Chapter Text
He’d had a chance to kill Hitler, once. It’s such a funny thing to think of now; how the entire history of the world could have been changed forever if Enjolras had known then what he knows now. But he was but a small child then, barely ten years-old, terribly young and naive, clutching his father’s hand at a secret meeting such a young boy should not be attending as he looked up at a man with a mesmerizing voice that carried the promise of a brighter tomorrow and made patriotic pride that Enjolras did not yet fully understand stir inside him.
It’s easy now, so easy, to look back at all that happened during those horribly long years and see Hitler for what he truly was - a megalomaniac killer who would go on to murder millions of people - but back then he had burnt like the sun and all of Germany had been drawn to him like moths to a flame.
It was the summer of 1923 and Enjolras had been just as drawn to the man, equal parts hypnotized and fascinated, and completely unable to tear his eyes away. It would last only for three months, for November would come and with it Hitler would try to start a revolution from a beer Hall in Munich and sixteen of his followers would be killed.
Enjolras’ father would be one of those sixteen.
After that cold day, Enjolras would often think back to his first time meeting the Führer, when he could’ve reached for the gun he knew his father kept at the small of his back, point it at Hitler and pull the trigger before anyone in the room could stop him.
It’s unfathomable, sometimes, to think back to what is and to what could’ve been if he’d done it. To consider how many lives would’ve been spared, how the warmth of his father’s hand might be more than a half-forgotten memory. Enjolras could have become so much more than the broken, beaten man he is today. He had burnt once, too, not unlike Hitler - though love, rather than hatred, had been his driving fuel. He’d spoken against the Nazis in front of enraptured crowds and thousands of people had been just as enthralled by his voice as millions would later be by Hitler’s, hanging on to every sound pouring out of his mouth. There has always been a terrible power to words, and Enjolras had wielded it then with a careless ease that had been born with him and no books could have taught him.
Hitler’s words had been the ones to start a war and bring half a continent to its knees, slaughtering millions of people in the process. Enjolras had hoped, in the beginning, that his words could be the ones that would stop it.
But that had been then. Now, it has been three years since the war ended and not a single word has made its way past Enjolras’ lips since the first nuclear bomb hit Japan. What good are words when there is nothing left worth using them for?
“You’re being an idiot,” Grantaire would say. He’d reach for Enjolras across a darkened room, hands tugging at clothes and grasping at naked skin and Enjolras would smile against his will and let Grantaire kiss away the worried frown on his face.
“I knew I could make you speak,” Grantaire would say later, smug grin plastered on his face after Enjolras had come shouting his name and they had collapsed against each other on Enjolras’ bed, naked and spent.
“I love you,” Grantaire would say, a soft caress whispered against the naked skin of Enjolras’ neck; but Grantaire is long dead and there is no one left to coax the words out of him.
---
He isn’t sure how it happens, exactly. He supposes his father’s death is the shield, the armor that never lets him fall fully under the trance of the Führer’s voice. In every single word that Hitler says, Enjolras thinks back to a time when his father had been promised greatness and delivered death instead. Hitler is not a God—Hitler is a man, and men tell lies.
He is ten and his father is dead and his mother makes sure he and his little sister grow up in a house where love prevails and there is no room for intolerance. There will never be Nazi propaganda inside those walls and he will not grow up dreaming of becoming like his father—his father had been weak and he had fallen under Hitler’s spell and he had died. Instead, he wishes he can grow up like his mother, strong and loving and good. He knows that he is privileged - his mother comes from old money and he has wanted for nothing while growing up - and that sets him apart from most germans. Yet he will never hate his father, not even after the war is won and Enjolras is lost—his father lived in a country that had been ripped apart by war while its sons and daughters starved to death on the streets. His father tried to do good and he could not have known all that would come to pass once Hitler seized power. Enjolras doubts anyone could have, then—Hitler had shone brighter than anyone ever before at a time Germany had been the most desperate for light.
Hitler is arrested then, but his mother says it’s not the end - only the beginning. Enjolras does not yet fully understand but hopes that she is wrong.
---
He is eleven and Hitler is released from prison, less than a year after his arrest. His mother does not speak for a week.
