For once, it was easy to think of a title for this chapter. Take Over.
(I'm sorry that it seems like the boys don't age during this timeline, but I think I'll keep it like that. This story doesn't seem to have any rules or anything to keep it in order!)
It is now March, 1938 to September 1939. Do the boys age in this chapter which covers a year? Um… No. Ha ha!
March 12th '38
"Germany has invaded Austria."
Alfons and Edward were sat eating eggs and bacon, which had taken a lot of saving up to acquire, so for once, Edward was eating slowly and appreciating the taste.
Of course, something had to spoil it.
"I bloody told you he was going to!" Edward grumbled, viciously dissecting a bit of bacon. "Didn't I?"
"You did," Alfons surrendered, knowing that it was no use arguing his point.
Edward looked over Alfons' shoulder to the kitchen bench where the wireless sat and scowled at it.
"Damn radio. You'd think it'd know when to shut up," he said, his face grumpy. Alfons nearly smiled.
His country was heading for war.
~*~ Charismatisch ~*~
August 11th '38
"Nazi troops have set fire to a Jewish synagogue in Nuremberg."
It was 1 o'clock in the morning. Edward knew he shouldn't complain, because the radio babbling away to itself quietly on the desk in his room was the only thing keeping him awake and his nightmares away, but it was a blessing and a curse. It kept him awake, but at the same time, poured more horrible images of fire, massacre and death into his already overloaded mind. Edward groaned and rolled over, pulling the duvet over his head.
He'd always thought he'd had things bad. He'd always thought that his own world had been bad for killing off races but this was extreme, a lot more scary, and a lot closer to home.
Edward consoled himself to another sleepless night with the thought that, at least he wasn't Jewish.
~*~ Charismatisch ~*~
October 28th '38
"There has been a mass arrest of 17,000 Polish Jews in Germany over the last few months. Today they were banished to Poland, who refused them entry. These people are now living in no-man's-land between Poland and Germany. There have been no further announcements on where these people will be residing."
Alfons groaned and dropped his face into his book. "Jesus Christ.."
"Wha..?" Edward mumbled. Edward had started a habit of falling asleep on the hard wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Alfons had just recently learned that Edward had developed a kind of 'self-inflicted-insomnia' where he'd refused to sleep for so long that now he actually could not sleep at all at night. At first, Alfons had attempted to wake up Edward and take him to his room, but Edward had hit him, saying that he'd just woke him up from his first wink of sleep in a month, and then proceeded to try to fall asleep at the table again.
"The SS've kicked 17,000 people out of the country." Alfons elaborated. Edward sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fists like a tired child.
"Jews?" he asked quietly. Alfons looked at Edward's bleary expression with slight pity. Edward was grey with bags under his eyes so dark it looked like he'd been punched in the face. The bruising on his forehead had long since gone, but there was still a pale scar running across his forehead.
"What do you think?"
~*~ Charismatisch ~*~
January 30th '39
"'In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!'"
"What did that even mean?" groaned Edward, who was trying to force his brain to work and he rubbed his hands together which were bright red with the biting cold. "I wish politicians wouldn't talk in jargon. It's such bollocks. No one can understand what he's on about-"
"He's saying," Alfons told him in undertones, "that the Jews aren't going fast enough."
Edward didn't reply for a while, letting the crowd mill around him as he watched his breath escaping him in clouds and dissipating in the January chill. He rubbed his ears.
"I've fucking had enough of this." He turned from Alfons, pushing his way out of the crowd. When the sea of people cleared, but for Alfons trying to catch up with him before he lost the shorter man, Edward spat on the ground and began to make his way back through the streets of Munich, Alfons scurrying behind him.
~*~ Charismatisch ~*~
September 3rd '39
"Edward?"
This was not the first time Alfons had woken up to terrified screaming. Edward had fallen asleep on the sofa, so Alfons had just left him there and went to bed himself, not wanting to wake Edward up and receive a punch in the face again. However, when Edward fell asleep in the day, it seemed his nightmares didn't happen so much, but if Edward slept at night, they were almost guaranteed to happen.
Alfons dragged himself out of bed, coughing slightly and rubbing his eyes with his hands. He shivered as the cold crawled up from the floorboards onto his feet, up his legs and his spine.
This was becoming too much of a regular routine.
"Edward, are you awake?"
Edward was sitting bolt upright in the front room, the blanket that Alfons had thrown over him earlier that night in a heap on the floor.
"A-Alfons?" he squeaked, jumping visibly as he heard the elder speak.
"It's me. Edward, if you are going to keep this up, you're going to wake up the whole street-"
"Alfons, I can't live here anymore." Edward told him in a tiny voice.
"What? What's wrong with here? This house, do you mean?"
"No… This world." Alfons could hear the tears in his voice, and felt he should probably step closer, but he didn't want to witness Edward cry.
"Edward, don't start with the 'This World' thing again… Please, not so late at night-"
"Alfons, this is scary."
Alfons stopped speaking. Edward didn't just admit fear for nothing. Tentatively, the stepped further into the room.
"What is, Edward?" he asked, though it was a stupid question. He knew the answer too.
