Their words mostly noises

[Ripper Nightshade]

Allie. He finally had a name to the man! Whomever he was, he wasn't in the memories of Jack that he had currently. It was like he had an old version of Jack installed.

A cloth bag and a t-shirt were handed over and Rip didn't know what to make of it. He looked at the bag, then the shirt. Was he meant to put it on right now? He was currently shirtless, wearing a snakeskin coat over his bare chest. Now that he looked around and observed the people around him, he realized he was the only person he saw that wasn't wearing a shirt. Hm.

He looked at Allie as he placed the shirt over himself. The fuzzy kitten on the shirt was cute. Also... garish, some part of him said but he ignored it because that was the Jack inside him. Pulling his jacket off, he tucked it between his legs while he pulled the t-shirt over his head. It was a little small on him, a little snug in certain places.

"...it looks terrible," he said as he pulled the coat back on over the shirt. Even the Ripper in him knew it was terrible.

[Alejandro Riviera]

The jacket was Very Jack but the lack of shirt... yeah. Alejo had been trying not to mention that because hey—fashion. Don't gotta explain nothing to nobody. Although in the context of Jack's horrid break-up with Brayden, maybe he should have sensed that something was up. Well, at least he was putting on a shirt now... And it looked all sorts of wrong on him, with that jacket and makeup and hair and bangles and beads. But also... there was something weirdly cute about it?

"It looks cute!" He laughed as he, too, pulled off his jacket and slid the t-shirt over his head. There, now they matched! A proper couple of weirdos in their cute kitten t-shirts and otherwise stylish jackets, coats and pants. Alejo reached over to help Jack adjust the shirt so it didn't sit so snug on him. Well, these things were one-size-fit-all but they didn't take Jack into account, apparently.

Just as he finished, somebody came running up all out of breath, light brown hair wind-swept into bright eyes. "Aunt Shel!" He came to a stop with a hand to his throat, trying to catch his breath. "Sorry I'm late Aunt Shel. Band practice went on way too long!" A bright, white smile was turned onto them but Alejo thought... maybe more so onto Jack. "Hey Allie! Didn't know you'd be here! ...Who's your friend?"

"Hey Mik." He smiled back, noting the way Mik was trying hard not to laugh at the pair of them. "This is Ja—Rip. Rip, this is Mik. He works at the shelter."

"Hi Rip." Mik's eyes were still on him, the smile still directed at him as he held out a hand to shake. "Did Aunt Shel talk you into adopting one of our cats? I see you're wearing the t-shirt I designed. Pretty cute, right?"

[Ripper Nightshade]

Well, if he was going to look terrible, at least he wasn't in it alone. Rip looked down as Allie adjusted the shirt so that it wasn't quite as ill fitting. It was definitely a... look. Rip toyed with one of the various necklaces around his neck. At least he wasn't standing out quite as much. That... was what he wanted, right? He couldn't tell. Some part of him liked attention but some part of him wanted to shrink away from it.

A newcomer approached and apparently he knew Allie, too. It seemed like he was quite the popular person. His gaze darted toward Allie when he started to say Jack but he corrected himself before Rip had to do it for him. He wasn't Jack. Allie, it seemed, still didn't believe him. He wondered how alike they were. He'd never met the real Jack face to face.

Oh. A hand. Rip took it.

"Yes, but I can't." As much as he would love to adopt a cat--and he really would like to--he already knew it would be a death sentence for the poor animal. If what happened to the bird meant anything, it certainly showed Rip that animals couldn't be seen around Keith or they would suffer for it.

He glanced down at the shirt as he finished the handshake and took his hand back. Pulling at the bottom of the shirt, Rip tilted his head.

"It's cute," he said. "But I think it's clashing with the jacket." Not to mention the skintight pants. But what did somebody wear with a kitten t-shirt...? He glanced over at Allie, whose outfit also clashed with the shirt. It was definitely the kind of thing that didn't really seem to fit anything appropriately.

[Alejandro Riviera]

"That's too bad! Some of them could really use a good home. But hey—you can still come visit them at the shelter, and play with them! We need to get a bunch of them accustomed to being around people." Mik's smile grew. "I'd be more than happy to show you around, too, Rip."

Oh boy. Oh boy. Abort! Abort!

Alejo knew that look and that tone—and he saw how Mik wasn't letting go of Jack's hand, too!

Just as Mik said something about the shirt looking good on Jack, Alejo gently began to ease away. "Well Rip and I still have lots of festival to check out, so... we'll just get going now! Good to see you Shelby, and you too Mik! Thanks for the merch!" He tugged on Jack's arm and tried to give him a meaningful Look. One, that boy was too young for him and two, Brayden!

[Ripper Nightshade]

Oh. He hadn't even thought about that as an option. He could go to the shelter and play with the cats and never bring one home. If he wasn't told specifically to stay put at the apartment...

"I don't see why not."

