Hickey treats this with the same unearned confidence he treats everything. This is going to be fine. He'll make it fine. He can do this. Everything will be perfectly fine. And if not? He'll just find a way to make it fine. The hunger still gnaws at him, that over-powering draw of the Darkwalker's influence is still dictating his every action. He's got to do this. He's got to keep his people alive. He doesn't want to think of the alternative.

"Course I'll have some," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm starving. And I'm not one to ignore a meal when it's offered."

Just a normal dinner. Just a normal, every day, not out of the ordinary dinner.