Night had dawned over the city, bringing with it a feeling of organised chaos as car headlights struggled to read road signs and drivers squinted into a haze of red brakes, still questioning why there was traffic at such an hour. It seemed as though the rush hour had extended into a slow nightly crawl to which no human was exempt. London pulsed with a thousand beating mechanical hearts and energy seeped from its pores, everywhere aglow with light as if in vague attempt to create an artificial day – and speeding through the centre of the city was a man who seemed to believe this attempt had succeeded in that he was still wearing his sunglasses despite it being nearly midnight; and despite everyone else cursing behind their dashboards at not having moved for at least half an hour, he hadn't eased off the accelerator for at least half an hour; and he hadn't stopped laughing in all that time as well.

And it wasn't like his day had been all that good. But it hadn't been all that bad either. He would very nearly say it had been a normal day, but then again he would be referring to what was normal to him, not what would be considered normal to, well, normal people. A long line of waiting normal people watched him race past and thought that that was very abnormal indeed, but a few seconds later forgot they had seen anything pass them at all, as that was simply impossible in these land-locked jams anyway.

He wove around the other cars as if knitting with impossible wool to make a rather lovely impossible scarf that no one would ever believe existed until he was able to swing round the corner into a familiar street, instantly slowing down and scanning the building fronts for the bookshop. He silenced the music with a thought (and he would never admit what he had been rather enjoyably listening to) and with a beam he swung round the wheel. If his parking job wasn't perfect, no one noticed the Bentley righting itself, edging tyres to the curb and becoming seamlessly parallel with the pavement.

As he swept out of his seat he stood tall and stared at the shop front for a moment in a moment of sentimentality, before locking the car with a swish of his hand and striding over, considering knocking and then with a smirk deciding to ignore the "CLOSED" sign and pushing inside slowly, daring the bell to ring.

It did not.

A crystal-clear rendition of Beethoven's 9th Symphony was whispering out from the back room as if the man had summoned in the composer himself to play for him. He cautiously followed the sound, devious and curious as to what he got up to when he wasn't around anyway, and utterly silent as he stepped over the dubious floorboards, peering round the corner to find him-

Asleep. Asleep with his head quite literally in a book. He smiled, but his appreciation of how sweet he looked sleeping ("like an angel" would be an appropriate cliché) was overwhelmed by how boring he found him when he wasn't awake.

"Aziraphale?"

His half-moon reading glasses were crookedly smushed against his face and his golden locks flowed over the table like spilt white wine. He hummed through his dreams, murmured at hearing his voice as his presence filtered down from reality and into his imagination. He huffed as if in impatience, rolling his head over. This murmuring was a little more interesting to watch, so the guest pulled out a chair, settled down and crossed his legs loosely.

Aziraphale murmured something unintelligible, then sighed again, then was silent for some time. Then, slowly, his cheeks reddened, a bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck... His guest folded his arms, leaned forward across the table, hoping to witness a little more – but then he jolted and woke with a start, breathless and smirking at himself in pleasant bafflement, before blinking rapidly at the blurry sight of the novel he had been reading, and then groaning at his smudged glasses, and then finally acknowledging with more pleasant bafflement the man sat in front of him.

"Ah," he greeted nervously, "hullo. I, uh... didn't hear you come in."

"That was the intention," Crowley replied coolly, but amusement blazed in his eyes so brightly that Aziraphale could see them through his sunglasses. "Nice dreams?"

Aziraphale blushed, scoffed, batted a hand. "Oh, shush." He straightened his tie and dusted himself off before standing on sleeping legs. "You know, you shouldn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Influence peoples' dreams. It's rather rude, don't you think?"

"I can't do that."

"..."

Crowley smirked deviously, then changed the topic. "I've been thinking about your proposal."

Half-way to the wine cupboard, Aziraphale tipped his head back and said, "Oh? Which?"

"Finding a hobby," the demon answered, lifting off his sunglasses and setting them on the table, rubbing his eyes thankfully. "Y'know, now that all the Armageddon business is dealt with."

"Yes, yes." He settled a tasteful bottle of red on the side and plucked out his finest two glasses. He only owned two, so naturally they were the finest. He poured generously. "So what have you found?"

