NaNoWriMo 2010 - True Love's Kiss [ 1 / 10 ]
Title: True Love's Kiss
Rating: M
Fandom: ORIGINAL
Warnings: ANGST, domestic violence, m/m sexual relations, vampirism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt
Summary: Jonathan Grant is a haunted soul. After being born deaf, he grew up in a normal home until his parents died and he was sent into the foster care system, moving from abusive household to abusive household until the age of eighteen, when he fell in love for the first time. However, these supposed lovers were no better than the abusive foster parents he had lived with for so long and soon he found himself trapped, time and time again, under the cruel hand of those meant to love him. He came to believe that no one cared and that there was only one way to escape the pain; to truly be free. But there was someone who saw what was happening to him, someone who was determined to rescue him from his dark world at all costs. Jonathan must now decide if he will take this chance to live a new life, one so completely different from what he has known for so long, or finish the job that his "savior" had interrupted.
The night was no different from any other night. The stars shone brightly in the dark sky and the moon reflected the remains of the sun’s light back to the dark surface of the earth. People were still mulling about, most of them heading home, but a few were making their way through the dark streets to bars, clubs and in a few cases, all-nighter restaurants that dotted the same streets as the clubs and bars did. As highly discouraged as the practice of enabling drunkards was, it was one of the best ways to make money on weekends. One had only to look into the windows around the time the clubs and bars let out to see just how profitable the business was.
But for every five people out in the streets having fun on dark nights like this one, there always was at least one poor sap who was working instead of having fun, usually an employee of one of these establishments that were kept open so late for the entertainment of the partiers. One such establishment was a small, privately owned restaurant called Henry’s that served as a form of dinner for the severely inebriated. The food was not the best in the world but it was plenty edible and the fat content alone of some of the dishes had made more than one already unstable stomach ill. This was, however, the purpose of the meals to the owner had no trouble with it and neither did the few staff members that actually cared for such things.
Tonight, the diner proved to be as busy as usual for a Friday night. Nearly every seat was taken and the place was filled with the sound of drunken laughter and conversation. The servers had to earn their tip the hard way, catering to the barely conscious while the cooks worked quickly, trying to predict and fill the orders before ever getting the paper. If there was one thing the owner priding himself on, it was that their diner was one of the fastest ones on the strip when it came to service, even while packed. Many of the employees who worked these nights on a regular basis wondered if there was a hint of demon in the man as he ran them ragged. Only the extraordinarily brave (or excessively stupid) worked these nights at Henry’s willingly.
“Jonathan!” one of the newest hostesses snapped into her microphone, her blond hair tied up in a lazy pony tail and her expression painting a picture of utter frustration on her features, “get your ass down here! I need these tables cleared and wiped down like yesterday.” When she got no response she growled in frustration and spoke a little louder, knowing that if the person she was addressing still had his equipment on, he should hear it. “Grant! Move it, now!” There was still no response and she had had enough. She stormed down the hall into the scullery; barely paying any heed to the customers she passed.
Once there, he saw the young man she was looking for, emptying the plates in the bin he had carried them into the room with before putting them and the utensils in the dishwasher as quickly as he could. Technically he was doing what he was supposed to be doing but that didn’t mean that he could just stay back here and take his sweet time. She reached out and snagged his shoulder, forcibly turning him around and making the young man flinch instinctively, his hands coming up, one of them still holding a plate, to block the blow he thought was coming.
If the hostess noticed the action for what it was she didn’t mention it. She was too highly strung trying to keep up the restaurant’s reputation of fast service. “Damn it, Jon! You need to answer when I call you on the damn microphone. I don’t have time to come hunt you down every fucking time I need a couple of tables cleared!” She took the plate out of his hands and added it to the dishwasher, pinning the unfortunate bus boy with his most stern look. “Am I making myself understood?”
“You would be if he could fucking hear you,” one of the servers said as he stepped back into the same room, bringing with him a few of the empty dishes he had cleared away from a paying set of customers earlier, “I swear, Angelia, sometimes I think you redefine what the word bitch means.” He walked right by her clean off the plates and add them to the dishwasher Jonathan had already been loading. If he noticed how much more he had offended the woman he didn’t notice. He rested a comforting hand on Jonathan’s shoulder just as she riled herself up again.
“And what makes you think he can’t hear me, Jason,” she spat, her small arms crossing over her ample breast, “I’ve been screamin’ at him all night. If he can’t understand a word I’m sayin’ then he’s as deaf as a lamp post and really shouldn’t be working on weekends.” She turned her glare onto Jonathan again, who was looking at a fascinating spot on the ground. “I need people who can work when I call on them to work, not lazy bastards who just wanna sit back here and dilly-dally the night away.”
Jason stepped between her and the young man Angelia was snapping at, his patience with her waning. He wasn’t a large man, not by miles, but he wasn’t a thin, wispy creature either. His sharp blue eyes caught her attention, especially with the way his dark hair and pale skin accented the anger in them. “Jon certainly isn’t a lazy bastard you bitch, and I’d appreciate you quit calling him that right now. The man is deaf okay? Screeching at him over a microphone isn’t going to do you any good. If you had paid attention during training, you would know that if you need to contact him, you either send somebody to do it in person or you send him a page. He’s got a pager set up just for that on his uniform.”
