged her skin a couple of times earning quite a few slaps to the head -when she finally sat back with a sigh of relief.
"Finally!" She looked nervously up at the analog timer ticking down to 10 minutes and looked anxiously up at the swordsman, "how do I look?"
"Do not laugh." Zoro kept his face perfectly straight and gave her a noncommittal nod,
"Not bad." Nami flashed him a wide smile and quickly leaned up to press a chaste kiss to his cheek shocking him into silence,
"Thanks." The word of gratitude was soft and she sat back straightened her shoulders, "I was hoping to win the tickets to the hotel." Her smile turned shy and she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, "I thought it would be nice to be able to spend some time together." At that moment, the horrible sensation of dread circled the pit of his stomach as alarm bells of guilt battered at him and Zoro bolted to his feet, his entire face in flames. He'd one-handedly sabotaged her attempt to apologize and now was on the verge of facing the wrath of her tears and her fists not to mention the chasm in their relationship would only widen even further.
That was completely unacceptable.
"Zoro?" Nami looked at him curiously when he suddenly bent and scooped her off her feet, "w-what are you doing?" He ignored her protests, his mind working furiously to formulate a remedy as the swordsman scanned the room, oblivious to the attention he was getting,
"Why didn't you just ask me?" he scowled at the cameras that swung his way and began marching toward the exit,
"Put me down we're not done yet! And ask you what?" Nami slapped at his shoulders as Zoro shoved his way out of the room and immediately broke into a sprint as he dashed straight for the harbor, "Zoro! Where are we going?"
"To wash off the gunk I put on your face." She blew out a massive sigh and thumped his shoulder,
"You're not making any sense. I want to win those tickets and the only way to do that is to win the contest." Nami kicked at the air, "now put me down and let's go back!" he tightened his grip in response and furiously shook his head,
"We don't need to win anything. We can do what you want right now." Nami peered up at him under heavy lashes and blinked,
"I guess that's fine but-"
"Good. Let's go back to the Sunny." The swordsman inwardly heaved a sigh of relief before he resumed his pace toward the-
"Wait! It's not good! We need to go back!" Zoro screeched to a stop and made a noise when her fist connected with his head,
"What was that for?" he growled as Nami began to struggle in his arms,
"Because you're forgetting something important you idiot!" she hissed as she pushed her palm insistently at his chest, "now hurry up and turn around!" the swordsman frowned,
"Why? We don't need the tickets," the navigator looked affronted,
"If we don't need the tickets, then we at least have to get the money!" she yelped when he flipped her up and tucked his shoulder under her stomach,
"You money-loving witch!" he swatted her bottom and felt his vision take a hit when she backhanded his head in return,
"Turn back!" she demanded and Zoro fumed,
"No!" with both arms banded around her thighs, he continued his way toward the-
"The harbor's that way idiot."