Insert pun about heat and stripping here. [Active/Open]

[deinennazihoden]

Characters: Hugo Stiglitz
Setting: Hallway
Time: Day 019
Summary: Hugo's overheating and going slightly crazy from constant noise.
Warnings: Nothing yet.

Comments

[omnomnomsweets]

Break was equally miserable. He'd shed his overcoat and his cravat and a lollipop had been fashioned into a sort of parasol for Emily, but it didn't help as much as he would have liked. He was still in long sleeves and he couldn't take that off-- he may have gotten away with it before, but not with Alice and Oz wandering about. They would know what his contractor's seal meant, and he didn't really want to deal with the consequences if they saw it. So instead he had kicked off his boots and spread himself out over as much of the cool stone floor as he could manage. He's blocked most of the hallway in the process, but that was hardly his problem, now was it?

He'd been lying there in relative peace and had almost dozed off when some young ruffian started shouting. Break cracked open his single red eye to glare at the intruder, who was stripping and flinging things to the floor and, by all appearances, yelling at the wall. How utterly sane of him.

"Be quiet?" Emily piped up. "But he's the loudest thing here, isn't he?"
"That we can hear," Break replied, then lowered his voice to a mock whisper. "I think he's a little bit funny," he said, tapping his head and giving the puppet a knowing look.

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo turned his head at the sound of voices. He wasn't certain how he could have missed the man spanning the hallway--He supposed it was the heat and his lack of rest, clouding his usually keen senses, but it was still inexcuseable. He would be more vigilant from now on, or likely he would miss something that would end his life.

He didn't know what to do with the commentary of the two beings looking at them, and, as was Hugo's way, when he didn't know what to say he just stared blankly and intently. He memorized what he could about them, assessed possible weaknesses and strengths, what angles they could attack from, how he would defend--

A yawn snuck up on him, starting at the base of his spine and spreading through his body. He kept his eyes open enough to watch the other occupants of the hall, but he knew they now knew he was tired, overheated, and at a weak point. Anticipating an attack, he wrapped his hand around his machine gun.

[omnomnomsweets]

If Break had considered Hugo sane before, he certainly didn't now. The staring was bad enough-- not abnormal, perhaps, but still quite rude. Still, the man seemed content to live and let live, so Break wasn't going to complain. But that was before Break caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked over to find that the man was actually shifting to keep a hand on his weapon.

Really? Break was sprawled out on the floor, apparently unarmed, and even if Hugo had known that his cane contained a sword, it was barely within reach. As far as Break was concerned this was paranoia at its finest. He sat up slowly. It would be best not to make any sudden movements while the man had his hand on that thing; it was much larger and more complicated than anything he'd seen back home, but it was still distinctly gun-like, and he wasn't particularly interested in being shot today.

"Staring is rude, you know," he said, putting on an air of nonchalance. He pulled a few hard mints out of his pocket. "Peppermint? Keeps you cool."

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo eyed the slow moving man. Clearly he was trying to seem nonthreatening (Which didn't assuage Hugo's suspicions at all.) and that, at least, made Hugo less inclined to shoot him. None of the actual people here had tried to kill him yet-- He had no real reason to suspect this man would. Still, it had been a long day, and Hugo's nerves were not at their best.

"Yes. I know." Hugo eyes the peppermints, weighing the pros and cons of taking mints from men he did not know. "Yes, thank you."

His approach for the mints made him look rather like a wary, startled wild animal, moving slowly and ready for any attempt on his life. He left the gun behind, but he had a pistol and a knife on his belt, as well. Hugo liked to be armed to the teeth, even if all he was doing was being offered peppermints.

[omnomnomsweets]

Break was much more comfortable now that the strange gun was out of Hugo's hands. A pistol took time to draw, and Break would frankly be shocked if this man could best him with a knife, so he considered this relative safety. Safe enough to tease him a little bit. He shook the handful of mints at him and laughed.

"It isn't as if they're going to bite you, you know. Why, they don't even have teeth."

He took two for himself, crunching savagely on one and storing the other in his cheek; candies never lasted long for him so he may as well be prepared. Besides, this provided some assurance that the sweets weren't poisoned. He held out his hand and shook the remaining mints at Hugo again, raising his eyebrows in an expectant look. If it weren't for the guns, this would feel rather like trying to hand-feed a wild animal.

