#quillomens

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 1)

1999

This was the third time in two weeks that the customer in sunglasses had been in.

Aziraphale had started out thinking he’d been a fellow uni student, looking for a place to study, but he never brought in anything to study from.  Now he was starting to wonder whether the fellow was actually casing the joint.  Although if so, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  He mostly slouched in the same chair, red hair bright in the dim, reading a cheap paperback of Hamlet pulled from a shelf.  Or seemed to read it, anyway, although it was impossible to tell.

Sometimes it felt a bit like he was staring at Aziraphale, as Aziraphale worked, shelving books or running the register.  Aziraphale was fairly used to that.  He didn’t select his clothing, argyle and tartan and neat bow ties, to blend in, after all.  And blending in was never an option in any case.

Aziraphale set his last book back on the shelf with a bit more force than the situation called for, then backed away, hands tangling together.

Read on AO3

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It’s time!  Today begins a new journey into the Soft Zone(TM) with your humble wordmaker, wonderful illustrator @apocalypsenah​ and wonderful podficcer @quillomens​ . There is the start of a multimedia adventure awaiting you at the link above.  There are also two humans, and some other humans, and a bookshop.  And twenty-one years of shared history!  It’s not six thousand, but it’s relatively a lot, for humans.

Eventual soft ace romance; Crowley being completely heart-eyed over a visibly fat Aziraphale; some angst, from sources both internal and external, but I promise it all ends happy.  More notes and some important warnings at the AO3 link above!

Brought to you by the @do-it-with-style-events​ Mini Bang!  Now with more miniaturized explosions.

[apocalypsenah]

The first set of illustrations for the lovely @ineffablefool​‘s wonderful @do-it-with-style-events​ mini bang fic, The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine. Also featuring a wonderful podfic by the also-lovely @quillomens (also embedded at the start of the chapter!)

Twenty-one years ago, two strangers met in a bookshop. One was a teenage delinquent, tired of hanging around the wrong people, and fascinated by the fat, pretty boy employed amongst the books. The other was a university student, well accustomed to being found boring, who wished the first one would go away.

Today, two best friends continue to meet in a bookshop. Neither has realized that the other is by now deeply in love with him. And neither has realized, just yet, how both of their pasts will be coming back to haunt them -- and how they can only defeat that shared ghost together.

Updating on Saturdays! ^_^

Chapter: 1 

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 14) (now complete!)

The future

The cottage was beautiful in the golden light of afternoon. Aziraphale rather thought it would be beautiful in any light. Ivy crept up one wall, and the garden, while small, was vividly green. The little gate in the hedge creaked gently as Crowley opened it.

Aziraphale didn’t move, too captivated by the sight. The roses along the border would be a mass of blooms at the right time of year, and the chimney peeking over the roofline hinted at winters full of warm, cozy fires...

A hand pressed softly to his back. “Come on, then. You can woolgather inside.”

Read on AO3

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An epilogue, with family.

Our team started posting way back in the first week of the mini bang, and now, a day shy of three months later, the last installment is here.  If you’ve been holding off on reading until completion, there are now approximately 38k words of illustrated and podfic’d pining, personal growth, and softness for your enjoyment.  I enjoy it and I hope you do too.

Includes a podfic by @quillomens , and two illustrations by @apocalypsenah , and all of it is wonderful because they are both wonderful.  Brought to you by the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang! Better known -- in my heart of hearts -- as the Tiny Kaboom.

[apocalypsenah]

A pretty (and endearingly exhausted with Crowley) Aziraphale, as seen via Crowley Vision (TM), from chapter 2 of @ineffablefool‘s lovely fic The Ghost of Your Past And Mine! 

Also featuring a lovely podfic chapter by @quillomens​ (who also coined the excellent phrase “Crowley Vision!”)

Part of the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang! 

Updating on Saturdays! ^_^

Chapter: 1 2

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 8)

2020

Laughter bounced off the ceiling of Crystal Magus Occult Shoppe And Gifts. Everything else was muffled by gauzy drapes and hanging scarves and tapestries of questionable artistic merit, but apparently there was some kind of fire ordinance or something mundane like that, so the vents and sprinklers and everything up there were as bare as when the place had reopened.

Madame Tracy swatted at Crowley from across the table. “Now, you can’t expect us to believe that story.  After the third time you ended up in the pond —”

“After the fourth time, he telephoned me.” Aziraphale turned to Crowley, round face glowing with hilarity at his expense. “I had to go over to the park and save him from the vicious beast.”

They all had a giggle at that, Crowley included. Too-cool Crowley, bullied by a park swan until soft little Aziraphale came and rescued him — it was funny when you looked at it that way.

