He is amenable to being double-checked. Here's what I'm doing, here's why, here's what I'd have done and said if I were evil, would you have noticed? 

Almost like a game.

Kib would have noticed this and that... this might have slipped past him but he thinks Findekáno would have got it and he will install a heuristic for it... are we having fun, Maitimo?

He flinches.

Then the smile is back. "Just want to keep you on your toes."

"What'd I do?"

"Found an opening to say something that wasn't out of character but that Thauron would also have said, it was very clever."

"It's really very unprofessional of him to display a consistent personality."

"I know! He can do other ones but the real thing leaks through. He might be used to people needing more cues than I do."

"I don't suppose it would be wildly implausible were I him for me to come up with extended invective directed at him or anything."

"That he could happily do. There are actual emotional notes I haven't seen him strike and think might be beyond his capacity, but they're not ones particularly characteristic of you, either - or of any of the people close to me - why did I surround myself with arrogant ambitious passionate stubborn people -"

"This is probably the part where I say something arrogant but I'm not really feeling it right this minute."

"Every time I hear my name it sounds like it's in his voice."

"I could translate it into the common or Harthanic or something? Or make something up. Pick a pet name if it won't make you want to puke, 'honey' is taken but whatever else is open."

"I am sure he'll delight in giving me horrible associations with any nickname I pick, but thanks."

Sigh. "You're welcome."

"Anything else to check for sabotage tonight?"

"No, I can leave you be."

"I hope I've made it clear that you do not have to, that I'm happy to try to pull it together -"

"I can hang around, too, if you want."

"I don't think I have relevant wants - no, I want you to show your hand sooner if you're Thauron, just so I can stop doubting, I want to stop being a source of pain to you. I don't want this setup to end. I want Kib to be safe and happy and utterly ignorant of Angband."

"It is," says Kib, "really fucking sadistic that you've been wedged into a situation where you can be uncertain about whether you're talking to me or Thauron, or certain you're talking to Thauron, but never sure you've got me."

"And everything affectionate I say to you Thauron'll repeat to me later - he'll get the cadences exactly right - over and over, making a mockery of it all - while he tortures someone to death in front of me because I've refused a deal I cannot take -"

"Then don't. I'll live."

"I want Kib to be happy. I want Kib to know I love him. I want Kib to know that erasing every single relevant memory did not make that go away, that building new awful ones did not make that go away, that if this turns out to be real my greatest regret will be that I didn't straighten out my head around being touched and then hold you again as soon as I was healthy -"

"I love you," murmurs Kib. "Stopped giving you notes before you got to the part where I said that - you said it first shortly after I found Aydanci and we weren't someplace I could kiss you and I commented on the timing and you said I could orchestrate it differently and it was prohibitively difficult because you were so paranoid and you were jealous because I told Findekáno first and you went to my world and you got a boat made and you put this ridiculous fluffy grass all over this island it was so soft and we watched the sunset."

"I cannot really imagine being that person but I wish I could give him back to Kib."