Linda (Steven) works the diner pourin' coffee and slingin' hash
She (He) said, "I wouldn't have come in today but I really need the cash."
Steven was dead on his feet, but he just sighed as the rain kept pouring down outside and the stoves kept hissing from the cook cracking eggs and whatever else he needed the haul out to customers before it went cold. He'd had this job for a couple of years after he left the video store and Robin, who still worked there, due to needing more money and given how fucking small Hawkins is, there weren't many places to go for work, even with the mall being rebuilt from the ground up.
"I know I can't fool anyone 'cause dark glasses tell no lies.
But make-up won't cover up a blackened eye."
He tried not to bristle as he received several stares from patrons as he served coffee and piled up plates and cleaned tables and the rest of it. He knew why they were staring as it wasn't like it was hidden, despite his best tries.
Black eyes as big as the one painting his left and bruises on his arms weren't that easy to cover up and he knew most would assume he'd gotten it fighting or something as he had that reputation when he was younger and more able to stand up for himself. If only they really knew how his life was now.
"You see, Jimmy (Billy) works construction now but yesterday it rained.
So he went down to the liquor store and by noon he felt no pain."
He'd received it last night when he'd been careless, as always apparently now. It had rained yesterday too, hard enough to drown out any work for his partner, William "Billy" Hargrove, but not himself. Diners don't exactly have outside spaces, after all.
Despite it being mildly nice that morning between them that morning, once Steven had left for work, Billy had left too - only to go to the local store to buy alcohol, which had become his addiction of choice in recent years both before and after Steve started living with him to escape his parents who, seemingly like Billy, didn't really give a shit about him after a while.
"I came in an hour late then I let his supper burn
Well, he hit the roof, hit the wall and then it was my turn."
He'd had to stay a little later than normal as one of the other servers had to leave in the middle of her shift due to a family emergency, so it wasn't a surprise that when he came home an hour later than he normally did, Billy was not only drunk, but mad.
He headed for the kitchen (being berated and screamed at the whole time, an all too familiar sound in the last couple of years he'd learned to churn out despite his heart beating faster than a race car most times) and planned to placate him with dinner, as eating usually absorbed some of the alcohol in his system.
Oh, but he was so fucking tired after being on his feet all day and he didn't mean to, but he closed his eyes at the counter for just a moment and woke up hearing the smoke alarms going off in the house. Obviously, Billy had also fallen asleep in a drunken stupor as he also heard him yelling and heard another noise like the wall being punched before footsteps sounded him thundering towards the kitchen.
Cussing, he pulled the chicken from the oven and swallowed seeing it so very burnt in the pan. He still attempted to plate it anyway, but as soon as he turned around, Billy knocked it out of his hands in disgust before pulling back and swinging, hitting him in the face.
He said, "A man's home is his castle."
It always has been and so it remains
It was a rather bloody fight this time. It left Steven aching, whimpering and throat sore from yelling and pleading as Billy towered over him menacingly, knuckles covered in blood.
"A man's home is his castle, Harrington." Billy spat down at him. "Just like you treat it with respect, you treat the man who lives inside of it with respect. Now get up and make dinner, you burn it again, you'll know about it."
But he holds the keys in a fist of rage
His home is his castle and mine is a cage
Steven had no choice but to scramble to his feet, nodding shakily as Billy stalked off to the bathroom to wash his hands and despite his whole body feeling like it was breaking, he went back to the stove as asked, shakingly resetting a new meal for the both of them as he didn't want another round of what he'd just been through. He might not survive the next.
Someone must have heard the noise and they dialled 911
And the cop that showed up at the door asked "Is there a problem son?"
One of the neighbours must have heard him yelling from a window or something, as while he was cleaning their plates from dinner, a knock on the door sounded. Given he was at the sink, he'd hoped Billy would answer and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief when he heard the recliner squeak and saw Billy's broad back, now clad in a white tank top as his plaid overshirt was in the wash (for obvious reasons) and opened the door with the chain on, only for Steven to see the telltale khaki of a Hawkins police officer, asking if everything was okay as they'd gotten a call saying someone was being hurt around the area.
Sadly, to his desperation, it wasn't Hopper like he wished it was.
Jimmy (Billy) smiled and said "No sir, just a little fight that's all."
Hey, you know how it gets sometimes when you're layin' down the law."
