Morning light came through the hostel's dirty window. Jiss woke with a stiff neck, a damp pillow, and a small relief that his anxiety hadn't overwhelmed him during the night.
Hungry, Toxin murmured, like a cat nosing his ear.
"We'll fix breakfast," he whispered. "Promise."
He checked his wallet: not great. He checked his dead phone: still an expensive mirror. He checked his pride: loud, unhelpful.
Call her, he told himself. Or… go.
He picked go because he didn't trust his voice not to crack into someone else's problem.
The clinic was already lively when he got there: muffled coughs, squeaky clogs on tile, the buzz of fluorescent lights. Aria came through the sliding doors with two paper cups balanced in one hand and a folder under her arm. She saw him, paused, read the whole situation off his face in one glance, and offered one cup like a peace treaty.
"Coffee," she said.
"God bless the bean." He took a sip and made a face.
She angled him toward a bench under an overhang. "How'd the list work out?"
"Soup was edible, hostel was… okay." He hesitated. "Thank you."
"Welcome." She studied him. "You're still lost."
"I graduated to 'misplaced.'" He exhaled. "I need… a few basics. Maybe a cheap phone. And, uh, tips for not getting eaten by New York."
"Easy." She checked the clock inside. "I have half an hour before I'm back on Mr. Rosenthal. We'll speed-run Being a Person 101."
He tried a joke to hide the relief. "Finally, an elective I can pass."
They started two blocks over at a bodega. Aria traded hellos with the owner like they were cousins; Jiss bought a prepaid burner with cash and a plan that was basically "texts sometimes."
"Don't give your number to anyone with a clipboard," Aria said, tapping the plastic. "And set a PIN that isn't your birthday. Or 1234. Or '0000' because you like circles."
"I do like circles."
"Resist them."
They hit a kiosk for a cheap transit card next. "You can tap with a card now," Aria said, "but cash works at machines. Never block the turnstile. Stand two steps back. If a train car is empty during rush hour, it's empty for a reason."
"What reason?"
"You'll learn. Consider it New York's escape room."
He filed that under ominous but useful. She drew him a map on the back of a receipt—scribbles of neighborhoods, landmarks, the soup kitchen's hours. "Don't cut through Battery Park at night. Avoid the tunnels if you're alone and twitchy. If someone bumps you once, fine. Twice, check your pockets."
"Do I… look like a mark?"
"You look like a nice person," she said. "New York assumes that's the same thing."
They walked, and she kept narrating the city like a tour guide who refused to make it pretty. Where to get a $4 slice. Which laundromats looked like fronts but weren't. Which corners to avoid when the crowd condensed around someone performing a magic trick you didn't need to see.
They passed an electronics store with TV walls. Iron Man shot across twelve screens, the chyron shrieking about an "underground arms deal bust." Someone next to them snorted: "Stark's a maniac." Someone else: "He's hot, though."
Aria tilted her head without stopping. "Weird times, right? Billionaire in a jet suit, green guy on the news last year, some… hammer story out in New Mexico. Getting wierd these days."
Jiss kept his face neutral. "I thought the hammer one was a meme."
"Officially it's 'unexplained meteorological phenomenon.' Unofficially, my aunt Carmen's friend's nephew swears the government fenced off a crater and put up a tent city with men in suits faster than you can say don't film this."
"Men in suits," he echoed.
"White shirts, black ties, government faces. Could be FBI. Could be those… S-word people."
"S-word?"
"Strategic Homeland… something. The one with the terrible acronym."
"Right." Jiss nodded like he didn't have the whole acronym tattooed on the underside of his pop-culture brain. "Terrible."
We do not like suits, Toxin said, suddenly intent. They smell like cages.
"Same," he thought back. Out loud: "I'll… steer clear."
"Smart," Aria said. "Anyone who shows up with an acronym and a smile wants your time, your blood, or your signature."
"Great options."
"Pick 'none.'"
External conflict found them at the corner of 12th and Nothing Good: a crowd swell, a jostle, the soft tug of a hand that didn't belong in his pocket. Jiss felt it a millisecond before he saw it an instinct sharpened by a resident alien with opinions.
Threat, Toxin purred, hungry and pleased. Catch. Bite.
No biting, Jiss thought, even as his fingers closed on the thief's wrist.
The guy was quick, a sideways eel in a hoodie, but Jiss moved quicker. A dark ripple crawled under his sleeve and tightened in a firm band nobody could quite see.
"Easy," Jiss said, low. "Wrong day."
The thief's eyes widened. He let go. Jiss let him go back. The man vanished into the crowd, pride and momentum saving his face.
Aria had turned halfway through, reading the situation. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He patted his wallet. "Just passed a test I didn't study for."
"Good reflexes," she said, and her tone was that same quiet praise she used when he drank water. "Also, you didn't try to be a hero about it. That's… better than good."
We could have eaten him, Toxin grumbled, sulking.
We could have, Jiss agreed. We didn't.
Boring.
Alive.
It settled, a slow, reluctant curl beneath his skin.
By noon, Jiss's head was a junk drawer full of new rules. Aria checked her watch and made a face. "I have to go back before Mr. Rosenthal forms a union against me."
"Tell him I support his pudding rights."