There was no reason not to go. It was the best of all the worlds. He could play with the cats and leave the apartment and be less lonely... And he wouldn't be putting any animals in harm's way. What could be better? He looked back down at the shirt and placed a hand on his own chest. Did it look good on him? Hard to tell. It did fit in a strangely nice way, proportioned to his body as if it were meant for him. And just the slightest peek of skin between the shirt hem and his pants. Maybe it was a look he could work with.

What he didn't understand was why they were suddenly in a rush to leave. Allie was tugging on him and talking about moving along... Reluctantly, Rip let himself be towed away, though he waved a goodbye to the others.

"Goodbye, Shelby, Mik~" Then he stopped. "Wait... where's the shelter...?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

Gogogo! Mission failure! He thought Shelby was nice enough and it was going well (Jack seemed to cheer up about the cats, even if he claimed he couldn't have one in that nice fancy apartment of his), but no way was he letting that little—nice little shelter volunteer boy get his hands on Jack! Although Jack seemed oddly oblivious to it all... which was also not the Jack he knew. Flirting was second nature to that man!

"Oh! Yeah hold on!" Mik scribbled something down onto a card—Shelby gave him a smack on the shoulder but he grinned rather impishly at her. Then he ran back to them and slipped the card into Jack's hand. "Address is on the card. Ask for Mik! See you soon, Rip~"

Alejo again gently but forcefully steered Jack away before any more flirting could be done. No. He was sure Jack didn't go in for babies and that nice young man was hardly older than eighteen or nineteen! He couldn't even get into a club, for fuck's sake! As they walked away, he turned to Jack so that he could ever so slyly peek at the card.

"I knew it! He gave you his number! That sneaky little—boy!"

[Ripper Nightshade]

"Thank you," he said, rather primly as he was handed a card. Looking down at it, he could see that there was a phone number written on a blank portion of the card as well. A number... but Rip had no phone. He turned back to say as much but by then, Allie had dragged him far enough away that he would have had to shout it across a crowd. As Allie mentioned the number, Rip looked down at it again.

"Sneaky?" What made it sneaky? But it didn't matter because... "I can't call him. I don't have a phone."

He had never asked for one--never thought he would need one. But he had a pretty good feeling that even if he did, Keith would say no. He wasn't a very... generous person. And honestly, the more Rip showed an interest in something, the more likely Keith was to deny him having anything to do with it. He learned that pretty early on.

Still, Rip tucked the card away into his pocket for safekeeping.

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Not right now you don't," Alejo muttered mostly to himself, giving Jack the side-eye when he pocketed the card carefully. He should have torn it up! Thrown it away! Mik was waaay too young for him to even think about and besides, what was a kid like that going to offer that someone like Bee couldn't? A couple of nights between the sheets? Sure Mik was cute and that youthful energy had a way of pulling people in, but there was no... longevity behind something like that!

"Well anyway," he said pointedly a moment later. "Should we try one of the games? How's your aim?" There was one where kids were shooting water guns at balloons, trying to see who filled theirs up to bursting the fastest. It looked like a nice diversion! Alejo pulled him over and handed over a couple of bills to the attendant.

"If you win, you can get one of those little toys there! How about the cat one?" Alejo pointed out a fuzzy, small kitty figurine sitting on top of a makeshift shelf.

[Ripper Nightshade]

Games! Rip completely forgot about the games, and he had been so curious about them! He looked around as they walked, trying to decide what game seemed most fun. Games to him weren't typically all that fun. At least, not in the way Keith used the term. But these games all seemed fairly harmless. There was some kind of ring toss game and another one where kids were throwing balls into little bowls of fish. For some reason, that hurt his little stone heart. The little fish seemed as trapped and lonely as he was.

"I'm not sure," he said distractedly, as he watched a kid win one of the fish. And--and! They scooped it out and put it inside of a bag! A bag! Imagine that! For some reason, it really hit home--it made him... angry. Furrowing his brow slightly, he turned away from the game Allie had already paid for, vaguely aware that he was saying something about winning him a cat toy.

"What about that one," he said, pointing to the fish bowl game. "I want to win all the fish... and set them free. Can we do that?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Oh—" Okay well. He grabbed the cat toy anyway since the bored-looking attendant didn't seem to give a fuck. Alejo didn't steal it—he paid for it! He would've won anyway, because look at the competition! Little ten year olds didn't have the coordination that a trained policeman had! All right? He didn't steal it!

Jack seemed more interested in fish, and... Well um. Alejo looked in his wallet. Did he have enough money? Maybe, if they sank all the shots... At this point he was just glad Jack wasn't going after eighteen year-old ass. "Okay! Yeah we can do that but—uh. I think if we set them all free now, they'd freeze, so... we can keep them until it gets warmer? And then we'll bring them to the lake?"

That was pretty terrible. Goldfish were invasive species; they would probably ruin the ecosystem of the lake. Then again, would Jack's malaise last until Spring? Probably not! He might decide he liked goldfish and keep them as pets, which was what they were meant to be anyway. Getting a tank and some fish food wasn't a big deal, he thought; Jack's apartment could accommodate that.

