Re: [Tea: Daniel/Claire]
"Too many Christmas presents," Daniel agreed, with an indulgent smile made even smoother by the wine. "Though a proper silver tea service in my day was an expensive proposition, indeed. I never much cared for the taste since." He didn't really care all that much of Claire liked tea. But he enjoyed teasing her about it.
"If it plays that again I will throw it away," Daniel said, eyeing her (and the phone) with distrust. "This world is already noisy enough. I cannot imagine why people enjoy incessant racket. No matter how beautiful the music, it does get tiresome after days of it." He eyed her again, this time with a measuring gaze, wondering how she could stand it. It might just be a thing that modern people dealt with. There were many things like that, nauseating car rides, neon signs, and so on. The benefits of the modern age (Prime shipping) generally outweighed the negatives, but if the machine started twanging at him, he was going to break it. With a vengeance.
He nodded after a few moments with this new tune. It didn't twang, and the solo violin suited Daniel very well. "Ambitious." He said it of the song, not the phone. He took it back and tried to mimic her movements through the menus. It was like watching a tortoise try to run an obstacle course.
"What did you do to hurt him that was so very terrible?" Daniel asked, his expression going cool at the description of Claire's unhappiness. He followed her indication to the red box. He remembered the call, and vaguely remembered lecturing her on hope; the woman could be so bleak at times, and he grew cross with her, as if she might stop trying too soon if she thought the circumstances were right.