---
He is sixteen and the United States stock market collapses. Germany’s economy, slowly trying to rebuild itself, threatens to implode. The people are starving again and he will always remember this as the moment Hitler’s real rise to power begins.
---
He is eighteen and the Nazi party’s power and influence keep growing. He dyes his hair jet black, renouncing his aryan heritage, and speaks against them loudly and clearly, for anyone who will listen. His mother has read him Mein Kampf; she has pointed out the signs that everyone else is so keen on dismissing—the obsession with one pure race, the loosely-implied threat of genocide. It will end in death, she says, and Enjolras believes her. He tells himself that words will be enough to make a difference.
He would laugh at himself now, if he could still laugh.
---
He is nineteen and Hitler loses the elections. He lets out a sigh of relief and lets himself believe that it’s over.
---
He is twenty and Hitler is appointed as chancellor. Enjolras knows now that his mother had been right after Hitler’s imprisonment—this is just the beginning.
---
He is twenty-one and he can no longer speak freely. What had once been the voices of hundreds joining his turns into secret meetings in badly-lit rooms and he can not be too careful. It is dangerous and slow work, and there is only so much pamphlets and whispered words can do. However, this is Nazi Germany and there is nothing else he can do—Enjolras would not mind dying for his country, but Germany does not need a martyr for what is a martyr to a saviour? Germany will follow Hitler, for now, and Enjolras will not die for nothing.
---
He is twenty-three and his sixteen-year old sister arrives home after a Nuremberg rally with a swollen belly. She is to be one of the Führer’s Brides—young and unwed and pregnant with a “pure aryan baby”. His sister has not heeded their mother’s warning and no one is able to talk sense into her. She rages and screams at both of them and later Gestapo will come and take their mother away.
It is the last time Enjolras will see his mother alive—and it is the last time he will see his sister at all.
---
He is twenty-four and he meets Lamarque for the first time. She speaks of upcoming war and Enjolras feels that she is telling the truth—there is something in the air, a spark of anticipation and bitterness and he fears what will come to pass.
“You could help,” Lamarque says. “If it happens—when it happens.”
“I am helping,” Enjolras says. “I am speaking out, I am-“
“That will not help enough. Spy against the Germans. Your father was a hero in Hitler’s eyes. You will be welcomed back with open arms, you will be the prodigal son returning home.”
“You are asking me to betray my country.” He does not want to - he knows that if it comes to war his fellow countrymen will die and Germany will bleed - but already he knows it is the right choice. Still, for now he lets Lamarque tell him that.
“If it comes to war, your country will betray itself long before it is over. I am asking you not to betray mankind,” she says.
“Innocent people will die,” Enjolras replies. “Innocent people will die because of me.”
Lamarque nods and Enjolras is grateful - he would not believe her if she had tried tried to tell him otherwise - truth and honesty are heavy burdens, even though they are welcome ones. “More innocent people will live, because of you.”
She tells him he should infiltrate the SS. He has stopped dyeing his hair, and it now flows long and free and Enjolras hates everything that it stands for. He is welcomed back with open arms, just like Lamarque had predicted. If they remember his words, almost a decade ago, no one speaks a word of it—though they may not, photographs are blurry and his blond hair paints a different enough picture that no one will question it.
---
He is twenty-five and Germany invades Austria and Czechoslovakia. There are whispers of war brewing in the air and Lamarque is certain it is a matter of months, rather than years. Under her advice, he marries a girl with long brown hair and eyes the colour of melted chocolate.
Her name is Éponine and Enjolras does not love her but that is not important—like him, she is to be a spy, but unlike him she is poor. There are too many questions as to why Enjolras is unmarried and childless, questions that are not safe to answer in Nazi Germany—their marriage will put those questions to rest and a roof over her head.
It’s a good arrangement for both of them and they both know it. The night after their wedding, once they are alone, she takes his hand and tells him that he will be the one sleeping on the couch. Enjolras shakes his head and points her to a room down the corridor.
She smiles, pats his cheek and says that she knew marrying him would be a good idea.
In the morning, he wakes up to freshly brewed coffee left outside his door. He thinks marrying her was a good idea as well.
