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Bill couldn’t sleep. This was less a complaint and more of a simple statement of how things worked, like a child running up to a parent and relaying whatever they’d learned at school that day. Cows said moo, D was for dog, big fluffy clouds were called cumulus, the wheels on the bus go round and round, and Bill couldn’t sleep. Instead, he stared at the curtain that separated his bunk from the rest of the bedroom, and he thought, and he worried, and he wanted to go home. He could hear the sea lapping at the base of the tower, washing angrily against the rocks and over the set-off and up the dog steps where it soaked through the entrance door, rising and rising through the tower and into the bedroom and through the curtain and right into Bill’s head, where it swirled and swirled and weighed him down and crashed over his thoughts and feelings and everything, and that was just it: it was everything. The sea, that is. Because it swallowed all else upon impact, hungry and selfish, devouring everything until it was everything. Selfish was a good word for it. The sea demanded to be all, to consume all, to leave you nothing, to make you nothing, and it didn’t care what you wanted, who you were, it’d eat you too if it got the chance. Bill wouldn’t let it have that chance. Eyes closed, ears blocked, lungs full of water, but he wouldn’t let the brick drag him down.
He rolled over, towards the wall. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he thought his watch must’ve been soon; it felt like ages that he’d been lying there, and he was getting bored with it. Maybe he’d get up and go ahead to the lantern, sit with Arthur (who was currently on watch), bring him some tea and help tend to the light or whatever needed doing. He didn’t think Arthur would appreciate it very much. He liked his alone time, that man, he liked it a lot, and he liked his schedules, so if his nicely scheduled alone time was suddenly interrupted, he’d probably be more than a little sour about it. Maybe Vince was up, maybe Bill could go and bother him, but the thought of that wasn’t as enticing as the idea of spending time with Arthur. He liked being around Arthur well enough, he liked being around him more than most folks he’d hung around, and he wasn’t sure whether it was because he’d conditioned himself into it or if he just made him think of Helen or if he genuinely enjoyed Arthur’s company. Anyways, he didn’t particularly like Vince, the fellow always managed to make Bill self conscious and upset, and without the PK present to mediate, there was a good chance a conversation could turn into an argument, and when you’re stuck on a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean with a man, you tend to try and avoid things like that.
There were many such annoyances about the lighthouse life, and none would know better than Bill Walker. But sometimes, Bill didn’t mind the light. Those were the days when he got around to thinking about Jenny, which of course was most of the days - what else was he expected to do on a big sodding rock in the middle of nowhere - but the times he didn’t mind the light were the times he really thought of her, about all of her. He hadn’t expected to marry her. He hadn’t even wanted to go out with her, in the beginning, and the beginning was so long ago. Bill wasn’t sure how they’d lasted so long together, how it had taken fifteen years and another woman for him to realize that he didn’t love Jenny and never had. And never would, especially now that he’d had so much time with Helen, now that he’d had a taste of a life outside of his own, the life he hated, the one he had no control over. Although he didn’t have much control with Helen, really, when he considered it for long enough. He didn’t control how he felt about her, how she felt about him. He didn’t control when they were together, when they were apart.
And then, of course, there was Arthur. Arthur, who had gotten to her first, who had married her and then taken her for granted. Bill wouldn’t take Helen for granted. Why in the hell did she marry Arthur, when if she’d just been a little more patient and waited a little while longer, she could’ve had him? He was sure that her short time with him must’ve been miles better than her decades with Arthur. He glared at the wall, thoughts pivoting from affection towards Helen to jealousy and frustration towards Arthur.
This often happened, whenever he was thinking about Helen; he got caught up in the negative side of things - as he tended to do - and found his mind consumed more-so by the man the woman he loved had devoted her life to, the man he wanted to be, rather than his feelings towards Helen herself. But it wasn’t as if this was something strange for him to be constantly drawn to: he was drawn to Helen, and Helen was drawn to Arthur, and if Bill could just figure out why, then he could be that thing that Helen wants so much, that Helen loves so much, and Bill would love her right back just as much, if not more. Bill would be Arthur but better, because he would care, he would pay attention, he - as previously mentioned - wouldn’t take Helen for granted.
Now here’s a question: why did Arthur take Helen for granted? How could he be with a woman as wonderful and perfect as her, and just… not care? Where did his affections lie, if not with his wife? Bill laid on his back and frowned at the ceiling. Arthur must have loved Helen at some point, to marry her. To stay with her for so long. So at some point, something must have happened. The death of their son, perhaps? Helen had told Bill about it once, how when it had happened she had blamed Arthur, and they’d started drifting apart. Yes, that must’ve been the beginning, but it couldn’t have been all of it. Lighthouses: the service had to be a part of it. Months away from your spouse will do that to a marriage; it’d happen to anyone. It had certainly happened with Bill and Jenny.
