"Alright, let me see it again," Kaelie said, letting out a heavy breath. Clary smiled and pulled the carefully folded piece of paper out of her bag and passed it over to her friend. Kaelie unfolded the paper and looked at the drawing on it , running her fingers over the detailed pencil design. There was colour in the drawing, which was unusual for Clary, but this wasn't one of her usual pictures.
Kaelie was going to have it tattooed on her arm.
"You sure about this?" Clary asked with a raise of her eyebrows. "I mean, tattoo's are kind of a permanent thing."
"Not really," Kaelie shrugged. "Get laser surgery if I want it off later on." Clary hummed under her breath, because that was true. But then there was the whole thing about where Kaelie was going to get the tattoo done. Clary hadn't really been to this part of town before. It was near the water front, but not the parts of the beach that her and her friends would go to.
"Are we totally sure that this is the best place to go?" Clary asked, doubt in her voice.
"Well, it's where Jordan got his, and a couple of the other guys on the basketball team. They said that they're the best place in the city, so...Let's just hope I don't get a bunch of diseases just walking in there," Kaelie scrunched up her nose and then looked around her car. "Let's also hope that my car doesn't get jacked while we're in there as well. I only just got this one." Kaelie didn't have the best track record when it came to cars. She had crashed two and another one had been stolen after she left it unlocked by the beach. They hadn't been serious crashes, she had been on her phone one time and attempting to apply for lipstick another time, but they had managed to crush up the car pretty bad and her father had run out and got her another each time because she was too impatient to wait for it to be fixed.
"It'll be fine," Clary said, although the uncertainty was clear in her eyes as well. They got out of the blue and silver Porsche, Kaelie locking it behind them as they started toward the tattoo parlor. The area wasn't the worst around here, there were a lot worse, but the shops were smaller, the windows were a lot more cluttered than they were used to. There were a lot of people smoking and laughing loudly and Clary swallowed hard, keeping her head high as she and Kaelie walked to the tattoo parlor.
She wasn't sure what tattoo parlors were meant to look like, she always imagined something seedy, but this place wasn't actually too bad. There were chimes above the door as they walked in, which was pretty tacky, but the inside didn't look bad. The walls were painted a deep blue with streaks of black and there were posters on the wall—not heaps, but a handful. They were tattooed people, mostly girls, although there was a guy stretched out over a motorbike, who was attractive in a biker type of way. There were two long couches, which actually looked clean, and a low wooden table with a couple of magazines tossed over it.
"Can I help you guys?" Came a voice from a girl behind a long desk. She was pretty, her hair cut short, and thick and curly around her face. She had a pair of hoop earrings and a nose stud and there was a friendly smile on her face.
"Yeah, I..." Kaelie drifted off for a moment as her eyes slid to the side to where there was a doorway leading to the back of the store. She cleared her throat and then looked back at the receptionist. "I wanted to get a tattoo. I didn't know if I should've called ahead?" She sounded a little uncertain, which really wasn't Kaelie, and it sort of amused Clary, who was a few steps behind Kaelie.
"I'll just go and see if the boys have any spots free. Usually, you do need to call and make a booking, but it's the middle of the week so it's not our busiest time, so there might be something free. Can I see what it is? And a rough idea of how big you want it?" The girl asked and Kaelie nodded. She thrust forward the picture and the girl took it, raising her eyebrows as she looked it over. "This is good. You draw it yourself?"
"Clary did," Kaelie replied, glancing over her shoulder to where Clary was standing. The girl looked back at her and gave her a smile before looking back at Kaelie.
"Alright," she said to Kaelie. "Show me where you want it and how big, so I can get an idea of how long we'll be looking at. And did you want it coloured, like the sketch?" Kaelie and the curly haired girl began talking and Clary zoned out, looking behind the counter. There was a list of piercings pinned to the wall, so she guessed they did piercings as well as tattoo's. There were some pictures on the wall as well, of the curly haired girl with a couple of other girls and then with a few guys. "Okay, I'll be back soon," the receptionist flashed a smile at the two and then turned to walk off. As she did turned her back to them, Clary could see a tattoo on her shoulder blade, which was on display because of the cut of her shirt. It said Reapers Sons with a little image of a grim reaper underneath, holding a scythe over it's hood.
"If you wanna back out, now would be the time," Clary sung out and Kaelie threw a glare over her shoulder. Clary just grinned and then heard her phone vibrating in her purse, so she pulled it out and looked at the ID.
