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The Dowlings have no idea why they hired the new nanny. This morning, Nanny Ashtoreth just appeared at their front door, holding a blonde baby in her arms, and demanded to become Warlock’s nanny.
The lean stern-faced woman looked as mysterious as her name. And, Harriet Dowling has no idea if it’s normal for a nanny to bring along her own child, She wasn’t even quite sure if the blonde cherub is Ashtoreth’s baby. Nothing about them look alike but there seems to be an intense bond between them. The blonde baby was peacefully asleep in the redhead’s arms, soft hair glowing like a halo in front of the nanny’s dark blouse. While Ashtoreth was guided around the estate and learning about her future tasks, the infant was blissfully oblivious of all the movements, quietly snoring and drooling into the fabric.
Anyways, they did indeed need a nanny. Harriet Dowling has no idea how to deal with infants and taking care of Warlock while Tad Dowling went on almost consecutive business trips is torture. And most importantly, Ashtoreth was miraculously persuasive and seemed very dependable.
“Your baby is such an angel,” Harriot said with slight envy when they were finally in front of Ashtoreth’s lodging, “I wish Warlock could stay quiet like uh… your baby all day as well.” Ashtoreth’s painted lips smirked and tightened her embrace. “Aziraphale. His name,” She nodded to gesture to baby Aziraphale, “a biblical one. Very old. The name, that is.” Feeling the angel’s warmth against her chest and his tiny fingers clinging to the burgundy blouse, her eye lids lowered into a tender gaze (although it’s difficult to tell behind her sunglasses) and lips softened into a smile.
“Oh, Warlock’s also an old name.” Harriet found something to contribute to the conversation. “The nuns suggested that when Warlock was born. They said it’s English. But I always worried it a bit ominous.”
“The young master would be just fine,” Ashtoreth turned to Harriet, “it’s totally normal for children like him to be a bit mischievous.” She said with a slightly colder smug smile and Aziraphale squirmed in response to land a chubby foot just on Ashtoreth’s ribs. She ignored that and continued to converse with Harriet, “he’s about five? I believe?” The wife of an American diplomat brightened up with surprise. “Yes, exactly!” She blurted out, “my God you’re good.”
The demon winced slightly at the exclamation. Of course she knew that, she delivered the child for Satan’s sake. But, it’s always good to impress your employer, she supposed.
When Harriet finally left them alone to welcome her husband home from a long trip, Ashtoreth laid Aziraphale down in the cradle and felt like her inside was all warm and liquid. Precious angel, she thought to herself and pat the angel softly to wake him.
They need to talk.
During the night after the Anitchrist was born, Crowley and Aziraphale were trying to come up with a plan to oversee the upbringing of the child. Keeping him company throughout the critical years of his childhood and making sure the child was balanced by both divine and evil influences.
“You should go as a… uhm… what are they called?” The angel blurted out during their conversation, mind a bit blurry due to the alcohol they’d already consumed.
“Ngkkk… What?” The demon raised his head in confusion and the fiery locks bobbed with the motion.
“The lady that take care of children…” the blonde continued, gaze slightly hazy. “The nanny!”
“The wot?!” The demon choked on his last sip of wine and coughed, golden eyes widened with disbelieves. “Nanny?” He stared intensely at the blonde but realised that his angel was rather drunk and was still grining with satisfaction of he remembering the correct term.
“Hgk… Antichrist’s nanny?” Crowley muttered and sipped in another mouthful of wine. “Pfff… Tough job, that.”
“You would be a good nanny. I always know that you are secretly fond of children.” The demon snarled upon hearing the sensitive topic and almost snapped before the blonde angel continued. “Besides, I rather miss you having curls.”
And he choked on his wine again and decided to divert the conversation before he chokes on his wine for the third time and lose all his dignity and coolness. “Ahem… and you? What um… role?”
“A cook?”
“’Ziraphale, cooks don’t get to eat those dishes.”
“Driver?”
“Pffff…” the golden eyes rolled a bit. So that’s a no.
“Gardener?” The red locks bounced in disapproval.
