,1 2, (alt) 3, 4 (your here)
The idea does not come to Crowley in a moment of brilliance.
In sleepless nights spent pacing his office, fingers stained with ink and candle wax. In old tomes he once dismissed as theatrical nonsense. In records sealed so deeply beneath Night Raven College that even the Board pretended they did not exist.
Crowley stares at the page until the words blur.
A soul taken by a foreign world may be anchored again through blood, bond, and consent of sacrifice.
He laughs once. A sharp, hysterical sound that echoes too loudly in the empty office.
“Of course,” he mutters. “It would be.”
Yuu had always paid the price for everyone else.
Crowley does not tell anyone.
Not the Board. Not the staff. Not even the students who still light candles at Ramshackle’s gate.
He locks the ritual chamber beneath the school—the one older than NRC itself. The stone is blackened with centuries of failed magic, the air thick with dust and regret.
At the center, he draws the circle himself.
He slices his palm open without hesitation. Doesn’t flinch as it drips, thick and dark, staining the floor. Sigils flare faintly as they drink it in, recognizing lineage, authority, ownership.
Crowley trembles as he kneels.
“Listen to me,” he whispers to the magic. “I am not summoning a weapon. I am not summoning power.”
“I am summoning my child.”
Yuu does not return gently.
They are not pulled from a peaceful sleep.
One moment, there is nothing—no pain, no body, no sound.
It is every pain they ever felt, compressed into a single heartbeat and detonated all at once.
Their lungs burn as air slams back into them violently. Their nerves scream as sensation floods back into places that had long since gone numb.
It is raw. Animal. A sound torn from the deepest part of their soul.
Their body convulses mid-air as the ritual seizes them, dragging them downward like chains wrapped around their bones.
“STOP—STOP—PLEASE—!” they sob, voice breaking as tears pour freely, “I CAN’T—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—!”
They hit the stone floor hard.
Hard enough to knock the breath from their lungs.
Hard enough to remind them—
Their fingers scrape against stone, nails tearing, blood smearing beneath them as they try to crawl away from the circle—but it holds. Magic grips their spine, their ribs, their skull, forcing them to stay.
Their back arches violently.
They scream again, hoarse, throat shredding itself raw.
“I DON’T WANT THIS—PLEASE—PLEASE LET ME GO—!”
Crowley’s blood surges through the ritual lines, reaching for them, binding to them. It sinks into Yuu’s skin like molten iron, carving new pathways where none existed before.
Their entire body shakes as the magic rewrites them—anchors them—claims them.
“MAKE IT STOP—MAKE IT STOP—I’LL DO ANYTHING—PLEASE—!”
Crowley hears every word.
Crowley drops to his knees outside the circle.
“No—no—no—this isn’t—this wasn’t supposed to—”
The ritual text had warned him.
Re-entry will awaken every memory the soul carries.
Every death.
Every overblot.
Every moment of terror.
Yuu screams again—so loud it echoes through the chamber like a wounded animal.
“I’M SORRY—I’M SORRY—I’M SORRY—!” Crowley sobs, slamming his hands against the stone, blood dripping freely now as the sigils demand more. “I SHOULD HAVE PROTECTED YOU—THIS IS MY FAULT—!”
The magic answers by tightening.
Yuu convulses violently, choking on a sob as their vision fractures into white-hot agony.
“CROWLEY—!” they scream, not even knowing why they know the name, only that it’s attached to this pain, this world, this betrayal.
“DON’T LET IT TAKE ME—PLEASE—!”
“I’M HERE—I’M HERE—YOU’RE NOT ALONE—!”
He tears the mask from his face and throws it aside.
Just a broken man begging a child not to die again.
The ritual reaches its peak.
Crowley presses his bleeding palm to the center sigil and speaks the final vow.
“I GIVE MY BLOOD,” he gasps, voice shaking, “MY NAME, MY LINE, MY LIFE IF IT ASKS—”
Yuu screams one last time—long, shuddering, soul-rending—as the bond locks into place.
