Steve is going to have a whole, if quiet, identity crisis at some point about the ways he's not actually sadistic, if the responses he keeps getting are like this. At least once he's able to untangle out what's driving his reactions -- and it's not pain or blood.

Now is not eventually on that one.

"You should give me an example of him being kind so I can compare." You should keep talking about your husband while Steve finishes getting a damn grip on himself. And/or finishes this clean up job.

He won't be insisting on distance or that Zerxus stop touching him though. He didn't work that hard to convince the man to do it for that.

He thinks he's leaving it with that remark. Means to. What comes out of him is a different train of thought coming in, without his permission. "This is my fault."