He sighed, and continued tossing and turning and thinking and wondering and worrying and wishing. Time passed, or didn’t. It was hard to tell on the Maiden sometimes, especially if you weren’t actively on watch. Of course, you could count the hours before your next one, but without a clock (and there were only two clocks in the whole nine level tower) that was hard to do if you didn’t want to sit and count one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi… It was easier just to wait for the current watchman to come get you.
Speak of the devil: Bill heard footsteps descending the stairs, coming down from the lantern, through the service room, into the living room, approaching the bedroom. Sound carried easily through the tower, which lessened the time it took for him to recognize the footsteps as Arthur’s. He had a heavier step than Vince, but that wasn’t saying much because most everyone had a heavier step than Vince, who was incredibly light on his feet, probably at least in part due to his past. Anyways, all this to say, Arthur was coming to wake Bill for his watch, and would be upon him any moment now.
The curtain was pulled open, and a hand shook Bill’s shoulder. “Hey,” said Arthur loudly, “time to get up. Work to do, lights to watch.”
Bill swatted Arthur’s hand away and heaved himself out of the bunk, stretching his aching limbs. “Yeah, yeah,” he huffed, pulling his pajama shirt over his head and reaching for one of the shirts - at this point he wasn’t sure whether they were clean or dirty, but he didn’t particularly care how his shirt smelled as long as it covered him up - he kept crumpled in a pile at the corner of his little bunk. Arthur watched him for a moment before turning and heading downstairs to the kitchen to make tea and, hopefully, grab the pack of cigarettes that Bill had forgotten on the table, and bring it up when he came back. Bill considered calling after him about it, but he figured he wouldn’t need to (Arthur knew enough about Bill to assume he’d be wanting them), so he started on his way up to the lantern.
Up the stairs…
Through the living room…
Through the service room…
He emerged in the lantern, and the Maiden light glowed brightly just above his head, spinning lazily in its mercury bath. For a brief moment he looked out the window and watched the beam of light, the sweeping gaze of a cyclops, the Queen of the Lighthouses surveying her domain, an indifferent giant staring at a sea that had spent centuries trying to knock it down. He was on middle watch - 4AM to noon - and it was mid winter, so he’d have to keep it burning for at least three hours until the sun came up and took the job over, and the light could be extinguished. Then he’d have to cook breakfast (this bit often ended up taking quite a while; he usually found himself cooking meals for both himself and his mates, despite the fact that there was no rule saying he had to prepare something for everyone. Bill just liked cooking, and according to the others, he was quite good at it. It might’ve been his second favorite hobby, after shell carving), polish the lens, clean up around the tower, do whatever work needed to be done after that, and then maybe he’d put on the radio or read or fish off the set-off or work on his shells.
After a couple of laps around the lens to be sure everything was ship shape, Bill went out on the gallery and leaned his elbows on the rail and watched the sky. Clouds drifted lazily by, momentarily obscuring the moon with their wispy grey forms before revealing her once more, a glowing eye among the heavens keeping watch over the glowing eye among the sea, the glowing eye of the Maiden. So many eyes. Bill frowned, picking at his nails and redirecting his stare to the horizon. It was hard to separate sea from sky, but occasionally - when the beam of the Maiden’s gaze swept across his field of vision - he caught sight of the waves lapping viciously at the sky. It wasn’t stormy out, but it was incredibly windy, which made the ocean angry. It didn’t like to be disturbed.
Soon there was a tap on the window behind him, and he turned to see Arthur’s hand waving him back inside. He gave the sea one last bitter look before turning and joining Arthur inside the lantern, taking the mug of tea and cigarette pack he had brought up for him. “Thanks,” said Bill, settling himself cross-legged on the floor, leaning back against the wall and watching the optic spin. He set the mug down beside him and tried to light a cigarette; he clicked his lighter a few times, but it wouldn’t do anything but spark. Arthur watched for a bit before sitting beside him and pulling out his own lighter. “Here,” he said, flicking it on and lifting it to singe the end of the cigarette. Bill gave a grateful nod and inhaled some smoke, and finally the tension he hadn’t realised had been in his shoulders was released. Arthur was still looking at him. “Are you alright?” asked Arthur, and Bill hesitated for a moment before shrugging.
“Did you sleep?”
Another shrug.
Arthur was frowning now. “You didn’t eat, either.”
“I wasn’t hungry,” said Bill, feeling a little defensive.
“Bullshit. You need to eat, Bill. If not for yourself, then for Jenny.”
Bill just scoffed. “Jenny’s too busy at the bottom of a bottle to notice if I’ve stopped eating,” he huffed, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. Arthur shrugged. “Then do it for the boats out on the water. For their crews, their families, for…” he paused “...for me.”
