“It’s a movie about… cars?” He pointed to the screen, unsure, because Dane had told him it was about superheroes from the Marvel universe.
“That’s just a commercial. The movie comes later,” Dane told him and pushed a few of the popcorn pieces into his mouth. Despite his earlier misgivings, he leaned against Jag and placed his warm hand on his forearm.
Jag frowned. The way he saw it, sitting through the ads would be a waste of their time, but Dane’s warm skin was the anchor needed to keep him in the seat.
When the trailers came on, he was positive their film had already started, but it turned out they were just a different type of ad, designed to promote upcoming movies. At this point though, it hardly mattered what appeared on the screen, because the sheer amount of explosions and colors kept Jag pinned to the seat. No wonder Dane loved this so much!
Dane barely managed to save Jag’s popcorn when he flinched in the seat as a ghost reached through a mirror with a bony hand. It looked so real!
“Sorry,” Jag muttered, stuffing his face full of the sweet, crispy treat.
“It’s fine, just a jump scare. Assume it’s all normal. Noise and bright colors are part of the experience,” Dane said, squeezing Jag’s hand while they watched a man on the screen lock eyes with women in shoes any normal person would have broken their legs in.
“Why does she wear those?” Jag asked, but it didn’t slip his attention that a man in the row ahead looked back and frowned at him.
Dane cleared his throat and pressed his index finger to his lips, as if their quiet conversation were somehow making the adverts unwatchable. “It’s fashion. That’s an attractive kind of woman,” he said as a lady with the figure of a young teenager passed across the screen, tossing her dark brown locks over her shoulder.
“Fashion. Fine,” Jag grumbled and went silent for a while, rubbing his arm against Dane’s. He was about to speak when Dane leaned in and whispered to him.
“It’s starting.”
“Oooh! Yes. Finally!” he exclaimed, but his voice was again too loud for the man in front of them. How did people even spend lives so closely together if they were bothered by every noise? And how was he an issue if the movie was deafening?
“Jag, keep your voice down. You should whisper so only I can hear you,” Dane told him and once again put the popcorn into his mouth as the screen presented them with a desert scene.
“Who are they?” Jag asked as quietly as possible, but then yelped then a monster emerged into view. He knew the creature wasn’t real, but cinema and Frank’s TV were two different things, and that damn beast was a giant!
“Won’t you shut up?” asked the guy who’d glared back at Jag twice already.
“We’re sorry,” Dane said and squeezed Jag’s hand. “We can’t shout in the theatre,” he said in a much softer voice, but the other spectators wouldn’t stop glaring Jag’s way, as if he were theirs to judge.
He huffed and sank into the seat, increasingly confused by the story on the screen. Was this really the history of humanity? He had to start asking questions, because his tongue itched with their weight. What he saw in front of him went against everything his parents had taught him. Did people in the far past have superpowers like the characters he was seeing on the screen? Or were they supposed to represent gods?
As the story progressed, the wait became impossible. “So… is this how humanity began? With people from the sky and monsters?”
This time, several viewers raised their voices or shushed him. “He should be taken to a special screening, with children,” a woman could be heard saying from a few seats over.
Jag frowned and tossed a few kernels of popcorn at her with a growl. “I’m here with my man and just trying to—”
“It’s a movie! It ain’t that hard,” the man in front of him raised his voice, but at least he was getting shushed too.
Dane rose and squeezed Jag’s hand. “Let’s just go, okay?”
“No! I’m sorry. Did I spoil it?” Jag asked with regret already pooling in his stomach.
Dane shook his head. “No, you—”
“Yes, you did, so just fucking go!” said the woman, who still had bits of popcorn in her hair.
Jag didn’t resist when Dane pulled him along to the tune of boos coming from all over the audience, but his heart broke with every step. This should have been the perfect date, and he’d ruined it! What if Dane decided that Jag was a waste of his time, that another man could provide him with all the movie screenings he needed and wasn’t an embarrassment to be around? His worst fears have become reality.