Author's note: :D thank you so much for the reviews, and favs, and follows!
"So?" Agnes asked as she and Herzog finished the Monty Python marathon, that lasted the whole day. Herzog blinked slowly, watching as she shut down her laptop, then frowned:
"That might have caused me some serious brain damage... And there's the echo of that really annoying British accent in my ears..." he grumbled and looked at her. Agnes felt like her face was too small for her smile:
"Wasn't it fun?"
"No..."
"Come on, you liked it! I saw you smirking during the 'Funniest Joke' sketch!" Herzog just rolled his eyes and put her laptop on the floor, near the mattress:
"People always pick on the Germans, then get really annoyed when they are invaded," Herzog grumbled and stood up. "The fake Führer's campaign was funny, though... except for the speech part."
"Germans are actually the least funny people..." Agnes concluded and stretched her hands to Herzog. He frowned:
"You have your crutches right there..."
"I'm going to work in a few weeks, I don't want the crutches."
"It's too soon to leave them!"
"My knee is fine! Hein, come on!"
The Standartenführer sighed patiently and made his way to her side of the mattress, then held her hands:
"Careful," he advised when she used both legs to stand up. Her injured knee buckled and she would have fallen if his arms and broad chest weren't there to catch her. "You know that leg lost muscle and strength despite the exercises, right?" And Agnes replied something, her words muffled against his chest.
They eventually made it to the kitchen, Herzog walking backwards, slowly and patiently, while Agnes held his hands firmly and followed him with clumsy steps and an accentuated limping in her injured leg. They reached the table in the middle of the kitchen and Herzog pulled a chair for Agnes:
"It wasn't that bad!" she exclaimed, sitting, and added before Herzog could ask. "No pain. Really. It's good as new."
"I hope so..." Herzog replied and turned around to open the fridge. "What do you want to eat?"
"Pizza!" Agnes exclaimed happily and the Standartenführer picked up a ready-made pizza from the fridge. "Just curious, have you ever eaten pizza?"
"I did. In... 1933," he recalled and put the pizza on a dish to go to the oven. "Not very fond of it. I prefer the good German food."
Agnes just rolled her eyes and looked outside. It was night, maybe it was already 10 p.m.. Herzog put the pizza in the oven and made his way to the window to close the blinds, then joined Agnes at the table. They stared at each other for an awkward moment, until Agnes cleared her throat and looked down:
"So... you're a cuddler."
"How many times do you want me to tell you I am sorry?"
"It's cute," Agnes looked up at him, smiling shyly. She had been thinking about the theft of blankets and the nearly smashing of her rib cage, and realised she had actually appreciated Herzog's interest in her. She wasn't used to that kind of things and, given his mannerisms, Agnes didn't know exactly what to do. She didn't want him to think bad of her while she tried to get more of his interest.
Their eyes locked for moments and Herzog was the first to break eye-contact:
"At least I didn't push you off the mattress..." he muttered:
"You want to give it another try?" Agnes blurted out, suddenly interested in her nails:
"I won't steal the blankets this time, I promise," Herzog replied with surprising quickness and determination, all to incorrect for a decent man:
"You won't. I'm wrapping them all around me. I'm going to be a mummy. Blanket-theft proof."
That night Herzog found himself thinking again, looking at Agnes' sleeping face, peeking out of her cocoon of blankets. The young woman was going to start working soon, which meant Herzog had to go back to the cave, back to his soldiers.
I don't want to go without her., Herzog concluded and placed a hand on Agnes' shoulder. What he supposed was Agnes' shoulder. He had done that before, devoting himself to Erika and then leaving... only to find nothing when he came back. He didn't want to go through that again, even though he trusted Agnes. But she was young, she could change.
Herzog didn't want that.
He realised his fingers were now curled around her neck, just waiting for his command to tighten. Her neck was so delicate and his hand so big, she wouldn't even notice, she wouldn't feel pain or discomfort. And she wouldn't mind.
But the Standartenführer moved his hand away, like her neck had burned him, and put some distance between them, his eyes wide and his breath stuck in his chest; he couldn't do that, they had a deal! He could have tortured and killed many innocent people, but he had never withdrawn his word:
"Hein?" Agnes called, interrupting his thoughts. "Is anything wrong?"