Angelia looked around Jason to Jon, who was watching them warily from where he sat. Unlike his server friend, Jonathan was a slim man, barely standing taller than Angelia herself (if she was wearing heels that day) with nearly black hair and deep brown eyes that were always scanning his soundings, giving the illusion of him being paranoid. He lacked hearing aids so far as she could tell and while he was wearing the proper uniform for any employee of the diner, it wasn’t until she was looking for it that she saw the odd pager attached to his belt. She frowned at the sight of that, more than a little annoyed that she had been proven wrong by an older server in such a way, but left it at that.
“Fine,” she said after a long minute, her embarrassment reflecting in the sharpness of her words, “then you need to make sure that your buddy gets out there, like now, and gets started clearing tables. You know how the owner is about speed around here.” She dropped her arms from where she had had them and turned sharply on the heel of her tennis shoes, storming out with his pony tail waving angrily back and forth. The men watched her go, Jason with amusement and Jon in fear, before Jason turned to Jon and motioned to his face. He knew that the busboy was smart enough to be able to read lips. It was how he was able to communicate with the guy on a regular basis outside of work… assuming they actually did meet outside of work.
“Angelia wants you to clear a few tables,” he said slowly, enunciating each word so that Jon could read it more easily, “worry about the dishes later. Sam is coming on shift soon. He will handle putting them through the washer.” Jon nodded at the words a moment later, to show he understood what was being said to him, and Jason smiled, ruffling the younger man’s soft hair. “Good. Now get your bin and get out there. You know how busy Friday nights tend to get around here.” He left the scullery to go check on some orders and see to any new customers that may have been seated during his short break from the chaos.
But Jonathan didn’t immediately follow after Jason, despite essentially being told to do so. He cleared off the rest of the plates in his bin instead, making quick work of them, and set them in the dishwasher, thinking all the while about what Angelia had said to him. Technically, she was right. As a deaf man, working in an environment that riled heavily on hearing people’s orders was not exactly ideal and while he could compensate through various means that didn’t mean that those means were by any means convenient or practical. On busy nights like this, where time was of the essence, he could understand her frustration at his lack of ability to perform the way she wanted him to. Frustration was an emotion he had dealt with plenty.
Once all the dishes were cleared from his bin, Jonathan hefted it onto the cart he used to maneuver it with and pushed the entire thing out into the main room, only pausing to pick up a dish rag to wipe the table down with when he was done. He knew he must look odd. He was the only server wearing a long sleeved white shirt underneath the uniform polo and poking out from under his right sleeve was a splint, tightly bound in white gauze, which forced his wrist and hand to remain stiff as he worked. At least, he thought, he was able to take comfort in the fact that no one could see the nasty bruises he had hidden underneath his layers of clothes. It was one less thing for them to stare at.
He pushed the heavy cart next to the first empty and cluttered table, his hands going through the motions of clearing it off while his mind wandered to other things. His bandaged wrist only bothered him when he lifted a plate that was still fairly heavily laden with food but he was quick to empty what he could into the large trash bag that also on the cart before putting the dishes into his bin. The rest of his injuries ached, of course, but they were an ache he was used to by now. This was far from the first time he had come to work still hurting from the last beating he had endured at home.
A particularly nasty twinge had the beginnings of tears prickle in his eyes but he worked his way through it. He had endured worse pain than this and still managed to get through a busy work day. Part of his perseverance came from the sense of obligation he felt to work the days he was scheduled to work, regardless of personal problems but another part, a rather huge part, was that he knew he had prove himself somehow. Guillaume was always telling him that he was disappointed in him, that he was useless for anything outside the bedroom and even then it was a chore done out of a sense of pity. As much as Jon wanted to believe what was said to him was a lie, the more he heard it, the more true it sounded.
So he worked hard as often as he could, working through the emotion and physical pain inflicted on him by a man who claimed to love him (when he was feeling generous enough to let the words slip), hoping, sometimes even praying, that the money he brought home from this menial job would be enough to calm the man and grant him, at the very least, a decent day’s rest on a bed. Another twinge had him wincing; another reminder of what had happened the night before. He moved on to the next table after wiping down the one he had been working on with the non-toxic antibacterial spray he kept on the cart. He wondered why it was kept trying so hard to earn the love he was beginning to doubt he had even had to begin with.
A hand rose suddenly in his peripheral vision and he instinctively flinched away from, it quickly starting to clear the next table. Guillaume liked to use his hands when he was sober and frustrated with something Jon had done and the deaf man knew a little too well the sting of a hand across the face. He had been slapped and backhanded so many times last night he had lost count, the pain of the new blending with the throb of the already existing bruises on his face to the point where he could no longer distinguish them from one another. Had Guy remained sober, Jon was fairly sure that whatever it was he had done to anger his lover would have been settled with just that but throughout the ranting the man had chosen to drink. Alcohol always did make him more violent than usual.
