Dougie may have been a little on the slow side, but he wasn’t completely stupid, which was why he knew right away that Billy was lying when he insisted that his injuries were nothing. He wasn’t used to arguing with Billy, but he automatically opened his mouth to contradict him and caught himself just in time. Instead, he stewed nervously in silence and wrung his hands together, wanting to step forward and help Billy but figuring he’d probably do more harm than good.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Billy reassured him that nobody had done this to him. The only thing worse than the sight of Billy bruised and battered was the thought that it had been done at the hands of another man. It didn’t exactly put Dougie’s mind at rest though and he continued to gaze warily at his friend, wondering if he was about to collapse on the floor altogether.
He’d seen plenty of baseball injuries before, like when Andy had scored a ball to the eye and the area around it had swollen shut in a mottled purple lump, so big that Dougie had fretted for days until it calmed down and he could make sure that Andy’s eyeball was still even there. Todd had many a scrape from skidding to home base and letting the dirt off the field tear up his back, and Stanley had even taken a bat to the ribs once, but all of that paled in comparison to the state of Billy standing in front of him. Because Dougie could calmly treat baseball injuries, but he couldn’t fix Billy right now. It didn’t seem like there was enough gauze in the world for all the blood, and the way the other man held his arm hinted at an injury far more serious than a cut or a scrape. And that terrified Dougie.
“An accident? It… it doesn’t look little to me, Billy…” he murmured, chafing the skin between his thumb and forefinger agitatedly against his lips. It was a habit he’d developed whenever Daisy got into trouble with their dad and he was forced to stand outside their father’s office door while his sister got yelled at. Ever since, he’d resorted to it whenever someone else was in a spot of bother and he was too helpless to do anything about it.
As soon as Billy pushed himself upright and stumbled forward, Dougie moved towards him because he knew what was going to happen before it did. He wasn’t what anyone would call overly perceptive, but just like the way he could gauge the next move of a pitcher in the baseball diamond, he knew Billy was going to fall.
The man crashed into him and the noise that he made tore right through Dougie’s chest, hitting him square in the heart.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured, encircling Billy’s waist as lightly as he could to support him and allowing his friend to adjust himself accordingly so he wouldn’t hurt himself any further.
“Billy, what happened?” he pressed, because there was no way he could help the man if he didn’t know the cause of his injuries, or even the extent of them. Frowning, he pressed his nose against Billy’s ear, which he was sure might be the only uninjured part of his whole body. “Please let me drive you to hospital? I think you need to get checked out. Your arm, it… I think it might be broken.”
Contrary to popular belief, Billy believed Dougie Dunne to be far brighter than people ever gave him credit for. While the man in question wasn't necessarily the same level of intelligent that one might associate with some of Billy's other friends, such as Livvy, Katherine, or Nicole, he presented his own wisdom and his own talents in different ways. For one, he was an exceptionally talented baseball player – Billy hadn't ever been what you'd consider knowledgable as far as sports went, he could give or take them on the best of days, and he'd never made much of an effort to get involved in any kind of sporting teams. He'd coasted through perfectly fine at school, his days running track and hurtling around the gym long since passed, and had found no need for any form of athleticism throughout his career. He tried to maintain a reasonably healthy lifestyle and, on occasion, would join Fionn on one of his early morning jogs, but he'd never ventured so far as to take up any kind of sport – he was reasonably well acquainted with skates, much like the rest of his family appeared to be, but never to the extent that Riley, Joy, or Fionn might be. He could glide leisurely enough, just as he knew how to rev up the engine of his bike appropriately, but no – certainly not a sportsman.
Sports aside, Dougie also managed to give Billy a new outlook on life that he'd never considered before. With his crooked, yet equally handsome, smile, his coworker seemed to consistently enter situations with an uplifting and optimistic approach, no matter how dire the outcome might appear. He had brought such joy into Billy's life, showing him new ways to interpret and read a situation, that he often marvelled at the wonders of the man's brain. Not to mention, whenever the two found themselves deep in discussion, whether they were cosily settled on Billy's sofa doing a Harry Potter rewatch, or with their heads bent over Dougie's battered – a sure sign that it was dearly loved – copy of The Lightning Thief, his friend managed to give him new insight into the intricacies of each character that he loved so dearly, as well as drawing his attention to countless plot points that had gone amiss to himself.
While sports and fantasy series mightn't have held any relevance in his own current predicament, the concern on Dougie's face, and his wariness to approach and potentially hurt Billy even more, was just yet another sure sign that he saw, and understood, far more than other people realised. Though often clumsy, Dougie was approaching him now with a tenderness like nothing Billy had experienced from the other man before. In fact, if anyone was to blame for the pain searing through his arm now, it was Billy himself. Having stumbled and thrown himself at Dougie in a dizzy haze, he'd managed to land squarely against his chest, his injured arm furiously aching.
“It's... I just– It's my own idiot fault,” Billy muttered, wincing as he tried, to no avail, to adjust himself comfortably against the other man's frame. He merely let his head sag against his shoulder, Dougie supporting his weight as best he could. Pressing his face into Dougie's neck, he whimpered momentarily, before retreating ever so slightly. His heart gave a jolt as their close proximity dawned on him – his action seconds before one of yearning and desperation, it hitting him far too late that perhaps it might be misconstrued. He couldn't lead Dougie on, no matter the truth behind his own feelings. He caught a waft of Dougie's scent and swallowed the lump forming in his throat as he recalled that night – that same scent that had filled the air, and the taste of Dougie's lips against his own. He couldn't linger on that, though; not now, not ever.
He came to his senses, of course, when his friend once again asked him what happened, and a wave of nausea washed over him. He thought back to his recklessness just moments before; the way he'd let thoughts of Dougie and guilt about Julian cloud his judgement, resulting in an injury that could just as easily have been far worse. He was lucky, really, to have gotten away from the incident as well as he had – there'd been that brief flicker in the back of his mind, as he flown from the bike, where he wondered if he'd survive the impact at all. While there had once been a time where the thought of joining Julian had appealed to him, he'd long since put those thoughts to bed – in fact, he hadn't thought of hurting himself since he'd met the Dunne's.
“I, uh... I fell off my bike,” he finally admitted, shame bottling up inside of him.
He daren't tell Dougie the whole truth as to how he'd managed to be so careless – everybody that knew him understood how careful he was, and they all (wrongly) trusted him not to put himself in harm's way the way that he had.
As the pains in his arm grew sharper, he found his vision blurring once more, his knees wobbling beneath him as his body threatened to crash to the ground once more. Feeling weak and unable to hold his own weight, he slumped back against Dougie, and winced as he struggled to remain upright.
“I think– fuck, I... Dougie, I– help me,” his last words came out in nothing but a feeble whisper, his voice choked as tears filled his eyes. He stared desperately into the other man's eyes, feeling his cheeks grow damper as he completely lost any handle he might've had on his emotions.
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