Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. It makes him want to scream, rage against the sunrise that blinds him in the morning- every morning. He resents life. Because Thomas Merrick is a scraggly bearded, withered, old man. All curled up in his wheelchair. Missing his left leg- no sensation in his right. Both of his hands tremble like he's terrified all the time- he isn't. Merrick is done with fear. His bones creak, his joints ache like a sonuvabitch; he feels ancient. And he hates it. All that work, all those years wasted fighting the Federation have made him so tired. There never was a clear winner to that war- both sides were adamant that they'd won, and wouldn't hear otherwise. Just as well, in his opinion. California was theirs again. And Texas. All the border states had been restored. But the Federation was still a world superpower, even if they were... if not friends, allies.
He groans as he pushes himself into a more comfortable position in his wheelchair, not for the first time scowling in pain. The thought that he sounds like he's chain smoked, gargled chunks of rock for the past thirty years makes him snort bitterly. It's an ugly sound. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. His tired body creaks a protest like a hinge that needs oiling. No saving him now, unfortunately. The morning air is pretty brisk, actually. Good thing he has a whole collection of ugly old man sweaters. Speaking of collections, he muses as he glares at the growing light on the horizon from the safety of his back porch, he has a pretty large one of medals he doesn't fucking want. And a shitty ball cap. 'For his service.' Merrick is old. Eighty-three and still kicking. The very edge of the horizon is lit up pale pink, yellow shards just barely clawing their way over the very precipice. The morning birds are waking up, chirping and singing. A Mourning Dove croons its sad song somewhere to the left.
"Fuck off," Merrick grumbles in his raspy tone. His aide chuckles, and he wrinkles his nose. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. And he hates it. He's always hated titles and he will until the day he dies. Archangel, Gabriel. Scarecrow, Elias. Edgy as all fuck, and dumb as hell. Yes, he hates titles. Callsigns, he supposes, are maybe a little bit different. He still doesn't like them. That's why he'd never gotten one- Elias had, when they were young (so young, too young), tried to give him one. He had literally refused to respond to it- it'd taken three weeks for it to fade away. Now he has a title that will never fade- the sort of thing that goes into history books. God, history books. Biographers are contacting him left and right. Everyone wants to be the man who gets to write Merrick's story down. Merrick would gladly let his story be destroyed by time if they would have just taken him first.
Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. Gabriel Rorke, for all his many, many faults- God rest his wretched soul- had once said to him "Merrick, you're going to outlive every single one of us." It'd been three weeks after they officially became Ghosts, after a pretty fucking rough mission. Gadget was laid out across the whole fucking couch in the living room of Gabriel's shitty apartment, groaning and clutching an ice pack to his bicep. Elias was back at his own house, probably rocking his boys to sleep at that hour. But Merrick was tracing circles on Gabriel's kitchen table-top, blinking thoughtlessly. The man himself, Gabriel- utterly plastered, sunk to the floor in the corner with a bottle of Jack Daniels clenched in one fist and knees pulled up to his chest- had spoken out of nowhere. Telling him that he would last them all. And then some. There was something Merrick would always resent. That the paranoid asshole had been right.
"Banks," Merrick gravels quietly, listening to the young woman shuffle somewhere behind him as she returns to attention. He'd use her name- Julia- except it never seemed to come out. "Yes, Mr. Merrick?" she asks gently, like he's... fragile. The word seems profane when it's applied to him. "Would you get me a cuppa?" Anything to get his moment of silence. Deshawn would be replacing Julia in about thirty minutes, which suited him just fine. There was something awkward about having a woman keep him on the up and up. Almost like the wife he'd never had. It's far more comfortable to have the younger man around to make sure he doesn't kick it. Fall down the stairs or some shit. Not that he even could- no stairs in the house. The sun is finally truly appearing over the horizon, and he glares at the light. Another day dawns for Merrick the Immortal. The Undying, the call him. And what a lonely day it'll be.
The war had stolen any chance of starting a family of his own from him- he always was a one-track kind of guy, and there was no room for love like that on a battlefield. Or so he told himself. There was no Mrs. Merrick, unless you counted his late mother- he didn't, frankly. His older brother had died of pneumonia before Merrick turned five- eight really was far too young to go- so there were no nieces or nephews or in-laws to speak of. Father died of throat cancer, mother died of grief. Not that they called it that. But it was the truth nonetheless. Neptune had been killed some three months after Logan had been taken by the Feds- by Rorke. Kick lasted another three years, before he killed himself. A suicide mission. Turned some tides from bad to better, but Kick was dead. They still called him a hero. Sometimes, Merrick wanted to scream that he was a coward. Not that he ever meant it. Not Merrick the Immortal.
Julia sets his coffee on a tray in front of him- it's a neat little thing. Clips onto the armrest. His hands tremble as always- Julia reaches out to steady them, and only a tiny bit of coffee splashed onto his sweater. She's such a good girl. Still. He can't wait for Deshawn. Somebody just has to talk about last night's game with him. Also, help him take a fucking bath, because injury and age have stolen autonomy from him, and he refuses to let the girl help him with... that. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. More like Merrick the Helpless, the dottering, the useless, the forgotten. He snorts again, and ignores Julia's tolerant smile as he dismisses the rapidly cooling coffee. It may be time to head inside, watch some Antiques Roadshow re-runs. The sun is burning his eyes. His back whinges a protest, and he groans as he resettles again. Where had his internal monologue taken him, again? Oh. Yeah.
