ravenvsfox:

YOU’RE RIGHT AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT

like listen,, I get why it would be easy to look at people who have this young, intensely personal, externally standoffish, slow-growing relationship and assume that love and marriage aren’t going to stick to that kind of material

but being difficult and unorthodox doesn’t = rejecting devotion and symbolism, the things that keep them sure-footed and together from book 1

like certainly they love each other without having to prove it, but do you think the boys who exchange keys and armbands, who save the spot next to them on the couch or open up the driver’s seat as grand trusting gestures, wouldn’t want a paper that says ‘this is for good, this is how much I want this, it’s scary that we are going to live long enough to change and fade, but this promise will not’

their relationship has always been rooted in action, they’re extremely tactile, they say exactly what they want out loud because they trust nothing more than the explicitness of language

of course they start to understand the way love looks and feels too, they recognize forever because the world keeps turning around them and they don’t even notice, which wouldn’t be happening if they were apart

but they still like to be able to see what they can feel, just to be sure. Just so they know they’re not imagining it. Their marriage certificate is grafted over the parts of them that were trained to expect betrayal and loss.

and you’re exactly right, they (literally) live for promises and hard work and having each other’s backs, marriage would look gorgeous on them

like their lives are one life! their home is each other! Neil opens the blinds at 5 am and andrew flips him off every time! their athletic sneakers and heavy boots are lined up together at the door! the house smells like the gritty orange ginger soap that andrew pretends not to like and the sweat from their gear and whatever green smoothie neil had for breakfast! they kick their cats out of the bed so they can have sex, and the sunset pours all over them and they love each other so much that they even say it sometimes!!

plus neil is a terrible terrible disaster with no frame of reference for how much pain is too much pain for like a regular person who wants their bones to be straight and their skin to stay on

like nora are you telling me that andrew wouldn’t want to be dialled UP when his bf is in coma numero 3?? like he wouldn’t show up and clock the doctor with his glittering wedding band?? grow up