He woke to the sound of keys, the rustle of a paper sack, and Aria's voice saying, "I challenged the curb and I won."
Jiss blinked, sat up on the couch like it owed him rent, and tried to look less like he'd lost a fight with gravity. "Congratulations to you and your ankles."
Aria toed off her shoes, set two grocery bags on the table and eyed him. "You nap like a fallen mannequin."
"Performance art."
"Help me, performance art."
He did: carried the heavier bag to the kitchen, filed cans into a cupboard that squeaked, and washed cilantro. The normalcy was so loud it muted the city outside. His body still thrummed from the warehouse: forearms faintly sore, nerves alert as a cat's whiskers.
Hungry, Toxin said, stretching in his bones. We worked. We eat.
"We will," he thought.
Aria popped her head back in. "You feel up for a quick market run? I forgot the soap-that-doesn't-smell-like-grandma."
"Field trip," he said, as if stepping into a world full of cameras and acronyms was always this breezy. "I'm a superb pack mule."
Aria pulled a cap over her bun and grabbed her tote. "The dream."
They walked three blocks to a market. Jiss took the basket and catalogued exits. The fluorescent lights hummed at a pitch he could tolerate. A kid in a cart stared at him.
Aria pointed out the things that mattered. "This brand is cheap but not compromised. Avoid the bad lettuce; it knows what it did. The owner's cousin runs the butcher in the back, he'll give you a discount if you pretend his boxing stories are fascinating."
"Are they?"
"They are long."
Jiss grabbed rice, beans, onions, soap-not-grandma. In the meat case, he breathed through it. Protein, he told himself. Not a problem. Just… steaks that remember being cows, not people that remember being loud.
Meat, Toxin sighed happily, pressing against his skin where his palm hovered over sirloin. We like this place.
"Behave," he said out loud, which he meant to be under his breath.
Aria glanced over. "You talking to the steaks? Bold."
"Negotiating," he said quickly. "We reached a protein agreement."
"You and the steaks."
"Me and destiny."
She let it go because she was gracious and because New York made everyone a little strange.
At checkout, a man two customers ahead started raising his voice. "I'm not paying for rotten eggs," he announced to the line, to the cashier, to the fourteen deodorants behind the counter. He slammed a carton down hard enough to crack more eggs. "You sold me garbage!"
The cashier: a kid with acne and a name tag that read PAUL stammered something about receipts and store policy. The man leaned in, breath mean. "You calling me a liar?"
Threat, Toxin said, delighted. We bite his wrist.
We do not bite wrists, Jiss answered, forcing his shoulders to stay loose. We de-escalate, then we leave.
We remove the head and the problem leaves itself.
That's not de-escalate; that's… scalation to zero.
Aria frowned and shifted just enough to put herself between the man and the kid: quiet, protective, not a scene.
Jiss felt it like a pull in his chest: Fix it.
He stepped out of line, grabbed another carton from a side stack, popped the lid to check: twelve, uncracked and placed it gently on the counter where the man could see it.
"Here," he said, casual. "These are good. Yours."
The man turned, ready to snarl at an enemy and finding a guy in a hoodie with nothing to prove. Jiss held eye contact like talking to skittish dogs: steady, unchallenging. "Let the kid swap them. Everybody wins. Nobody monologues at eggs."
Aria coughed a laugh she turned into a throat clear. Paul seized the lifeline. "Y-yeah. Sorry for the… inconvenience. I'll swap these out."
The man's shoulders twitched, caught between anger and the relief of an exit. He settled for grumbling something about standards and took the fresh carton. He didn't thank anybody. He didn't need to. He walked out with dignity he felt preserved.
Jiss stepped back into line. Toxin simmered, disappointed. We could have removed his teeth. He was loud.
So are kettles, Jiss thought. We don't eat kettles, either.
We should.
We are not doing dental on strangers because our feelings are crunchy.
Silence, then a sulky: Crunchy feelings are edible.
He collected their bag and followed Aria out and exhaust. She bumped his arm, not quite a nudge. "That was good."
"I just bribed him," he said.
"That works more often than you'd think."
See? he told the voice in his skull. No killing. Problem solved. Groceries intact.
Tedious victory, Toxin said, but the edge of it had softened.
Back at the apartment, they cooked. Aria took over the stove with her authority. Jiss chopped like he was taking a test on knife skills.
Working helped. The need in him didn't go away, but it backed off like a storm behind a closed door.
