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Headcanon Summary : Infernal biology dictates that, once a century, demons go through an involuntary cycle. Their powers weaken, they become emotional and impulsively generous, and get fiercely protective of random things. Their rank and powers in Hell dictate the scope of what may occur.
Beelzebub once spent five days volunteering at a care home in Kent and hosting piano sing-a-longs. They will discorporate anyone who mentions it....
Crowley's is due any day now...
This is what happens when I lie awake at 3am and can't sleep and the brain goes clickety. I had this headcanon and I really wanted to share it for the lols.
So, in my headcanon, demons get cycles. Not actual menstrual cycles like humans, but infernal cycles that affect their behaviour. Angels don't get them. This is all part of the infernal biology that happens when an angel falls and becomes a demon.
The exact date and time and planetary alignment of their fall plays into it. As they fall and the celestial grace and energy burns and transforms, it creates an imprint... at least that's the working theory since about the 13th century. No one actually fully knows for certain.
About once every century, for about a fortnight, every demon will become a little bit batty.
They get (more) crabby, needy, emotional, more impulsive, more prone to using their powers spontaneously- which is frustrating because their powers also weaken during that time. Interspersed, they have unusually generous/altruistic charitable/helpful urges, either directed to other demons or, to their retrospective shame, humans.
My theory for this is that this generosity/altruism is the potential goodness of humanity turned way the way up into demonic compulsion, and reflects the questioning and individuality that made them fall in the first place.
Beelzebub, for example, once spent a week of their fortnight volunteering at an assisted living home in Kent, and hosting rousing piano sing-a-longs in the evenings. Even now, no one dares remind them of it, for fear of instant discorporation. (They still keep in touch with Gladys.)
While volunteering at Pine View, Beelzebub first discovered cereal. Quite by accident. But if someone *will* carelessly leave open boxes around a nosy demon, what else were they supposed to do but investigate?
And so it was, while inhaling their third (entirely dry) bowl of Fruit and Fibre from the care home's kitchen supplies, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, Prince of the Infernal Pit, found themselves on the receiving end of stern admonishment by senior nurse, Helen. Gesticulating with a spoon, Beelzebub demanded an explanation for these "these addictive bitey bits" while enthusiastically brandishing a bran flake.
Crowley's altruism is...chaotic. His demonic nature already is sort of flimsy, so when his cycle hits, he can't stop himself being exorbitantly charitable. He once paid for a round the world cruise for a struggling waitress, because she kept making sure his coffee was topped up and had given him "the good kind of chocolate mints." Later, he tried to explain to a bemused Aziraphale that "she deserves nice things too," while weeping into a napkin.
They also crave things that (generally) aren't food and get fiercely protective of them. The rank and power of a demon is particularly reflected in this. Usually it is something entirely benign, but there was a time when a middle ranking demon got extremely protective of the Gold Coast, which caused an unprecedented heavy snowfall for the climate.
One cycle, Hastur got extremely protective and attached to a wooden spoon. He carried it everywhere in his top pocket and would set fire to anyone who dared ask about the spoon.
Crowley, meanwhile, during the spring of 1926, got extremely protective of a family of ducks on the Serpentine, feeding them by hand, camping out there and hissing at anyone who came close.