Chapter Text
Anthony Crowley had never exactly dreamed of becoming a stunt double.
His first option might have been a tattoo artist, or a musician, or something like that — at least the pay would be better, and he wouldn’t be covered in bruises like a second skin from all the hits he took for the actors who thought they were holier-than-thou, bourgeoisie-esque gods compared to everyone orbiting them, but were really rather untalented bastards who just happened to have a pretty face.
He wasn’t complaining, though. Anthony Crowley, stuntman of over fourteen years, was not a complainer. He was a thumbs-up, all good sort of person; an optimist, through and through.
He believed, with utmost certainty, that everything would work out for him, in the end.
And, really, he loved his job. The exhilaration, the adrenaline, the way fire felt licking up his ankles or the way it felt to perform a dangerous car roll, a dangerous jump, a dangerous fall; danger, that was what he loved. He loved the feeling of it, from the joy to the pain.
And sure, there were a lot of downsides; never getting credited or recognized for his work, being treated like utter shite by the actors he doubled for, getting hit over and over and over again, rocked right to his damn core with the pain of the work — and it wasn’t like the pay was something to brag about, though at least they covered the hospital bills when he needed them.
But that was the job. It was what he had signed up for — what he had trained for for years ever since he had dropped out of shitty community college at nineteen to train his body to take hits. And it was worth it, because he loved it.
Crowley didn’t have much else other than his job, anyway, besides his few plants in his flat in Mayfair, England, where he was from (all hardy and durable, given how often he wasn’t home, and was being dragged around movie sets sweating his arse off), and maybe one or two people who still followed him on Facebook from the training academy.
He wasn’t much of a people person, really. Someone told him, get in that car, we’re gonna explode it with you inside, he gave them a thumbs-up, and that was that.
But even still; he loved it.
But if you had to ask him what his favorite part of being a stuntman was, he wouldn’t say the free coffee from the overworked interns on the movie sets, or the sleek muscles that came with the job, or the ability to do whatever the fuck he wanted, really, because no one else they could hire would do the shit they were asking for.
He would say that his favorite part of being a stuntman was having met one particular person: a cameraman assistant who had been working on the set of the last movie Crowley had been in.
Aziraphale Fell.
Crowley had met Aziraphale his third day on set for some action rom-com; cheesy, but with lots of cars and guns aimed to hit and shoot at some arse with zero self-preservation, so right up his alley.
Aziraphale had been directing the men who had been setting Crowley up for one of the car crash scenes, all about camera angles and such, making what were clearly only ‘recommendations’ but were very strongly worded in ways that made the other assistants scuttle to obey. Crowley had caught his eye; he was gorgeous, with soft, fluffy blonde curls and a rather aged outfit that looked well-worn and 60s-esque, but he managed to pull it off.
“Thought I met the director already,” Crowley had quipped in his direction, grinning when Aziraphale had looked up to meet his gaze in earnest with shockingly blue eyes. “You don’t look much like her.”
Aziraphale had blushed (adorably, Crowley remembered thinking, feeling his own freckled cheeks flush slightly), and had stammered out that he was flattered, but that he was “Just an assistant, I’m afraid; I, I do camera work and such, you know. Nothing important,” something that Crowley had scoffed at.
“Assistants hold the whole damn movie together,” he had insisted, making his displeasure known with the blonde clearly having meant that he was nobody important. “I mean, look at me. We’re the same; m’ a stunt double, doin’ all the grunt work for the actors, gettin’ none of the credit but makin’ the movie worth watching. That’s what I do, n’ that’s what you do.”
He had grinned wider at the way Aziraphale’s blush had darkened. “M’ Crowley, by the way”, he had introduced; “Anthony Crowley.”
Aziraphale had stuck out a nervous hand, sweaty and slightly trembling but still giving a firm handshake when Crowley took it. “How do you do, I’m Aziraphale Fell.”
His voice had been shaking nearly as much as his hand, but his gaze had been raking over Crowley’s face, taking in every inch of him, and the stuntman remembered thinking that he had never felt so ravished.
“About to get run over by a car, so I’ve been better,” Crowley had quipped with a wink, and then he had been whisked away, feeling the lingering burn of Aziraphale’s hand holding his own even as he had been slammed into with full, 60-kilometers-per-hour force.
