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"George, do you have any idea what being involved with a man involves?"
"Well sir, with General Melchett I'd imagine it would've been washing smelly shirts, darning socks, maybe mustache-trimming duty."
"No you idiotic, inbred louse. If Melchett had found out what darling Georgina kept in her tacklebox and didn't have you court-marshaled, it would have involved rogering, sodomizing, possibly followed by frying an entire pig for his breakfast."
"Well paint my nipples and call me Ginger. There were rumours about Bumfluff and Strangely Brown, Cap, but I never thought I'd actually meet a, a... I jolly well can't even say it."
"You haven't met one! Melchett was wooing the vomit-inducing Georgina, after all. Although the fact that he found Bob so repulsive is quite telling."
"Phew with highly-polished brass knobs on. Can't have any fairies mincing about, they'd never last with butch fellows like us, right Cap? Right Balders?"
"I'd like to see a fairy, Lieutenant. My uncle Baldrick had a fairy in his house once, and it did all the cleaning up for him; the dirty dishes had always disappeared by morning."
"Only because the mold was intelligent enough to grow legs and get out of that hovel."
"No, not that sort of fairy, Balders, I mean a..."
"I don't think Baldrick needs to be any more confused about human relationships than he already is George. And now if you would kindly excuse me, I have to see Captain Darling about a top secret matter."
"Tally ho, Cap! You and your secret meetings, trouncing the Huns, beating the Ruskies into the ground..."
"The Russians are on our side, George."
"What should we do while you're gone, Captain B?"
"You can start by learning to cook something that doesn't taste like rat in mud."
"But what I cook is rat in-"
"And some target practice for you George, just use any old thing hanging around the trench. Private Baldrick for starters."
--
Under the desk is safe, is warm, is cozy. Like a rabbit hole, not a foxhole. A little cave that can take you to a new place, that is all that is real until you wake, and you're where you were before the spell took hold. Darling's desk is big and broad, with flat top above and the safe place below. The safe place isn't just the knee well, it's in his arms in the darkness.
It all started in a raid. Blackadder was called by Melchett in confusion about a short back and sides, and stranded at Staff HQ when Driver Parkhurst's car broke down trying to find the real barber. The drone of planes and the high-pitched whine sent the two current occupants of the office diving for cover.
"I say Blackadder, this is my desk, go find your own cover."
"Not, as Lieutenant George says, on your nellie. This is a good sturdy desk, although it's as useless against a bomb as an ant with a small red flag is against a herd of angry bulls." Blackadder tapped the surface above him, and was rewarded with a dull thud. "Although that sounds rather solid for a desk drawer, Darling. Is there something you aren't telling me? All the missing paper clips have welded themselves in to a block in your drawers?"
"Captain Darling, Blackadder."
"Captain Blackadder, Darling."
"It's protection. Stuffed full of the hardest wood I could find. I wanted lead bars, but they would've broken the drawer. I would've reinforced the drawer if Melchett ever left the office." Blackadder could just see the sheepish look and the twitches that accompanied the admission.
"Any other add-on features I should know about? Will the desk grow wings and fly? Have you hidden the mess chocolate supply in here perhaps?"
"I can make it feel safer. Here." Darling reached up with one hand, and pulled the wood-stuffed drawer open a crack. His fingers groped, oblivious to splinters, not understanding why he was showing Blackadder this, the only place out here that was his own, not Melchett's, not General Haig's, not His Majesty's. The curtain fell down out of the drawer in one fluid motion, trapping them both in darkness. "I have a friend in stores. He saved me this."
There was silence for a while, listening for the enemy planes, or maybe the English planes. Darling was playing with a thread fraying off the khaki curtain. Unraveling slowly, not to ruin the cocoon-like feeling of the cave. For the sake of a task that needs doing. The thread moved along the length of the curtain, his hand bumped Blackadder's boot.
"Darling?"
"Yes?"
"Do you hear anything?"
"I don't think so. Maybe they've gone."
"Maybe they're hiding, waiting for us to think they're gone."
"Good point."
"Let's stay here for a bit longer, it's the safest thing to do, really."
"Yes, safety is very important. The utmost. Important." The twitch came back again. It didn't usually happen in here. Here was safe, there was no nervousness here. There shouldn't be, anyway. Then there was a hand on the side of his face, smoothing out the tense wrinkles the twitch brought. It was a slightly sweaty hand, a comforting hand, a hand that made the twitch go away. A hand with a callused thumb that stroked away the worry and the stress.
"Darling?"
"Blackadder?"
"Edmund."
"Um. Kevin."
"Kevin, darling -" Blackadder leaned forward in the darkness, his lips replacing the hand. The lips, smooth but with a tickle of mustache, moved away from the eye and to his own lips. It was a slow kiss, lips and tongue soft, a prickle of his mustache being brushed the wrong way. It was different than Doris; Doris made the tic come back. Or rather Doris' mother in the front room, curtains twitching, made the tic come back when he said goodbye on the porch. Now there was nothing but himself, the darkness and the warmth and... and safeness of a human being.
"Bla- Edmund. I don't... I mean, this is...but... Doris"
"I know, Darling. This is just two grown men cowering under a desk and taking comfort in each other because they're both brown-pants-scared they're going to die."
"I like it. Here, I mean. I used to squeeze into the cupboard under the stairs when I was a boy in Croyden." Darling shifted so they were side-by-side, not facing each other. Something on the underside of the desk scraped his scalp, but he didn't notice. "Our cocker spaniel used to sit with me sometimes."
"As touching as that is, I don't enjoy being compared to a wet-nosed, drooling little creature, even if its intelligence rivals Baldrick's."
"No, no, just the fact that someone - "
"I understand, darling. I like it too. Although if anyone gets to hear about it, I will have to force you to eat a full seven-course meal chéz Baldrick."
"Absolutely. About not letting people find out, I mean."
"I'm glad we understand each other."
"Can you hear anything now?"
"No, but I'm sure they're just hiding behind the next cloudbank."
"Of course they are. Can't have two top Captains like us being killed, can we? We'd better dig in for the night."
In the silence, arms around each other, he could almost imagine that he was home in Croyden, in his little den. Somehow he was reminded of home, even though this was a man beside him, not little Blackie. Blackie had only ever gone in there to hunt for rats. He'd have to tell Blackadder the spaniel's name sometime. Next time.