Work Text
It was nice, having a coffee shop right next the tattoo parlour because they could go into the café before they opened up the shop, grabbing their usual drinks to help perk them up in the morning. Which were generally ready for them by the time they walked in the door, it was nice knowing they could walk in and have their drinks ready to go. Isabelle is generally the first one, grabbing her coffee and opening up the shop.She’s one of the tattoo artists, along with her two older brothers. Her left arm is full of ink, her raven hair always pulled back into a long plait. The noise of heels you hear in the parlour are when she’s walking her way through the place, letting you know she’s there. There is never a day when her lips aren’t painted a shade of red. It was her signature look, and everyone knows it.Most days, she’s accompanied by her brother Alec who never seems to smile. But his customers will tell you that he dose smile when he sees his finished work, or his boyfriend pops into the studio to moonlight as the receptionist. His hair is as dark as Isabelle’s and his arms are littered with tattoos, which like to hide behind the sleeves of his jacket. The tattoo studio was something that the siblings invested in together; it was a passion that they found that they all enjoyed. There is two other tattoo artists, Clary a bubbly redhead, who was Isabelle’s apprentice and only worked three days out of the week at this moment. She’s generally found drawing some tattoo sketch ideas or working on her next piece for her next customer, she has a couple of small tattoos herself it’s nothing compared to that of the Lightwood siblings.Then there is Jace, his hair never the same colour for a month. It changes every month, every time he walks into the café he’s wearing his ‘signature’ leather jacket and wicked smirk upon his lips as he gathers his coffee and saying a quip to mousey haired barista behind the counter. He had come to love mornings, if it meant having that banter with the barista. He will however deny he has a crush no matter how much his sibling’s tease him about it, or the quips Clary would make. Jace was the other Lightwood sibling, though not by blood he is very much a Lightwood in every way that counts, including a tattoo that the three of them all got together, to show that bond.Jace was currently sitting at his station for the day, working on the piece for his customer that was coming in half an hour when Magnus came and leaned against the weight-lifter bench (the one that the customers lay on). Magnus was their part time receptionist, and Alec’s boyfriend.“So, I’m thinking maybe we could go a soft purple next time,” Magnus says reaching over to move a lost strand of Jace’s currently light pink hair. He was pursing his lips as if in thought, as he looked at the artist.“Maybe we could keep it this colour, I kind of like it.” Jace comments, not looking up from the sketch he was doing. It was pretty much done anyway.Magnus didn’t say anything for a small while, and Jace finished up what he needed to and then he spoke up again, “Oh I see how it is. The cute barista says he likes your hair that colour so you keep it? But when everyone else does you change it?”“What? No,” Jace says making a little scoffing noise and motioning for Magnus to back away from the bench so he could disinfect it and wrap it up. “And what do you think Alec would say if he caught you saying another guy was cute?”“You’re deflecting Jace, and Alexander had my heart, he knows this. I have a sense of knowing when someone is cute, doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it. Plus, nerd isn’t really my type…but it’s yours,” Magnus says with a teasing smile before moving to the front counter because a customer walked in, leaving Jace to set up for his customer.It was mid afternoon when he was sitting with Magnus showing him a design; a customer had come in with. Isabelle was currently busy working a customer so Jace was apparently who Magnus went too about it. He asked if that was the size, and got the information Magnus had.“For that size, it’d be around two hundred. Two hundred is the most I’d charge for that,” Jace says with a light smile upon his lips.“Okay, I’ll inform them. They’re wanting it soon as possible so if you want to do it now, would you be able to?” Magnus asks, looking down at the image and there seemed to be a hint of something in his eyes as he looked at Jace.