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It has been said by those who ought to know that demons' wings are just like angels' wings, but usually better groomed.
It has not been explained that this is because demons' wings don't actually work*.
* That is to say, they technically do work. But you can only fly...down, and at increasing rates of speed.
"So this is the start of it, then?" Crawley asked, pulling the hood tighter around his face as the wind and rain both picked up.
"Yes -- the waters should rise quite fast," Aziraphale answered.
"No use giving anyone time to run," Crawley said, in a voice that was...dangerous.
"I suppose not. Best to make it quick?" Aziraphale ventured. The longer this conversation about mass near-extinction of the humans went on, the less he felt like he was on solid theological ground. The floodwaters of Crawley's outrage were rising as fast as the literal ones.
"Well, our side would favor drawing it out, but then this wasn't our idea," Crawley replied. "Nothing to be done about it now, though."
"I suppose not. I'm off, then."
"To where, exactly?"
"Oh, it'll be quite a reunion. Every angel in the region is going to go sit on the ark and watch the waters rise, make sure all the animals inside stay calm, et cet."
"Very metaphorical, all those angels ringing the ship." Crawley nodded.
"What about yourself? Off for a vacation in China somewhere?"
"Bit late for that now," Crawley remarked. "Might go find that missing unicorn and wait for discorporation."
"Discorporation!" Aziraphale looked at him, shocked. "Why?"
"No time to run, and...."
Crawley held up his hands, palms facing inward and thumbs hooked together. He flapped his fingers in the imitation of wings, then let them flop outward, dead and limp.
"Oh. Oh dear. Oh my dear," Aziraphale said, eyes widening. "That's no way to discorporate, drowning."
"Tell that to them," Crawley said, waving a hand at the humans around them.
Aziraphale's eyes went distant, thoughtful. "But there'll be so much paperwork," he murmured. "And you mightn't come back in as nice a body, and that one's got ages of use in it yet. What a waste."
"Yeah, but I like waste. And I haven't been back to the old home in a while," Crawley said. "I'll have to hang out with Hastur, who's a prat, but it won't be forever."
Aziraphale had been rather worrying about only having angels to talk to on the ark. He hadn't seen Gabriel in ages and didn't have wonderful memories of the archangel, but surely that was just the passage of time. They'd have plenty of time to renew acquaintance, forty days and forty nights at least.
Lord. Forty days and forty nights with Gabriel.
He pressed his lips together. He really shouldn't. Crawley was a demon. Ridding the Earth of evil was what the flood was for.
"Right, fine," he said, and Crawley gave him a puzzled frown. "You'll come with me. I can carry us both."
"Catch me hanging round a lot of angels!" Crawley hooted.
"Well, it's better than discorporation with the unicorns. And I'll be there. We can play quoits!"
"You know I'm not musical."
"It's a game. You'll love it. Come on, Crawley, don't discorporate out of spite."
"Very demonic thing to do, discorporating out of spite," Crawley said. "And anyway, you can't carry me."
"I can! You're practically a twig," Aziraphale said.
"Got the weight of all my sins on my head," Crawley objected.
"Pshaw," Aziraphale said, managing to make it sound like a swear word. "Go on, snake up and I'll smuggle you on board."
"Snake up?"
"Do, yes."
Crawley was about to object, but there was something both stubborn and pleading in the angel's face. And discorporation was a pain. Besides, smuggling himself onto a holy ship bound for redemption was just the sort of thing a demon really ought to do.
It might even be like being back in the garden.
"Fine, but I'm doing so under duress," Crawley told him. He wrapped an arm around Aziraphale's shoulders and leaned his whole weight on the angel's body. As he changed, he slithered up around Aziraphale's neck until his scaly head rested on Aziraphale's shoulder. Aziraphale wrapped the rest of him around his torso like a sash.
"Don't look down!" he said cheerfully, and with a sharp snap of his wings leapt into the air.
Through the rain they could see other angels converging on the ark, which was beginning to sway as the dirt under it turned to mud. The wind blew them all about like bits of fluff, but they made progress, and soon some were landing on the railings and the roof, perching like enormous storks. The storks themselves watched in consternation.
Aziraphale landed lightly on the foredeck, ducking under the eaves to get out of the wet. There was a pungent smell of frightened animal and the output of frightened animal, particularly all the birds in their coops nearby, but at least it was dry and relatively sheltered from the wind.
"Now, do try and behave yourself," Aziraphale said, and Crawley licked his ear to annoy him. "No tempting animals to eat each other. If someone gets eaten now, that's the whole species gone."
