#mandrea

“Have any idea what they might want?” Mandrea asked, feeling the tiny sensitive hairs across her body twitching. Two more demons had surfaced on Earth, and their vibrations were making her very put off.

Crowley shook his head, the Bentley plowing out of the main district of London at unholy speeds. “No. But you know the drill. We keep up appearances and we avoid their attention as much as we can. Best they only know us through our memos.”

“If I’m supposed to avoid their attention, care if I stay in the car?”

“I’d prefer it, actually. They may ask to see you though.”

Mandrea knew that tone, and it made her gulp. It wasn’t the tone he used when he was teasing her, but a smidge beyond the one he had when he was being protective. Crowley was at least a little worried, and that made Mandrea even more put off. To cover her nerves, and perhaps instinctively to calm both of theirs, she reached forward and quickly yanked the volume knob up so that Freddie Mercury’s voice blasted all the bad thoughts away.

The moment the Bentley parked, Crowley cleared his throat, cracked his neck, and huffed. “Right then. Stay here. I’ll signal if I need you.”

With that, his usual casual swagger was back and Mandrea watched him saunter over to where she could feel the two sets of black eyes on her. They may not have had great sight, but Mandrea giggled to herself at the thought that she had double the eyes the both of them had on her. Quickly though, she stifled it, watching intently from the passenger seat as Crowley’s demeanor shifted entirely. Again, the sensory hairs across her skin pricked, and Mandrea almost transformed into a spider to go after her master on instinct. Something else was there, and it seemed… peculiar. Unsettlingly so.

She watched him be handed a basket, and Hastur and Ligur seemed to be interrogating him. Crowley threw a thumb over his shoulder and the pair of maggoty bastards had the audacity to look directly at her. Mandrea let her true face flash and hissed at them through the window, which came out as a sort of roar as a result of demonic wrath. The pair didn’t flinch, merely rolled their eyes or sneered a bit at her.

Crowley sauntered back, completely casual, and tucked the basket into the backseat of the Bentley. Mandrea sputtered with quiet questions, but Crowley ignored her until he got into the driver’s seat and was able to speed away. The spider demon glanced at the wobbling arrow on its dial and realized he was zooming far above his normal speeds even, his hands clenched on the wheel.

A cry from the back seat got Mandrea’s attention. Her eight eyes bulged, she ripped her glasses off and whirled around.

“Don’t touch it,” Crowley hissed. She ignored him, tipping one flap of the basket up with a finger. Her gut dropped instinctively and she recoiled like she’d touched something consecrated. It was… a baby?!

“Crowley, what the Heaven is that?”

“... It’s the Antichrist.”

Mandrea gaped at him, and he glanced over to see the two slightly bigger than normal black eyes opened wide, while each set of three small ones clustered round them blinked feverishly. As much as he usually found it endearing how she reacted to shock, now wasn’t the time.

“The fucking what?”

“You heard me,” he practically panted, suddenly letting his frantic anger show. “Shit, shit, shit shit shit! Argh, why ME?!”

The radio answered something about them being best for the job, Mandrea wasn’t quite sure. She knew demons sometimes used their media to communicate, just like when they corrupted humans with it, but she was in too much shock to register anything except for the fog of instruction that entranced both her and her mentor.

They were to bring the baby basket--the great freaking beast, destroyer of kings, devourer of worlds, Mandrea noted--to the Satanic convent that would swap him into the hands of the American ambassador. A truck brought them out of their trance, and Crowley noted his apprentice’s eyes watering as she clenched her long fingers around the edges of her seat. The sight brought a pang of sudden guilt to wash over him that he had let his panic out in front of her, knowing it would incite her own.

Crowley delivered the baby to the church and came back out to find his apprentice--his “spawn” as he called her in brief moments of affection--still frozen and clutching the leather around her. There was no sign she’d moved, not even to harass the expectant father that had been standing in front of the car when they arrived. Her breath was coming in ragged, barely-there gasps and for once he didn’t know how he was going to calm her.

“It’s done,” he sighed, sinking into the seat.

He tried to relax, at the least for her sake, but adrenaline was pumping through his veins at an exponential rate. This was such a deep level of bad he had no idea what they were going to do. Crowley stiffened, motioning for her to hand him his phone as he got the car moving again. Anywhere, as long as they were moving away from this dreadful place.

Any air escaped Mandrea’s lungs like she’d been shot into space. “Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit oh shit.”

Now she was shaking, and Crowley had to frantically wave his arm in her face to get her back on track. “Give me my bloody phone, I’m calling Aziraphale. We’ve gotta figure this out.”

That was it. That was what they would do; he would call Aziraphale and they would figure this out. There was no way the angel wanted Armageddon either, right? And Aziraphale always seemed to know the right thing to do.

The device hit him in the chest and fell into his lap, Mandrea making pained noises through clenched teeth while her body trembled. It was worrying Crowley more than he’d like to admit, only spiking his panic that came out as rage. He couldn’t remember when he last saw her this frightened. Perhaps not since The Fall.

“We’re sorry, but all lines to London are currently down.”

Earlier, they had thought that idea was hilarious.

Crowley screamed. Mandrea joined him, finally looking up from her quaking hands to shriek at the windshield. The Bentley quaked under the confused chaos ripping from the throats of both demons, Mandrea so distraught that her fangs were showing.

When the pair finally made it to Crowley’s flat, after a telephone box call to Aziraphale thanks to Crowley’s “genius hellionism”, Mandrea was in a full-on panic attack that had lasted what felt like ages.

