↳ notes: middle art by @alecz-obssesionz. warning for topics relating to violence and typical tua content
↳ playlist: tua/cru playlist
basic info
• named cru
• thirty three years of age when the series starts as it's revealed later
• does not have powers. he is an ordinary human
• has incredibly bad luck and the scars from accidents to prove it
• absolute best friends with klaus. met two years before the start of season one through cru's cousin, who had gone to rehab with klaus for a bit
• he follows the hargreeves siblings through time. blames it on always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but later he's very glad to have met and gotten to know them all, even if it's through the most unfortunate of situations
• cru is a post opp trans man. can be seen taking testosterone a few times throughout season one with the help of klaus, but sadly is unable to keep doing it in season two, as it is the sixties. so when the siblings finally see them again in dallas, his voice is higher and he stands stiffer and more uncomfortably than usual
• has tattoos! his main ones are over the top of his top surgery scars, and they're the hands from michelangelo's "the creation of adam," reaching out for each other over his chest
• cru is the type of person to wear boxers with red hearts on a white background on them
• his normal outfit in the modern days of season one and three consists of band shirts and jeans. but season two shows him assimilating to the time periods style and wearing a jean jacket with various tie-dye shirts. also, he got a pierced left ear as a way to signal to other gay men that he's one of them; a popular indicator of the time period
• a list of things cru cant do thanks to his awful luck goes as follows: cook (he's burnt down two kitchens to ash before), drive (the amount of cars that have been hit or broken down while he's been in them is immeasurable), operate machinery/technology (it always goes on the fritz), or walk up and down a pair of stairs normally (he always stubs his toe, or steps on a splinter, or just plain falls flat on his face when trying to scale them. he has a small but deep scar across his left eyebrow to prove that last one)
• a list of things cru can do, and is rather good at also goes as follows: pack a solid punch (it's just a question of whether he's lucky enough to aim correctly or not), remember details (he can retain knowledge beautifully the only problem is that most of it is useless. occasionally he managed to pull through), and bandage wounds (he's had lots of practice on himself; ranging from disinfecting small wounds, to self-stitched wounds, to cauterizing stab wounds. that last one's a pretty rare occasion, though)
• cru doesn't have any immediate family besides his cousin that's always traveling. his parents died in a car accident when he was young (he's always blamed himself & his bad luck for that), and his aunt & uncle basically disowned him a few long years ago, so he has no real familial ties
• he is so paranoid about messing up the timeline in season two. tried taking extra special care to avoid interacting with major historical figures or events while in dallas, but still ends up getting involved with a place called stonewall inn and accidently almost spurring along the stonewall riots six years before they're supposed to happen, much to him and five's chagrin when the latter finds the former
• cru tends to avoid his problems. it's a big problem of his. he doesn't necessarily run away from them, just avoids them with a passion like no other. the finest example being his feelings. particularly when it comes to five in season two
• he wants to help the academy save the world mostly so he can do something with his life that's good for once. and, as he discovers about himself later on, so he can spend more time with five without being awkward about it. even if nine times out of ten its under less than fortunate circumstances
• he fucks with delores so hard. literally loves her so much. is the only person to even try & treat her like anything other than a mannequin besides five. delores even reciprocates these friendly feelings, from what cru can gather while listening to five go back & forth with her, which makes five a little tense (he doesn't like the thought of a random stranger bonding with his wife after being alone for so long. plus, he doesn't exactly trust cru when they first meet, so that puts him on edge)
• doesn't really like the commission. maybe it's because hazel & chacha shot him twice on the same day, or because the handler only refers to him as "five's distraction," but he's not the fondest of the cooperation
• is always prepared for injuries. band-aids are always on his person, and peroxide is cru's best friend at this point
• he has a lot of noticeable scars. that includes the formerly mentioned one across his left eyebrow, a little slash over his lips, burn marks at the top of his ears, and much much more. and these are just ones that are there before the show begins. he gains a lot more throughout the course of the show
• cru has his own plot going on in each of the seasons; his character & his development doesn't solely revolve around the hargreeves. he's his own person
• in the first season, he goes on a mission to find out when he was born. knows he wasn't born on the same day as the umbrella academy as klaus suggests for some time (for one they don't have powers, their mom had physical evidence of a regular pregnancy, and reginald hargreeves didn't attempt to buy them at birth, so that's a dead giveaway), but he had a suspicion that there's more to him than his parents let onto before they died.
