When Eddie Diaz was nineteen, he pulled an entire platoon to safety. Death hung in the air, seeped into his skin, infiltrated every one of his senses.

But he got them out. He got all of them out.

He came home, though a piece of him was left out there, in the desert, along with his blood that stained the sand. He mourned who he was before he signed his life away. Eddie learned what it was like to grieve without a dead body as proof or reason. He learned what it was like to feel an ache, deep in your soul, with nowhere to place it.

There were a few nights, after everyone in the house succumbed to sleep, where Eddie would slip out of bed. He’d leave Shannon’s peaceful form, the only time she truly looked relaxed, and tip toe through his childhood home.

He’d sit in the living room, surrounded by family photos and proof he was once a child, once soft and carefree, and he’d stare. Eddie would memorize every last detail of what he looked like as a kid. He’d look at pictures of him, Adriana, and Sophia. Birthday parties, Christmas, Easter. Happy, light. Free.

Then, once the sickening feeling settled in his stomach, he’d slink to the bathroom and he’d stare. He’d study his face in the mirror, trying to connect the happy kid he was with the ghost staring back at him. His mind would try and erase the worry lines, the bags under his eyes, the permanent frown.

Eddie would stand there and wait until he could see the happy kid again. He’d wait and wait and wait.

The sun would slowly rise, creaks would sound around the house. The world would come back to life, and Eddie would still be standing there. Waiting.

The kid never came.

—

He tried a new environment, told himself the grief cannot find him if he runs. Shannon was gone, his parents were just waiting for him to slip up, and Eddie was fading. So he packed up what existed of his and Chris’ life and headed for Los Angeles.

He remembers checking the rearview mirror every minute for the first few hours of their drive, half expecting to see six year old him, screaming and begging for him to stay. With each mile though, he grew lighter. He convinced himself that he did it, he outran it. He succeeded.

Then, Shannon walks back into their lives and dies. Eddie is out of the battlefield, he thinks, but for a brief moment he’s not sure. Staring down at the woman you love, watching her blood seep out and stain the ground, it gets confusing. It’s hard to remember that you did make it out, you made it out.

Her hand slips, her eyes close. He’s handed a packet full of her clothes and belongings. Another piece of him breaks off, floats away. He tells his son, watches him learn in real time what grief is. Eddie watches it find him, steal him away.

Would Chris wonder what happened to the kid who used to be happy? Would he grow up and learn to haunt himself, visit who he used to be like a deranged madman and beg?

Grief taps on Eddie’s shoulder and laughs. It mocks him, dances and cheers. It kisses him on the cheek and sings for it missed its vessel! It longed to return, to blacken his insides, to remind him of what he lost and what he still has left to lose.

All he could do was wrap his arms around his son and hope it was enough to ward it away, hope he was enough.

When he was a kid, and his sisters would be annoying little sisters, poking and proding him, trying to get a rise, his mom would tell him the same thing. She would look at him, bored and indifferent, and say if you just ignore them, they’ll stop. The girls wanted attention. If Eddie didn’t feed into it, they would find something else to do.

These words come back to him as an echo, poor advice from a mom who just wanted her son to stop crying and her husband to stay put. But, as grief chokes him, he remembers it. He figures, for a briefly insane moment, that maybe if he ignores the grief, it’ll just get bored and go away. No reaction from Eddie means no entertainment. Why stick around if you aren’t being entertained?

So he buries it deep inside. There’s a funeral. He buries it. His best friend disappears. He buries it. His son mourns. He buries it.

A fist swings at his face and he buries. His own connects with bone, a sickening squelch echoing as blood bubbles to the surface. Bury, bury, bury. His body becomes a horrific display of bruises and cuts. He doesn’t sleep. He ignores the truth, that Shannon is dead and Buck is gone and Chris is flailing and Eddie is a ghost.

There is nowhere else to run. He won’t accept the grief, he won’t let it in.

—

Red glasses. Chris spent hours picking through colors, finally deciding red was the best. Eddie remembers the day he got them and could finally see the world clearly. That smile, the pure joy of knowing what he was missing out on, it was one of the best moments of Eddie’s life.