He was beyond stressed about the situation just as she was, but it pained him to see her so shattered and he had no idea how to help. Mandrea was his friend, his usually wiley and crass and fun-loving little mini-me, but right now that demon was gone. Trying his best, he pulled her from the car and guided her into the flat as gently as he was able. Crowley had his hand around a clump of the back of her jacket like a lifeline, face still stoic but actions clearly betraying his unease. Crowley let her go only to let her sit down on her favorite chaise lounge, watching his apprentice with so much worry that it annoyed him.

Mandrea’s breathing was short and unsteady, her glasses long forgotten somewhere in the Bentley and all eight black eyes full of panic. They had lost their shine, that twinkle that had gripped Crowley by whatever shrivel he called a soul over five thousand years ago. The elder demon crouched to the floor in front of her, reaching out with uncharacteristically gentle hands to grasp hers. He could feel all the tiny sensory hairs across the backs of them and her wrists, all stiff and raised like the hackles of a frightened dog.

“Drea, love, we’ll be okay,” he tried. “Look at me, we’re gonna be just fine. We’re going to meet with Aziraphale tomorrow and we’ll sort this out.”

His thumbs running along the backs of her hands smoothing down the hairs slowly calmed her, until she was breathing at least a little more and it only shook with the tears rolling down her cheeks in a waterfall. Mandrea’s eyes clamped shut, allowing most of the salty water to escape without flowing into her secondary sets of eyes. When the main two opened again and looked at him, Crowley knew he’d pulled her back a little because it meant she was trying to focus her vision on his face. But when she spoke, Mandrea’s voice was still a hoarse, barely-there whisper.

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“Please don’t cry,” he countered.

Crowley reached up and wiped her cheeks, careful not to put pressure on her little closed extra eyes. She let out a shaky sigh and swallowed hard, and he stood up, summoning her a drink and sitting beside her on the chaise. They were alone, and he could tell how terrified she was and how worried that made him, and all of the emotions roiling in him pushed Crowley to open his arms. Mandrea gave him half a second’s worth of skepticism before she dove into his embrace, clutching his jacket and shaking like she wanted to hide there forever.

“Drea, kid, you’re not acting like yourself,” Crowley murmured, trying to squeeze what comfort he could into her. “We always find our way out of sticky situations, that’s our thing. What’s bothering you so bad?”

A sob cracked against his chest and shattered whatever might’ve been considered a heart within it. “Be-Because I’m going to die, Crowley!”

“What?” He pulled her back a little to look at him, grasp on her shoulders firm and steady. “What the Heaven are you talking about?”

“We’re talking about the End, the-the war! They all hate me; once they st-start fighting it won’t matter who kills me, someone will! And I won’t just be dis-discorporated, some stupid angel or demon is guh-oing to kill me!”

Crowley sighed, hugging her against him to try and calm the shaking demon. She was working herself up again, and he had to consciously remember sometimes, like now, that she really was still just a kid in a lot of ways. Mandrea may be able to mostly keep up with him in sass and skill, but she had never gotten the chance to hone her powers or even to mature like the other angels did before they got caught up in the rebellion. She was young, and frightened by a lot of things though she didn’t often let on. But Crowley always knew. He could always tell, and he always knew how to get her confidence back. Being held, being soothed and swaddled tightly actually did help to comfort her, though she’d cut him to ribbons if he dared utter a word of it. No, that was something he knew just from thousands of years raising Drea as his own.

What she’d really never let him say, was that it was truly just him that comforted her, the one person who took her in and loved her when everyone else decided she was a pest. Crowley was the thing she needed, and the thing she would miss if she died.

“Oh, little spawn of mine. You really think I’d let anything happen to you?” Crowley consoled her. “No matter what this comes to, no matter what we have to do, I told you all those years ago you were stuck with me. I’m gonna take care of you, kid. Don’t worry yourself too hard.”

Her voice was so small, like she had shrunk and could only murmur against his shirt. “I’m scared, Dad.”

“I know. But you don’t have to be.”

There was a sigh with some finality to it, and a gentle nod against his chest. Crowley eased his arms away and saw Mandrea rubbing her face, trying to return herself to a sense of normalcy. Exhaustion was clear on her, and he had to admit he felt it too.

“You need to rest, Drea. We’ve got work to do starting tomorrow.”

Mandrea nodded, but clutched at the velvet of the chaise and looked away nervously. “I- I know.”

A soft breath of recognition escaped Crowley’s lips, and with a wave of his hand she was in her pajamas, silky and relaxing against skin that was minutes ago twitching with sensory overload. He had summoned her a blanket as well, knowing what she needed to calm down enough to rest and feel safe again. So, with a final look into her eyes to assure him this was what she wanted but wouldn’t say, Crowley prepared himself for a level of intimacy and caring that he had only done a few times over the course of their lives together.

Crowley gave her a nod, and tucked the blanket around Mandrea’s shoulders. She laid down beside him, pulling it up to her chin and settling while she heard the warping noises of her mentor shifting forms.

Heavy, long coils of black scales weighed down her blanket as Crowley coiled himself around his apprentice--his “little spawn”--giving her the tight squeeze he knew would swaddle her into contentment and peace of mind. Mandrea was curled in a bundle of blankets and tied securely by an elaborate snake knot, and at last gave a little purr that let Crowley know she was calm. That settled, he tried to let the feelings of safety he was bringing Mandrea wash over him as well, refusing to let the confident facade he’d put on for her fall. No, he resolved then and there that the Earth was too precious a haven for both of them to let it end, and he would do everything in his power to stop this nonsense from happening. Staring at eight softly closed eyes from her side as he drifted off, Crowley made a silent promise.