Well, That Was A Thing (Good Omens One-Shots)

49; The Nightmare Who Dreams

Context: I recently rewatched Rise Of The Guardians and remembered some very cute fanart by decalian1 on twitter, of Crowley and Aziraphale as Pitch Black and The Sandman.

In this AU, they work like The Tooth Fairy does in the movie: They have millions of little helpers. (God's The Sandman, AKA: Sandy, Satan's The Boogeyman, AKA: Pitch) They give all their subordinates a list of kids they have to give dreams / nightmares to every night. Each region has an appointed dream weaver and nightmare bringer. For Tadfield, Crowley had been the local nightmare bringer for about 11 years. He had dealt with Gabriel, the local dream weaver, for most of that time.

Crowley had always enjoyed his job, but never as much as his coworkers and boss seemed to. Frankly, he thought they were insane. He would usually start late and wait for the local dream weaver to show up to undo his nightmare. Nothing to it. Night in and night out. But his routine was about to change. It seemed like The Sandman had a new dream weaver working in the area. And this one looked much more interesting than the last one.

Word Count: 5,400

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Crowley's POV:

Crowley had never considered himself pure evil like his boss and colleagues. Not really. But as a nightmare bringer, he never truly had a choice in the matter. And unlike his coworkers, he actually liked humans. He thought they were very clever and creative.

No one else he interacted with in The Boogeyman's lair seemed to care about all the amazing things humans could do. They saw no point in it. They were all created to give people bad dreams and that was that. Despite not fitting in quite as well as the other nightmare bringers, Crowley was good at it. Even when his heart wasn't in it. Like today, for example.

Crowley hadn't felt too motivated when it came to his nightmares tonight. He knew they were quite bland, but so long as the child felt fear, it filled his quota. He always made a point to slink off to the next child before the local dream weaver showed up. But this time, the bright little bugger snuck up on him. Well, a bright little bugger snuck up on him. His face looked sweet, he had curly hair and a simple halo atop his head.

This wasn't the usual pain in the ass who would start attacking him on sight. The usual one was taller, with slick hair and an arrogant face. Even his halo looked like a jerk! This tinier fella was new and seemingly less violent, since he hadn't immediately started throwing sand arrows at him. Instead, he made an angry, pouting face and pointed at the window, as if kicking out the nightmare bringer.

Crowley chuckled. "Not very intimating, are you?"

The Sandman's little helper glared at him for that comment and created a tsunami of magical sand, which effectively evicted Crowley from the home. The dream weaver then made the point to slam the window shut. Crowley looked back to see the shorter being snap his fingers to undo the nightmare the child was having. It went from an ugly, roaring, kraken, to a friendly octopus who was waving four out of its eight tentacles. The darker being had to admit, it was a rather cute octopus.

Crowley shook his head at the thought and moved on to the next house. "Better get a head-start before this new guy catches up..."

~~~~~

After a month of dealing with this new dream weaver, Crowley learned a few things. Firstly: He was very clever, getting the drop on him several times, much more than the previous one had. Secondly: He very much was a threat, showing how powerful he could be on multiple occasions, but showing restraint at the same time. Thirdly: He appeared to have a sense of humor, seemingly giggling every time he snuck up on Crowley. So overall, not as annoying as his previous adversary, but no walk in the park. He could live with that. At the very least, this one made work more interesting.