"In one word: Canon. And don't look at me like that, you think I'm not sick and fucking tired of how much work it takes to invent the universe every time I have to answer a question?"

That question was rhetorical.

"I already knew saying it directly like that wouldn't help you understand. I'm getting there." He takes a sip off the top of his strictly lukewarm orange soda in a way that's generally a bit pensive but looks, sincerely, like he's having a sulk.

"Or what's there to get, anyway." He chews on the scar issue on his upper lip a moment.

"What that means is... I'm not all here. Emphasis on 'here.' And I don't think I ever was."

The way he says it is perceived, internally, as grave, if not outright ominous. And that's what his tone attempts to deliver.

It's an excruciating revelation, felt so deeply and on so many more levels than he can comfortably cover in one go, or even uncomfortably cover, period, that it's all he's been thinking about for days.

Which has a lot to do with the mood he's been in since before Steven arrived.

"So when I tell you that me saying something doesn't hold water, that goes both ways. I can't make it so, and I can't fucking know it either. Not canonically."

Not in any way that matters.

"I'm making mistakes. Getting mixed up with myself."

He regards Steven for a moment, with stunning ambivalence.

"Don't take my word for anything."