"I... I was just thinking..." he mumbled, moving slowly to his original place. Agnes's arms snaked out of the cocoon and she crossed them in front of her chest:
"What's wrong?"
"I'm a selfish greedy bastard," the Standartenführer replied, looking away from her and resting his hand on her shoulder again. "Just... go back to sleep."
"I will, if you go back to sleep too."
"Fine..."
"Fine..." Agnes repeated and Herzog smirked, closing his eyes. But he couldn't sleep, and found himself looking for something in his memories that could help him, something from a book he had read, or a music he had listened to, or a painting, or a sculpture, anything that could quiet him for a while. He finally remembered; Horace, Odes, book One. He was 23 when he head read it and had thought the expression 'carpe diem' the archetype of laziness, and had quickly finished the Odes to start reading something more Germanic, more instructive... like Parsifal. However, now it sounded like the meaning of life after death, and he liked it, but at the same time he didn't, it was still feeling wrong.
He shook Agnes by the shoulder and she let out a suffering sigh; that's it, he was going back to the puffs...:
"Yes, Hein..." she mumbled:
"Have you ever read Horace, Odes, book One?" the Standartenführer asked. She frowned:
"No..."
"Have you ever heard the expression 'carpe diem'?"
"No..." And she smiled before his utterly disappointed grunt. "What does it mean?"
"Seize the day," he explained, like it was something absolutely horrible to say out loud. Agnes sighed patiently and, slowly, placed a hand on his freezing cheek:
"There's is nothing wrong in enjoying the present..." she assured, because he clearly had a problem with enjoying and having fun. "Now, seriously... let me sleep."
"Just keep them faceplant in the snow, are we understood?" Sascha asked. The others nodded, enthusiastic, and took their positions to ambush the unwary campers, who were making their way up the mountain. Sixty men against ten campers was absurd, but Sascha knew he had no other choice than bringing everybody.
When the campers reached the small wood of dead trees, the zombie troops emerged from the snow and attacked them from behind, forcing the campers to fall and then pressing their faces in the snow. Some didn't even notice what happened, others wriggled and tried to fight back. The one Sascha caught and was sharing with other five soldiers was offering some resistance, in spite of Sascha's hands on his head, pressing it against the snow, and the other zombies holding him in place.
It didn't take long, though, and soon the group of campers was finished. Sascha allowed himself to smile; that had actually gone well! But his smile died as soon as one of the Wehrmacht soldiers said:
"There's one running down!"
"Get him, Fritz!" Sascha commanded, before everybody decided to go after the survivor and make a gore fest. Fritz ran after the camper who had stayed behind and had watched in sheer horror what happened to his friends, and since the zombie soldier didn't get tired he managed to catch the poor camper a few meters away from the ambush place.
But the camper had a knife, and Fritz wasn't counting on that, and he widened his eyes in surprise when he saw the blade coming to his neck. Caught off guard, Fritz didn't even had the time to think about defending himself, and the knife cut deep through his neck. His dead body fell at the camper's feet, who just stood there, horrified, looking from the bloody knife to the Nazi corpse.
Sascha, watching at distance with the others, widened his eyes and gaped. He heard the other soldiers growl and even noticed them starting to move, by the corner of his eye. What he didn't notice was that he was already running to the man, way ahead of everyone else.
Instead of running, the camper tried to fight back again, so he raised the knife above his head, imagining Sascha would just bump on him to make him fall, giving him the chance to stab him in the back or neck. But Sascha knew better; he had been given the honour, many years ago, to be the glorious opponent of a really bored Herzog who had waken up in the mood for a good hand-to-hand combat. And that day Sascha had learned a lot, especially that the ground is hard.
So he just punched the campist in the stomach, using the impulse of the run to put all his strenght in his fist. The man bent forwards, breathless, and the blue-eyed zombie pushed him to the ground and pressed his head against the snow, watching in complete silence as the camper suffocated.