"He'll put you on a committee." She hesitated. "Listen… I have a roommate, Lina, who's out of town for a few days. I don't usually do this, but… we have a couch. Clean-ish. You can crash for a night or two if you need."
The part of him that had been trained by the world to say no, I'm fine opened its mouth.
Pride is heavy, he thought. And stupid. And not worth sleeping next to someone's snoring backpack.
He swallowed. "I'd… appreciate that. If you're sure."
"Ground rules," she said, hands on hips, mock-stern. "No weirdness."
He aimed for deadpan. "Define weirdness."
"We'll know it when we see it. No hitting on me."
"Noted." He held up two fingers. "Scouts honor."
"No stealing."
"I prefer borrowing the concept of borrowing."
"And you help carry groceries."
"I am a beast of burden." Relief made the joke land softer than it deserved. "Thank you, Aria. Really."
"You can pay me back by not dying in my living room," she said lightly, but there was something under it, trust drawn in pencil, offered anyway.
We keep Soft Human, Toxin murmured, satisfied.
We don't own her, Jiss thought back. We take care. We repay.
We keep safe. Same.
He could live with that.
Her building was old enough to have stories and new enough to have a temperamental elevator. The hallway smelled like cumin and laundry. Inside: a small living room with a sagging couch, a plant clinging to the notion of sunlight, and a fridge decorated with a magnet alphabet that read EAT because the rest of the letters had fallen.
Aria tossed him a clean towel. "Shower to the left, kitchen to the right."
"Noted." He stared at the couch like it might sprout teeth. "I'll make my bed in your library of crumbs."
"You joke, but I have textbooks with opinions." She nudged a stack with her toe. Anatomy, pharmacology, a dog-eared first aid manual. "You hungry?"
He was, and not just in the way that made knives look like candy. They cobbled together dinner from pantry odds and ends: eggs, rice, a can of black beans, salsa that claimed to be mild and wasn't. Jiss chopped like a man defusing a bomb. Aria watched his hands with approval.
"You cook."
"When threatened," he said. "And when bribed with salsa."
They ate at the tiny table. He tried not to flinch when the kettle whistled; the high pitch lanced through him like a thrown needle, more feel than sound.
Aria saw it. Of course she did. "Too loud?"
"Just… memories of bad day," he lied, casual. Inside, Toxin recoiled, prickled, resettled.
Sharp sound hurts, it complained.
We'll avoid, he thought.
We eat the kettle.
We do not eat the kettle.
They drank tea anyway, letting the steam soften the edges of the afternoon. Aria quizzed him with the gentle persistence of a person who had learned that questions could be both help and harm.
"Family?" she asked.
"In transit," he said.
"Job skills?"
"Fast learner. Good at… making messes into smaller messes."
"Favorite corner store?"
"Whichever one sells hope for under five dollars."
She accepted his evasions with nimble patience. He offered what he could: dishes done, trash taken out, a joke when the ceiling thunked in a way that said neighbor. Normal pieces. Mortal, manageable.
They watched the news on low over the hum of the AC unit. Stark said something flippant from inside a floating suit. Aria rolled her eyes. "Money makes people weird."
"Or reveals it," Jiss said before he could stop himself.
She glanced over. "You don't sound impressed."
"I'm not sure I trust anyone who can throw a tank without also knowing how to carry groceries."
"That's my metric, too." She set her mug down. "There was a protest last year when some green giant trashed a strip of Harlem. Government tried to spin it into a 'containment exercise.' People lost apartments. No one paid for their couches."
Jiss watched the footage: grainy, chaotic, full of collateral and felt the voice inside him shift, curious, not thrilled. Big meat, Toxin said. Loud meat.
We don't want loud, Jiss thought. We want quiet. Small saves..
Small meat.
Stop saying meat.
We will try.
Aria noticed his far-away look and misread it generously. "Hey. If the world is too loud, you can turn it down. You don't have to have a plan by dawn."
"I wish my head had a volume knob."
"It does. Food, shower, sleep. That's the knob."
"Doctor's orders?"
"Almost-nurse's orders." She yawned. "I'm up at six. The couch is yours. Bathroom's all yours after I go into 'battle mode.'"
"Do you get armor?"
"Scrubs are battle pajamas." She stood, stretched, and flicked off the lamp near the couch. The room fell into soft dark. "If you need anything in the night, don't be a hero. Wake me."
He nodded because the other option was to say you already did more than enough and embarrass them both. "Goodnight, Aria."
"Goodnight, Jiss."
Her door clicked shut.
------------
The couch had loud springs, but it was flat and didn't smell like a stranger. He lay there, listening to the building talk: pipes creaking, laughter down the hall, the city echoing through the windows.
He pulled Aria's spare blanket up to his chin and let the day unwind. He had rules. He had a map with her handwriting on it. He had a burner phone that could text "I'm okay" if he chose to lie. He had a couch that technically wasn't his and a voice in his head that definitely was.
Soft human is good, Toxin said, softer than usual. We keep safe.
"We will," he whispered.
We hid well, it added, with a pleased little ripple. We did not show teeth.
"Gold star," he said.
We eat kettle tomorrow?
He laughed into the blanket. "We'll negotiate."
Silence stretched, warm at the edges. The hunger curled into a ball and fell into a watchful, content sort of half-sleep. Jiss stared at the ceiling until it blurred, then let the blur take him.