** WW2 / Nazi AU. Warnings: period-typical homophobia; NAZIS / death camps (torture, starvation, etc.); multiple character death. Based very loosely off the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath; and image made by me. Don't say I didn't warn you 😉 enjoy. Marcin = Slovakia. Lol happy Memorial Day too everyone! **

1.

The boy is young. He has auburn hair, cut neat and a little curly. His eyes are warm and brown. Tear stains are little rivers down his cheeks. He pulls his knees up to his chest, and listens to people he loves cry about his fate.

2. 

<< 6 months earlier >>

Feliciano Vargas wakes up slowly, heavy-lidded and sore-backed. Next to him, Ludwig Beilshmidt has an arm around his naked waist. His face is buried in the tender part of his neck.

Through the small window in the corner of the room, the sun rises grey, mixed with the ash in the sky.

Feli falls back asleep and when he wakes up again, Ludwig's gone. Just the ghost of a kiss to his head, an imprint on the pillow.

3.

Don't go outside. That was the biggest rule Ludwig had given him when he had come to live with him, in this lonely precious room. Not only could they have been caught and then killed, but... Ludwig didn't do a very nice job.

But Feli never questioned it. He's in love. And Lud protects him with his life. He cares about him, of course he does!

Feli has read all the books in the room -- at least twice. He's painted canvases, paper, the very walls. He's bored. And he walks up to the window and looks outside. The sky is still grey. It's always been grey for as long as he's been here.

4.

The air outside is fresh. He pulls his coat tighter around his slim figure, and tries not to mind the wind buffering him a little. It's a nice change.

The first thing he does is look around for Lud. He doesn't see him. With a soft sigh, he starts walking. Maybe that's for the best: he doesn't know what his reaction would be for him out like this. After all he just broke the only rule.

The buildings in front of him look different than the ones he had just been in. Curious, he approaches them.

5

There are many people inside the gates, but none of them look at Feliciano and they all look the same. All of them have empty lungs and grey heads.

All of them are dressed in striped outfits.

Feli is frightened. Contrary to popular belief, he's not in the slightest an idiot. He knows where he's been living for the past few months (the officers quarters of Treblinka I, the work camp in the middle of nowhere). But he lives with Ludwig. He's the best man he's ever met. Kind and stoic; he lost his virginity to him for gods sakes!

Surely...he doesn't...hurt people...even if they are rats and POWs...

He doesn't. Feli wouldn't believe it!

6

The boy is looking at him inside the gate.

Feli doesn't know if he's a boy. Well, it's not like he's a girl; but he doesn't know his age. The boy is small, with hollow cheeks and bones everywhere, but -- green eyes. Those eyes aren't dead yet. They make Feli know he's still a person.

Feli approaches the boy on his side of the fence. He greets him in German. The boy flinches and draws back, looking ready to bolt.

"No, wait!" He says in English. Would the boy know English? "I'm sorry!"

He doesn't run away. "...macie nic do jedzenia , proszę pana?"

( *do you have anything to eat, mister?)

Feli tilts his head. Polish, but he doesn't know it. He shakes his head at the boy with green eyes.

The boy mimes eating, his Adam's apple bobbing, and Feli gets it. He pulls out his lunch and pushes the bread through the holes in the wire. Not much, he knows, but--

The boy is starving.

He doesn't have a gold star on his clothes, so he's not a rat. Polish, but why else is he here?

There are footsteps behind the boy and Feli scrambles away from the fence, face white. The man behind him, older than the boy but not by much, has a rusty metal thing, a weapon.

7

"Feliks ! Co robisz?" The newcomer says to the boy. Feli watches in shock as he rips off half of the bread and pushes it into the man's hand.

(*Feliks! What are you doing?)

The man eats it there. He has the same green eyes. He looks at Feli. "You gave him food." He says in clumsy German.

Feli hesitates, then nods.

"Why?"

"I..." He doesn't actually know. These people might be enemies. There's a reason they're here. They're being punished. So why? "He looked hungry."

"We're starving." The man says weakly. "My name is Marcin. This is my little brother, Feliks."

"Why are you here?" Feli asks Marcin.

"Our parents were Polish rebels. Against the Germans. They're dead. We had a sister too. She was taken to II."

Treblinka II. The killing camp.

"I'm sorry," Feli says softly. They look at him suspiciously.

"You are a Nazi. You are not sorry."

"I'm not a Nazi," he says. And he's not.

Marcin sighs. "You are kind to give us food." He wraps a skeleton arm around his brother. "We will remember you when we're in Heaven."

Feli gets chills. "You might not die..."

The boy, Feliks, shakes his head. Marcin points to the smoke and ash coming out of the chimney.

"Soon, it will be us."

