*drops a short moceit drabble and runs away*
"You know," Patton said one afternoon, "you don't have to perform around me."
Janus had been in the middle of a particularly elegant deflection and lost his place entirely. "I beg your pardon."
"Like—" Patton gestured vaguely, in the direction of Janus's general presentation. "The whole thing. The voice, the deflection, the—" another gesture, "—elaborate thing you do where you agree with me but make it sound like you're being difficult. I don't mind any of it. I'm just saying you don't have to."
Janus looked at him for a long moment. "I'm not performing."
"Okay," Patton said, in the tone of someone who believed the opposite but had decided not to press it. He was quiet for a moment. Then, gently: "I like talking to you, Jan."
The nickname hit somewhere unexpected. He had not given Patton permission to shorten his name. He had also not corrected him the first time he'd done it, which meant he had, in some functional sense, given permission.
"I'm well aware," Janus said, and heard how much flatter it came out than he'd intended, stripped of the irony he'd aimed for.
Patton looked at him with that expression — the one that suggested he had seen something Janus had moved to hide — and didn't say anything for a moment.
"I want to know you," Patton said. "Not — I know you're not going to make that easy, and I'm not asking you to. I just want you to know that whatever you say to me, true or not, I'm still here." A pause. "I can tell the difference, you know. Usually."
"The things that are true," Patton continued, carefully, "tend to come out shorter. Less ornate. Like you got surprised into saying them before you could make them into something else."
This was, Janus thought, extremely unfair. That Patton had been paying this quality of attention. That he had catalogued the patterns of Janus's truth-telling with the same gentle observance he applied to everything, and had apparently found a key.
"That's a troubling piece of analysis," Janus said.
"You make a little face too," Patton added, and there was warmth in it, fond and careful. "Just for a second. Like it costs you something."
"I'm not going to use it against you," Patton said quietly. "I just wanted you to know that I see you. Not just the—" another wave of the hand, "—the presentation. You."
The room was very quiet. Somewhere distant, Thomas was doing something low-effort, and the mindscape was warm and still.
"You're entirely too observant for someone who leads with cartoon frogs," Janus said at last.
Patton smiled, and it was—
It was not a deflection-proof smile, Janus told himself. It only looked like one. He was simply tired. The evening was warm. These were extenuating circumstances.
"I care about you," Patton said. Easily. Like it was just true and he saw no reason to dress it up. "I know that's uncomfortable. You don't have to do anything with it."
Janus did not say anything.
He also did not move away when Patton shifted closer on the couch, close enough that his shoulder pressed, warm and slight, against Janus's arm.