From: livengoo Date: 5 Oct 2001 19:52:29 -0700 Subject: New Fic: Survivor Source: atxc Survivor A Mulder/Krycek story from X-Files post-season land. By Livengoo Do I need to tell you? They belong to 1013 and Chris Carter, not me. No harm, no foul, no intent to damage, fold, bend, spindle or mutilate. Rated, uhmm, whatever. Pick one. If you ever read Goo stuff you'll know what to look out for. If you didn't, welcome! Pull up a chair. I like profanity and coffee and am not afraid to use either in liberal doses. Nothing else particularly naughty in this one. You may archive it but I'd really appreciate it if you'd contact me first. Gossamer gets it by default. Also welcome.to/f2g has authority to archive. Oh yeah, you want me to list spoilers? Umm. Some for the last season. Some for Scully's hair color. Oh yeah, one for season four or five, I can't recall which. You're warned. Read at your own peril. ___________________________________________________________________________ He'd been dreaming about the tall blonde from "Roswell." Second season, of course. Her fingers had stroked his cheek and he'd licked at one, whispering her name. She'd lain back against the console, hair bright in the light of stars as they'd sped into deep space and she'd crooned, "Mulder, I'm going to tell you everything." One long leg had draped over his shoulder and the view of her personal Bermuda Triangle had been . . . welllllll, astronomical, but something was wrong. "It's time you knew, Mulder." Since when did the tall blonde babe sound like . . . A hand muffled his yelp and a body was suddenly pressing down on his. Not, he noted with regret, the blonde babe or anyone remotely resembling her. He bit the hand over his mouth and it was yanked back by . . . "Krycek! Holy fucking shit you're dead!" What could only be described as a shit-eating grin met his shock. "Think of me as being in syndication." Mulder scooted back against the head of his bed, pawing discretely under the pillow for the gun he'd hidden and which, suddenly, was dangling from Krycek's extended middle finger. "It was unpleasant enough the first time. I don't need to do it again." "How . . ." He hesitated, then reached out to poke a finger into the reanimated, multi-crossing agent's skin right where it showed at the neck of his black tee shirt. Stylish, black, silk tee shirt, he suddenly noticed, beneath an equally stylish black leather jacket. "Not only do you come back from the dead, you come back looking like an Italian pimp." "Hey, it's for the home town crowd. SOME people like the look." "Your skin's warm." Mulder eyed him narrowly. "Let me see your teeth." "Am I supposed to say I want to suck your blood?" Krycek obligingly curled his lip. "Satisfied? I'm not letting you cut me to check for circuitry though. You'd stain the material." "I saw Skinner shoot you. He got you right here -" tapping his finger on Ratboy's forehead. "He may be getting on, but he's still got what it takes to shoot a Ratboy like you." "That's Mr. Ratboy to you, Foxboy. And for your information, he got me dead to rights." "I don't get it. How did you do it? Did . . . Oh God. Nothing on earth could have survived that shot. On . . .earth . . . .oh god. Tell me the aliens don't go prancing around in pyramid shaped ships and they didn't drop you into some goofy Hollywood prop sarcophagus?" Mulder shuddered at the thought. "You watch waaaaay too much television, Mulder." Krycek got up and started rummaging in Mulder's closet, tossing items of clothing out. "Here. I always liked you in this. And the fans loved it." "Fans?" "Yep. You know. The viewing audience." Mulder pulled the sweater over his head and nodded with an attempt at equanimity. "Tell whoever resurrected you that they left a few nuts and bolts rattling around loose." Black jeans hit him in the face. "Don't be ridiculous, Foxboy. You knew Skinner couldn't kill me. Hell, you just stood there and watched without twitching a muscle. Although after season 4, maybe you are that jaded . . . naaaah. You had to know." Mulder sighed. "I know every time I've thought you were gone before you came back. When I heard that your body had disappeared - I don't know. I saw you die but I guess I did know that the Buffy variant of Holmes' Law applied." "'They're not dead until they're cremated,'" both men recited together. Mulder cracked up and Ratboy leered at him. "There are times I remember why I keep saving your life." "So how did you do it, Ratboy?" "Don't call me Ratboy," Krycek responded automatically. "How do you think? I've got more nanobots than DC's got lawyers, Mulder. If I can use 'em to turn Walter Skinner on and off with a Palm Pilot don't you think I can use 'em to repair a steel-jacketed fender bender like that? All they