"I am a canvas of my experiences, my story is etched in lines and shading, and you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach."
― Kat Von D

"We're going to Robin and Franky's" Nami snapped when Zoro slid into the car. Sanji stood hesitantly outside, flinching when Nami turned her gaze onto him, "Well?" "Well what my dear?" Sanji asked hesitantly.

"Get in if you're coming with us." Nami sighed, tapping her foot impatiently on the gas pedal, revving the engine. Sanji bit his lip, "Unfortunately I'm not feeling well at the moment, I'll have to decline your, uh, gracious invitation."

He gave her a tight smiling and bowed slightly, completely ignoring Zoro. They watched him walk away, well Zoro did, Nami was still glaring at Zoro. The green haired man sighed, "What?"

"Not only did you ruin my chance at getting a ridiculous amount of money, but I had to go to the police station for the fifth time this week, I think I can be a little mad." Nami snapped. The car was filled with tense silence after that. The silence followed them as they pulled into Robin and Franky's large driveway

"How did the exposing go?" Robin asked from her spot on the sofa as Nami opened the door. Nami sighed, "No go, Zoro just proved she was the real deal."

Robin's eyes flicked to Zoro in confusion, "And how did he do that?"

Nami sighed and gestured to Zoro's back, "He found his soul mate."

Robin's eyes widened and she turned to Zoro with a wide smile. Zoro sighed, "She made some accurate predictions, and said I'd meet him today and I did."

"How very interesting, is he here? I'd like to meet the man behind your tattoo." Robin smiled and peered at the entryway. Nami sighed and shook her head, "They got in a fight and he ran off."

"A fight?" Robin's eyebrows flew up, "As in-"

"Yes a physical, beating each other up fight." Zoro grumbled, "Nami was pissed when she picked us up from the station and he looked kind of terrified."

"Nami is a formidable force when provoked." Robin agreed, her eyes glinting now. He would probably hate whatever she was thinking. Robin turned to say something to Nami but was interrupted by Luffy flying at them, latching on to Zoro and crawling up onto his shoulders, "ZORO! You're here! Help me beat up Usopp."

Zoro staggered under the sudden addition to his body, "Jesus Luffy, warn a guy!"

"But you always catch me Zoro." Luffy leaned forward so he was bent over Zoro's head and his face was inches from Zoro's, "You're too strong to drop me."

Zoro snorted, dipping his head so Luffy fell off his shoulders and onto the floor, "Why are you beating up Usopp?"

Luffy's grin slid off his face and he rolled slightly on the floor, "He won't give me food! I'm so hungry and he's being meeeaannn."

Nami sighed, dropping onto the sofa next to Robin, "Vivi should be here soon, she's bringing Kaya. And Vivi is wondering what's for dinner, she says she can't take another one Luffy's special dishes or Usopp's crazy hot meals. "

"My food is wonderful thank you very much!" Usopp yelled from the kitchen, "But the great Usopp is not using his culinary skill today, I am merely supervising Franky's work."

Nami snorted, "Right. Because adding a ridiculous amount of tabasco sauce is skill. Oh and Zoro, prepare to take your shirt off and answer questions, Vivi says she can't wait to see it."

"I'm not taking my shirt off so everyone can ogle the damn thing." Zoro grumbled. Nami smirked at him sweetly, "Well Vivi wants to see the 'damn thing' so she will see it."

Zoro scowled at her, rubbing at where the blue started at the base of his neck.

"Does your back itch? I found that my skin crawled after my tattoo filled in." Robin asked, "Like bugs on my skin. It goes away after a day or two, I have a cream I can give you to ease it in the meantime."

Zoro's answer was blocked out by Luffy's shout of glee, "Your tattoo!?"

He lunged for Zoro, pushing him into the living room. At the sound of Luffy's yell, the rest of the people in the house were poking their heads into the open concept first floor. Chopper let out a shriek of glee and followed Luffy's example, lunging at Zoro. Between the two of them, they managed to tackle Zoro to the ground. Zoro silently thanked Robin for choosing the open concept design as he struggled to get the idiots off of him. If it hadn't been spacious, with all the thrashing going on they would have hit something and it probably would have been priceless and ancient.

Usopp cheered from the door as Chopper wrestled with Zoro's legs and Luffy clung to Zoro's torso. Zoro shot him a glare, "If you help me I won't tell Kaya about the time you spent a day at summer camp before you had to be picked up because you were crying so much."

Usopp shook his head in glee, "She already knows, and I'd rather see you struggle."

Zoro shot a pleading look at Nami, "I can't pay you back if I have to buy a new shirt, this is the last of my good ones."

Nami quirked a perfectly plucked brow, "I'm not feeling very helpful today."

Zoro groaned and gave a violent shake, trying to knock his youngest friends off his back, "I'll take it off dammit, just let me get up!"

"Should I ask why my brother is trying to rip Zoro's shirt off?" Ace asked, stepping through the front door, followed by Marco, Viv and Kaya. "Not complaining about seeing a shirtless Zoro, but don't we have a shirts are mandatory at group dinner rule?"

Despite Zoro's struggling and protests, Luffy finally ripped his shirt, exposing his back to the room. Zoro groaned and gave up, lying face down on Robin's carpet. He heard the gasps and sounds of wonder as Luffy eagerly pulled the remaining scraps covering the tattoo off his body.

"Shit man, that's awesome!" Ace yelled, diving down onto the floor with the younger two to get a closer look at Zoro's back.

