Chapter Text
He had decided, early on, that he would not tell Billy his old name.
There were many good reasons for it. The first of which was that the man with that name was dead in the Arctic, or even dead in Regent’s Canal, as if the kind of essence a name possessed had slipped between two bodies at the instant a blade had penetrated flesh. The second was that man now known as Cornelius Hickey moved forwards, not backwards. He could make and unmake himself but he did not unmake decisions. He did not retrace his steps.
A third was that he liked the way Billy said the new one. Soft, sweet, and very quick, as if it might burn him if it lingered too long on his tongue. That was perhaps even the best reason, or if not the best then the one that drew the decision over the line and tied a bow on it. It was really quite decidedly lovely, like so many things about William Gibson.
He had occasion to think of it this morning particularly, where Billy was sat up in bed reading, and he was lying next to him. They lounged there, eating segmented oranges and drinking tea, rather than at the table, because there was no reason at all to get up. Sunlight flooded in through the window and bathed their bodies in holy light, blessing the red in Billy’s hair and beard, plucking it out and kissing it. The shack was modest if not shabby, but the light more than made up for it, and so did the bed.
Just the two of them. Sumptuously perfect
“Cornelius?” Billy said, closing his book with his thumb as the bookmark, and Cornelius gazed up at him and thought about his name. Then about Billy’s too. Because he liked to say it, this tender little diminutive. It felt as intimate as a kiss.
“Yes, Billy?” he asked, and savoured it.
Momentarily. Because there was something odd about Billy’s expression that arrested him.
Billy cleared his throat. “I’ve something to mention to you,” Billy said. “I hope you’ll try to be amenable to it.”
Billy’s tones and movements were easy to read. Cornelius knew when he was set to defend himself from something, because his shoulders pulled back and his chin lifted. Those movements held the kind of portent that automatically narrowed Cornelius’ eyes.
“Something I’m not going to like, by the sound of that,” Cornelius said, plucking an orange segment from the plate and sucking it between his teeth. It did, in a way, induce fondness to witness each one of Billy’s uncomfortable movements and noises while he tried to decide what to say, but Cornelius did wish he’d hurry up and say it. He ripped the orange rind away and tossed it back onto the plate in order to prompt him.
Finally, Billy seemed to take a breath and resolve himself. “There’s an opening at the Wilcox house.”
“An opening? At what house?”
“That large place, further down the coast,” Billy explained. “One of the newer sugar families. Their house.”
“What do you mean, an opening? Are you planning to climb in the window? I’ll come. Wager they’d have some nice things in there.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Opening as in a job, a vacancy,” he said. “I heard they’re newly short a man. I’d be eligible for the position now.”
Cornelius’ first thought was to question the source of Billy hearing such a thing, to ask him who he’d been talking to to learn about something so tawdry as a job, but he tucked that inquiry away for a more expedient instance. The matter itself was more pressing and would have to be addressed with haste, lest it turn into something that would curdle.
Billy perhaps did not understand that. He sometimes missed the significance of things, being a very practical man. But they were here in Kaua’i, on another perfect morning in the very Eden that had been owing to Cornelius since his birth, and Billy would have to know that he shouldn’t let snakes in.
His tea was still too hot. He put it on the windowsill to let it cool further, opening the window a crack as he did so. Outside, everything was bright green and harmoniously raucous. Humming with life. He let guide him. It spoke to him very clearly, because could understand life and how to retain it.
“I had to ask, didn’t I?” he said. “I know all about you and your openings and I’m very solicitous of them.”
Billy was, evidently, not to be diverted by filthiness. He simply sighed, and went back to his book, making it clear his mind was made up and he was not interested in discussing it. The tea was not too hot for him, it seemed, because he sipped at it.
“Why are you so captivated by this opening anyway?” Cornelius said. He made sure the word still made a suggestion, but it didn’t get hooks in this time either. Which was aggravating in the worst manner, because Billy just would not see.
“Because it’s work, Cornelius,” Billy said. “You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? Or have you? That’s never been quite plain to me.”
“I hear all kinds of things, Billy, but I don’t let them turn my head.”
“The money’s almost gone. Surely that’s diverted you. We can’t live on nothing.”
“Something will turn up,” Cornelius assured him.
He’d turn something up, he meant, like he had the last few times. But Billy needn’t fret about that. Cornelius never gave him the details.
“Yes,” said Billy, “and this is what’s turning up. A staff position in a house. For which I’ll enquire today.”
