#mag seven Jane Eyre AU

[hellolittleogre]

Billy Goody Jane Eyre AU

@lazaefair wrote a wonderful not!fic Billy x Goody Jane Eyre AU, which you can find here, and it was amazing and then my brain went but what if Goody was the mad wife in the attic? Because Wide Sargasso Sea is a thing. And then my brain went BOOM and spat this out.

Thank you @lazaefair for the inspiration, it was really fun writing this and I hope you don’t feel like I’m playing all over your sandbox.

The not!fic is under the cut because its a lot.

Soooooooo, it struck be that of course the real touchstone for this would not only be Jane Eyre, but also Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys about Bertha’s life before the attic, and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, about a woman who marries for love but her husband is a abusive and a drunkard.

Goodnight is the rich spoiled son of a Creole family on Jamaica who runs away with his brother to fight in the America civil war (they have family in Louisiana), he admires his brother and has always done what his he did. The brother dies and Goody becomes a celebrated sharpshooter but still comes home a disgrace, fighting for the losing side,  severely traumatised and having made friends with Sam Chisholm a free black man, and with alarming notions about equality and slavery.

The family marries him off to Bouge as quick as they can with a fat dowry and no questions asked. (Same sex marriages exist with the proviso that the leading partner is allowed to have one official mistress in order to have an heir, or the couple can joint decide to adopt a child).

Bouge, a nouveau riche robber baron is at first elated over such a social coup, a status spouse, old money, beauty plus the official allowance to have a mistress in order to get an heir but soon he realises he has been cheated. Once the honeymoon is over and they have settled on his new estate in England he realises the extent of his mistake.

Goody is too frail, too obviously damaged to help him get ahead socially and it's a scandal to have a mad husband, can’t even fulfill his marriage duties because he is so mentally frail (Think pretty vulnerable Ethan Hawke in the mid 90s), Bouge finds this unacceptable.

Goodnight has written letters tightly to Sam during the first year as married, trying to put on a good front (elements of the Tenant of Wildfell hall), too proud to admit mistakes. He tries to have optimism, maybe Bouge will have a child and the act of raising it will bring them together. Surely Goody is just to sensitive to his meanness, tries to be a good partner but Bouge will have none of it.

Then he has a bad period and Bouge locks him away, writes to Sam and tells him Goody has asked him to cease writing it that his emotional state is too easily upset to undertake this task himself.  Sam insists that Goody writes and Bouge gets pretty nasty.

“If you knew how he begged me, your attentions upsets him and you are a constant reminder of his unhappy past. I would not be so I gentlemanly to make further reference to your history but cease this contact, if only for the sake of the one you profess to love so.”

Sam realises he has to play the long game.

Meanwhile Billy has grown up in an orphanage, the son of a woman who came to work as a servant to a British explorer. The man was working and collecting in China, and even managed to gain entry to Joseon, where he took the woman on as houskeeper. When his mother died the man took Billy in out of good will and when he suddenly died too, Billy was bundled along with the rest of his belongings to his family back in England. The family was expecting a white child and are besides themselves when Billy shows up, it might be implied that the explorer had fathered him (he hadn't, Billy had a very loving father who unfortunately also died. If anyone feels all this dying is unrealistic I would please refer you to Elizabeth Gaskell). Billy is pushed off as quick as they can to a school. He is very learned due to the old gentleman and becomes a very good student. When he is grown he advertises as a tutor. The boys home taught him how to fight, he makes two friends a brash Irish boy called Faraday, illegitimate child and Vasquez, nephew of some Spanish noblewoman married to an English lord (everyone’s an orphan! see: Gaskell)

Billy has been working  as a tutor for a while when he meets Bouge, he wants a governess for a little girl but changes his mind when he finds Billy.

Billy is curious as to why,  as it turn out Adele his ward is half Vietnamese, her mother a French-vietnamese dancer who used to be Bouge’s mistress and Bouge figures one Asian is as good as another.