David, he muses, died far too young. Since he'd never had a wife or children of his own- or even a dog- he's sort of... adopted Elias' children as his own. A lot of them had done that. There were a lot of men called 'Uncle' in a way that felt a lot like 'Dad'. Keegan had a wife of his own- she'd split when their daughter died of Leukemia and took their twin sons with her. Keegan never saw his sons again, not even on the day he died. Tragedy stalked the Ghosts. Always had. David and Logan were as much his and Keegan's boys as they were Elias'. So maybe that's why it hurt so much when David died long before his time. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. He'd have taken his boy's place. Nothing could have possibly been worse then being shot to death by your own little brother. Merrick would have spared him that, if at all he could. Keegan wept for weeks. It was a closed-casket funeral, but at least there was a body. Not like with Kick.
Gadget died some time around when Neptune did; his collection of electronics did little to save him from a broken neck, when he miscalculated a jump. The neck was what killed him- Merrick hoped he died before he felt the broken limbs. Or the shattered ribs. Or the punctured lung. Julia murmurs something to his right, and he shakes himself back to the present. "... What?" he asks, and she chuckles fondly. How many bumbling elders does she take care of, after all? "I need to leave twenty minutes early, Mr. Merrick, my sister's gone into labor early and she's got no one to drive her to the hospital- Deshawn will still be coming at nine. Will you be alright?" He nods his assent- he's old, not stupid, after all. He can handle being alone for an hour and a half. They don't call him Merrick the Immortal for no reason, he tells her, and she laughs. He smiles a close-lipped smile, and pretends the name doesn't make him want to scream forever. She leaves him in silence, after maneuvering him into the living room and out of the cold November air.
It's the third. Logan's birthday was yesterday. His death was a week from today- ten years ago. After David died, the life seemed to drain from Keegan like a punctured balloon. One of their boys dead, the other lost where they couldn't follow. They kept on, despite the reports of dead Ghost after dead Ghost. Some of the bodies were old, five, six years old. Some of them... not so much. Merrick began to bow under the pressure. Keegan was. Despondent. For a long, long while. A little stretch of lonely eternity. Merrick shucks his sweater off blithely as he muses on his failings, tugging the throw blanket off the arm of a couch that he's never used onto his lap. It's orange and yellow and brown- very... autumn-y. Keegan tried his level best to be there for Merrick, he really did. But who can keep up with an Immortal? In the end, when Logan pinned him to the ground, Keegan couldn't- wouldn't- fight back against the closest thing he'd ever had to a son.
Merrick never blamed him for that. Keegan tried so hard. When at last there were only three Ghosts left, Logan came back to him. Honest and true. On the fifth anniversary of his brother's death. Weeping and inconsolable. Begging for Merrick to put him down like a mad dog, because the pain in his chest was like a beast trying to gnaw its way free from the cage of his ribs. And of course Merrick couldn't kill his son. Just the same way Keegan couldn't bear it. And Logan wept. Merrick picks at the soft yarn of the blanket in his lap. He's so old. There are sunspots on his wrinkled hands. He flicks the TV on- not Antiques Roadshow, because he's not feeling his age today. Actually, he's feeling far better then he has in a while. In years. There's a strange lightness in the air, today. Like the world is holding its breath. He turns on some ancient reruns- American Ninja Warrior, to be precise.
Deshawn would probably find him napping, if he was honest. Though, he was so close to finishing his autobiography... He'd complete it after lunch, for sure. After all. He has all the time in the world. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. Logan broke his heart. If David died too young, Logan was barely more then a baby in Merrick's eyes. Not that his brother was much more. But Logan wasn't the next Ghost to go. No, the next Ghost to go was Rorke. Or, rather, Gabriel. There was, Merrick insisted to anyone who asked, a marked difference. Rorke was a mad man, tortured beyond any semblance of rationality. Revenge was the only thing he wanted. But the man died himself, at the very least. At the bitter end, Gabriel was a Ghost. He supposes that he actually did doze off. One moment, his reruns are on- the next, Deshawn is taking his pulse cheekily. "Fuck you, Chisholm," he grumps good naturedly, and the young man laughs.
First order of business, however humiliating it is, is a bath. He feels disgusting, and his beard need some help. He says as much, and his aide doesn't complain. Merrick wishes he was still young- or, at least, that he still had both legs. He'd lost the left the same day that Rorke died, in an explosion. Saving Logan's life. He'd decked his surrogate son out of the way, going cartwheeling over him with the force of the blast and thankfully shouldering most of the damage. Aside, of course from terrain. Every now and again he can feel a phantom limb- toes wiggling where no foot has been for eight twelve years. The damage had taken most of the leg- to about three inches above the knee, if anyone was asking. Not that they were. Deshawn helps him into the water and leaves- he doesn't lock the door. No need. Merrick can't get out on his own, anyway. But he does still have both hands, however bad they shake, and he can wash his own damn self. Merrick the Immortal counts his fucking blessings, thankyouverymuch.