Another table cleared and wiped off had Jon moving over to the next one but the already stirred up memories didn’t stop running their course through his mind. For every shiny utensil he picked up, he saw a flash of the metallic bat that his lover had taken to his body, a bat whose blows had gotten harder and harder as the beating continued. He could still feel the sickening shift in his ribs as a few of the bones snapped under the assault and the horrible pain as he was struck in the shoulders and across the arms, luck alone having prevented them from snapping under the assault. At one point, Guillaume had struck him across the back with the then empty bottle of alcohol he had finished then tossed aside the bat and went at him with just fists and feet again. Exactly how long he had been beaten for, even now he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that by the time Guy had had enough, the sun had long since set and the tears that had started to fall halfway through the pounding had begun to dry.
Someone bumped into him as he leaned over this latest table, wiping it down and it caused him to fall forward, his damaged ribs hitting the solid surface hard enough to make him have to bite his lip hard to avoid crying out. He had barely had time to bind them before he had come into work tonight. The splint around his almost unusable wrist had been a bitch and a half to get done single handedly and the make-up he had used to cover the bruises on his face had taken quite a while to get right. The bright lights he worked under forced him to be nearly perfect when it came to matching the liquid foundation with his natural skin tone and even then he wasn’t entirely sure he managed it half the time.
Either way it hardly seemed to matter to most people. As long as he got to work on time and worked fast enough to keep pace, the other employees hardly seemed to care what state he came to work in. A few of them actually tried to talk with him in the beginning but every time, it seemed, as soon as they would learn of his deafness they would quickly give up and move on, making friends elsewhere that were more readily able to communicate. It used to bother him a good deal but he soon learned to accept his place as a lesser being in the eyes of many and simply focused on his work. Guy didn’t like him having friends anyway so it worked out for the better.
Jon checked his bin to see how many more tables he could clear before he had to make a run back to the scullery to empty it. So far as he could tell, he could clear up to ten more plates and cups. It wasn’t much but it would allow him to get a few more places cleared for customers and keep the diner running at the impressive speed that it did. He could only hope that the dishwasher clocked in soon so he could spend the rest of the night focusing on getting the tables cleared instead of trying to do two different tasks at the same time. A glance at the clock on the wall behind the counter told him it was nearly midnight. The clubs emptied at two in the morning. If they hoped to keep up with the usual flow of clientele that came during that time they would need at least one dishwasher on duty.
He quickly moved the cart onto the next table just as a group of four was seated in the table he had just cleared, his working speed increasing with a sense of urgency. He needed to work faster. He needed to be better. He had to impress not just the other staff members but the owner of the small diner and the customers that came here. He needed to prove himself to someone; anyone. He needed to be worth something to someone in this world, even if it was just as someone who could do their job well. If his lover was right, if he really was worthless, then he had nothing to hold on to. There would be no reason to stay someplace where he was not wanted or needed, someplace where he was just a waste of resources and space. His thoughts turned darker and darker with each table he cleared and hastily wiped down.
When his bin was full he quickly but carefully maneuvered his way into the back room, relief pouring over him as he saw that the dishwasher had arrived and was already finishing up the job Jon had been half way through when Angelia came by to scream at him. He set his bin of dirty dishes down on the ground next to the man and went to grab the one of clean dishes to bring to the cooks. It was a heavy contain, one that had his back throbbing and his wrist screaming at him in agony. He tried his best to stifle the cry of pain but if he managed it he couldn’t tell. The dishwasher was too busy to pay him any heed and the few servers running in and out with some dishes they had cleared to make room for new ones were moving too quickly to catch it, no doubt. Somehow he managed to lift it long enough to set it on his cart and take it into the kitchen, where he quickly unloaded the plates and gave the utensils to the servers that were busy sorting them. A few glared at him but most didn’t acknowledge his presence.
Their anger and frustration only added to his earlier darker thoughts and he made his way out to the main diner again and made his way through the tables piled with dishes but empty of guests that needed clearing. He didn’t need to be able to hear the people around him to tell that they were talking about the great time they had had at the bars and clubs of this area. He didn’t need to hear the men to know that they were talking about which woman they managed to seduce into a quick fuck somewhere in a dark alley or hear from the women about the men they managed to snag a few free drinks from. Just knowing that had everything he dreamed he could have but knew he never would -the freedom to go where he wished on his own time, to talk with whomever he wanted to about anything, without fear of pain and hunger- had him fighting back tears that had nothing to do with the pain of his body.
Another table cleared and cleaned; another group of friends coming in to eat and talk about their night. Every few minutes a new face stepped into the diner and with each new face there stood the chance of a new reunion between the servers and their friends. Every single person, it seemed, who walked through that glass door had someone with them who cared; someone who would talk with them and smile with them. Jon even saw a few lovers kissing in the booths and felt his own heart clench the reminder of what he lacked in his own home life. He tried to remember the last time Guillaume had held him like that or the last time he was kissed that didn’t involve pain and fought back a sob when he found that he couldn’t recall.
The servers rushed by him, some apologizing and some not, while he worked and he was, for the most part, ignored by everyone else. He brought the cart back into the scullery when it was full again and repeated the same routine; dropping off dirty dishes before bringing new ones to the cooks and going back out to keep clearing tables. A few times he changed out the garbage bag but he was far too busy to take it out just yet. It was something he would have to take care of when his shift was over. As tedious as the work was, he put everything he had into it. This work, this job, was the only place he was actually worth something to someone. He might be but a ghost to most of the others but he performed a service for them. Without him here, they would not have the tables cleared in time for more customers to take the seats and create more dirty dishes to start the process all over again. Even if it wasn’t much, it was something.