"Wow bro! You've really got the ocean on your back, that's super!" Franky called from the kitchen counter. Zoro sighed and pulled the shreds of his ruined shirt off his body, staying still so the three idiots could poke at the fish on his back. If they got their fill now he would be left alone later.

"That's incredible!" Brooke yelled from the bar, raising his beer. Zoro sighed and pushed up, dislodging the youngest members of their group and Ace. He glared at the scraps of fabric in his hand, ignoring Robin, Vivi and Kaya as they walked around him to trace his tattoo.

"What's your soulmate's tattoo?" Luffy asked, looking at Zoro excitedly, "Can we go find them? Can we? I want to see their tattoo!"

"Maybe he'll let you see it after our celebratory dinner." Nami said from her seat, snapping a picture with her phone. Zoro glared half-heartedly at her. She shrugged and tapped away at something on her phone.

"But I want to see it now." Luffy whined, "It represents you right? It must be sooo cool."

"It must be!" Chopper agreed, clapping his hands, "Who is it? When can we meet him, when is the dinner?"

"The dinner!" Luffy yelled excitedly, clapping his hands, "Can we go tonight! I know this great place we can go to, it has the best food ever!"

"You said that about McDonalds last week, I'm not sure I trust your judgement." Marco snorted. Nami pushed off from the couch and walked to greet her girlfriend, "And we're having dinner here tonight. Zoro can text or call Sanji and ask him when he's free so we can set up the dinner."

Zoro groaned, he did not want to have the dinner so soon. The dinner was a big welcoming tradition in their group. It had started years ago when Kaya and Usopp had met. Luffy, Zoro, Nami and Usopp had been friends for years, and when Usopp and Kaya had met during a game of baseball gone wrong (Kaya's butler was not happy she'd almost been hit by a bat that came flying through her bedroom window. How Luffy been able to throw it that far was a mystery), Luffy had declare they needed to celebrate it. He had dragged everyone out of the yard to buy ice cream to bring back to Kaya. When Nami had met Vivi, it happened again, but with doughnuts and coffee from a shop on the road.

Since they had gotten older, their dinners had become slightly more mature, in the sense that they were actual dinners and they were usually a huge formal dinner deal to welcome the poor soul into their insane crew. They had had make up dinners for those that hadn't gotten the proper celebratory dinner, so they'd had about four, not including the almost-anniversary dinner for Zoro's uncles. The last dinner they'd had was for Ace and Marco, about two years ago. Luffy loved the dinners and insisted that everyone got dressed up, stupidly excited about adding new members to their group. Then again, that was Luffy, he loved making friends, even if they didn't want to be at first. Usually the group got reservations at some nice place in town, feeding Luffy beforehand so they didn't get kicked out right away. The reservations were always for a formal restaurant that played nice music and served rich and snobby clientele that wore multi piece suits and stupidly expensive dresses. Which was why Zoro usually drowned himself in alcohol before and during the dinner. He hated wearing a suit, and sitting surrounded by assholes who judged you by your bank account.

"Zoro? Are you even listening to me? Call Sanji and ask him when he's free." Nami snapped, tapping a foot as she stood impatiently by the door. Zoro automatically reached for his phone, but froze and cursed hallway through the motion.

"What? Did you lose your phone? Or did you not get his number?" Nami growled, stalking forward, "You better not tell me that on top of meeting your soulmate, getting into a fistfight with him, you left with no way of contacting him. You didn't right?"

Zoro backed away, "Uh, maybe?"

Ace burst into laughter, holding onto Marco so he wouldn't fall, "You got into a fistfight with your soulmate? Never change man, never change."

Nami shot a glare at Ace before turning back to Zoro, "How are you going to get into contact with him? How are you going to find your soul mate again? This city is huge!"

Zoro shrugged, "Maybe it's better? He didn't seem too thrilled that I was a guy, kinda seemed freaked about it actually, he did say he, uh, felt attracted to me, but he looked embarrassed when he said it. He was more interested in the barista than me. And we barely lasted twenty minutes before we were insulting and hitting each other."

"He's your soulmate!" Vivi gasped, "You guys are meant to be, your gender doesn't matter."

"Some soul mates are platonic, like Shanks and Makino, they're friends and it's fine." Zoro shrugged, "And maybe I'll see him somewhere, talk, I dunno, I've done fine without a soul mate, I'll live."

"Who threw the first punch?" Ace was apparently stuck on the fact they had gotten into a fight. Nami scowled at him and smacked his arm, "We are not going to go into a play by play of their fight, this is all ridiculous enough as it is."

"Okay bros, dinner is almost ready, leave the dude alone and come get some grub." Franky called. There was a rush as everyone tried to beat Luffy to the kitchen, it was that or starve. Zoro sighed and looked down at his bare torso. There was a rule about shirts and the weekly group dinners, though that rule was mostly for him and Ace, the two who usually forwent a shirt. He turned and jogged up the stairs to the upstairs guest room, which held a collection of clothes for all of them in the closet, for when the need arose. And not surprisingly the need arose quite often, especially with Luffy around.

A/N

Hi there, sorry this is so late. I really want to update more frequently and I thought I would be able to...
I've just had a couple of really bad weeks, I'm not in school anymore and I've kind of realized most of the people I considers friends only talked to me because we saw each other 5 days a week so I've been dealing with that realization.
I've also been... I don't know if I can call it depression because I do have happy periods, but I've been feeling shitty for years. These past couple of weeks I've barely gotten out of bed and I feel worthless and purposeless, so that has killed my drive to write. I don't know when the next update is coming, but I have been feeling a little better so maybe soon.