“Wong doesn’t seem like he wants to eat my soul.” A beat, then, “Any more than usual, anyway.”

But it’s all a joke — they both react and roll with the punches using habitual sarcasm, maybe that was why they’d kept butting heads the very first time they met — and so Stephen sinks back, coiling back in on himself and taking another sip of that coffee.

“At least the coffee’s decent, if this is a mass existential illusion. But I’ll stay on my guard, keep an eye out. No one’s tried to attack you here yet, have they?”