When the wriggling body finally went limp, Sascha let it go, like it was a really disgusting thing. He looked at the rest of the troops, some still with the other campers, the others halfway. Then his eyes moved and fixed on Fritz's lifeless body, and when he noticed he was kneeling next to his comrade. Sascha shook his head, slowly, and seized Fritz carefully; that was all his fault, he should have told someone else to go:
"Go to your posts," he told the others as he started to walk back to the cave. Much for his relief, no one said a word and no one followed him.
He ignored the Doctor, who asked him what had happened, and made his way to the slope in the back of the snow-covered cave, a relatively quiet place. He knelt on the snow and laid Fritz's body next to him, and smiled sadly:
"My little sadistic bastard; I told you to don't even dare to leave me for five minutes... and you do this to me!" he exclaimed, taking a better look at the wound in Fritz's neck. Sascha grimaced; his comrade looked... loathsome, frozen and lifeless, definitely a creature he wouldn't like to meet face to face. Yet when moving, and talking, and smiling, and laughing, Fritz didn't look such a hedious creature. He looked human, he looked exactly like he had always looked like. Sascha sighed and started to dig a grave with his hands. "I can't miss you this much, right? I mean, you're not... dead. Well, now you are, but once Herzog is back you'll be fine... right?" He stopped digging and looked at the dead body, then frowned. "Fuck you, I already miss you, it feels like we haven't seen each other in years! Did you feel like this too when you watched me dying?" He had no answer, and that made him laugh nervously. "You know Fritz, I'm glad we can't cry. Otherwise I'd be crying a fucking river..."
He dug the grave and dragged Fritz into it, then closed his eyelids.
Sascha liked Fritz the moment Herzog shoved the younger soldier in the room; he had the look of an innofensive lamb, but was a wolf as big as Sascha. And Sascha felt like he couldn't thank Herzog enough for giving him his lost evil twin. Together they plotted the most glorious pranks, told the funniest jokes, made the most epic puns. They were murderers of military discipline and nerve-wreckers of unwary officers who tried to nose around the Einsatzgruppe's business. Sascha and Fritz were the master artists of comedy and Herzog was their maecenas.
Sascha didn't even question all the feelings that came next, because it felt like they belonged there; Fritz was his best friend, his dearest comrade, so for Sascha it was completely natural to care for him, to go wherever he went and having Fritz coming with him wherever he went, it felt natural to comb his hair just to mess it again and to pick on him because he was smaller and only eighteen years old, while Sascha was already twenty. When the Einsatzgruppe had to split in a mission Sascha wanted Fritz to go with Herzog, because that way the brown-eyed soldier would be safer. He would never forgive himself if he ever let something happen to Fritz. Sometimes he would think that what he felt was maybe a little too much, and that he should talk to Herzog and ask him for advice... but everytime he came to that conclusion he thought the Standartenführer was going to be disappointed with him, or really angry, and Sascha didn't want to lose the friendship between him and Herzog. So he decided not to tell anyone about his feelings, not even Fritz.
There was a night Sascha suggested they should do something about the poor Wehrmacht soldier who was guarding the main vehicle deposit in Warsaw, who looked like he was dying of boredom, and Fritz had the brilliant idea of writing a fake marching order. Such a masterpiece of a prank needed better planning, so the two soldiers ran upstairs, to Sascha's hotel room, and locked the door to discuss the operation properly, undisturbed. And Fritz's idea was to actually plan a glorious prank, but Sascha, overwhelmed by happiness and excitement, decided they could do that some other time and kissed the younger soldier.
He had never kissed someone that passionately before, had no idea of what he was doing, but that night seemed the perfect time to find out, and Fritz was certainly the right person to help him. Even because the smaller soldier did nothing to stop him... And when Sascha noticed they had already fallen on the bed and the upper part of their uniforms was missing:
"Do you have any idea of what we're doing?" Fritz asked suddenly, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. Sascha offered him his best innocent smile and shook his head, slowly:
"Do you think that if I knew any of this I'd have drooled you like that?" he asked, but instead of laughing Fritz pouted. Sascha's smile died and his expression became serious. He rolled from over Fritz's body to his side and caressed his cheek, the most affectionate gesture Sascha had ever made, besides punching his comrade's shoulder. "I'm stupid, you should be used to that by now... but Fritz," He kissed him again. "I really mean this." And the pout vanished from Fritz's lips.