Silence crashes down like a held breath finally released.
For a moment, Crowley cannot move.
Hands and knees. Ignoring the blood, the pain, the burning in his chest.
He reaches Yuu just as they begin to sob weakly, curled in on themselves, arms wrapped around their chest like they’re trying to hold themselves together.
“It hurts,” Yuu whimpers, voice barely audible. “It still hurts—please—”
Crowley doesn’t hesitate.
He pulls them into his arms.
A full, crushing, desperate bear hug.
He presses Yuu against his chest like he’s afraid they’ll vanish again if he lets go for even a second.
“I’ve got you,” he sobs into their hair. “I’ve got you—I swear—I swear—I’m not letting go—”
Their hands clutch weakly at his cloak.
“You… you’re warm,” they whisper, confused, exhausted, still shaking. “I thought— I thought I was alone—”
“No,” Crowley says fiercely, tightening his grip. “Never again.”
They sob into his chest, fingers fisting into his clothes as the reality finally settles in.
“I was so scared,” Yuu chokes. “It was dark and I couldn’t find anyone and I thought nobody came for me—”
Crowley buries his face in their hair and cries openly.
“I came,” he whispers. “Too late. Too late. But I came.”
Crowley feels it fully now—the bond thrumming quietly in his chest.
Yuu is no longer a guest.
He pulls back just enough to cup Yuu’s face gently, thumbs brushing away tears.
“You are my child now,” he says hoarsely. “By blood. By magic. By choice.”
Yuu blinks at him through red, swollen eyes.
“I have never been more serious in my life.”
Yuu stares at him for a long moment.
Then they collapse back into his chest and whisper:
Crowley laughs through tears and holds them tighter.
The school feels it before it sees it.
Magic settling into place like something lost has finally come home.
Ramshackle’s lights turn on by themselves.
And somewhere deep beneath Night Raven College, Dire Crowley sits on the cold stone floor, bloodied, exhausted, holding a trembling child against his chest—
—and for the first time in his life—
Crowley did not allow the world to see Yuu again immediately.
That, more than anything else, unsettled them.
They were alive—undeniably, painfully alive—but existence felt wrong in subtle, nauseating ways. Their heartbeat was too loud in their ears, their breath too sharp in their lungs. Food tasted muted, as though reality itself had dulled its colors around them. Sleep came in fractured bursts, haunted by flashes of crimson sigils and the sensation of being torn apart and stitched back together by hands that refused to let go.
Crowley kept them hidden in the highest, most forgotten wing of the school: a sealed observatory long abandoned after the mirrors ceased responding. The windows were enchanted to show only sky—no students, no movement, no reminders of the life Yuu had been violently dragged back into.
He justified it clinically.
“Post-ritual destabilization is no trivial matter,” he said, voice carefully light, mask immaculate despite the dark circles beneath his eyes. “Your soul needed anchoring. Exposure too early could… well. We needn’t dwell on unpleasant hypotheticals.”
But when Yuu woke screaming in the middle of the night, clutching their chest as if expecting it to split open again, Crowley was already there.
He never asked permission before sitting on the edge of the bed, never hesitated to pull them into his arms when the shaking began. His embrace was crushing, almost desperate, as though he feared that loosening his grip might undo the ritual entirely.
“You are here,” he would murmur, fingers tangled in their hair, voice low and strained in a way no one else ever heard. “You are real. You are mine. And I am not losing you again.”
The words you are mine should have frightened them.
Instead, they grounded Yuu like iron driven into the earth.
Adjustment was not gentle.
Their magic—still nonexistent in the traditional sense—reacted oddly to Crowley’s presence. When he entered the room, the air seemed to thicken, arcane pressure humming beneath Yuu’s skin like a second pulse. Sometimes they could feel him before seeing him, a tug behind their sternum, subtle but insistent.
Blood calls to blood, whispered something old and knowing in the back of their mind.
