Chapter Text
Raymond didn’t understand at all why people thought he and his boyfriend were cold and unfeeling towards each other. He felt some days that he did nothing BUT feel for Kevin. Stumbling down the street in a lovedrunk haze made stronger by the fact that they were finally living together. Finally occupying the same space, their shared presence always there even when their physical counterparts weren’t. It felt like being together all the time and it was intoxicating, he was sure it showed plainly, that he reeked of it.
Kevin told him when Raymond asked, exasperated, (because he and Raymond had been to a party and Raymond, after rebuffing the advances of a man by saying he had a partner was given a look of pure confusion. "Who?" He'd asked, even though Kevin had been standing next to him the entire night.) that people thought so because they were not affectionate in public. When Raymond asked what that meant (surely it was plain to anyone that they were in love? Surely it was written all over their faces, all over their bodies and in the margins of every word they said to each other?)
“When people speak of affection they usually categorize it as physical affection. Holding hands, embracing, kissing. Though I’ve had a friend who found it odd that we don’t call each other pet names.”
He balched at this. “They expect me to call you pet names in front of other people?”
“Yes.” Kevin said in a tone that indicated he was as perturbed by this notion as his boyfriend. There was a meaningful pause as the information set in. “Please don’t take this conversation as a hint of some sort.” He cautioned.
“I will not, thank you for enlightening me.”
“It was no trouble.”
He thought about it. He thought about holding Kevin’s hand while walking down the street, wrapping their arms around each other and kissing, calling each other by their pet names when they saw each other.
He began to notice other people as well. Girls walking arm in arm, couples waiting in line at the grocery store giggling and kissing quietly, their friends who called out to partners with a wave and a “Honey! Honey over here!”
He could not imagine doing so. Then again, he had never been accused of being affectionate.
He hardly ever hugged his sister, would stand there and accept her arms around him (one of his earliest memories was of detangling himself and her toddler face, shocked and then crying. It broke his heart.) but he built her fortresses and sang the songs he loved to her, delighted when she laughed. When she smiled.
She knew how much he loved her. She knew so surely that she teased him about it, that even his denials could not shake her.
So why?
Why had his first boyfriend broken up with him, red-faced and growling that “I don’t think you actually like me so why don’t we just stop this now?”
Why had his fourth stopped responding to his texts when he refused to kiss him after they had seen a movie (popcorn breathe, germs, the crowds were noisy and overwhelming). "Why didn't you want to kiss him?" Asked every friend he told the story to and even though they called him a jerk and a moron, said he should have just talked to Raymond, they placed that small bit of blame on him and he didn't know how to explain. He didn't know how to say that he would gladly kiss him, he would have loved to kiss him after they'd gotten home and comfortable. Why was it so imperative that they kiss right then? Why was it something worth severing over?
Why did people playfully (painfully) ask if he and Kevin were really dating?
“You certainly don’t act like it!”
Was he not doing it right? Was it not enough?
He remembered his uncle singing in the kitchen, "Thin love ain't no love at all" He'd croon, voice adopting a country twang. "No, thin love ain't no love at all."
Was his love thin? Then why was he drowning in it? Why did the words catch in his throat, his heart skip beats, his lips quirk into a smile without his knowledge if what he felt for Kevin, for his friends, for his sister and mother and the entire damn world sometimes was not enough to hold everything together?
After weeks of thinking in circles he had wrapped his arms around Kevin in the comfort of their own home and asked him if he was satisfied with their relationship.
“I’m more than satisfied. I couldn’t be happier. Is something bothering you?” He was always good at cajoling him. And so everything came pouring out into the air around them and Kevin with his handsome, precise fingers plucked out the parts that mattered and addressed them in the way he did. There was something about it that was so particular to Kevin Cozner and no one else in the world could replicate it. If he were a more romantic minded man he would dedicate pages of prose to uncovering this quality but as such the mystery was charming.
Kevin spoke like a poet, even if he was not aware of it.
“Raymond, do you remember Constance’s birthday party?”
“Yes.” Constance was a woman Raymond worked with. She was the mailroom technician and they often complained about their colleagues' sexism and racism respectively. They also talked a great deal about birdwatching.
“You got her a gift, a stapler. Because you often heard her struggling with the one at her desk. She never mentioned it but nonetheless you recognized the need.”
Raymond snorted. “Well that was just considerate gift giving. Constance is a dear friend.”
“Yes, but most people don’t know their friends enough to give them things like that. Things they really need and want.”
Raymond could not imagine this being the case. If you were friends with someone how could you not know?
“You changed which side of the bed you sleep on for me.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did. When we began living together you changed because you knew I didn’t like to be closed in on the side with the wall. I fell in love with you then and I keep falling in love with you because of all the small unconscious deeply considerate things you do every day.”
Kevin leaned back and kissed his boyfriend’s cheek.
“I love you, Raymond.”
“I love you as well.” Raymond said, dizzy with feeling.
Kevin told him later on when they were both in bed, that there was nothing wrong with Raymond.
"I thought you might be berating yourself for or worrying over something." He correctly deduced. "And today it became clear that it was about showing affection."
"I don't know that I will ever be able to hold you Kevin." He admitted. "That I will ever be able to kiss you in front of the golden gate bridge."
Kevin did not understand why his boyfriend had chosen the golden gate bridge as the pinnacle of romance but he wrapped his arms around him, rested his head against his.
"You're holding me now."
"Kevin..."
"And I am holding you. Today we have kissed numerous times, held hands under the table during lunch and you've told me you loved me on eight occasions since I woke up this morning."
"But not in front of people."
"I don't care about other people." Kevin declared in a way that reminded Raymond of a swashbuckler. "Damn them." When Raymond laughed he repeated the sentiment with more feeling. "Damn them all!"
And so the world was damned. All but two and in the vast void left over by the absence of everyone else they built. They built castles and archways and stone paths and ornate paintings and songs and ancient relics and towns and cities and oceans. Everything, everything made by love.