Re: [Tea: Daniel/Claire]
Interestingly enough, Claire was under the impression that the majority of the people in this town drank tea. She decided she was going to blame the Anglicans for the rebellion of an entire country against the obviously superior drink. She grinned at his tips for tea, and with a rather not so subtle hint, "Then you have an idea of what to get me for my birthday." Lord knows (literally, in this case) that Claire was never going to buy proper tea stuff for herself.
His reaction to Johnny was about what she expected and Claire let out a peal of carefree laughter, "You will pay for it every time you think back to this moment and remember it. I'm going to set that to play for every alert on your phone." She was joking, but the way she dove back into his phone and started poking up menus spoke otherwise. Really, she was just putting in a different song. A real song that she loved. "Johnny Cash is what I listen to every night at work. The beer drinking pool players love it. Some of his songs have grown on me, but there's that pesky religious caveat." And really, God's Gonna Cut You Down might have crossed a line using that as a ringtone on Daniel's phone, but it fit right into her dry and morbid sense of humor. "Better?" The arrangement by Max Richter started to play, tragic yet resounding with hope.
Carver. She looked over at Daniel, languid in his comfort that he owned the room, and she softened with a vulnerability that often remained hidden behind warrior facade. "It was-" Claire interrupted herself with a sigh, and she leaned forward to pour herself a glass of wine, "It was practical. I did not have to hide who I was. I did not have to worry about changing who he was simply because I craved being touched. With him, I could be like everyone else. That's all I ever wanted." She took a long drink, downing half the glass in two large gulps before putting it aside. Carver was clearly a touchy subject. Too bad this wine was practically juice. "But I hurt him. And he never forgave me for that, no matter how much I begged. He was mean, harsh, cold. When he insulted me, he would go straight for the jugular. It got to the point that I didn't remember what it was like to be happy. That is what it was like with Carver."
And really, that was a very abridged version of what happened, though the full story lacked rose petals and fluff, too. "He left me. In Rome. Almost a year now." When she'd gone to get the book to try and save Daniel. She pointed once more to the sad little bookcase, a much lower shelf than the eye-level of the books. Next to a few little knick-knacks was a red box that looked like it was for jewelry. If Daniel remembered the phone call before Corinthian, it was the necklace that she'd asked him to return to Carver if she wound up on another plane of existence. "That's all I have left of him." Subconsciously her hands balled up tight to hide scars on her palms, but that only highlighted the ones on the back where the railroad sized nails had gone through. "He knew what they did to me, and he still chose the Inquisition." Another heavy sigh slipped from her lips, and she finally pushed the filter down in the press so she could pour the tea for them without making a horrible leafy mess in the mugs.