"And would you like to leave a tip t- oh."

The sound of the phone on the other end of the line quickly slamming down cut off the cashier's sentence, and he sighed wearily as the twelfth order of his shift that night refused to consider leaving any form of gratuity for his customer service. After calling back to the kitchen with the customer's order, he returned to resting his elbows on the pizza shop's front counter, chin propped on his palms as he waited for either the shrill ring of the phone to pierce through the air again, or the even shriller voice of an eat-in customer ordering their meal.
Larry Needlemeyer had never wanted this life, living through shift after shift at countless different jobs, be it pizza store cashier, police accountant, video store clerk or anything else potentially mundane and low-paying. It was gruelling, and the small paycheques never made up for how much effort he put in minute after boring minute.

Larry's life was like his skin - dull grey.

The sounds of the kitchen staff busily preparing the most recent order clanked and sizzled behind him, the only distraction from the slow agonising tick of the wall clock as he waited for his sixth job of that day to come to an end.
"It's 07:36pm... Only an hour and twenty-four minutes before I can go to my shift at the gas station..." Larry thought to himself, watching one of his colleagues absentmindedly as they quickly zoomed away on a company bike to deliver the latest order. It soon went quiet again, the idle chatter of the chefs and the ticking of the clock echoing through the pizza shop.

Until the phone bursted into life with its shrill tone, causing Larry to jump in surprise and nearly drop the receiver in his hastiness as he answered, his slightly nasally voice instinctively snapping into its retail tone.
"Hello, Fervidus Pizza, may I take your order please?"

"Yeah, hello? I'd like to make an order for a, um.. a vegetarian margarita pizza, please, regular sized."

The voice that greeted Larry was one he wasn't familiar with, which was surprising to say the least; considering he worked at almost every store in Elmore, he had come across most of the town's citizens at one point or another in his career, and so often recognised regular customers simply by their voices. However, this one wasn't a voice he was used to.
The stranger sounded softly spoken, with a slightly southern twang to their speech and a definite hippyish vibe. What struck Larry as particularly peculiar was that they felt the need to specify a margarita pizza order as vegetarian, especially seeing as that was pretty much guaranteed with anything that only really consisted of bread, cheese and tomatoes. However, 'the customer is always right', so he forced himself to ignore it and instead politely continued to take the necessary details, relaying the order back to the chefs as he did so.
"One regular margarita, coming right up. Is that for delivery or collection, sir?"

"Oh, delivery, if that's alright. I don't think I could make it out for collection tonight..."

"Ah, damn it," Larry thought, grimacing slightly, "the delivery boy just left; that means I'll have to do it instead..."
"Yes, sir, that's fine. Which address would you like it delivered to?"

"1008 Elm Street. Look for the mint-green house with the wind-chimes on the front porch."

Larry quickly pulled out a pen and scrawled the address down on a notepad, before intervening with another question. "And who am I delivering this to, sir?"

"Oh, um, Steve Small."

"... Nope. Never heard of him." Larry shrugged as he tore off the sheet of paper from his notepad and slipped it into his pocket.
"Alright, Mr Small, your order should be there in approximately 15 minutes."

"Cool, man; that's some fast service."

"And that will be $15..." He continued, totting up the amount on his cash register, before pausing. This was the moment where almost every other customer either excused themselves awkwardly or outright slammed the phone down. He was not looking forward to whatever reaction his mandatory question would cause this time.
"And... W-would you like to leave a tip too, sir?"

"Hm..? Oh, yeah, sure. What's 15% of $15...?"

Larry's eyes widened in surprise, and he nearly forgot to respond to the customer's question due to the fact that, for the first time in a long while, someone had actually bothered to tip him.
"I-I-It's $2.25, sir..."

"Awesome, add that to my bill then. I'll see you in 15, man."

And with that, the phone clicked to a low buzzing silence, leaving the cashier pleasantly stunned. It wasn't until the chefs chimed the bell and slid the boxed order towards him that he snapped out of his daze.
"Get yourself together, Laurence. It's only $2.25. Besides, it's not irregular for someone to leave a tip. Uncommon, yes, but not abnormal..." He thought as he picked up the pizza box and carried it out to one of the store bikes, strapping it to the back. He then swung his leg over the bike seat, sitting down and starting the ignition, before pulling out of the side-alley and starting to make his way towards Elm Street.
However, no amount of rationalisation could shake the strange sense of anticipation he could feel building inside him as he neared his destination. A small part of him was excited to meet this unfamiliar customer; Larry didn't get much excitement in his line of work.

"Yep. Those are definitely wind chimes."
Larry raised a brow slightly as he looked at the gently tinkling decor hanging around the front porch of the house. He had been able to hear where he was meant to go before he had even finished parking his bike, and now, standing on the welcome mat, his speculative ideas over what the customer may be like only continued to grow.
He cleared his throat slightly, shifting the pizza box in his grip as he outstretched a grey hand to press the doorbell, the stereotypical 'ding-dong' audible through the door. After a few moments of silence, he could hear muffled footsteps, until the door swung open.

It was like Larry had been punched in the face with colour.

