A/N Long Time no see, FF! I saw this flowershop/tattoo AU floating somewhere around on the internet, and I thought I'd give it a whirl. Hope you like it :)

I apologize in advance for any mistakes made; constructive criticism welcome, but don't be mean to be mean; sorry if formatting is a little off, FF formatting always throws me off.

FF formatting changed all of my dashes to hyphens...so...sorry for that, I've tried to fix it quite a few times...

Characters OOC, but what else would be expected from an AU?

Disclaimer: I own nothing, all characters, The Mortal Instruments, etc, etc belong to Cassandra Clare.

Anyway...ENJOY!


Before they went on their first date-before they even met, Jace and Clary knew they and conflicting interests.

One owned a tattoo parlor, another owned a flower shop; and their shops were directly across from one another. Those entering the flowershop never failed to mention the "off-putting" shop across from the quaint flower shop; and those entering the tattoo parlor never failed to mention the "prissy" flower shop they had to look at while getting inked.

Needless to say, both were unhappy with their neighbor.


It began when Jace finally got fed with his upset customers.

He was so sick of hearing complaints that he marched across the street to confront the owner next door.

He was fuming, if he had one more customer complain on Yelp, he would surely begin to lose business. No amount of beautiful pieces of art will save his ass from poor shop ambiance.

He finally arrived to the shop across the street, and pushed through the door reading "Morgenstern Ink." setting off a tinkling of bells, altering the owner of his arrival.

And he was ready.

He was ready to light into this son of a bitch who thinks it's okay to play his music too loud and intimidate the customers of "The Greenhouse" with his scary tattooed employees.

"Hello, welcome to Morgenstern Ink., what can I do for you today? Tatoo? Piercing?" This was when Jace realized that he was not ready, not at all ready in the way he thought he was. Instead of the burly, deep voice he expected from the shop owner behind the front desk, he was met with the lightest, most delectable voice that matched the most beautiful face he's ever seen. Her hair was the color of fire-but not in a bad way, in a beautiful, elegant, burning ember kind of way- her eyes were the purest of greens, and the way she held herself was with undeniable confidence, as if she could take a man three times her five foot stature.

He was definitely not ready.

But he needed to remain staunch, for his customers, he thought.

"Actually I'd like to talk to you, um-"

"Clary," she filled in for him.

"Right, um, Clary," he cursed himself for stumbling over his words and sounding unsure of himself. He was always sure of himself, especially when it came to women; he owned a flower shop for God's sake, "I'm Jace, and I own 'The Greenhouse' across the street, and I'd like to inform you that I don't support the way you run this business. To be quite frank, you're frightening many of my customers." He watched as Clary's face went through a range of emotions, from welcoming, to amusement, to confusion, to understanding, and finally to what looked like a form of anger.

"Oh," she responded, as if getting ready to light into him "So you're the flower shop owner of the light blue store across the street. I have to say, I wasn't expecting such a manly man to run such a frilly store. I can't do anything about the fact that your customers can't handle my shop; I can't help that they're scared of a couple men of motorcycles." She rolled her eyes and went back to what she was doing before he entered her shop, which appeared to be sketching a tattoo.

"No, I will not let this go on. If I get one more review commenting on how your shop affects the ambiance of my shop, I will start going out of business. At the very least turn down that awful music you play here. My customers are used to the scores of Beethoven and Bach, not," he looked at the pile of CDs behind the desk, "Death metal and punk rock."

Clary stopped her careful pen strokes to look up at Jace, and he was once again stuck by her beauty and her piercing eyes. "Fine, I will turn the music down on one condition, Golden Boy."

Jace bristled at the nickname but made no comment on it, "Ok, fine…"

"Let me tattoo you," she said with a smirk, obviously thinking he'd say no.

"Fine," her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped slightly in surprise, "but then you have to go to dinner with me."

She squinted her eyes in displeasure, "Fine, we'll go after I tattoo you. Meet me here tomorrow night at 4 O'clock, then we'll go to dinner at 7."

"See ya then, Red."

"Bye, Golden Boy."

With that, Jace, the flower shop owner left the tattoo parlor with a promise of quieter music, a date, and an appointment to permanently mark his skin.

All in all, not a bad turn out.


Tomorrow had come, and Jace was beginning to regret his decision. Who cares if he gets to go on a nice date with the pretty girl from the tattoo parlor, who cares if she promised to turn down the music? All that matters now is that he's about to let a woman he'd known for less than one hour, tattoo something on his body. And it would last forever.

Why did he agree to this?

Oh yeah, he thought to himself, It's because you can't keep it in your pants, and you let yourself get distracted by her pretty hair and clear green eyes. Smooth Herondale, real smooth.

He finished buttoning his pressed white shirt and tucked it into his black jeans.

"Let's go," he muttered, "I hope I don't regret this." And he walked out his apartment door.


