"No - hey - stop that. Don't touch," Sanji said. He shifted on Usopp's lap, slid his hand up Usopp's arm, over his shoulder, neck, over the corner of his jaw, up over his cheek until he could hook a couple of fingers around Usopp's wrist. He pulled his hand away from the bandages swathed around his eyes.
The gas bomb during their last fight had caught Usopp nearly in the face, and those bandages had to stay on for another three days, barring when Chopper changed the dressings. Usopp had not taken well to losing his awareness of where things were.
Now, though, sitting on the couch in the men's cabin, he was finally beginning to calm again - still tense, but so much less than when he'd been trying to cross the deck, flinching under the open sky, steps wobbling like he'd lost his sea legs. The brief instants of panic every time someone touched him without warning were hard to watch.
But Sanji thought he understood. He, and most of them, fought enemies at close range, Usopp... didn't, as much as possible. He ran away from danger that was nearby because he could hit it when it was farther away. It was how he fought, how he defended himself. At long range, where he was normally able to strike back. Where now there was just... nothing but sounds he wasn't used to interpreting this way. His threat perimeter was massive, and he couldn't look at any of it.
But now he had the couch against his back, under his legs, and Sanji across his lap, knees bent against the cushions on either side. Sanji had put his hands on him, tried not to take them off, so Usopp would always know where they were. And the stress of the past two days seemed like it might start letting go.
"I hate this," Usopp said, barely more than a whisper, and he resisted Sanji's tug for a second to pick lightly at the top layer of the bandage where it looped over his temple. "I hate it, I hate it," he repeated.
I know. "Leave the shitty bandages alone," Sanji told him. "Pretend your eyes are just closed." That hadn't worked outside, but now, like this, it might. He leaned in as he spoke and as he got Usopp's hand to lower. The approach of his voice let him bump his cheek against Usopp's without making him startle.
Usopp's hands - both of them - copied what Sanji had just done, fingers dragging up over Sanji's chest, bumping over his chin to feel at him, then pushed him a little bit back, pads of his fingertips prodding along Sanji's jaw, rubbing through the hair on his chin. He felt up over his cheeks, traced his eye sockets, over his eyebrows, to the curly ends.
Sliding back down, one finger drifted close enough to feel Sanji's eyelashes flicker and his eyelid close at the proximity.
"Okay." Usopp said then, voice still too tight. "But... you too."
"I-" Sanji made himself shut up before the automatic protest escaped. He could do that. Yes. "Yeah. Okay." He closed them. Usopp touched his eyelids lightly, stroking over the thin skin.
"Promise?" he asked quietly. Because of course, if Sanji opened his again, he would hardly be able to tell.
Sanji took a breath, started to nod, felt himself already squeezing his eyes shut against the reflex to look. This wasn't - wait. He reached for his throat, undid the knot on his tie with one hand, yanked it off.
Usopp's hands hadn't left his face, palms warm over his cheeks, one thumb brushing his lips, fingertips still over Sanji's eyelids.
Sanji slid the strip of silk cloth into those hands. "Yes. Promise."