He couldn’t quite compute that moment with the one in front of him. Red glasses. His son’s red glasses. In Buck’s hands. Buck’s shaking, bloodied hands. Red glasses, but no sign of Chris.

Buck’s broken voice barely reached him, the pleading in his eyes and the tired desperation in his words. All of it went right through Eddie.

That familiar entity strolled up to him, wrapped an arm around his cold, tired shoulders, and sang. His son was gone. His baby, his heart. The kid he raised, loved with everything he had in him. Chris. Independent. Strong. Brilliant. A better, happier version of Eddie. The good thing he was granted, despite all of his faults.

Red glasses. Blood. Cracked voices. Grief.

Eddie was back in familiar waters. He knew how this worked. He was already planning the ways he would try and bury this. His future stretched out before him. It looked like empty, quiet homes. It looked like pictures, the only reminders he’ll have. It looked like red glasses and an empty bedroom, collecting dust, forever frozen in the decoration choices of an eight year old.

Grief. It looked like grief. Miles and miles of grief.

Except, the entity loosened its hold. It sighed, loud, and slinked away from Eddie. It’s disappointed, why is it disappointed? It’s getting exactly what it wants. Eddie turned his head, almost pissed that it would leave, now, when he would probably feel it the most.

Eddie felt him before he saw him. Like a tether, warmth. A light coming in and banishing the future he had just created for himself in his head. Over Buck’s shoulder, wrapped up tight in another person's arms, is a kid that is unmistakably his.

That feeling. Being pulled back from the brink of everything, yanked away from a moment where his life could’ve become irrecoverably worse, it’s one he’ll never forget. Not a drop of air in his lungs, grief slithering into his blood, but then in a split second, it all comes flooding back.

His son was okay, his son was alive. There was a pulse under the cold, frightened skin. Beyond the smell of salt water, there was the unmistakable smell of his kid. The baby smell that he used to sniff when Chris was first born. The one that settles in you and calls to you, reminding you that it was your kid and they were safe.

It was only later, once he’d cleaned Chris up and tucked him in tight, that he realized they had been in the tsunami all day. For every breath Eddie took, every movement he made, Buck and Chris were somewhere else, matching his breath, matching his movements.

There was a moment where they could’ve both been ripped from him, and he would have only known later. He would’ve been working, while their bodies floated from him, far away.

Grief knocks and knocks and knocks.

—

He’s mourned himself before. Can never forget that. He’s laid in a street, some random one on a random day in a random moment where he didn’t have to be there, bleeding out. Smoke in the air, and a blood-covered Buck in front of him. His own blood draining out of him, pooling around him.

He mourned himself. Sat there and saw his entire life flash before his eyes and thought he would never get a chance to make a new memory. He would never see his kid grow up, or be with his friends and family again. Never would he sit on a couch with Buck and watch a movie, or help his Abuela around the house.

No, there on that random street, Eddie Diaz would cease to exist. Everything he’s built, all he’s done, would have been for nothing.

He doesn’t remember surviving that. He doesn’t even remember if grief came to him in his last moments. All he remembers still is blue eyes, a heartbroken plea to hold on, and a son sitting at home who had no idea he wasn’t coming home.

What follows is the complete unraveling of Eddie Diaz. That devastating moment when you realize you can never outrun it. You can never win. Never be free. Life is okay, until it isn’t, and then you’re punching holes in your walls and burning everything around you down.

He thinks that maybe, it was the lack of grief showing up to claim him that day, like he wasn’t worth the visit, that threw him off the deep end. Or maybe, it was the way it seemed to wake grief up. Or maybe, it was learning that the blood on the sand, the months spent not knowing himself, all of it, had been for nothing.

They all died anyway. Every single one of them got out, but not a single one of them survived.

Did grief hide from him that day he was shot because it knew it would come for him soon? Or was grief already somewhere reintroducing itself to Chris? Had it knocked on his son’s door and slithered in, curled around him and promised that soon he would know?

—

Grief never leaves, not when Buck is killed in a flash of haunting light, not when Eddie does everything in his power to keep him alive. Not when Buck takes his first breath off the vent, not when he shows up to his house, late at night and exhausted. Not when the days get slightly better and he feels like maybe he can breathe again.

