Save Yourself "You can not save me,
My life is a mess. I decided this as I approached the second hour
of waiting for Mulder to get back from whatever it is he's doing.
I rattled the handcuff against the car door a little out of boredom.
I so desperately needed to stretch that I could feel the tremors running
through my arms and legs.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I thought I had a bond with Mulder.
In public, in front of Scully, we would be our old antagonistic selves,
but alone we would return to what we had together in North Dakota.
I had expected him to rip me out of the truck and threaten me. I
didn't expect him to come so close to shooting me, with only Scully stopping
him.
Then that first interrogation when he kept hitting me unnerved me.
I know how Mulder hits and I know how Fox hits, with Mulder just totally
losing it, barely coordinated, and Fox fast and motional. The man
who kept smacking me across the head wasn't Mulder or Fox. Usually I can
feel Mulder or Fox think, like a field of static electricity emanating
from that lean body. This time I felt nothing at all. His eyes
had gone almost black and reminded me of the deepest, darkest still water.
I couldn't see to the bottom. Nothing moved in those eyes or in his
face. His hand kept casually flying out at me with no changes or
warning in his still, blank face. Even Scully looked at him strangely.
I offered him so much. I sent him the receipts to set up the raid.
I killed the driver of that truck before he could get us away. I
told Scully that the militiamen had rescued me from the silo, all the while
looking for that glint of humor in Mulder's eye as he remembered how I
really got out. That glint never showed up. I offered Mulder
the men he hated most. I spread the things I knew he would want before
him like a banquet. My every word said that I intended to work with
him, but, to my shock, he didn't want to get involved. I finally told him
that I could help find the other bombs. That hooked him in at last
but didn't wipe the chill, still blankness from his face. Later he
watched coldly as Skinner gut punched me and locked me out on the balcony.
I'd assumed that Mulder had only two personalities, his own and Fox's.
I could be wrong.
I occasionally saw Mulder when we were with Scully but alone with him
I saw only the cold one. Maybe Mulder was afraid of being alone with
me, afraid that I might louse up his judgment. I'd given him time
to think about what we'd done, which was a bad mistake. Who knew
what twists and turns that labyrinthine mind had taken since then?
I hadn't seen Mulder since we said our good-byes after our road trip.
I had seen Fox since then and made a total ass of myself, said some extremely
stupid and hurtful things. Mulder could be angry with me just because
I upset Fox, but Mulder probably had a whole list of reasons to be upset
by now.
I drowsed off out of boredom as much as fatigue and came to when Mulder
opened the door and got in. The car clock said 3:15 a.m., almost three
hours after he left me here. I asked, "Where have you been?"
He looked at me with little emotion. Shit. "Making travel arrangements,"
he said in that flat voice, Mulder's usual monotone taken into the dead
zone.
"To go where?"
I swear that I'll never complain that Mulder talks too much ever again.
"You're going to keep me in the dark," I said resentfully.
He punched me in the face so fast I never saw it coming. My head
rocked to the side, and I couldn't help the involuntary sound of pain that
left my lips.
His face hadn't changed at all. "Yeah." Then he pulled the
car out.
"Who the hell are you?"
He cocked his head to the side a little, as if trying to decide, then
said, "I'm William."
William is Mulder's middle name. It's also his father's name.
I hated this more by the second. At least this William didn't sound
like William Mulder; he lacked the thick New England accent. The
thought of Mulder creating a copy of his tormentor to install in his own
head would have been too much for me to deal with.
"I want to speak with Mulder or Fox."
"You're in no position to make demands. The boys shouldn't talk
to you. Anyway, they don't want to. Mulder had reasons even before
you called Fox a whore and Mulder his pimp."
"I never said that!" Especially not about Mulder.
"That's what it sounded like to them. It took a gallon of cookie
dough ice cream to get Fox calmed down."
It had been the night before I made my foray into the American militia
movement. Knowing the twists of Mulder's tortured and self-torturing
mind, I wanted to see him and reassure him of my feelings.
I arrived at his apartment in time to see him leaving with two men.
Worried, I followed their car at a safe distance. They stopped at
an old office building. When Mulder got out of the car he looked
calm and didn't seem to be under duress. I settled in to wait for
him to finish whatever business he'd involved himself in.