"Who is it?" Kaelie asked.
"Jordan," Clary jabbed her glittery nail at the red button the screen, denying the call and then dropping it back into her purse.
"You're still not talking to him?" Kaelie twisted her mouth. "Have you broken up with him? Or are you guys taking a break, or...?" Clary really didn't have an answer for that just yet, so she was glad when the girl came back out into the front part of the store, followed by a handsome, Indonesian man with a mohawke. It wasn't one of those ridiculous mohawkes that just made the person look stupid. The hair on either side was short, but not shaved, and the mohawke was thick, a couple of inches long. It wasn't all spiked up, it was more styled, and it suited the guy.
"Afternoon, hun," the guy came forward and smiled widely. "I'm Magnus Bane," he extended a hand to Kaelie first and then back to Clary. They shook his hand, before he looked back at Clary. "You've got skills, babes. I like your drawing."
"Thanks," Clary gave him a tight smile.
"Alright, now, I have time to do the tattoo, although just warning you that it is going to take a bit longer, since there's colour. Is that alright?" Magnus Bane asked Kaelie, and Kaelie nodded quickly. "And do you want your friend there as well? Moral support and all?" Kaelie nodded again. "Great, okay," he turned to the curly haired girl. "Maia, can you get all the papers together, have her sign, and then send them back. I'll just get everything set up." Maia Roberts nodded and walked behind her desk.
"Okay, so I just need to see some ID and then go through some aftercare instructions and get you to sign a waiver," Maia told them as she tapped a few things into her keyboard and then a printer underneath the desk started whirring. Clary's phone started vibrating again and she gritted her teeth together. Maia could obviously hear it, and she looked over at Clary with an expectant eyebrow, waiting for her to answer the phone. Clary ignored the look and turned her eyes to one of the posters on the wall. Once everything was printed, she slapped them down on top of the desk and found a pen.
Clary really wasn't sure about any of this. She wasn't the biggest fan of tattoo's, although her brother definitely was. Kaelie was right, they could always just get laser surgery to remove them, but Clary didn't like the idea of looking down at her skin and seeing a mark that had been put there by someone else.
Maybe it would be different if she was the one that designed the tattoo and it was something that really meant something to her, but she wasn't really thinking about that right now.
Once Kaelie had finished signing the papers, her ID had been scanned into the system, and she had gone through all of the aftercare details with Maia, they went into one of the back rooms. There were three rooms, one that looked almost identical to the one they were going into, and then one that was laid out a bit different, and Clary wondered if that was where the piercings were done.
There was some messing around as Magnus printed off copies of Clary's tattoo onto transferable paper and then pressed them onto Kaelie's skin, cleaned it off, and then did it again as they worked out the exact angle and size that she wanted the butterfly on her wrist. When the needle came down and the actual tattooing began, Kaelie's face scrunched up and her pearly white teeth were biting down into brightly painted lower lip. The arm that wasn't getting tattooed reached out for Clary, and Clary took her hand, not saying anything at the bite of pain that came when Kaelie gripped her fingers tightly.
It took just under an hour and a half.
Which was good, because Jocelyn Morgenstern was getting home that night, and it was the first time Clary was going to see her in three weeks, so she wanted to be back in time for dinner.
"It's so pretty," Kaelie murmured as Magnus smeared some ointment over the fresh ink and then set about wrapping it up. "It looks exactly like your picture, Clary." Clary had to admit that it did. For once, Jordan hadn't let them down, and recommending this place had been good. It was only a small, yellow butterfly, on the inside of her wrist. The outline was in black, and there was some light blue shading at the tips of it's wings, before the yellow colouring took over.
He'd done a good job.
The two girls got up and were walking back into the main parlor, to pay Maia, when the front door chimed a few times, and two guys walked in. The one at the front, with golden hair, was facing backwards, talking and laughing at something the guy behind him was saying, the second man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, and was laughing along with the first man, although his laughter was a little quieter. When the first man turned around, his eyes immediately rested on Kaelie and Clary, and the wide grin on his face dropped into something else. A half smirk, that made Clary's stomach twist over.
"Clarissa," he stated, his eyes glittering—showing his interest—and his smirk widened.
I don't really have the energy for a paragraph thing sorry. I've been fucking spiraling for the past six weeks or so, although I guess I had my birthday? Which was okay?
Um...Nightmare by Halsey is a fucking anthem and I don't know how many times I've listened and cried to it in the past day and half it's been out.
Hope you enjoyed the update.