Constellation Tattoos

Could You Turn The Music Off?

About two weeks after the painting with Regulus, the tattoo shop was up and running. There were still people coming in and out to do certain things with the place but other than that, it was open to all. Deciding the name wasn't very hard, they just based it off of Sirius' name and named it "Constellation Tattoos." 

Regulus mostly worked in the piercing room, since he had more experience and more courses done with piercings. James worked at the front desk, normally swapped around by Marlene, Sirius, Mary and Lily. Sirius and Marlene worked in tattoos and piercings while Mary only knew how to do tattoos. Lily and James didn't have experience in either.

If someone like Marlene was working at the desk, James and Lily would leave to get food for them, which had normally come from the cafè next door.

Sirius was working at the desk today. She had loud music playing while drawing on her wrists. She was going to read but the music had inspired her to draw and she had no paper around. 

A list of bookings lay next to her which had already been covered with doodles. She looked up as the bell - that had been installed to let whoever was working at the desk know that someone had entered - rang. 

A beautiful boy walked in, a scar slashed over his face in a diagonal line. They had light brown hair - that when it fell, it fell over their brown eyes. It had a skinny figure and gorgeous freckles painted across his tanned face. Xey had a jumper tucked into a long skirt that reached just above his ankles, the skirt a dark green. It looked to be wearing Doc Martens. 

He walked to the front desk after looking around, their eyes settled on Sirius. Sirius had her head propped up by her fist. 

"Hi." He started, awkwardly looking around again. "I, um, work next door, own the cafè and book shop, library thing. Do you mind turning the music down? It's distracting my customers and it's quite loud, people will start complaining."

Sirius watched the boy for a bit until she stood up straight and walked over to the speaker and turned it off, completely. Sirius walked up to him and held her hand out.

"I'm Sirius." Sirius introduced herself, shaking the other's hand as it reluctantly held xeir hand out. Sirius found that the boy was quite shy but quite a sight up close. 

"I'm Remus. It's nice to meet you, and thank you for turning the music off." Remus introduced himself to her. Sirius noticed the pin that the other workers at the cafè wore. "Remus Lupin, he/they/it/xe" and a gay, demisexual and transgender flag was on the pin too. 

Sirius walked behind the desk again and started scribbling something down on a piece of paper. Remus looked at the artwork on the walls and he began to feel very small in this intimidating shop. Sirius seemed sweet and all but places like this were not exactly his scene. 

She slid a piece of paper to Remus and winked, turning back to look at files that she wasn't really looking at. Remus picked up the piece of paper and tucked it into his backpack. He turned, without looking at the piece of paper. They continued out of the tattoo parlor and into xeir shop. 

Remus walked into the staff room and pulled out the paper from his backpack and saw the phone number on the post-it note. Remus rolled their eyes and took out xeir phone. It put the number into a new contact and named it "Idiot Person From Tattoo Place." 

"Remus, we need someone at the counter." Dorcas said, popping her head around the corner of the door. Remus smiled, softly, and got up from leaning on the wall. It followed Dorcas out while she took a scone and took it outside to a table.

The weather in London had been quite warm so a lot of people were sitting outside. 

Remus was on his phone, debating whether to text Sirius, while also checking on Instagram. Finally, he clicked text on Sirius contact and began typing.