He never really got shitfaced in front of me until about the third month in.

He’d been drunk and clingy, drunk and tired, drunk and horny. Drunk and angry.

He’d never been drunk and sad though. Which, when held to Brian Kinney’s standards, meant being absolutely shitfaced.

I knew that because I’d gotten drunk and cried one time, way back in the September of 2000. Early on. He’d been drunk and clingy that night, all over me and giggling like he was the fucking teenager and he’d whispered too loudly “you’re fucking shitfaced” before doubling over in the middle of the half empty street in laughter. That had been a good night.

But then it’d been three months in and he was just sitting there. A mouthful of Beam left in the bottle between his legs and his head sort of bowed in a way that made me want to cry for no reason other than I knew he wasn’t okay.

“I fucking...hate the smell of this shit.”

He’d waved the bottle around a bit and then chuckled before swallowing down the last bit with a barely there wince.

“Then why drink it?”

He ignored me, his hand coming up to wipe the last of the drink on his lips, before leaning forward to slam the bottle against the coffee table. “It’s okay though. It doesn’t smell like the stuff he drank. Just...kinda smells like the stuff he drank.”

I didn’t ask again. Even though I wanted to. I was stupid back then, I didn’t know that the best way to get him to talk was to jab at him when he’s drunk. I just sat down next to him. Touched him. Pet his hair.

He didn’t cry.

He was just shitfaced.

And then it was four months and Ted was jabbing at him about it so he’d gotten drunk and turned me down when I asked if he wanted a blowjob before he’d stormed off with a huff about not needing some stupid vanilla cake batter to get good head. I didn’t question that either. I thought it was some stupid half-assed attempt at an insult and I’d laughed it off and waited for him by the door.

He brought a pretty good looking trick back to the loft and I’d sat in the living room while he fucked him.

And then five months in and he’d signed his parental rights away and he’d smelled like Beam again and he’d gotten shitfaced and even then I hadn’t pried too far into his head.

He’d avoided me for a few days but then I’d slipped into the loft while he was at work and pretended to be asleep when he’d come home so he had just snuggled up behind me and called me Sonny Boy while he sniffed at my shoulders. It took everything in me not to turn around and smother him with my love, so I just settled for relaxing back into him.

At six months he got shitfaced over his dad dying and then got shitfaced again when I tried to ask him about it and then he kicked me out and made me sleep at Deb’s for a few nights because “that’s where you live, Sunshine, so fuck off.”

When he let me back we ate Sour Patch Kids while I sketched him watching some James Dean movie that he knew every word of.

“He always smelled like cheap bourbon and fucking peanuts.”

I didn’t know what else to say back then, so I just mumbled “you hate peanuts” and he scoffed before muttering “I know”.

By eight months I’d taken a bat to the head and he’d developed a drinking problem that would have rivaled his fathers if not for the fact that he was doing everything in his power to never become him.

He’d come home with sex and bourbon on his skin and he’d scrub and scrub in the shower before getting into bed but the Beam would still on his breath when he turned towards me and I didn’t know how to tell him it gave me a headache, so we’d just kiss and then hope it would lead to something. It never did, at that point.

Eventually I’d grow some balls and tell him to brush his fucking teeth if he was going to breathe in my face after drinking half the liquor store and he’d chuckle and ask when I got so brave.

"In the May of 2001," I’d say. And he’d smile sadly when I imitated the swinging of a baseball bat.