“There not much left I know how to do.” The blonde angel sounded defeated.
“Yeah, you’re rubbish at many things, angel.” Crowley agreed and Aziraphale huffed at his response.
Eventually, Crowley convinced the angel to take the form of an infant, a few years younger than the Antichrist to justify his persona, Ashtoreth, bringing a child along and they would be sharing a room which is rather convenience for exchanging information about their progress. (They both knew miracles would work just fine to solve any suspicion, but none brought that up.)
They later realised than there are quite some restrictions for human infants’ behaviours. Need a lot of rest, bad eyesights, and so on. Aziraphale was grumpy about that, but Ashtoreth secretly thinks It’s a lovely surprise to know that Aziraphale’s infant body got tired so quickly and had to nap all the time. During the day, Ashtoreth carried the blonde around in her arms and at night, the angel nested in the coiled-up serpent instead of the cradle. The constant napping would eventually stop, several years at most, and Ashtoreth would miss this.
A few days after Ashtoreth started her job, the angel and the demon quickly realised that the Dowling household was not the happiest household. They fought quite a lot when Harriet and Tad were both in the residence. But more often than not, Tad was away somewhere across the world and Harriet home with Warlock. Well, technically she was consumed by loneliness while Warlock spent more time with Ashtoreth than his own mother. While it seemed fitting that the son of Satan is surrounded by negative energy, Knowing they would soon leave Warlock, Ashtoreth and Aziraphale grew rather worried. Especially after the depressed mistress started the habit of drinking with her son’s nanny in the afternoon.
Ashtoreth did not like drinking with her boss and grew a bit frustrated. Her American employer is not the ideal drinking partner that she had in mind. But the angel was currently incapable of consuming alcohol. They tried it once when Aziraphale was really missing wine and persuaded Ashtoreth to bring some nice wine back to their room and let him have a sip. It was a bad idea. He got ridiculously drunk after a few sips and didn’t manage to sober up before falling asleep. Suffered a terrible headache when he woke up the next morning. Ashtoreth thought the angel with a headache was adorable and refused to put him down for an entire day. But, to be honest, if there is one thing she doesn’t like about Aziraphale’s tiny form is that he couldn’t drink with her.
So that’s basically what got them here.
Long story short, Warlock and Harriet’s relationship strained. And they kind of gave up. Ashtoreth was working longer hours. She didn’t mind. She was actually rather fond of the child. There’s some extra bonus of having Warlock around for longer. Aziraphale had to behave like a toddler when around him, and he struggled. It was her favourite passed time. The angel constantly forgot how far into the speech development process he was supposed to be. And watching the well-read angel constantly trying to reduce his extensive vocabulary into elementary babbling is adorable. And if the pretending-to-be-a-toddler activities wore Aziraphale out, that meant Ashtoreth got to sleep undisturbedly with her angel throughout the night.
That’s why Aziraphale huffed and bumped his chubby fist against Ashtoreth’s lean chest when he heard her agreed to take care of Warlock for longer hours.
Aziraphale did not like the idea.
He missed reading terribly and having Warlock for longer hours meant less time to read. Of course, he could always read when Ashtoreth brought him back to their room, but he was always exhausted by then. He didn’t need to sleep as much now, but after hours of selecting elementary vocabularies and simplifying his sentences, he didn’t have much energy left. Besides, moving around in his toddler corporation wasn’t fun. In fact, it’s frustrating and sometimes dangerous. He was terrible with stairs and he could never reach whatever books or snacks he wanted.
Short and chubby limbs are not helpful. At all.
After several frustrating midnight strolls, Aziraphale and Ashtoreth reached an arrangement that the nanny would bring back some snacks and lighter books (so the tiny hands can handle without much trouble), or at least miracle something up for the angel to enjoy if he didn’t feel like sleeping. And by doing so, the demon wouldn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to some noises of dropped items.
And now, he would have even less time to himself? No, no, no, the publishing industry is blooming too quickly to do that. He guessed he’d just have to nap in Ashtoreth’s arms throughout the day to save up enough energy to read in the night.