"You get weirder the more comfortable you get," Aria said, handing him a plate.
"I contain multitudes," he said, digging into rice, beans "Most of them are tired."
She watched him eat calmly.
"I've got a late shift tomorrow," she said. "If you need the couch again, it's yours. Just remember the rule: no weirdness."
"I'll limit myself to quirky."
"Acceptable."
When the dishes were done and the news flickered in the background (a drone mishap in Queens, a billionaire saying something dismissible), Aria excused herself for a shower. The bathroom fan roared. The apartment became a pocket in a larger storm.
Jiss sank onto the couch, stared at his hands, and let the argument he'd been holding at arm's length step closer.
"Okay," he said inside his head. "We need to talk."
Yes, Toxin said immediately, as if they had waited its entire time to be asked.
He rubbed his brow. "I'm not sure what to say. I want us alive more than anything, but I don't want to wake up one day and realize I solved everything wrong."
We are efficient, Toxin commented, helpfully.
"Being a blender is efficient. We are not a blender."
A turn of curiosity. What is a blender?
"A bad metaphor I regret." He exhaled. "Listen. We make a ladder."
A meat ladder?
"A use-of-force ladder." He phrased it like a spell. "Step one: leave. We leave early, we leave often. Step two: talk. We say 'no,' we say 'stop,' we say 'I don't want trouble.' Step three: move people's choices. Trip, block, distract."
We like people, Toxin said, possibly complimenting.
"Step five: only if there is a situation and there's no other way, we do what we have to and we hate it later." He let the words hang because they felt wrong. "And we tell Aria never."
A thoughtful ripple. We tell Soft Human never.
"Right."
But if Soft Human is in danger…
"I don't know," he said, quieter. "But we try everything else first."
The fan in the bathroom cut off, leaving the apartment too quiet for a beat. Toxin filled the space with a reasonable suggestion: We eat the enemies preemptively to stop danger.
"Absolutely not."
A little.
"Not even a nibble."
We keep most of them.
"You're impossible."
We are us.
He laughed, tired. "Does your species have ethics? Like… hunting rules?"
We have hunger and we have we, Toxin said, solemn as a child's oath. We keep what keeps us. We kill what kills us. We make the meat that tries to bite us go still.
"Okay," he said. "So we figure out how to be we without becoming only teeth."
A long pause. He could feel it sorting what he'd said like a child sorting colored stones: interested, particular, not unkind. We will try your ladder. We will also keep a mouth ready at the top.
"Fair."
And we will eat kettles.
"No kettles."
We test the rule.
"Please don't unionize against me."
Another pause, and then, surprisingly: Jiss… why not kill the loud man with the eggs?
He stared at the ceiling. "Because he was just a annoying guy. Because that kid would've had nightmares about a dead customer in front of him for the rest of his life. Because tomorrow I need to buy milk there and I like my face not on a bulletin board. Because I want to be someone Aria can leave her door unlocked around."
Soft Human smells like soap, Toxin said, pleased by its own observation.
"She does."
We keep soap safe.
"Yes."
No killing near soap.
"Progress," he said, smiling despite himself.
The bathroom door opened. Aria padded out in socks and an oversized T-shirt with a hospital logo, towel around her neck. "If you two" she pointed between him and an imaginary roommate "are going to solve all of civilization's problems, do it quieter."
"We were debating against chicken," he said.
"Careful. They hold grudges." She tossed him a folded blanket. "I'm up at six again. Wake me if you need anything. Don't try to tough out a nightmare to be impressive. That's my least favorite trait."
"I'm short on impressive," he said.
"Liar." She smiled, switched off the lamp nearest the couch, and vanished into her room.
Jiss lay back under the blanket. The argument continued, but softer now.
Use-of-force ladder, Toxin murmured, testing the rungs. Leave. Talk. Trip. Hold. Break a little. Maybe teeth.
"Last rung only when we must," he whispered.
We will try. A yawn felt rather than heard. We will bite kettles in our hearts.
"You're exhausting."
You slept already.
He closed his eyes. The day put a hand on his shoulder and said enough. He let it.
Before sleep took him, the voice in his head added, almost shy: You choose hard rules. We like you choosing.
"Thanks," he said. "We'll survive by being boring."
We will survive by being funny and hungry, Toxin corrected, content. And by not killing near soap.
"Deal," he said, and smiled into the dark.