#or abandon hyphens. lol (pronounced as one word) can you imagine.

[frankmillerturnonyourlocation]

Drabblecember 14: Sharing One's Sweater

I WILL finish drabblecember before the end of the month. Holiday crunch is pretty much over and we're back in action. We're making this happen!! Believe it!!!

Word Count: 600

Universe: Henry Danger

Piper had that kind of stare that could wither a person's confidence, you know, just totally decimate what a person's got going on, a real make a middle-aged adult wipe at his nose reflexively until he could steal away to a bathroom to check his teeth for food kind of stare. Emerson knew it well. It was one of his favorite things about her.

Almost as much as her acerbic conversation, but it seemed like Em would need to poke at it a little bit to get it to pop, like a... different metaphor. Scratch that. It was one of those things Em would have to feed into a little, to get anything to come out, you know, like a slot machine. Whatever.

“Hey, Piper,” Em said, indulgent.

“What,” she began, her voice dripping with… something, “is that.” Set 'em up, knock 'em down. Different metaphor.

He tapped the mug on the Hart's sidetable. “Hot chocolate?”

“Ew, you say hot choc– it's hot cocoa. What are you wearing?”

“Cocoa is a different thing. And, um, a sweater?” He lifted the mug to his lips. “Turtleneck thing. I dunno.”

Piper's eyes narrowed. “Henry's sweater.”

The cup made it just about halfway to Emerson's lips. “Is it?” he said, lightly, with a touch of a smile. A drop landed on his jeans, falling just shy of the sweater's woolen edge.

Honestly, they hadn't known– Emerson had picked it up off of the back of a chair in the Cave that morning, used the last of Ray's conditioner in the shower, and threw it on after the fact without a second thought. (Early morning, anyway. Early, early morning. The collar of the sweater and his hair both were long-dry now.)

Piper unceremoniously unzipped her winter coat and threw it open. “Early gifts from our Nanna. Literally wearing mine."

”Oh, hey, we're matchers." Em tapped the mug to his chin thoughtfully. ”Now, what are the odds of me and your Nanna frequenting the same storefronts?“

"None!" Piper stomped over to the sofa, her snow-soaked boots still on, and shoved her hand down the back of Emerson's collar. Ignoring his yelp, she yanked the tag out. "She embroidered the tags with our initials!"

"I'll take your word for it," Emerson half-mumbled, distracted mainly by the freezing temperature of Piper's hands, the remarkable volume of her voice, and the thrill of having narrowly not spilled his cocoa.

“Oh my god, you guys are disgusting.” she– disgust, that was it, dripping with disgust. "If you lied about being done with the whole couple thing, can you at least have the manners to do it where I can't see? And I promise, I'm not homophobic. But like, it's Henry."

"This is homophobic, Piper, but I love you for it." Emerson's mind would have been spinning a whole lot faster if he had just a few more hours of sleep under his belt. Such was the price of getting into the shower first, secretly, and without needing to answer too many questions. As it was, his brain was chugging through anything from the past half year that could give him any indicator of whether or not Piper was, so to speak, in on it all– second-guessing and double-checking and oops, now he'd been quiet too long.

He tugged on his collar and brought it up to his lips, more of a casually absent gesture than anything. ”Would it be more believable or less believable if I told you I stole it? From him?“

The look on Piper's face answered his question sufficiently. Incredibly expressive. Truly, it was a gift.