Reformed

Chapter Four

 Dipper awkwardly stood outside the bathroom door where Bill was kept. It was covered in complicated locks that Ford had explained to Dipper on how to undo. It took him a moment to unlock them all, but he managed.

The brunette glanced back at his sister who gave him two thumbs up. They had agreed that if they were going to take this responsibility, that Mabel would feed Bill in the morning before school and Dipper would feed him in the evening. That meant that Dipper would be the one to go feed him now.

He held a paper plate that had leftovers from that night's dinner and a plastic cup of water on it. He took a deep breath. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was horribly anxious. He had his new pocket knife in his jacket pocket, that was a birthday gift from Grunkle Stan, so if Bill tried anything, he at least had a weapon to defend himself with. Plus, Mabel would just outside the door and ready to leap to Dipper's rescue.

The brunette hesitantly opened the door, entered the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

Dipper was surprised at just how small and barren the room was. There was one light on the ceiling, an old toilet, and an extremely plain and old sink. There wasn't even mirror.

Bill sat in the corner with his legs pulled up to his chest and face buried in his knees. He hadn't even bothered to look up at Dipper. The brunette took a good long look at the handcuffs that Bill were in. They looked uncomfortably tight around Bill's scrawny wrists, but for Dipper, it made him feel safe.

After an awkward moment of Dipper just standing there, staring at Bill, the blonde glanced up at him. As soon as he realized that it was Dipper, and not Stanford, his head arose completely. He stared at Dipper with his one wide, bright blue eye.

Dipper saw the bruise on his face from where Wendy had punched him. Dipper could've sworn that he had a few new ones, too, but he didn't think much of it. He did notice that Bill looked tired, kind of sick, even, and just generally miserable. It was odd to see his enemy in such a state, but the vengeful side in Dipper felt pleased to see him like that.

"Pine Tree?" he muttered in a quiet voice. Dipper winced at the nickname. Bill seemed surprised to see him, but his shock quickly turned to annoyance. "What do you want?"

"I brought you something to eat," Dipper plainly told him. He sat the plate and cup on the ground in front of him. "Mabel will feed you in the mornings, and I'll feed you at night."

Bill just continued to stare at Dipper. The brunette couldn't really make out what he was thinking, but he looked... confused. Dipper shrugged it off.

"Well, uh," he murmured. "See you tomorrow?"

Bill gave no reply and just looked away.

Dipper rolled his eyes and left the room. As he closed the door behind him, he relocked all the locks.

"How did it go?" Mabel eagerly asked.

"Fine, I guess?" Dipper said with an unsure expression. "I think he was surprised to see me and not Grunkle Ford, but I think he stopped caring pretty fast."

"Did he eat?" she questioned, tilting her head.

"He didn't even look at the food," Dipper mumbled and put his hands in the pockets of his navy-blue jacket.

"I bet he just didn't want to eat in front of you," Mabel pointed out. "He probably just doesn't want to appear dependent on us. He probably thinks it makes him look weak, and Bill Cipher would never want that."

Dipper snickered. "Yeah, you're probably right."

The twins started to head back upstairs.

"Hey, Dipper?" Mabel suddenly asked.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking about this whole Bill situation and I kind of came up with an idea!"

Dipper raised an eyebrow at his sister. "What is it?"

"Well, Bill's kind of vulnerable now, right?"

Dipper nodded in agreement, which made Mabel continue. "So, what if we used that to our advantage? Like, it's kind of manipulative, but I think it might work!"

"You're losing me," Dipper told her.

She exhaled. "What if we tried to get Bill to empathize with us and realize how much of a big jerk he was?"

Dipper stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Mabel. She stared back, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Mabel, you're kidding." He scoffed when she didn't reply. "He's Bill Cipher!"

"Yeah, I get that!" Mabel said with a roll of her eyes. "But it's kinda different now, you know? I mean... didn't you see how freaked out he was back in the gift shop, or how much he was screaming after Tad ripped out his eye? That doesn't seem too Bill Cipher-y to me!"

Dipper rubbed the bridge of his nose with annoyance. "Well, I'm sure he's a bit more sensitive now that he's human, but-"

"Well, that's what I'm saying!" she eagerly exclaimed, interrupting her brother. "He's more sensitive now, so maybe he'd be more sensitive towards our feelings. Maybe if we're nice to him enough, he'll start to feel bad about all the awful things he did to us!"

"So, you just want an apology out of him?"

"No- well, an apology would be nice, but I was thinking that having Bill as a friend is better than having him as an enemy."

Dipper opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't find an argument. "I... I guess that's true. He's really smart and knows about a lot of things that we don't know, so he might have some really interesting information he could tell us if he was on our side."

"See? That's what I'm saying!" Mabel excitedly said. "We could learn a lot from him if he was our friend, so let's try to make friends with him!"

"I mean, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try," Dipper reluctantly murmured. "But just don't get your hopes too high, Mabel. At the end of the day, he's still a bad person and I'm not sure he's going to have a change of heart just because you're nice to him. You might get hurt, too. He's really manipulative and he might catch onto what you're doing and stab you in the back."

"I'll be fine! I can tell when a jerk is lying to me or not," Mabel replied with pride, putting her hands on her hips. "You'll give it a shot too, right?"

Dipper paused and looked away from her. He sighed as he began to trudge back up to the gift shop.

"Maybe."