As he had been pulled out of the wreckage, giving a broad thumbs-up and getting checked over for injuries regardless, his hazel eyes had found Aziraphale through the crowd of people, looking over a camera at him, blue eyes filled with awe. Crowley had grinned cockily in his direction, and had gotten another blush in return that had burned hotter through him than the fire that so often licked up his body.
(What’s the saying? Pride comes before the fall.
They don’t mention it sticks around for a while after.)
It had only taken another day for their paths to cross again in earnest, when they bumped into each other after filming had ended for the day. Crowley had invited Aziraphale back to his trailer to save them both the trouble of having to yell to be heard over the unfathomable masses of people thronging around them, actors and assistants and editors and the like — because, Jesus fucking Christ, it took a village (and then some) to make one damn two-hour production.
They had broken out a bottle of cheap wine (a gift from Gabriel, the movie’s producer, or possibly an apology for asking him to stunt-double once more for the movie’s main actor, Luce, who was a right and utter arsehole wanker) that Crowley had been keeping in his mini-fridge, and had passed it back and forth as they talked between one another.
Aziraphale, Crowley had learned, had been raised in the industry, with strictly religious parents who had made romance movies in the city of love.
It had been nice, the blonde had mused; but it had also been hard seeing so much carefree romance as a queer kid growing up in the 1980s, which was why he himself hadn’t mustered up the bravery to quit his day job as a poorly-paid bookseller and go into the industry until he had turned thirty-five, only a couple of years prior.
Crowley had sympathized — though not with the parents part, since he had been a bounced-around foster kid as early as he could remember, with a junkie mum who had wanted nothing to do with him since the moment he was born and no father to speak of whatsoever — and had also confessed, tongue loosened by the wine, that part of why he had gotten into stunt doubling was because of his queerness; wanting to debunk the label of queer people, and especially trans queer people like he was, couldn’t be strong motherfuckers just as well as cishets.
Aziraphale had fervently agreed, though had confessed that he was ‘quite the cliché’ when it came to being an older gay man.
“I like novels,” he had mused. “I’m not especially fond of romance movies, but the novels are always lovely; I utterly adore Jane Austen. I excel in writing prose, myself; but I would quite like to try my hand at romance, someday. Or anything, really.”
“You want to be a writer?” Crowley had questioned curiously, and Aziraphale had let out a noncommittal noise, making a face. Clearly he had never talked about this to anyone else; he was similar to Crowley, his entire life being his work.
But unlike Crowley, he seemed to want more. And after having met him, Crowley couldn’t help but wish for the same.
“A — a screenplay writer,” Aziraphale had stammered out at last, a blush once again rising in his cheeks. “Or — or a director. Both. Perhaps. Someday.”
He had gone quiet for a moment, and then, when he had spoken again, his voice had been tremoring slightly, and he had been staring into the wine bottle in his hands. “I apologize. It feels strange, speaking of my dreams. They’ve always felt rather out of reach to me.”
“Ah, quit that. If you believe something ‘bout yourself, it’ll be true.” Crowley had tilted his head towards the blonde, giving him a small smile that was unlike his usual cocky grins, real genuinity shining through.
“You’ve made it this far, yeah? And don’t say you’re ‘just an assistant’,” he had added on when Aziraphale had opened his mouth to protest, “I already lectured you on that.”
Aziraphale had given him a small smile in return, passing the bottle his way.
“You’re very kind,” he had murmured, and Crowley had scowled, face going nearly as red as his hair — and then impossibly redder, when the blonde had shyly added on, “and if you’ll forgive my presumptuousness, very handsome.”
“You’re forgiven,” Crowley had squeaked — and perhaps they had been both slightly tipsy enough to push them to be just confident enough for Aziraphale to lean against Crowley just slightly, and for Crowley to tilt his head just so until their lips had met, and —
Well.
The next ten times certainly weren’t from the excuse of tipsiness from half a bottle of wine shared between them — and nor was the noticeable difference of Aziraphale’s confidence behind closed doors, and Crowley’s much lack of cockiness.
He had been a little worried that the blonde’s interest would wane when he confessed that he didn’t quite have all the parts of a traditional man, but to his relief, Aziraphale had fervently assured him that his preferences did not deviate from people such as Crowley, and they had gone right back to making rash decisions that were surprisingly not regretted later, but were in fact repeated. A lot.
