Gravity

Alex was falling.

He'd been falling for years.

It had started early, very early, when he was five or six and home alone because Ian had gone and left him with no one because it was just a night. He didn't need anyone to look after him because it wouldn't even be a full day. He would be back before Alex even knew he was gone.

And then Alex was older and Ian was gone for weeks and he had nothing to say and nothing to make it right because it wasn't right and he needed family and he would never have it, not really.

Because even when Ian was back he was never truly there. He always had one foot out the door, his mind far away, his hands covered in blood that never washed off- not when he was cooking or cleaning or helping Alex with his homework or tucking him into bed and kissing him on the forehead and telling him it was going to be alright, I'm here now, I'm here.

Alex hadn't known, back then- he hadn't understood, not like how he understood years later, when his own hands held their own gore. He had been just a child, alone and afraid and wondering if his uncle would ever come back and love him and care for him and treat him like the scared and lonely boy that he was.

And then Ian died and things got worse and then they got even worse, and Alex was still falling and he thought that surely it shouldn't be like this anymore. He should have crashed, he should have hit the ground, he should be below the earth, he should be suffocating in the mud and filth under the surface instead of god still falling and falling and falling with no one there to catch him because everyone he'd ever loved was dead and dead and dead and dead and dead.

But Gravity had yet to let go, and the wind was still rushing past him and Alex did not think that anything would ever be okay ever again.