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Biggles fic from AU Fest #2: Once Bitten
And the second of the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
auexchange fics for AU Fest is Once Bitten, for the prompt:
Rereading 'Takes a Holiday' and it occurred to me: what if after being bitten by the tarantula, it's EvS who finds Biggles desperately ill and has to figure out what to do with him?
This is extremely "what you see is what you get" h/c, and I mean that in the most affectionate possible way. The title is also a bit of a play on the phrase "once bitten, twice shy" - that is, after being betrayed once, it's hard to trust again. Or is it?
In the book, Biggles uses potassium permanganate ("permanganate of potash") to treat his tarantula bite. I had to look up what that's supposed to be doing, and it turns out it was used historically as a disinfectant. However,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wateroverstone contributed the AMAZING detail in the comments that it also turns everything that comes in contact with it bright purple. I leave you to enjoy this additional bit of extracanonical visual description.
Once Bitten (4600 wds, smarmish pre-relationship)
After the tarantula bite, Biggles fails to make his getaway before von Stalhein finds him.
The pain of rubbing the disinfecting permanganate crystals against the tarantula bite on the back of his hand nearly made Biggles faint. Sickness and weakness washed over him in waves; it seemed that the brightly lit medical lab around him shuddered with each beat of his heart. He was dimly aware of sounds elsewhere in the building—a crashing noise, shouts. Get out, he thought; hide, hide. He felt terribly exposed in the bright lights of the lab.
"Ah, Bigglesworth," said a voice from the doorway. "No—don't move." Biggles had reached by instinct for the pistol, which he had laid down on the floor as he fumbled for the potentially lifesaving disinfectant that he had spilled in his venom-induced clumsiness and haste.
Swallowing, Biggles looked up to see von Stalhein standing in the doorway, holding a pistol on him. Distantly Biggles recalled cleaning out the armory and dropping their Mausers in the river—how did— No, this must be a weapon von Stalhein had had on him. It all blurred together. He couldn't think.
"Get up," von Stalhein said, his voice harsh.
Biggles stayed where he was. His bad hand, covered in a sticky paste of blood and permanganate,was tucked into his jacket sleeve and resting in his lap, his other pressed to the floor, which seemed to be tilting under him. Taking a deep breath, he got himself slightly under control and sat back on his heels, making a dazed note of the location of his pistol. In his present condition he doubted whether he could grab it before von Stalhein shot him.
"I think I'll stay here," he said, and even managed to smile. "How was the storeroom?"
"You're looking for something," von Stalhein declared, his gaze darting around the room. It was not large, a small surgery or medical lab with shelves, a sink, and an operating table. Biggles's rummaging had scattered items across the floor. "What are you trying to find?"
Sickness pulsed in Biggles, washing through him in waves of heat and cold. His swollen hand felt like a red-hot poker was stabbing it, burning up his arm. "Nothing you need to know about," he said. "Actually ..." Inspiration struck, clearing through his sick haze. "Perhaps we should talk about it without Stitzen overhearing."
There was a pause. Then, moving only slightly, von Stalhein used his foot to nudge the door firmly closed.
Outside, through the pounding in his ears, Biggles heard shouting and running footsteps that he could hardly be bothered to worry about. Sweat trickled into his eyes. He thought von Stalhein alone would be easier to deal with than his murderous compatriots, but he couldn't think beyond that. Perhaps, Biggles thought, if he could manage to hold himself together until he was locked up, he might ... he didn't know, he only knew with raw animal instinct that showing weakness to his enemies might be deadly. But he also thought that the divisions between his opponents might be exploited to his advantage, if he could hold out long enough.
"Very well," von Stalhein said with a quiet chill in his voice, "we will talk, and I'll decide whether to call Stitzen. Do stand up, it's difficult talking to you on the floor."
Biggles inhaled deeply and, with a terrific lurch, got to his feet. The pistol receded to the distance of approximately the moon, a couple of feet from his shoes, as the room swirled around him.
He looked up to find that the wavering image of von Stalhein had stepped nearer, staring at him. "What is wrong with you? You were fine a few minutes ago."
"It's this tropical heat," Biggles answered lightly. In some distant part of his mind, he was surprised at how normal his voice sounded. Sick pain pounded in his swollen arm with every beat of his thudding heart. "I always had fevers when I was a boy, India, you know. They always said—the adults, that one of them would carry me off someday, it was why they sent me to England to school—"
"You're trying to distract me," von Stalhein said shortly, interrupting what Biggles dazedly realized had become feverish rambling. "What did you come here looking for? You were away and then you came back—why?"
Biggles felt blood trickling off the fingers of his injured hand. He forced himself to move the fingers a little. The bolt of agony cleared his head somewhat and gave him the strength to stand straighter, but also brought a fresh surge of nausea that he had to concentrate on fighting back.
"Nothing you'd be concerned with," he said in perfect honesty. "It is nothing to you and everything to me."
Von Stalhein clearly took this for obstinacy. "Is that a riddle? Is all this a game to you?" he bit out.
He was quite angry, Biggles realized. The air of urbane well-worn geniality had given way to a snapping hostility that glittered in his eyes.
"I came in here expecting you had something to say; but if all you're going to do is make fun—wasting my time until your associates arrive, I expect—then I'll turn you over to Stitzen. He'll have you talking soon enough."
With that von Stalhein moved forward sharply; the threat was clear. Biggles made an attempt to step back, but by this point he was so clumsy that his feet nearly went out from under him, and he would have fallen if not for von Stalhein grabbing his arm. There was no gentleness in the act; it was pure expediency, meant to steer him toward the door.
