Work Text:
Josh Simmons gave them another whole movie—and he was technically breaking two rules, since the boys definitely slipped into Die Harder which was rated R and that littler one was maybe six, maybe seven, but nowhere near old enough to see the graphic explosions of another summer action flick. He wouldn’t have said anything, except the kids walked right out of Die Harder and right into the late showing of Milo and Otis—maybe the little one had gotten scared. The older kid was sort of slouching along, rubbing at his eyes like maybe the hijinks of John McClaine had put him to sleep, which was impossible. Josh had been working at the movie theater for a year now and he’d caught his own Zzs during plenty of movies, but there were some surround sounds that no human, no matter how tired, hung over, or high, could sleep through.
Anyway, they were getting into their fourth movie of the day—fourth! And Josh wasn’t really a stickler but this was getting a little out of hand. They weren’t even pretending to buy candy or anything, just slipping from one theater to the next.
It wasn’t even a crowded night. A summer Tuesday, most everyone who had the means driving the couple hours from Eastern PA to the shore. Josh would be there himself, usually spent a week with his girlfriend’s family and their house in Brigantine, but he and Heather were sort of on the outs after Josh made out with Lacey at Lacey’s Fourth of July pool party, and somehow Josh hadn’t been invited to the beach week.
So, really, he wasn’t supposed to be here at all. Some kids ducking from movie to movie was so not his problem.
But if his manager saw them do it—and he would, these kids were not sneaky, especially the little one, who was chatty and looked sticky even from far away—well, then it would be Josh’s problem. Better to nip it in the bud.
He caught up with the boys as they were settling into the back row for Milo and Otis. The little one was bouncing on the seat, weighing so little it kept flipping back up every time he flopped down. The older one was slouching down in the seat, burying himself into his thin t-shirt. It was hot, hot summer outside but management really blasted the AC. Josh kept a sweatshirt in the breakroom just in case.
They were the only kids in the theater. Tuesday night. Beach night.
Josh put a hand on the older kid’s shoulder. “You boys got a ticket for this movie?”
Look, Josh was nineteen years old and not going to college. He used to wrestle and liked the feeling of punching people, sometimes. He’d played football until he tore every ligament in his shoulder mid-tackle. He wasn’t a stranger to fights.
But he didn’t think he’d ever scared anyone the way he scared that little kid in the too-cold movie theater.
The boy sort of hunched in on himself, eyes going wide as he scrambled to his feet. “Sammy?” It wasn’t a response, it didn’t even seem to come out on purpose, like it was the one word this kid would remember if he forgot everything else.
“Dean? I want to see the dog movie.”
“Maybe tomorrow. Sorry. We’ll get out of here. Now. Sorry.” The kid didn’t look at Josh again. Was looking, instead, for an exit. “Sammy.”
“But you said I could see the dog if we watched the other movie. Dean, it’s only fair.”
Josh wasn’t quite sure what was going on, so he dropped back to his original question. “Do you have a ticket?”
“The door was open!” The littler boy said, all proud.
“Sam…” The older boy moaned.
Now Josh really had to kick them out. He knew exactly what door would have been open wide enough for two kind of small kids to get in. The breakroom door was supposed to stay closed, but he’d wanted to see the sunlight, smell the fresh air, definitely not think of Heather in a bikini on a beach. So he’d propped it open. It was the same door people propped open to let their friends into the theater without paying for a ticket up front, and the last guy who did that, Gene, had been at the theater for six months, let his cousin in all the time, and was fired the minute management found out.
“You shouldn’t sneak in places,” Josh said, because even though it seemed like one of those obvious sentences that everyone should agree with it bore repeating. “It’s trespassing. And probably stealing. If my manager found you here he might have called the cops.”
The little one—Sam, apparently—edged closer to the bigger one. “Cops?” Sam said, not looking at Josh at all, eyes all on the other boy.
Josh thought they were probably brothers. He didn’t have any brothers of his own, most of his friends were either only children or had siblings too much older or younger to really count, so he rarely thought about the world in terms of brotherly relationships, but something about the way these kids held themselves, the tilt of the head and jut of the chin, screamed similar genetic code, even if their colorings and builds were completely different.
“You don’t need to call anyone.” The older brother was backing away. One arm thrown out in front of little Sam. “Seriously, we’re leaving. Sorry. Don’t call the cops. We’ll leave.”
No way was Josh actually going to call anyone—that would get him fired for sure. But these little JDs would grow into true punks if someone didn’t lay down the law. Josh would know. He gotten away with plenty in his day, and it had landed him at nineteen in a dead end job with no prospects and no girl. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that shit. “If I let you leave, how do I know you’re not gonna go rip off another business?”
It was a small town. The movie theater was a chain, but most businesses weren’t. They didn’t deserve to be ripped off by a couple kids with nothing better to do on a humid Tuesday night.
“We won’t. We’ll just go home. Promise.” The older boy was edging away down the aisle, so Josh edged with him. He remembered all the moves, how to bolt.
“But—but Dean? I wanted to watch the dogs. And the room is too hot.”
