They stood watching as the rain fell harder. The ark was obscured by sleet and the unpleasant scent of what happens when you have of two of every animal being herded along the same path mixed with six inches of mud. Crowley rather felt that he might be slithering his way home two feet or no. Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something just as the hippos tried to make a break for the impromptu and rapidly growing mudbath. Crowley's eyes snapped towards Aziraphale's unsettled face as the angel gave a halfhearted shrug and closed his mouth again, turning back to watch the boat. Crowley felt a long and very cold trickle of rain running down his spine and was suddenly furious.
"Right. Bugger this." he hissed and spun to start pushing through the soaked throng behind them.
Aziraphale turned ,"Oh. Er-" he started nervously.
"What." Crowley was cold, he was damp and thoroughly unimpressed with the general state of affairs. Which would have been a hard sell for anyone, let alone a snake.
"Oh, ah nothing, never mind." Aziraphale shifted uneasily.
"What is it?"
"I er, I thought you might want to watch is all?" the angel looked a little forlorn, rain dripped off his nose to join the mud creeping up his robes. "Disaster and destruction and ah, so on?" Crowley stared at him, appalled.
"Watch what? An omnipotent disaster in the making? Do you think demons stand around applauding plagues and famines? Can't bloody well tempt anybody if there's no one left to tempt!"
"Well I did tell you about China, and it does seem more in your wheelhou-"
"Don't." Crowley's face is far too close and Aziraphale could almost feel the flicker of his tongue tasting the air. "Don't assume that seeing a bunch of subsistence farmers drowning means I am going to sit back and applaud." his chin jerked skyward, "Up there. This is your sides doing Aziraphale, You watch it." he left the angel in rapidly rising mud and heading determinedly for the closest tavern with wine still above the counter.
Aziraphale stayed a while longer. Upstairs had been very firm about what had to happen. He had been quite looking forward to seeing what a "Rain-bow" would look like. But the number of people getting on the boat was not very large. And there was an awful lot of everyone else suddenly running round, picking up muddy ends of robes and pushing bogged carts. Several small children were starting to realise, in the way children do, that playing in the mud was a lot less fun when the grownups were less worried about the state of your clothes and in fact seemed to be a lot more worried in general.
"Well then" he said to himself, thinking that perhaps in a little while he might find somewhere with a little more cover, "I do hope this rain-bow" is worth it." A little way away, the local stream broke its banks.
Eight very wet and miserable hours later...
Aziraphale followed the rushing water towards a mud brick building, which just so happened to be the last tavern in town with wine above the counter. It was disappointingly empty and even without the two feet of water inside, the place was a mess. Jars broken, crusts of bread and cups abandoned on tables. It looked rather like someone had decided if they had to be drowned then come hell or (literal) high water, they would beat God to the punch by drowning themselves from the inside out first with whatever passed for wine around here. Aziraphale watched bemusedly as the last living creature in the building, intrepid young mouse who had fortuitously found a battered copper pot containing a handful of grains and a rind of cheese, bobbed out the window and into the street. He fought the strongest urge to wave, then turned and headed through the building to the rear courtyard.
The pot crested a wave and floated down the street, joining other stray cookware and furniture being pulled in the wake of the fleeing locals. Interesting day, thought the mouse, nibbling at her cheese rind. I wonder if this will reach the ocean? I've always wanted to see an octopus.
"Crowley? what are you doing?"
Crowley finished shoving a recalcitrant ewe onto a raft already packed with one young family, two goats, three other sheep and a very dissatisfied cat, and turned to glare at Aziraphale, "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Well," Aziraphale looked well and truly flustered, "It ah, it rather looks like your saving them."
"Oh is that what you think this is?" Crowley patted the sheep on the rear and slid off the raft. "Sorry to disappoint angel but as your side is so fixated on drowning the locals, I suppose my side thought there might be some of them worth keeping around."
Aziraphale looked at the four hastily packed ramshackle vessels bobbing beside the barn. Young eyes peeped out of tired faces. There were five or six, and in one case eight people clinging tightly to each raft or boat. Along with more goats and a bundled assortment of food and hay. One of the boats was already obviously leaking. The youngest passenger threw a cup of water overboard with an exhausted resignation while the older ones tied down baskets and gripped their mismatched oars. "These are mostly children Crowley."
"Yes well," Crowley looked over his shoulder and added a basket of fruit to the raft. "Got to get your money's worth. Younger they are now, the longer we can keep them in misery you know. Help them make some really bad decisions."
"I see..." a growl of thunder rolled overhead and Aziraphale shifted nervously, the leak in the boat stopped. "That rather goes against the current plan."
Crowley handed another basket of bread to the closest raft. "Oh on your side perhaps" he drawled.
Aziraphale looked very anxious "Do you really think" he hesitated, "Up there isn't going to notice another handful of boats bobbing merrily along?"
"Don't know what you're talking about angel. Everyone knows there's only one family of boat builders around here. Who else would possibly know what to do?"
"Oh well..." one of the goats tried to make a leap for the barn roof. Not very far now that the water was reaching Aziraphale's waist. The angel in question looked at the goat and it sat meekly down "Living longer you say?"
"Oh yes." Crowley's smile was wicked. "Long, long lives of disease and poverty and going hungry at night." They were both waist deep in water now, Crowley's waist was only really definable after a very large meal, otherwise it happened to be wherever he thought it should be at the time (an advantage of the reptilian inclined). Nonetheless the water was rising and Crowley was still passing up surprisingly dry bread and fruit from an empty waterlogged courtyard.
Aziraphale frowned and straitened his shoulders, within the stockpile of assorted foodstuffs on each vessel, a sudden batch of planting seed appeared. "I suppose this is funny for you."
"Funny?" Crowley laughed, a few discreet tools joined the pile. "Why its all in a days work."
"A days work?" Aziraphale gripped the raw wood of a raft as it threatened to drift away from the others and pushed it back towards the group. Varnished oars and a steering pole lay neatly beside fishing line and hooks.
"Oh I don't know Angel." Crowley patted what now appeared to be a surprisingly well made raft and nodded for the woman in charge of the families to start directing them to paddle in the direction of the local stream which was now realising its ambition of being a river. "Thwarting of divine punishment seems pretty standard for a demon to me."
The Further Adventures of Mouse (two weeks later after eating its body weight six times over in a very nice aged cheese rind)
The mouse nuzzled warmly into the last of the wax rind and burped.
AHEM.
Oh hello, the mouse peered over the edge of the pot at the hooded figure. Is this the ocean?
I AM AFRAID NOT.
Ah, thought I might make it but it was a very wet. Couldn't see a thing.
The hooded figure looked over the murky expanse of water stretching from horizon to horizon. I QUITE UNDERSTAND
Did you ever seen an octopus?
I AM DEATH FOR EVERY LIVING THING. I WILL SEE THEM ALL.
What are they like?
Death paused, as only a skeletal figure can when faced with trying to explain a creature with no bones "...CARTILAGEOUS"