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“I can't just forget you. That's not how it works. You told me to grab the world with my own two hands, didn't you? I did! It took years, but I did it, so no, I can't forget you. I won't...”
“Who are you talking to, Grey?” Gordon asked softly.
“Eeeeh!?”
Gordon frowned as the shorter woman collapsed in on herself and fell to the floor. She covered her face and sniffed pathetically into her palms. Gordon found an empty spot next to her shaking form, and plopped down.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Gordon felt better knowing that they were safe inside Henry's castle.
“I just can't forget him!” Grey sobbed into her hands again, and Gordon instinctively put one hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.
“He's not gone,” he told her gravely. “He's alive, safe.”
Grey finally picked her head up and turned her watery gaze to Gordon's demure form. Gordon counted two, greyish blue eyes he didn't even know existed until recently – and they were steeped in agony.
He pulled the woman into a hug. Grey yelped before throwing her arms around Gordon and sobbing into his chest. He rubbed soothing circles into her back while she sniffled and mumbled into his shirt. He'd practiced this form of comfort while watching Vanessa and Noelle. Friends held each other when they were in agony, and Vanessa often let Noelle cry in her arms when the younger girl had just returned from a trip to the Silva estate.
Pain came in different forms, something Gordon knew very well. For himself, it was a mixture of social and emotional isolation. It was similar for Noelle, but Grey's was different. In the short time that she'd been open with showing her true form, Gordon found that Grey's pain was more like Luck's than anyone else's.
The physical scars of a life spent being beaten and pushed around always remained. Sure, there was magic and makeup, and even big clothes, but the chafed knees of a housemaid never disappeared, nor did the scars of a leather belt that were peppered generously across Luck's back. The first time Gordon got a good luck at Grey's hands, he noticed the tell-tale signs of lye burns. With the burned hands, the chafed knees he noticed during a swim in the river behind Henry's castle, and her stark refusal to be seen in public, he surmised that his friend was a maid treated so poorly that she barely had a spine to stand on. It was worse when Grey told her that she was a maid to her own family. Anger had coursed through Gordon's chest, but so had realization.
And Gordon understood – before he met Yami Sukehiro, he too was a spineless creature milling around his hometown, with no friends to remind him that his life, that his very existence was worth it. And so Gordon held her close, he held her close and let her cry because everyone had their own kind of pain, their own scars, and some of those scars came in the form of physical reminders, whereas others were cuts deeply ingrained into their psyche, and who was Gordon to judge? Grey was his friend, and his friend deserved empathy and sympathy, she deserved all the joy and wonders of this world.
She deserved to be happy.
“He's OK,” Gordon told her again with a soft smile. “He's safe. You saved him, remember? You healed him; he's alive, and he'll never forget us. He'll never forget you. He loves you too, Grey.”
Grey didn't bother denying her feelings. Perhaps being openly in love with people dumber than you was indeed the most human of practices. Noelle loved Asta, and Vanessa loved Yami, and now Grey – Grey loved Gauche.
“I love him,” she croaked finally. She picked her head up from Gordon's chest and finally calmed down. She sheepishly rubbed her nose while Gordon just smiled. So what if he looked dastardly when he smiled? He meant his smiles. They were for his friends, for the people he loved the most, and it didn't matter if others thought him inhuman and ugly, he was a Black Bull, and the Black Bulls were a family.
“I thought I lost him,” she said hopelessly. “That's twice now...”
“And there will be more,” Gordon promised her, “and every time, he'll come back to us – to you. It's the life we chose, remember? Every moment matters.”
Grey wobbled her head in a jerky nod. “I want him to look at me more!”
Gordon grabbed her jittery hands and looked into her face intently. “Then make him!”
Grey swiftly nodded yes, and Gordon followed. Before he knew it, she was back to blushing and sputtering, and it felt like peace on its own. She rambled about all the little things she loved about their one-eyed friend, and he mumbled back at her about all the times their one-eyed friend hid his blush from the other Black Bulls, and they kept trading words, feelings, and emotions as the rain and thunder subsided, and a stream of light entered through the lone window of the room.
“He's OK now,” Gordon told her again.
“He's OK now,” Grey repeated.
“What are you weirdos doing in my room?”
Gordon and Grey turned to Gauche's dripping wet form. He had a bag of groceries in one hand, and a Marie doll in the other. Gordon assumed the groceries were for Charmy, but Gauche would always put his Marie merch away before completing his household chores.
Gauche's lone eye twitched as a mirror rose to attack. “You have five seconds- OOMF!”
Gordon and Grey had jumped in unison, and before they knew it, Gauche was on the floor, his vegetables sprawled out, and his Marie doll somewhere in the corner. The youngest of the three tried to struggle out of their vice grip but failed spectacularly, and Gordon and Gauche both held onto him tightly and hugged. They hugged him and Grey cried and when Charmy and Luck walked in to see the commotion, they jumped into the cuddle pile while Gauche's soul left his body. Thankfully, Gordon was able to snatch it before it disappeared and stuffed it back into Gauche's mouth.
Later, when they were all seated at the table for dinner, Gordon smiled and nodded encouragingly to Grey. She nodded back, and with wobbly hands, served Gauche a helping of corn. Gordon inwardly cheered. Grey blushed. Gauche didn't bother saying thank you, but passed her the Worcestershire sauce she liked to dip her boiled eggs into.
Henry's castle hummed with love and good vibes, and Gordon watched as Grey tried her best, little by little, to be Gauche's hero.
And Gordon smiled, because that was his best friend, and he was proud of her.