A nerve-racking thirty minutes later, Mulder left the building and returned
to his ride. I followed them back to his apartment building, parked,
and ran up the stairs to Mulder's floor, catching him as he started to
unlock his door. I quickly realized that Fox had the steering wheel from
the difference in posture; he had a looser stance than Mulder. From his flushed
face and gleaming eyes, I also realized that he'd just had sex.
Fox had a gun trained on me with none of Mulder's think-it-through-first
hesitation. "What do you want, Alex?" he asked. It still amazed
me to hear him speak in a slightly higher, younger voice with that faint
New England accent.
I couldn't identify the banging behind my eyes. Rage? Jealousy?
Betrayal? Hurt? "Who were you with, Fox?"
"That's none of your business."
"I recognized those men as Senator Matheson's aides. Are you fucking
Senator Matheson to get information and support?"
"It's still none of your business."
"If you're out whoring Mulder's body—" I knew that I shouldn't be talking
to him like this, but the words poured out beyond my control.
"It's our body, and I put it to much better use than he does!
How dare you, of all people, go self-righteous on me?" His hands clenched
and unclenched while his eyes glittered. "I'm not a whore "
"What is it with you and Mulder and older men? Are you still looking
for Daddy?" Oh God, why the hell did I say that?
My world went black and spun as he grabbed me and bashed me against
the wall. None of Mulder's hesitation at all. I bounced and hit the
floor. Dazed, I waited for the next blow, but it never fell.
When my eyes could focus I only saw an empty hallway. Fox had fled,
probably in an effort to avoid killing me. He didn't return to the
apartment that night. I tried to avoid wondering where he went, who
he might be staying with, and what he might be doing in return for that
shelter.
I tried to see either of them the next day and failed. They successfully
avoided me. I left for my next assignment in the militia like a good
boy even though my heart felt like a lead weight.
Thinking it over, I could see where Mulder might decide that I'd called
him a pimp. I'd sort of suggested that Fox let Matheson screw him
in return for information on the X-Files. Mulder, who took the blame
for everything, would see that as my way of saying that he pimped Fox out
to get what he needed to work on his own obsessions. Someday I'll
learn when to keep my mouth shut.
William watched me work through my memories then said, "Mulder feels
very guilty. Whatever sexual satisfaction you gave him shouldn't
outweigh the fact that you've killed or betrayed everyone he's known.
He feels like he's letting you lead him around by his dick, as Fox would
say. He still loves his father, as any dutiful son should, and feels
that Dad's death deprived him of the chance to ever make it work between
them. A futile hope, but hope is all that keeps Mulder going sometimes."
I killed Bill Mulder for Mulder. I meant it as an execution, a
just punishment, for the horrors and molestation he'd inflicted on his
son. I did that even before I found out that the various traumas
had splintered Mulder's psyche. I couldn't tell Mulder any of this.
He would blame himself, and that was the last thing I wanted.
"Each of you seem to have a role. What's yours?" I realized
that I had seen glimpses of William before when I partnered with Mulder
and later when he rescued me from the silo. I hadn't liked what I
saw then either.
"I'm the memory. Our brain has been tampered with so many times
that it's amazing we function at all. That doesn't even count all
the times one of the others buried things they couldn't deal with.
I'm the keeper of every aborted or abandoned memory. Every repression,
every scrap of missing time, every hypnotherapy session, every drug-induced
delusion, every abduction, including the one that occurred the night they
took Samantha. They did things to him that night that have impacted
his life forever, and I'm the only one who knows." His mouth moved
into an almost-smile. "I keep the boys in line. hey can be prone
to excess." Impossibly, his expression turned colder. "You take advantage
of that, of Mulder's loneliness and Fox's youth."
"I care for them."
"That doesn't stop you from using them. We're here." He
parked the car in the airport parking lot. I'd been so involved in
trying to bring William out that I'd stopped paying attention to where
we were going. The conversation must have taken longer than I thought,
because we got to JFK from Manhattan already.
He smiled, briefly Mulder's smile, and started to get out of the car.
"Mulder you're not—"
"I'm leaving the window rolled down. If I'm not back in a week
I'll call Agent Scully to come bring you a bowl of water." He currently
seemed to be some unholy amalgam of William and Mulder.
I couldn't believe this. "Mulder! Mulder, you're not going to
leave me here!"
