Dangerous Territory

Fallen

Jean sat in Eren's room, biding his time by reading through his Führer Quartettspiel. Each card had a picture of Adolf Hitler with facts about his life. One card mentioned that he was a hero of the Great War, a fighter for the common man, an idealist, an artist, a prophet, dedicating his entire life to raising his country out of the muddy trenches of the last war and into a future where Germany would be the most powerful economy in the world. He loved dogs, especially his dog Blondi. In fact, Hitler loved animals so much, he refused to eat meat. Although he was unmarried, Hitler loved children, and there were a set of cards showing how he bolstered the failing education system and created Hitler Youth.

Jean was just old enough to have joined Hitler Youth when it first began. He remembered those days fondly: getting out of the city, camping, fishing, learning to survive on one's own, and even learning how to shoot a gun. The first time Jean touched a rifle was in Hitler Youth. He had been awful at first, far better at tracking than marksmanship, but he managed to get better.

Some of the boys in his troop were merely there to get away from abusive parents and make friends. Jean joined because he saw the girls in Bund Deutscher Mädel flirting with the boys in uniform.

That was a good reason to join!

He liked Hitler Youth, it was a bright highlight of his later childhood, but if he had to admit, he placed less emphasis on the military preparation and more on seeing how many girls would bed him. After all, there was a reason they were nicknamed "Bund Deutscher Matratzen" (The League of German Mattresses).

He thought back again to Eren's box full of badges. Eren obviously had no interest in the League of German Girls. Jean would almost think that he joined to see the boys in uniform, but all of those badges showed otherwise. Eren took his challenges seriously. Jean bet, when Eren first shot a rifle, he had not stood shaken at the recoil or covered his ears at the explosions like so many of the boys did in his troop. Eren probably grabbed that rifle and hit a bull's eye the first time.

He had been taught in school that homosexual men were weak, lazy, and effeminate. Eren proved otherwise.

Jean realized, he had been lied to about Romani, and he had been lied to about homosexuals. He was also told that Jews were selfish cowards who were naturally weaker and stupider than true humans, but as he glanced at the bed, knowing that the man hiding under there had bravely exposed his identity to save Eren, climbed four flights of stairs with a broken foot to follow him, and then fought an armed attacker with just a knife to protect Eren's life, he knew that the Nazi propaganda about Jews also was a lie.

Just how many lies had he been taught in school?

"Jean!"

He jumped up at Eren's voice, rushed to the door, and pulled the chair away. "Took you a while."

"I had to run an errand." Eren stepped in, now holding a pair of crutches, and shut the door, wedging the chair up against it. "Any news on getting that fixed?"

"They just keep saying sometime today."

Eren threw off his rain-dusted coat and cap. "I swear, the world is trying to turn against me, and if I don't fight back at every step, it'll win."

"Did Armin come up with a plan?"

"Yes, but I don't want to explain it here." He heard stomping feet overhead and glanced at the ceiling.

"Yeah, they've been doing a lot of work up there all morning."

"They're carrying boxes up and down the main staircase, trying to empty out the attic before they board it up. Armin and Floch are downstairs trying to stop them."