The man was tall, two-dimensional, and covered in puffy white fur, making him uncannily resemble a cloud; a small amount of it, Larry noticed, was tied back in a ponytail behind his head. His clothes, however, were even more striking. Black flares with pink hems and stitching stretched down to bright yellow and blue sandals, whilst a psychedelic tie-dye shirt threatened to burn Larry's retinas. Even the man's eyes were bright, green with red pupils, like olives.
Compared to Larry's own standard Fervidus Pizza uniform, three-dimensional body and grey rocky skin, this man looked like he could have been born out of a rainbow.

After a second or two, Larry remembered that he actually had a job to do, and greeted the new customer with a polite smile.
"Hello, sir. Pizza delivery for a Mr Steve Small..?"

The tall man smiled, and spoke in that same relaxed voice that Larry had heard on the phone 15 minutes ago.
"Yeah, that's me. You weren't lying when you said 15 minutes, huh? Impressive work," he squinted slightly as his eyes travelled over the shorter man's nametag, "Larry."

"Oh, uh, th-thank you. Here's your order, sir, a regular margarita."
Larry wasn't sure why he was stuttering, but assumed it was because he wasn't accustomed to receiving compliments, particularly not from customers. He tried to clear his mind and stay on task. "That will be $15 dollars, plus the $2.25 gratuity."

"Oh, yeah, sure..." Steve slipped a hand into his back pocket and pulled out a $20 bill, handing it over to the thin rock man, who returned the necessary change before handing over the boxed order.

"Aaand... There we go. Thank you for choosing Fervidus Pizza." Larry chimed politely before turning to leave.

"Oh, you're going?"

This question took him off guard, and he blinked, before turning around to look at the tall hippyish customer leaning against the doorframe.
"... Well, sir, it's not exactly common practise for the deliverer to continue to lurk around the customer's house after having made the delivery."

"Hm, I guess. You don't want any pizza, though? I'm kinda on my own, and I hate to waste food; it's ungrateful and bad for your karma, y'know?"

How could he respond? He had never been in this situation before. Eating a customer's pizza was completely against the rules, of course, but what if they were offering? He was hungry, and he hadn't eaten since breakfast...
"No, Laurence. Don't be unprofessional. Politely decline and leave." He mentally scolded himself for even considering it, before answering.
"Oh... Well, thank you for the offer, Mr Small, but I'm going to have to decline. You see, I'm still on duty, and I won't have finished working until 11pm today, so I couldn't. Sorry."

Steve raised a brow, before shrugging and smiling casually at him. "Hey, no worries, man. You just looked stressed out, that's all. Bad vibes."

"Um... Yes, I guess...? Anyway, have a good evening, sir." Larry smiled sheepishly before turning for the second time to leave, awkwardly walking down the driveway towards his bike.

"You have a good one too, Larry. Drive safe!" With a smile, Steve closed the door, the chimes tinkling softly due to the gust of air the motion created.

Larry wasn't sure how to react as he got onto his bike and started the ignition, looking over at the house one last time before revving the engine and beginning his journey back to the store. A customer had never been so friendly towards him before, let alone offered him some of their food.
"Steve Small... Well, he's either perceptive, charitable or a complete nutburger. Based off of what he was wearing, I'm tempted to say the latter..." Larry rolled his eyes slightly, switching lanes as he turned back down the street that the pizza parlour was on.

He didn't have time to think about that peculiar encounter, anyway; he still had around 4 hours of work left to do.

Sitting alone in his living room, incense and infusers placed here and there on shelves, mantelpieces and windowsills, Steve allowed himself to zone out slightly as he munched through a slice of pizza.
He had only ordered it on a spur of the moment to cure a very sudden case of 'the munchies' brought on by one of his slightly more transgressive recreational activities, namely smoking a blunt. Usually he would be more picky about his food, preferring organic produce to the potentially chemically altered ingredients of fast food, but his hunger had been particularly crippling; he had nearly keeled over by the time he had typed the number into the phone. No wonder he had said he was unable to make it out for a collection that night.

His thoughts began to travel to the deliverer of his meal; he had been a little shorter than him, and looked like he was made entirely out of stone. He had also been alarmingly thin, as though he too might've fainted at any moment.
"And he said he wouldn't finish working until 11pm... Geez. The poor guy looked totally stressed out. I kind of feel bad that I wasn't more insistent about giving him some of my food..."

Steve chewed thoughtfully as his mind replayed the events from earlier, before he swallowed and started another slice.
"... Maybe if I see him again, I can give him some relaxation tips. People need to learn to chill; excess cortisol can upset your internal balance. Larry was his name, right? I'll remember that for when I see him next..."

Little did he know that he would be seeing Larry far sooner than either of them could have anticipated.

AN - Well, I love this ship, and I fancied having a go at writing a proper multi-chaptered fanfiction about how they met and grew close to each other. I can't say that updates will be very frequent or regular; this is really something I'm doing just in my spare time, of which I do not have much.
A fun little piece of trivia about this story is that it is inspired by 'Rainbow Veins' by Owl City. I personally think it works as a good couple song for them, and the theme of colour should hopefully be consistent throughout the story too. Go and give the song a listen; it's good, I promise.