“I’ve got no one else for a few hours, so that’d be great. Just need like twenty minutes to set up,” Jace replies, moving to get things ready as Magnus moved back to the front of the shop.Everything was set up, so he walked to the front of the studio and saw that the cute barista was sitting on one of the chairs. His fingers playing with the hem of his shirt, “Simon, you can come around now,” Jace says and watches as the brunette stood up and Jace lead the way to the station, now the look in Magnus’ eyes was making sense to him. “Where do you want the tattoo?” “I was thinking on my inner arm, here,” Simon says as he’s gesturing to his right arm, finger motioning to the area and Jace gave a small nod of his head. Simon was still in his work uniform, so Jace was wondering if this was something that he had been working the courage to do.Jace can tell that Simon is a bit nervous as he’s wrapping up the arm rest with glad wrap. He instructs Simon to lie down and rest his arm on the rest, and informing the barista that if he wants Jace to stop to just say so. Jace isn’t here to judge, just to put ink on others. Everyone had a different pain tolerance and he’s seen a varying degree of them. With the tattoo stencil in place, and ready Jace got to tattooing the artwork. They made some small talk as the needles pierced the skin, leaving ink behind.“So are you single like Izzy or in relationship like Alec?” Simon had asked at one point.“Single, what about you?” It’s simply because that’s the way of the conversation (Magnus and Isabelle would debate different), and maybe there might some curiosity.“Highly single, but crushing, not that you need to know that. Or even care, I just wish I could give it a shot. But I doubt they guy would go for me, he’s cute and everything. Bit of an asshole,” Simon starts to ramble, talking about how the guy gets on his nerves but in a good way. How the guy is a regular at the café and Jace just let the boy talk until he changed the subject miraculously onto his favourite show and Jace just listened to him talk. He would pipe in a comment here and there, and soon the tattoo was over, and Jace was covering it up.“Here are the instruction on what to do with your new tattoo, and word of advice, you never know if the guy will like you back, try and ask him out. You’re being hard on yourself,” Jace says as he hands a piece of paper with the instructions to Simon, letting Simon move back to the counter while he goes to clean up his area.He let out a small sigh, leaning against his workbook and tapping his pencil against the page when Isabelle took a seat next to him. She just looked at him, her red painted lips pulled into a light frown as she ran her eyes over her brother. “You’re an idiot, come on. Finish up. My client just left and we’ve got no others so no point staying open.”“Yeah, I’m guessing you’ve already let Magnus go?” Jace’s question is answered with a small nod of her head, and she is off to do her cleaning and he does his.**Its morning and he’s walking into the café, asking for everyone’s orders because everyone but him had customers coming in the next half an hour, his was coming in later. Simon is behind the counter, the tray ready with everyone’s orders in it and labelled. Jace gives a small smile and pays for the drinks; it wasn’t until he was near the door when Simon asked, “What, no remark today?”“Nah, you asked that guy out?” Jace replies, and wouldn’t admit it but there was a smile on his lips when he saw Simon’s lips pull into a grin.“Well...have you looked at your cup?” Simon is quick to say, eyes going to look down and finding something to do as Jace picked his order out of the tray.There was writing on the cup, it took Jace a few seconds to read it all. Then his eyes are looking up at Simon who was busying himself with restocking the cups, “Did you really just go for something so cliché?”“I don’t know, did it work?”“It did, you are very much a dork. Come next door when your shift is over and if I don’t have a customer I think I could make some time for a date,” Jace replies, leaving the café and walking into the tattoo parlour with a huge smile open his lips. He hands out everyone’s drinks, and takes a seat at his station and just stares at the cup.His day went by pretty smoothly, but his best part was the ending as was sitting in Simon’s living room as they watch one of Simon’s favourite movies. It was a nice date in, it was simple and exactly what he wanted from the other, not that he had thought about it before. Now, they were standing outside of Jace’s apartment, eyes looking into each other. No one could tell you who leaned in first, but their lips meet each in a light press to each other. Simon’s fingers moving to entangle into Jace’s coloured hair as Jace’s hands move to bring Simon closer by the hips. Lips moving softly against each other until the pull just a few centimetres apart when they needed air, “We should do this again sometime,” Jace comments.“The date or the kissing?” Simon muses, a playful grin upon his lips as he leans into grab another kiss from the artist.“Both, I would love do both very much again. You should go…you’ve got work in the morning,” Jace says with a soft tone to his voice as he’s not letting go of Simon.“Yeah…I should,” Simon replies, but doesn’t remove his hands from Jace’s hair.“Or you could sleep over, I won’t mind. Just don’t wake me up when you do.”Simon just gives a small nod of his head, and they’re walking into Jace’s place. Jace guiding them to his bedroom where they changed and went to sleep in each other’s arms.