had to do was spackle and patch one hole and I was back in business." Mulder stared at him, and tried to resist a Homer Simpson moment. It was damn hard. "D'oh!" hovered on his lips as he pulled on his jeans and boots. He finally sighed. "I really should have seen that one coming, shouldn't I?" "Right now the Washington Post is running stories about using nanotech to repair damaged cells and reverse aging, Mulder." Krycek sighed and scooped up his leather jacket. "In the old days you'd have thought of this. But it's not your fault. It's your research team." "Huh? Do you want me to shoot you again?" "That irritating, huh?" Krycek grinned and led him downstairs. "C'mon. I hotwired a zebra car from Scully's neighbor's house. Let's go get coffee and leave it double parked by a crack house." "You are strange." Mulder considered who he was saying that too and sighed. "Very strange." "That's why you love me. Dunkin' Donuts coffee good for you?" "Aren't we supposed to meet in a dark, murky bar or on some ominous waterfront or something?" "Too many junkies by the Potomac. Besides, I've been skulking and lurking and I've really got a caffeine craving by now. So you never said. Dunkin' Donuts? Peet's?" "That Donut crap'll kill you. Or maybe not. Can you find a Starbuck's instead?" He'd never realized Krycek had a thing for Mocchacinos. They sat down the street sipping coffee and watching the Dupont Circle hookers key scratch the double-parked zebra car. "So the nanocytes just repaired the cellular damage and suddenly you woke up . . ." "With the mother of all headaches. Never get a lead hangover. It makes tequila look like soda pop." "So, why? What was it all for?" Mulder turned to him, ignoring the way Krycek loudly sucked icy coffee drink through the straw. "I know the nanotech that repaired you isn't terrestrial in origin. If it were, some diet company or something would be marketing the shit out of it and it'd be franchised all to hell." "Yep. I'd say that's a good market forecast. And who said it wasn't being marketed? Think of it as product placement advertising." "Look, Ratboy, I know cryptic is your middle name, but could you try to clear this one up a little for me? I mean, weren't you saying you'd tell all?" "That was before you called me Isabel." Alex Krycek pouted at him. "Have you been two-timing me with some other show? That one kid does look a lot like you." "Are you suuuure the warranty wasn't up on your nanocytes, Krycek?" Ratboy threw back his head and laughed so hard the hookers and Skinheads looked up from vandalizing private property to stare at him. "Ratings, Mulder. It's all about ratings." "You know what I said before about cryptic?" "I'm not being cryptic, Foxboy. I'm trying to tell you the Truth. You know, the capital T truth? The one you've been searching for?" "Why now?" Mulder sipped his cooling Caf Americain. "Because you've moved on. Because you're in syndication. Because you can't screw up any new ad campaigns? Take your pick." Krycek smiled a soft, philosophical smile. "You always wondered why the aliens were here, didn't you? But didn't you ever wonder that you never did really carry out an investigation or follow up on anything that would tie it all together?" Mulder stopped, mind suddenly blank. Then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Like figuring out that there were so many different kinds of aliens around, and then I suddenly just . . . just decided that they were all lifestages of one type. But that doesn't make sense. And then those things with werewolves and vampires that I never followed up on and all that crap I started buying into with Scully. God, why didn't at least have some tests run on that one crash!" "It's not your fault, Mulder." Krycek patted his shoulder. "You never had a chance." "But -" "Nope. They had that angle covered on 'Interstellar Tonight.'" Krycek slurped a little more melted coffee drink. "Think about it. What's the biggest export from the U.S.?" "McDonalds?" Krycek shuddered. "Sometimes you scare me. You might be right. Okay, if fast food is the biggest, what's the second biggest?" "Entertainment." Mulder didn't hesitate. "Movies. TV. Disney toy merchandising." "Tell it, brother!" Krycek pumped the air. "That's why they're here." "For Pocahontas lunchboxes?" Mulder eyed his coffee dubiously, suddenly wondering what was in that shot the kid had added to it. "Noooo, Foxboy, for en-ter-taaainment!" Krycek drawled it out. "Think about it. As a society gets more advanced and is less driven by survival, what's its prime need?" "Jobs? Capital creation?" "You're such a damn capitalist, Mulder. It needs social stability. It needs something to keep people occupied. It needs, to paraphrase Marx, an opiate for its masses." "And this