Janus walks over to the mirror, just tall enough for it to reflect back up to his hat if he stands a foot or two away. He looks without much thought at himself and brings a hand up where the scales lay on the skin of his face. The texture is a feeling he is used to.
With a heavy feeling and a clear of his throat, the scales roll back and everything else follows. A sort of grotesque transformation, "Hi," He said too deeply at first then he adjusted the pitch and said it again until it was corrected to a tone he deemed perfect. All greatness comes for a self-aware actor—or so he thinks. Is that a saying? "Look at you," and, "There you are." In a light but happy tone.
He leans forward and puts a hand on the surface of his reflection, "How have you been, buddy?" He says, "You're doing great!"
There's a mental script he has formulated over the years of cosplaying. He'd expect foolishness would've been easy to flesh out but the heart proves too unpredictable to be fully understood with a distance between him and it.
Additionally, he didn't think unpredictability can be contagious as he starts to show symptoms of what could only be fleeting moments of vulnerable nervousness not for its usual reasons but for the beats of... Affection—adoration? Janus is a liar of the best kind, but that has its limit until one just has to accept their weakness. Janus didn't view love as entirely a weakness but a source of it.
"Janus," His voice wavers—cringing, but it's the only method he found effective for his illness, "I—you—"
"What are you doing?" A steady voice broke from behind him. The click of the door shutting behind him made Janus bristle if the new presence wasn't enough to shock him, "...Janus?"
The alien expression of an annoyed frown gave him away. Logan will not pretend to know Patton, but he at least knew enough to know that expression is hardly... Effable on the moral side he knows.
"I'm doing not—nothing. What are you doing here? Hmm? Can't fool me!" He lost his rhythm, Logan thought sympathetically.
"I am here to return a book of Patton's," He raised a hand as if he's trying to calm a large animal down from perceiving him as danger, "But I suppose I should reprimand you for going against Patton's wishes?"
"I'm not doing that!"
"Then, may you tell me what is this 'gimmick?' you have going on?" Logan gestures a hand at him up and down.
"...it keeps me steady."
"Pardon?"
"Patton, telling me I did a good job makes me feel," He shakes his head like he juggled it for answers, "Grounded. There. That's your vulnerable fact of the day, 2 factor authenticator. Now, may we forget this wholesome scene you walked into?"
Logan was about to point out that the scene before him is closer to being a... 'cringefest' rather than a 'wholesome' one. But the deadly glare he receives the moment his mouth opened was enough to shut it up; still, "Does it work?"
"What?"
"Patton's affirmations... Does it really work?"
"Pfft, please, save me your pity. You get the most praise from dada out there," Janus hissed but Logan doesn't reply, "..you don't think he means it do you?"
"No, I do not think I should need it at all. I am logic, what I do should simply be what needs to be done whether the world falls apart now or not."
"Ah, so you've been dodging his praises like some scared cat receiving a meal from a stranger, huh?"
Logan remains unperturbed but doesn't deny it either—Janus has to laugh. Without another word, he steps forwards and reaches a hand out to Logan who's taken aback by the sudden need for touch. The touch isn't Patton either; it's too cold. Janus mouths something in the lines of, 'Calm it.' Logan swears he saw a swear word between too.
"Logan," His voice changed to the sweet Patton-like tone everyone knew, "You look tired. No wonder Thomas has been so productive. Of course it's you!"
Logan... Didn't know he was tired at all but from that alone he felt it wash over his body. He touches the hand on his cheek to Janus' surprise, "I am," He hushed, "You're right, Patton." He leaned into it.
Janus' stomach leaps and he immediately recoils, transforming back to his face, he coils an arm around himself, "Great," He coughed, "See? Works." His body reacted to the way Logan looked at him—looked at Patton.
"So it seems," Logan tries to not act disappointed for the sudden departure of warmth. But he knows better than to desire such things, "I should leave."
"Should've thought of that sooner, darling."
"Apologies," Logan turns his back and opens the door to leave only to be met with Patton passing by. They exchange a few words, likely clearing up why the logical side is nosing around Patton's room.
Patton's head popped up from the side of Logan's torso a few minutes during their ongoing conversation, "Oh, hi, Janus!" He waves and Janus waves back with less enthusiasm.
He looks up and observes a view he has never seen before.
An expression that is so miniscule and barely mattered.
But there is a change in the softness.
A change in the way his eyes wrinkled with a smile towards Patton.
Janus was the victim of it first and it seems he made the mistake of, accidentally, infecting Logan of it too. He knew that affection always existed way before he got close to Patton but he had just ignited it into existence... Now at the forefront of Logan's knowledge. And nothing is more dangerous than a logic that just knew.
Both of them hold peculiar feelings for the moral side and, now, both of them knew it too.
