SarahTheCoat

Bonding Rituals - rated T, ~1500 words

At a loose end on his favourite holiday, Crowley coaxes Muriel into observing a Human festivity. Hijinks and bonding ensue.

“Ah, c’mon. Favourite holiday, Halloween, you’ll love it. Get to dress up, pretend to be someone else, try all sorts of Human things.”

“Why should I wish to pretend to be someone else?”

Crowley had to remind himself that Muriel’s questions were sincere. His ang – Aziraphale would have asked that in a tart tone, challenging Crowley to come up with a valid answer.

God, he missed that.

“Pretendin’ to be someone else first time we saw you, weren’t you? I am a human police officer. All I could do not to laugh my head off.”

“It is considered entertaining, then?”

Muriel also had no ego to bruise. Crowley missed that, too.

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i’m never going to claim to be an expert on good omens characterization (came to the fandom slightly late, never read the book), but maybe the most confusing-yet-popular headcanon to me is the idea that crowley would continue to do random acts of evil ~for fun~ after the non-apocalypse.

like. i get that old habits die hard! and he’s a demon! but the evilness associated with his demon status doesn’t seem to be something that comes easily to him. it doesn’t even seem to be something he particularly enjoys! it’s just his shitty day job where he gets by on the bare minimum and takes credit for things humans are already doing. are you gonna keep doing your shitty day job after you won the ultimate lottery and broke free and never have to report to your old boss again???? 

the first time we see him in the show, he’s worried that he might have done the right thing. when he witnesses extreme suffering, he’s disturbed and sympathetic. and then over and over, he leans toward empathy and kindness when he can get away with it. it was his idea to save the world, of course.

so while i understand the appeal of mischievous crowley (and i totally agree that he’d have a flair for poetic justice), my favorite headcanon is that after everything is over, he’s finally free to actively do good things without needing to make excuses for them. maybe not in a drastic way, not at first. he eases into it. eases into helping. making people’s days a tiny bit brighter. and aziraphale notices, but he doesn’t call attention to it now, staying quietly proud. and crowley seems so much happier, so much lighter on his feet, than ever before. eventually, he finally feels safe spreading all the joy boldly and with purpose. 

i’m sure i’m not the only person with this headcanon, but i’m seeing the former pretty often, and i have too much of a sunshine brain to want anything other than the coziest future for the husbands. 

I feel like Crowley has always been a little bit torn between his inner prankster/troll and his desire to be good.

Like, he wants to save the world so he can continue going to concerts and drinking wine and all that. But he’s also really proud of his M25 job, or that whole elaborate thing he did with the phone network. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he’s honestly good at that, even if Hell doesn’t see it.

So I think for a while he would keep doing them, because he has no other way of channeling his really quite clever brain, and also for the lulz (a phrase he either invented or took credit for). But, as I said, he doesn’t want to hurt people, and anyway he doesn’t want Hell to get the benefit of the low-grade evil he creates.

So I think when he finally starts looking for ways to help people, it’s his way of scratching that itch. And he doesn’t do it on an individual level because he always thought that was pointless, what are you going to do, help someone for like three seconds and think that does anything? Also Aziraphale would totally notice.

Instead, he looks at stuff like “how can I make London’s bus system like 17% more efficient?” And he’ll spend months planning it and making tiny changes and sneaking out in his f**k s**t up jacket while Aziraphale wonders what he might be getting up to. And in the end, it works - and a little evil is taken out of the world.

And slowly, over time, he makes people’s lives better by making the city a little bit better bit by bit. But always with the plausible deniability of “I was bored” or “I’m just messing with Hell” so he can explain it away when Aziraphale notices (as he inevitably does).

Until one day he finds he’s planning these sorts of reverse-capers just for the joy of it, and he’s actually taking pleasure from the smiles he sees on the street, knowing these people are a little happier because of him, no denial, just accepting who he is.

But also still occasionally gluing rare coins to the sidewalk and watching from a nearby cafe, because that s**t is hilarious.

There are plenty of ways to do mischievous pranks where the prank is ultimately a force for good. Some big inner city disruption that ends up being a protest for climate change action that makes the news, changing the design of a road–just like the M25 job–but the symbol is now an ancient symbol meaning freedom, ensuring that government documents revealing some internal nastiness are accidentally mass emailed to the media. He isn’t evil. But he is chaotic. He stands for knowledge and freedom and has done since the beginning and that can be good too. So, I guess he finds his way to becoming more clearly chaotic good?

And little mischievous pranks like his favourite gluing coins to the pavement thing aren’t good or evil. They are just funny. He can go right on doing them.

can we talk about how whenever sherlock pulls pranks on john it’s bc he is emotionally constipated and can’t talk about his real feelings so he uses humor or pranks in a serious situation bc hes more familiar with ppl getting mad/annoyed with him as a reaction and he’d rather have that than an outright rejection of him being genuine and vulnerable

actually. lets NOT TALK ABOUT THAT

YES let's not!

However, true. :(