Who: Izzy and Simon When: Early July Where: Baxter's Bakery What: Another encounter Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete
Simon was still trying to process the things that had happened recently. It was all too crazy to believe, but he’d seen the spider, on the news, with his own eyes so it was hard to tell himself that it wasn’t real. Sure, it could have been doctored; there was plenty that could be done with CGI, but others had talked about it as if it were real, so how could he say it wasn’t?
Just before that he’d started having dreams. The first few seemed more or less just like how things had happened in real life like meeting Clary and joining the band then there had been one with Clary, at a club on her birthday where she claimed to see people who weren’t really there. When he’d told Clary she’d brought him to a building that was cloaked by magic where he’d met Isabelle. Meeting Isabelle had been nice, but he had been too shocked to really do much more than stare dumbly at either of them.
Of course he’d been thinking of Isabelle ever since which complicated his feelings for Clary just a little bit. So, if he hadn’t been confused enough by everything else, now he was confused about his feelings. Of course during all of this he started having more dreams. Clary and her mom had disappeared. Luke said they went upstate, but he hadn’t believed him and had camped out in Luke’s backyard, trying to find out what the other man was hiding. Three days had passed before Clary showed up again with some guy and together they’d broken into Luke’s house only to have him return with two men. Just before he’d woken up there was a mention of going back to the Institute.
After waking up, he’d decided to go over to Clary’s house to talk to her about it cause it was obvious that she’d already dreamt quite a bit. On the way, he’d realized he hadn’t had any coffee before leaving the apartment, wanting to leave before his bandmates woke up and started asking why he looked so weird so he stopped in at a coffee shop/bakery.
Izzy had enjoyed meeting Simon, she wasn’t making any assumptions here in the real world though she hoped they would be friends. They’d been getting closer in her dreams and he really was becoming a good friend. Besides here he was friends with Clary too and since the other girl was her parabatai they’d see each other a fair bit.
She hadn’t expected to see him for a little while though, so when she turned to find him entering the bakery she smiled, “Simon” she said with a wave, “Good to see you, how can we help?”
Simon hadn’t expected to see Isabelle at the bakery and stood there stunned for a moment or two before he finally took a step closer to the counter, “Hey. It’s a small world after all, huh?” He glanced around a little at menu on the wall, his eyes falling on one item in particular, “What’s a sparkling latte?”
“You’ll find that true around here more than most places” she told him with a grin, “It’s our speciality drink. We have exclusive rights to a local farm which produces naturally sparkling milk and we basically use that milk to create a sparkling latte. It’s very popular, you should try it”
Simon’s brows rose over his glasses, “Sparkling milk? How does that happen? Do they feed glitter to the cows?” It sounded extremely crazy, but then again almost everything that had happened since Simon had moved to Orange County was pretty crazy.
“Nope, just happens naturally. I’ve no idea how but we’ve had everything tested and it’s all clear. Not harmful at all just quirky” Simon was going to find a lot of crazy things happened around here, you kind of got used to it. Or at least Izzy had.
“Well...if you’re sure that it’s not harmful then I guess I’ll take one of those.” He glanced at the case in front of him, “And one of those scones too.” If Isabelle said that the sparkling milk was okay and the health inspector hadn’t shut down the bakery then Simon would give it a try.
"I promise you it's fine, I think you'll like it" she told him before smiling, "Good choice" she added with a nod at the request for a scone, "I baked those fresh this morning" everything was fresh that morning but Izzy specifically had done the scones.
“You baked them? This isn’t your bakery, is it?” Isabelle hadn’t mentioned anything about owning a bakery when he’d met her at the Institute, but she had been baking cookies at the time, so it was possible, but at the same time she was only his and Clary’s age and Simon didn’t think it was possible for someone that young to own their own business.
“No, it belongs to Audrey but I’m the Assistant Manager and apprentice baker” Izzy told him, it was obvious she was proud of that. She had worked hard to get where she was and felt like she had definitely found what she was meant to do.
“Wow. That’s impressive.” Simon said, glancing around again as Izzy got his order, “So, how long have you been here? You’re from New York, right?” Simon recalled Izzy’s post about the picture of the lightning strike in New York that a friend of hers had sent her. “So are Clary and I, but you probably know that since you and Clary are friends.”
“I’ve been here over two years now” Izzy told him, “I followed my brother when he moved here. Turned up on his doorstep as a surprise” grinning at the memory. “I do know that” she confirmed, smiling as he spoke about her parabatai, that was going to be a surprise when Clary told him.
