This was originally written before Chapter 8, but at the time I hated it. I took a fresh look at it and it's not awful so I'm giving it to you guys. It's really short and bare-bones but there's something of an idea here.
Dipper knew the rules- he practically had them ingrained into his brain from how many times he repeated them to himself. Handling demons was incredibly dangerous business and one wrong move will not just get himself killed, but also anyone unlucky enough to get caught in the aftermath.
Do not trust it. Do not turn your back on it. Do not believe it. And, most importantly, do not make a deal with it.
Break even a single rule and he had only himself to blame for the results. So, the instant he returned to the waking world, struggling against the thick layers of demonic magic, Dipper was filled with instant self-loathing. He had broken every single rule in the book except for making a deal.
Bill Cipher may have been extraordinarily charming, sly, and disarming, but Dipper wasn't that much of an idiot. Or maybe he was because the demon was gone from his trap.
With mounting horror, Dipper jumped to his feet to examine the devil's trap with a critical eye. He mentally begged every deity he knew of for it to be a trick- that the dream demon was simply altering his perception in hopes of him being stupid enough to break the circle, but no, Bill was simply gone.
It should be impossible. Dipper was incredibly thorough when he had drawn the circle and even now he could see no flaw in the design (though it was now charred into the cement floor). Any attempt to break it from the inside should have destroyed the demon trapped within but there was no sign that Bill had even been singed by the circle's destruction.
There was no way Bill could be that strong, right? This was all supposed to be a routine exorcism; some amateur cultists had summoned a demon to possess the idol they had been worshiping. The cultists had been rounded up by a branch of the FBI (though not before they had sacrificed nearly the entire population of a small town), and a call had been put out to remove the demon before it caused any more trouble.
This was hardly Dipper's first assignment but he had made so many rookie mistakes. Despite the scale of devastation, he had assumed that Bill was a minor demon who could pull a few clever tricks (mistake number 1). Then he had let his curiosity get the better of him; he had never seen a demon like Bill before, so instead of banishing it the moment it had stepped into his trap he had talked to it (mistake number 2).
Dipper didn't think there could be any harm in taking a minute to examine the demon once he had trapped it, but now he was sure he had played right into Bill's hand. Due to the nature of the contract it had made with the would-be cultist, Bill had been trapped inside the Idol until the terms of their deal had been met. To sever the old contract and to allow him to properly banish the demon, Dipper had to summon it into his trap as was standard procedure.
Any time he had done it before, he had been cursed and raged at by the demon, but Bill….
"Thanks kid, it was starting to get a bit cramped in there!"
Dipper felt sick.
Without a contract, Bill would not be able to stay on this plane of existence for long, but considering that it broke free from the trap unaided there was no telling the level of destruction it could manage in that time. This was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
Dipper was going to need help.
(Ford would be so disappointed.)