A month later, he has a front row seat to what will be known throughout Europe as the Night of Broken Glass. He can do nothing but watch—war will begin soon and his loyalties must not be challenged. He is no good dead or incarcerated so he will play his part flawlessly and ignore the bitter taste in his mouth and the scream yearning to burst from his throat.
When he wakes up in the morning it is to Éponine’s body pressed against his. They are not lovers and they will never be, but she is warm and she is alive and she is a friend and Enjolras appreciates the human contact. He kisses her temple as she snores softly and pads to the kitchen to make her coffee.
“So, it’s begun,” she says, once she is fully awake and sipping her coffee.
“It began long ago,” Enjolras says bitterly. “And it will be years before it’s over.”
---
He is twenty-six and the world goes to war. He rises quickly up the ranks of the SS and does not like what he learns. Death is spreading quickly through Europe — but there is no place where it spreads as quickly as it does in the ever-growing number of concentration camps on german soil.
He does what he must to keep his cover: he harms the innocent and turns a blind eye to all forms of cruelty. He laughs at jokes that threaten to make his stomach turn and resists the urge to claw his eyes out. Enjolras’ mission is important but his soul is not—he would like to be able to look in a mirror once the war is over, yet knows that he will not. Thousands have died and millions more will follow soon—life itself is a privilege, and it is one Enjolras does not expect to keep.
---
He is twenty-seven and there is a Jew in his basement.
“You owe me,” Éponine says. “You needed a marriage more than I needed the money. You owe me, Enjolras. And he is my friend.”
He had wanted to say no—Grantaire was but one man and there was enough talk about what was happening to Jews and the people who hid them across Germany. His is just one life, and Enjolras’ position amongst the SS cannot be challenged or even questioned. Enjolras does not fear his own death and would gladly welcome Grantaire with open arms if all he had to worry about had been his own life. But people die everyday, and Enjolras’ life may be able to stop it one day.
This is what he believes, this is what he knows to be true. He says as much to Éponine.
Her only response is to laugh in his face. “He is my friend,” she repeats. “And you will say yes. Because if you don’t, I will walk to the nearest SS officer and tell him everything I know about our spying. I am not bluffing, Enjolras.”
“Éponine-“
“You owe me, Enjolras.” Her words are a hiss, and for the first time she says his name like a curse, the same way she says Nazi or Hitler when they are alone and there is no one there to hear them.
“You would let millions of people burn for one man?”
“You owe me,” she repeats again. “And I owe him.”
He bows his head, knowing he is defeated. He tells her one more thing, before she leaves the room, “I hope he is worth it, your friend. If we lose the war for him.”
“He is,” she says simply and then she is gone.
He comes at night, a mop of dark curly hair on his head and bright blue eyes staring apologetically at Enjolras.
“I’m sorry,” he - Grantaire - says with a bowed head. “I know it is not fair and it is not safe, but-“
“It’s not your fault,” Enjolras assures, because no matter what might happen because of this man he is not to blame for any of it.
He shows Grantaire their basement. It’s damp and cold but it’s the best he can do.
Later that night, Éponine slips quietly into his bed.
“There was a boy,” she tells the crook of his neck. “A boy with a constellation of freckles on his face. I don’t think he ever looked twice at me but I loved him. His name was Marius and he was Jewish.”
Enjolras dreads the answer but knows that he must hear it. “What happened?”
“Two months ago, some friends were going to sneak him out of Germany, along with Grantaire. But something happened along the way and there was only one spot left. It should’ve been Grantaire, but he gave up his seat so that Marius could leave.”
“And Marius…?”
“In America, last I heard.” She chuckles sadly, before continuing, “He’s going to marry a lovely American girl. It’s not important.”
“What’s important is Grantaire?”
“Maybe-“ she pauses and bites her lip, looking for the right words. “We see so much cruelty every day while we stand by and do nothing in the name of our damned covers and it’s not-” Another pause, while she shifts on the bed. “It’s not easy and it shouldn’t be but maybe if nothing else matters, small acts of kindness will. For my sanity, if nothing else.”
