and she's buying a stairway to heaven. {Apollo}

[Aiden Clarke]

It took a lot of patience and concentration to sit through an entire movie. At least, Aiden thought it did. As far as he was concerned, movie theaters were complete wastes of time--it was nearly impossible to get through the whole thing without at least getting up to go to the bathroom and, most of the time, the movie was not nearly entertaining enough to stay till the end. The popcorn was shitty and it was something like five bucks a bucket and the candy and soda were so overpriced, it wasn't even worth it.

All in all, a much better movie theater experience was to loiter behind it, which usually involved some sort of illicit activity. Which was, of course, the reason that Aiden was at the theater. It hadn't started as the reason; his original intentions had been noble enough. He had been going to buy a ticket to some sort of chick flick [not one of the ones that would label him as gay, but one that would make him look sensitive] so that he could pick up a girl who would assume that he would stick around after he got what he wanted, but that plan had failed when he'd tried to watch TV beforehand--he couldn't even sit still in his own living room.

He couldn't say that he didn't try, though. He had made it all the way to the theater before deciding that the vodka in his backpack was infinitely more interesting than watching two idiots slobber all over each other. With that comforting thought, he'd made his way around the theater, past the security guards, and to the back, where everything that nobody wanted was. But that was just how he liked it--by the dumpster, around the littered cans and bottles, surrounded by grotesque graffiti. It was so much more peaceful than in any of those naturey places, especially since everyone went to those.

It took a few kicks, but he had finally managed to kick a few crates into a nice little bench. He sat, sprawling out as best he could over the metal, and pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket. Next came the zippo, which could provide so much more entertainment once he was tipsy, but for now would have to serve as the fuel for his tobacco. After the first drag, he felt much more relaxed than before, and reached into his bag to find his dearest friend: the vodka. It wasn't cold anymore, but whatever. The true delight of vodka was not in its taste, but in its contents.

"Damn," he said as he exhaled deeply, smoke spiralling upward. It wasn't so much a curse as an exclamation of feeling--this was one place where he could say damn and actually feel as though it were releasing stress. Funny what being among the garbage did for a guy.

With a deep, centering breath, Aiden brought the bottle to his lips and took a gulp.

[Apollo Wazed]

Apollo actually liked watching movies. He had watched Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Zoolander over and over. They definitely in his top three and he knew practically every line to each. Still, the plot lines still seemed to surprise him. He knew exactly what was coming and when to expect them but unless you had watched the movies with him beforehand, you would have thought it was his first time watching them. Maybe it was the thrill he got from watching Ben Stiller and his friends have a gasoline fight. Or the fact that he still found Johnny Depp hilarious. All of this watching of movies that he had seen over and over really annoyed Apollo’s older brother. He often asked him why he was watching it again, to which Apollo would either respond ‘I’ve never seen it before’ or ‘I like knowing what’s going to happen’.

Now his top five movie list was always being revised, which is why Apollo went to the movie theaters so often. Most of the time he was able to drag one of his friends with him or bring a date. But of course, there were times when he had neither option. Today was one of those times. He was too lazy to try to find a date that wouldn’t talk to him the entire time, and he figured all of his friends were busy with it being such late notice. So he was stuck to face the theater by himself. He always felt like an idiot when he went to group environments alone. But there was a strategy that he used when faced with the difficult task of venturing into the theater alone. He would conveniently sit next to a seat that had an article of clothing or purse or something on it, to make it look like he had come with the randoms he had decided to adopt. He was pretty self-conscious when it came to stuff like that.

Not only was there a seating plan, but there was also an eating/drinking plan. Apollo made sure he had enough pockets to carry things when he went to the movie theater. His back pockets were always filled with his cell phone and wallet, they evened him out so his hips wouldn’t hurt. Ideally, he would have four or more pockets on the front/sides of his shorts. Thankfully, cargo shorts normally had that many. His top two were filled with cigarettes and joints, and a beer but it was in one of those flasks so it didn’t stick out. The other side pockets had a bag of pre popped popcorn and a vodka filled flask. Now if this were a date, he wouldn’t have done that.

He made his way to the ticket selling section of the theater and looked up at the signs to see what was playing. He had seen practically every movie that was in theaters. Well. The good ones. He scanned the signs and found that he was not impressed. He had seen most of them and the ones he hadn’t seen were destined to be horrible. This frustrated Apollo, so he stormed out. He was mad at the theater for not supplying him with anything good or new, and he would show it.

Apollo wasn’t one to vandalize, but he was one to leave his mark. In anyway possible. He quickly went to the back of the theater and was somehow going to draw something profane. That’s when he saw Aiden sitting on the crates and smoking. Apollo grinned and nodded as if this was completely the right thing to do right now. He whipped out his own cigarette and lit it, blowing some smoke out of his mouth before walking over to Aiden.
“Aiden,” He said, standing in front of him. “What are you doing here?” Because he thought that only people who wanted to spray paint or were homeless or were garbage men came back there. “Do you have any spray paint?”