little bird // r.keene

xvii. ink.

"You're crazy... badass... but crazy." Wren told him as Hawk held up the stencil. It was a huge Hawk with a blue mohawk, matching his own.

"Maybe, but I'm totally okay with being both those things." He told her, "It's going to go across my back from shoulder to shoulder."

They were in a small tattoo shop, walls plastered with posters of different pieces art, beautiful murals, and the occasional band poster, Hawk had told her he knew the guy that owned this place and he was happy to give him a bit of free ink every now and again.

"As long as you like it because-" When Wren had turned around to face him, done looking at the walls, he had stripped himself of his shirt- revealing the physical effects of all the workouts they had been doing.  "-because you have to live with it." She barely finished her sentence and before she could play it off, Hawk had already noticed her staring.

"Like what you see?" He taunted, taking a rather large step towards her, half closing the gap between them.

"You wish." She snapped, with the same daring look.

"Hmmm- sure." he nodded along with her obvious denial.

"I'll clap when I'm impressed." She said and Hawk couldn't help but laugh at her dry sense of humor.

"You ready to do this?" said the man, Wren didn't quite catch his name but he was putting on rubber gloves in preparation for the tattoo.

"Let's do it." Hawk said and lay in the chair on his front, and the man began to prep the stencil. Wren walked over to the other side of the room and began to flip through a book of other stencil designs. These ones included much more simplistic designs, and her eyes rested on a flower, a sunflower. A similar design to Will's tattoo.

"You found one you like?" She was snapped out of her train of thought and looked up to see another woman, her arms covered in tattoos.

"How much is this one?" Wren asked, pointing to the delicate flower.

"You are a friend of Hawk's so you are a friend of our. It'll cost you nothing." The woman told her with a smile and guided Wren to another chair.

"Where would you like it?" She asked, stencil in hand.

"My left wrist- just here," She pointed to the area, quite close to the hand but her wrist nonethe less, just like Will's

"Wait- Wren are you getting a tattoo?" Hawk asked, his face still down on his chair across the room. The girl laughed at the disbelief in his voice but didn't answer and that was all the confirmation he needed.

"So why a sunflower?" The woman asked, she told Wren her name was Lila.

"It was my friends favourite." Wren answered, hoping the conversation would fade out into another topic. Anxious that Hawk would here too much and ask questions about it later.

Rue was a private topic.

"I'm sorry." Lila said, not looking up from her work, the needle had stung at first but Wren had quickly adjusted.

"What for?"

"You said was." Lila told her.

"I did." And that was all that needed to be said, Lila understood.

14 hours had gone by and the Hawk on Hawk's back was finally finished, he groaned and stood from the chair.

"Enjoy." The artist said and stood, "I need a cup of coffee." He walked into the back room.

"Thanks a lot." he smiled and looked at his back in the mirror, it was perfect. Hawk glanced over to the corner of the room, where a small arm chair was filled with Wren and a blanket, softly asleep. Her wrist stuck out from underneath, wrapped in a dressing, indicating where her own tattoo was placed.

But something in his head clicked.

He had never seen her speaking to anyone other that him, Miguel, Sensei Lawrence or Demetri. She went too and from school alone and despite her firecracker personality that he had grown to adore- she mainly kept to herself.

Coming to think of it- Hawk knew hardly anything personal about Wren.

It was my friends favourite. She had said... but who's?

Was it the same person who she went to see the day they first met and why she didn't hang out with them after school? Hawk had to remind himself that she had literally just moved from a whole other city and that means she must have left lots of friends behind... right?

But the way she had said it, even with his head down in the chair over the buzzing of the needle he had heard the drop in her voice. Telling him her friend had left her and not the other way around.

Some one began to clap and he looked up from where his gaze had trailed to the window back to her to see her eyes were open and looking at him.

"Give me a twirl." Wren ordered and he let out a breathly chuckle and turned to show her his back. She began to clap more... letting him know she was impressed.

And Hawk realised, looking at Wren, she's really quite lonely. Lonelier than she lets on. Maybe even lonelier than she realizes.