But von Stalhein grasped his left, and the surge of agony felt to Biggles as if his bones had been dipped in acid. He lost strength in his legs, the bright lights of the infirmary turned to midnight, and when his sight and hearing both cleared, he was holding himself up by clinging with his good hand to von Stalhein's jacket. He knew he should let go, but he feared that if he did he would fall. He expected at any moment to be struck off. All he could do was gaze dizzily at the floor, where he saw red drops landing on the whitewashed floorboards, one after another, trickling from the knife scores on the back of his injured hand and forming a strangely fascinating pattern.
Von Stalhein didn't move for a moment, as Biggles clung to him, then took the sleeve of his injured arm with more care this time.
"What is wrong with you?" Von Stalhein's voice was curt. He pulled up Biggles's sleeve and made a sound, a sharp hiss between his teeth, at the sight of Biggles's purple, swollen and bloody hand.
"Tarantula bite," Biggles said. He made a supreme effort and got his feet under him, pushed himself back from von Stalhein, though he still kept his hand fisted in the breast of von Stalhein's jacket in case he needed the support again. Von Stalhein did not brush him off. Instead he looked from Biggles's distorted hand to his face, and the austere brows drew together in a frown.
"Those are lethal," von Stalhein said, his face and his voice impossible to read.
"I hope to buck the trend," Biggles said. "I don't like going with the crowd." He became aware that he was shivering, and tried to steady himself, making another great effort to keep his wobbly legs under him and stand up straight. The walls seemed to waver around him, swelling inward and then breathing out in a way he remembered from fevers when he was a boy. With care, he took his hand off von Stalhein's chest. "If you're going to lock me up, or take me to Stitzen or to Liebgarten, I suggest it would be easiest to do so now. There's nothing further that can help me here, I think." His teeth were chattering so that he had difficulty getting the last words out.
"Not likely," von Stalhein said, his voice thoughtful. He looked down at the scattering of permanganate crystals on the floor. Then he raised the sharp, winter-pale eyes to rest on Biggles's face, with something in them that Biggles could not make out, anger and more. "If you're faking this—" he began, but again his eyes drifted down to the swollen hand, impossible to fake.
Biggles started to answer, but a choking rush of nausea stopped him; instead he took a step to the side, trying to recover his balance, but lost his equilibrium instead. He didn't know what happened, only that the world tilted sideways and suddenly he had half his weight on von Stalhein, who supported him in an act of pure reflex.
With a grasp on him that was anything but gentle, though less rough than a moment ago, von Stalhein steered Biggles's wobbling steps to lean him against the operating table. He left Biggles there—panting, clinging to the side of the table while trying not to lose either his legs or his stomach—and took a few quick steps to the door, where he turned the key in the lock. Then he came back.
Saying nothing, he took hold of Biggles's hand and turned it over on the table under the lights, examining it as if it was of acute scientific interest to him. Biggles could only gasp; he had spent most of his energy standing upright and talking, and now it seemed to be running out of him like sand from an hourglass. His hand no longer felt like a part of him, grotesquely swollen and purple. The slashes across the back had pulled apart like the split skin of a fruit, and blood and other fluids ran freely onto the table. Biggles stared at it uncomprehendingly.
"How long ago did this happen?"
Von Stalhein's voice, curt but no longer furious, cut through Biggles's haze. "Not long," he said, moistening dry lips. "A—a few minutes. I had time to come inside, look for supplies ..." His head pounded, a sick pulsing pain that made it impossible to think.
"It is an infirmary," von Stalhein said, almost to himself. "Few better places. No—they'll be looking here at any moment. Somewhere else. Stand up."
Biggles tried, swaying limply on legs that felt like rubber. The world pulsed around him in waves of black and red, going in and out of focus. Von Stalhein was holding him up; he was aware of that much. They were moving. Regaining and losing his balance, again and again, he stumbled through a dim, wavering nightmare world in which nothing made sense. The one constant was von Stalhein, catching him whenever he lost his balance, supporting him with a firm grip. They seemed to be in darkness— they were in light— Biggles had the feverish awareness of staggering through tangled grass, which he wasn't sure was real or a hallucination, and by the time he fell onto a bed, he was so dizzy that it took him a moment to realize he was lying down rather than standing.
Von Stalhein bent over him, seeming to loom and retreat at the same time, and Biggles gazed up at him. Von Stalhein's face was in shadow, but Biggles still knew him by his shape. And he also knew, somehow, the touch of the sure hands that were cold on his fevered flesh as von Stalhein cut the sleeve away from his swollen arm. His arm felt stiff as a pole, but hot and throbbing with a searing pain like nothing he had ever experienced. Biggles kept his gaze on von Stalhein's face, of which he could see only the planes cast in deep shadow, the occasional glitter of the eyes.
"Bigglesworth." Von Stalhein's hand laid, cool, against the side of his hot face, turning his head as his gaze drifted away. Biggles felt as if he was sliding sideways on the bed, and von Stalhein's hand was stopping him, propping him up as he fell ... no, he was lying flat, the tilting feeling was all in his swollen, throbbing head.
"—heard anything, in your travels, about something like this? Remedies? Bigglesworth, pay attention."
"I don't know," Biggles said. His tongue felt thick, and his teeth continued to chatter uncontrollably. "I really try to stay above the jungle, avoid so many problems that way. If they develop flying tarantulas, we'll really have a problem."
Von Stalhein made a faintly strangled sound. "Stop speaking nonsense." He sat back abruptly, looking over Biggles's head as if to find inspiration on the wall. "Very well. Stay here and don't make noise."
With that, von Stalhein withdrew with such speed that Biggles could do no more than catch futilely at empty air.
"Don't go," he said, his voice a thread barely audible even to himself.
A door closed. A lock clicked. Biggles lay alone with the scorching pain. Von Stalhein had locked him up, and now left him. Left him to die.