He just started to walk away without another look back. I couldn't
let him leave me here. I couldn't let him leave without me.
I started yelling to him in Russian. If he intended to investigate
the pouch, he would be going to Russia. I hoped he'd figure out that
he needed me. To my relief, he stopped walking away and came back.
"What did you say to me?" he asked. He sounded amused.
"What!"
"You called me a bad name."
To underscore my case, I cursed him in Russian and spat at him.
Nothing got Mulder's attention better than antagonism.
It only seemed to amuse him further. "You speak Russian, Krycek?" he
asked with laughter in his voice, more Mulder than William now.
"My parents were Cold War immigrants; what's it to you?" I knew
what it would be to him. Use me, Mulder.
He did. He got me out of the car and uncuffed me, although he
watched me like a hawk over all the hours that followed. Although
the plane ride and later the truck ride passed in a thick silence punctuating
only by his occasional commands for me to move, once we reached his goal
he started to open up to me again. I had Mulder back, an all-business
Mulder, but still Mulder. As we crawled in the dirt spying on the prison camp together, we almost achieved
the old bond we had as partners.
Then the guards saw us, and it all went to hell.
The guard threw me into a cell, and I spat defiance back at them.
The administration here intended to check my credentials, to make sure
I was who claimed to be. The importance of their experiments, looking for
a cure for the black cancer, had gone to their heads. I had enough
clearance to have every single one of the camp administrators thrown in
cells themselves, and they treated me like this. At least they put me in a cell with Mulder.
He looked at me expectantly. Blood had dried on the left side
of his forehead near the hairline. The left side of his head
again. That happened too often for it to be coincidence. He
must have taken a whiplash to the face. I felt my rage escalate.
"How do you know?" he asked. Still Mulder. Good.
I'd constructed my story on the walk here. I saw no reason for
Mulder to know what I really am, not when he was an employee of the American
government. "They were questioning me, trying to get me to confess."
"To what?"
"To being a spy."
Mulder lost it, and I realized that I had probably screwed up in my
choice of story. He grabbed me and threw me against the wall, holding
me in place with his arm against my neck. At least it was still Mulder.
Fox would kill me and William—I didn't want to think about what cold William
might do. At least Mulder and Fox had some fondness for me.
A man with multiple personality disorder, and every personality a psychopath. But I was getting
damned tired of all of them manhandling me.
"What did you tell them?" Mulder rasped.
"That we were stupid Americans lost in the woods. Mulder, you're
going to need me in here." He calmed, seeing sense at last, and let me
go. "Don't touch me again." Not like that and that seemed to be the
only way he touched me lately.
He turned his back, and I went to the window again. I stumbled
from one prison to another lately. I turned when I heard muffled
sounds behind me. Mulder sat wedged in a corner, his eyes almost mindless,
biting down on his hand. Trying to choke off his screams.
I rushed to his side and whispered his name to him over and over again.
It didn't seem to help. At least whoever he was now had the sense
to muffle the screams. A scream in this place would probably earn
us a guard more than willing to give us something to really scream about.
Finally I heard him say something against his hand and remove it from
his mouth. It sounded like, Shut up. You'll get us all in trouble.
William looked at me again, then his dark green almost black eyes shifted
to Fox's bright green. Mulder's eyes always had changed colors
with his mood.
"We have to get out of here," Fox said softly with an edge of panic
in his voice. "There has to be something I can do. Maybe I
can distract the guards—"
I quickly realized what he meant and whispered back, "No! They'll
hurt you, Fox, and they'll make sure you can't get away. Sex doesn't
solve everything."
"My experience says otherwise. Have to get out of here—"
I stroked the right side of his face, and he leaned into it like a cat,
snuggling against me. Touch always calmed him, poor kid. He
took one of my fingers into his mouth and sucked on it with a disturbing
mix of childishness and sensuality. Fox always went into playtoy
mode when touched but at least now I saw no hint of the zombification that
usually came with it. Maybe I did them some good.
I felt myself becoming aroused and fought it down. This may be
Mulder's body, but right now it held Fox's personality, and Fox was only
a child. An oversexualized, intelligent, manipulative, and occasionally
even lethal child, but still a child. Too many people took advantage
of him already.
