Fic: down on the cards
Jul. 22nd, 2023 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosanicusHaving posted a little snippet of this earlier in the week, I finally knuckled down and worked through to A finishing point for the very late Prisoner Exchange fic!
down on the cards is a fic about Algy getting captured by nefarious gangsters and locked up in a castle (par for the course for & Co.) . The catch to all this is, very shortly after he wakes up he is joined in the cell by a similarly captured von Stalhein, who Algy had quite reasonably assumed died when his plane crashed at the end of Flies East. It's not really elaborated in the story (EvS sharing details of his own plans? Pfft.) but he has been rescuing the German citizens kidnapped by the gang, while Algy and Biggles were busy rescuing the British ones. He's a goodie here! But in such a fun and suspicious way. EvS <3
"Any other tools you'd care to reveal? Lockpicks down your vest? A pistol up your –"
"Nothing so conspicuous as that," von Stalhein interjected. He fiddled with his collar for a moment and extracted a thin length of wire, twisted it until he seemed satisfied, then bent to work at the lock.
It was a slow process. Every scrape of the wire against the iron of the lock made Algy twitch, ears straining for any sign of approaching footsteps or a shout of alarm. Nothing came, and yet as the seconds crawled by he felt himself growing more and more agitated.
“Stop that,” said von Stalhein, still with one hand on the lock and the other adjusting the wire. “It is very distracting.”
Algy felt his ears burn at the other man’s tone. A flicker of his earlier righteous anger still remained in his chest; once they’d successfully escaped he was hoping he’d have worked up a decent tirade to deliver.
Long minutes later, von Stalhein let out a quiet, triumphant sound. He pushed the bars of the cell aside slowly; Algy winced as it slid home with a loud scraping and a clatter.
“That’ll have someone coming to investigate things,” he murmured. His nerves were holding up well enough but he knew instinctively that he would need a stiff drink and a cigarette as soon as possible. “Which of us has the better right hook?”
“I think you English have a saying about discretion,” replied von Stalhein. “With which, on this occasion, I am inclined to agree.”
As a reward for finally finishing something, tomorrow I am going to Aerospace Bristol where I will be buying a rubber duck in a WW1 flying jacket. And possibly looking at some planes, but I think the duck is the real prize here.
down on the cards is a fic about Algy getting captured by nefarious gangsters and locked up in a castle (par for the course for & Co.) . The catch to all this is, very shortly after he wakes up he is joined in the cell by a similarly captured von Stalhein, who Algy had quite reasonably assumed died when his plane crashed at the end of Flies East. It's not really elaborated in the story (EvS sharing details of his own plans? Pfft.) but he has been rescuing the German citizens kidnapped by the gang, while Algy and Biggles were busy rescuing the British ones. He's a goodie here! But in such a fun and suspicious way. EvS <3
"Any other tools you'd care to reveal? Lockpicks down your vest? A pistol up your –"
"Nothing so conspicuous as that," von Stalhein interjected. He fiddled with his collar for a moment and extracted a thin length of wire, twisted it until he seemed satisfied, then bent to work at the lock.
It was a slow process. Every scrape of the wire against the iron of the lock made Algy twitch, ears straining for any sign of approaching footsteps or a shout of alarm. Nothing came, and yet as the seconds crawled by he felt himself growing more and more agitated.
“Stop that,” said von Stalhein, still with one hand on the lock and the other adjusting the wire. “It is very distracting.”
Algy felt his ears burn at the other man’s tone. A flicker of his earlier righteous anger still remained in his chest; once they’d successfully escaped he was hoping he’d have worked up a decent tirade to deliver.
Long minutes later, von Stalhein let out a quiet, triumphant sound. He pushed the bars of the cell aside slowly; Algy winced as it slid home with a loud scraping and a clatter.
“That’ll have someone coming to investigate things,” he murmured. His nerves were holding up well enough but he knew instinctively that he would need a stiff drink and a cigarette as soon as possible. “Which of us has the better right hook?”
“I think you English have a saying about discretion,” replied von Stalhein. “With which, on this occasion, I am inclined to agree.”
As a reward for finally finishing something, tomorrow I am going to Aerospace Bristol where I will be buying a rubber duck in a WW1 flying jacket. And possibly looking at some planes, but I think the duck is the real prize here.