Drawing fiercely on what little reserves he had remaining, he mustered all his energy and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed before his body could catch up with events and fall down again. Gripping the edge of the bed with his good hand, he waited out the swamping dizziness and nausea. His vision began to clear, alternately dimming and brightening again, and he registered details. A lamp beside the bed. A small desk and a chair. A window. A door. There were a few small touches, pens and writing paper on the desk, a few books, a half-empty wine bottle. This seemed oddly well appointed for a cell.
No, Biggles thought, his head clearing briefly enough to think. This was no cell, and from what he'd seen of the workers' quarters, this was not one of their huts either. This was, could only be, von Stalhein's room.
He thought about getting up, stared across the room at the infinitely distant door, then slumped down again before he could decide. There was a good chance von Stalhein had gone to fetch the guards. If he could only lie here for a moment, perhaps he could get up ... Pain and sickness, heat and cold washed over him in waves. He was unaware of time passing, and yet it seemed endless, before the bed dipped as someone sat beside him. A cool hand, firm but not entirely ungentle, cupped the back of his sweat-soaked head and lifted it. The rim of a vessel pressed to his lips, and von Stalhein's voice said, "Drink this."
Biggles swallowed without objection, then choked and roused a little as whatever was in the bottle seared like fire down his throat. Von Stalhein held it there mercilessly, and he had to drink or be drowned. When it was finally taken away, he said hoarsely between strangled coughs, "What was that?"
"Local liquor. Packs a punch. No, don't try to move." Von Stalhein turned with swift and economical movements, set the bottle aside and began to work on Biggles's arm again. The pain came in waves, but Biggles turned his head to watch, the strong liquor burning in his throat and his queasy stomach. It seemed to him that von Stalhein was the most interesting thing in the room, the only thing to focus on, and if Biggles kept tracking him like a fixed star, it would be impossible to slide away into the hot, sick darkness that kept pulling him down.
Von Stalhein worked steadily on his arm, laying compresses on it that Biggles couldn't feel over the burning pain, and spoke without looking up. "I had a word with Durango's men. Told them one of us was down with a tarantula bite. Strong drink and heat to draw out the poison, they said, then cold to settle the fever. No, stay still." He planted a hand on Biggles's chest as Biggles started to try to sit up. "They also said moving about too much makes it worse, drives the poison through you. Just stay put, for once in your damned life."
Biggles settled back obediently. His eyelids were drooping now, fever-dreams creeping in from the sides. But he watched von Stalhein move about the room, tidying up a bowl of water and a stack of hastily folded, mostly clean cloths he had brought from somewhere. He dipped another rag, came back to bathe Biggles's arm with it.
"Are you awake?" he said, looking toward Biggles, who couldn't react but honestly wasn't sure. It was hard to tell waking from sleeping right now. The shadows were crawling around the room. Von Stalhein went on bathing his arm. After a time, he said in a voice that sounded raw in a way Biggles had never heard from him before, "I don't know why I'm doing this."
Biggles would have answered, but the crawling shadows crawled over the bed and smothered him.
After that, there was another interminable time, jumping from instant to instant without warning, yet also dragging without end. He surfaced repeatedly from unbearably vivid nightmares of the flesh being hacked from his arm with machetes or burned away with torches; sometimes it was Liebgarten, sometimes Stitzen, sometimes von Stalhein at the other end of the tools. But it was always von Stalhein when he awoke, leaning over him, speaking to him words he couldn't understand, placing cool cloths on his burning forehead. Once he woke to find himself sitting up and leaning on von Stalhein, his entire body limp and feverish, while von Stalhein bathed the back of his neck and the shoulder at the top of his burning, throbbing arm with a damp cloth. Von Stalhein was in his shirtsleeves and Biggles's head rested against his chest. He was not sure if this, too, was a dream, but he found the sound of von Stalhein's heartbeat strangely soothing. He slid back into sleep without trying to understand.
At last, he woke with his head clear enough that he could think for once. This time, it felt more like waking from normal sleep than drifting out of fever dreams. He still felt shaky and terribly weak, his temples throbbing, but the pain in his arm was bearable, the nausea had passed.
His arm seemed heavy, and he turned his head to see that it was bandaged. There was daylight streaming in through the window, and von Stalhein sat at the desk in a sweat-damp shirt, writing. Biggles gazed at him wearily and had a strangely intense sense-memory of the feeling of the cotton fabric of that shirt under his hot cheek, the welcome touch of von Stalhein running a cold cloth down the back of his neck.
Biggles watched him for a few moments before von Stalhein sighed a little and said, "If you're awake, say something."
"Wouldn't want to disappoint you, then." Biggles's voice was weak and rasping.
Von Stalhein didn't startle at the sound, or even pause in his activities. He went on writing, finished and folded his paper, then laid it aside and lit a cigarette. Only then he turned around, one arm draped languidly over the back of the chair, and watched Biggles for a moment before he said, "I'd offer you one, but it seems counterindicated in your condition."
"I could do with a drink of water if there is any," Biggles said. He worked to sit up, finding himself far weaker than he had realized. Von Stalhein rose from the chair, and Biggles said distractedly, "Don't trouble yourself. I'll get it."
Ignoring him, von Stalhein laid his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk and went to pour a cup of water from a ewer on a small table in the corner that Biggles in his fever hadn't even noticed. He brought it over and placed it in Biggles's hand. Biggles propped himself against the wall and sipped carefully. As the water soothed his cramping throat, he looked down at his fingertips protruding from the ends of the bandage. They seemed pink enough. With some effort and a certain amount of pain, Biggles was able to move them. The bandages were done with neatness and precision that left no doubt of who had put them there.
Von Stalhein pulled his chair over to the bed. Reaching over, he retrieved his cigarette; the room was not large.
