sholio | Dear Fic in a Box Creator

All my requests are Biggles this time.

I love this canon, and all of these characters, and I'm sure I'll love anything you create for me! Some sections are longer than others, but it's only because I have more ideas for those, not because I want them more. Thank you so much for making something for me!

Note: I'm opted in to a 500-word minimum length for all requests.

General Likes: Hurt/comfort, friendship, enemies to friends/lovers, awkward bonding, casefic and adventures, quiet downtime between missions, forced to share a bed/hotel room/tent/etc, protectiveness, loyalty, morally ambiguous situations and difficult decisions, ambiguous relationships that are hard to pin down as one thing or another, duty conflicting with personal feelings, learning to trust others, small acts of kindness.

Hurt/Comfort Likes (feel free to ignore if h/c isn't your thing): Head injuries, nonconsensually drugged into a state of delirium or terror, fevers, cuddling for comfort or warmth, presumed dead, flogging/whipping, hospital stays, shot/stabbed and bleeding out, stranded or locked up with a hurt person, hiding injuries until collapsing, aftermath for canon injuries, psychological trauma, nightmares, dealing with a disability or chronic pain (hi Erich), seasickness or similar physical illness, quietly providing comfort (food, sympathy, etc) for someone who has had a bad day or is mildly hurt/sick. These are merely some of my favorites, however; I would be very happy if you want to include some form of h/c not listed above!

Do Not Want: Permanent character death (temp deaths/presumed dead and OC/canon deaths are totally fine); plot focus on WW2; noncon performed by a canon character against another (I'd prefer it to be done by OC villains or the result of something dubconny like sex pollen inflicted on them by someone else; being nonconned by villains for purposes of h/c is fine!).

James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich Von Stalhein
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein

I have requested these characters a number of times, so feel free to look through old exchange requests for additional ideas; I would be very happy to have anything I've asked for before! The recent Prisoner's Exchange and Hurt/Comfort-Ex freeform tags are a request bonanza.

I am also happy with anything from totally gen to flirty/ambiguous to a full-on pairing, anything from first time to established relationship; I enjoy it all.

And similarly, I love Biggles and EvS at all points along their canon trajectory, from their sparring in Flies East to the playfulness and Homemade Cake of Biggles & Co to the darkness of the postwar years, the Hatchet rescue, the slow rebuilding of their friendship (or more) in the aftermath. You can't really go wrong.

The team or other characters (e.g. Raymond, Fritz, Marie) are also welcome to appear in a fic.

Some scenarios I might like:

- Further aftermath or AUs for Buries a Hatchet. Not gonna lie, as much as I love the book just as it is, I also crave more aftermath and comfort for Erich in particular. Missing scenes from the military base or their trip back? Erich being hurt more badly than in canon, so he collapses on the trip or needs more TLC on the plane? Maybe even a full-on AU in which he and Biggles are separated from the others during the escape, maybe one or both of them hurt, maybe recaptured or forced to flee into the wilderness?

- Total post-Hatchet/post-Looks Back fluff. Cuddling, dating, picnics, going to aviation museums or riding horses.

- "I have nowhere else to go" while they're still enemies, with a hurt Erich turning up on Biggles's doorstep, or Biggles collapsing on Erich's.

- I wish they'd had more opportunities to team up while still enemies a la Foreign Legionnaire, and would love to see more of that, either an extended version of the Legionnaire sequence (one of them is hurt? The siege lasts longer?) or other, similar situations in which they are forced to team up against a worse enemy.

- Canon-typical flirting, holding each other at gunpoint, competing for the same goal is always fun! In those situations I would like it if Erich wasn't a complete loser in their competition; I would like to see him get a little of his own back, whether it's managing to get away with at least some part of what he came for, or he or Biggles voluntarily giving it up to the other. Or some other mild victory condition even if Biggles needs to be the overall winner.

- Aftermath of noncon. I think I might especially like this with Biggles as the victim, maybe Erich (& co) rescue him from captivity only to slowly realize that as much as he is pretending to be all right, he's very much not. Or Erich, during their enemy years, discovers to his horror that a captive Biggles has been raped or abused by some of his seedy companions, and shelters and protects him. (In that scenario, maybe Biggles thinks Erich knew about it and condoned it? Or Erich is shocked and crumbles a little inside to find that Biggles never thought it of him for a minute?)

- But I'm also perfectly happy with Erich as the victim; perhaps Biggles learns of mistreatment that he suffered in the past, or someone who used to abuse him shows up expecting to find a willing Erich and finds a furious Biggles instead.

- AUs with magic, magical realism, pulpy sci-fi, or different twists of canon. I don't want a total change-of-setting/change-of-time-period AU for this canon (e.g. "they're on a sailing ship in 1700") but I would be happy with alterations to the canon timeline (they became allies in Flies East; Erich defected sooner; Hatchet went differently; etc) or the addition of new elements, such as werewolves or fae or magical wishes or various forms of period fantastic tech such as punishment collars or ray guns.

