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English
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Part 21 of a bruabba ficlet collection
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Published:
2025-08-26
Words:
100
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1/1
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2
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82

sprinkles (a July tiny fic)

Summary:

Bruno experiences a little bit of culture shock about what, as an Italian, hurts him the most.

(A not-so-delayed-at-all July tiny fic, following the theme of “change”)

Notes:

Mr. Hates Change is doing perfectly fine here!

In UM, Leone’s mum is Dutch; she meets his (horrible, evil) dad while on vacation in Rome. It explains why he’s quite tall and has light features, but it also “explains” why he speaks so late (“bilingualism”). Surprise surprise…

He resigns himself not to make contact with anyone from his past once he joins Passione, even though it makes Bruno sad to see he still clearly cares about his grandparents, for example. But in love sometimes you have to parent each other to glue the broken parts together, and I imagine these two get quite good at it by the time they’re 30. Bruno treats Leone to a holiday where he can delight in whatever gave him a happy childhood while remaining perfectly within his boundaries.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

For Leone’s 30th, they went to his mother’s homeland, his first time for over a decade. Bruno adored watching and, when he could, partaking in his reunions with childhood darlings and artistic pleasures. 

The food, however, made him gag. 

 

“You can’t be serious.” 

He gawked, horrified, at how Leone scattered sprinkles over buttered toast. 

 

“Would I lie to you?”

 

“No, but you’re Italian. We take food seriously,” insisted Bruno, mouth agape as Leone devoured it. 

 

“There you go,” Leone retorted. “I take my hagelslag seriously. Come on—try it!”

 

And to his great shame, he liked it.

“Ugh—you win.”

Notes:

This ficlet was inspired by a tweet that I saw of a photo of some Dutch street food, I think, containing fish and potatoes but in a way that seemed really unappetising, and someone in the caption comparing it / Dutch food in general to leftovers a street cat would eat.

I’ve had hagelslag, but not with butter under the sprinkles. I didn’t dare to, not even with unsalted butter—but apparently, you’re meant to have it with SALTED butter. Ehh… no thank you.

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