Chapter Text
Once, early on in their animosityship, Blackadder had casually remarked towards Darling that, should the other captain ever find himself dead at the business end of a German rifle, howitzer, or sharpened Bratwurst, Blackadder himself would laugh, clap his hands, dance a short jig, congratulate Darling's mother on the fortunate demise of her son, and possibly urinate upon his grave if the opportunity ever presented itself.
Darling, twitching with fury, had in turn suggested that Blackadder go obtain a live grenade and apply it to an orifice of his choice, after which the exchange escalated into calling each other rude names, and was soon forgotten by them both...
...until they went over the top in late autumn of 1917, and Edmund Blackadder proved himself an incorrigible liar once more.
When he, bloodied from shrapnel and ears ringing from the shelling, stumbled over Darling's body caught in a tangle of barbed wire, he did not , in fact, laugh, clap, and dance. Instead, Blackadder took in the dark-wet definitely-not-mud stain spread all over Darling's uniformed chest, the pistol lax in his grip, his unseeing eyes turned up towards the overcast sky, and said, stricken, "oh, bloody buggering Hell."
"Quite," agreed Darling, squinting down at his own corpse; and, despite the unfortunate circumstances, took great pleasure in hearing Blackadder scream like a little girl.