- Presumed dead is one of my very favorite things and I would love it for either of them! Erich thinking he's killed his enemy and discovering that he doesn't actually want him dead; Biggles believing EvS has been killed or died in Sakhalin or otherwise vanished; any sort of scenario for this would be loved, just please give me the "not dead" discovery in the fic rather than leaving them hanging.

- Glimpses of the slow building of their post-Hatchet friendship (and moreship?) would be lovely to see; the way that they gradually get closer in canon, with both of them cautiously reaching out, is endlessly lovely to me.

- AU in which Erich's leg injury is worse than in canon? For example: he's hurt badly in the crash in Flies East and captured by Biggles's side (maybe turned over to Biggles's custody pending a trial?); he's having a lot of trouble getting around post-Sakhalin and Biggles (& co) notice; etc.

Algy Lacey & James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich von Stalhein
Algy Lacey & James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein
Algy Lacey & Erich von Stalhein
James Bigglesworth & Ginger Hebblethwaite & Algy Lacey & Bertie Lissie & Erich von Stalhein

As with the Biggles & Erich requests above, I have many previous requests for these characters, so feel free to look through my past ones for further inspiration! I'm quite happy to have anything from enemies to cautious allies/friends for these, and background Biggles/EvS is fine, or it can be gen.

Erich dealing with Biggles's team, either as their enemy (or maybe an enemy they're helping) or as a cautious ally in the post-Hatchet years, is always a wonderful dynamic. And Algy is a perennial favorite of mine, with his loyalty to Biggles and his friends, his cynical sense of humor, his kindness. I love his and Biggles's closeness, and wouldn't want to see that downplayed or erased in a fic.

Similarly, I love Biggles's relationship with his friends; I love that his loyalty to them and love for them is so much a part of who he is -- I want Erich *in addition* to the friends he already has, not instead of them.

Some scenarios I might like:

- Erich comes on a mission with Biggles's team, post-Looks Back. Anything with all of them getting used to each other, maybe the others getting to see a little of the "dashing" Erich that Biggles sees (and vice versa, Erich seeing what Biggles sees in the others, recognizing that they're people he would really like to have as friends), or Erich or someone else being hurt, or just general uneasy "learning to work together" team feelings.

- Not too long after Hatchet, when EvS is still adjusting to his new life and Biggles's team are very unsure what to make of him, Biggles goes missing and Algy, or the whole team, must seek Erich's help in getting him back. This could definitely take place at any time in canon, too.

- In general I love anything that pulls on those bonds of loyalty that Biggles and the others have. Biggles low-key freaking out because someone he loves is being held hostage or in danger is also wonderful.

- During the enemy years, Erich has to either seek out their help because he's in trouble or hurt, or they come for him. (One freeform tag that really appeals to me here is "Bound & left to die - area is being flooded or otherwise becoming uninhabitable" - Erich's supposed allies leave him to die, but Biggles's team rescues him.)

- In general, I just really love Erich's interactions with Biggles's team, with individual members of the team or generally starting to have little hints of becoming "one of the group" himself.

- Algy reacting to realizing that Biggles and EvS are a couple. Or a "5 things through the years" with Algy's outside observations on them, or something of that nature.

- Algy and EvS working together with teeth-gritted determination not to kill each other and bonding a bit, from something domestic and fluffy like "buy a birthday present for Biggles" to a fraught and stressful situation such as having to rescue each other, or being in danger together.

- Most of my Biggles & EvS ideas would also work here, adapted somewhat for having the whole team, or focusing more on Algy.

- Most of the AU ideas suggested in the Biggles & EvS section would also work here: magic, werewolves, control collars, etc. With the whole team involved, it might be really fun if their mandate was different; instead of being Special Air Police, they're ghost hunters or the department that deals with Weird Shit, and Erich is either their opposite number on the other side, or some kind of Weird Shit himself.

Algy Lacey/Erich von Stalhein
Algy Lacey/James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein

I don't think I see either of these as happy-ever-after pairings, personally, but I do like it best when it's shaded with a touch of mutual respect or even fondness between Algy and Erich - even if it's also combined with plenty of antagonism, hate-flirting, and mutual dislike! I also would prefer if this didn't shade too hard into jealousy with either Biggles or Erich being jealous of the other and Algy, though a hint of it is okay if that's where it goes. (I realize all of this sounds picky, but truly, I'm completely open to other interpretations; this is an odd little pairing and not one I'm inclined to be picky about. I wouldn't have requested it if I wasn't open to other people's headcanons!)

Anyway, so some possible scenarios might be:

Sex pollen for two or all three of them. Something they encounter on a mission either before or after Erich's defection? An escape plan that went really wrong? (I think I would prefer not to have it be something Erich did deliberately, however, unless this wasn't at all the intended outcome.)