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo took a mint, somewhat reluctantly. He watched Break chew, waiting for any sign of poison- Or of Break spitting it out. Once he felt secure enough, he poppedthe peppermint into his mouth. Hugo preferred to savor sweets; It was rare he ever got them, on the front. Even rarer, with the Basterds.

"Danke." Hugo said, gruffly. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the peppermint in his cheek.

He eyed Break carefully, assesing if he wanted to associate with him further. He was right- the peppermint cooled him down, somewhat.

He offered his hand abruptly. "Feldwebel Hugo Stiglitz." Cue guitar riff.

/late forever, sorry

[omnomnomsweets]

Break was certainly not spitting it out. He wasn't very fond of poisons in the first place-- if you were going to hurt someone yourself, you did it out in the open, not through some underhanded trickery like that-- but even if he was, he would never poison sweets. It was some form of sacrilege.

Break started a little when Hugo offered his hand, stopping just short of jumping out of the way; Hugo had seemed so reluctant before that he'd assumed any sudden movements would be an attack. But he didn't, and he returned the handshake with a bright smile. This counted as a victory.

"Xerxes Break. Tell me, where are you from?"

The language sounded familiar; he didn't speak it, but he was fairly sure he'd heard it before. After Watanuki, Doumeki, and Ange speaking in tongues all the time, this was a bit charming.

No worries!

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo had a firm, brief, and rough handshake. He wasn't a man who tended to overcompensate-- He was just a soldier, and was very good at what he did, and his handshake reflected that comfortably.

"Germany." Hugo still looked wary, despite the gestures of good intent. After all, revealing oneself as a Nazi was hardly good strategy, but he couldn't be sure what the strange people appearing here would know, and what they wouldn't.

[omnomnomsweets]

That was all right; Break may look like a waif of a man, but looks could be deceiving. He adjusted his handshake to be equally rough, though the overly pleasant smile never left his face.

"Germany!" he exclaimed, pulling back and clapping his hands together. "What a charming little place. Never heard of it. What's it like there?"

Break was never very good with the concept of privacy for anyone but himself. Besides, it really did sound familiar. Perhaps it was similar to a country in his world, and just had a different name?

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo looked almost amused as he pondered how to answer that question. Someone who had never heard of Germany? What was Germany like? In 1941, to a homocidal ex-Nazi falling in with American troops? Well.

"It is interesting." That was possibly not the most verbose answer he could provide. (Not that he usually used verbose answers, in any case.) "...The food is good." Or it had been.

Also he totally doesn't have Emily, I keep forgetting she's missing atm. SORRY!

[omnomnomsweets]

"The food is good," he echoed, a little incredulous. Well, that was probably the least helpful way to describe a country that he'd heard yet. Then again Hugo appeared to be one of those men who was allergic to words-- which would certainly explain why early attempts at conversation had been almost painful-- so Break really shouldn't expect so much from him. He let it slide.

"Ah, I suppose that would be what sticks in the mind of a healthy young man. Well, that and other things perhaps, but maybe not since it appears--" he gave Hugo a brief look up and down, his eye lingering on the pistol, quirking his eyebrow in amusement-- "that you prefer guns. But that's all right too!" he finished, patting Hugo on the back as he fished in his pocket for another peppermint.

Haha, no problem.

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo stiffens a little at the patting, but manages to not even glare or bare his teeth, which was more than he could guarantee had the man been anything like the last one to put hands on his person.

"There is not much good to tell." Hugo seems a little puzzled by the end of Break's enthusiastic statement, but, well...he can be slow to catch on in some areas.

[omnomnomsweets]

It was all right, Break liked it when they were slow to catch on. It was better when there was an audience that did catch on but this was fine too. The corners of his smile twitched upwards a bit when Hugo stiffened. Ah, so he wasn't used to being touched, was he? It made him nervous? What a useful thing to know.

"Is that so? Then I suppose coming here is practically a vacation!" Though he sincerely doubted that anyone could have possibly come from somewhere worse than this.

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo actually seemed to consider it for a moment. A very long moment. "Here, you can see which are the monsters."

That seemed an apt way to put it.

[omnomnomsweets]

Break narrowed his eye and studied Hugo for a moment. It was a good answer-- certainly more than Break had expected of him, though that wasn't saying much.

"Ha!" He flopped back onto the floor, shaking his head. "One of those worlds, was it? Politics! Man's most tedious invention."

[deinennazihoden]

Hugo chuckled. "Yes."

He didn't seem inclined to offer anything else, and leaned on the wall comfortably.