Adele is as vain and silly as she is in the book and Billy kind of loves her. Her airy head has lots of space for learning. She speaks french and english in a charming unselfconscious mix and Billy was worried how they might talk to each other but in the end he finds that his old tutors were right, the language of arithmetic is universal.

She is not Bouge’s daughter, his mistress in Paris left him and he killed her new lover and stole her daughter to torment her. She is now destitute in Paris and he sends her letters now and then to remind her that her daughter is entirely at his mercy.

He tells Adele that her maman is dead,.

Billy hears somebody crying at night. Adele is terrified of the crying ghost but later calms down,  and when Billy asks after a couple of days she says the ghost is telling her fairy stories in French and he's not dangerous, only sad. Billy is kind of bewildered by this. Sees a man spying on him in the library, looks like nobody in the household.

Bouge has come back, Billy startles his horse, and he twists his ankle and Billy has to help him home, Bouge says that he owes him entertainment for being responsible for his incarceration. There is something hungry in how he looks at Billy. Sends for him in the evenings and talk to him.

Taunts Adele, Billy tries telling himself that it is playfully.  “that's how she charmed the money straight out of my pretty pocket”. Pinches her nose and cheeks just a little too hard

Billy is teaching Adele how to fight and Bouge watches them, silent and approving, eyes roving over Billy. Presses him a little. Mentions in passing that he is dependent on him, that without reference he would never be hired again, and then how will he live. No relations and no means?

Flirts a little and makes promises, comes down one evening with his face scratched, “by an owl” but you'd always be sweet to me? It makes Billy smile. It's nice to be wanted.

Billy hears the ghost crying at night, sees a white figure in the hallways.

Then as a cold shower Bouge invites a party of similarly ranked men, McCann and Denali, hints that he might be engaged to McCann. That he might ruin Billy and leave him on the street. Your reputation is in my hands, you can never leave me.

Billy meets the ghost man. Himself and Adele are exploring the garrets when he hears a voice singing a drinking song, they can't decide from where the sound is coming from but Adele is not afraid, it is the Goodnight man, he helps me sleep. He speaks French like maman.

Eventually Billy, pretty stiff with fear at this point though he would never admit it, finds a little crawl space that leads into another stairs and they find Goodnight. (Goody is kept in a room which is bolted not locked from the outside and his nurse often dips into the laudanum and he goes wandering.) He is beautiful and confused, flitting between lucidity and imagination but the more Adele and Billy talks to him the steadier he becomes.

Goodnight are convinced they are figments of his imagination. A little girl as he imagined at the beginning of the marriage. To tell stories to and never never go to war. And their shared features convinced him, Billy and the child with the same dark hair, mere reality could never conjure anything so beautiful.

They meet at night, both of them still not convinced the other is real. Adele calls him The prince in the tower after the story of Richard III nephews and Billy secretly agrees.. Billy wakes up one night to find Goody at the foot of his bed, looking terrible. He startles and goes looking for him. Follows him into Bouge room and finds a candle overturned, saves him from the flames.

Bouge proposes the next day.

Billy accepts, he's tired of being at somebody else's mercy and charity all the time. Bouge is not too unpleasant to look at, his attention is flattering and being a married spouse offers a hell of a lot more protection than he ever thought he would have.  So he accepts.

(Bouge plans to marry him so he can become his legal guardian and force him to be his assassin, plus Billy is hot)

Meets Goody and tells him he is going to stay, and that they will have more time together. Omits to mention that it's because he's getting married. He feels reluctant to tell Goodnight that.

Billy brings wine up one night and becomes terribly drunk and kisses Goodnight. The last little bit of freedom I have left.

Adele tells Bouge about the ghost and Billy tries to downplay it and when Bouge won't be deterred he makes up a story about seeing a woman in white, an interred nun. However it makes Bouge confine Goody more securely and they can't meet anymore. Billy is smart enough to understand he can't let Bouge know he and Goody know each other.