relates to Disney exactly how?" Mulder eyed the all-night liquor store across the street and considered whether a nice merlot would help Krycek's latest bit of unpalatable infotainment go down more smoothly. Or perhaps he should resort to the tried and true frozen orange-juice-and-vodka screwdriver . . . "Entertainment, Mulder." Krycek sighed. "It was too expensive and predictable to produce the stuff at home so they come out here. We, my friend, are the next wave of reality TV. Or holovision or whatever the hell it is. Don't get me off topic here. I was getting to a point, I know I was." "You were explaining how the nanocytes take longer to repair cranial damage and that you're just happy you've stopped drooling?" Mulder hopped off the BMW they'd been sitting on. The motion set off the car's alarm and he and Krycek both reached for their guns, paused, then completed the move and shot the offensive vehicle. "They're doing a damn fine job, I'll have you know. No sooner did I get killed out of this plot line than I got a job as a bit player in some movie about mountain climbing. You should be so lucky, Mulder! I shudder to think where YOU'LL end up." "So. All this is an alien plot to obtain cheap entertainment to keep the alien masses sated and happy?" "Yep." Krycek picked out a nice shiraz. "How's this one look?" "It's a chick wine but it tastes good and I like how they spell its name." "I mean, didn't you ever wonder how you'd be going along and suddenly change your personality overnight?" The Rat handed over a couple tens to the bored guy at the counter. "Or how Scully used to be really smart and professional but suddenly turned into a girly screamer with a secret alien baby?" "Hey, that baby happens to look a lot like Elvis. I think we know where that one came from." Krycek paused at the door, eyes glazing for a moment. "The really frightening thing is that you might be right." "But Krycek, what you're really saying is that we're all acting out a script and free will is a joke." "No I'm not." The other man shook his head violently. "I'm absolutely not! We're reality TV, Mulder! Candid Camera and Cops all rolled into one without a consent statement! All I'm saying is that we've been invaded for hundreds of years, but they don't give a shit about taking us over. They only drop in long enough to drug us and condition us with a couple of plot changes or personality makeovers and then they cut us loose again. Catch and release and film the results and the kids at home will love it. Though I do wonder what we're rated . . . " "Godddd," breathed Mulder. He settled onto the steps of a brownstone condo and reached for the bottle of wine. "So my sister's abduction?" "Plot twist. Contract negotiation. Child actor laws." "And Scully's abduction?" "Makeover. Didn't you notice how she came back and started wearing a whole Clinique boutique on her face? And her dye job? Don't tell me you didn't notice THAT?" "At the time I was just so relieved to see her." He handed the bottle back to Krycek who took a contemplative swig. "But . . . what you're saying is that all our lives are cheezy mass market dramas." "'And we but players on it.' Yeah. Something like that." "What happens when we get canceled? I mean, when our plotlines . . . I mean . . . this doesn't make any sense!" "Sure it does. The Cigarette Smoking Man is a villain with us. He goes home, gets his programming via the idiot box, goes out and is a wise elder advisor for someone else, comes back, watches TV and he's right back on track with us. Not only does this make sense but it explains why all of us seemingly behaved so nonsensically when you followed us or we followed you. Though I gotta tell ya, that interlude you spent in New York with that babe with the curly black hair was a nice break. Can you set me up with her now that you're off doing alien shit again?" Mulder boggled and reached for the wine. "I thought that was just a dream . . ." "Like I said, Foxboy. Programming. They got to branch out so much once we got TV and they could program us at home. It's amazing." Krycek sighed. "I wonder what I get to do next." "Hey. HEY! How DID you get the inside sthcoop on all this," slurred a slightly less than sober ex-Federal agent. "Assthuming you're right, of course." "I'm right. It's the nanocytes. They make my plot changes easier to remember." He smiled. "Oh, and they do something else. Something I'll have to show you first hand." Mulder took a tentative sip of wine and eyed his arch-nemesis. "What?" "Well, you know how they made Skin-man all rigid when I hit the switch?" Krycek finished the wine. "Yeeeeeah," drawled Mulder. "I"ve got the fine-tuned model. One body part at a time." Ratboy leered. "I'm gonna show you how they do it on cable." Fin