That’d been back when their friendship was a new thing. Not that long after he’d watched Aziraphale paint a bookshop wall, wishing the whole time that he could just drop his own roller and step over there and hold him. He hadn’t really been sure whether he was asking too much, ringing out of nowhere with a half-incoherent cry for help, but he didn’t know who else to go to. No one else in that corner of the park on such a rainy day, even if Crowley wanted to try flagging down a stranger. And it wasn’t like he could ask Hastur or Ligur.

Read on AO3

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In the present, Crowley and Aziraphale have become friends with Anathema and Tracy -- but Crowley's oldest friends have some alarming new information for him.

Includes another wonderful illustration by @apocalypsenah (who has now made me want to go to the scene she drew because everyone there is having fun without me), and another wonderful podfic by @quillomens (I wrote these words so I know what’s coming and she still manages to read things in ways that hit me with Unexpected Emotions).

Brought to you by the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang!  You could call it the Reduced Roar, but you’d probably be the only one.

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 2)

2020

Crowley resisted the urge to swear.

“Actually, no, fuck that,” he said.  “Fuck this.  Fuck literally everything ever.”

He pushed the Bentley a little harder.  She responded just like she always did, engine slashing through the quiet evening, distance vanishing beneath her tires.

It was always a bad idea to pick up when it was one of the old gang. He needed to stop.  Needed to change his number, change his name.  Move to Iceland and learn to fish.  Finally figure out how to pronounce Reykjavík.

But Ligur had rung him, and he’d picked up, because he was an idiot. And before he knew it, he’d been driving halfway to Oxford to have a drink with Ligur and Hastur.  Their old dive bar had fallen to the kingdom of the rats years ago, but the Churchyard was already almost as seedy despite being maybe five years old.

Crowley had outgrown the kind of bar where checking IDs was as optional as mopping the floor.  Apparently his old mates hadn’t.

Read on AO3

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In the present, Crowley spends time he doesn't enjoy with Hastur and Ligur, then spends time he very much does enjoy with Aziraphale.

Includes another wonderful podfic by @quillomens and another beautiful illustration by @apocalypsenah (featuring a little peek at the world through what Quill absolutely correctly refers to as Crowley Vision).

Brought to you by the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang!  Or, as some call it, the Small Splodey.  (Disclaimer: probably literally nobody calls it this)

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 10)

2020

Aziraphale’s eyes flashed. “No. Oh, no, I won’t stand for this, Crowley. Not for a moment.”

He reached out to where Crowley’s hand rested on the table, curled lightly around his glass, and squeezed his wrist. “They think they can frighten me away? Frighten us away? From our shop? Oh, my dear, do they even realize who they’re dealing with?”

Crowley was maybe not enough drinks in to be able to handle the certainty in Aziraphale’s voice, or the soft pressure of Aziraphale’s fingers on his skin. Maybe there wasn’t a number of drinks that were enough. A few sips of Scotch definitely wasn’t it. Couldn’t stop him from smiling, soft and indulgent, despite the curl of anxiety in his chest. “Think they figure you’re the one who’ll have to deal with them.  And it’s not our shop.”

Read on AO3

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In the present, a plan is made, and Aziraphale gives Crowley something very important.

Includes another wonderful podfic by @quillomens (so many voices bless you for your patience) and another wonderful illustration from @apocalypsenah (s...soft.......)

Brought to you by the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang!  Wee Wham?  Have I done Wee Wham yet?  I’m running out of synonyms here.

[ineffablefool]

The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine (chapter 4)

The woman smiled at Crowley, like she expected an answer.  Like what she’d just said made any sense at all.

“I, err, you wh — eurgh.  My.  Uh.  What now?”

She tilted her head.  “I’m sorry, love.  Your boyfriend, then?  Partner?”   Her forehead wrinkled as he continued choking on the starts of words.   “That nice Mr Fell who owns the bookshop, I mean.  I thought the two of you were, ah...”

“Fine,” Crowley answered, “he’s fine.  Last I knew, anyway, haven’t actually seen him in a couple days, we’re best mates but I don’t — I don’t live there or anything.”

“Oh,” said the woman, giving him what was probably supposed to be a subtle side-eye.

Crowley hadn’t been bothering anyone.  He’d just been walking innocently down the pavement, headed from where he’d parked the Bentley to Aziraphale’s shop on the corner.  Couple doors down and he’d’ve made it.  But he’d made eye-to-sunglasses contact with the brightly-scarved woman arranging a signboard outside another shopfront — Grand Reopening Special, Tarot Readings £10 — and apparently she’d mistaken him for someone else.  Namely, himself, only married to Aziraphale.

Read on AO3

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In the present, Crowley meets the owners of a local shop on his way to Aziraphale's.  (He does also make it to Aziraphale’s.)

Includes another wonderful podfic by @quillomens and another beautiful illustration by @apocalypsenah (the ladies!  It’s the ladies!).

Brought to you by the Do It With Style Events Mini Bang!  Or, if you will, the Thimble Full Of Thud.  (But you probably won’t.)