Comfort sex, that's really *just* sex without necessarily leading to a longer-term relationship. Maybe Algy and Erich have sex while thinking Biggles is dead, or Erich and Biggles invite Algy into their bed for sex or just cuddling after a mission gone bad.

An AU with magical compulsion or magical creatures. Erich as an incubus who inadvertently invokes lust in people around him; maybe he's forced to wear some kind of inhibitor but it malfunctions or he becomes ill if he doesn't have sex regularly and one day Biggles isn't around ...? Or some kind of magical binding (forced magic marriage, soulmates, etc) that wasn't supposed to involve Algy but does somehow involve Algy?

William Raymond & Algy Lacey & James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich Von Stalhein
William Raymond & Erich von Stalhein
William Raymond & James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich Von Stalhein

I crave Raymond interacting with any combination of these characters! (Fic just focused on Raymond and Biggles is also fine, though it's not specifically in my pairing requests.) He has such an interesting relationship with the whole team, and it's clear that he has a level of respectful control over Biggles that no one else does (but also knows when not to push it). He and Erich also, as two aging spies, understand each other in a way that few of the other people in their life do.

I would love to see Raymond's outside POV on the team, or Erich, or Biggles, or Biggles and Erich together. I would also love a fic that involves Raymond in their life and affairs. Maybe there's a case in which Raymond is involved personally - having to protect him from assassins, or Raymond going along with them overseas because he needs to be involved on a diplomatic level. Raymond getting to do something action-hero-y or save the day somehow would also be great! Maybe Raymond's POV on having to sit at home while they are in danger, or send them out into danger knowing they might die.

Fic with Raymond interacting with Erich after the end of Buries a Hatchet would also be wonderful; he clearly stays in close touch with him and is instrumental in helping Erich get a new identity and a job, but in a way that's at least plausibly deniable as duty, necessity, or trading favors rather than friendship. I would love to see their verbal fencing, and general recognition of each other's cynical side, combined with a genuine respect maybe even shading into friendship over time. Also, what if Raymond had other run-ins with Erich before Buries a Hatchet that Biggles didn't know about?

Feel free to include any of my requested pairings in this if it fits the story you want to tell. (Raymond noticing that Erich and Biggles are a couple, having to file a report on an incident in which Algy and Erich were sex pollen'd, etc.)

Opt-in mediums

I also requested the following:

Medium Opt-In: Any - Any In-Universe Documents
Medium Opt-In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Excerpts from a Journal/Notebook/Sketchbook
Medium Opt-In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Mission Report
Medium Opt-In: Writing - Mission Report
Medium Opt-In: Writing - In-Universe Complaint Form
Medium Opt-In: Writing - In-Universe Psychological Evaluation Report
Medium Opt-In: Writing - In-Universe Personal Documents
Medium Opt-In: Writing - In-Universe Tabloid Article

Honestly I think it would be adorable/hilarious to see some of their mission reports, letters, or other documents, either as a gift on its own or embedded in a story. Mission reports, psychevals, etc might combine well with the Raymond suggestions above, or it might be something like Algy reacting furiously over breakfast to a tabloid article gossiping about his supposed affair with Von Stalhein after the two of them were seen together in public.

You could do Erich's private notes on Biggles & co. in his personal journal, or a letter he wrote home about the events of some encounter with Biggles, or letters Erich wrote to Biggles and then burned, something like that. Maybe Algy has a regular sideline in writing angry letters to the editor correcting Clearly Wrong™ elements in stories appearing in print about Biggles, under various amazingly unconvincing pseudonyms ...

I also really enjoy outside POV, so this might be a good opportunity to go full fledged outside POV with some poor reporter or Soviet bloc bureaucrat trying to write about Biggles & co, or collected witness reports from a mission, or something like that. I especially love outside POV where you can read between the lines and figure out the subtext of what's really going on, while the hapless viewpoint character has no clue. (Who was that mysterious man with a monocle? Why does everyone seem to know him? What is happening??)

My preference would be if this doesn't go much crackier than the canon; I'd like to believe that it could fit in canon (maybe with a bit of additional weirdness) rather than, e.g. Erich's Very Secret Diaries, if that makes any sense? That being said, canon can be VERY cracky and I would love to see mission reports on some of their weirder missions, "that time Biggles grew bird wings" or "a decapod almost ate our plane" type of things are fine, or something more serious/angsty is great too.

Medium Opt-In: Writing - Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives

This just looks incredibly fun. The entire team giving different versions of what happened on a mission? Biggles going off on Erich's lithe form and piercing blue eyes while Algy is just like "yes, he tried to kill us again"? Erich and Algy's WILDLY different stories of how the flat got completely wrecked when everyone went off and left them alone there?