Hellfire and Holy Water (A Good Omens Fanfiction)

Chapter Eight

Warlock had a very short attention span at first, so the tutoring sessions could only really go on so long. Still, Crowley and Aziraphale (or rather, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Cortese) were able to teach him all manner of subjects. At one point Aziraphale asked why Crowley was so keen on mathematics and the demon had answered that it was another thing that Hell assumed was his responsibility, not understanding that humans were rather bent on making things more difficult for themselves for no good reason. All it meant was that Crowley had to acquire a basic understanding of mathematics in case he was ever asked about it. Luckily Aziraphale was fairly good at mathematics himself and able to help on that front.

Despite being arguably better at sciences than the demon, Aziraphale taught Warlock about subjects that he was personally more fond of, such as music, art, and literature, of course. Except that, quite without realizing it, they had both rubbed off on each other's lessons just a little bit over time. Crowley would, on rare occasions, teach Warlock about astronomy. It was innocent at first, since astronomy was connected to science and by extension connected loosely to mathematics. Unbeknownst to him, his lessons began to lean more towards the boundless beauty of the cosmos than they probably should have been.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale was prone to slightly darker influences as well. Against his better judgement, he began teaching Warlock about some of the darker aspects of literature. Edgar Allan Poe ended up being a fun lesson, and the angel didn't think until later that it might have been a poor choice to expose a young child to such dark literary elements. But he didn't pick up on some of the other darker themes that were not all that uncommon in his lessons.

Neither of the supernatural entities seemed to notice these subtle changes, for that matter. Indeed, the only thing Crowley found noteworthy about Warlock's fascination with Edgar Allan Poe was that it gave him a certain fascination with cats. By extension, he hoped, that would mean he would be less inclined to keep a Hell Hound for a pet.

And, in time, they worked together to teach Warlock one of their mutual favorite subjects: history. Granted, they had a wealth of mostly useless information about history, such as some of the finest restaurants in ancient Greece, or the magnificent hanging gardens of Babylon, or even some of the finer places to get a drink throughout the ancient world, and weirdly enough it wasn't exactly the sort of information that is normally relevant to a small child some two thousand years later.

But that is exactly why they conveniently had history textbooks, which the two would often laugh at together in their spare time. History was, after all, written by the victors, leaving much fine culture far behind. But they had to teach a modern understanding of history, so the textbooks would have to do.

Crowley obviously favored teaching Warlock about some of the evil dictators and brutal villains of history, while Aziraphale honed in on some of the more inspiring and kinder moments of the ancient world...which ended up being relatively few and far between, but he did what he could. It took several weeks, but the two eventually settled into something of a rhythm with their teachings. And, in time, they began to forget all about their previous hardships.

Crowley was beginning to enjoy their brief time together again, perhaps too much now that he was sure Aziraphale wasn't as comfortable with the idea of them being together in any way. He wanted things back to the way they were, with them being comfortable and trusting, and able to spend time together without it meaning anything. Of course, he did want it to mean something, but it was clear that the angel was once again trying to take things as slowly as inhumanly possible, and Crowley was cautious to avoid shattering this fragile bridge of peace that had formed between them.