When Sascha woke up the next morning and found Fritz still sleeping in his arms, he felt the happiest man alive. He had a few minutes to admire the younger soldier before someone unlocked the door and came in, and when that happened Sascha felt like someone had pulled a carpet from under his feet... and when he saw Herzog looking at him and Fritz with big, wide blue eyes, he felt like someone had opened a hole on the ground where he had fallen and he was falling again. That was the first time Sascha was actually afraid of someone; afraid that Herzog could do something to Fritz, afraid that the friendship between him and the Standartenführer was lost. It only became worse when Fritz woke up and began to cry in panic, leaving the tough guy role for Sascha. And if he wasn't representing it very well, he totally screwed up when Herzog mentioned his girlfriend; Sascha didn't like her, she had no importance! And because she had no importance, he hadn't told Fritz about her.
The disappointment and sadness and anger in that pair of brown eyes was too much, let alone the similar feelings he saw in Herzog's blue eyes. When the Standartenführer left the room, Fritz jumped away from Sascha and started to get dressed:
"I had no idea Herzog had copies of the keys!" Sascha tried to explain himself. "And about my supposed girlfriend... I don't even like her! Fritz, look at me... Fritz!" But the younger soldier was gone, slamming the door after him. The blue-eyed soldier got dressed too and ran after his comrade. He didn't feel surprised when he tried to get in Fritz's room and found the door locked, so all he could do was knocking. But no one answered, even though Sascha heard the younger soldier sob inside the room. Defeated, Sascha went back to his room, closed the door and let his body slip to the floor. He pulled his own hair; there, he had ruined everything! He had hurt the two people he cared for the most. He had made Fritz cry, he had turned something that was supposed to be special into something horrible. Sascha felt his eyes sting, yet he fought the urge of crying; he didn't like crying, that was useless and solved nothing. Herzog never cried, so Sascha didn't want to cry too.
But he eventually broke and cried silently, angry with himself and suddenly terrified that Fritz would never want to talk to him again and that Herzog could do something. He didn't mind if he ended up in Dachau... There were many officers who would be really happy to see him there. But the thought that the same thing could happen to Fritz, to what the Gestapo could do to him... that really scared Sascha.
He managed to pull himself together and leave the room; he needed to talk to Herzog, beg his pardon, assure Fritz's safety. He didn't find any of his other comrades, so he supposed everybody was downstairs eating breakfast. He just hoped Herzog was in his room. Sascha noticed his hand was shaking when he knocked at the Standartenführer's door, and that the mere seconds he had to wait to be told to get in felt like a painful eternity.
That was probably the most embarrassing talk he ever had with someone, but Herzog was just upset because Sascha hadn't trusted him. It actually made the young soldier feel weightless, and that he couldn't thank Herzog enough. And that definitely he wanted to be an officer just like Herzog. Helping the Standartenführer to chase the rat that was in his room helped Sascha to cheer up, that and burning the hotel down after killing the owners.
They moved to a cottage, out of the city, and Sascha understood that Herzog had done that to avoid any other incidents. The blue-eyed soldier took it as a good sign when he left his backpack near Fritz's and the younger soldier didn't move to another room of the house, and that Fritz would stay next to him when they were all gathered to play cards or sing or demand Herzog a good story from the trenches or from the many books he had read. Even if the younger soldier didn't talk or look at him, just his presence was enough to assure Sascha that he hadn't ruined everything. Maybe he had just blown off the roof...
So he left Fritz alone for a week, and during a rainy day and taking the chance that everybody was too busy building little castles with ammo and grenades, Sascha grabbed Fritz by the wrist and took him to the attic of the house. The younger soldier didn't protest and sat quietly on the floor while Sascha closed the trapdoor:
"So... about what happened..." Sascha started, sitting in front of him and biting his lower lip nervously. "I... I really wanted it to be special for you..."