A lot, a lot.
It was unlike Crowley had ever experienced — being with Aziraphale. Because even besides the fling aspect of it, they — they spent time together, they did things, fully-clothed, in daylight hours. Crowley was no stranger to having workplace ‘relations’, but this was . . . different. This was something else.
They woke up in the same bed more mornings than they woke up alone; they ate meals together, they went out for coffee (Crowley) and tea (Aziraphale) and laughed over inside jokes that only they would understand; they sat and talked on the couch in Crowley’s trailer, just talking, often with shoulders pressed against one another or legs thrown over each others’ laps.
Crowley took Aziraphale out into empty, open areas near where they were filming and they sat and looked at the stars; when they went to film near a beach, they snuck off and went swimming, and wound up kissing surrounded by splashing salt water while Aziraphale traced the scars along Crowley’s freckled back, the burns and pockmarks and bruises from decades of stunt work, as well as the twin scars underneath his pecs, pale and faded from over ten years’ recovery; Crowley had come a long way from the angry, confused teenager he had been, to the thirty-three year old who was finally comfortable in his own body.
Crowley had soothed Aziraphale through anxieties, through bad days, through everything though he himself remained the same optimistic, thumbs-up person he had been for so long, because that was who he was, now, and who he always would be.
Aziraphale had needed that, Crowley thought; an anchor, someone to tell him that everything would be okay. And Crowley had soon realized that he wanted to be that person, for Aziraphale.
No partner of his had ever changed anything about him like that before.
And, yes, the sex was amazing, the best Crowley had ever had (that wasn’t exactly a high bar, seeing as his last notable and lasting fling with an actor from the last film he had worked on, Furfur, had arguably been the worst lay of all time who Crowley had only stayed with because he had felt kind of bad for him, but still), but really, it was Aziraphale that was the amazing part. Crowley thought that he could have been the worst partner of all time in the bedroom department, and he would still want nothing more than to be with him, because it was him.
Over the course of three months, Crowley had become closer with Aziraphale than with anyone else in his entire life.
Crowley had thought he had loved him, or — or could have. There was so much that he could have — would’ve, should’ve, could’ve —
(Could have — if he hadn’t been so fucking stupid.)
It had been the beginning of something real. From that first fleeting conversation to cuddling in a hotel bed together, murmuring about their future; the filming had been coming to an end, and they were making plans.
They would find the same jobs to work on, with the same company, same producer; they would stay together, and — and whatever happened, happened. They had both wanted so much more, and had found it in one another.
It had been the beginning of something so real.
And then Crowley had fallen. Literally.
It had been so stupid. So fucking stupid. It had been a fucking stunt retake, of all things, that they hadn’t even needed, but that Luce had insisted because Crowley had been showing ‘too much face’ the first time, that the attention would be taken off of him, that the jawlines weren’t similar enough, and it had been so fucking stupid, so bloody stupid — but they were doing it, were dropping him from nineteen fucking stories and filming the fall, but gradually lowering him in the end — that was how it had been supposed to go, but —
But there had been no gradual lowering.
Crowley had plummeted, he remembered plummeting, and then — and then he had landed with a sickening crack, and he thought there must’ve been a scream.
(He had been talking to Aziraphale up to the last bloody moment over their handheld walkies, where they had programmed their own private radio channel to flirt with one another.
This was the last stunt of the movie, and Aziraphale only had three days left of his own contract.
The filming was nearly done, and they were going to go on vacation, to a beach again, because it had been so very lovely the last time with the two of them, and all they wanted was to spend time together, and that was what Crowley had been thinking, up to the last moment when he felt something in him snap.)
The next thing he had known, he was being wheeled out by paramedics, and everything hurt, everything hurt so fucking bad, and people were yelling, and it all hurt — but Crowley had had eyes only for where Aziraphale was running beside the gurney, sobbing and saying something that the stuntman hadn’t even been able to hear because of how loudly his ears had been ringing, and Crowley —
Crowley had given him a thumbs-up, and Aziraphale’s expression had contorted into a devastated sort of sobbing laugh, and then Crowley had gone unconscious once more, and all he had known was that someone was holding his hand through the blaring of ambulance sirens, with the picture of Aziraphale’s half-smile glowing in his mind.
