It wasn't often Tony was disappointed when he got what he wanted in short order, particularly when it had to do with easing his way into drunken insensibility. But there it was, another lemon, just like that, no fuss, no delay - and no more pretense on which to stand here. "Great," he said, sounding distinctly underwhelmed; and he took it, and tapped it on the counter beside his glass, at a ridiculous impasse. His initial urge was to send it back and ask for another one - surely he could find something wrong with this particular specimen - he could keep his Avox running back and forth as long as he wanted, engaged in an exchange of offers and refusals, orders and observances, that was the only kind of conversation they could have. He could do that.
But that wasn't what he wanted. It was stupid, too; he didn't need a reason to stand in his own kitchen. (And there was a part of him that knew it was unfair, but that overlapped largely with the part of him that thought about things like the fact that Jarvis had been a boy he'd ignored at a banquet, once; that he'd come to him very literally as a child; that he was a product, a consequence, of a very specific set of circumstances. That he hadn't simply arisen in the natural course of events. That part of him didn't get to come up for air very often. There wasn't time.)
"I need a - where's a knife," he said, less a question than an explanation for why he was beginning to rummage through the drawers nearest to him. By sheer luck, he found something suitable (a vegetable peeler, but it would do) on his second try, and he dropped his elbows heavily on the counter to set about peeling off a needlessly long, intact, twisting strip of lemon peel in one uninterrupted motion. He watched the peel pile up on the counter top, rather than looking at Jarvis. It had never really bothered him that the help didn't look him in the eye - he was quite comfortable with it, the way one was comfortable with automatic doors. But when what he wanted was acknowledgement, connection, a response, a rise ... It was disconcerting, and it was frustrating.
He could have forced him, he supposed - ordered him. But it wasn't done. It would have felt sick, like ordering someone to harm themselves.
So instead he just started talking at nothing, clumsily turning that unfortunate lemon in his hands. "It's better than last year, though. I don't have to care who wins, right, so that's - that's nice. Good, too, because these kids look like a bunch of losers. Everyone who's not a career is a total joke. It'll be boring." The Games had been his favorite event as a child, hands down, the best holiday he'd known. It had taken his father out of the house, for one thing; and there had always been something to watch, something exciting to hope for, dread, talk about over breakfast, watch through his fingers in the middle of the night. It had been magical - and even now, honestly, there were snatches of music and certain phrases and sights that brought all those emotions back to the fore, even if they were dull and tainted. Jarvis hadn't grown up that differently from him. "But I think - I think I'd really rather be bored than off trying to pry some old crone's hands off her pocketbook long enough to get a kid a piece of bread. I'm never doing that again. Seriously, never. If I start talking about mentoring again, just push me down the stairs and get it over with."
He took a sudden, rough swig of his drink, nearly draining it. Then he went back to work, dragging that blade around again. It slipped a little, but he caught it in time to salvage his efforts and keep on going. "Not that it wasn't fun. Sometimes. I was good at it. But it's a damn drag."