“If they find him-“
“We will die,” she says matter-of-factly. No point pretending they don’t both know the punishment for hiding a Jew. “But if they are to search this house, Grantaire will be the least of our problems.”
She is right—there is too much information hiding inside those walls and beneath those floorboards. Too much radio equipment that neither of them can explain. If Grantaire is found, death will be their worst punishment. If it is proof of their treason that they find, death will be the best thing they have to look forward to.
“It’s more dangerous with him here,” he says, because they both must hear the truth. “I just don’t understand why, Éponine.”
“Grantaire was always the best out of all of us,” she says, shrugging her thin shoulders like it’s an answer, and maybe it is.
He dreams of Grantaire’s eyes that night - and that is a question he cannot afford to know the answer to.
---
He is twenty-eight and he is in love.
It’s another one of those things that Enjolras does not fully understand—Grantaire is idiotic and he is obnoxious and he is a liability and yet Enjolras often finds himself thinking he is the only good thing left in a world that has lost all semblance of the humanity it once had.
The most ridiculous thing is that it starts with hair. Grantaire’s hair, to be more precise.
“I should get a haircut,” Grantaire says late one evening, after Éponine is asleep and Enjolras has slipped down to the basement to keep him company. Neither of them sleep that well anymore, and collapsing into bed exhausted is probably the best way to ensure a decent night’s sleep.
Enjolras snorts, but makes Grantaire sit down in a chair all the same and grabs a pair of scissors.
He stands behind him, grabbing a fistful of soft inky-black hair and has to resist the urge to bury his face in it. “I like your hair,” he says, before he can stop himself. It’s true—he likes Grantaire’s hair and he likes Grantaire’s hands and he likes Grantaire’s voice and he likes Grantaire’s eyes and he likes Grantaire’s wit and he likes Grantaire’s everything and that is a problem he has not planned for.
Grantaire shrugs. “It’s getting too shaggy for my tastes.”
At Enjolras’ frown he adds, “Honestly, one of these days you won’t have to worry about the weird man in your basement anymore—just put a bow around my neck and introduce me to people as a very misbehaved poodle. I can guarantee everyone will fall for it.”
Enjolras finds himself laughing against his will—the image of Grantaire with a bow is too ridiculous for him not to. “You’d just bite everyone,” he says. “And probably destroy my shoes just to spite me.”
Grantaire snorts. “It’s cute, really, that you think I don’t already destroy your shoes when you’re not looking. Don’t look at me like that, you do have terrible taste in shoes.”
“I like how you didn’t say anything about biting people, though.”
“I am offended,” Grantaire says around a chuckle. “I would only bite you. And only if you asked really nicely.”
There’s a pause and he takes in a sharp breath of air, clearly just realizing what he’s said. “I’m sorry, Enjolras. I shouldn’t have said that, that was-”
Enjolras’ hands leave Grantaire’s hair of their own accord and his traitorous feet make him stand in front of Grantaire.
Grantaire looks down, refusing to meet his eyes. Enjolras sighs, a hand reaching out for Grantaire’s shoulder and another tilting his chin up.
“This is cruel, Enjolras,” Grantaire’s voice breaks mid-speech and he has to take a calming breath before speaking once more. “Unless you’re going to kiss me, this is cruel and-“
“I am going to kiss you,” Enjolras says and does so.
Grantaire does not say it is cruel anymore. In fact, he does not speak for a very long time, though Enjolras supposes it is very hard to speak coherently when you’re slowly moving inside someone else.
Éponine doesn’t say anything the next morning, just leaves two cups of coffee out instead of one and makes sure their curtains stay drawn a little longer.
From then on, Grantaire sleeps in Enjolras’ bed every night. It’s probably too risky, but the basement is damp and cold and Enjolras will not risk everything for Grantaire only to lose him to pneumonia.
Months pass and he is invited to visit a concentration camp for the first time, to see Hitler’s ‘noble work’ first hand. Already he knows more than the rest of Germany about what is happening there and though he wants nothing more than to say no, he knows there is no plausible way for him to reject the offer.