That was the last time he had ever seen him smile.
(Well. Besides when he had first woken up, woozy and in so much pain despite the morphine they had given him, after what he had learned later had been five days of him being comatose, because he had nearly fucking died. Aziraphale had smiled so wide when Crowley had first blinked crusty eyes open; he had taken his hand in his, had whispered, “Oh, Anthony —,”
And Crowley had jerked away from him as though he had been burned, squeezing his eyes shut and going as still as he could as if that would get rid of the beeping sound of the heart monitor connected to him; of the breathing tube down his throat; of the throbbing, aching agony throughout his entire body; of Aziraphale’s voice, calling for a nurse, and begging for Crowley to open his eyes again.)
Aziraphale had tried to be there for him. He had tried so hard.
But Crowley hadn’t been able to take it. He hadn’t been able to let him.
He had hated being so vulnerable, so hurt, around him, because he wasn’t — this wasn’t him.
This wasn’t what Aziraphale had signed up for.
Crowley was an optimist; he was upbeat, he was A-okay, thumbs-up, all-good. He wasn’t this despairing, anguished person in so much pain that he felt like an angel whose wings had been brutally torn from their body after soaring through the open skies for so many years of freedom — to the point that he had almost wished, in the worst throes of pain when he had maxed out of painkillers they could give him, that his neck had been what had snapped instead of his back.
He dreaded going back to that angry, grieving boy he had been before things had turned around for him — but he already had, and dragging himself out of that mindset would take him being free again.
And while he was confined to the hospital, in pain and wracked with despair, he could not be free — and Aziraphale had only made him feel more trapped.
It had been one conversation that had ended all of it, really; ended all of the three most wonderful months of Crowley’s life, and the one month of the beginning of the worst time of it, which was a high bar that had somehow been beaten.
He remembered it like it was yesterday.
It had been when he was trying to walk again for the first time. Physical therapy following the several surgeries he had endured was grueling, and painful, and made Crowley almost wish he was still stuck in bed so that he didn’t have to be dragged through it.
It was also, above all else, humiliating — and the only thing worse than the poisonous condescension of the physical therapist (he hated doctors, hated them, especially because it was a hit-or-miss with which ones were transphobic and which ones were just arseholes) was that Aziraphale remained by his side, saying things he probably thought were encouraging but that just made Crowley burn with humiliation.
Crowley had nearly been able to get all the way across the platform he was meant to walk across — but then the physical therapist had told him what a great job he was doing, and that mere hint of condescension (or what he had interpreted as condescension, especially as Aziraphale had agreed aloud) had caused Crowley to stumble.
His legs had buckled underneath him, knees completely giving out, and he had let out a choking cry at the utter agony it put him in.
Getting helped back into his bed was a blur — all he remembered was that when he had finally come to, pain somewhat dulled with morphine pumping through his system, Aziraphale was once again holding his hand, and Crowley had, once again, torn his own away as though burned.
“Anthony —,” Aziraphale had tried, voice thick with tears, but Crowley had cut him off, snarling and angry — not at Aziraphale, not really, even if it had felt that way, but angry at himself for being so angry, and taking it out on Aziraphale in a way he didn’t deserve.
But Crowley thought that the only way to get Aziraphale to see that he deserved better was to make himself worse — somehow, worse than he already was. If that was even fucking possible.
“Get out,” Crowley had croaked out, dragging down the oxygen mask that had been suctioned to his face and baring his teeth. His voice had been rasping and awful, because he hadn’t been speaking, not unless he needed to.
“Get out, Aziraphale.”
(When they had been together, Crowley had called Aziraphale angel, because he was one, and because he was beautiful, and because it had just been a simple reminder of how much Crowley thought of him as perfect despite Aziraphale’s own beliefs about himself.
He had called him angel, and each and every time, without fail, Aziraphale had given him a gorgeously beaming smile.
But Crowley hadn’t called him angel since the day he had fallen — and Aziraphale hadn’t smiled at him like that since.)
“I — Crowley, I don’t want to leave you,” Aziraphale had said — but with less conviction after weeks upon weeks of saying the same thing.
And Crowley — as much as he despised himself for it, now — had snapped, because he was hurting, and overwhelmed, and so very, very angry at everything and everyone except for Aziraphale.
