Chapter Text
Gwaine takes a long wiff of his bag of provisions. It’s dim in the musty basement, the sun setting earlier and earlier with each passing day, and he would rather not waste the batteries in his torch just to check his food supply. His nose can do that well enough for him, thank you very much. And whatever his sense of smell can’t confirm, touch can lend a helping hand. Literally.
A bad pun, but Gwaine snickers to himself anyway. No one else is around to laugh or roll their eyes at him, so he might as well enjoy himself for the absolute joy that he is.
Aside from a few apples that have gone soft in places, everything seems fine, nothing to make him sick. Food poisoning is a bitch. And Gwaine certainly isn’t going to complain about a couple pieces of bruised fruit. If he was going to complain, it wouldn’t be about that.
He surveys the room again, just to confirm he is in fact alone. He does this as often as he can, a habit born of instinct and well-learned paranoia. He can’t hear anything down here, not from outside, not even the scuffle of rats in the floors above.
Well, it’s still early; the rats are not exactly active yet. They’re like Gwaine in that respect, nocturnal creatures for the most part.
Although perhaps Gwaine is more like them than they are like him—more than he cares to admit. They’re both scavengers, dirty, unwanted, pests. And he’s had more than a few people try to... exterminate him.
Yep, he and rats share a few things, a home being one of them, but that still doesn’t mean they’re at all amiable with one another. He’s got his little basement fortified as best he can, having blocked every nook and cranny with whatever forgotten items he could find. When he first arrived, there had been a lot of abandoned bookcases and filing cabinets to barricade with. This building might have been an office or library at some point. There hadn't been much left on the ground floor when he first found and explored the building—not much beyond peeling wallpaper, a shattered window, and grime. The place had been emptied when it was abandoned, but not frantically. Everything had been carefully removed, probably after the mystery business went under or found a new home closer to the business district. They left some items in the basement, either for storage or the things left were unnecessary, stuff that could be done without. Things discarded to collect dust, to be taken in by new owners, or left to rust and rot.
On a bad day, Gwaine supposes he might be a bit like them, too.
Which is a seriously disheartening thought. He really needs to be around more people, but that’s difficult to accomplish when one lives in abandoned buildings and changes towns like socks: every two weeks or so.
Unless, of course, he happens upon a comfy spot, like this one here. No one visits his new fort, not even rowdy teenagers looking to drink and to spray-paint incomprehensible messages on the walls. It’s rather remote, farther out from the center of the city, but still not in the middle of the suburbs. Suburbs are tricky. All those people who never really venture outside of their homes, but always know if a strange, scruffy-looking man is wandering around the neighborhood—which, actually, isn’t a bad thing, in general, but it certainly doesn’t make Gwaine’s life any easier. At least in cities no one really looks twice at someone so unkempt as Gwaine. In fact, they avoid looking at him. And they don’t seem to throw that much of a hissy fit if they catch him stealing. He thinks they’re just more used to it than suburb folk.
Not that anyone ever really catches him. He’s much too good at it, now. It’s probably his best skill, besides fighting brutes and beating tipsy pub patrons in drinking matches (and then collecting the betting money in both cases).
Speaking of which.
Gwaine gathers all of his things together, meager though they are, and stores them in the largest, most secure cabinet. The metal is pretty thick, and he’s decently assured that any rats who do manage to sneak in won’t have enough time to also chew their way into the cabinet.
Items secured, he then turns his attention to the exit. Well, his exit. He long ago blockaded the door to the basement against snoopy humans (who haven’t shown up yet), rats, and any other curious wild creatures. In case anyone or anything did happen to visit, he could at least have a head-start.
The crates creak beneath his weight, as he hoists himself up towards the window. Grunting softly—his shoulder is still sore from last night’s fight—Gwaine grips the concrete sill and pulls himself up. The window is rectangular, longer in length than width. It’s a bit narrow, but after years of this lifestyle he navigates himself through it with little to no effort. His belly scrapes against the outside cement as he swiftly wriggles out of the window, which he shuts behind him with a firm tug.
Standing, Gwaine takes a quick inventory of himself. He straightens his clothes, swiping the dirt off his front and back as best he can. He scrubs a hand through his beard (or scruff, because even though the stuff on the top of his head grows like a weed, his beard somehow manages to stay on just this side of attractively gruff), checking for lingering bits of apple or dried blood. His hair, which is greasy and limp from a lack of decent washing in ages, he ties back into a small ponytail with an elastic band. If he participates in the fights tonight with the rest of the bums, he’ll have to take it out again; it’s too easy to grab a hold of. But for now, he’s not headed to the ring. Best to appear acceptable if he’s going to charm someone into buying him a drink. He sprays a liberal amount of body spray from a tiny, portable bottle (one of those travel ones he swiped from a drug store) to cover up the stink. His stink.
Satisfied, Gwaine starts forward in the direction of the nearest, preferably shadiest pub he can find.
Gwaine is homeless. He has been for a while now. Years. It’s a long story, one that involves little heroism on his part and a great deal of tragedy.
He doesn’t like to talk about it.
What’s done is done and now he lives on the streets, traveling from town to town, city to city. He thinks he’s covered almost the entire island by this point, having collected numerous stories along the way, not all of them flattering. He’ll gladly tell anyone who will listen those tales because, as Gwaine had not realized when he began, there is something terribly lonely about being on the run.
And it was not until later, perhaps a month after, that Gwaine also realized that this night, fateful as he would later call it, was the night he officially stopped running.