"There's always room for more books! It's-- triangle-shaped. Corners are naturally harder to get to!" Steven defends himself. He meant to say it's a loft but hopefully Marc gets what he means.

Instead of foisting Marc's hand back at him, grumbling and putting some distance between them, Steven huffs as Marc uses everything he'd said in the heat of the moment against him and just nudges Marc's hand aside gently while he sits up, sliding his arms around his shins as he hugs his knees closer to his chest.

"That's not fair. You can't-- I didn't know. When I said those things." He can't say he didn't mean them at the time - that would be a blatant lie. But if he'd known everything, he wouldn't have said those things. They were really mean things to say to someone and Steven, despite his protestations, doesn't have a single mean bone in his body.

"I didn't need protecting. I'm-- supposed to protect you." Nevermind that Steven would have lost his shit if Marc had been honest about a few things from the get-go. They won't know now, since he never got the chance. How can he protect Marc anyway when Marc doesn't tell him anything?