It doesn’t leave and it never will. Eddie becomes one with it. They meld. His being embodies grief. Grief becomes him.

Grief is who is taking the wheel, controlling his brain, when Kim walks into his life. Grief is the one who blows his entire life up, drives his son far away from him. Grief is the one who helps him lose himself entirely.

Grief is not there the night he dances. For a brief moment, he is just Eddie again. A boy again. He is the kid in the pictures, the kid who played with Adriana and Sophia. He was the kid who didn’t carry the weight of the world on him yet.

For a beautiful moment, he is free.

Bobby dies. Abuela dies.

Grief, never-ending grief.

—

Grief grew into Eddie like a new muscle. He would flex it, test it out, build it. It would almost…ache without use. It was like he’d grown used to it, the idea of grieving. He still didn’t know how to do it properly, but his body knew that he must.

So when grief comes knocking again, it makes all the sense in the world.

He wakes up disoriented, haunted. The second his eyes opened, he could feel it. He could feel the helicopter going down, the feeling of his soaking wet and terrified son, the feeling of holding Shannon’s cold hand. He felt the bullet tear through him, the cold shock of the Bobby phone call, the devastation of Pepa’s cries.

Eddie couldn’t move, he could barely breathe. He was in a sea of grief, he was drowning.

He knew he had to get up, there were things he had to do with his day. He had to go grocery shopping, do laundry, pay bills, and plan the rest of his week. There was a whole list of things, screaming at him, that he had been putting off until his next day off. One thing he couldn’t afford was a visit from his old friend.

A knock on the door breaks through, muffled by the roar of water in his head. Eddie doesn’t bother saying come in or stay out, he knows it’s Buck. Buck will come in, he’ll always come in.

The door creaks open, letting light from the hallway in. Buck stands there, a concerned look on his face, and walks in slowly. He stops at the bed, looking like he was considering something, before lying down next to Eddie.

It’s silent, in their room. Buck lays next to him on top of the sheets, his hands folded and resting on his stomach, waiting for Eddie. Buck, who's never been very good at being quiet and waiting, never been one to sit still, waits and waits and waits.

He doesn’t poke at Eddie, doesn’t push for him to speak. He just waits.

Eddie closes his eyes and swallows hard, trying to fight off the flood of tears that formed the second his guard went down. He tries to find the courage to finally tell someone about this monster who's followed him his whole life. What will his best friend say, after he finds out he’s attached himself to someone so haunted.

He draws a deep breath in, his hands falling to his sides and plucking at the sheets. Eddie watches Buck notice the movements and does his best not to completely fall apart when Buck silently drops one of his hands down, right next to Eddie’s. He doesn’t grab Eddie’s hand, but he does let his pinky rest against his.

The warmth spreads through Eddie entirely. Grounds him. Makes him brave.

“I feel like I spend my whole life waiting,” Eddie whispers, tracing the ceiling with his eyes.

“For what?” Buck asks, softly. His pinky moves to drag across the top of Eddie’s hand.

Eddie turns to him, hopes his devastation isn’t so clear on his face. “For it to come back.” His voice shakes, he sounds… afraid.

Buck’s already staring back, his eyes worried. “Who, Eddie?”

“Grief.”

The way Buck’s face crumbles, absolutely shatters right in front of Eddie’s eyes, makes him want to take it all back. Say it was a joke or something, just steal the words from the stale air and swallow them whole.

But he can’t. It’s out there now, the admittance that Eddie has never truly been alone, once in his life. He is the accumulation of all that has happened to him and the promise that more is to come. He is a man who's been broken down and shattered, shoved into a tiny box that looks a lot like a coffin sometimes.

“It never leaves me alone,” Eddie all but sobs, “I want it to leave me alone.”

“Is it here right now?” Buck whispers, like he’s afraid it can actually hear them.

Eddie nods, a tear finally breaking free. He can feel it trace his face, until it dissolves into his pillow. Grief cackles in the corner of his room. It’s triumphant. It has broken him.