The older kid, Dean. He closed his eyes and though he was maybe ten he looked ancient. “It’s okay, Sammy.”
“But—Dean, everything’s all closed! And it’s hot! And no one’s even here! Why can’t we just stay?”
Dean threw Josh a pleading look, a look that Josh interpreted as I-have-to-deal-with-this-so-can-we-just-put-our-conversation-on-hold, which was a lot to convey in one expression.
Josh backed up half a step. He kept his eyes on the exits. He was hoping to shepherd these kids out the front exit, which dumped right into the parking lot instead of going back through the lobby. The quicker they got out the better.
Dean turned to his brother, but didn’t entirely put his back to Josh, which raised all sort of red flags that Josh didn’t know what do to with. “We got caught, Sam. Remember last week with Dad, when you forgot to put away the dishes at night?”
Sam nodded. He had a couple fingers in his mouth, even though he seemed too old for that. Josh didn’t really know much about kids, only what he could see from afar, in the theater. That they were usually loud and messy. “Got punished,” Sam mumbled.
“Yeah, well, you did something wrong and you got caught, right?”
“But what did we do wrong now?” Sam wailed. Josh winced at the noise, hoping his manager didn’t hear and come investigate. “They were playing the movie anyway. We just watched.”
“Without paying,” Josh supplied, in case Dean forgot.
Dean shot him a look. Josh didn’t know pip squeaks could glare like that. “Please, Sammy. Let’s just go.”
Sam sort of stamped his foot and looked longingly at the still-blank screen.
“Sorry.”
It took a moment for Josh to realize that Dean was talking to him. The boy had his hands in his pockets, shoulders bunched up around his neck. There were goosebumps on his arms. The AC was really blasting today. “Sammy’s usually really good. Or, at least he listens to me. I’ll get him out of here before the movie, okay? Just don’t call anyone.”
The kid had a one-track mind. Josh should probably tell him he wasn’t going to tell anyone, except that was his only leverage to get the boys out the door without throwing them out (which he could probably do easily, even the bigger one was probably only sixty pounds.)
“And sorry for sneaking in,” Dean added, as if to sweeten the deal.
Josh snorted. “You’re just sorry I caught you.”
The grin Dean flashed him this time had none of the old-world wariness he’d seen on the kid’s face from the beginning. “You knew about us before we walked into Die Harder. It’s okay. We just got greedy.”
“Not okay. Shouldn’t have snuck in in the first place.”
Dean shrugged. “Library’s closed all week for repairs. This was the only other place in walking distance with air conditioning.”
“Our conditioner broke,” Sammy supplied. Dean turned his glare on the kid, who withered at the look, scuffing his toe into the carpet.
It was dim in the movie theater. Josh needed the money. His step-father had started charging him rent ever since Josh declared that he would not be joining the army like the old man wanted. They’d never really gotten along, and Josh was pretty sure he was looking for an excuse to throw Josh out. He needed the money so he gas up his car and surprise Heather, try to win her back and maybe get a tan in Jersey. It was an easy enough job and he got to watch all the movies he wanted and sometimes he made some of his own, little horror flicks with his friends in the woods.
He didn’t want to lose this job, but in the dim light of the movie theater those red flags kept popping up. He knew nothing about little kids, but were they really supposed to be this scrawny, or this scared, or out this late, or finding their own stuff to do on a random Tuesday in July?
Josh scrubbed a hand over his face. It would be dark soon. If these kids had been here all day—and they had, Josh knew they had—then they missed dinner.
Sam’s lip was trembling but he let Dean push him down the aisle, murmuring promises about dogs, maybe they could find a dog park tomorrow, no, Sam, we probably can’t come see this tomorrow. We don’t got the money to pay, Sammy. I’ll find you a dog tomorrow.
“Okay,” Sam finally said, with great reluctance.
But it was obviously not okay. Josh thought of his manager, probably asleep in the break room. Thought of his step-father and the hundred bucks he owed. Thought of Heather, on a far-away beach under the stars.
“You know,” he said. “The movie’s going to start in a minute.”
He didn’t say anything else. He was nineteen and not entirely kind and not all that perceptive. He just left, and flicked on the projector. Twenty minutes later he slipped back into the theater with a bucket of popcorn and the sweatshirt he kept in the breakroom.
Sammy was absorbed by the animals, but Dean smiled. And damn if it wasn’t a sweet, tired little grin.
“We’ll leave out of those doors,” Dean said quietly. He pointed to the doors that led out into the parking lot, out into the too-hot evening. The rest of the world baking, boiling, waiting for a break.
Josh nodded. When he came to clean the theater at the end of the night, the sweatshirt was folded neatly on the back of a seat, the popcorn either eaten or whisked away for later, not a kernel on the floor.
It was one of the first times in his life he was left with more questions than answers, and the movies he made with his friends in the woods started doing the same thing. Stories with holes. Mysterious strangers with questionable pasts and uncertain futures.
Even though he left the door to the break room propped open for the rest of the summer, Josh never saw the kids again.