"You have a girlfriend." Fritz accused, and was that jealously in his voice? Sascha shook his head:
"I don't like her, it was my mother's idea! She wants me to marry that spoiled brat because she has money!" Fritz raised an eyebrow. "And I'm really going to marry and then ask for the divorce in the same day! Then everybody will hate me and they'll all leave me alone once and for all!"
"You're insane!" Fritz exclaimed in disbelief. This time Sascha smiled and took Fritz's hands on his:
"And once we win the war, we could buy a little house for the two of us! Two veterans living together, nobody would question that with that shell-shock thing going on."
"You are insane," the brown-eyed soldier repeated, even though he didn't seem as convincing as before. Sascha's smile grew wider:
"I really mean what happened between us," he assured. "I'm just... I'm just a simpleton with a machine-gun and a pretty uniform, I can't even tell you decently how much I like you... how much I care for you..." Sascha's smile died. "I even considered borrowing some of Herzog's books to learn nice things to tell you, but those are just too many books and the books are too big!"
And Fritz laughed, and Sascha understood he was forgiven. He allowed himself to smile, relieved, and pulled Fritz to a hug. They stayed like that for a while, listening to the rain outside, until the younger soldier pulled away, his face serious again:
"What did Herzog say... about us?" he asked shyly:
"That I should have told him... He's not angry, though... He's a great man. But..." Sascha bit his lower lip again, and felt suddenly anguished; he hadn't planned that, he just knew they had to do it. "... we can't... you know..."
"I get it..." Fritz sighed sadly and nodded:
"So... «Here lies...»?"
"«Here lies...»."
And they both laughed, or forced themselves to laugh, because none of them wanted to cry. They stood up and Sascha opened the trapdoor again:
"I guess we can always pick this up, once we smash the enemy."
"I guess so," Fritz agreed, looking down at his boots.
Somehow they managed to act like nothing had happened. Sascha couldn't really understand how, so he concluded Fritz and he were just too awesome to be explained. His feelings were there, though, and sometimes he wondered if Fritz's were there too.
Some weeks before their three-months leave Herzog commented with Sascha that he was planning to go to his little home-village. Sascha had no idea of what to do during the leave; being in a place where he didn't have to fight or carry weapons suddenly seemed too boring, so he hurried to have everybody's addresses so that they could play football together. Luckily, most of the Einsatzgruppe soldiers lived in Berlin.
When they arrived to Berlin and the group split in different directions, Sascha found himself taking the longer way home just for the pleasure of being outside for a little longer; his parents sometimes could be really annoying and overprotective, and they somehow had missed the part that Sascha was a competent soldier of the SS-VT. As soon as Sascha stepped in his parent's apartment they both hugged him and kissed him and asked too many things and said that his cousins were visiting and that his leave was the perfect occasion for a good family-time.
One day after his arrival Sascha left the house, going straight to the SS barracks in Berlin. He was wearing civilian clothes, and after so much time with a uniform and boots he really hated those civilian clothes and shoes. He wondered how Herzog would look like in civilian clothes, but that was a very difficult thing to imagine, even for someone as creative as Sascha. When he reached the barracks he showed his ID and dog tag and said he was going to meet Standartenführer Herzog, and the sentinel let him in. Sascha knew where was Herzog's dorm, he had been there once with the Standartenführer before they left to Moravia. So he crossed the large yard and headed to the southern dormitories, exclusive for the officers, and climbed the stairs to the last floor. Herzog's room was the last one in the long corridor. He knocked at the door and got in, expecting to find Herzog doing exercise, or reading, or sleeping, or leaving paperwork aside for him.
The last thing he expected was to find Herzog like that, lying fully dressed, curled up and with his head hidden under the pillow. Sascha frowned:
"Herr Standartenführer?" he called, but the officer didn't react. Sascha began to feel nervous and made his way to the bed, where he sat near the Standartenführer's big body. "Herzog?"
Herzog turned around to face him and uncovered his head. Sascha frowned again:
"What happened to make you cry this hard?" he asked, truly concerned. He watched as Herzog's blue, reddened and puffy eyes filled with tears again and tried not to panic; maybe Herzog had gone to visit his family and had found they were dead... "Herzog, you're scaring me! What happened? Please, tell me! You know you can trust me, right? We're comrades and friends!"
