Dining Disaster

Quiffin chatted into the silence, he had hoped to use this as a perfect opportunity to embarrass Boa further, (since as a brother he considered that to be one of his duties) however he hadn't banked on feeling awkward himself. Carrion was refusing to speak, and Boa looked like she'd forgotten how to, either way, the situation was uncomfortable. In the end Quiffin gave up trying to make a conversation and opted for an escape plan.

"Do you two want me to go and place an order?" Quiffin asked in an attempt to leave the table, if that failed he'd state he needed the bathroom. "Because I'm pretty hungry…"

At first there was no answer, Carrion was looking at Boa to reply, and Boa was looking anywhere but; pretending she hadn't heard. Quiffin bit the inside of his lip in thought, and winced as Carrion pushed the menu at him hitting his arm, the movement had made his teeth draw blood.

"Yes, go order," Carrion replied not looking at him, Boa looked his way for a second and then turned her head away again.

Quiffin seized this as the perfect opportunity, and not even asking what they might want to eat, got up out of his chair and scurried away. He glanced over his shoulder at the pair, and felt only slightly guilty for leaving his sister in such a situation, but most of him was filled with relief at having got away.

The waitress looked annoyed that he had come to order at the bar, instead of remaining in his seat and letting her take the order, she knew she wouldn't be getting a tip from them now.

"Well, what can I get you?" she asked, dragging Quiffin's attention away from the table.

"Erm…" he fumbled, "I need another minute to decide."

Carrion seemed to have sensed that Quiffin was no longer paying them any attention; it was as if he could feel the eyes in his back, and when they looked away he was ready to strike.

"Are you going to speak to me, or are we going to sit here in silence?" he asked.

Boa was forced to look at him, she tried to keep a steely hard look on her face, because she didn't want him to know she was embarrassed, even if she had already shown it.

"I'd rather not," she replied. "You rarely have anything nice to say in reply, so what's the point?"

"Well, you rarely have anything of interest to say, so how can you blame me?"

Boa's jaw locked. Carrion knew this probably wasn't going to end well, but at least they had broken the horrible silence of before, he would rather she shout at him than ignore him.

"Perhaps I just cant be bothered to say anything remarkable when I'm with you, you seem to know it all already after all, you might as well just talk to yourself!"

"You're right, I get no sense out of you. I'd rather talk to that idiot Finnegan Hobb than be sat here with you, and you can take that look off your face, you're not fooling anyone."

Boa didn't realise her face was carrying any kind of look, but if it did she guessed it would be something along the lines of outrage.

"You leave him out of this," she shouted.

Carrion smirked, he didn't mean to be cruel and teasing, but Boa seemed to always bring out that side of him whenever they were together. It wasn't something either one had much control over, both inclined to be argumentative, and not finding anyone else that would argue them back, apart from one another.

"Maybe you could give me some tips on how to forget about Hobb, as you seem to be every good at it."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, just that he didn't seem to feature last night, did he?"

Boa fixed him with an icy glare, her posture was frozen, and even Carrion thought her reaction was alarming; she seemed to have completely shut down in anger.

Boa sat there for some minutes staring at him, Carrion noticed her fingers begin to twitch which had been resting on the table moments before. All of a sudden Boa stood up, with such force that she attracted the attention of all the other diners, they looked at her in bewilderment.

"I hate you! I can't stand you! I'm going home, don't try and stop me," Boa declared pushing her chair backwards and heading towards the door.

Carrion sat for a second, he didn't want to go calling her back, but it seemed he would have no choice. Boa wasn't lying when she said she was leaving, she was almost at the door already.

"Boa, wait," he called after her as he followed her quickly, pushing a waitress out of the way as he did so.

As soon as Boa knew he was following, she doubled her pace and grabbed her brother's arm on the way.

"We're going, now," she commanded, dragging him into the path of Carrion, who then had to push him out of the way also to continue after Boa.

"Hey, watch it!" Quiffin shouted, loosing his dignity in front of the waitress he had just been chatting up, by falling into the counter.

Boa reached the door, not noticing that the café's 'open' sign had been turned around to 'closed', and she therefore opened the door to receive a bright flash of light in her face. Boa slammed the door again. She turned around with a look of contempt on her face.

"What are they doing here?" Boa demanded as Carrion pulled her away from the door. "Did you bring them here?"

Carrion's hand tightened around Boa's wrist making her wince. He held it in such a way that forced her to stand very close to him to relieve some of the pain.

"Why would I do that?" he asked rhetorically. "You listen here, you cannot go wandering all over Midnight without them finding you. Everybody in the city is interested in why you are here; you cannot blame them for wanting pictures. Throwing a fit every time you meet a camera wont make them go away, if you don't like it, stay indoors."

Boa snatched her hand way, it wasn't as if she went out with the intention of getting photographed, Carrion was making it seem like she was asking for it. She sat down on the nearest chair and folded her arms.

Quiffin, who had been hovering behind them, not sure whether to step in or leave them alone, suggested that perhaps they all ought to go out the back way, and avoid the press. Carrion agreed that was probably for the best, but Boa refused to leave the café without eating something, saying she hadn't come all this way to go home hungry.

Eventually the trio managed to get their food to go, and found their way out through the kitchens into a small alleyway behind the establishment. Quiffin lead the way down the alley, none of them knowing where they were going, but just happy to be walking again rather than speaking. Thankfully the embarrassment seemed to have disappeared, but now they were just filled with anger at one another, and anger was much easier a feeling to cope with.

The alley ended at the entrance to the beach, and deciding that they might as well eat their food before it became too cold, the three headed onto the beach and found shelter under the sea-wall.

Boa grabbed the bag out of Quiffin's hands, she was so hungry that she felt ill, she opened it greedily and looked inside, everything was wrapped up in paper or in polystyrene boxes. She pulled out a box and opened it, she found a cheeseburger and frowned as she passed it to Carrion who had sat himself next to her.

"I don't eat cheese," she told him in an angry sort of way that implied he should have known that already.

Quiffin grabbed the box from Carrion before he had a chance to say anything or could even consider eating it himself.

"Yeah I know, what a shame hey? I mean, it's a shame everything I ordered just happened to have cheese on it… oh dear, what a mistake I've made," Quiffin said, the more he spoke the less Boa looked in the bag, by the end she'd thrown that at Carrion too. "You'll just have to starve."

"You did that on purpose!" Boa said turning away from them so that they were looking at her back.

Quiffin made a funny face at her turned back.

"Well, duh," he then added.

Carrion, who had spent his time emptying the bag rather than become involved in another argument, pushed a box into her arm to get her attention.

"Look, noodles," he said, holding the box out but looking at the other packages as he did so.

Boa turned around to find the box in her face. She snatched it out of his hand.

"Who are you calling noodles?" she asked accusingly. "It had better not be me!"

Quiffin stepped in before Boa lost her cool again, or before Carrion could ask her what she was talking about.

"In the box stupid, I got you noodles, geeze, some people are dense."

Boa blushed and sank back against the wall out of sight. Her head was aching, her stomach was empty and she felt stupid indeed, although things were looking up at the prospect of noodles, and at least they were all speaking again. All in all, she supposed it could have been worse, much worse.

A/N: Oh ouch, this chapter killed my brain. Sorry it took so long, but this chapter is probably version number 23 of this scene, it's been reworked a lot of times, earlier versions ending with a machine gun massacre, or at least a massive punch up, see how lucky you all are that it ended with everyone's limbs still attached!