As he scrubs his face, he reflects. Since he'd been unconscious, extracted by some young medic that would never replace Mummy, Logan had to tell him what happened. How he'd busted into the room where Rorke was waiting for him. Dead-eyed. There was something about that stare, his boy had said, that haunted a man. It was a broken thing, bored and aching. The sort of thing that begs for help. Rorke, he said, was declining. Fragments of the man he used to be shining through. That deterioration, Logan insisted, began the day he killed Elias Walker. The man had thought that if he just got his revenge, he would be happy again. Fulfilled. Rorke had thought he could go back to the way things were. And when that wasn't the case, when remorse, of all things, began to eat at him, he got. Strange. After a bit of half-hearted, hollow-eyed grappling, Logan had pinned Rorke and pulled his gun. And then there were two.
When he's clean, when he feels like a human being again, he sinks up to his chin in hot water and groans. His whole body relaxes, joins crackling as Merrick melts. Logan, he reflects was his greatest failing. Mostly because by the time it was just the two of them left, the war was mostly over. Things were finally waning, even if tensions were still sky high. Merrick had time, then, plenty of time. Both of them were grieving at the time. Not truly with it. In the present, he jolts up after the water covers his nose, gripping the side of the tub. He finally decides that water up to his neck is enough. The steam will still clear his sinuses. He still misses Logan. Still regrets what happened every hour of the day. David wanted to be a career soldier. Logan wanted to go to college. Logan wanted four-to-six-kids and a dog, and a house with a big front porch. And Logan was very, very dead.
It was so totally avoidable, too. If he'd only paid more attention. If he'd only been more supportive. If only. Merrick the Immortal, they call him. Merrick the Undying. It's not true. Finding Logan hanging limp as an overcooked noodle nearly killed him. There was no note, officially. He didn't write and say 'I'm sorry' or 'I just couldn't take it any more'. Just a journal detailing increasingly disturbed dreams, a man struggling through the day, complaints about the therapy that wasn't even working- and then on the last page with an entry 'I'm so tired.' And that was all. Kick, at least, was a 'hero'. Logan died alone in his bedroom, too tired to fight any longer. Merrick grunts as he leans forward to empty the bath. It's funny- he's moving sluggishly today, more so then usual,but his body doesn't hurt. Deshawn helps him out of the tub and Merrick wrinkles his spotted nose. What they say is true, he muses. Life is cyclical. Helpless as a baby, helpless as an elder. At least he still has most of his teeth.
You either die young, he supposes, or on your back in bed as an old, lonely man. By now, his young aide is proficient in grooming his beard- Merrick had forbidden himself from shaving the day he cut his neck by accident. He's back in the shitty wheelchair, hips aching and knees creaking. "What time is it?" the old grump asks as his young companion shoves him towards the kitchen. "Almost eleven," Deshawn tells him blandly, "You fall asleep in there or something?" Or something, Merrick doesn't say. Eleven's too early for lunch. He's already taken a nap. I guess, he muses, it's time to finish up the memoirs. He snags the laptop from the end table by the couch. There's only a bit left- just him suffering through the end of the war, trying to keep it together. Struggling under the weight of medals that should have been pinned to the lapels of people much younger then him.
Just the heavy stuff. No one wants to read about an old man doing the same damn shit day in and day out. Merrick hums to himself- trying to decide what the ending will be. A happy ending isn't possible, but a satisfying one might be. Writing, he has learned over the course of several years, takes time. Sometimes, it takes him an hour, two hours, three hours to think of a single sentence. Sometimes, he writes a thousand words in twenty minutes. This isn't either of those, just a happy medium. Merrick gets stuck in, and just as he's approaching the very end he has a sort of epiphany. Merrick is tired. So he considers his laptop, thinks that this might be the place to stop, just one short chapter about the crotchety old man he's become, and adds one more line. Then he sends it to a publishing house, without so much as proofreading it. They'll take it as it is, or not at all.
And then Merrick goes about his day. He makes it a good one, as far as he can without leaving the house or having real Adult Friends. It's funny how twenty five seems so young to him, now. For a little while he laughs about the title of his autobiography- 'Here's My Book, Now Leave Me Alone'. Then he eats enough Little Debbie snack cakes to overdose a toddler on sugar. Because he can. Drinks a beer or four that he shouldn't be having with his old man medications. Deshawn tries half-heartedly to stop him, and then takes a beer as a bribe. Pulls a few grand from under the mattress for Julia's new niece- her sister has some money troubles, and she deserves to be able to provide for her child. And then he sits down and eats a bland dinner, watches Wheel of Fortune like he's someone's grandpa, and goes to bed. Merrick is tired.
.oO0Oo.
'And when the sun rises the next morning, Merrick the Immortal isn't around to hate it.'
.oO0Oo.
"What took you so long?" a familiar voice asks him, and Merrick the Undying laughs.
I was trying to work on a project of mine when this happened. Whoops. Poor Merrick.