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All the fear and fire of the end of the world
Gil had really honestly thought he was going to die. He’d stopped completely – moving, breathing, thinking – when the walls gave way to endless fire and heat. Even before he hit the floor, a list was made in his head of all the things he hadn’t done and now would seemingly never do. Meet TiTAN, become a doctor, help Nevy, kiss someone (anyone). And now that was all going to be cut short, a quick, strangled gargle of breath before the heat overtook him.
Happens each time a boy falls in love with a girl
When Gil was ten, he was fascinated with Gev. Everything the boy did or said kept him awake, repeating it to the darkness in front of his face. Most of it was half-kind, bordering on pity, but he didn’t know that at the time. All he really knew was that Gev was infinitely more interesting than any lesson. It had lasted for a while, until one day Gev had turned to Fira and looked at her in a funny way, and Nevy had sighed next to him. She explained it to him later that night, but Gil still doesn’t really understand. It makes his stomach turn, not knowing, and the unwelcome lurch returns whenever Odin rolls his eyes at him or mutters something under his breath that Gil can’t quite and doesn’t want to hear.
Happens great, happens sweet, happily, I'm unfazed here, too
The dream is… interesting, if anything. Gil spends the rest of the voyage in a trance, lost in the possibilities it promised. Their own kind of paradise, so alien to Gil, who was raised first in the cold and clinical halls of a TiTAN school, then the damp quiet of the forest. This, this was openness and colour and life, breathing and thrumming under his fingertips. Everything he could have ever wanted, his and only his.
Wasteland, baby, I'm in love, I'm in love with you
And as he was about to die, all he could think about was the reserved, angry boy from earlier. Every time he almost dies, he thinks of Odin, Odin, Odin.
All the things yet to come are the things that have passed
The way Ava explains it to them makes it all seem inevitable. They kill TiTAN (that part still makes him uneasy), she gets a new life. Tuls sees his princess, Maggie finds love (though not in that order, and secretly Gil thinks it’s not that simple, it’s never that simple). Gil still doesn’t know what Odin wants. Something selfish, no doubt. He knows what he wants even less. It used to be paradise, but that’s too far out of reach now, and Gil has always been afraid of failure. Nevy won’t tell him what she wants either. She’s being evasive, and it scares him no matter how many times she tries to reassure him.
Like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass
“Gil!” Odin screams, and grabs his hand and pulls him out of the way. The gunshot singes his hair, but he’s alive, and breathing, and his heart is tripping over itself. Gil’s high on adrenaline – he almost died! – and Odin’s still holding his hand. It’s not quite how Gil pictured this happening – maybe their fingers would brush while passing their ever-dwindling supply of food, maybe Odin would take his hand when they all talked late at night about things they’d never think about during the day, maybe Gil would be brave for once in his life and take Odin’s hand. But Odin’s still holding it, a warm, reassuring pressure that Gil won’t let go of for as long as he can help it.
Like the bonfire that burns that all words in the fight fell to
Ava terrifies him. She glows, she screams, she’s bright and terrified and aching and hideous all at once. She reaches out, forms bridges between them all, draws them in like reluctant moths, and then destroys them over and over and over. And yet...
Wasteland, baby, I'm in love, I'm in love with you
Odin goes to her first every time. She commands his attention, but more so than she does Gil or Maggie. He’s fascinated, she’s disgusted, they’re both afraid to follow but much, much more scared of being left behind. Odin leads with her, a dance that consists of shared unspoken jokes and lingering glances and the tender way he handles her. It’s quiet laughter, it’s barely-concealed care, it’s looks Gil still doesn’t understand.
And I love too that love soon might end
If he dies, that won’t be an issue anymore. If he dies, he’ll stop feeling and...what was it Ava said? ‘Explode into stardust’? Something like that. Of course, whispers a voice that’s similar to Nevy’s but too like his own to be hers, there are many ways to overcome that obstacle. You don’t have to be the one to die.
Be known in its aching, shown in the shaking
When Gil breaks down, finally cries, Odin is there and nobody else. It’s Odin who reaches out and cups his face, it’s Odin who whispers that he knows, it’s awful, he’s sorry, and it’s Odin who stays until Gil’s breathing evens out. They sit watching each other in the dark, two uneasy animals alone in space.
Lately of my wasteland, baby
He senses that Odin knows, afterwards. It’s a lonely thought.
Be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking
When Odin breaks down and finally cries, it’s in a room by himself. Gil pretends to sleep. Listens through a wall. He knows Odin well enough that he wouldn’t want any of them there, least of all Gil, who is so endlessly clumsy with words and feelings. Odin emerges in the morning as if nothing happens, does nothing that would betray himself, and Gil finds himself wishing he could do the same.
Though quaking, though crazy, that's just wasteland, baby
Ava is so small. It’s impossible to believe that she destroyed so much of a planet. And yet, Gil looked out of the window of the cargo ship and saw the scar of her rage on its surface. A bruise, a rose. Much of the same. It’s only a matter of time before she realises what he’s been thinking about Odin and does something similar to him.