Biggles raised his gaze from his bandaged hand. For the first time he noticed that von Stalhein looked exhausted, his narrow, handsome face grayish with fatigue. It wasn't just tonight, Biggles thought; this was the weariness of a wild and wary fox all but run to ground.
"What time is it?" Biggles asked.
Von Stalhein checked his watch. "About four."
This seemed at the same time much longer than he could believe he had been drifting in delirium, and not enough time for the half-remembered dreams to have elapsed; he had once again the dizzying sense of unreality, of time coming unmoored, that had so disconcerted him when he was ill. He fought it off and sipped from the cup again. "Thank you," he said, looking up at von Stalhein, who looked away. "I expect you saved my life."
In more ways than one—because no one else was here, and he saw no signs of guards. Von Stalhein had not told anyone he was here.
Von Stalhein didn't answer, and Biggles asked after a moment, "Are they still looking for me?"
"I expect so," von Stalhein said tonelessly, gazing at the wall as if it held all his attention. He raised the cigarette to his lips. He had no holder, which was disconcerting, but Biggles's gaze was still drawn to the graceful motion of that long hand, thinking of a shadow cast on a tent in Palestine.
Biggles settled himself against the wall, trying to prop himself up. He was shockingly weak, and with the cup in his hand, he couldn't reach to pull over a pillow. He was looking around for somewhere to put it when von Stalhein moved suddenly, almost explosively. Reaching for a pillow, he placed it with a swift firm motion so that it supported Biggles and kept him from sliding down the wall. Biggles raised both eyebrows, leaned on it, and finished his cup of water while von Stalhein smoked his cigarette down to the end.
"You know, it's hard to get these out here," von Stalhein said at last. He laid the smoked-down end in the ashtray. "And never of any quality."
"I have a fair few back on the aircraft," Biggles said casually. Von Stalhein gave him a sharp look. "Though I'm not sure if you'd consider them quality; they're English."
There was a quick, convulsive movement of von Stalhein's lips. It looked to Biggles as if he had fought off a smile. Then his mouth compressed to a thin line. "If that's your oblique way of asking me to go with you—"
"I'm not leaving until my business in this valley is settled and these people are able to leave freely," Biggles said. "You know that. But there's perfectly well room for another, and I wouldn't mind another ally here. Come now, you surely have no love for these people or interest in their vile experiments."
A spasm of distaste crossed von Stalhein's face. "You are correct. But it's not as if I have anywhere else to go."
"There are many places in the world to go, where your many talents would be appreciated," Biggles pointed out. "It was you who chose this place instead."
Von Stalhein stood up abruptly and reached for his walking stick. "I didn't, as you put it, save your life to be subjected to your moralizing."
He seemed poised on the verge of flight—but not violence; Biggles had no expectation of harm, at least from von Stalhein himself. Not after last night. But he might easily go to Liebgarten about Biggles's presence here. That part was by no means settled.
"How about made an offer of mutual assistance?" Biggles asked quietly. "You help us, or should you choose to do so, stay out of our way. I'll consider either to fulfill our bargain. And we will take you with us when we go, and let you off wherever you like. We'll be helping the others leave, after all, so there's plenty of room for one more. If you've stayed out of their way, the people here shouldn't have any reason to wish revenge upon you —provided you don't tell them who you are. Of course, if you've given them reason to harm you, I don't condone vigilanteeism but I also won't stand in the way of seeing justice done."
Von Stalhein's face was still. "Most of them won't know me, I expect. I haven't gone out of my way to make friends here—or enemies. I'm a consultant, at least that's what I was hired on for."
"Well then. Let them see you now helping to free them."
Von Stalhein huffed out an unhappy sound, something like a miserable laugh. "You simply never stop. It really is that easy for you, isn't it?"
"Not really," Biggles said quietly. "No easier than you last night, choosing to bring me back here rather than taking me to Liebgarten."
He thought again of the cool hands, half-remembered, firm but surprisingly gentle, settling his feverish thrashing. Von Stalhein stood unmoving, face half turned to the door. The way the sunlight hit him from the window, it highlighted the gray in his hair and lit one half of his face, cast the other in shadow.
Not the man Biggles had known in Palestine; he knew it would be foolish to still think of him that way. He himself was not the same either. But scratch the surface on both of them and their old self was underneath ... he believed. It really could be as simple as that.
"Where is your cigarette holder?" Biggles asked suddenly.
Von Stalhein, startled out of his thoughts, looked at him in pure disbelief. "What?"
"Your holder, the long one—I noticed you had it earlier, but not now. It seemed odd to see you smoke without it."
Von Stalhein gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Left out in the dining room, I suppose. I'd have gone back for it, but—"
He bit the words off sharply, and Biggles realized—he should have sooner; would have, perhaps, if he hadn't been so out of it—that von Stalhein was here somewhat in the function of a guard, whether he had allowed himself to admit it or not. Surely the searchers were ransacking the compound for Biggles, especially after discovering the state of their armory. They would not have missed searching in this room if there had been no one here to turn them away.
"We'll let you out wherever you like," Biggles said. "If you cannot go back, there are many places to go in Argentina."
Von Stalhein let out a long breath. He turned away from the door, moved to the desk with his usual lithe grace that was somehow hampered very little by the limping hitch in his step. He shook out the last two cigarettes in the packet and sat at Biggles's bedside. He lit one and held the other for a long moment between slim, deft fingers.
Then von Stalhein said, "What plan, then?"
And Biggles broke into a smile of pure relief. The corner of von Stalhein's mouth barely moved, but something in his eyes warmed a little. He held out the other cigarette; Biggles took it, and leaned forward so von Stalhein could light it for him.
auexchange fics for AU Fest is Once Bitten, for the prompt:Rereading 'Takes a Holiday' and it occurred to me: what if after being bitten by the tarantula, it's EvS who finds Biggles desperately ill and has to figure out what to do with him?