He wanted to go to the door, hell, he wanted to sprint to it with all the energy he had left - but Billy was quicker and made an excuse saying that he and his partner (the only time he really ever called him such a thing) had a "domestic argument" and he didn't intend for it to get so loud, but fighting and laying down the law is loud, you know? Everything was fine now.
He wished the officer didn't believe him so easily, as sadly, he didn't ask to come in and check on him or anything, just nodded, joked along with Billy and left to his despair.
So I pulled out my suitcase, I started packin' up my clothes
And Jimmy (Billy) said, "Now Linda (Stevie), where do you expect to go with those?"
He couldn't take this anymore. It was just becoming fast like when he was with his parents, empty and lonely, the only difference being he was being beaten to a pulp almost every day of his life without any sign of it stopping or getting better. While Billy was watching TV, Steven quietly snuck upstairs and threw a suitcase on the bed and pulled clothes off of hangers as fast as he could, packing everything into that suitcase as best he could.
He wasn't fast enough however, as no sooner had he managed to close it - Billy was right there, a hand on the doorframe. "Hey Stevieeeee-" He slurred, the look on his face unreadable, which scared him. "What do you think you're doing?"
I told him "I have tried, but not an ounce of love survives."
Well, he grabbed my wrist and shouted "You're not leavin' here alive!"
"I-" His voice wavered as he tried to come up with an excuse for just what he was doing to stop Billy in his tracks, but Billy's mind had already drawn a picture. The right one.
"Aw, Stevie." Billy's cruel smile made his heart stop as a hand curled around his wrist. "You think you can leave." His breath made Steve feel ill, but not as much as when Billy's face got close to his own, his blue eyes boring into him with a look of scary confidence. "Truth is, Princess, you aren't leavin' this house alive."
It was said so deadpan and so easily that Steven almost wanted to shrivel up into a ball then and there, but somehow didn't as Billy pulled the suitcase out of his limp hands and returned to the wardrobe before dragging him back downstairs to the living room and in his temper, handcuffing him to his armchair for the rest of the night while he drank some more before heading to bed, only releasing him in the morning so he could get redressed and go to work.
She said, "I'm savin' up my money and when I get the nerve I'll run."
"But Jim (Bill) don't give up easily so I intend to buy a gun."
Now, in the pseudo safety of his job, on his break, he rested in the back of the kitchen, willing himself not to cry. He knew that maybe Robin would take him in if he decided to run, but he wanted to run further than that and wouldn't live with himself if she got hurt in the crossfire.
He thought maybe Dustin might let him stay with him - the kid was attending college in Ohio somewhere. He could call him, he'd sent him a landline number with his apartment address after all as soon as he'd gotten there, he could ask if he could stay, offer him money. He could have it by then, to pay rent or something, as he was determined to buy a gun first.
"He will never see the way he treats me is a crime.
Somebody oughta lock him up but I'm the one who's done the time."
It was an extreme measure he knew, buying a firearm, but Billy was someone who didn't give up easily no matter the circumstances, so even if he ran, he knew he still needed something to back him up should he be found. If that ever came to happen.
He knew Billy would never see him as anything more than an object to toy with and not the boyfriend that he was supposed to be since they were 17. He should have seen it then, but he didn't, blinded by hatred that turned into what he thought was love, but really a game.
He said, "A man's home is his castle."
It always has been and so it remains
"A man's home is his castle, Harrington. Just like you treat it with respect, you treat the man who lives inside of it with respect." Billy's words from the night before were haunting his mind and he silently sneered at them. Billy had no respect for him or anyone given his whole life and every other problem he already had, so why should he respect him?
He could see why Max and his mother had stopped speaking to him now. He should have turned and run the moment he'd seen him at the high school all those years ago. Maybe things would be different now, maybe he'd be somewhere else. Somewhere new and better.
But he holds the keys in a fist of rage
His home is his castle and mine is a cage
To him, that apartment on the southside of Hawkins, Indiana is nothing but a cage for Billy to do to him what he pleases and not what it looks like on the outside. Soon enough, though, he'll find the key and escape it, this town, all of it and be happy. Today is not that day, however, as much as he wishes it was.
Retying his apron carefully, he stands, looks up the ceiling one more time like he's saying a prayer and then, goes back to work, numb and unfeeling as he performs his duties and goes home for the day, always keeping one eye out of the demons, or in this case, just one demon, lurking in the shadows behind him.