PicFic 9:18

[avirra.livejournal.com]

The Blind Date

Napoleon really wasn't sure if he should be mortified or amused, but he knew it was in his best interests to look mortified. He strove to hide any expression that might display even the slightest hint of amusement as the lady across from Illya at the table droned on. And on and on. 

Actually, after a little thought on the matter, it wasn't hard to feel mortified.  The young lady had started rambling the second that the introductions had been made and hadn’t slowed once during the drive to the restaurant.  Napoleon thought was that with her breath control, she might make a good sponge diver.

He had to face it - Illya was never going to forgive him and he really couldn’t blame him. As it was, Napoleon was already going to be in deep debt to his friend for pressing him into agreeing to be the blind date for Samantha, the friend of Alyson, the lady he himself was across from. 

To her credit, Alyson was becoming more embarrassed by the second as her friend Samantha continued to talk on everything from the tablecloth to her nail polish.  Samantha barely even paused long enough for them to give the waiter their orders and even then, she commented on everything ordered. Worse in his opinion, they were missing out on what Napoleon considered to be one of the best things about dinner – real conversation.  There was no chance for casual, let alone intelligent, conversation with Samantha's chatter. Even if he had been willing to try to talk around her, there was no way to do it without shouting and Napoleon refused to stoop to that.

Finally, Illya propped an elbow on the table, resting his chin on his hand as an expression that seemed to be one mixing slight amusement with exasperation. Food arrived and at least gave the rest of them small moments of quiet, but not long enough pauses for them to speak more than a word or two to one another before Samantha would start up once again and monopolize the attempts at talking.

By the time they reached the main course, Napoleon was ready to fall down on his knees to apologize to Illya and promise to never again ask him to accept another blind date. For his part, Illya had remained quiet. Quiet even by his standards. That was generally never a good sign.  But, it became apparent that he had only been waiting for the right opportunity as Illya spoke up the second Samantha took too large of a bite for her to swallow quickly.

"You certainly have a wide range of interests, Miss Samantha. Did you know that when you use words containing the 'k' sound, your eyes cross ever so slightly? I do not believe I have ever observed that before. It is quite fascinating to watch."

Samantha almost choked on her food as she gasped at that comment. It was obvious that she wanted to take insult, but Illya had phrased his comment as if he had been remarking on what a lovely shade of green her eyes were.

Napoleon hid his mouth behind his napkin to give himself a moment to compose his expression again. He was just grateful that he hadn't laughed out loud. Alyson, thank heavens, also seemed bemused, though in her case, she covered it by choosing to take a sip of her wine.

The comment had the intended outcome. Samantha stopped talking non-stop as she began policing her own thoughts to remove or substitute any word that had that dreaded 'k' sound in it. Napoleon pretended not to notice her preoccupied expression and blithely began a conversation to include them all.

Illya didn't even bother to hide the small smile that formed when his partner began to talk about the wonderful crab cakes he'd gotten while vacationing in Key Largo. Maybe he'd let Napoleon off the hook for this disastrous evening after all.