Cornelius forced himself to smile. He did not want to growl just because Billy didn’t understand something. Or because Billy did understand but was foolishly refusing to agree. So he smiled and then just as he did so, it came out as easily as it always had. It fit him. He could see Billy reacting to his willful change of face though, rolling his eyes once again.
“Cornelius…”
“Just march down there and present yourself, I suppose,” Cornelius said. “Good tidings to you, ladies and lords, I’m here to polish your golden arses and suckle you at my own teat like the stunted infants you are.”
Billy gave that the sort of gracious pause he tended to. And then he said, “If you’ve a better idea to remedy our finances, I’ll happily hear you.”
“Oh, I do,” Cornelius said. “I do have a better idea. No wife of mine will be skivvying his life away.”
“I’ve asked you not to call me that,” Billy said, but he didn’t really mean it. The little flicker at the corner of his moustache betrayed that. He couldn’t help himself. Cornelius had said it harshly once, to diminish him, but things were different now. Time had softened the word into something tender, and it worked on Billy the way a cloth worked a jewel to brilliance. Billy could duck his head to try to hide his expression a little, but it was of no use.
“Not when he has other, more important duties to attend to,” Cornelius added. He emphasised “important” with his hand, rolling on his side and stroking it over Billy’s bony little hip.
Even after months of restoration, Billy was still impossibly skinny. He always had been, really, and tall, a sort of flesh-and-bone cousin to a streetlamp, but Cornelius noticed it more now, his hand brushing on this sharp little hinge of him as it was. It did not trouble him that Billy was skinny, not precisely, any more than the money or the future ever troubled him. But he noticed it. Jotted it down internally as a relevant particular. That Billy instantly squirmed at being touched and then firmly settled himself again was a relevant particular too. Billy was skinny, and sensitive, and these were things an informed man ought to know. And then if he did know them, he could also sensibly reason that Billy would sometimes need better decisions to be made for him.
He opened his mouth to say so.
Billy interrupted him. “I already skivvy away,” he said. “You’re not precisely helpful for anything. I don’t suppose you even know how to make a pot of tea for yourself.”
“Billy,” Cornelius said, softly, continuing to fondle, “would you like me to bring you a cup of tea sometimes? Would that prove my devotion?”
Billy snorted. He was making a brave attempt to guard himself against impulse even though his own spare hand was already moving against Cornelius’ neck.
“I doubt I have your… studied touch,” Cornelius went on, trailing his fingers up and down Billy’s side, “but I’ll stop at nothing.”
“And we can’t live on nothing. I mean it, Cornelius.”
“And we won’t. Have faith in me.”
“I do have faith in you. That’s why I’m making my actions. Because I have faith in you.”
That was new information. Cornelius sprang back.
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means,” Billy said. “Unless you take me for ignorant.”
“No man born could ever make that mistake, Billy. But tell me, specifically, what you mean.”
“I mean your little trips to the Big Island,” he said. “You’re not as subtle in your movements there as you think. People talk.”
There he was again, hearing things. Something would have to be done about that. It appeared there was a source of information not marked by Cornelius’ compass. Well, he resolved, frowning, that would change at his earliest convenience.
“It’s a little pickpocketing. Hardly worth a hanging. They never missed it.”
“Whether they missed it or not,” Billy said, “we can’t be sustained that way. There’s a job and I will have it, and if not this one then something else.”
“But Billy…”
“One of these days you’ll get caught, and then what?”
“But hardly. They never even see me. Whoever’s wagging tongues you’re hearing, I…”
Billy cut him off. “Cornelius,” he said. He put his hand on Cornelius’ cheek and held it there. His eyes had become soft and concerned, which Cornelius felt was unwarranted. “I’ll still cut your oranges. I’ll just go to work, that’s all.”
Cornelius did like that Billy cut his oranges. That Billy made tea and cut oranges for him every morning, he did like that. Very much. He liked a lot of little habits they’d been making together since arrival. He’d initially thought that such things would irritate him, be easy to dismiss, pointless to be reliant upon. And perhaps at first they had been like that, but the thing about Billy was that nothing about him was easy to dismiss. For a man who did nearly everything he was ever told he should, he was surprisingly difficult to push around.
And now these things were the roots of the garden. The garden wasn’t just there, it grew and they ate the fruits of it. Naturally. Together. Eden.
And it belonged to him. Snakes were absolutely not permitted.
“Work for them,” he sneered. “We’re on the other side of the world here, Billy, if we sailed any further we’d drop off. Why should we accept a single one of their rotting old ways anymore? Why let them dictate your station?”
“It’s not like that.”
“It is.”
“Well,” Billy said, “it’s what I’ve decided, so make your peace with it now.”
