A BEAUTIFUL CRIME // STORAGE

[ALLOY]

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alcohol abuse warning:

He knew his mother wasn't okay. She had mood swings dependent on the glass bottles she drank from, and he learned to count them, to know when he could talk to her and when he couldn't. Three were too few, six just right, and after that he had to start hiding them from her reach, because the one time he hadn't didn't end well. She was in the clinic for a few days while he sat in their room, where he was told to pour out every bottle he found. He did, because the doctor knew a lot more than Butch, except when she came back, when she couldn't find any- she yelled so loudly he thought whatever lived outside the vault could hear her. She broke things. Told him he was useless just like his father, and he knew she didn't mean it, she was sick, but he couldn't pour the bottles out after that.

Butch never said anything about the ration cards she spent on alcohol, and when anyone else did, he answered with his fists. She wasn't an alcoholic. She just...needed to feel better, and he told himself that for years, but when he turned thirteen, he couldn't pretend anymore. It was one more day of many where she hadn't gotten enough food because she wanted alcohol instead, and when he went to bed hungry that night, ignoring what she did wasn't an option.

She didn't want his help, though. She only wanted anything to do with him when she was drunk, sometimes calling him by his father's name, sometimes making up names because she'd forgotten. He couldn't leave her, couldn't let anyone else talk shit about her, couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't, because he loved her. She was his mother. It didn't matter that she didn't seem to feel the same way.