The night before his marriage he hears Goodnight wailing in the tower, like a banshee or a condemned soul.

Sam and Red show up to stop the wedding. Sam has been living in the Indian territories (Bass Reeves!) and befriended him and finally has bided his time enough to come to Europe and track down Goodnight (they have agreed to go on a Grand Tour if it turns out Goody is fine), Bouge tries to say that he is dead but Billy puts two and two together and alerts them of Goodnight in the tower.

“There he is,” Bouge says with disdain, Goodnight white and crouched at the far end of the room, “Who would not change a vulture for a raven? Look at him, so hale and beautiful, who can blame me?”

Red and Sam bring the family lawyer who concludes that its not lawful for Bouge and Billy to be married but equally since Goody must be seen as mentally deficient its perfectly fine for Bouge to keep him locked in the attic. Like y’know, no problem.

Sam and Red tries to resist but are powerless to help, Bouge locks Goody away, very upsetting scenes between Goodnight and Sam, fighting to get to each other.

Goody comes to Billy’s room at night, tells him he has to go, go Bouge plans to do something terrible to him (possibly lock him in the cellar?) Billy doesn’t want to leave but has no choice, Goody refuses to follow him. Without me you have a chance but if I come with you Bouge will never stop hunting us, besides he has the law on his side if he chooses to bring me back while you can go where you chose and have full protection of the law.

Billy flees in the night and ends up on the moors with Faraday and Vasquez, who are living together in a cabin (coincidence!)

They plan to go back and free Goodnight (and Adele) but before that Billy finds out that the explorers family has all died and he is the sole heir, he is now rich enough to take up the fight against Bouge. He hears Goody call for him in the night.

They prepare but as they are travelling back the hear that the whole house has burnt down and the poor madman in the attic perished in the flames. Billy goes over to kill Bouge but instead finds Goodnight, the house (mysteriously!) caught fire (some say they saw a man with a bow and arrow but such talk is nonsense surely?) and Bouge died in the flames. Goodnight was rescued and inherited the lot.

Then they all live together and are disgustingly rich. They send for Adele’s maman and Emma comes to be Adele’s governess.

FIN

[hellolittleogre]

Billy/Goodnight, your Jane Eyre AU, 38.

So this take a bit of explaining. Lazefair wrote an excellent  and lovely not!fic of a Goody x Billy AU here, and as I love Jane Eyre and got a bit carried away I wrote a not!fic Goody x Billy AU over here, but with Goodnight as the mad wife in the attic (berta mason)  instead of the rich and arrogant employer.

Kiss prompts 38 - Because they are running out of time

Goody was sitting in his usual spot, crawled up into the window seat, leaning his face against the glass, hugging his knees. He smiled when he spotted Billy though, the smile lighting his pale face from the inside, like a candle in a lantern. 

“William” he said, shifting his feet so Billy could fit into the nook with him and Billy’s heart leapt and twitched like a fish in his chest. He wanted to ask him to call him Billy, wanted to hear his name out of Goodnight’s mouth, and hope that maybe when he was alone he would repeat it, as sometimes Billy did, murmuring Goodnight’s name to himself, feeling his tongue stroke the syllables, saying as a talisman against any ills, but even here, when they were so far away from any social mores, it still felt to bold, too much of an imposition to ask.

He sat down opposite Goodnight setting the wine and the glasses between their feet, smiling at his surprise. It was for a moment easy to imagine that he was back at at Lowood with Faraday or Vasquez, or any of the older boys, sneaking them books or food, the deprivation turning it into an illicit feast. And feast it was, there was no mistaking how Goodnight was eagerly leaning forward, with rapt anticipation on his face. Billy felt a genuine thrill down his spine to be able to bring him such joy through the simple act of bringing him books. Even so, it was difficult to resist the temptation against teasing.