I took my finger from his mouth. "I'm sorry I said those things
to you, Fox."
"Not even Dad ever called me a whore." He sounded genuinely hurt.
No, your father called Mulder a whore. "I was upset and didn't
mean them."
"That's not what William says."
"How many of you are there, anyway?"
Fox grinned up at me with a smile I recognized as being similar to Mulder's
I'm-know-a-secret-and-I'm-going-to-share smile. I was a fool for that one.
"Well, there's me and Mulder and William. You just met Baby.
He doesn't do much. The baby screams. Couldn't ask for more
you say." He looked a little disappointed when I looked at him with total
incomprehension. "Not a Cure fan then. Baby screams for all
of us. Then there's Fox I, the orig—" His eyes and expression changed again to William's cold darkness. "Fox
talks too much." Then he shook his head, and I had Mulder and his
warm green-hazel eyes back. "This is part of my job description.
I always handled the cellar back home. It didn't bother me."
He moved away from me.
"Mulder—"
"Krycek, it won't work. It can't."
"Why not? It worked in North Dakota."
"You killed my father."
"I didn't—"
"Even if you didn't kill my father, you helped get Scully kidnapped,
betrayed me, helped kill her sister, and got yourself involved in a variety
of murders and illegal actions. I have a conscience. I couldn't
even kill Cancer Man, much as that black-lunged bastard deserved it, even
though it might have made things better." He looked down. "North
Dakota taught me something horrible about myself. I learned that all a criminal would have to do
to get my trust is fuck my brains out. It's not happening again,"
he said bleakly.
Mulder always thought too much, ran himself around like a leashed dog
around a tree until he had no more lead on the leash and choked.
I knew he would manage to twist our time together around. I didn't
realize he would be able to reinterpret it in such a tawdry manner.
"No, Mulder. It wasn't like that at all."
"You're usually good to Fox at least. Do you know what he tried
to tell you before William cut him off? He tried to tell you about
the first Fox, the original personality." When he saw the look on
my face, he nodded grimly. "That's right. I'm not the original, although
I pretend, even to myself, that I am. The first Fox's mind was badly injured the night Samantha
got taken. The divorce finished him. He's either dead or in a coma,
but we still leave a place for him. William and I took over.
The Fox you know came later, when Dad started in on us, so you can't really
blame Dad for me having MPD. Well, unless you think of the way that
his involvement in the Consortium's plans led to Samantha being taken and then the divorce. Whatever."
"So Fox is Fox II?"
"No, he's actually Fox III. I was Fox for awhile, but Dad made
it impossible for me to keep the name." Mulder looked at me.
"Your face hasn't changed expression at all."
"Was that confession supposed to drive me away?" It made me ill
to think about it but not on Mulder's account.
"It would if you had any sense."
"I think I've proven I have no sense." I wanted to hold him but
I knew he wouldn't let me. I wanted to tell him that everything would
be all right, that I would get us out of here. I wanted to take him
away from it all and keep him safe and happy.
I knew I couldn't. Not with my life or his. Not when we
both had the unbreakable urge to throw ourselves into the middle of things,
sense and danger be damned.
But I would change his mind about us. I would get us out of here
soon and show Mulder what we could be together. Not now though, not here.
So I sat as close to him as he would let me and waited.
Hours later, my reprieve still hadn't arrived. Instead of letting
me out, the guard returned with two bowls of water then locked the door
again. I passed one to Mulder, who accepted it almost gratefully.
As we both drank I suddenly heard Mulder spit. He picked a giant
bug out the bowl and silently showed it to me. No way that got in
there by accident. Apparently I hadn't made my point yet with the administration.
He threw the bowl down and I did mine, knowing it would bring attention.
I couldn't let them push us around. Once that started, it wouldn't
stop. As soon as the guard came in I started shouting at him in Russian,
equal to equal. I excoriated him for the wait, the accommodations,
and the petty prank. He started to back down a little, and I shoved my points
home, making sure that I had the attitude of a very pissed-off superior
instead of a frightened prisoner. I could tell from his eyes and
posture when I finally reached him.
Mulder watched with some confusion. "What are you saying?"
"That I want to see his supervisor." The guard opened the door,
and I followed him out with the sight of Mulder's worried look branded
into my mind. Was he worried for himself or for me? Maybe both.