So he handed the new attendant a wad of bills and was given a basket of light ping pong balls. Alejo set the basket down between them and picked one out, eyeing the row of goldfish bowls. "All right buddy. Hope your aim's good, because—" He lobbed one into the nearest bowl. "Mine is perfect." 20-20 vision and he got top marks in gun training. A little game like this?

No big deal.

[Ripper Nightshade]

Rip didn't actually know anything about fish. Neither did Jack; he had never had pets so there were no memories of any pets. But he did have an affinity for stray cats, which apparently Rip couldn't shake. There was a fondness in him when he thought of cats. They were aloof but it was nice to sit in those weeds and feed them scraps of food from home ec--

No, that wasn't his memory. That was Jack's.

The fish, though. He thought he was saving them. They could take them to the park and put them in the manmade pond! ...Right? Again, he had no idea how goldfish survived outside people. All he knew was that they looked lonely and trapped in their tiny bowls, each one all alone in his bowl. All by himself.

"My aim?" He didn't know if he had very good aim. "Am I supposed to help?" he asked, picking up one of the balls and turning it over in his hand. It was a rather light ball, almost nothing but air. That made him feel a little better; they wouldn't hurt the poor fish if he hit one on accident. Furrowing his brow slightly, he targeted a nearby bowl and he gently tossed the ball towards the bowl. It bounced off the edge of the bowl.

"Aw..." he said, purely disappointed. "So close..."

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Of course! I'm not doing all the work!" Alejo laughed as he shoulder checked Jack playfully. "Come on, toss a few in! It's fun!" Another one went into another bowl, floating gently on top while the fish inside swam a lazy circle. It seemed not to care much of ping pong balls came flying at it—but then again goldfish were pretty dumb. If anything, it started nosing up to the surface to check out the bobbing round thing.

But—aww. Jack missed. "Close! Try again!" Alejo grinned as he lobbed another one carelessly, which also bounced just off the rim of another bowl. Hm. He'd better focus if he wanted to get those fish! Admittedly, the thought of little kids bringing them home and torturing them to death didn't seem very nice. It was good for kids to have pets but a lot of them probably didn't know what to do with fish.

Alejo had fish as pets when he was smaller, though. Or, well, his older sister did—he watched her changing the water in the tank, after scooping out the colorful tropical fish and placing them into temporary bowls. And he loved sitting in front of the tank and watching them swimming through the fake castles and floating sea plants she'd stuck in there to make a home for them.

"We'd better buy a big tank for these later, Rip," he mused as he scored another fish, and then moved in to scoop it into a bag filled with water to place alongside his other ones. He'd have a nice haul... Maybe he should keep one for himself. Something to show Seth later, too...

[Ripper Nightshade]

"Okay. I will do some of the work..."

His second attempt was close but it wasn't until his third attempt that he finally made a ball into a bowl. Despite himself, he grinned like a child. The game itself wasn't that complicated, once he realized how he needed to move his arm and time the throws. Before he knew it, they had bagged nearly all the fish and the game attendant was telling them to get lost and move along before they robbed him of a job.

They didn't save all the fish but they saved a lot of them. Rip honestly didn't know what to do with them afterward, though. Dump them into a pond? A lake? No, Allie said they needed a tank for them. Oh, but it would have to be a big tank, he thought, with the amount of fish they'd scored.

"Where do we get a tank?" he asked as he scooped up several bags into his arms, trying to be as gentle and careful with them as he could while juggling slippery bags of fish. "Can't we let them go somewhere big? The lake?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo juggled a bunch of bags in his arms, swimming with fish, and was aware that people were staring oddly at them the entire time. Smiling ruefully, he paused at a bench to rest his arms and to arrange the bags better. "We can hit up a pet store. There's one downtown, they should have everything we need..."

But honestly at this point he was willing to say fuck the environment and dump them in the lake! This many fish needed a huge tank! Plus who was looking after them? Alejo's vacation was almost over, which meant he needed to go back to New York and get his stuff, in preparation to move out here. Jack worked full time and Marge did too. Bray as well... Hm...

"The lake could work... If we do it out of sight..." Rangers patrolled the area often and if they were caught, that meant big trouble! "We can take the bus out there? If we leave now we can make it back before dinner."

[Ripper Nightshade]

Out of sight... Rip was a little afraid, though, of dumping the fish and then what if they all got eaten? They might have better off with the kids... He looked down dubiously at the bags of fish. Then he remembered that the Mik person said he worked at the shelter, too, with his Aunt Shel... Shelby. Something like that. Maybe it was just a cat shelter...? Still, they had to know more about animals in general than Rip did.

"What if," he said, "we give them to the shelter people...?"

He was also saying this because he didn't know if he could leave the area... He needed to stay close, in case Keith came back. Just because he gave the okay to walking around the festival didn't mean he was going to let him take a bus out to the lake.