“I’m afraid Adele has had many lessons this week, so there was simply not time to bring you a book from the library,” he said, just to see the little frown appear on his brow, “So I had to get three instead,” he smiled and handed them over from where they had been hidden behind his back, the smile breaking over Goodnight’s face even more brilliant.

“I would call you a sly creature, if your misdirection didn’t make me so pleased,” he said, eagerly turning the books over, pouring over their title pages. 

“There are other reasons to be pleased, I have a piece of excellent news,” Billy said, grinning. “No, look through your books first, and we can talk later.” Billy nodded to the way Goodnight’s hands couldn’t refrain from stroking the spines and it was only once they were fully acquainted Billy poured his pilfered wine into the cups.

“No you must tell me your good news, but carefully and you must remember that I don’t have much occasion to be joyous so tell me slowly, so I might enjoy it better,” Goodnight said.

“I’ll not leave Thornfield Hall,” and Goodnight turned white first, and then red as a rose.

“That is too good news to tell me so quickly,” he said. “So much good fortune all at once will go to my head and make me quite insensate.”

Billy knew he ought to tell Goodnight just what had altered his circumstances, that he had agreed to marry Bouge, and that he would not be leaving Thornfield Hall as it would be his home but he found that he was reluctant to tell Goodnight, unwilling to reveal the true nature of his circumstances.  I will not this night, he thought. This night I will pretend that we are both boys at Lowood and that there is nothing more pressing than our vague hopes for the future and no greater joy than knowing we will always be good friends.

It was a merry evening. The wine gave a flush to Goodnight’s pale face and he seemed warmer, more alive and less a ghost than he ever had before, telling Billy the most unbelievable tales of his relative’s home in Louisiana and nobody was more surprised than Billy when his laughter, that Goodnight was so skillful in calling forth, abruptly ended in a sob.

“Mr Rocks? William?” Goodnight said, taken aback, his hand suddenly on Billy’s sleeve, Billy pressing his free hand to his mouth, trying to stifle the choked sobs.

“Please,” Billy said, “Say Billy- please-give me my name and say Billy?” 

Goodnight nodded and squeezed his wrist and Billy wanted to tell him but what came out instead was: “I’ve sold my soul and now I can’t go back on the bargain.”

 Goodnight stared at him in confusion and Billy was abruptly horribly aware that their time was running out, that after his engagement with Mr Bouge became known the easy intimacy of their friendship could be no more, and even if he had secured himself against the risk of being sent away from Thornfield Hall and Goodnight their time together like this had come to an end.

“I…” he started to say and slid to somewhat unsteadily to the floor, having drunk more of the wine than he was used to, and when Goodnight murmured “Billy”, and looked at him with soft concern all the careful barriers Billy had erected around himself broke.

It was less an act of will, and more a moment of instinct and impulse that lifted him on his toes to press his mouth to Goodnight’s lips. It was a clumsy brush and for a second Billy felt the full horror of his schoolboy infatuation before Goodnight’s hands came up to cradle his jaw and he kissed back, both of them helplessly caught in the rush. Billy had never felt like this, for once losing his cool head, his heart beating so hard and the connection jumping between them like sparks from a fire. Goodnight’s mouth was warm, and wet, exactly as generous as his full lips had promised and for a long while Billy was aware of nothing else than his acute joy, burning him up from the inside, like a star. It was only when they separated that he remembered himself, and realised how badly he had erred. As promised to somebody and now fully cognizant how his own weakness he could never see Goodnight again, or entertain his friendship. 

“I…I’m so sorry,” he stammered,  nearly unable to watch how Goodnight’s eyes went from dreamy contentment to hurt confusion. “I should never, I presumed too much..” 

His mouth would no longer obey him, the lips which had kissed Goodnight unwilling to utter the words which could hurt him and Billy knew himself beaten and with a final “I’m sorry,” turned on his heel and fled.