Re: [Tea: Daniel/Claire]
Daniel had not thought to ask Jude about music or about his experiences working at the bar. Daniel and Jude talked a great deal, but it was rarely fruitful, the two of them batting at each other like a pair of lazy cats, talking in theoreticals or prying into each others' private thoughts. A civil conversation about banal day-to-day life hadn't occurred to Daniel. He was keen to keep Jude happy in a selfish sense, but for some reason he always felt on guard around the boy, as if he always needed to be ready to fend off a blow he wouldn't see coming. And yet Jude was the most loyal and steadfast of his friends, the one least likely to leave town, perhaps because he didn't have Claire's higher calling or Sam's romantic entanglements. Daniel made a mental note of Max Richter, and wondered if Jude would appreciate such things, or know what it meant to be "anti-police."
Daniel was not mortal, but he had a certain point of view when it came to this kind of thing. No soldierly experience, no battles, not even a war to live through first-hand. Daniel instead was acquainted with man-as-an-animal, when people turned to mobs, when politics were simply a means to power and more destruction. Whenever Claire spoke of her inevitable death before her life was complete, Daniel got angry, as if fate was something he could tangle with his fangs. He did not like this attitude that such a thing could not be resisted, though he himself was a poor example of that resistance. He didn't want to think about it. He hated that box. In short, Daniel didn't want Claire to be a martyr. It pissed him off.
Daniel's expression was sympathetic. "That is not so very terrible. But he would think it, with a church's sensibilities. The body does things even if the heart might not. And when the mind is distracted, the heart has little to say in the matter." He meant it reassuring. "Regardless, even the highest offense is no excuse for the man to be cruel. I shall attempt to kill him for you, should he return." Daniel smiled and lifted his cup.