“What can I do? To make it go away?” Also the one who needs to fix things, his Buck.

“Nothing,” Eddie gives him a sad smile, another tear falling. “It’ll tire eventually. I hope.”

Buck seems to hate that answer, judging by the way his whole body seems to stiffen. He wants to help, Eddie knows that, but he doesn’t think he can. He may be too far gone.

A part of him wonders if he told Buck sooner, maybe he could’ve chased him away. Scared him off. Protected him.

Or maybe, grief would’ve taken him too.

“Well, that won’t do,” Buck smiles at him, reaching a hand out to brush the tear away. “What’s helped before, hm? There’s gotta be something.”

Eddie sees flashes of pink. He sees joy. Music plays lightly in his ears, from somewhere far away.

“Dancing,” Eddie says, like it's simple. He wishes it was.

Buck’s eyes light up. “Dancing?”

“Yeah,” Eddie smiles, “dancing. Remember that night, when you showed up after Tommy broke up with you?” Eddie asks and holds back a laugh at the small scrunch of Buck’s nose at the mention. “Before you got there, I was dancing. I think…” he trails off, unsure if he should admit it, “I think that helped.”

“Okay,” Buck nods his head, before standing up from the bed and holding a hand out, “dancing it is.”

Eddie looks at his hand, all of a sudden terrified. He didn’t want to dance, no. He wanted to lay in this bed and let the grief take him. He wanted to give into it. Give it what it finally wants and see if finally it’ll leave him alone.

That could also be the grief talking. He’s lost track of where he ends and grief begins. Can barely trust his own thoughts anymore.

“Come on, Eds,” Buck shakes his hand, “no one can see us. If it’s here right now, if it’s knocking on that pretty head of yours, we’re going to get rid of it the best way we can.”

It seemed silly and embarrassing, and it almost seemed too easy. Like grief wanted him to think something this small could help, could banish it away even briefly. But Buck was standing there, hand out, and god did he look so excited to be able to do something for Eddie.

Eddie wanted to take his hand more than anything, wanted to be brave enough to do so.

He reaches out, wraps a shaky hand around Buck’s strong, solid one. He lets himself be pulled off the bed. They leave the room, a confused grief standing in the corner wondering what they were up to.

“Any song?” Buck asks once they get to the living room, looking at him. Eddie just nods, his head devoid of any thoughts beyond what the fuck was he doing and who did he think he was to try and outrun grief like this. Buck looks down at his phone, tapping away and connecting to the speaker they leave in the room.

Something starts playing from Buck’s phone, he’s not sure he knows it but he vaguely recognizes it. He turns the volume all the way up before looking at him, a goofy smile on his face, and starts to dance. It’s bad, it’s very very bad, but he looks happy. It’s all jerky movements and light jumps and Eddie finds himself laughing a bit.

“Hey, you can’t laugh at me, just dance,” Buck yells over the music, picking his movements up.

Eddie laughs again, but slowly lets himself start to dance. He’s shy about it at first, until he remembers how he felt that night. Like a kid again, like he was happy again.

He lets himself go, in the middle of his living room, with midday light streaming through the windows. Eddie just feels the music and goes for it, his movements flowing. He feels his face turning red from exertion, or from joy. Maybe both.

Buck keeps letting out small little whoops. Eddie looks over at him and Buck is already staring back, his eyes bright and his smile beautiful. They dance. They simply dance.

He sees flashes of himself as a boy, dancing around the living room. He sees that little boy, who once stood in his rearview mirror and waved him off, begged for him to stay, finally settling and coming home.

Eddie sees miles and miles of grief, but in the midst of it all, he sees something bigger, something beautiful.

Eddie is an accumulation of grief, but with that comes more. With that comes joy.

Grief is still there, Eddie can feel it waiting over his shoulder, but at this moment it isn’t in him, it isn’t controlling him. He’s grateful for that, for the brief break in the clouds.

He sees Buck and he sees his family and he sees the promise of more. More, more, more.

He reaches out, takes Buck’s hand, spins him around a little. Buck lets him, letting out a beautiful laugh as he does. They jump together, Eddie trying to match Buck’s jerky movements. They let go.

They are free.