"Well, I admit, I did consider learning to play an instrument, but I'd probably just insult our friends" – he tipped a hand to the gramophone, gleaming despite being one of the original batch produced back in 1887 – "so, then I thought: you can gavotte, so I should learn to dance as well."

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. "Are you copying me?" he teased, and then with a smile handed him his glass; unlike most people on being handed something, Crowley made sure to let their hands brush as he took it, catching his eye as well. Aziraphale sat down and took a long sip.

"Well, then I could join you on your, ah, pinhead," Crowley commented, tapping his toe slightly and watching him a little too closely. His smile was devilish. "Cheers."

Their glasses clinked, and they drank.

"So," the demon began after a moment, "I've been trying a few things... Would you be willing to, ah... let me try with you?"

The angel blinked at him, trying to decipher whether he was speaking in code or being serious. He assumed serious but there was a tickle along the base of his spine that made him want to believe it was metaphorical; not to mention that dream that the demon would never convince him he hadn't had a hand in; he dragged his mind back to decency and stammered, "I, ah, I-"

What he was trying to say was that he was fairly sure his gavotting wouldn't fit in with whatever Crowley was referring to (still assuming he was literally meaning dancing), and he wasn't quite sure how one would dance to 'Ode to Joy' anyway, but before he could even begin attempting to articulate all of this, Crowley had snaked a hand around his collar and suggested he stand and of course he had and was now staring into his fantastic eyes and forgetting to object to the grasp on his hip and then realising abruptly that maybe he had meant the other meaning after all and-

"Um, hold on a second, I-"

Just then the music changed, the needle whirring onward for a second in silence, and then phasing back in, the tune making Aziraphale narrow his eyes and glare past his partner to the machine, then realised Crowley could really only pick one artist that wasn't Classical.

"I thought you hated Queen," he questioned softly, relaxing slightly at being able to tease him, but still not knowing what to do with his hands and awkwardness rushing back over him in an instant.

"I never said that," he admitted with a flash of a smile. And then he glanced down at both their feet – "follow my lead" – and began to sway, uncertain at first but then glancing briefly back up. Aziraphale frowned a moment longer and then heard Freddie's serenade:

"Open up your mind and let me step inside,

Rest your weary head and let your heart decide..."

The angel's confusion softened as Crowley guided the Aziraphale's hands onto his waist, and, with a little trepidation, but hearing the meaning in the words and seeing the honest expression on his face, he rested his forehead to Crowley's shoulder. If dancing were to be defined not by the movements, nor by how much one exhausts themselves, but instead by its emotions and its courtship, they were the finest dancers in the world. Neither of them said a word, but both of them smiled and held one another closer, finding the rhythm, gently; and from then on, it was like they had become the dance, following one another's moves as one held out a hand and the other, laughing, spun round them, as one dipped the other, as they leaned their foreheads to one another's...

"It's so easy when you know the rules,

It's so easy: all you have to do is fall in love,

Play the game... Everybody play the game of love."

By the time the tune changed and they were thrown into the middle 8, they were lost in the song, stroking cheeks and knotting hands in each other's hair, enraptured by the moment; at the phrase "driving me insane", Crowley plucked Aziraphale's reading glasses from the bridge of his nose, and as Mercury ordered them to

"Come, come, come play the game, play the game, play the game, play the game

Everybody play the game of love..."

Aziraphale watched him watching him, a dare in his eyes, a challenge, as if this was some game they were playing, as if-

The angel tipped his head down and kissed him, hands slipping down to Crowley's wrists and tugging them round his hips, leaning him back against his desk, feeling him smirk, wondering whether or not this counted as winning, wondering whether or not he cared as the demon's hands wandered underneath his shirt, stroking the small of his back and in the angel's distraction parting his lips and- Aziraphale flinched, as if partly believing he was still dreaming and that twitching would wake him up, and turning a brighter shade of bashful when he realised he was in fact awake and-

He laughed, breaking the kiss and resting his head on Crowley's shoulder again. "You... That dream was your doing, wasn't it?" he breathed. "Because this seems too familiar."

Crowley just hummed and curled an elegant finger through Aziraphale's hair, grinning. "I told you," he whispered after a second, shrugging, "I can't influence dreams."

The angel would never believe him.