• in season two, he gets caught up in conflict with police over stonewall & it's residents (hence cru almost being involved with the riots years before they happened), and he's also being stalked by the commission. or more accurately the handler. she absolutely tries to take advantage of them for her own personal gain and to take five out of the picture seeing as he cares about cru like he does his siblings, but they don't have power, and are therefor easier to target. it's a mess
• season three they throw themselves into helping the siblings figure out what the hell is going on and eventually how to fix it. also does a shit ton of independent investigation work on reggie & unearths some things in the last few episodes that ends up getting him killed
random and important moments throughout the series with cru — (not entirely chronological)
• cru accidently snapping the handle to the academy's front door off the first time visiting it with klaus for reginald's funeral [season one]
• the giant blue portal appearing in the umbrella's courtyard and cru immediately thinking it's him and his lucks fault, to which everyone but klaus is bewildered by the implications of [season one]
• cru playing fashion show with delores in the back of five's stakeout van the first time he meets her [season one]
• cru finds out when he was born via a file that had been left open on the handlers desk at the commission. five had managed to snatch the first page up on his way out of there while running from the commission, and once reading through it it's revealed that cru was born on october first, 1985 [season one]
• klaus just hugging cru silently the first time he sees them since getting back from vietnam. after a moment he says, "i told dave he would have been so excited to meet you..." [season one]
• cru going bat shit on hazel & chacha for kidnapping klaus from the academy and legitimately being a little scary [season one]
• when five is trying to blink everyone out of the orchestra hall, cru yells over all of the noise that he regrets not being able to know five better before dying; which is basically his way of saying that he sort of likes five [season one]
• in dallas, cru listens to the radio in his window every night for news on anyone that might sound like the hargreeves. starts to believe that they might have abandoned him for being 'dead weight,' and that really gnaws on him [season two]
• cru getting 'hello' tattooed on his right ankle and 'goodbye' on the left two months after getting dumped in the streets of dallas. he missed his best friend, and couldn't think of anything else to do [season two]
• cru being talked to by a fellow stonewall worker who wants to let them know that they kicked out a 'kid in school shorts who looked like a police plant,' and cru hesitantly reuniting with five after being stuck in dallas for eight months [season two]
• elliot wanting to hang out with cru & get a coffee as a way to bond with the only other 'normal' person, and getting shut down by a standoffish five who proclaims that cru has "better things to do" [season two]
• lila gaining the upper hand in the warehouse fight with five after saying, "i wonder what your little boyfriend would think of you murdering a board room full of people, yeah?" [season two]
• cru meeting reginald officially for the first time in dallas, and not even being offered a chair at the lunch table like the others since he was "insignificant and of no importance," and "hadn't even been invited anyway."[season two]
• luther, five, and cru meeting five's doppelganger in dallas for the briefcase, and a lot happens. (cru breaks a glass at the bar and accidently gets them all kicked out, cru realizing that five is kind of dapper looking as an old man and saying as much, five in a bout of paranoia refers to cru as "his cru," and tells his doppelganger to get his own, cru hesitantly waves at his past self through the portal when it opens and gets waved back at, the fire extinguisher klaus threw through the portal forever ago in the past hits cru in the face, and five experiencing a rare moment of frustrated embarrassment when it comes to an end and realizing how he acted about cru) [season two]
• when jayme spits her venom at him mid battle, cru's brain opts to conjure up a hallucination of something the viewer at home isn't let in on. his trance is only broken when one of ben's tentacles whack him in the stomach. he doesn't talk about what he saw in his minds eye to anyone later [season three]
• five drunkenly singing a love song at the wedding & looking at a tipsy cru the whole time he does it [season three]
• both five and cru going on drunken shenanigans on the wedding night that none of them remember very well ad=bd waking up in a random hotel hallway together with cru drooling as five lays splayed over the taller mans lap [season three]
• five & cru having a giant fight the morning after the wedding. the last thing five says to cru before he dies later is "well maybe you should have stayed in dallas, then." [season three]
• cru also getting chased around the sparrow mansion as they try to make it very clear that they don't have powers, don't pose a threat, and just want to leave alongside the umbrella's. it doesn't work [season three]
• cru going on the road-trip with klaus and five; two out of his three favorite people! (the other is his cousin) [season three]
• cru dying in klaus' arms at the hotel oblivion and klaus bringing five to his body afterwards. he was killed via a alien tentacle slash to the face, so he's practically unrecognizable by the time both of them reach him [season three]
• five being unconsolably angry that he doesn't have time to give cru a proper funeral; with the impending doom of the end of the world and all [season three]
• luther & klaus throwing each other through the afterlife while fighting and landing in the dull-colored streets of dallas at the end where cru is found sitting silently on a curb and looking at a picture of five and them from the wedding that the bellhop had taken [season three]
• ghost cru materializing to help five tie his arm torniquet during the hotel obsidian battle, and five demanding klaus to bring them back when they fade away with luther afterward [season three]













