Title: Understanding

Rating:   PG-13

Feedback:   Yes yes yes!! Feedback is good, constructive crit is good, and flames will be laughed at, because if you don't like slash, why did you read it?

Warnings:  Slash. Male-shaped creatures with other male-shaped creatures. If you don't like that, then you should go elsewhere. You have been warned.

Disclaimer:  None of it belongs to me, all of it belongs to gneil and pterry, who so rock on.

Summary:  An after dinner stroll through the park, a kissing couple, and a demon who's been around the block a few times make Aziraphale wonder what the big deal is about sex, anyway.

Notes : Fluff. This is fluff. All blame goes to the plot bunnies inhabiting my closet, who will not leave me alone.

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St. James Park was dark this time of night, and quite nearly deserted.

It was also very peaceful.

Aziraphale sighed happily. It had been his idea, the park. Not in that it had been his idea to create it, although he liked parks, and was especially fond of this one, but rather it had been his idea to take a stroll through it after having a late dinner with Crowley. Who had surprisingly agreed, quite amiably in fact. Aziraphale suspected that his demon counterpart was actually quite fond of the park himself, although he knew he'd never catch him admitting it. Still, it was nice all the same, knowing that there was something else that they agreed upon. Aziraphale smiled to himself as they rounded a bend in the well-worn path that ran the circumference of the large duck pond.

Crowley raised an eyebrow from behind his usual dark-tinted glasses. "What?"

"Nothing, dear boy," said the angel, smiling wider. "I'm just feeling exceptionally settled and at peace right now."

Crowley hmphed.

They walked on for a while, in a comfortable and silent companionship, the kind that develops only after having known someone for a long time. In this case it was a very, very long time. Crowley broke it, voicing a question that Aziraphale himself had been trying to avoid asking, simply because he couldn't bear to think about it anymore.

"Have you heard from anyone?"

The angel sighed, and this time it was less content, and more worried. It had been several months since the almost-apocalypse, and both Heaven and Hell had been tersely silent about the whole thing. It was beginning to grate on both their nerves. Aziraphale had thought about it until his head ached, wondering over the whole mess, his own role in it, and whether or not it could be construed by those above as a bad thing. He had come to one conclusion. It was ineffable. The whole mess. Otherwise heaven wouldn't have pretended like it had never happened. And yet it still worried at the back of his mind every day, and whenever they got together (which was more and more often it seemed, although the angel certainly wasn't going to dwell on that, not at all.) one of them would ask the inevitable question. This time Crowley had asked, and now Aziraphale was sighing unhappily, and sitting down on one of the crumbling benches that surrounded the walkway.

"No, not a word," he answered as Crowley sat down next to him. "Have you heard anything from...erm... your people?"

Crowley shook his head, dark locks falling into his eyes. "No. I suppose that's good."

"Perhaps."

"Certainly better than a lot of loud yelling."

"Yes."

They fell silent again, watching the pond ripple in the moonlight.

Crowley suddenly spoke, nudging him. "Hey angel, look."

Aziraphale looked. He tsked disapprovingly. "Don't stare, Crowley. They're only doing what people do."

"Yes but they're doing it in public. They obviously want us to stare," he said, staring.

Aziraphale pretended not to look at them. It was a young couple, very obviously wrapped up in one another, sitting in a sort of tangle of legs and arms on a bench not too far from where they sat. They were shadowed under a large old tree, and Aziraphale wouldn't have seen them at all had he not been pretending they weren't there.

He told Crowley as much.

"So?"

"So you shouldn't be looking, " replied the angel, indignant. "They obviously think that they're alone. You know no one notices us unless we want them to. Besides, that's a private sort of thing."

Crowley ignored him.

Silence settled over them again, this time thick and awkward. At least, Aziraphale felt awkward. Crowley was still looking at the couple, an expression of fondness on his face.

Suddenly Aziraphale burst out: "I have never understood why human culture has always been so obsessed with sex, anyway."