In his haste to clear a table Jon’s grip on a plate slipped and he managed to drop it on the table he was in the process of cleaning, shattering the plate completely. He flinched at the destruction, not the sound it made and knew that people were staring. Fear gripped his senses tightly and he looked around, his mind already trying to come up for an explanation that Guillaume would believe. Quickly he bends over the table and picks up the shards with his bare hands, not caring if he’s cut himself or managed to get small pieces embedded in his skin. He tries his best to fight back a panic attack. If his lover were to hear about this the man would not hesitate to come by and take him to their apartment where he would be dealt with properly. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a beating like the one of last night two nights in a row.
He didn’t notice his hands were shaking until he felt a larger warm one cover them while the other made him look up into clear blue eyes, painted with concern. Jon immediately tried to take his hands back to start apologizing but Jason wouldn’t let him. The server started talking, saying that it was alright and servers broke plates all the time and while Jon could read his lips and understand the words they didn’t sink in. He broke a plate that didn’t belong to him. He damaged someone else’s property. How was it that he could get away with such a thing here when Guillaume wouldn’t let him get away with doing so much as improperly folding his clothes? He shook his head and clenched his hands, ignoring the pain and blood he felt from the small shards in his skin.
Jason turned to say something to one of the other servers then brought his attention back to Jon, forcing him to meet his eyes once more. He told Jon to come with him and that someone else would take care of the mess before he led him back to where the employee restrooms were by the wrists. Jon wasn’t sure what to think or say so he followed along, his head bowed and eyes on the ground. He didn’t know that Jason was watching him, frowning at his mannerisms. To him, the man was just another coworker.
But the server was more than that or at least he thought that he was. There was no one else on the staff he was as close to as he was this struggling man and in his mind set, that made them as close as friends, even if they never met up outside of work. Oh he had tried at first but by the time he was shot down for the sixth time he gave up and stuck with just chatting with the young man during the breaks when they both found the time. It was during these breaks that he started noticing something was very wrong.
At first it was just small things. Jon would always come into work wearing long sleeves on the weekends though, when he was asked about it, he would make the sign for cold and just go back to his work. While it was true that the diner was kept fairly cold to ensure the comfort of the cooks, he found that with all the running around and heavy lifting Jon did throughout the night, the man was often sweating his uniform and yet refused to remove the long sleeved t-shirt from underneath the polo shirt. There had been a few times, when the busboy wasn’t paying attention, that the sleeves slipped up and Jason caught sight of the bruises that ringed his wrists and forearms, bruises that were too black to have been self inflicted.
From there he began picking up on more noticeable signs, like the flinching when a hand was raised and the always downcast eyes. Sometimes Jon would even come in the work with a limp in his step or, like today, with make up on his face and a splint on his wrist. The only reason why Jason noticed the make up to begin with was because he was used to searching for it now. As soon as he was able to put the pieces together, he did his best to monitor the busboy and make sure that he wasn’t trying to do more work than what could be realistically expected of him. How Jon had gotten himself caught in such a situation he didn’t know but no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a reasonable way to tell the young man what he had discovered and offer him a safe way out.
So instead he spent a decent amount of time watching him at work, taking care of him when things like this happened and Jon, in some twisted form of self punishment, would have ignored the pain in favor of continuing his work. Even now, as he sat on a large empty crate with a pair of tweezers and carefully plucked small shards of ceramic out of the young man’s hand, he had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of someone, anyone, purposely beating this man. Even if he couldn’t speak, Jon was a hard worker and a kind soul. Jason doubted that the man could do anything to warrant this kind of pain on a regular basis if he tried.
“You have to be more careful,” he said softly, knowing that even if he couldn’t be heard, Jon would still be able to read his lips, “not about the plates but about how fast you move. They’re going to take that plate out of your pay now, you know.” In a dark corner of his mind, Jason wondered if Jon even kept the money he made from his job here or if that small paycheck immediately went to the person who was hurting him. “At least it wasn’t very expensive. You shouldn’t see much of a difference in it.”
The pager at Jon’s side went off but Jason made him stay in place. He managed to get the rest of the shards out but that didn’t mean that Jon was able to leave. He took his time running a paper towel under warm water before carefully dabbing at the wounds. The others could deal without Jon for a little while longer. They didn’t know how frightened the poor thing was. Even now the hands he held were trembling minutely.
The server bit his lip while he finished with his task and motioned for Jon to stay put when he got up and got the first aid kit out of the small medicine cabinet. As desperate as he was to say something, to tell Jon that he’d be okay, that he wasn’t alone, that there was a way out of that place if he chose to take it, he couldn’t bring himself to give shape to the words and let this young man who was so desperately trying to hide how badly he was being treated in his own home know that his efforts were in vain.
He bandaged up the hands very carefully and let Jon get back to work but he didn’t follow him out of the bathroom, instead taking a moment to himself to compose himself again. He knew that those injuries on his hands wouldn’t remain hidden. He knew that the monster that hurt Jon would see them and become all the more enraged with him. He wouldn’t be all that surprised to see Jon coming into work with a limp in his step and his already damaged wrist held protectively against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly.