Cornelius did not say anything to that. He certainly did not intend to make peace with anything, but there was no point to saying it here. Better to bide his time. Better to think, which he set himself to doing. Billy opened his book again.
He hadn’t quite noticed that he was back fondling at Billy through all of this. Stroking and kneading him without any awareness. And then he did notice, and he wanted to shake his head and smile at it, point it out. His hands liked Billy so well that no matter what idiot thing Billy said or did, they would find their way to him. Resigned to that, he touched a little more purposefully, feeling his way around Billy’s waist. It was warm and good, and a reliable aid to cognition.
And then he heard a sharp breath. It made him look up. Billy did not meet his eyes, fiercely concentrating on what he was reading. Too fiercely, in fact, in a manner that was not entirely convincing. It seemed, in fact, that he was purposefully trying to ignore being felt at. Trying not to enjoy it. Trying that on, as if it had a hope of fooling Cornelius. Billy was not a very good liar, and he never had been.
And certainly not about this. Cornelius moved his hand again, eyes on Billy’s face still, and Billy did not look back. Instead he moved his thighs together, sliding back, pretending at merely adjusting himself in bed. That was not convincing either.
It called for an experiment, Cornelius thought. Just to see. He slid his hand under Billy’s shirt to see what kind of reaction might be found there. A rather fine one, apparently. A stifled moan. And the hair on Billy’s front was the pelt of a freckled fox. When Cornelius brushed at it, Billy made a little grunt. When he tugged at it, the grunt got louder. How delightful.
But he still would not put his book down, or speak, or look. So Cornelius rolled Billy’s shirt up to kiss him. He felt every muscle in the front of Billy tense when he did it, and he trailed his fingers there, and kissed again, which likewise elicited a new and very favourable sound. He pressed his lips into Billy’s flesh again and again, a little line of tiny devotionals, bringing them right to the band of Billy’s drawers. His hands lingered there, teeth too, ever so slightly pulling at the fabric.
And then he withdrew his lips and his hands and rolled away.
The noise Billy made when he did that was extraordinary. A moan of pure, unfettered frustration. And Cornelius hadn’t done hardly anything at all. A terrible liar, Cornelius confirmed. Pink and torn between fury and supplication and he wanted to pretend he wasn’t. At least he was looking at Cornelius now. Glaring, really.
“Yes, Billy?” Cornelius asked, sweetly.
Billy shook his head. He made another fetching little sound.
“Yes?” Cornelius asked again. He made his voice honey and sunlight, and that made the face Billy was making all the funnier. So furious and wound up and he was going to do something, oh, he was going to do something serious, it electrified the air. He might shout, or not shout, he never shouted, but say something so pettish and cross that it would signal an absolute victory for Cornelius.
He harrumphed and he put his book down, then primly lifted the plate of orange segments off of the covers and put it onto the floor. Cornelius braced himself.
And then Billy slid down in the bed like an eel, caught Cornelius’ face in his hands and kissed him with undignified haste.
Splendid, forceful kiss, with his whole self put into it. He was very firm already, which was of no surprise now. Soon, Cornelius would slick him up with coconut oil, front and back, but for now he let him rut. Let him clench his entire, lengthy body against this stiff and burning core. He thought to free him, touch him there, but not yet, better to wring the very most out of these starving kisses, this grasping touch. He put his arms all the way around him.
He was struck by how that felt, suddenly. Protective. As if Billy’s hunger was vulnerable.
That thought drove him to nuzzle at his neck. To nibble there and listen to the sounds he made. To slide his hands up under his shirt and press him close. To shove his thigh hard against the outline of Billy’s prick which drew a high, desperate whine out of him. He would have been content there for a while, he thought. Perhaps forever.
But the second movement of his thigh meant Billy’s whole body bucked, and that he rolled until he was on top of Cornelius, tearing at his drawers and dragging them down.
Oh yes, that was very fine, the way Billy did not even hesitate in tracing the tips of his long fingers over Cornelius’ trinkets before wrapping them around the shaft. Then they disappeared and then they were oiled up already, which delivered mild surprise but shouldn’t have done. Of course Billy was eligible for a domestic position. His hands were very clever and he could do many tasks with them, sight unseen. Only fair he have a bit of help himself too, Cornelius thought, tugging his drawers down now.
Billy’s reaction to that was exquisite beyond anticipation. Cornelius barely had a chance to get his hands in there before Billy had oiled and manoeuvred himself so that Cornelius was buried in his innards in one fell swoop. His eyes were trained on Cornelius’ face the whole time, he didn’t even seem to need to look. He did it all so abruptly and so, frankly, professionally stewardly that Cornelius laughed.
