There was a way to be honest about this without being truly honest. It took a twisting of the truth but it was doable. He could tell enough of the truth for it to have meaning.
It was a little intense for dinner conversation but Four was the one dragging everything down with his intensity anyway, because someone had apparently pissed in his Wheaties. Snapping at Tris and dehumanizing her by relegating her as so beneath him she couldn't talk to him was not on, even if she'd handled it gracefully with a witty rejoinder.
He was the one escalating it and with Kon knowing his history, he knew that escalating it further, in a certain way, would actually de-escalate it. Maybe it wasn't fair, playing on his traumas that he read about in a book, but nothing about this place - and any of the leadership in it - was fair.
"I know what my old man taught me," he said, unflinching. "With his fists. Every time I didn't live up to his very lofty expectations. Every time I failed a test he wanted me to pass - which was most of the time. Every time I just didn't do what he wanted me to do - and he wanted to control me pretty much all the time."
The rest of the table went deathly silent. Kon stabbed at his burger and briefly looked back at his meal.
"I learned to be brave enough to stand up to him in the past and that means now I've got the stones to stand up to anyone that gets in my face. Like, say, some musclebound lunatic that wants to dangle me outside a train 'cause I tried to help someone from my new faction. Maybe I'm not smart but I learned how to be strong."
He looked up at Four again, whose jaw was dangling slightly.
"And that means even if there are other things I can - and will - learn here, there ain't nothing Dauntless can teach me about being brave that I don't already know. Because there is nothing anyone here can throw at me that's worse than what I got from own father."
He stuffed a piece of burger into his mouth and went back to eating, now acting as if Four was beneath him. The others were all silent, jaws gaping silently. He nodded at Al and said casually, "Pass the salt?"
Al was too shocked to do it so Kon simply reached across the table and snagged it himself.
Four could not seem to find a response to that, he was stuck staring for a moment, a strange conflicted expression on his face. Not anger. It was something far from anger and it even started to change to grudging respect - at least not before one of the other Dauntless members came to tap him and lead him away on some kind of business.
no subject
It was a little intense for dinner conversation but Four was the one dragging everything down with his intensity anyway, because someone had apparently pissed in his Wheaties. Snapping at Tris and dehumanizing her by relegating her as so beneath him she couldn't talk to him was not on, even if she'd handled it gracefully with a witty rejoinder.
He was the one escalating it and with Kon knowing his history, he knew that escalating it further, in a certain way, would actually de-escalate it. Maybe it wasn't fair, playing on his traumas that he read about in a book, but nothing about this place - and any of the leadership in it - was fair.
"I know what my old man taught me," he said, unflinching. "With his fists. Every time I didn't live up to his very lofty expectations. Every time I failed a test he wanted me to pass - which was most of the time. Every time I just didn't do what he wanted me to do - and he wanted to control me pretty much all the time."
The rest of the table went deathly silent. Kon stabbed at his burger and briefly looked back at his meal.
"I learned to be brave enough to stand up to him in the past and that means now I've got the stones to stand up to anyone that gets in my face. Like, say, some musclebound lunatic that wants to dangle me outside a train 'cause I tried to help someone from my new faction. Maybe I'm not smart but I learned how to be strong."
He looked up at Four again, whose jaw was dangling slightly.
"And that means even if there are other things I can - and will - learn here, there ain't nothing Dauntless can teach me about being brave that I don't already know. Because there is nothing anyone here can throw at me that's worse than what I got from own father."
He stuffed a piece of burger into his mouth and went back to eating, now acting as if Four was beneath him. The others were all silent, jaws gaping silently. He nodded at Al and said casually, "Pass the salt?"
Al was too shocked to do it so Kon simply reached across the table and snagged it himself.
Four could not seem to find a response to that, he was stuck staring for a moment, a strange conflicted expression on his face. Not anger. It was something far from anger and it even started to change to grudging respect - at least not before one of the other Dauntless members came to tap him and lead him away on some kind of business.