As we walked away I saw the doctor and his gang of thugs enter the cell.
The guard held me back. "You have to give the American to us as a
sign of good faith," he said.
I heard Mulder yell. "He isn't part of the deal." I tried
to pull away but the guard was far stronger than he looked.
"He is now. We have the antidote for the cancer. He will
get that." The guard's eyes narrowed. "If you don't give him to us
we will simply take him. This is a good will gesture on your part.
Your release and the possibility of his depend on it."
I watched them drag an unconscious Mulder out. I remembered all
too well the horror of the oil invading me, possessing me. I can remember
it slithering through my veins and my mind.
If I made trouble, things would only be worse. This way we both
had a chance.
"I accept your terms," I said, the words ashes in my mouth. I
could only pray that Mulder survived with his mind intact.
For his own safety, I stayed away from Mulder, but I demanded reports
on his condition. To my relief, he made it through with life and
mind unbroken. Mulder tends to be tougher than anyone gives him credit
for.
That morning they mustered the prisoners together to continue excavation.
Even as I made friendly with everyone, I scanned the area for the opportunity
I needed. I noticed the delivery truck, but its lack of working brakes
gave me pause. It would be hard to get any speed going when I knew
that the next turn would smash us.
I watched the prisoners for a glimpse of Mulder, but then the doctor
came by and I had to make nice with him. I heard a sudden commotion
and turned in time to see Mulder bearing down on me with great speed and
something sharp in his hand. I only had time to realize that they'd
dressed him in the prisoners' gulag grays, not a good sign or an indication that they
intended to honor our deal, before he knocked me onto the bed of the truck
and out of consciousness.
I came to bouncing in the truck's flatbed with the woods speeding by.
When I pounded on the grate that separated the bed from the cab section,
Mulder briefly turned around to look at me, but it wasn't Mulder, it was
William. I quickly realized that the brakes wouldn't work and the
truck would wipe out on the next turn. William obviously realized
it too but didn't get out of the truck.
I couldn't save him in time. All I could do was save myself and
pray that Mulder's usual extraordinary luck held. I grunted with pain as
my left shoulder hit the road at high velocity. The truck sped out
of sight. I briefly considered going after it but the sound of horses
brought me back to my senses. I ducked into the underbrush and hoped that Mulder
would be able to do the same when the truck finally came to a halt.
Just once I would love to have a plan work out as I intended.
That night I had more than enough leisure time to reconstruct the recent
events and brood on my mistakes. As the hot knife slowly sawed into
my flesh for an eternity, I cursed everything and everyone that ever wronged
me.
Mostly I cursed myself, for my arrogance and stupid assumptions.
Slick Alex who could surely convince a few stupid peasants that black was
white. Stupid Alex who never thought to ask why they were all amputees
and fell asleep in their company. Really stupid Alex who left Mulder
to the black cancer and felt surprised when Mulder didn't realize that
I hadn't betrayed him again.
I only remembered snippets of the next week. Somehow I made it
to St. Petersburg and my very amused superiors. They got what they
wanted without having to lose anything important. Unlike me.
I found out that Mulder's odd luck had held. The whole world knocked
him around but for some reason always let him live. He somehow made
it back to the States in one piece, as whole as he could ever be.
I hated him for that when I didn't miss him so strongly that it made the
phantom pains of my lost arm seem minuscule by comparison. Still
no happy ending in sight.
Stripped bare of pride, assumptions, an arm, and Mulder, I started to
plan for the next time.
The End
Weaknesses IV
by Viridian5
"Reality is the only obstacle to happiness."
—a Mikey's Thought for the Day
You can't even save yourself."
—"Save Yourself" by Stabbing Westward
"Follow the pouch."
Before he could ask, I said, "We've got to get out of here. They're
going to torture us." I went immediately to the window and took a
deep breath as I tried the bars. Damned useless claustrophobia.
At least I won't be too panicked in here. I can deal with the phobia,
stop it from ruling my actions, but I could never slow the pounding heart
or stop the twinges of hyperventilation it gave me.
Previously, they closed their eyes before shifting from one to the
other, which lessened the impact on me.
"I can not save you,
I can't even save myself."
—still "Save Yourself" by Stabbing Westward
Fortunately, I passed out long before they finished their butcher work.