“Something’s amusing to you?” Billy said, as if he hadn’t done what he’d just done.
Oh, but he was pretty. Flaming from the inside. And still starving too. He was already rocking his hips to a purpose. Cornelius grabbed them, guided them. “You’ve got a lovely blush on you, Mr. Gibson.”
He saw it burn up Billy’s cheeks anew. “And you’ve got your mouth open again,” he snapped. “Won’t you turn even that to honest labour?”
Well, Cornelius thought. Well. “And how would you like me to labour?” he drawled, punctuating his words with movement. “I’m at your command.”
“You’re at nobody’s command but your own.”
To say that on top of him. While Cornelius was directed in place by his arse. “Yours, Billy. Always yours.”
“I’ll believe that,” he said, and the words shivered because he did, “when I’m given evidence.”
He thought about trying to hold himself still. To hold Billy off, frustrate him. He thought he could just about do that if he made the effort, but then it occurred to him not to do that, for the sole sake of that he didn’t want to. Billy was delicious, arching into him felt good. There was no reason, anywhere, to restrain himself. And so he did not. He made satisfied sounds of his own, and then he pulled Billy down on him, “Don’t be spiteful.”
“Hmm” Billy said breathlessly. “Hmm. Hmm.”
“Be sweet instead. Oh, you’re very sweet.”
“Hmm,” Billy said again.
“Oh, Billy. Billy, Billy, Billy.”
“Hmm,” Billy said. “What?”
“Be as sweet as you feel on me and let us restrain our attentions to the right kind of opening.”
Even as occupied as he was, it appeared to take the strength of Billy’s entire soul for him not to laugh at that. His lips were pressed together as he drove down again, hands on Cornelius’ chest for balance. His eyes were twinkling. “What a pest you are.”
“Yes,” said Cornelius, frankly. If not proudly. And Billy did laugh then. He dipped his head down and his chest heaved along with the rest of his body. And the sunlight still sparkled on him, still cossetted them. Wrapped around them like an additional sheet. They couldn’t quite see the sea from the window, but they could see it if they opened the front door, and the bed was a ship on a loving ocean this time, one that would never do them harm. And Billy was sweet, and juicier than any mere orange.
So he grasped him at the waist and pitched him onto his back. Oh, Billy liked that, Gave a gasp, several gasps, began rapturously kissing Cornelius’ face, throat, mouth. Precious coltish creature, hollow legs like people said sometimes about someone who could never be fed enough. This couldn’t even have been as satisfying to him, the way Cornelius had to prop himself up on an elbow to drive himself in, but it seemed he liked it even more. Perhaps because so much of what they were doing was kissing each other, nibbling at each other’s necks, collarbones, shoulders. Hands all over the shop, face to face on the soft, forgiving mattress. That was the sweetest part of all of this. That Cornelius could so easily pierce him now this way, not only from behind him but also from a vantage where he could count the freckles on his nose.
It was still a treat, the bed. It hadn’t stopped being one. So nice to be somewhere soft when you wanted a bit of something. Nice not to be banging your shins against boxes, splinters in your hands, trying to do as much good as possible in the shortest possible time. Nice to be driving Billy’s body into it with every thrust and to know that it wouldn’t hurt him. To feel Billy’s prick, hard, slick, wet against his own gut with every move he made. To not have to hurry.
Though of course, Billy was always in a hurry. That had nothing to do with getting caught anymore, that was just Billy himself, and the fact that he was a greedy little tart. A man could try to slow his movements, but he was always in for a challenge if he did. And he’d have to be made of stone against these indecent moans, against the way Billy wrapped his legs around his body and then, suddenly, a hand around himself.
It didn’t take long. The first time, at least. Once Billy had had an appetiser, he might settle down for a more luxurious main course, Cornelius knew that from experience, and he made sure that he had one of those. A proper, decent breakfast, of the kind you needed a sleep after. Surely that would distract him from such silly thoughts as jobs, he thought, cracking his knuckles while Billy dozed.
It did not. Because Billy woke up, and after he’d nipped out the door and into the sea to wash, and had dressed again, after he’d trimmed his tidy, woollen beard, Billy left to inquire at the Wilcox house, just as he’d warned he would.
Cornelius declined to say anything further about it. He watched him go, then folded his arms behind his head to think. He did have a better idea, or he thought he did. The glimmerings of one anyway.
Nearly there. Just some reconnaissance needed. A few minor kinks to work out.