“It’s kind of a small world, right? That we’re all from New York, but never ran into each other till now.” Clary and Simon had been friends since they were little, but he had never seen Isabelle around. He would have remembered seeing her. Or would he? He’d always been preoccupied with Clary or the band, so would he actually remember seeing Isabelle around? Either way he certainly remembered her now.
Izzy grinned, “New York isn’t that small and we didn’t tend to go over to Brooklyn all that often, we stuck to Manhattan” she shrugged, knowing that Clary had grew up there. It wasn’t overly surprising to her that they’d never connected. “But it’s definitely ironic that we’re all here now” And sharing dreams.
“I guess that’s true.” Simon said, leaning on the counter a little before standing up straight again, “You said you followed your brother out here? So your parents are still in New York? What’d they think about you moving out here?” Simon was now trying to think of anything he could to continue talking to Izzy and he hoped it wasn’t obvious.
“Hold on” she said as she called someone to cover her for a few while she moved to a table, tugging Simon along, “That’s better. Now we can talk without holding up the line” she grinned, “Uh right yes my parents and little brother, Max, they’re still in New York. They kind of realised they couldn’t stop me. And while I know they’d prefer it if I was still there they’ve accepted that I’m doing pretty well here”
Simon hadn't expected Izzy to get someone else to cover the register just so she could talk to him, but he followed her regardless. "What else do you do out here? I mean, do you go to school?" Simon had taken a year off after graduating the previous June and now he was trying to figure out if he was going to apply to school in California or focus on the band.
“Between working here full time and completing my apprenticeship I’m pretty full” Izzy laughed, “I graduated a while ago and started the apprenticeship almost straight away” She told him, “What about you? Any plans?”
Simon nodded and took a sip of his latte, "Wow. That really is good." He took a moment to take a good look at the sparkling latte, almost becoming completely sidetracked and forgetting what Izzy had asked him, "Oh...sorry. Yeah, I don't know. Focusing on the band right now. I mean, that's the whole reason we came out here." Actually, he'd come out there to be with Clary, but if he were honest, he didn't really know where he stood now that Clary had all these new interesting friends.
“The sparkling latte is pretty good right?” Izzy said with a smile, when she noticed he was distracted. “Oh right, your band, of course. Have you got any gigs coming up?” she asked him curiously.
Simon nodded and took another sip then shook his head, "No, we don't have anything at the moment. Eric had a friend who has a cousin who works at a club and he's gonna try to get us a gig." It had been easier in New York cause they all knew people out there who knew people, but in California, they were all pretty much in the same boat not having any connections.
"You know we've had people play here before, I could ask Audrey about it for you if you'd like" Izzy suggested to him, after all if she could help out she would be happy to.
"Um, I don't know if a bakery is the right place." Simon appreciated the offer, but they weren't really the kind of band to play in bakeries and coffee shops, "We play mostly rock and sometimes punkish stuff. Depending on who does the set list."
"Ah I see. Well I'll be sure to keep an ear out for any other places which might be more suitable. You could maybe try the universities. I bet they might be interested" she said trying to think of other places that hired bands.
"I appreciate the offer, but I don't think a lot of your clientele would appreciate it. We're also kind of loud." Simon took another sip of his latte, "But the universities aren't a bad idea."
Izzy gave a light laugh, "Fair enough" she nodded, "If I can think of anything else I'll be sure to let you know"
“Thanks.” Simon started rummaging around in his messanger bag and finally pulled out a slightly bent card, “This is kind of old, but my number is still the same.” He handed the card over to Izzy, “Eric and I got them made when we started the band. Thought it’d be a good idea to have cards so we could give them out.” His cheeks flushed slightly as he realized that he was giving his number to a pretty girl, which was something that didn’t happen all that often.
“It’s definitely a good idea” Izzy said with a smile, “And handy too” she added, before her name was called from behind the counter. “Sorry, I should get back but I’ll drop you a text soon and we can catch up properly if you want?”
Simon’s head turned as Izzy was called and he nodded as he turned his attention back to her, “Right. Don’t want you to get in trouble or anything.” He picked up his latte and scone as he stood, “It was good to see you again after I kind of spazzed at your place.” Simon was still a little iffy on the whole thing that happened at the Institute, but now that he’d had a few more dreams, it was getting harder to deny that anything was happening around them.
“Don’t worry about it, it was a lot to take in. I think we sometimes forget how used to the crazy we are around here” Izzy told him somewhat apologetically, “But it was really nice to see you again”