It had not been his classiest stunt, certainly, but there was only so much havoc Crowley could wreak when he couldn't directly interfere with humans, on pain of death. If only it hadn't backfired so horrendously — that stench would be etched into his nostrils for the next month. His current misdeed was not much more sophisticated, but again, there was only so much he could do in these circumstances.
Not long after Cain was banished into the wilderness some thousand years ago, petty theft introduced itself to the world. Greed was a disease soon born out of jealousy and resentment, the vices that had gotten that first convict into so much trouble. Crowley had taken it upon himself, as part of his demonic duty, to encourage stealing wherever he could: there wasn't much that got humans more riled up than realizing someone had snatched their favorite stuff.
He assumed that even Earth's most pious family would not be immune to the rage and false accusations that thievery tended to bring about.
Thus Crowley found himself in the quarters of one of Noah's sons — he wasn't sure which one, but whoever it was, he and his wife were both snorers — trying not to make any noise as he rooted around in a large chest.
He needed something worth taking…Aha! Nestled in among the extra robes and tunics, his fingers grasped the smooth, slender stem of a wooden flute.
So this was the music maker whose songs Crowley often heard as he lay listlessly in his stuffy little room. He felt a pang of regret with the knowledge that, if he took this thing, that scrap of entertainment among hours of monotony would be lost. Perhaps he should find something else to — wait! what was that?
One of the children, piled together in a heap of blankets on the floor near their parents' bed, was stirring. Flute in hand, Crowley slithered from the room.
He followed the narrow corridor until it led him to another son's quarters. In he slipped to deposit his plunder — he did not tarry, opening this room's chest and shoving the flute down among the clothes within, then quickly making his exit.
As he stepped out of the room, however, the floor beneath him rolled: the ark must have hit a particularly big wave. He stumbled, landing on the ground with a thud.
"Ham! Did you hear that?"
"Mphm," a groan and a yawn, "it was just the waves, dear."
"No I…I think something's out there. Go check."
"What could possibly be out there? We're on an ark."
"Full of wild animals, Ham." A commanding tone. "Go check."
"Is there a aminal out there, Daddy?" a child's fearful voice asked.
"No, Canaan. Go back to sleep." A flame was struck, light flaring into the corridor. Crowley scrambled to his feet.
Footsteps — no time to flee, the corridor was too long…
"Now how did you get out of your cage?"
A sturdy man with a graying beard bent down to scoop up the snake that was attempting to slither away. Crowley hissed in frustration.
"Ham," called the voice from within the room, "what's out there?"
"Just a snake," he called back, "one of the harmless kinds, I think. I'm taking it back to its cage; you go back to sleep, dear.
"Stop that squirming now," Ham said calmly, stepping back into his room to grab a cloth bag from a hook; he dropped the indignant demon inside and pulled the drawstring tight.
Hissing furiously, Crowley writhed inside the confines of the bag. Who did this human think he was? "None of that now," the man said, "I'm just trying to return you to your mate."
Ham walked in silence for a while, heading to wherever the snakes were kept, Crowley assumed. It was dark inside the bag, though he could make out the glow of the human's flame through the fabric. Nice going, Crowley, he thought crossly to himself. You've gotten yourself in a real pickle, haven't you.
"Not sure why God wanted us to save you anyway," Ham remarked thoughtfully, his voice coming muffled to the slits of Crowley's serpentine ears through the sack. "Your kind caused quite a lot of misfortune for some of my ancestors, so I'm told."
If snakes could roll their eyes, Crowley would have. It wasn't as if humans didn't get into plenty of mischief on their own — but no, of course, blame the creature with no arms for all the suffering of the world.
"But I guess," the human was continuing, "you shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of snakes past, right? I mean, I wouldn't want someone to blame me for the stunts my ancestors have pulled. May-God-grant-their-bones-rest," he added hurriedly.
At least this human seemed wiser than most, Crowley thought. But that didn't make this predicament any better — how was he going to get out of it? When Ham reached the snake's cages, he would see that each species was already paired up, not a single serpent missing. And what would he do then?
Time for some infernal intervention.
"Pssssssssst," Crowley hissed from within the sack, "human."
There was the uncomfortable swoop in his midriff of being dropped, the thud of hitting the floor.
Ham picked the bag back up. "Did you just…"
"Yessss," Crowley said, fighting to keep the annoyance from his voice. "I can talk. And I like what you were ssssaying, about me not meriting the blame for my ancessstor."
"But if you can talk…" Ham said slowly, his lips close to the bag, "how do I know you're any better than that snake was?"
"Only one way to find out," Crowley suggested. Silence from outside the fabric. "You have to open the bag," he prompted.
"Only if you promise not to do anything evil," the human said.
"I promisssse."
Fumbling fingers loosened the drawstring. Foolish human. Crowley stuck his head out the opening and breathed in gratefully.
"Much better," he said. "Now," he looked straight into the human's eyes, summoning his demonic power, "you will put me down. You will return to your wife, and go to ssssleep, and in the morning, you will have forgotten all of thissss."
Obediently, Ham lowered the bag to the floor, and Crowley slithered out. "G'night," the human offered sleepily, and started his walk back to bed.
A flash of guilt flared up in Crowley's stomach — this human had been kind to him, all things considered; it was a pity that he'd soon be framed for theft…ah well, a job was a job. Now if some duke of Hell barged in demanding a report, Crowley could say he'd made an effort, at least.