"This country, Hitler, the Nazis, it's scary. It's like a horror film. In my world, there was a race exterminated, as there was here, the Xeruxeans, but… Well, it wasn't like this. This it too… it's too close, it's too dark, well thought out and… heartless. I feel like I'm in an apocalyptic book. Alfons, I'm just sick of hearing one more thing I have to worry about. I'm sick of hearing about another fire, another death, another law, another country that's been invaded. Let's go. Let's just go." Edward hid his face in his arms, not looking at his flat mate. Alfons sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"I can't leave." He told the younger. "This is my country, this is my home, and this is my world. I can't just abandon it because things are scary, Edward. I'm sure you'd feel the same if this were your world."
"Well it's okay for you, isn't it?" Edward hissed bitterly. Alfons was appalled. He had no idea what he was being accused of, but whatever it was, it seemed a little uncalled for.
"How so?"
"Well you're 'perfect,' aren't you? Must be nice, to know that you're safe from a madman, is it? While everyone else is being carted away to Poland, or locked up in ghettos, or just being shot on the spot for how they look, and who they are and where they come from and what they believe. Stupid fucking German, Christian, blond, perfect twat-face, blue eyes madman's pet."
Alfons raised his eyebrows, but didn't retaliate. He was not going to get into an argument with a sleep-deprived Edward at one in the morning. After all, the younger had every right to be terrified and though what he'd said to Alfons was unfair, most of it was true. After all, it wasn't Edward's fault that he didn't know about the…
"Well, you'll be happy to know I'm not as perfect as you think I am." Alfons confessed, feeling a little bitter saying it.
Edward seemed shocked at his choice of come-back but continued acting sorry for himself anyway. Even though it just made him seem like more of a prick.
"Oh yeah? How so?" Edward challenged.
Alfons fiddled with the corner of his pyjama shirt. Now there was no turning back, and he'd have to confess, but the thought of doing so made him sick to his stomach. After all, even though Edward was being a brat, it really wasn't his fault he'd been slung into this mess, and no one wanted to find out that they'd been sharing houseroom with a consumptive, even if it wasn't their house.
"I… I have consumption." Alfons said in a very tiny voice. Edward had no trouble hearing him, however.
But the reaction was nothing if not lacklustre. There was no screaming, no accusing, and no storming out of the room. Edward's yellow eyes (like a wolf, or a hawk or some other kind of meat-eating predator - Alfons realised - Not at all like liquid gold in the dark) just stared at him blankly, his head turned to the side, like a dog (like a wolf, like a wolf – Alfons thought, panicking).
"You've got what?"
Oh why did Edward have to make it so hard!? What had he done to himself? The only person who'd get close enough, and effectively, he was pushing him out of his house into the cold September mud alone while he was scared and lost in a country that he didn't know too well and he didn't even want to be there and he had that feeling that he was going to be kidnapped and taken to Poland and killed for being… him. Just to get one up on an accusation that he'd made in a moment of fear why did he do these things to other people? He should just live on his own.
"Just leave." Alfons said, louder than he'd thought, and he realised he was crying – why was he such a prick? "You're going to anyway. Just go. Go on. If you hate me now, it'll only get worse so you can just go."
Edward didn't cry. Of course he didn't. He didn't shout either though. This was Alfons' house, so… Edward felt as if someone had winded him and stolen his heart while he was lying gasping on the ground defenceless. There was suddenly a gaping hole in him and he had no idea how to fill it. All he could do was look up at the only man in this shit-hole fucked up world that he'd admired who was trying not to cry like a self-centred baby as he slowly stood up – his eyes never leaving Alfons.
"Okay." Edward said. He didn't know that his voice could be that small. Lately, he'd been discovering a lot about himself. Mainly things about himself that he hadn't already known because he'd never been such scum before. "Okay."
Alfons' mind was so empty at that moment he didn't have the mental capacity to call Edward back, apologise and leave himself. God, he was such a dick why did he do this to himself…?
Alfons jumped at a slight click.
That was the door closing. Alfons suddenly realised exactly what he'd done, and it had been not in the least bit heroic, loyal or pleasant. He'd just thrown a young man to the vultures because he was too scared to own up to something that was not Edward's fault.
Alfons – he told himself harshly – don't you dare cry. You have no right. You have no right.
He was still crying – God, he hated himself, why was he like this? Why was he such a spineless wimp whose mistakes always fucked up everyone elses lives. Had he just hurt a friend because he was proud of his country? His country, which was killing thousands of people every day because it was sour after the Wall Street Crash, after the WWI bill. His country, which would shoot wonderful, obscure, slightly batty Edward without a second thought at point-black range to the head?
He wished they'd shoot him instead.
"Britain and France have declared war on Germany," said the radio obnoxiously.
The one in January, that's an actual quote from Hitler's speech, and also, just to clear up, Ed and Alfons went to see Hitler make a speech in Munich. I don't know if he actually made the speech in Munich though. Also, the times of day that the radio broadcasts happen at, the broadcast words are my own, but the event happened, and I don't know what time of day they happened at, so I just made them up. But this is probably the most factually correct chapter I've done yet! It's just kind of bridging the gap between Hitler's campaign to take over, and the final declaration on war.
At the very end there, where Alfons thoughts and the narrative get a bit muddled up, that's on purpose. Just so you know.
Well. I think I might end this at C! I have an end worked out. See you next chapter guys, don't forget to review! (Hay, if you had the time to read it).
~BS
