[Stephen hadn't had a good excuse to decline the meeting, not when the exchange is skewed so heavily in his own favor on its surface. Anyway, this is going fine. His smile relaxes into something more real as he takes the bag and opens it up to check out the contents. He glances at his patient, considering the cane for a moment -- it'll be a pain to carry, but it's exactly the kind of thing that'll be needed sooner or later. He nods.]

Feels just like Christmas morning.

[The cagey guy's attention hasn't escaped his notice, but for now Levi's showing no further sign of sapience -- it just hangs passively from Stephen's shoulders as though to challenge Royce and Alfie to trust their own memories of it having moved in the first place. Stephen glances at the two of them, a little surprised that they hadn't been told...or at least, that his patient would bring it up now if he hadn't already gone over it with them.]

Yeah, uh, that. I agreed to be his sponsor after he came to me for a consultation. [Or forced a consultation on him when he came asking directly for the procedure, tomato tomahto. To...what's-his-face:] I'm glad you're doing well, but we should go over some things together, make sure it didn't do anything it wasn't supposed to.