Who: Lane Smith, ??? Profit What: Open log! Where: London, England, outside the Red Rat. When: Tonight works! Warnings: None now, but we shall see.
The streets of London has always been home, before.
Lane might have had a home in the brothel, so long as he did errands and made his dirty urchin self scarce in front of the customers, but it had never felt as much like home as the streets did. The streets were where the other children played, the children who weren't broken little girls and boys pretending to be adults. There, they had distrusted him simply for being male, a fact he couldn't do anything about. On the streets, it didn't matter quite so much, and so that was where he had spent most of his time.
Ting-Yu had changed that, and then Regan. He couldn't have Ting-Yu in the streets, couldn't keep someone who would always be young and innocent, in her own way, in a place that dirty. Regan's offer had seemed like the best way out, the only way out, and then when he'd really gotten to know the woman who offered her friendship he'd wanted to be better for her, too. After that, it had seemed he had no choice but to remove himself from the streets and become that person they both seemed to believe he was.
In reality, it hadn't been that long since he'd been living off scraps and hoping that he'd at least be able to sleep with a full belly that night. It hadn't been long since he'd hidden in shadows, hoping that the men with the roaming hands wouldn't see him and decide they'd rather have their fun with the not-so-hired help instead of the girls. He'd been worrying about whether he'd still have a place to sleep at night only a few months ago. It only seemed like an eternity.
Still, leaning against the building and looking down the street, he knew he could only be a spectator. Most of the street kids didn't last long, and he didn't recognize any of the boys and girls lurking in the spaces between the buildings, watching the boy with clothes that fit and didn't have holes anywhere as though he was an alien. He felt like an alien, the knowledge that he had a warm home and a soft bed waiting for him whenever he decided to leave lurking in spite of his attempts to keep an eye out for anything that might go wrong.
There were several hours left, still, before Regan got off work. He'd left early, just in case he'd decided to go visit some of his old haunts... but looking around, he wasn't sure if any of those places would still be his at all. They'd probably be filled with frightened kids who wouldn't appreciate someone bursting into their safe places, and he knew what that was like. He'd never want to do that to anyone else. Instead, he just watched life on the street go by and tried to figure out exactly when he'd stopped belonging to it.