This is extremely "what you see is what you get" h/c, and I mean that in the most affectionate possible way. The title is also a bit of a play on the phrase "once bitten, twice shy" - that is, after being betrayed once, it's hard to trust again. Or is it?
Historical detail from the story
In the book, Biggles uses potassium permanganate ("permanganate of potash") to treat his tarantula bite. I had to look up what that's supposed to be doing, and it turns out it was used historically as a disinfectant. However,
wateroverstone contributed the AMAZING detail in the comments that it also turns everything that comes in contact with it bright purple. I leave you to enjoy this additional bit of extracanonical visual description.Once Bitten (4600 wds, smarmish pre-relationship)
After the tarantula bite, Biggles fails to make his getaway before von Stalhein finds him.
The pain of rubbing the disinfecting permanganate crystals against the tarantula bite on the back of his hand nearly made Biggles faint. Sickness and weakness washed over him in waves; it seemed that the brightly lit medical lab around him shuddered with each beat of his heart. He was dimly aware of sounds elsewhere in the building—a crashing noise, shouts. Get out, he thought; hide, hide. He felt terribly exposed in the bright lights of the lab.
"Ah, Bigglesworth," said a voice from the doorway. "No—don't move." Biggles had reached by instinct for the pistol, which he had laid down on the floor as he fumbled for the potentially lifesaving disinfectant that he had spilled in his venom-induced clumsiness and haste.
Swallowing, Biggles looked up to see von Stalhein standing in the doorway, holding a pistol on him. Distantly Biggles recalled cleaning out the armory and dropping their Mausers in the river—how did— No, this must be a weapon von Stalhein had had on him. It all blurred together. He couldn't think.
"Get up," von Stalhein said, his voice harsh.
Biggles stayed where he was. His bad hand, covered in a sticky paste of blood and permanganate,was tucked into his jacket sleeve and resting in his lap, his other pressed to the floor, which seemed to be tilting under him. Taking a deep breath, he got himself slightly under control and sat back on his heels, making a dazed note of the location of his pistol. In his present condition he doubted whether he could grab it before von Stalhein shot him.
"I think I'll stay here," he said, and even managed to smile. "How was the storeroom?"
"You're looking for something," von Stalhein declared, his gaze darting around the room. It was not large, a small surgery or medical lab with shelves, a sink, and an operating table. Biggles's rummaging had scattered items across the floor. "What are you trying to find?"
Sickness pulsed in Biggles, washing through him in waves of heat and cold. His swollen hand felt like a red-hot poker was stabbing it, burning up his arm. "Nothing you need to know about," he said. "Actually ..." Inspiration struck, clearing through his sick haze. "Perhaps we should talk about it without Stitzen overhearing."
There was a pause. Then, moving only slightly, von Stalhein used his foot to nudge the door firmly closed.
Outside, through the pounding in his ears, Biggles heard shouting and running footsteps that he could hardly be bothered to worry about. Sweat trickled into his eyes. He thought von Stalhein alone would be easier to deal with than his murderous compatriots, but he couldn't think beyond that. Perhaps, Biggles thought, if he could manage to hold himself together until he was locked up, he might ... he didn't know, he only knew with raw animal instinct that showing weakness to his enemies might be deadly. But he also thought that the divisions between his opponents might be exploited to his advantage, if he could hold out long enough.
"Very well," von Stalhein said with a quiet chill in his voice, "we will talk, and I'll decide whether to call Stitzen. Do stand up, it's difficult talking to you on the floor."
Biggles inhaled deeply and, with a terrific lurch, got to his feet. The pistol receded to the distance of approximately the moon, a couple of feet from his shoes, as the room swirled around him.
He looked up to find that the wavering image of von Stalhein had stepped nearer, staring at him. "What is wrong with you? You were fine a few minutes ago."
"It's this tropical heat," Biggles answered lightly. In some distant part of his mind, he was surprised at how normal his voice sounded. Sick pain pounded in his swollen arm with every beat of his thudding heart. "I always had fevers when I was a boy, India, you know. They always said—the adults, that one of them would carry me off someday, it was why they sent me to England to school—"
"You're trying to distract me," von Stalhein said shortly, interrupting what Biggles dazedly realized had become feverish rambling. "What did you come here looking for? You were away and then you came back—why?"
Biggles felt blood trickling off the fingers of his injured hand. He forced himself to move the fingers a little. The bolt of agony cleared his head somewhat and gave him the strength to stand straighter, but also brought a fresh surge of nausea that he had to concentrate on fighting back.
"Nothing you'd be concerned with," he said in perfect honesty. "It is nothing to you and everything to me."
Von Stalhein clearly took this for obstinacy. "Is that a riddle? Is all this a game to you?" he bit out.
He was quite angry, Biggles realized. The air of urbane well-worn geniality had given way to a snapping hostility that glittered in his eyes.
"I came in here expecting you had something to say; but if all you're going to do is make fun—wasting my time until your associates arrive, I expect—then I'll turn you over to Stitzen. He'll have you talking soon enough."
With that von Stalhein moved forward sharply; the threat was clear. Biggles made an attempt to step back, but by this point he was so clumsy that his feet nearly went out from under him, and he would have fallen if not for von Stalhein grabbing his arm. There was no gentleness in the act; it was pure expediency, meant to steer him toward the door.
But von Stalhein grasped his left, and the surge of agony felt to Biggles as if his bones had been dipped in acid. He lost strength in his legs, the bright lights of the infirmary turned to midnight, and when his sight and hearing both cleared, he was holding himself up by clinging with his good hand to von Stalhein's jacket. He knew he should let go, but he feared that if he did he would fall. He expected at any moment to be struck off. All he could do was gaze dizzily at the floor, where he saw red drops landing on the whitewashed floorboards, one after another, trickling from the knife scores on the back of his injured hand and forming a strangely fascinating pattern.