“Have you ever stopped to think that I want you to leave me?” He had barked out savagely, tears springing into his eyes and whimpering breaths falling from his lips in between his words from how much pain had been burning through him at the exertion.
“Just — just — just get the fuck out! Get out, I don’t — I can’t — I don’t need you!”
Aziraphale had flinched away, hard. The last scraps of hope in his eyes had flickered and died.
He had stood slowly, pulling his bag over his shoulder, his bag that held all of his clothes and toiletries and things, because throughout it all, he had stayed at the hospital with Crowley.
What a waste of a month, he was surely thinking now.
“And the feeling is mutual,” he had mumbled out, turning his face away. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Crowley had mocked, truly crying now. Aziraphale was, too; neither of them noticed, and neither of them cared, because everything else hurt too much. “Just — get out of here, Aziraphale.”
Please, he remembered having been thinking. Just go. Please, just go.
Aziraphale had exhaled — shuddering and devastated — and had looked back one more time, blue eyes wide and imploring.
“I want to be here for you,” he had said, his voice cracking in two. “But I can’t. Not when you treat me like this.”
“Good riddance, then,” Crowley had snarled furiously, and Aziraphale had turned fully away for the last time.
“Very well,” he had whispered. “Goodbye, then, Crowley. Thank you for . . . everything.”
He hadn’t looked back.
Crowley had regretted it all the second that the door had closed behind Aziraphale and left him alone in the cold, sterile walls of the hospital room, left with only the beeping of the monitors and the throb of his back and the IV in his wrist — but it had been too late.
And Aziraphale deserved better than him, anyway; who was he to run after him like a damsel in a rom-com, pleading for forgiveness that he did not deserve?
He had changed his number, after that; had switched hospitals, to go to one that was strictly impersonal. He had grown out his hair, had started wearing sunglasses and makeup and baggier clothes, had gotten a serpent tattooed onto his temple in some sort of halfhearted teenaged (near-middle-aged, he supposed) rebellion — anything to go unrecognized, not that he had ever been someone important to begin with.
He had left everything and everyone behind, though he didn’t much have anyone left who cared about him; no parents, no foster family that had ever wanted to keep him for more than a day, no siblings, no friends. Not even a cat, or a wilting plant.
All he had had was Aziraphale, and he had ruined that — surprising to absolutely bloody no one.
(The reason he had disappeared, though, wasn’t really for himself. It was so that Aziraphale couldn’t find him.
So that Aziraphale wouldn’t come back into his life like Crowley knew he would, because he was a selfless angel. So that Crowley wouldn’t give in in a moment and let Aziraphale take him back, because he was a selfish demon.
Crowley knew that, at the slightest whisper of Aziraphale’s name, he would snap to attention like a dog teased with steak, and would strain to break his own chain of self-loathing to claw his way back to him.
But he could never allow himself to break free, for he had already left enough claw marks in Aziraphale.
Even if he knew that in the moment of it, he would always snap the chain in two.)
Anthony Crowley, famous stuntman (at least in the industry; no one who actually watched the damn shit never knew who the stuntmen were), had fallen; had broken his back; had disappeared.
That was all anyone knew, really. Some people, Crowley had seen while cooped up in his hospital bed, alone after Aziraphale had left, thought he was dead, according to threads on Twitter with two likes.
But, nope. He was still, unfortunately, alive and kicking.
Parking cars at a valet instead of jumping in front of them and getting his shit wrecked was still . . . something.
Fucking sucked whenever he got recognized, though. Whenever he was, it was always: oh, hey, you’re the guy who fell like a hundred stories and broke your fuckin’ back, how the fuck’re you even alive right now? — and during those conversations, he always really wished he wasn’t, holding his hand out for the probing arsehole’s car keys and getting handed a fifty-cent tip.
But, oh well; that was him, wasn’t it? He was the fall guy. It was all he would ever be, seeing as he’d ruined everything else.
Anthony Crowley; shitbag ex-stuntman, who couldn’t even let himself get taken care of long enough to keep the best thing he had ever fucking had, and would never get back.
Well. Or so he had thought.
Until one phone call from someone who he could’ve gone forever without hearing from again thrust him back into everything he thought he had lost, and he was given the second chance that he had tried so hard not to get, because in his mind, Anthony Crowley was not someone who deserved a second chance at one Aziraphale Fell.