Jace found himself once again in front of the door labeled "Morgenstern Ink.," except this time, he was not there to reprimand the owner, but to get a tattoo from her. He cringed to himself, thinking about the poor decision making skills that led up to that moment.

Next time, don't get distracted by the pretty girl.

He pushed through the door to be welcomed by the same Clary he saw the day prior except, if it was possible, she looked even more beautiful than before.

Her red curls were pulled to the nape of her neck, save for a couple tendrils curling around her face, making it look as his her face were framed with the same fire of her personality. Her clothes, too, were different. Instead of a casual band t-shirt-from a band he had certainly never heard of- and distressed jeans, she was wearing a form-fitted forest green dress. It was classy, reaching just above the knees, and, while it hugged her figure, it wasn't tight, like most girls Jace sees around the city.

"Well, well, well, it looks like you came after all, Flower Boy," Clary said, not unkindly, when she heard the tinkling of the bells.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he replied, truly meaning it because even if he wasn't thrilled about the prospect of being permanently marked, he was, in fact, thrilled about the idea of seeing Clary again.

God, he thinks, even for a florist I'm cheesey.

"I'm glad you think that. I'm just finishing up some stuff up here at the desk, but in a couple minutes I will be ready to get started." Jace nodded in response, not quite knowing what to do while Clary did her job.

Clary, noticing his slight discomfort pointed him over to the room through the door behind the desk, "You can sit on the chair in there, ponder for a sec or two while I fix up some odds and ends."

Jace did as he was told and slowly took in his surroundings as he settled into the chair that vaguely reminded him of the chair he sits in at his dentists' office.

While sitting, Jace was able to formulate a million ways something could go wrong with the night: he would be an infection form the needle (although, the room did seem sterile and safe), he could hate the tattoo, Clary could mess up, he may realize that his pain tolerance is a lot lower than he expected and embarrass himself in front of the most beautiful woman he had ever met, Clary could have an awful time-

Clary walked in and Jace was able to get a full view of her beautiful figure in the stunning dress, thus immediately cutting off his previous, self-destructive thought process.

"So," she started, "since this is my end of the deal, I decided that I would pick your tattoo-"

Jace shot up from his seat, "Wait, what? We barely know each other and you're going to pick out something to permanently go on my body?"

Clary, unphased by his outburst, calmly answered his question"Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do, and don't worry, I think I have a pretty good idea of what you would like."

Jace still felt unsure, but took great solace in Clary's lilting voice, and he calmed down-slightly.

"So here's what's going to happen," Clary begins to explain, "I am going to have you take your shirt off and straddle this seat backward, so I can work on the tattoo, which will be a shoulder piece. Can you do that?"

He does as he is told and watches Clary's face as he slowly unbuttons his shirt. He sees a flicker of lust in her eyes as he unbuttons the last button, and he takes great pride and pleasure in seeing her attraction toward him. He straddles the seat like she told him and looks back at the artist, "Okay, now what?"

"Now I am going to disinfect everything, open up some new tools, get the stencil placed and then we'll get started."


Once she finished Jace was able to proudly say that he only winced once or twice, and that the pain was not nearly as bad as he was expecting.

"Alrighty, Golden Boy, we are done, and if I do say so myself, this is some of my best work," Clary said with a smirk. Jace craned his neck around in a failed attempt to see what image his body was just marked with, and yes, it was an image, for he knew that words would not have taken as long as it did. "I sure would hope so," he replied, "This is technically a date, and I would hate to have the date end before it even began with a bad tattoo."

Clary let out a laugh and handed Jace a hand mirror, directing him toward the full length mirror hung across the room.

He held up the mirror to assess his new art and gasped, "Holy shit," he whispered. "Clary, this is, it's, I can't even put it into words. It's beautiful." The image hat adorned his shoulder was a collage of flowers, with every minute detail present. From the veins of the petals to the shading on the stem, it was an exquisite piece of art.

He turned back to Clary, as look of awe painting his face, "I love it so much. I didn't know I could love something I didn't even want to such an extent." Clary blushed as the unabashed compliments coming from the adonis in front of her.

"I'm glad you like it so much," she replied, bashfully trying to hide behind the bits of hair not tucked into her chignon.

Jace walks over to her and tilts her chin up so she could meet his gaze, "Don't be so shy, be proud that you made a non believer a believer." He let a smile spread across his face when he saw that, she too, finally let a grin cross her face.

"Now, I do believe I have dinner reservations, and a pretty lady to feed."

Clary let out a giggle and took Jace's arms after he put his shirt back on-such a shame really-and walked her to his car.


The date was almost as phenomenal as the tattoo, which led to many more tattoos and many more dates.


Final A/U there will be one more chapter, kind of like a epilogue/outtake

Hope you liked it; have a wonderful day!