Von Stalhein didn't move for a moment, as Biggles clung to him, then took the sleeve of his injured arm with more care this time.
"What is wrong with you?" Von Stalhein's voice was curt. He pulled up Biggles's sleeve and made a sound, a sharp hiss between his teeth, at the sight of Biggles's purple, swollen and bloody hand.
"Tarantula bite," Biggles said. He made a supreme effort and got his feet under him, pushed himself back from von Stalhein, though he still kept his hand fisted in the breast of von Stalhein's jacket in case he needed the support again. Von Stalhein did not brush him off. Instead he looked from Biggles's distorted hand to his face, and the austere brows drew together in a frown.
"Those are lethal," von Stalhein said, his face and his voice impossible to read.
"I hope to buck the trend," Biggles said. "I don't like going with the crowd." He became aware that he was shivering, and tried to steady himself, making another great effort to keep his wobbly legs under him and stand up straight. The walls seemed to waver around him, swelling inward and then breathing out in a way he remembered from fevers when he was a boy. With care, he took his hand off von Stalhein's chest. "If you're going to lock me up, or take me to Stitzen or to Liebgarten, I suggest it would be easiest to do so now. There's nothing further that can help me here, I think." His teeth were chattering so that he had difficulty getting the last words out.
"Not likely," von Stalhein said, his voice thoughtful. He looked down at the scattering of permanganate crystals on the floor. Then he raised the sharp, winter-pale eyes to rest on Biggles's face, with something in them that Biggles could not make out, anger and more. "If you're faking this—" he began, but again his eyes drifted down to the swollen hand, impossible to fake.
Biggles started to answer, but a choking rush of nausea stopped him; instead he took a step to the side, trying to recover his balance, but lost his equilibrium instead. He didn't know what happened, only that the world tilted sideways and suddenly he had half his weight on von Stalhein, who supported him in an act of pure reflex.
With a grasp on him that was anything but gentle, though less rough than a moment ago, von Stalhein steered Biggles's wobbling steps to lean him against the operating table. He left Biggles there—panting, clinging to the side of the table while trying not to lose either his legs or his stomach—and took a few quick steps to the door, where he turned the key in the lock. Then he came back.
Saying nothing, he took hold of Biggles's hand and turned it over on the table under the lights, examining it as if it was of acute scientific interest to him. Biggles could only gasp; he had spent most of his energy standing upright and talking, and now it seemed to be running out of him like sand from an hourglass. His hand no longer felt like a part of him, grotesquely swollen and purple. The slashes across the back had pulled apart like the split skin of a fruit, and blood and other fluids ran freely onto the table. Biggles stared at it uncomprehendingly.
"How long ago did this happen?"
Von Stalhein's voice, curt but no longer furious, cut through Biggles's haze. "Not long," he said, moistening dry lips. "A—a few minutes. I had time to come inside, look for supplies ..." His head pounded, a sick pulsing pain that made it impossible to think.
"It is an infirmary," von Stalhein said, almost to himself. "Few better places. No—they'll be looking here at any moment. Somewhere else. Stand up."
Biggles tried, swaying limply on legs that felt like rubber. The world pulsed around him in waves of black and red, going in and out of focus. Von Stalhein was holding him up; he was aware of that much. They were moving. Regaining and losing his balance, again and again, he stumbled through a dim, wavering nightmare world in which nothing made sense. The one constant was von Stalhein, catching him whenever he lost his balance, supporting him with a firm grip. They seemed to be in darkness— they were in light— Biggles had the feverish awareness of staggering through tangled grass, which he wasn't sure was real or a hallucination, and by the time he fell onto a bed, he was so dizzy that it took him a moment to realize he was lying down rather than standing.
Von Stalhein bent over him, seeming to loom and retreat at the same time, and Biggles gazed up at him. Von Stalhein's face was in shadow, but Biggles still knew him by his shape. And he also knew, somehow, the touch of the sure hands that were cold on his fevered flesh as von Stalhein cut the sleeve away from his swollen arm. His arm felt stiff as a pole, but hot and throbbing with a searing pain like nothing he had ever experienced. Biggles kept his gaze on von Stalhein's face, of which he could see only the planes cast in deep shadow, the occasional glitter of the eyes.
"Bigglesworth." Von Stalhein's hand laid, cool, against the side of his hot face, turning his head as his gaze drifted away. Biggles felt as if he was sliding sideways on the bed, and von Stalhein's hand was stopping him, propping him up as he fell ... no, he was lying flat, the tilting feeling was all in his swollen, throbbing head.
"—heard anything, in your travels, about something like this? Remedies? Bigglesworth, pay attention."
"I don't know," Biggles said. His tongue felt thick, and his teeth continued to chatter uncontrollably. "I really try to stay above the jungle, avoid so many problems that way. If they develop flying tarantulas, we'll really have a problem."
Von Stalhein made a faintly strangled sound. "Stop speaking nonsense." He sat back abruptly, looking over Biggles's head as if to find inspiration on the wall. "Very well. Stay here and don't make noise."
With that, von Stalhein withdrew with such speed that Biggles could do no more than catch futilely at empty air.
"Don't go," he said, his voice a thread barely audible even to himself.
A door closed. A lock clicked. Biggles lay alone with the scorching pain. Von Stalhein had locked him up, and now left him. Left him to die.
