Tony slid into the chair without appearing to give it much thought, sitting down to the plate and napkin in front of him as naturally as if he were taking his place at breakfast. However close his relationship with Jarvis had grown, however little he thought of him as a servant (not to use the less pleasant, likely more appropriate word for the condition of Avoxes in general, which, like all overtly unpleasant things, was discouraged here) - being provided things was second nature to him. He knew there was no real comparison to be made between their situations. Neither of them were really free, but one of them had a hell of a lot more power: that, he understood. The fact that it was easy for him to think of Jarvis as a friend, because being waited on had been such a constant in his life that he hardly saw it anymore ... was an area in which he was rather less sophisticated. He started peeling his piece of fruit, letting the strips fall to the plate, hunched slightly over his work.
"You know they have, though. Or if they haven't, they will. I don't care that they haven't killed his dog, or whatever. I don't want his Ma to get her parlor busted up. I don't give a fuck." He resisted the very strong urge to insist he wasn't angry; it would have been a little pathetic, more than a little transparent. "I just don't - why doesn't he care?" Rogers seemed to keep barreling through life without giving a second thought for the consequences, and it burned him up because - "I don't get it. That's all. You know - it doesn't matter." He shoved a section of fruit into his mouth, and threw up his hands. "I don't get it. If he wants to be genuine, fine, but he doesn't get to act like he knows shit about me just because he doesn't know how to put on his party face."
Whether anger or affront or disappointment was predominant force behind his agitation, it was probably hard to say, and he definitely didn't want to untangle it. But the contempt he piled on that word, genuine, was more than enough to communicate that he thought it was entirely too generous an assessment. That was Jarvis, though, wasn't it. Polite to a fault. Worth twenty of Rogers in any situation - and living, breathing evidence of the vital importance of shutting up and falling in with the demands of the men holding the leash. If you behaved, you were allowed the luxury of protecting those you cared about; if you kept your head low enough, like he had, they might not even notice you cared about anyone in the first place, which was the best insurance of all. And that was what mattered, wasn't it?