"No, I can't" Aziraphale said a little too quickly. There was no scoffing, or offense being taken. The god was more anxious than askance, looking a bit too nervous for Crowley to believe him.
"Yes, you can!"
"I don't!"
"You do!" Crowley crowed, "How are you managing it though?"
"I assure you that these eyes are incapable of sight." Aziraphale said firmly, and Crowley didn't doubt that for a second.
Aziraphale was the god of writers and wordsmiths, and Crowley knew that. The gorgon also knew firsthand that gods were a tricky lot.
"So you wouldn't care if I have a little looking about. I've always wondered what a god's ceiling looks like." Crowley warned, the doves cooing in alarm.
"I would really appreciate it if you didn't." Azirapahle said, the sound of wings signaling that the god had sent his brood away. Azirapahle looked like someone who was doing their best to not appear upset, and failing miserably at it.
Crowley looked around the room for a tell, a clue, anything really. Her serpentine gaze landed on the bat, the one Aziraphale had come into the bath with him, the very same one that flown off his shoulders when the god's wings appeared, the small creature staying near them up on a wall.
"I like bats. Wonderful animals. Marvelous creatures really. All the flying about in the dead pitch black of night while being perfectly fine doing so. I don't know about you, but I'd run into things left, right, and center." Crowley said conversationally as she went over to the bat to gently release it from the wall. Aziraphale made an odd noise, sounding somewhere between dismay and protest, ending in a sigh of relief when the gorgon released the bat back into the wild via the window.
"Best not move. There are pins on the floor." Crowley said flatly, ideas coming together. She watched as she took a step forward, Aziraphale mirrored the motion, taking a step back.
It was an impressive response, especially when one considered all of the variables. Crowley was barefoot on smooth marble stone, her cool scaled footsteps soundless things. She was also very well versed in moving silently, the gorgon's survival usually depending upon it. Even if there were whispers of walking, it would have been drowned out by all the active writing implements constantly scratching words out on paper.
If she was right about her theory though, Aziraphale shouldn't have reacted the way he had.
"You can see, and I believe it has something to do with animals..."Crowley thought out loud, looking around the room, somewhat at a loss. She had been so sure. The observation was interrupted by Zoe and Leo bumping her face, the rest of her snakes going oddly quiet as they did so.
Taking her longest two locks in hand, Crowley carefully looked them over. They seemed fine for the most part. The only thing out of place was that their eyes were pearl white.
"Yeah, no, oh, oh, oh! That's brilliant! You can see me!" Crowley said she watched their eyes turn back to normal.
"Oh gods, you can see me." Crowley said again, quickly experiencing emotional whiplash.
"Yes." Aziraphale said quietly.
"So what was this?" Crowley started to give into the paranoia and anxiety that had been trying to get her full attention since the beginning of this. She was a being cursed by the gods. Nice things just didn't happen to her. It would do well for her to remember that.
"What do you mean?" Aziraphale asked, sounding more confused than Crowley thought he had any right to.
"What are you going to do to me? What game are you planning to make of me?" Crowley put steel in her words, the gorgon feeling cold and empty from the effort. "That's what your kind do to things like me."
"I would never do that."
"Prove it." Crowley all but hissed.
"It may not seem like it, but you actually have the advantage here, the high ground, of you will."
"I'll bite. How so?"
"My existence, as it is, would be forfeit if the other gods found out that I can do what I do." Aziraphale's words came out in whispers, barely heard over the written word. "I would very much appreciate if you stop shouting about it. You never know who might be listening in."
A mind made for answers as well as questions, Crowley realized, for blessed once, that this wasn't about her damn eyes, or even her curse. Aziraphale was scared of what would happen to him if anyone else found out this ability. The gods didn't like loopholes in their punishments, even with each other.
She knew what was wrong with Aziraphale now, what had been bothering her. He was scared of her, scared and forlorn. It was the kind of sadness that ages for too long right beside loneliness.Aziraphale was frightened. He truly was blind.
