***.

His mother’s hair was untidy, strung over the couch pillow, her eyes flickering as she lay there. The inside of her elbow was bruised, needles lying around. This is home, he thought.
He picked up anything that might be a danger to the kids if they got them, as they would be home from school soon, and placed them high, sharp ends pointed away.
He walked over to his mother. He didn’t resemble her at all, he took after his father. Blonde hair, green eyes and sharp cheekbones. The only thing he got from his mother was his height, quite tall and small pouted lips. At that moment her mouth was slack, showing yellow, aged teeth as she got her fix. He waited a minute more and nudged her shoulder.
“What the fuck do you want,” She growled at him, her eyes slits, though still burning a hole in him.
“I need some money for dinner, Sam and Georgia need to eat tonight,” He didn’t look at her, he avoided that at all costs.
“Fuck off you little prick I got none,” She breathed out, her eyes tried to follow him as he left the room until she could no longer hold them open and they closed to the rush still sweeping through her.

He walked back to his bedroom fuming, his bitch of a mother had spent the food money on drugs again.
A single bed and a chest of draws was all he had in his room. Clothes spread all over the floor along with rubbish. Holes lined the walls where his fist or foot had gone through them. He shut his eyes, anger flowing free, a sharp pain and a loud bang. The sound of distorted footsteps invaded his ears. The door burst open, a short, stocky man filled the doorframe. His father had given him this talk before, no more fucking holes in the walls. He felt his father’s eyes on the back of his head, the top of his head still in the wall.
“What have I fucking told you?” He kicked an empty box of cereal to the other side of the room. Silence for half a second was too much of a wait for his father. “WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I TOLD YOU?”

Eyes still closed hoping for a good outcome he slowly raised his hand behind his back, his middle finger raised right at the lump in the doorway. He didn’t hear him coming let alone have time to react. A fist clenched in his hair, his head ripped back and smashed back into the wall, cheek splitting and creating another hole. Tears slipped through his clenched eyes, his legs buckled and he fell, his father holding him up by his hair.
“You,” He could smell rum on his father’s breath as he came in close. “Fucking faggot, get the hell out of my house…NOW!”

He was pushed into the ground and he watched through tearing eyes as his father kicked his way through the rubbish littering the floor. A drop of blood fell onto the side of his nose and he flinched. His eyebrow had been split too. He managed to work through the nausea and got to his knees, his head thumping.
He crawled towards a small bag he used for school. On his way he scraped up a few clothes and a torch he found under some ripped up pants and put them in his bag.
He stood up, strands of his long hair now a deep red. He left without thinking, choosing not to care what would happen to the kids, young as they are they would live. He walked out past his mother, a band around her arm ready for a shot.

As he left the house, he walked into a new world he would have to get used to, fast