Rating: M
Fandom: ORIGINAL
Warnings: ANGST, domestic violence, m/m sexual relations, vampirism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt
Summary: Jonathan Grant is a haunted soul. After being born deaf, he grew up in a normal home until his parents died and he was sent into the foster care system, moving from abusive household to abusive household until the age of eighteen, when he fell in love for the first time. However, these supposed lovers were no better than the abusive foster parents he had lived with for so long and soon he found himself trapped, time and time again, under the cruel hand of those meant to love him. He came to believe that no one cared and that there was only one way to escape the pain; to truly be free. But there was someone who saw what was happening to him, someone who was determined to rescue him from his dark world at all costs. Jonathan must now decide if he will take this chance to live a new life, one so completely different from what he has known for so long, or finish the job that his "savior" had interrupted.
The night was no different from any other night. The stars shone brightly in the dark sky and the moon reflected the remains of the sun’s light back to the dark surface of the earth. People were still mulling about, most of them heading home, but a few were making their way through the dark streets to bars, clubs and in a few cases, all-nighter restaurants that dotted the same streets as the clubs and bars did. As highly discouraged as the practice of enabling drunkards was, it was one of the best ways to make money on weekends. One had only to look into the windows around the time the clubs and bars let out to see just how profitable the business was.
But for every five people out in the streets having fun on dark nights like this one, there always was at least one poor sap who was working instead of having fun, usually an employee of one of these establishments that were kept open so late for the entertainment of the partiers. One such establishment was a small, privately owned restaurant called Henry’s that served as a form of dinner for the severely inebriated. The food was not the best in the world but it was plenty edible and the fat content alone of some of the dishes had made more than one already unstable stomach ill. This was, however, the purpose of the meals to the owner had no trouble with it and neither did the few staff members that actually cared for such things.
Tonight, the diner proved to be as busy as usual for a Friday night. Nearly every seat was taken and the place was filled with the sound of drunken laughter and conversation. The servers had to earn their tip the hard way, catering to the barely conscious while the cooks worked quickly, trying to predict and fill the orders before ever getting the paper. If there was one thing the owner priding himself on, it was that their diner was one of the fastest ones on the strip when it came to service, even while packed. Many of the employees who worked these nights on a regular basis wondered if there was a hint of demon in the man as he ran them ragged. Only the extraordinarily brave (or excessively stupid) worked these nights at Henry’s willingly.
“Jonathan!” one of the newest hostesses snapped into her microphone, her blond hair tied up in a lazy pony tail and her expression painting a picture of utter frustration on her features, “get your ass down here! I need these tables cleared and wiped down like yesterday.” When she got no response she growled in frustration and spoke a little louder, knowing that if the person she was addressing still had his equipment on, he should hear it. “Grant! Move it, now!” There was still no response and she had had enough. She stormed down the hall into the scullery; barely paying any heed to the customers she passed.
Once there, he saw the young man she was looking for, emptying the plates in the bin he had carried them into the room with before putting them and the utensils in the dishwasher as quickly as he could. Technically he was doing what he was supposed to be doing but that didn’t mean that he could just stay back here and take his sweet time. She reached out and snagged his shoulder, forcibly turning him around and making the young man flinch instinctively, his hands coming up, one of them still holding a plate, to block the blow he thought was coming.
If the hostess noticed the action for what it was she didn’t mention it. She was too highly strung trying to keep up the restaurant’s reputation of fast service. “Damn it, Jon! You need to answer when I call you on the damn microphone. I don’t have time to come hunt you down every fucking time I need a couple of tables cleared!” She took the plate out of his hands and added it to the dishwasher, pinning the unfortunate bus boy with his most stern look. “Am I making myself understood?”
“You would be if he could fucking hear you,” one of the servers said as he stepped back into the same room, bringing with him a few of the empty dishes he had cleared away from a paying set of customers earlier, “I swear, Angelia, sometimes I think you redefine what the word bitch means.” He walked right by her clean off the plates and add them to the dishwasher Jonathan had already been loading. If he noticed how much more he had offended the woman he didn’t notice. He rested a comforting hand on Jonathan’s shoulder just as she riled herself up again.
“And what makes you think he can’t hear me, Jason,” she spat, her small arms crossing over her ample breast, “I’ve been screamin’ at him all night. If he can’t understand a word I’m sayin’ then he’s as deaf as a lamp post and really shouldn’t be working on weekends.” She turned her glare onto Jonathan again, who was looking at a fascinating spot on the ground. “I need people who can work when I call on them to work, not lazy bastards who just wanna sit back here and dilly-dally the night away.”
Jason stepped between her and the young man Angelia was snapping at, his patience with her waning. He wasn’t a large man, not by miles, but he wasn’t a thin, wispy creature either. His sharp blue eyes caught her attention, especially with the way his dark hair and pale skin accented the anger in them. “Jon certainly isn’t a lazy bastard you bitch, and I’d appreciate you quit calling him that right now. The man is deaf okay? Screeching at him over a microphone isn’t going to do you any good. If you had paid attention during training, you would know that if you need to contact him, you either send somebody to do it in person or you send him a page. He’s got a pager set up just for that on his uniform.”
