Work Text:
Hugo doesn’t sleep much anymore. He doesn’t sleep at all, even.
At least it feels that way.
In the dark hours of the night, when the rest of the men have finished fighting over the softest bit of hard packed dirt and fall into stillness, he finds himself a spot. Always a high vantage point, always against something solid. Tonight it’s the trunk of a fallen tree he sits back against some twenty yards away, the heels of his cracked boots dug into the downward sloping ground. He watches the camp below him, eyes already adjusted to the pressing darkness. He lights a cigarette and crushes the burning match between two fingers.
It’s not that he doesn’t trust these men, except that it is.
These Americans, blood thirsty and avenging. These Jews. He doesn’t hate Jews, but at the same time he does. Their incessant talking, chatter, screaming. Their hands don’t stop moving and all of this Hebrew and Yiddish needles at his brain, day in and day out. This is why he finds solace at night, in the dark and relative quiet of whatever spot they’ve stopped at, he can watch as their pretenses fall away. They stop being Jews and revert back to men, because in the dark there’s no need to play it all up so harshly.
He lights a second cigarette from the smoldering remains of the first.
Below, he watches as Hirschberg rolls back and forth in uneasy sleep, knowing that it’s only a matter of minutes before their Lieutenant smacks him with the flat side of his knife in annoyance. Wicki is crowded in on both sides by Utivitch and Kagan and Hugo knows and understands what’s between the three of them, and at night he tries his best to ignore it. It’s impolite to look in upon others intimate moments, at least that’s what someone had once told him.
On the furthest side of camp is a burning ember, a mirror of his own smoking cigarette and he knows, always knows, who it is. Donowitz doesn’t sleep much, or at all even, either.
At least it seems that way.
Hugo can hear his hard as nails voice in his head. He’s found that the harsh Boston accent sticks in his head like a migraine, rattling around against his skull until he gets a quiet moment like this, and only then does it finally stop moving. It settles and disappears until the next morning. When the sun breaks through the dark these men will again become Jewish soldiers, hearts full of revenge and their own brand of justice. Utivitch will complain about the food, Wicki will makes jokes about his mother and Donowitz’s voice will shame them all as he assumes his role as the Jew of all Jews, the Basterd of all Basterds.
And Hugo will go back to hating them all for being so goddamn loud.
Right now, though, he thumbs the tip of his blade and watches Donowitz snub out his cigarette in the dirt. No doubt he has his bat propped up against his knees, or perhaps across his lap. Hugo like’s to keep an eye out for Donowitz, especially at night. It’s a comfort to know where he is, because out of all of these men, it is Donowitz who is most likely to slit his throat while he sleeps.
Which is why he doesn’t sleep much anymore.
One of the reasons anyways.