diff --git a/src/fish.cpp b/src/fish.cpp
index 21832b265..4b0f2c2c8 100644
--- a/src/fish.cpp
+++ b/src/fish.cpp
@@ -401,13 +401,14 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
             res = reader_read(STDIN_FILENO, {});
         } else {
             char *file = *(argv + (my_optind++));
+#if defined(O_CLOEXEC)
+            int fd = open(file, O_RDONLY | O_CLOEXEC);
+#else
             int fd = open(file, O_RDONLY);
+#endif
             if (fd == -1) {
                 perror(file);
             } else {
-                // OK to not do this atomically since we cannot have gone multithreaded yet.
-                set_cloexec(fd);
-
                 wcstring_list_t list;
                 for (char **ptr = argv + my_optind; *ptr; ptr++) {
                     list.push_back(str2wcstring(*ptr));
diff --git a/src/wutil.cpp b/src/wutil.cpp
index fa250c59b..5813334e8 100644
--- a/src/wutil.cpp
+++ b/src/wutil.cpp
@@ -176,14 +176,9 @@ FILE *wfopen(const wcstring &path, const char *mode) {
 }
 
 bool set_cloexec(int fd) {
-    int flags = fcntl(fd, F_GETFD, 0);
-    if (flags < 0) {
-        return false;
-    }
-    if (flags & FD_CLOEXEC) {
-        return true;
-    }
-    return fcntl(fd, F_SETFD, flags | FD_CLOEXEC) >= 0;
+    int flags = fcntl(fd, F_SETFD, flags | FD_CLOEXEC);
+    if (flags == -1) return false;
+    return true;
 }
 
 static int wopen_internal(const wcstring &pathname, int flags, mode_t mode, bool cloexec) {