Angelia looked around Jason to Jon, who was watching them warily from where he sat. Unlike his server friend, Jonathan was a slim man, barely standing taller than Angelia herself (if she was wearing heels that day) with nearly black hair and deep brown eyes that were always scanning his soundings, giving the illusion of him being paranoid. He lacked hearing aids so far as she could tell and while he was wearing the proper uniform for any employee of the diner, it wasn’t until she was looking for it that she saw the odd pager attached to his belt. She frowned at the sight of that, more than a little annoyed that she had been proven wrong by an older server in such a way, but left it at that.
“Fine,” she said after a long minute, her embarrassment reflecting in the sharpness of her words, “then you need to make sure that your buddy gets out there, like now, and gets started clearing tables. You know how the owner is about speed around here.” She dropped her arms from where she had had them and turned sharply on the heel of her tennis shoes, storming out with his pony tail waving angrily back and forth. The men watched her go, Jason with amusement and Jon in fear, before Jason turned to Jon and motioned to his face. He knew that the busboy was smart enough to be able to read lips. It was how he was able to communicate with the guy on a regular basis outside of work… assuming they actually did meet outside of work.
“Angelia wants you to clear a few tables,” he said slowly, enunciating each word so that Jon could read it more easily, “worry about the dishes later. Sam is coming on shift soon. He will handle putting them through the washer.” Jon nodded at the words a moment later, to show he understood what was being said to him, and Jason smiled, ruffling the younger man’s soft hair. “Good. Now get your bin and get out there. You know how busy Friday nights tend to get around here.” He left the scullery to go check on some orders and see to any new customers that may have been seated during his short break from the chaos.
But Jonathan didn’t immediately follow after Jason, despite essentially being told to do so. He cleared off the rest of the plates in his bin instead, making quick work of them, and set them in the dishwasher, thinking all the while about what Angelia had said to him. Technically, she was right. As a deaf man, working in an environment that riled heavily on hearing people’s orders was not exactly ideal and while he could compensate through various means that didn’t mean that those means were by any means convenient or practical. On busy nights like this, where time was of the essence, he could understand her frustration at his lack of ability to perform the way she wanted him to. Frustration was an emotion he had dealt with plenty.
Once all the dishes were cleared from his bin, Jonathan hefted it onto the cart he used to maneuver it with and pushed the entire thing out into the main room, only pausing to pick up a dish rag to wipe the table down with when he was done. He knew he must look odd. He was the only server wearing a long sleeved white shirt underneath the uniform polo and poking out from under his right sleeve was a splint, tightly bound in white gauze, which forced his wrist and hand to remain stiff as he worked. At least, he thought, he was able to take comfort in the fact that no one could see the nasty bruises he had hidden underneath his layers of clothes. It was one less thing for them to stare at.
He pushed the heavy cart next to the first empty and cluttered table, his hands going through the motions of clearing it off while his mind wandered to other things. His bandaged wrist only bothered him when he lifted a plate that was still fairly heavily laden with food but he was quick to empty what he could into the large trash bag that also on the cart before putting the dishes into his bin. The rest of his injuries ached, of course, but they were an ache he was used to by now. This was far from the first time he had come to work still hurting from the last beating he had endured at home.
A particularly nasty twinge had the beginnings of tears prickle in his eyes but he worked his way through it. He had endured worse pain than this and still managed to get through a busy work day. Part of his perseverance came from the sense of obligation he felt to work the days he was scheduled to work, regardless of personal problems but another part, a rather huge part, was that he knew he had prove himself somehow. Guillaume was always telling him that he was disappointed in him, that he was useless for anything outside the bedroom and even then it was a chore done out of a sense of pity. As much as Jon wanted to believe what was said to him was a lie, the more he heard it, the more true it sounded.
So he worked hard as often as he could, working through the emotion and physical pain inflicted on him by a man who claimed to love him (when he was feeling generous enough to let the words slip), hoping, sometimes even praying, that the money he brought home from this menial job would be enough to calm the man and grant him, at the very least, a decent day’s rest on a bed. Another twinge had him wincing; another reminder of what had happened the night before. He moved on to the next table after wiping down the one he had been working on with the non-toxic antibacterial spray he kept on the cart. He wondered why it was kept trying so hard to earn the love he was beginning to doubt he had even had to begin with.
A hand rose suddenly in his peripheral vision and he instinctively flinched away from, it quickly starting to clear the next table. Guillaume liked to use his hands when he was sober and frustrated with something Jon had done and the deaf man knew a little too well the sting of a hand across the face. He had been slapped and backhanded so many times last night he had lost count, the pain of the new blending with the throb of the already existing bruises on his face to the point where he could no longer distinguish them from one another. Had Guy remained sober, Jon was fairly sure that whatever it was he had done to anger his lover would have been settled with just that but throughout the ranting the man had chosen to drink. Alcohol always did make him more violent than usual.