Crowley turned astonished eyes on him, the couple forgotten.

Aziraphale blushed. "I mean, besides the obvious reasons of procreation, propagating the species and what have you. Er."

Crowley grinned. It was snake-like under the starlight, and not a little bit predatory. "Why angel," he said, "six-thousand years and you still haven't?"

The angel, if possible, turned redder. He began to stutter. "Why... er... I mean... that is....," he stopped, and turned to face his friend, realization dawning, his eyes wide. "You mean to say you have?"

Crowley laughed.

"With humans?!" Aziraphale stared at him, shocked. "But, but, we're meant to be sexless! Doesn't it take some effort to even..." The angel gestured vaguely, conveying with his hands an action that he didn't understand and didn't have words to explain.

"Not really, " said Crowley, grinning still. Aziraphale stared at him. "Honestly angel, what did you expect? Lust is a sin, isn't it? I specialize in sin, don't I?"

Aziraphale nodded. "Yes, of course, but shouldn't you be tempting people to engage in sin with each other? I assumed it was a hands-off sort of thing, you know?"

Crowley rolled his eyes. Sometimes Aziraphale didn't have a clue. "Yes, technically you're right. It's just that sometimes it's easier to tempt someone on a one to one basis, than to spend all that time picking at their thoughts, and trying to make them do it themselves." He smiled to himself. "And sometimes I get bored, too."

"Bored?" repeated Aziraphale, incredulous. "So you've, you've..." He gestured vaguely again.

"Yesss"

Aziraphale slumped back against the bench, his eyes closed. "With humans..."

"Uh-huh"

"Women..."

"Mmmm.."

Aziraphale opened his eyes, looking the demon over curiously. "And men?"

"Yesss"

"Huh"

They became quiet again, Aziraphale attempting to process this new information and Crowley watching the couple across the path with bemused eyes.

Crowley turned to him, breaking the silence and Aziraphale's train of thought. "So you've really never?"

The angel shook his head.

Crowley snorted. "You must've never tried, then. Not that that surprises me."

Aziraphale sat up straighter. "What do you mean by that?"

The demon rolled his eyes. "You're a prude, angel. That's all."

"No, that's not what I'm asking. What do you mean by I must've never tried?"

Crowley gulped. Leave it to Aziraphale to hone in on that part. Now he'd have to explain himself. "I just mean that, well, you're handsome enough. Got that whole "angelic beauty thing" going for you. And those big blue eyes. Er."

Aziraphale blushed.

Crowley, with the reckless abandon of one who has said too much already and is not about to stop now, continued. "I mean, you're certainly dressing better these days." Aziraphale looked down at his clothes, soft khaki slacks and a deep blue crew-necked sweater, recent acquisitions from a nice little department store. He had sold one of Adam's books, and gone shopping, surprised to see how much fashion had changed since the last time he'd been.

Crowley floundered on, trying to dig himself out of the hole he'd created. "I mean, you're certainly worth... that is, I would... Yes. Well." He cleared his throat, giving up.

Aziraphale felt relieved. The couple got up, stumbling as they kissed, and disappeared into the night.

Curiosity was eating at Crowley. He spoke again, trying not to sound strange, or worse, interested.

He failed on both counts.

"You've never even kissed, angel?"

Aziraphale turned to him, wide-eyed. "No, of course not."

Crowley took a deep breath, struggling to control the situation. He liked being in control. It was safe. He'd already said things to Aziraphale that he hadn't meant to say. He certainly didn't want to say more. And he certainly didn't want to kiss the angel. If he did, what then? Crowley didn't go in for relationships, they just weren't him. Just like the angel wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than love. Besides, they were entirely and completely different. It could never work out. No matter if the angel was just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.