8

When Feli goes back to his room, Ludwig is already there. His eyes are wide and when he sees him, he pulls him into a tight hug.

"Oh thank god, thank god..." Ludwig whispers hoarsely. "I thought someone had caught you!"

"I'm fine." Feli whispers, relaxing in his arms. And then he cries. He cries for the people inside the gates, who choke on half a slice of bread and who promise they'll remember his kindness when they die. And they won't even have time to forget about it because they know they'll die soon.

Ludwig strokes his hair and kisses him. "You're safe now, liebe. Don't cry, I've got you..."

Feli tries his hardest to stop.

9

Ludwig is a good man. Nazis hurt people but Ludwig wouldn't. He's a good man. He has to be.

10

Feli goes back to the fence a few days later. Feliks pushes his hands through the holes in the fence, getting scratched.

"Food." He knows less German than anyone.

"Where is Marcin?" Feli asks.

The boy stares at him. His skin looks green. He wonders if he's sick.

"Shower." He says bitterly. Feli gives him the bread and still, he only eats half of it.

11

Feli is walking back to his room when he sees Ludwig. He smiles brightly and runs to him. And he knows he can't show anything in public, but that doesn't stop him from being happy to see him.

He's standing at the door of a large building, different from the barracks. It says "Shower" on the front of it. Men, Jewish rats and Polish alike, are naked and going inside. Some of them look like how Feliks and Marcin do; others must be new arrivals because they're still somewhat meaty.

Ludwig is making them run. He has a big thick stick to beat them with if they're not fast enough. He has a gun.

"L-Lud?" Feli whispers, eyes too wide, and his lover turns to him.

"Feliciano!" He hisses, more in surprise than anger. "What are you doing here? You know it's dangerous!"

He doesn't look at him. Instead, at the weapons in the hands that are so familiar.

Feli can't tell the Poles and the rats apart like this, but a man stumbles as he runs. One of the weak ones. Ludwig tells him to get up; when he doesn't, he pushes him. Feli looks away.

12

Ludwig raises his arm, his baton, to beat the man down on the ground. Bloodshot eyes have already rolled back in his head.

He's going to die here instead of in the "showers".

"Ludwig--please--stop--"

The swastika on Ludwig Beilshmidt's arm band glistens, and there's nothing to block out the gun shot.

13

Feli doesn't let him him touch him that night. He doesn't even look at him. But to be fair, Ludwig doesn't apologize either. That's just how the Third Reich is.

14

"I'm sorry." He finally says, whispers. "I didn't mean for you to see that. I'm so sorry, Feli..."

He cries and lets him hold him again. That night they make love like before.

15

When Ludwig Beilshmidt kills his second man -- at least in front of Feliciano -- he sort of cracks.

It was another accident. They're both outside. Ludwig doesn't even see him this time.

He watches the man's skull splatter.

Feliciano grabs him with a cry, and in utter shock, Ludwig drops his gun. His eyes widen.

"Oh god, Feli--"

He picks up the gun and sobbing, he points it at the love of his life. Ludwig doesn't look calm either. He puts his hands up and around them, the prisoners stare.

"You're hurting people."

"Feli, you know I have to-- I told you to stay inside, so you wouldn't have to see it--"

"But you're s-still hurting people!"

"I--"

"I love you." Feli whispers, "I love you so much and I don't want you to hurt people, please--please, just stop--"

His hands shake and he sobs and--

16

The gun goes off. It's over.

17

Feliciano runs blindly. He keeps running. He wants to find the boys he talked to before, assure himself that they're alive, before...

He doesn't know what he's going to do. He doesn't know what happened.

He finds Feliks, eyes open but prone on the ground. Next to him is the other one, dead.

He cries over the boy, too weak to move even as he begs him to.

18

Ludwig is dead and it's all his fault.

19

Feliciano goes home to Italy. His brother and sister and brother-in-law try to take care of him. He doesn't let them.

He deserves to die. At least then he'll be with Ludwig, he'll be able to collapse at his feet and beg his forgiveness.

20

Commander Ludwig Beilshmidt of the Third Reich died from a gunshot wound to the chest in the courtyard of Treblinka I, a concentration camp in the heart of what was once Poland.

His lover, Feliciano Vargas, was the murderer. He was executed two months later for his crimes. It was rumored that when he did finally die by firing squad, he just kept apologizing to an unknown person.

Brothers Feliks and Marcin Łukasiwiecz, Polish prisoners in Treblinka I, were present when Ludwig Beilshmidt was killed. Eighteen-year-old Marcin died a few days previously of a mix of malnourishment and abuse. Fourteen-year-old Feliks lived for a few weeks later until the Soviets liberated what was left of the camp. He died free, also from malnourishment.