#-pep

[Peppino grips the newspaper he was holding as he waited for customers. He held it. Shaking. Until he relaxes and breathes.]

He puts it down on the counter and stares at you.

"I don't know. Haven't seen him in person in years."

His eyes drill into you, almost as if he's looking past those shades into yours. Did you know him personally or were you just another one that watched Theo's movie and noticed his name in the credits.

it's a cold night and they cuddle together <3

I wonder, do you have a favourite time of year to do so? Like, which season do you enjoy watching it the most?

And pardon me for asking a second question, but if you were to pick a colour to represent your partner, what would it be? Why do you think of that colour for them? (Or more than one colour)

-Scuttles

[They both look at the sea slug in front of them. Peppino's somewhat expected that it's magic and that's how it's talking while Bruno's more intrigued by both them in general and by the question it just asked.]

Bruno speaks up first; the ribbons behind him swishing back and forth, ("Every season's so nice! I can't just pick a favorite! Spring's great for the fresh grass and the smell of newly bloomed flowers mixing with the breeze. Summer's warmth gets low around the sunset and the scent of sea salt's stronger. Fall and its colorful leaves and cool winds are so good! Winter's sunsets are rarer for us to see, but with right amount of snow falling; it's beautiful.")

A thoughtful expression crossed his face. The ribbons behind him slowing as he thinks, ("Hmm, the color I'd pick for Pep? I can't choose between grey, red, and brown. Grey's his favorite hoodie, but I'm picking it too because it's a mix of black and white which I also associate with a lot of things about him—")

A group of customers leave the table nearby and he realized that he's been talking for a while.

("I still need to get back to work, but red and brown are closer to the human stuff about him. Red's the color his skin gets when he gets blushy or passionate and when you get closer to him, you'll notice his eyes are brown!")

Bruno goes to grab the plates and wipe the mess while Peppino looks at you.

"Haven't seen you before. Guess the regulars must have told you about us." He sighs. He didn't expect to have random people or beings know about his love life nor to somehow care, but at least this customer's polite about it.

"Favorite season? I like watching it with him during fall. As for colors..." He looks away from you to stare at him. The easy answer is to tell it that he associates Bruno with all the colors; they shapeshift so often that he's seen her with practically every color there is.

But there's a more honest answer— one that's both true on a surface level and a deeper one.

them browsing all the pizza tower fanarts on tumblr

While browsing on the library's computers, Bruno checks stuff on the blog he made.

("Pep, look! It's Fake Peppino Friday!")

He takes a closer look at the screen before him— there are pictures of what looks to be Bruno doing various different things. "What, is there a Peppino Spaghetti Saturday or something?"

("Hmm... No? It's just Friday.") He scrolls down the website, passing several pieces of fanart until he spots something, ("Oh, there was a Noise Takeover Day that happened some time ago?")

Of course Theodore got a day to himself... He sighs, "Let me guess, it was around when his movie came out?"

("Yeah.")

He scrolls back up, ("Lot of awesome art here though! There's you, me, and the rest of the guys in the tower! Some... alternate universes? Don't know what those are, but they look great! Then there's the Friday art like me as a frog, me as Jason, and me kissing you...")

"What was that last one?!"

("Me kissing you. Like this—")

He turns to lick him on the cheek.

"Hm, that's not so bad."

("Also this—")

Bruno quickly gives Pep a peck on the cheek before looking back at the screen with a light blush on his cheeks.

"Pfft— Are there some of me kissing you?"

("A couple of them are—!")

Pep interrupts him mid-sentence with a kiss on his lips. He returns it for a moment before pulling away, face fully flushed pink.

Bruno scrolls again until he spots a different sort of fan creation, ("Apparently there's also... fan...fiction?")

As Bruno clicks on the link, Peppino's eyes widen as he scans through the ratings and tags. When he got to a particular set of tags, he sputters and turns red. 

Bruno turns towards his partner, concerned with the sounds he's making, ("Pep?")

They're all different from each other!

Post-Tower!Pep and Bruno are both pansexual.

SaF!Pep would say that he's bi and trans and SaF!Bruno's genderfluid, panromantic, and demisexual.

Peppina's a trans lesbian while Peppy's a sapphic demigirl.

The streets are filled with people and color. Bruno's cutting through the crowd, determined to bring him to the booth he saw; Peppino's holding his hand so they wouldn't lose each other.

As they pass through, Peppino takes in some of the people he's seeing: Couples, young and old, are wearing and waving flags of different stripes. Kids are wearing colorful bracelets with their parents. A teenager in a hoodie talks to someone decades older than them; in the small look he got as they passed by them, the teen looked relieved and amazed.

Some part of him still can't believe how... open it is now.

Peppino's out with his partner, Bruno. Heh, that thought alone would've been unbelievable years ago. He's dated before, had a couple drunk nights spent in someone's apartment, and experimented a lot when he... returned to try to take his mind off of it. It didn't fully work, but he's made some friendships and some discoveries about himself, so it wasn't a waste of his early thirties.

("It's just over here, Pep!") Bruno finally slows down in front of a little booth filled with an assortment of flags and little pins. Some of them are familiar to him and others are new. He hasn't exactly kept track. Bruno definitely knows more about the new ones than him.

("Xe had all my flags, but xe couldn't exactly understand me and xe didn't know sign either so...")

"Yeah, I'll get them for you." Peppino points out the three flags that Bruno's shown him before and gets a rainbow one that Bruno's pointing at too.

While paying, Bruno asks, ("Aren't you getting something for yourself?")

"I'm already wearing a couple of my old pins." He hands Bruno the flags, "I don't need more."

("You should have one thing from here,") he hands back the rainbow flag to him. ("It's nice to see more rainbows, isn't it?")

He grabs the little rainbow and waves it a little.

Bruno tries to make a mini rainbow; Pep shows him how. (Since this takes place some time during SaF this is a ship fic, but it can be read as platonic since they were just friends during this part of the fic.)