And now it was time for the demon to return to bed as well. He glided along the corridor, keeping his currently-non-existent fingers crossed that he wouldn't run into any more humans on his way.
The next day crawled by with all the speed of those strange creatures with the moss on their backs — sloths, Aziraphale had called them ("look, Crawly, you and these lazy critters would get along splendidly!").
Crowley turned his head to eye the tallies he'd carved into the wall beside the bed. Thirty days now — a full month. How much longer could this rain go on?
His keen ears picked up approaching footsteps and he sat up eagerly.
"Ach, keeping those humans civil is getting more and more difficult," Aziraphale complained as soon as he entered, sinking into his usual seat. He offered Crowley a sharp glance. "Are you sure you're keeping your infernal aura as clamped down as you can?"
Crowley nodded vigorously — not that he was actually doing anything to reduce his aura, but if the angel couldn't tell, he wasn't about to admit that. "They're humans, Aziraphale, they're going to bicker all on their own," Crowley said. "Especially in such close quarters."
"Yes, yes, I suppose you're right," Aziraphale sighed, massaging his temples. "Still, these are meant to be the cream of the crop…and now Shem is running around claiming there's a thief on board," he said despairingly. "I told them, 'listen, trying to wipe out all the bad humans just isn't going to work, even the good ones find ways to get into trouble,' but do they listen to a principality like me? of course no—" The angel seemed to realize what he was saying, and the interest on the face of the demon listening, and stiffened. "Why am I even talking to you, serpent?"
And Aziraphale was back to calling him "serpent," wonderful — he'd been doing so well, too. Crowley did his best to keep his tone light when he replied, hoping to calm Aziraphale down. "Because you're bored, I'm bored, and," he ticked off on his fingers, "we're both stuck on a boat that reeks of animal shit, trying our best not to think of how the entire damned world is drowning outside." So much for light.
"I would thank you," the angel said icily, "to keep expletives out of the conversation." He mulled over what the demon had said. "And what do you care that the world is flooded? You should be gleeful, thinking of all the suffering going on out there, and how many souls have been sent straight down to…your place."
Crowley attempted a laugh, but it came out weak and humorless. "Yeah, it's a real victory," he said bitterly. He turned his head towards the wall, letting his long hair fall in a curtain between him and his counterpart. Ssstupid angel. He knows nothing of what I feel.
Aziraphale was silent a moment. The drumming of the rain filled the room — was it louder than usual? Surely the storm couldn't be picking up, when it was already so fierce? "I must say, Crawly, I simply do not understand you —"
"Well maybe it would help," Crowley snapped, "if you would call me by the right bloody name."
"I — what?"
"It's Crowley, Aziraphale." He continued to glare at his tallies on the wall, not looking at the angel. "Not Crawly, it hasn't been Crawly since the garden. Crowley. I've only told you a hundred times."
"Crowley," Aziraphale said, turning the name over in his mouth. "Hmm. You know, that really does suit you."
The demon turned back to face his counterpart, surprised. "I'm glad you think so."
"Well, Crowley," Aziraphale said carefully. "I was thinking over your earlier request, that I teach you to read. I suppose as long as we're stuck in here, there would be no harm in it…What do you say we start tonight?"
Crowley allowed a smile to break over his face. "That would be great, angel," he said, and he meant it.
Author's Note:
I've been meaning to include a note explaining a couple things about my writing choices for this fic. To begin with, you might notice that some of the phrases use in here, especially by Crowley, are a little too modern to have fit into the days of Noah's Ark. (In this chapter, for instance, he even uses "in a pickle.") However, since I don't know many of the idioms of that age and I'm writing in English, not ancient Hebrew or whatever language was supposed to be spoken pre-Babel, I figure it makes more sense to just use our modern lingo. I give Crowley more casual language, while Aziraphale tends to speak more formally.
And with the mention of pre-Babel: keeping this fic "historically accurate" is quite a struggle since I am writing about one of the mythical tales of early Genesis and because Good Omens follows the Biblical timeline (that earth is only 6000 years old or so, rather than a good 4.5 billion years). When I mention the writing on the tablets, for instance, and Crowley notes that writing was invented in Sumer: in "real" history, cuneiform was invented as far back as 8000 BC, but according to the Bible and Good Omens 8000 BC doesn't even exist. And the mighty flood of Noah's Ark, as far as scholars can judge it, would have occurred around 2500 BC. So keeping things "accurate" is a challenge - in the spirit of Good Omens and given the content of this work, I'm mainly following what the Bible's timeline says even when inserting historical facts about writing and the like. (The fact that Sumerian tablets are on a Hebrew ark is, biblically, unlikely, since the stories of Genesis were passed on orally for ages before they were written down. But since we've got a bibliophilic and well-traveled angel on board, I thought the tablets would make sense.)
On wiki I found some cool stuff about dates; based on the biblical timeline, the great flood occurred some 1300 years after Eden. So at the point of this fic we can say Az and Crow have been on Earth for a little over one millennium. Also note that according to Genesis, Noah is 600 years old at this point; he had his sons when he was around 500, so Ham in this chapter is probably 100. I guess he's in pretty great shape for a 100-year-old.
What I'm trying to say with all of this rambling is that if you're looking for a fic with perfect historical or biblical authenticity, this isn't it. But I hope you're enjoying the story anyhow.