And there were pins on the floor.
Crowley didn't like that. She didn't like it one bit. She didn't need another reason to hate herself. Whatever tentative feelings she was holding on to were let go, the gorgon taking a step toward the timid god. He didn't move like he had before.
Aziraphale was a gift, a completely unexpected yet breathtakingly beautiful gift. Crowley reminded herself of this as the gorgon quickly picked up all the clasps and pins off of the floor. When she was done, Crowley stood before the still god, reaching out to cup Aziraphale's cheek with her hand. He startled under her touch, but did not draw away from the gorgon.
"Aziraphale, you're safe with me." Crowley promised, looking into perfect pearls for eyes, the only pair she could without consequence. " I'm a monster, but I'm not evil. For what it's worth, I give you my word that your secret is safe with me."
"I should have known you'd figured it out as soon as you told me that you used to be one of Athena's head priestess." Aziraphale huffed, but now leaned into the gorgon's palm. Something in Crowley relented as she did so well until their foreheads rested against each other.
"So sharp I cut myself sometimes." Crowley said by way of apology, wanting to make it up to him. "You can borrow my snakes if you like until your birds come back."
"You don't mind?"
"Wouldn't have offered if I did. It doesn't hurt them, and they like you." Crowley said as her snakes bumped their snoots against anywhere they could reach on the god.
"They do?" Aziraphale said as he went a little cross eyed, staring down Andromeda, who had attached herself to his nose. "She's definitely a fan."
"She would be an even bigger fan if you were small and mouse shaped." Crowley snorted, leaving off of the god's cheek so she tap the voracious snake's snoot. "Stop that."
It was unnecessary, all the snakes distracted by the god borrowing their eyes, Crowley watching with intense curiosity as their eyes changed to a solid pearl white.
"Oh, this is marvelous. I can see everything at once, instead of 'a little here and a little there' patchwork vision." Aziraphale said with a little gasp.
"Sounds like a headache waiting to happen." Crowley said, amused.
"It can be a lot, but it's better than the alternative."
"Don't look at me." Crowley sighed as she noticed Zoe and Leo keeping their heads' position turned toward her.
"Why not?"
"Do I really need to state the obvious?" Crowley said, gesturing to her face.
"Your nose is a bit crooked, but other than that I think it's a rather nice face."
"What in Tartarus do you know? You're blind." Crowley grumbled, but there was no teeth in it. "And my nose isn't crooked."
"It is, but I think it's rather becoming on you. Lends character." Aziraphale said, "May I ask you a personal question?"
"What's stopping you now? Go for broke."
"Do you honestly think you're unattractive, or are you basing your opinion of that off how everyone else reacts to you?"
"Aziraphale, I turn people into stone." Crowley said in a flat tone of voice, though she kindly left off the 'you idiot'.
"Yes, but that doesn't have anything to do with your bone structure, now does it? What your curse does is ugly, not you." Aziraphale said, a fine mirror suddenly appearing beside him. "Come over. Take a peek. Have a looky-loo. What do you see?" He asked.
Peeking through her hands while feeling silly about it, Crowley started small, concentrating on isolated areas that she could handle. Her teeth were definitely sharper, her canines more fang-like in nature, but that was about it there. Her skin was pale, but it always had been. About the only difference was now it was decorated with sprays of scales across it like odd iridescent freckles.
All her hair was gone, but that was a given, save for her eyebrows and eyelashes. Her lively mane was made up of mostly red snakes with black bellies, though the two littlest shits in the back, Draco and Serpens, were white with red bellies. Crowley wondered if they counted as grey hairs.
Her eyes remained as the last time she had seen them, golden and serpentine. Other than that though, Crowley had to admit that she looked mostly like herself. She still had her more normal freckles, dusted lightly over her perfectly normal cheeks, and yes, Crowley noted that she still had a slightly crooked nose, but apparently that lent character to the rest so she let it slide.