"Sssshouldn't dream of it," Crawley replied.
Lightning split the sky and thunder roared almost immediately overhead, and a number of the angels crowded through the doorways of the ark, heading down into the hold to calm the animals. Aziraphale stayed put, one hand on Crowley's head and the other hovering over the coops, soothing the rustling birds inside.
It would have been difficult to talk above the storm, but there also didn't seem to be anything one could say, watching the waters swallow the roofs of the huts nearby, mud and debris masking what else was being washed away. Crowley could feel Aziraphale's pulse thudding.
With a heave that had Aziraphale spreading his wings quickly for balance, the ark lifted off what was soon to be the sea floor. Crawley could see creatures among the waves now, leviathans washing in from the oceans, squid and serpents exploring their expanded territory. Inside, someone wailed in fear.
"Nobody'ss ssseeing to the humansss, yesss?" he asked.
Aziraphale sighed. "Seems like sometimes nobody ever does. But if I go see to them, you must promise, no tempting."
"Jussst a sssmall -- "
"Crawley."
"Fine." Crawley tightened himself around Aziraphale. "But I'm not ssslithering."
"Fine." Aziraphale headed for the door, where the fearful wail (and also the smell of cooking) had come from. Inside, it was dark and warm, lit only by candles and the fire from a clay oven where some kind of fowl was roasting.
"Hope that wasssn't the only chicken," Crawley remarked.
"Hush," Aziraphale said, seating himself on a rough bench next to a young woman, who held an inconsolable child on her lap. She was desperately trying to calm him, but he was clearly terrified and confused.
"There, there," Aziraphale murmured, resting a hand on the boy's head.
"You don't know how lucky you are," Crawley added in the boy's ear.
"Crawley!"
"What, he doesssn't!" Crawley said.
"I told you to behave."
"Fine. Ssssssh, little one," Crawley crooned. "It'ssss jusssst sssome wet."
The boy's sobs quieted, but he kept weeping, and it looked like his mother might be next. Across the table, an old man had his face in his hands and was clearly praying. Pragmatically, his wife prodded at the chicken, but there was a tenseness to her shoulders. The rest of the family must be attending the animals.
Crawley realized Aziraphale was humming, the vibration in his chest seeping into Crawley's coils. He couldn't place the tune but it sounded familiar; maybe some dull angelic chorus.
Then Aziraphale opened his mouth and started singing, and Crawley cringed in on himself. Yes, an angelic chorus, but not one of the boring ones; not praising, not even lamenting, which would have been appropriate. And not one of the rather creepy ones about stomping the Enemy and such.
It was one of the songs of creation, which must be why it was so familiar. Like an old hammer or a well-used axe, it was a tool for building the universe. He'd sung a few himself, once. The echoes were probably still ringing out in some nebula or other. It was...an assurance. Whatever sort of mess a thing might look like now, something was coming out of it; eventually all would be well, not because of fate or predestination, but because the singer was working very hard to make sure it was so.
Other voices were picking it up too, from outside and down in the hold, the rest of the angels joining in, probably not even thinking about it. A song of creation was something you just did, if you heard someone else doing it.
The boy had stopped crying entirely and was wiping his face with a rag his mother offered. She settled him on the table and fussed over his little robe, then left him to compose himself while she went to check on the older woman at the oven.
This whole "sitting on the table" business seemed very questionable, especially with the boat still heaving on the waves; the child was going to tumble right off if he wasn't careful. Crawley was all in favor of children falling off things generally, but -- there weren't that many left in the world, now. Best to preserve the few who remained.
He let his body go slack, slithering off Aziraphale's shoulders and onto the table. He inched up and over the little boy's legs, then curled around him repeatedly until the child was tightly swaddled in ring after ring of black scales, only his arms and head free. Finally, Crawley rested his head on one of his coils, over the top of the boy's shoulder. Nobody was more surprised than him when the boy reached one hand up to pet him on the snout.
"Ssstupid little mortalsss," Crawley managed, but his heart wasn't in it.
"Well, looks like you've found yourself an occupation*," Aziraphale said gently, and Crawley didn't even realize the angel had stopped singing. Everyone else still was. "I'll just check on the others, shall I?"
* A few thousand years later, it would become evident why Nanny's CV ran to several hundred pages.
"Assssiraphale, don't leave me alone with the humansss!" Crawley hissed.
"You'll do fine! Stick with the boy!" Aziraphale called as he left.
Crawley lifted his head and hovered it far enough out that he could look the little boy in the eye.
"We never ssssspeak of thissss," he said, and the boy giggled.