There's an instantaneous frown on his face the moment the other brings that up. At least the frown isn't aimed at Hickey - it seems to be half just Billy having to consider it, and then half the annoyance he feels at imagining a scenario where Irving still tries ordering him around, even here.

"Little didn't try," he first says. He hasn't really brought up his interactions with the former lieutenant, considering there have hardly been any and it never felt relevant, but.. it's only now that Billy realises Hickey might actually not know this. With the impression Little gives off, still seeming to stick so much to everything he knows from back home, Billy realises that what happened between him and Little is not exactly a natural conclusion Hickey might reach. "He fed me when I first got to town. And he immediately started speaking of how our ranks no longer exist here, and then he called me by my name."

Billy is making A Face. Are you seeing this, Hickey? It's almost kind of comical. Like half-awkward, half-looking like he just smelled a turd. What is he supposed to do, hear that man call him William and then call him Edward? When literally the only person he bothers to address by their first name is his lover? Ugh. Never. You can't make him.

".. mind you, this was even after I informed him that I hadn't been kidnapped by the mutiny as he had been assuming."

Yes, he's being very sassy right now, but that's just what talk of the lieutenants does to him, okay. You haven't dealt with them as closely for years the way he has, Hickey.

"I can't imagine Irving doing any of that though."

Then again, it's not like he would have imagined Little doing any of that either. But Irving is definitely a much, much further shot even so.