Another table cleared and wiped off had Jon moving over to the next one but the already stirred up memories didn’t stop running their course through his mind. For every shiny utensil he picked up, he saw a flash of the metallic bat that his lover had taken to his body, a bat whose blows had gotten harder and harder as the beating continued. He could still feel the sickening shift in his ribs as a few of the bones snapped under the assault and the horrible pain as he was struck in the shoulders and across the arms, luck alone having prevented them from snapping under the assault. At one point, Guillaume had struck him across the back with the then empty bottle of alcohol he had finished then tossed aside the bat and went at him with just fists and feet again. Exactly how long he had been beaten for, even now he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that by the time Guy had had enough, the sun had long since set and the tears that had started to fall halfway through the pounding had begun to dry.
Someone bumped into him as he leaned over this latest table, wiping it down and it caused him to fall forward, his damaged ribs hitting the solid surface hard enough to make him have to bite his lip hard to avoid crying out. He had barely had time to bind them before he had come into work tonight. The splint around his almost unusable wrist had been a bitch and a half to get done single handedly and the make-up he had used to cover the bruises on his face had taken quite a while to get right. The bright lights he worked under forced him to be nearly perfect when it came to matching the liquid foundation with his natural skin tone and even then he wasn’t entirely sure he managed it half the time.
Either way it hardly seemed to matter to most people. As long as he got to work on time and worked fast enough to keep pace, the other employees hardly seemed to care what state he came to work in. A few of them actually tried to talk with him in the beginning but every time, it seemed, as soon as they would learn of his deafness they would quickly give up and move on, making friends elsewhere that were more readily able to communicate. It used to bother him a good deal but he soon learned to accept his place as a lesser being in the eyes of many and simply focused on his work. Guy didn’t like him having friends anyway so it worked out for the better.
Jon checked his bin to see how many more tables he could clear before he had to make a run back to the scullery to empty it. So far as he could tell, he could clear up to ten more plates and cups. It wasn’t much but it would allow him to get a few more places cleared for customers and keep the diner running at the impressive speed that it did. He could only hope that the dishwasher clocked in soon so he could spend the rest of the night focusing on getting the tables cleared instead of trying to do two different tasks at the same time. A glance at the clock on the wall behind the counter told him it was nearly midnight. The clubs emptied at two in the morning. If they hoped to keep up with the usual flow of clientele that came during that time they would need at least one dishwasher on duty.
He quickly moved the cart onto the next table just as a group of four was seated in the table he had just cleared, his working speed increasing with a sense of urgency. He needed to work faster. He needed to be better. He had to impress not just the other staff members but the owner of the small diner and the customers that came here. He needed to prove himself to someone; anyone. He needed to be worth something to someone in this world, even if it was just as someone who could do their job well. If his lover was right, if he really was worthless, then he had nothing to hold on to. There would be no reason to stay someplace where he was not wanted or needed, someplace where he was just a waste of resources and space. His thoughts turned darker and darker with each table he cleared and hastily wiped down.
When his bin was full he quickly but carefully maneuvered his way into the back room, relief pouring over him as he saw that the dishwasher had arrived and was already finishing up the job Jon had been half way through when Angelia came by to scream at him. He set his bin of dirty dishes down on the ground next to the man and went to grab the one of clean dishes to bring to the cooks. It was a heavy contain, one that had his back throbbing and his wrist screaming at him in agony. He tried his best to stifle the cry of pain but if he managed it he couldn’t tell. The dishwasher was too busy to pay him any heed and the few servers running in and out with some dishes they had cleared to make room for new ones were moving too quickly to catch it, no doubt. Somehow he managed to lift it long enough to set it on his cart and take it into the kitchen, where he quickly unloaded the plates and gave the utensils to the servers that were busy sorting them. A few glared at him but most didn’t acknowledge his presence.
Their anger and frustration only added to his earlier darker thoughts and he made his way out to the main diner again and made his way through the tables piled with dishes but empty of guests that needed clearing. He didn’t need to be able to hear the people around him to tell that they were talking about the great time they had had at the bars and clubs of this area. He didn’t need to hear the men to know that they were talking about which woman they managed to seduce into a quick fuck somewhere in a dark alley or hear from the women about the men they managed to snag a few free drinks from. Just knowing that had everything he dreamed he could have but knew he never would -the freedom to go where he wished on his own time, to talk with whomever he wanted to about anything, without fear of pain and hunger- had him fighting back tears that had nothing to do with the pain of his body.
Another table cleared and cleaned; another group of friends coming in to eat and talk about their night. Every few minutes a new face stepped into the diner and with each new face there stood the chance of a new reunion between the servers and their friends. Every single person, it seemed, who walked through that glass door had someone with them who cared; someone who would talk with them and smile with them. Jon even saw a few lovers kissing in the booths and felt his own heart clench the reminder of what he lacked in his own home life. He tried to remember the last time Guillaume had held him like that or the last time he was kissed that didn’t involve pain and fought back a sob when he found that he couldn’t recall.
The servers rushed by him, some apologizing and some not, while he worked and he was, for the most part, ignored by everyone else. He brought the cart back into the scullery when it was full again and repeated the same routine; dropping off dirty dishes before bringing new ones to the cooks and going back out to keep clearing tables. A few times he changed out the garbage bag but he was far too busy to take it out just yet. It was something he would have to take care of when his shift was over. As tedious as the work was, he put everything he had into it. This work, this job, was the only place he was actually worth something to someone. He might be but a ghost to most of the others but he performed a service for them. Without him here, they would not have the tables cleared in time for more customers to take the seats and create more dirty dishes to start the process all over again. Even if it wasn’t much, it was something.