And Sascha watched as the officer opened his mouth to talk, despair written all over his face... but Herzog said nothing. A few lonely tears rolled down Herzog's face, and the young soldier frowned lightly as the Standartenführer's face slowly ran out of emotions:
"Herzog..." Sascha begged. "Herzog, talk to me. Whatever happened... come on, you can tell me!" But Herzog just looked at him. Then the Standartenführer stood up and walked to the full-length mirror on the wall:
"I'm fine, Sascha," he mumbled. But even his voice was changed, sounding deeper. The young soldier observed his officer look himself in the mirror and grimace, and he then undressed his uniform jacket and shirt.
Sascha had no idea why Herzog was still grimacing; not every 42 years old man had a body like that, let alone the officers of that age, who usually became too fat or too skinny. He sighed:
"Herzog...?" he called again, quietly. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"There is nothing to talk about," Herzog replied and turned away from the mirror to look at Sascha. Herzog's face was now completely blank, but what disturbed Sascha the most was that pair of blue eyes, so intense, so empty. He nodded and left.
From the barracks he went straight to Fritz's house, at the other side of the city. Fritz lived with his mother and younger sister; his mother was very young and was really pleased in meeting him:
"He's always talking about you," she said after they had talked a little in the living-room. "He's in the bedroom, come with me."
He followed Fritz's mother into the house and she left him at Fritz's door. He got in the small room. Fritz was lying on the bed, reading a magazine, but as he noticed the older soldier at the door he put the magazine aside and changed to a sitting position:
"I thought you'd come yesterday," he said. Sascha got in the room and sat next to him in the bed. "Why so serious, what's wrong?"
"Something happened to Herzog, but he didn't tell me what," Sascha mumbled and crossed his arms. "I went to see him a while ago. I'll have to baby-sit my cousins and I thought that, since Herzog doesn't have a family, I could invite him to come with us to the Zoo. You'd come with us too, of course..."
"And let me see, he declined your invitation... Herzog and children, really?" Fritz said with a smirk. But Sascha made a face:
"He cried for the whole night! I'm telling you, something happened to him yesterday, but he didn't want to tell me what! He was acting so weird, like he wanted, but at the same time didn't want to tell me!"
"Maybe it's something embarrassing," Fritz suggested, crossing his legs:
"Embarrassing? Fritz, he caught us in bed! How come that he doesn't want to tell me what's bothering him?" Sascha said, utterly annoyed. He felt hurt, and betrayed, and abandoned. And useless. The brown-eyed soldier frowned lightly and rested a hand on his shoulder:
"I don't know him as you do... but... you found him crying. Look at Herzog, he's not the type of crying. Maybe... maybe someone he knew died, or something like that, and then you found him like that, and maybe it was just too much and he didn't know how to react. Just... just let him calm down a little."
"I know what I saw, Fritz! Something is wrong!" Sascha exclaimed. "And the bastard doesn't let me help him!"
"Just give him a moment," the younger soldier opined. The blue-eyed soldier sighed and pouted, looking down. "He's tough, whatever happened he'll overcome that."
"I hope so," Sascha grumbled.
But, just like Sascha feared, Herzog didn't overcome whatever happened to him. Herzog became cold, and distant, and Sascha felt like a child who lost his parents in the crowd. He didn't make the so promised Officer Course. Sascha was too aggrieved and didn't try to talk to Herzog again, even though he knew that the Standartenführer needed someone to talk to, urgently; he knew that Herzog couldn't act like a machine forever. Sometimes at night, or during a patrol, he would look at Fritz, right next to him, and feel extremely thankful for having such a friend.
His last thought before dying was that at least Fritz was there to take care of Herzog, and that surely Herzog would take care of Fritz.
But now that Fritz was dead, Sascha felt too fragile to face the others. He couldn't even count on Herzog's reassuring presence. He shook his head and covered his comrade's body with snow:
"Goddamit Herzog, where are you?" he asked in a low whisper before standing up and walking away, trying to pull himself together.
Now he knew how difficult it was commanding, and how horrible it was to feel those bloodstains on his hands, and he felt despicable for simply giving up on the Standartenführer.
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