You hated him from the moment you met.

Arrogant. Cruel. Manipulative. Even in human form, Bill Cipher had lost none of his sharp edges. He talked down to everyone, smirked like the world owed him something, and treated you like a piece on a chessboard.

But you weren’t the kind of person to be played.

Then he started to slip.

You found him shivering behind the Mystery Shack one evening, teeth clenched against the cold. Another time, he nearly fainted from hunger—he hadn’t quite grasped that a human body needed food regularly. And once, you caught him asleep on a book, muttering something under his breath that almost sounded like… fear.

You should’ve walked away. Instead, you left a jacket near him. Brought him food you “just happened to have.” Sat beside him in silence when he wouldn’t admit he was hurting.

He stayed infuriating. But his usual jabs lost their venom. His smirks turned awkward, unsure. And his eyes, once piercing and smug, now held something else when they landed on you.

Something unspoken.

You didn’t know when the line blurred. When your arguments started to sound more like flirting. When your hands brushed too often to be accidental. When he leaned in, just close enough.

And then, tonight—under the flicker of a dying lamp—you reached up, gently brushing a cut on his cheek.

He flinched. But didn’t move away.

His voice, barely above a whisper, cracked for the first time.

—“Stop doing that…” His golden eyes met yours. “…Stop making me feel things I don’t understand.”