Drawing fiercely on what little reserves he had remaining, he mustered all his energy and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed before his body could catch up with events and fall down again. Gripping the edge of the bed with his good hand, he waited out the swamping dizziness and nausea. His vision began to clear, alternately dimming and brightening again, and he registered details. A lamp beside the bed. A small desk and a chair. A window. A door. There were a few small touches, pens and writing paper on the desk, a few books, a half-empty wine bottle. This seemed oddly well appointed for a cell.
No, Biggles thought, his head clearing briefly enough to think. This was no cell, and from what he'd seen of the workers' quarters, this was not one of their huts either. This was, could only be, von Stalhein's room.
He thought about getting up, stared across the room at the infinitely distant door, then slumped down again before he could decide. There was a good chance von Stalhein had gone to fetch the guards. If he could only lie here for a moment, perhaps he could get up ... Pain and sickness, heat and cold washed over him in waves. He was unaware of time passing, and yet it seemed endless, before the bed dipped as someone sat beside him. A cool hand, firm but not entirely ungentle, cupped the back of his sweat-soaked head and lifted it. The rim of a vessel pressed to his lips, and von Stalhein's voice said, "Drink this."
Biggles swallowed without objection, then choked and roused a little as whatever was in the bottle seared like fire down his throat. Von Stalhein held it there mercilessly, and he had to drink or be drowned. When it was finally taken away, he said hoarsely between strangled coughs, "What was that?"
"Local liquor. Packs a punch. No, don't try to move." Von Stalhein turned with swift and economical movements, set the bottle aside and began to work on Biggles's arm again. The pain came in waves, but Biggles turned his head to watch, the strong liquor burning in his throat and his queasy stomach. It seemed to him that von Stalhein was the most interesting thing in the room, the only thing to focus on, and if Biggles kept tracking him like a fixed star, it would be impossible to slide away into the hot, sick darkness that kept pulling him down.
Von Stalhein worked steadily on his arm, laying compresses on it that Biggles couldn't feel over the burning pain, and spoke without looking up. "I had a word with Durango's men. Told them one of us was down with a tarantula bite. Strong drink and heat to draw out the poison, they said, then cold to settle the fever. No, stay still." He planted a hand on Biggles's chest as Biggles started to try to sit up. "They also said moving about too much makes it worse, drives the poison through you. Just stay put, for once in your damned life."
Biggles settled back obediently. His eyelids were drooping now, fever-dreams creeping in from the sides. But he watched von Stalhein move about the room, tidying up a bowl of water and a stack of hastily folded, mostly clean cloths he had brought from somewhere. He dipped another rag, came back to bathe Biggles's arm with it.
"Are you awake?" he said, looking toward Biggles, who couldn't react but honestly wasn't sure. It was hard to tell waking from sleeping right now. The shadows were crawling around the room. Von Stalhein went on bathing his arm. After a time, he said in a voice that sounded raw in a way Biggles had never heard from him before, "I don't know why I'm doing this."
Biggles would have answered, but the crawling shadows crawled over the bed and smothered him.
After that, there was another interminable time, jumping from instant to instant without warning, yet also dragging without end. He surfaced repeatedly from unbearably vivid nightmares of the flesh being hacked from his arm with machetes or burned away with torches; sometimes it was Liebgarten, sometimes Stitzen, sometimes von Stalhein at the other end of the tools. But it was always von Stalhein when he awoke, leaning over him, speaking to him words he couldn't understand, placing cool cloths on his burning forehead. Once he woke to find himself sitting up and leaning on von Stalhein, his entire body limp and feverish, while von Stalhein bathed the back of his neck and the shoulder at the top of his burning, throbbing arm with a damp cloth. Von Stalhein was in his shirtsleeves and Biggles's head rested against his chest. He was not sure if this, too, was a dream, but he found the sound of von Stalhein's heartbeat strangely soothing. He slid back into sleep without trying to understand.
At last, he woke with his head clear enough that he could think for once. This time, it felt more like waking from normal sleep than drifting out of fever dreams. He still felt shaky and terribly weak, his temples throbbing, but the pain in his arm was bearable, the nausea had passed.
His arm seemed heavy, and he turned his head to see that it was bandaged. There was daylight streaming in through the window, and von Stalhein sat at the desk in a sweat-damp shirt, writing. Biggles gazed at him wearily and had a strangely intense sense-memory of the feeling of the cotton fabric of that shirt under his hot cheek, the welcome touch of von Stalhein running a cold cloth down the back of his neck.
Biggles watched him for a few moments before von Stalhein sighed a little and said, "If you're awake, say something."
"Wouldn't want to disappoint you, then." Biggles's voice was weak and rasping.
Von Stalhein didn't startle at the sound, or even pause in his activities. He went on writing, finished and folded his paper, then laid it aside and lit a cigarette. Only then he turned around, one arm draped languidly over the back of the chair, and watched Biggles for a moment before he said, "I'd offer you one, but it seems counterindicated in your condition."
"I could do with a drink of water if there is any," Biggles said. He worked to sit up, finding himself far weaker than he had realized. Von Stalhein rose from the chair, and Biggles said distractedly, "Don't trouble yourself. I'll get it."
Ignoring him, von Stalhein laid his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk and went to pour a cup of water from a ewer on a small table in the corner that Biggles in his fever hadn't even noticed. He brought it over and placed it in Biggles's hand. Biggles propped himself against the wall and sipped carefully. As the water soothed his cramping throat, he looked down at his fingertips protruding from the ends of the bandage. They seemed pink enough. With some effort and a certain amount of pain, Biggles was able to move them. The bandages were done with neatness and precision that left no doubt of who had put them there.
Von Stalhein pulled his chair over to the bed. Reaching over, he retrieved his cigarette; the room was not large.
Biggles raised his gaze from his bandaged hand. For the first time he noticed that von Stalhein looked exhausted, his narrow, handsome face grayish with fatigue. It wasn't just tonight, Biggles thought; this was the weariness of a wild and wary fox all but run to ground.