In his haste to clear a table Jon’s grip on a plate slipped and he managed to drop it on the table he was in the process of cleaning, shattering the plate completely. He flinched at the destruction, not the sound it made and knew that people were staring. Fear gripped his senses tightly and he looked around, his mind already trying to come up for an explanation that Guillaume would believe. Quickly he bends over the table and picks up the shards with his bare hands, not caring if he’s cut himself or managed to get small pieces embedded in his skin. He tries his best to fight back a panic attack. If his lover were to hear about this the man would not hesitate to come by and take him to their apartment where he would be dealt with properly. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a beating like the one of last night two nights in a row.
He didn’t notice his hands were shaking until he felt a larger warm one cover them while the other made him look up into clear blue eyes, painted with concern. Jon immediately tried to take his hands back to start apologizing but Jason wouldn’t let him. The server started talking, saying that it was alright and servers broke plates all the time and while Jon could read his lips and understand the words they didn’t sink in. He broke a plate that didn’t belong to him. He damaged someone else’s property. How was it that he could get away with such a thing here when Guillaume wouldn’t let him get away with doing so much as improperly folding his clothes? He shook his head and clenched his hands, ignoring the pain and blood he felt from the small shards in his skin.
Jason turned to say something to one of the other servers then brought his attention back to Jon, forcing him to meet his eyes once more. He told Jon to come with him and that someone else would take care of the mess before he led him back to where the employee restrooms were by the wrists. Jon wasn’t sure what to think or say so he followed along, his head bowed and eyes on the ground. He didn’t know that Jason was watching him, frowning at his mannerisms. To him, the man was just another coworker.
But the server was more than that or at least he thought that he was. There was no one else on the staff he was as close to as he was this struggling man and in his mind set, that made them as close as friends, even if they never met up outside of work. Oh he had tried at first but by the time he was shot down for the sixth time he gave up and stuck with just chatting with the young man during the breaks when they both found the time. It was during these breaks that he started noticing something was very wrong.
At first it was just small things. Jon would always come into work wearing long sleeves on the weekends though, when he was asked about it, he would make the sign for cold and just go back to his work. While it was true that the diner was kept fairly cold to ensure the comfort of the cooks, he found that with all the running around and heavy lifting Jon did throughout the night, the man was often sweating his uniform and yet refused to remove the long sleeved t-shirt from underneath the polo shirt. There had been a few times, when the busboy wasn’t paying attention, that the sleeves slipped up and Jason caught sight of the bruises that ringed his wrists and forearms, bruises that were too black to have been self inflicted.
From there he began picking up on more noticeable signs, like the flinching when a hand was raised and the always downcast eyes. Sometimes Jon would even come in the work with a limp in his step or, like today, with make up on his face and a splint on his wrist. The only reason why Jason noticed the make up to begin with was because he was used to searching for it now. As soon as he was able to put the pieces together, he did his best to monitor the busboy and make sure that he wasn’t trying to do more work than what could be realistically expected of him. How Jon had gotten himself caught in such a situation he didn’t know but no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a reasonable way to tell the young man what he had discovered and offer him a safe way out.
So instead he spent a decent amount of time watching him at work, taking care of him when things like this happened and Jon, in some twisted form of self punishment, would have ignored the pain in favor of continuing his work. Even now, as he sat on a large empty crate with a pair of tweezers and carefully plucked small shards of ceramic out of the young man’s hand, he had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of someone, anyone, purposely beating this man. Even if he couldn’t speak, Jon was a hard worker and a kind soul. Jason doubted that the man could do anything to warrant this kind of pain on a regular basis if he tried.
“You have to be more careful,” he said softly, knowing that even if he couldn’t be heard, Jon would still be able to read his lips, “not about the plates but about how fast you move. They’re going to take that plate out of your pay now, you know.” In a dark corner of his mind, Jason wondered if Jon even kept the money he made from his job here or if that small paycheck immediately went to the person who was hurting him. “At least it wasn’t very expensive. You shouldn’t see much of a difference in it.”
The pager at Jon’s side went off but Jason made him stay in place. He managed to get the rest of the shards out but that didn’t mean that Jon was able to leave. He took his time running a paper towel under warm water before carefully dabbing at the wounds. The others could deal without Jon for a little while longer. They didn’t know how frightened the poor thing was. Even now the hands he held were trembling minutely.
The server bit his lip while he finished with his task and motioned for Jon to stay put when he got up and got the first aid kit out of the small medicine cabinet. As desperate as he was to say something, to tell Jon that he’d be okay, that he wasn’t alone, that there was a way out of that place if he chose to take it, he couldn’t bring himself to give shape to the words and let this young man who was so desperately trying to hide how badly he was being treated in his own home know that his efforts were in vain.
He bandaged up the hands very carefully and let Jon get back to work but he didn’t follow him out of the bathroom, instead taking a moment to himself to compose himself again. He knew that those injuries on his hands wouldn’t remain hidden. He knew that the monster that hurt Jon would see them and become all the more enraged with him. He wouldn’t be all that surprised to see Jon coming into work with a limp in his step and his already damaged wrist held protectively against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly.