The Witch in the Woods (Bill Cipher x reader)

Chapter 22

You wake up to the sound of someone hissing under their breath. The sun is piercing through your eyelids and you find it too much effort to open them. You bring your forearm over your eyes and groan. "Bill?" You roll over, reaching blindly towards the other side of the bed. You meet with something warm, covered in blankets. You force your eyes open and pull your arm away.

Bill is laying down beside you, but his face is scrunched in pain. You scan the part of his body you can see and internally wince at the burning, bright red skin that covers his shoulders. He turns his head towards you only to grit his teeth as you imagine the flames crawling across his skin. With this knowledge in mind, you wake up much quicker and sit up.

The urge to care for him, much the same way you did when he showed up in your garden, hits you first, but you don't rush yourself into it. "This is exactly why I told you to wear sunscreen. 'Can't get burnt by the sun'? Please." You get up and stretch, looking at him as he continues to watch your movements. "You're not gonna leave me like this, are you?" Bill bats his eyelashes at you and pouts. You give him an indignant look at the blatant attempt of persuasion then shrug. "Well, the garden does need to be tended to, and I need to make breakfast, plus there's some potions I need to finish up. Laundry might be a good thing to do too....." Bill looks more and more concerned as you list off the items. You laugh.

"No Bill, I'm not gonna leave you like this. I'm just going to gather some stuff so we can take care of the sunburn. In the meanwhile, take the time to think of why you should listen to me next time." You leave him to suffer in your bedroom while you go to your potions room and gather the necessary items. Sunburns aren't nearly as severe as actual burns since it's more about the skin peeling off than anything else. You decide to grab a topical ointment to help soothe the pain and irritation.

"(Y/N)!" You hear Bill yell from the bedroom with mild panic in his voice. You nearly trip over yourself as you rush back in with ointment in hand. "What?! What is it?" You take a quick glance around to see if something visible happened but you don't see signs of anything noteworthy. You look at Bill who has now sat up in bed with a look of horror on his face. "My body is dying. Look!" He makes a show of taking his hand to his shoulder and slowly peeling back the dead skin from the sunburn. He takes off a decent sized chunk then looks at you with a panicked expression.

Immediately you relax and groan in exasperation. "Oh my god Bill, don't scare me like that! I thought you were in trouble or something." You run a hand down your face and walk over to him, sitting in bed so you can explain what's actually happening. "You're not dying. The sun burn is just killing your skin cells so what you just pulled off is dead skin." This, however, doesn't seem to relieve him. "My skin is dying?!" In retrospect, you probably should have used a different terminology.

You sigh and gesture for him to come sit next to you. He does so with mild hesitance and a twinge of pain on his face. You gently take his hand and run your thumb across the back of it. "This is nothing to be scared of, Bill. Your skin is dying because you were in the sun too long, that's all. It happens to us all the time. It's mainly on your shoulders because that was the part of you that was in the sun the most while the rest of your body was underwater." Despite your clear explanation, he huffs and a tinge of pink inflames his cheeks as he looks away. "I wasn't scared." Honestly, this demon is going to take years off your life at this rate.

"Whatever Bill. Just sit still so I can put this on. It's gonna be cold and probably sting, but it will take the pain away. Sunburns usually take a handful of days to heal. Maybe next time it'll convince you to put on sunscreen." Bill continues to pout as you let go of his hand to begin applying your remedy. It only takes a few minutes to rub it into his bright red skin as he continually flinches away from your touch. "It stings!"