#Now time to write smut now that I’ve gotten all the feelsies out :D

[watanabes-cum-dump]

Big Brother

Synopsis: Lee reflects on his experience as an older brother, both to Murray and the Gray Ravens.

Note: Basically Gray Raven found family + Murray.

AO3 link

I am five when my brother is born. 

He’s so small, so fragile, and so loud. But I want to protect him, because mother loves him, and I will too. I will be good for her, and good for him. Father is nowhere to be found, but it’s alright. Me and my brother can be the men in mom’s life. 

I am six when he starts to walk, Murray stumbles around grasping at toys with his chubby little hands. He can’t go to school yet, so I still walk alone, but he will join me in a few years. He loves the little robot I made out of pipe cleaners and cardboard, he loves it more than the stuffed cat mom bought for him. She laughs, saying that maybe she should just keep the cat. 

Next thing I know, I was nine and my mother is dead. The Punishing virus, of course. 

I don’t cry when they burn her body. Because I have to take care of my brother now. Murray can cry because I will comfort him, I will dry his tears. If I cry, who will dry my tears? 

It’s not that bad when mom dies. A children’s home takes us in. We still have a roof over our heads, and I can still take care of Murray. He’s alright, making his own toys out of pipe cleaners and cardboard. I’m alright too, because I started to learn about robotics. I’m going to make the best robot for him, so that he’ll always have a friend. 

I am ten when Murray is diagnosed with a heart condition. He’s more fragile than ever, launching into coughing fits whenever he exerts himself too much. The medicine is expensive, I dry up mother’s savings to pay for it. I feel bad, because mother said that we could use it to get a bigger place and get better food. But I don’t mind the children’s home, I didn’t mind out tiny apartment either. Not when Murray is with me. 

I am twelve when I realise just how much I miss mom. I miss her voice, her touch. I don’t want to have to take care of Murray all the time. Why should I raise him when I’m just a kid? I have school, I want to have friends to hang out with but I have a younger brother who’s always sick. He’s a burden, but one that I am willing to shoulder.

I am still twelve when I get my first job. The pay is low but the old lady running the shop is nice anyways. She gets it, she wants to help me. Her mom died too when she was young, she knows what it’s like. I am too young to work, but the Punishing virus has left the world broken beyond repair. Age just determines your value in the workforce now. 

I am thirteen when I forget my mother’s face. I’ve seen so many come in and out of the shop, in and out of the children’s home. Only Murray’s face stays with me. He looks like me but not really. His eyes are bigger, and his lip are thinner. But anyone could tell we were brothers. Morian who is thin but tall with blond hair and blue eyes, and Murray, who is also rather tall for his age with the same hair and eyes as me. 

Someone once told me I look like my mother. I am not sure, I don’t remember her. 

I am sixteen when me and Murray move out of the children’s home. It’s a small apartment, just like the one I grew up in, but it’s not that same. It’s a shoddy studio with a leaky kitchen sink and the bathroom door doesn’t close all the way. But we make it home. I hang some posters up, and once the bed is messed up and the blinds are crooked, it’s our new home. 

I am seventeen when I start doing mercenary work. It’s dangerous, but it pays well enough that maybe I can finally pay for Murray’s heart surgery. I found I’m quite a good shot, though I wish I could just tinker with little robots all day. I don’t like the job, but eventually, I don’t feel anything about it. It’s a means of survival, in this world where death’s shadow never truly leaves, it’s all I can do. 

I am not Morian when I work, when I work I am Lee. A blue demon with two pistols and sharp eyes. Lee is cold and efficient, Morian is a warm older brother. Lee is a lone wolf, Morian is always with his family. I think that way I never felt all that bad about the job. Separating myself from Lee made me feel lighter, as if I was just a normal boy. As normal as a boy could be in a post apocalyptic world I suppose. 

I am eighteen when I find a way to save Murray. This is it, this is all I’ve ever wanted. A ticket to Babylonia, a ticket to safety and security, and all I have to do is give up my body to Kurono. 

So I do. 

My heart goes to Murray, finally he has his heart surgery. The rest of my body goes to the wastes. Am I still Morian? Or am I just Lee now? Can Lee be human? I wasn’t sure, it made me uneasy for a while. The idea that I was only Lee now, that I was only the soldier. I could never go back to being an older brother, I could never go back to that little apartment, and I could never remember my mother. 

I never turn nineteen. 

I am eighteen forever. I am an adult technically but I never really feel like one. 

Murray turns nineteen. 

Then he turns twenty. 

I am younger than my little brother now. 

But I still love him the same. I still ask him how he is, I still tease him occasionally and I watch him grow. It’s scary to think that now, there is a possibility that I will be alive when he is not. Or that I could die and leave him alone. That’s what scares me the most, so I try to come back from my missions alive. 

I do a bit of a double take when he calls me Morian. He knows I’ve been going by Lee but, to him I’m still Morian. His older brother. I do not know if Morian is still alive, truthfully. Have I replaced him? Is it just Lee now? 

Eventually, I left Kurono and joined Babylonia’s task force. My new teammates are Lucia, a veteran soldier who still has the charm of a teenage girl, and Liv, a sweet young medic. They’re both younger than me, which was a bit jarring at first. Liv is sixteen, what has she already seen? And Lucia, how long has she been a construct? Where is her family? 

Our leader, the commandant, is an accomplished one. The valedictorian of their class at Faust military academy, and an ace shot. I think they’re just as good as me. The Gray Ravens become my new home in no time. 

I would never turn down Liv’s request to help her in her training, and I remain… supportive, of Lucia’s attempts at cooking. They’ve become dear to me, and even the commandant stays close. I know most commandants don’t usually get this close or even think of the constructs in their squads as human, but they do. And it makes me feel like Morian again. 

Eventually, I realise that Lee and Morian are one in the same. Sometimes Morian is violent and cold, and sometimes, Lee is soft and welcoming. 

HQ is nothing like that rundown apartment, the couch is soft in the commons, and the sink works just fine. There are no blinds to speak of, the sky remains starry at all times of the day. It is always well lit, and it’s always the right temperature. I even have a place to make whatever contraptions my heart desires, and I have the means to repair my clothes. 

It’s not that rundown apartment, but it has the same feeling. It feels like home. 

Home is wherever my family is. Yes, Gray Raven is my family. I am the oldest, I will dry their tears and help them anyway I can. I am the Gray Ravens older brother, and I have two younger sisters who will never cry, never feel hopeless because I am here for them. 

Soon enough, I realise that they will dry my tears too. They will help me, they will take care of me. Because that’s what family does. 

I am still eighteen, despite the years that have passed since my reconstruction surgery. But in my mind, I am still a kid. I still get pouty and commandant pokes fun at me for it. I will never truly grow up, I will be stuck in this limbo forever and I will only become even younger than Murray. 

I know he works for Kurono now. I know he’s doing shady things, just as I did for him once. I don’t care, I still love him. Because I know he would still love me in spite of the dirt I’ve trudged through. We are both brothers and sinners. 

I think he could be a commandant in all honesty, but I think he’s still a little fragile for it. No matter, he makes good money in Kurono, and we even get to hang out sometimes. It should be the other way around, I should be treating my little brother to cool exhibits and arcades. In another timeline, maybe I am. 

In another timeline, maybe Lucia, Liv and the commandant are friends from school. In that timeline, maybe mom is still alive and me and Murray can play video games and build little robots together. Maybe dad is there, whoever he is. 

In that timeline and in this one, I am their older brother. 

I am still eighteen, I always will be. Whether I am the Palefire or the Entropy, I remain eighteen forever, and I remain their big brother.