When Yuu flinched at sudden sounds, he adjusted the wards. When their hands shook too badly to hold a teacup, he wordlessly took it from them and pressed something warmer and steadier into their grasp—his own gloved hand. When the nightmares worsened, he slept in a chair beside the bed, coat draped over his knees, hat discarded entirely.
Not the staff, not the students, not even the mirror.
Officially, the ritual had failed. Yuu had been lost. A tragedy. Another quiet addition to the long list of things Night Raven College did not like to acknowledge.
Unofficially, Crowley hovered like a specter refusing to rest.
“You will meet them,” he promised one evening, as Yuu sat wrapped in blankets, staring out at a sky that never changed. “But not yet. Your soul is… still tender. I will not parade you in front of grieving eyes only to watch you shatter again.”
Yuu swallowed. “They think I’m dead.”
“Yes,” Crowley said softly. “And when they learn otherwise, it will be because you are strong enough to withstand the joy.”
Weeks before the screaming stopped entirely. Weeks before Yuu could walk the halls of the observatory without feeling as though the floor might dissolve beneath their feet. Weeks before the mirror finally acknowledged them again—not with words, but with a subtle resonance, as if recognizing a familiar echo changed by time and blood.
The day Crowley decided they were ready, he dressed more carefully than usual.
The feathers of his mask were pristine. His cloak freshly pressed. His gloves spotless, despite the faint scars still hidden beneath them—thin lines etched into his skin where the ritual knife had bitten deep.
“You’re nervous,” they said quietly.
Crowley scoffed, adjusting his hat. “Preposterous. I simply understand the gravity of presentation.”
But when he reached for them, his hand trembled.
He laced their fingers together anyway.
“Stay close,” he instructed, voice uncharacteristically firm. “If it becomes too much, say the word. We leave immediately.”
The faculty lounge had not changed.
Trein sat by the window with his ever-present cup of tea, Lucius draped elegantly across his shoulders. Crewel occupied an armchair, booted feet crossed, scrolling through paperwork with a scowl. Vargas paced near the center of the room, complaining loudly about something involving muscle density and youth these days. Sam lounged near the shelves, humming to himself as he rearranged items that most definitely did not belong in a faculty space.
Crowley stepped inside first.
They all looked up—expecting him, likely irritated, already prepared to tolerate whatever excuse he had conjured this time.
None of them expected Yuu.
For one long, suspended moment, no one spoke.
Trein’s teacup slipped from his fingers and shattered against the floor.
Crewel was on his feet instantly, chair scraping back violently. “—No. Absolutely not. This is not funny, Crowley.”
Vargas froze mid-step, eyes wide. “Kid?”
Yuu stood there, heart hammering, Crowley’s hand still firmly clasped around theirs.
“It is not a joke,” Crowley said, voice steady but strained beneath the weight of their stares. “And before any of you attempt to hex me into oblivion, I suggest you look closely.”
They saw the way Yuu’s shoulders rose and fell too fast, the faint pallor to their skin, the unfamiliar arcane pressure humming in the room. They saw the way Crowley positioned himself half a step in front of them, subtle but unmistakably protective.
Trein stood slowly, glasses glinting.
“…You are alive,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.
Crewel crossed the room in three strides and pulled Yuu into a fierce embrace, arms locking around them with a strength that made Crowley tense instinctively.
“You reckless, stubborn, idiotic child,” Crewel snarled, voice breaking despite himself. “Do you have any idea—”
Yuu clutched his coat, burying their face against his chest as the reality finally crashed down.
Vargas joined them next, one massive hand settling on Yuu’s back, the other gripping Crowley’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. “You scared the hell out of us,” he said hoarsely. “All of us.”
Trein approached more carefully, resting a hand atop Yuu’s head in a gesture so gentle it nearly undid them entirely. “Welcome back,” he murmured. “You have been missed.”
Sam laughed shakily, eyes bright. “Oh, this calls for celebration, my little friend. Big one.”
Yuu was crying openly now—quiet, broken sobs they could no longer contain.
Crowley finally released their hand.
Only to pull them into his arms again.
This time, he did not let go.
