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: : : TENTACLED ROBOTS POUR ACROSS THE screen in helical torrents. Men in gigantic mechanical exoskeletons fire upon them with automatic weapons. Paul sits in his seat and watches these events with a certain sense of delight.
Scott sits in the next seat over. It's just the two of them. All day long Paul felt nervous about the fact that no one else was going with them. He kept imagining the same disastrous scenario: that the two of them would meet up and immediately find themselves with nothing to say, that they'd just have to sit in the theatre in silence, unable to fill the long awkward minutes left before the previews. He kept thinking that he should have held out until he had the safety of a crowd to disappear into. For God's sake, he thought, it's only another week until Return of the King comes out; couldn't you just have waited until then?
But it turned out to be fine, actually. They had no trouble making conversation. In fact Scott had been right in the middle of retelling a plot arc from Farscape when the reel of pre-preview ads kicked in. He frowned apologetically and whispered —I'll have to explain the rest to you later.
Later, Paul thought. There will be a later.
The big robot battle is coming to an end now, and there's this moment happening between the boyish rookie and the grizzled captain or general or whatever he's supposed to be, who is lying there suffering from a fatal-looking gash across his face. It seems pretty sentimental to Paul, but right in the middle of it Scott reaches over and grabs his hand.
Paul's first instinct is to panic—he knows! It takes him almost a whole second for him to process the gesture as encouraging. Not just he knows, but he knows, and he's cool with it. He knows, and he's gay too.
Oh, he thinks. Oh my God. He's not sure what to do next.
You don't have to do anything. Just be cool. Just hold his hand and watch the movie. Just be cool.
His hand immediately starts to sweat.
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