"What time is it?" Biggles asked.
Von Stalhein checked his watch. "About four."
This seemed at the same time much longer than he could believe he had been drifting in delirium, and not enough time for the half-remembered dreams to have elapsed; he had once again the dizzying sense of unreality, of time coming unmoored, that had so disconcerted him when he was ill. He fought it off and sipped from the cup again. "Thank you," he said, looking up at von Stalhein, who looked away. "I expect you saved my life."
In more ways than one—because no one else was here, and he saw no signs of guards. Von Stalhein had not told anyone he was here.
Von Stalhein didn't answer, and Biggles asked after a moment, "Are they still looking for me?"
"I expect so," von Stalhein said tonelessly, gazing at the wall as if it held all his attention. He raised the cigarette to his lips. He had no holder, which was disconcerting, but Biggles's gaze was still drawn to the graceful motion of that long hand, thinking of a shadow cast on a tent in Palestine.
Biggles settled himself against the wall, trying to prop himself up. He was shockingly weak, and with the cup in his hand, he couldn't reach to pull over a pillow. He was looking around for somewhere to put it when von Stalhein moved suddenly, almost explosively. Reaching for a pillow, he placed it with a swift firm motion so that it supported Biggles and kept him from sliding down the wall. Biggles raised both eyebrows, leaned on it, and finished his cup of water while von Stalhein smoked his cigarette down to the end.
"You know, it's hard to get these out here," von Stalhein said at last. He laid the smoked-down end in the ashtray. "And never of any quality."
"I have a fair few back on the aircraft," Biggles said casually. Von Stalhein gave him a sharp look. "Though I'm not sure if you'd consider them quality; they're English."
There was a quick, convulsive movement of von Stalhein's lips. It looked to Biggles as if he had fought off a smile. Then his mouth compressed to a thin line. "If that's your oblique way of asking me to go with you—"
"I'm not leaving until my business in this valley is settled and these people are able to leave freely," Biggles said. "You know that. But there's perfectly well room for another, and I wouldn't mind another ally here. Come now, you surely have no love for these people or interest in their vile experiments."
A spasm of distaste crossed von Stalhein's face. "You are correct. But it's not as if I have anywhere else to go."
"There are many places in the world to go, where your many talents would be appreciated," Biggles pointed out. "It was you who chose this place instead."
Von Stalhein stood up abruptly and reached for his walking stick. "I didn't, as you put it, save your life to be subjected to your moralizing."
He seemed poised on the verge of flight—but not violence; Biggles had no expectation of harm, at least from von Stalhein himself. Not after last night. But he might easily go to Liebgarten about Biggles's presence here. That part was by no means settled.
"How about made an offer of mutual assistance?" Biggles asked quietly. "You help us, or should you choose to do so, stay out of our way. I'll consider either to fulfill our bargain. And we will take you with us when we go, and let you off wherever you like. We'll be helping the others leave, after all, so there's plenty of room for one more. If you've stayed out of their way, the people here shouldn't have any reason to wish revenge upon you —provided you don't tell them who you are. Of course, if you've given them reason to harm you, I don't condone vigilanteeism but I also won't stand in the way of seeing justice done."
Von Stalhein's face was still. "Most of them won't know me, I expect. I haven't gone out of my way to make friends here—or enemies. I'm a consultant, at least that's what I was hired on for."
"Well then. Let them see you now helping to free them."
Von Stalhein huffed out an unhappy sound, something like a miserable laugh. "You simply never stop. It really is that easy for you, isn't it?"
"Not really," Biggles said quietly. "No easier than you last night, choosing to bring me back here rather than taking me to Liebgarten."
He thought again of the cool hands, half-remembered, firm but surprisingly gentle, settling his feverish thrashing. Von Stalhein stood unmoving, face half turned to the door. The way the sunlight hit him from the window, it highlighted the gray in his hair and lit one half of his face, cast the other in shadow.
Not the man Biggles had known in Palestine; he knew it would be foolish to still think of him that way. He himself was not the same either. But scratch the surface on both of them and their old self was underneath ... he believed. It really could be as simple as that.
"Where is your cigarette holder?" Biggles asked suddenly.
Von Stalhein, startled out of his thoughts, looked at him in pure disbelief. "What?"
"Your holder, the long one—I noticed you had it earlier, but not now. It seemed odd to see you smoke without it."
Von Stalhein gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Left out in the dining room, I suppose. I'd have gone back for it, but—"
He bit the words off sharply, and Biggles realized—he should have sooner; would have, perhaps, if he hadn't been so out of it—that von Stalhein was here somewhat in the function of a guard, whether he had allowed himself to admit it or not. Surely the searchers were ransacking the compound for Biggles, especially after discovering the state of their armory. They would not have missed searching in this room if there had been no one here to turn them away.
"We'll let you out wherever you like," Biggles said. "If you cannot go back, there are many places to go in Argentina."
Von Stalhein let out a long breath. He turned away from the door, moved to the desk with his usual lithe grace that was somehow hampered very little by the limping hitch in his step. He shook out the last two cigarettes in the packet and sat at Biggles's bedside. He lit one and held the other for a long moment between slim, deft fingers.
Then von Stalhein said, "What plan, then?"
And Biggles broke into a smile of pure relief. The corner of von Stalhein's mouth barely moved, but something in his eyes warmed a little. He held out the other cigarette; Biggles took it, and leaned forward so von Stalhein could light it for him.
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EvS: come on, focus, this is important, your life depends on it, what’s the treatment for tarantula bites?
Biggles: the thing is, tarantulas don’t fly *keels over*
EvS: if you weren’t already dying I would kill you
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