She looked...good, though having a bath and a fresh change of clothing did small wonders all on their own. It was jarring how built up everything had become in her own head.
"Oh..."
"Oh, indeed, my dear." Aziraphale smiled gently, "May I admit something somewhat embarrassing to you?"
"Definitely."
"I've been enamored with you for a while now." Aziraphale said, his cheeks starting to pink.
"How long is a while?" Crowley wasn't sure how to handle what was going on. She certainly hadn't expected the word 'enamored' to come up in conversation.
"Five or six decades." The god turning more red the longer Crowley stared at him.
"What?! Why?! How!?" She spazzed.
"I heard you singing from time from time in the woods." Aziraphale said, "I used to have one of my priests lead me out there so I could feel sorry for myself. Occasionally, I would hear you off in the distance."
"Really?"
"Your singing wasn't particularly good, some of lyrics didn't actually rhyme, and you can get a bit pitchy at times."
"No, please do go on. Tell me how you really feel about it."
"But your songs were always so funny and clever. I dearly wanted to know who created them.."
"Have any favorites?" Was all Crowley could think to say.
"This is the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friends. Some people started singing without knowing what it was, and they're still singing it because this is the song that never ends. It goes on and-" Aziraphale sang. To Crowley's annoyance, it wasn't pitchy at all.
"Yes, yes, yes, very catchy, that one. Don't need it stuck in my head again for a month." Crowley interrupted before the damage was done. "I can't believe that one won you over. That song usually has the opposite effect."
"I think it's very charming. Luckily for everyone here, the dryads had already warned my staff of your affliction." Aziraphale said, "I wanted to find you, but not risk anyone else, so I became highly motivated to find a loophole in my curse."
"How did you?"
"Well, it's a touch convoluted so bear with me. I'm the god of writing, all words written by men and gods alike are mine."
Yes, I'm following."
"Words are meant to be seen, seen the reader, but also the writer."
"So if you're the god of writers..." Crowley began to put it all together.
"Then there is no reason I can't 'borrow' my writers' eyes." Aziraphale finished, looking quite pleased with himself.
"Where do the animals come in?" Crowley asked after mulling it over for a moment.
"That's the convoluted part."
"How so?"
"Whose to say animals can't read?"
"No one has proven they can."
"No one has proven they can't either." Aziraphale said, leaving off to start setting up something on a newly created table for them since all the other surfaces were covered by quills and newly branded papyrus.
"That's clever. Well done." Crowley said in approval as she took a seat.
It was a simple lamb and vegetable stew, but it might as well have been ambrosia. Crowley couldn't remember the last time she'd had freshly baked bread, and hot slow cooked food made with great care and consideration. It was a shame that she could only pick at it.
"Do you not like it?"
"It's good." Aziraphale's staring made her continue, even though she didn't want to. "It's just if I eat too much of it, or if I eat it too fast, I'll get sick."
"What will you do if you leave here?"
"If?"
"Slip of the tongue. You're my guest, not my prisoner. You may leave whenever you like."
"I guess I'll go ..." Crowley was going to say home, but an abandoned temple with a front lawn full of impromptu statues wasn't that, not really. It was just some place for her to hide away from the world, to keep everyone else safe from her. "Back. I'll go back when we're done."
"I know we've only just met, but I was wondering if you might consider staying. Here. With me, that is. You could stay here with me." Aziraphale said, his offer sounding lost and small. He sounded like he was expecting Crowley to reject his offer. "If you like."
"You can't have your secret out like that in the world, can you? I might tell anyone." Crowley said, providing some emotional shelter for them both.
"That sounds about right."
You know that it would be smarter to just kill me." Crowley watched as Aziraphale turned pale and uneasy.
"I've never killed anyone before." Aziraphale said quietly, "I don't think I could."
"Lucky me. I guess you're stuck with me then." Crowley smiled, her insides turning into something light as the god smiled back.
"I suppose I am."