Carry Me

Ralf was light enough to carry, but he was still big and unwieldy, and once they were out of sight of the community center, he was careful to left Ralf down so that he could walk.

"It's not far," Jackal pointed out. "Which is nice. A quick trip there and back. I really just go to the station for work or the community center to gawk at people, so central location is nice. The apartment itself is... eh?" He added, wiggling his hand for emphasis. "There's only one bedroom, which I get, and my roommates a weird bird lady so she sleeps on the balcony. She's got two cats and they're cute but bother me all the damn time. Works out well though. No one bothers me."

Which was good and bad. At times, it was a little bit lonely, but Jackal was a bit too self sufficient to go calling Ralf any time he was bored. He needed more friends, really. People who weren't Ralf.

Well, really he needed to figure out what he and Ralf even were. Jackal was about as far from an expert in human relationships--neither of them were even human, but close enough--but he had a general idea about things.

"SO," Jackal said, not bothering to finish the statement.

Jackal was pretty sure Ralf was getting a kick out of it, but while Jackal could easily lift him, humans were unweildy. Unless he wanted to be carried bridal style around town, carrying him was out of the question.

"Yeah," Jackal said. "She's a cat lady who's a bird. A metal bird. She's pretty weird, which isn't saying much on the island."

Tengu was certainly... interesting. She talked to herself, for one, and apparently herself talked back. Of all her weird behavior, that was what threw Jackal off the most.

"She's in her 20s, maybe? Definitely an adult, but still pretty young. And the cats are Prissle-toes, who's grey, and Glumdrop, who's one of those cats with the ears." Jackal raised his hands, miming folded cat ears.

He was totally going to have to be straight up with it, wasn't he? He'd kind of hoped that Ralf would just get it, only Ralf was not a very serious person to begin with. He'd probably rather keep chatting about how Jackal's roommate was going to be a crazy cat lady.

"I was going to show you my apartment," Jackal said. "But I did want to ask... what the hell this is." He paused, then wiggled his finger between them. "Dating? Serious? Fun? 'Cuz valentines is coming up, you know." Well, in two weeks, anyway. Which was still close. Close enough that he was probably expected to think about such things.

Dating on Manta Carlos was... complex. Supposedly it was easier off-island, but Jackal didn't go off-island, so it's not like he knew.

"Okay, yeah," Jackal confirmed, somewhat hesitantly. "Figured it was worth asking, since there's a boatload of people who just... hook up and don't put a word to it."

And that was really just the tip. "Or people who have a bunch of stuff going on, but at the moment it's just you, so if you wanna make it a just us, thats good with me."

Ralf was... well, Ralf was Ralf. Jackal hadn't put too much thought into it, and he was pretty sure that Ralf hadn't either. That was just kind of the way things rolled.