He feigns laughter and feigns smiles and feigns pride in all that he sees, until he wonders if there’s anything left in him that’s even real at all. The prisoners do not look at him for kindness or even an apology—their starving eyes demand nothing but an explanation and that is just another thing Enjolras can not give them.
Once, when he was very young, Enjolras had thought that Hitler was like the sun. Now, as he stares vacantly at the smoke shrouding the chimneys emerging from the camp, he thinks that this is what Hitler truly is—he is the smoke rising from burnt corpses and he is the lingering smell of death in the air that Enjolras will feel every day for the rest of his life. This is what it comes down to, in the end—thousands, maybe millions of people dead and more to follow, all because Germany had watched Hitler but had not seen and it had heard him but had not listened. Ignorance is not an apology - at this stage Enjolras doesn’t fool himself into believing there is any way they will ever be able to apologize for all that has happened - but it is an explanation, even though it solves nothing and does not bring back the dead.
He does not weep then and he does not break and beg for forgiveness—but that night is the first of many where Grantaire will do nothing but hold him as broken sobs wreck his body.
He gains power in the SS—people have always been drawn to him and even Nazis are no exception. He lies and he cheats and passes every scrap of information he possibly can to the Allies without even thinking about it.
This is also the year that Germany loses the war - not officially, and certainly not as far as the fighting and death are concerned - but it is the year that Hitler chooses to invade Russia and the German army fails spectacularly.
He does not grieve for them, even though he knows most of the lives lost are innocent ones who had sought only to fight for their country. It does not matter—Hitler must be stopped no matter the cost. It seems only fitting that it’s the freezing cold that’s the beginning of the end for the Nazis, when they have always been so eager to light fires.
For the first time he can remember, death makes him happy—it was only a matter of time, he tells himself, and it’s better it happens now than when there is nothing left to burn.
He is aware that through it all Grantaire is the one who keeps him together. Grantaire is the one who is hiding, Grantaire is the one who is hunted, Grantaire is the one who is threatened every single day by the Nazi regime—yet Grantaire is the one who is stronger, Grantaire is the one who kisses love and life and humanity back into Enjolras. It’s Grantaire’s warm arms wrapped tight around Enjolras’ waist and Grantaire’s warm chest pressed to Enjolras’ back that let him stay human through it all.
Grantaire is strong and Enjolras is weak and Enjolras knows this—this is why Grantaire must leave.
“You could go to Portugal,” he whispers, late one night when Berlin has gone to sleep and they are lying on his bed (though it’s really their bed now) and so tangled up in each other he can’t possibly say where he ends and Grantaire begins. Portugal is a good choice—England is more accepting, more welcoming towards Jews, but England is being bombed as well. He will not save Grantaire from the Nazi death camps to lose him to Nazi bombs. If the worst is to happen, England will fall long before Portugal does. “It would be safe for you, there. I could get you safe passage. It’d be hard, but God knows I am owed enough favors already.”
Grantaire snorts, before laying a trail of kisses on Enjolras’ jaw. “Whatever would I do in Portugal?”
“Feel the sun warming your back, the wind tousling your hair. Taste the rain on your tongue. You would live.” Enjolras does not beg, does not even ask for things most of the time, but he is begging now, urging Grantaire to leave. He will do it as many times as he can, slid easily down to his knees in front of Grantaire and plead against the soft skin of his stomach.
There are hands in his hair before Grantaire replies, “But what is the sun compared to your hair?” A kiss on his knuckles. “What is the wind compared to your hands?” Another kiss, softer and more tentative, pressed to his lips. “What is the rain compared to your mouth?”
“Only the difference between life and death, Grantaire.” He looks up at bright blue eyes, the colour of the morning sky, and fears that he is fighting a losing battle. If his life had been his own, Enjolras thinks he would have been glad to die for those eyes. He would have dragged Grantaire kicking and screaming to the safest place he could find, shielded Grantaire's body with his own and protected him from everyone who would dare try to hurt him. But it is not—he is a tool of the Allies and the information only he can give them has saved hundred of lives and may one day win them the war. He is not a man, he is a weapon in a war that has reaped millions of lives and his desires must never be allowed to come first.
Grantaire is strong and Enjolras is weak and Grantaire knows this—this is why he stays.
---