Not that he would actually want that sort of thing with Aziraphale, no, not at all. Why was he thinking about kissing the angel anyway? He wouldn't want to tempt him, make him fall. If Aziraphale fell he wouldn't be the same. All of those things that made up the angel would be gone. All of those things that exasperated, annoyed and crawled under Crowley's skin, those things that had kept him in contact with the angel for some 6,000 years, would be gone. Poof. No more uptight, adorable, angel.

Adorable?

Shit.

Aziraphale was looking at him strangely. He was, in fact, wondering why the demon had just turned an interesting shade of something beyond pale. He thought about asking, politely and nicely, but awkwardness had settled over him like a vulture, picking off his words before they had a chance to fully form.

Crowley, who looked as though he'd just wrestled some of his inner demons and not so much won as got left in the ring alone, turned to Aziraphale, and opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

He shut his mouth, opened it again, and promptly shut it.

He looked rather like a fish.

Aziraphale, seized by a sudden impetuousness that completely went against his nature, reached up and delicately plucked the sunglasses from the demon's face.

Crowley blinked, completely thrown. Yellow, slit-pupiled eyes shone in the dark like jewels. "Wha...Why?"

You could blame it on curiosity. You could blame it on over 6,000 years of chastity. Aziraphale blamed it on the wine they'd had with dinner, because suddenly he leant forward without thinking, and placed his lips on Crowley's.

Aziraphale was surprised to find them warm and soft. He pulled back after a second or two, just as Crowley was beginning to realize what had happened, still at a loss for what all the fuss was about.

Thankfully Crowley, who had managed to regain control of his cognitive processes, wasn't about to let him off so easy. With a flash as quick as lightening he caught the angel's shoulders and stilled his movement, surprised blue eyes locked with his own.

"Oh no, angel dear. You don't get off that easy."

Whatever insecurities Crowley had been entertaining earlier faded away as his baser demonic instincts took over. He pressed his lips to the angels readily, kissing him with no compunction whatsoever.

The angel gasped, startled, but not pulling away. Crowley used the surprise to his advantage, kissing the angel fully, nibbling on his lower lip. The hands on Aziraphale's shoulders relaxed their grip, sliding up through soft hair to tip the angel's face closer as Crowley flicked his tongue out against lips like warm velvet. Aziraphale made a alarmed sort of noise, but it was lost against the demon's lips as he used the sound to his advantage, flicking his tongue out once more to touch now-parted lips. Aziraphale responded slowly, following the other's movements uncertainly with his own. Soon enough though, inexperience fell away to wanting, and their tongue's touched, twined and twisted in a dance as old as the world.

Aziraphale, as he pulled away, finally understood. His breathing was shallow, his heart pounded. And although he could stop them both at any time, he found that he didn't want to. It felt too good, this sensation, and Aziraphale wasn't quite done analyzing it yet. Crowley was looking at him with wide eyes and kiss-bruised lips. They stared at each other for one long, astonished moment, before jerking back at the same time to sit as they were before.

But they weren't as they were before.

Funny how things change.

Crowley cleared his throat, searching in vain for the demon in him that had fled under the assault of angel kisses to leave him totally unprotected.

"So, uh... did that help at all?"

Aziraphale blinked, and then said, in the tone of a person comparing an elephant to an eggplant, "Oh yes. That was nice, thanks."

"No problem."

The angel shifted uncomfortably, wanting nothing more than to kiss the demon again, but feeling he probably ought to think about things first. With that in mind he stood, unfurling angel wings as he went, wincing at the rip of fabric. He'd fix it later. Right now he had to leave, before something else could happen, something the angel wasn't quite prepared for. "I uh... I think I'll go home now, Er." He stood there for a moment, suffling his feet awkwardly. "And Crowley...?"

The demon looked up just as Aziraphale bent down. The angel placed a chaste kiss on his lips, and smiled sweetly. "Thanks for dinner."

And he was gone, wings beating through the soft night air.

Crowley watched him go, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe falling wasn't so bad. After all, he'd done it once already. It couldn't hurt to do it again.

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*grins* Review Please!!!