And that day that we'll watch the death of the sun
Odin talks about his home planet sometimes. The way he talks about it – the thick choke of trees all around, the way the cold air ssucks lungs dry, the black and lightless eye of the sun – it makes Gil shiver and then lean in closer. It’s so different to Gil’s home planet, but in every way exactly the same. “I ca-can never go b-back, you know,” he says one evening to Gil, just to Gil. “I’ve been k-kidding myself. They d-don’t w-want me the-ere,” he says, voice cracking on the last word with something that’s not his usual stutter. And then he buries his head in his hands, and sobs, and lets Gil stay for it.
To the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on
Odin’s jeans are fraying and so worn out by now. He has a scar on his upper thigh and a rip in his jeans from when a rat nearly got him. He has permanently scraped knees from skidding too often, and his jeans have become too eroded to form a barrier between him and the ground. There’s a stain on the hems that Gil doesn’t want to ask about. Gil focuses on this because he can’t bring himself to think about anything else about Odin, least of all the fact they’re sitting so close Gil can feel him breathing. When Gil shivers, Odin pulls him closer, and Gil makes the excuse that they’re both tired, and lets him.
And you'll gaze unafraid as they sob from the city roofs
One of the many things that scare Gil about Odin is the way he watches people die. It’s changed over time from barely-repressed horror to a sort of quiet disdain. How dare they scream. How dare they cry. Any existence is better than theirs. It’s his hatred of followers, his numbness to suffering at this point. Watching fire and branches twist in Odin’s eyes, sometimes Gil sees himself reflected there too, and breaks. His expression is much of the same.
Wasteland, baby, I'm in love, I'm in love with you
“I know y-you think I’m in l-love with A-ava, a-and I know wh-why it u-upsets you,” says Odin one night. Gil deliberately keeps his eyes on the ground, away from Odin’s face and Odin’s hands and Odin. “G-gil? A-are you listening?” Gil nods, because what else can he do?
And I love too that love soon might end
“Okay.” Odin sits down next to Gil and watches what he watches, the both of them looking at the sky now and not at each other. Not ever at each other. “I l-like Ava, b-but I d-do- I do-” Here he groans and pauses for a moment, then takes a breath and restarts the phrase. “I d-don’t love her.”
Be known in its aching, shown in the shaking
And then… And then Odin covers Gil’s hand with his own. It’s kind and gentle and it’s everything Gil has wanted from Odin. He can’t help his own fragile intake of breath or the way his fingers curl softly under Odin’s and into the dirt.
Lately of my wasteland, baby
They sit there, Gil’s head on Odin’s shoulder, silent and suddenly unafraid. They’re two uneasy animals looking out into the expanse of space, foreign to each other but familiar. Lost and so homesick for one another.
Be still, my indelible friend, you are unbreaking
It takes a while for Gil to work up the courage to kiss Odin. Or rather, it’s while he’s in the process of working up the courage that Odin takes Gil’s face in his hands and kisses him, softly, tenderly, carefully. When Gil doesn’t move, he pulls back and worries his lip between his teeth. “D-did… did I d-do it wrong?” he asks. Gil shakes his head, shedding all fear, and returns the kiss as a reply.
Though quaking, though crazy, that's wasteland, baby
And when they discover each other, it’s with cautious hands and nervous pauses. They laugh when they slip up, a sound that’s become so foreign to them that it shocks them both.
When the stench of the sea and the absence of green
The water had screamed around him, boiling and churning and seeping into his veins. Gil remembers hot currents dragging him under again and again. He remembers watching everything choke and crumble around him, remnants of skin and bone pulled away into the blackness. The sea turning acid green and then black as he, too, choked and faded. “Do you remember dying?” he asks Odin.
Are the death of all things that are seen and unseen
Odin draws him close, holds Gil to him, strokes his hair and he unfolds his own story. Layer by layer, Odin lets Gil take him apart until neither of them are the selves they’ve spent their whole lives building – they’re just them. Just the two of them, laid bare, unafraid and unrelenting. “Yes,” says Odin. “I d-do remember.”
Not an end but the start of all things that are left to do
Gradually, Ava warms to him again. (Ha, warms.) She helps him up sometimes when he falls, and in return he tries his best to look her in the eye. When Odin takes his hand in front of them and holds fast, Maggie beams at him. It’s been a long time since she tried in vain to win him over. Gil smiles back at her – she’s his favourite friend, after all – and lets it all happen. Afterwards, Ava approaches him, alone. “Congratulations,” she says. It’s somewhat sad, Gil thinks. “I’m happy for you,” she says, and Gil doesn’t question her.
Wasteland, baby
“Do you want to know something?” Gil asks. Odin knows so many things about him. One more can't hurt.
I'm in love
“I do,” says Odin.
I'm in love with you
“I’m in love with you.”