“For you?” repeated Bill, a little surprised.
“Of course,” said Arthur, nodding seriously. “You’re my Assistant Keeper. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
Bill was quiet for a bit, then filled his lungs with smoke and very visibly rolled his eyes. “It’s not that serious, mate, really. Just a rough day.”
“Rough day?” pressed Arthur.
He gestured towards the window, or more accurately what lay beyond the glass, a hundred feet below. “You know. Rough sea, rough me.”
Arthur hummed his acknowledgement, and then they sat in silence for a bit. Bill sipped at his tea, eyes on the light because there wasn’t much else to look at. In the silence, he started thinking again, worrying, wondering. He thought about Helen, about Jenny, about home. About Arthur, who was still watching him, but trying to be discreet about it now. He was Bill’s best friend, and Bill hated him. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right; Bill liked him well enough, he just hated… his choices, he supposed. Hated how he’d married Helen and not him. As- as in, as in Bill hadn’t married Helen, not as in- not as in, like, Arthur married Helen and didn’t marry Bill, no, no, it was, you know, Arthur had married Helen and Bill hadn’t married Helen. Like that.
Just… just in case you needed that cleared up.
Bill took an extra long drag on his cigarette. He probably wouldn’t even be able to tolerate being married to Arthur. He had no idea how Helen managed it. Probably because she’d loved him, at some point, however long ago that point was and whoever Arthur was then. Maybe she was hoping that man would come back, that time would reverse and she would be brought back to a time, back to a man, back to a relationship where she loved him and was loved in return. Bill glanced at Arthur in his peripheral vision. What did Helen even like about him so much? What did he have that Bill didn’t? What was the appeal?
“Arthur,” said Bill suddenly.
Arthur blinked, looking up from his own half empty mug of tea. “Yes?”
“I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“May I kiss you?” Bill certainly wasn’t gay, not by any stretch of the imagination. This was simply for research purposes. It wasn’t gay if it was for science. In fact, it was for heterosexual related science, which obviously made it even less gay. Arthur stared at him, opened his mouth to respond, thought for a moment, closed it again. Then, “How long has it been since you last slept?” he asked, and set down his mug to reach over and press a hand to Bill’s forehead to check his temperature, like he thought he might have a fever.
Bill pushed his hand away. “I’m not delirious. It’s purely for… strictly business… research… purposes,” he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and tapping some ash off of it. He needed to know what it was that Helen liked about him. How she felt about him. Why she felt about him. And this, to him, seemed one of the quickest, most straightforward ways to answer that question. That was the logic he found in it, anyway. Plus, the middle watch was meant for things like this, things one wouldn’t be caught dead doing in the light of day. Only in the light of the Maiden could these kinds of things cross one’s mind.
Arthur thought long (probably for a little less than 30 seconds) and hard about it. Finally, he gave a hesitant shrug. “Well… couldn’t hurt, I suppose.”
Oh, well, that had turned out to be much easier than Bill thought it would. He was half prepared to have to fight him for it, to argue, but nope, just like that, he’d agreed. Bill was too tired to look into what that might have implied. “Good lad,” said Bill, and scooted a little closer to him, placing his mug on the floor beside Arthur’s.
The kiss was really good, actually. It was only meant to be a quick professional pressing-together-of-the-lips, but at some point somebody’s mouth opened and the kiss got even better. There was a chance Bill had crawled into Arthur’s lap, but he was too preoccupied with the tongue in his mouth to notice. They made out until they ran out of breath, at which point Arthur untangled his hands from Bill’s hair and Bill found his way back to the floor to retrieve his tea. That was a really good kiss, he thought. Better than any he’d shared with Jenny, anyway. Better than the one with Helen, too. His tea had gone cold by now, so he chugged the rest of it just to get it over with. After some consideration, he decided he could no longer judge Helen for marrying Arthur.
“Well,” said Arthur, hefting himself - with some difficulty - off of the floor, “if that’s all, I’m off to bed. Good night, Bill.”
“Alright,” Bill said, watching him go. “Good night.”
Something in his chest fluttered, leaping for Arthur like it had never leapt for Jenny, or Helen, or any woman, for that matter. He was tired, he was confused, he’d liked the kiss; men didn’t like kissing men, especially not men that he already had somewhat of a kind-of-sort-of aversion to, especially not men who were married to the woman he was in love with. There had to be some logic behind this, some explanation, some reason. Maybe he was only thinking of how he’d just kissed a mouth that had kissed Helen’s. Yes, that must’ve been it. Arthur reminded him of Helen, and he was in love with Helen. It made sense. More sense than “he liked Arthur,” at least.
Because that would make no sense. No sense at all.