Marc's been better about not shutting down and staying in there all the time. Especially when Steven has had a particularly bad or tiring day, he offers to take over, make something simple and quick at the end of the day, help take the load off. Steven seems content to wolf down anything he makes, be it his mushroom aglio olio or fried rice or pumpkin tacos and Marc... well, he's less self-conscious about his efforts when Steven's not teasing about taming and domesticating him.

"Um." He shuts the shower off even though he can hear Steven perfectly fine with the shower still running, taking his time with the soap and shampoo. Force of habit talking to people physically present, maybe. "Well you kinda left me hanging with the veteran smuggler pilot getting shot and his cybernetic eye short-circuiting in his skull. Guess we can find out if he dies."

Marc is not-so-lowkey-interested and they only just started this one and there's lots of stuff happening from the get-go. The words aren't too complicated, not much effort was put into world-building, and it doesn't go into much flowery description, focusing on the action. It had taken Steven a while to find something that was up Marc's alley, finetuning his choice of books by judging Marc's reaction after every story. He seems to gravitate towards cowboys and murder mysteries and those Tom Clancy type espionage, Cold War books. But Marc still won't let himself pick up the book on his own or enjoy reading if Steven doesn't read to him.