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In some ways, I have to make myself into the persona that I have to project.
It's safer that way. In order to not give yourself away, you have to sink so far into the role that it's virtually impossible for you to react inconsistently with your cover. It's more than acting; because if you think you have a script, you are going to get killed.
When I was with the FBI, I shopped at Sears for my clothes and got my hair cut for $12 at Cost Cutters. I was set up in that cover before Quantico. I worked hard at that identity because I knew it would be under intense scrutiny. I culled my library down to criminal justice texts and a few recent Tom Clancy best sellers. I changed gyms; I cut back on the martial arts and lightened up on the weights to get a little less defined. I became "Agent Alex Krycek", that geeky blue flamer with the gel-covered hair who stuck his hand in Mulder's face that long ago day.
Afterwards, for more years than I want to remember, I was just "Krycek" or occasionally, "Arnetzen" or worse yet, "boy". To the old men, I was just one more of their thugs. A little smarter and more independent than most, maybe, but they still saw me as a combination of errand runner, hired gun, and rent boy. I hated those years. Inside me, the part of my soul that is still "Alexi" screamed and cursed at some of the things that I had to do, that my body endured.
It was in those dark Consortium days that I got most of the tattoos and piercings. I only had the one little cartoon devil on my bicep back in the "Agent Alex" days. I could explain away one tattoo as the result of the drunken dare on my 21st birthday that it had been, but anything else? Anything more would have been out of character.
The Smoker glared at me every time I came back with another mark on my body that he hadn't put there. I would level a cold look back at the bastard and wordlessly dare him to say anything. 'My body,' I'd think to myself. 'My choice - THIS time, it was MY choice.' I started with an earring a few days after Mulder found those cigarette butts that the bastard had deliberately left in my car. The first piercing was done with a tiny onyx stud set in brushed titanium that wouldn't sparkle if a stray glimmer of light hit it. Once it healed, I sometimes didn't wear any earring at all, but I never let the hole close up completely.
I had cleared out my apartment and had been told to hole up in a real dive. It was a tiny studio apartment so far on the 'wrong side of the tracks' that you couldn't even see the tracks from there -- except the tracks on the junkies' arms, of course. No cable, not even bootlegged. In fact, there was no TV at all, no radio, no books. You can only clean your gun and sharpen your knives so many times. There was a little tattoo and piercing place next door. I was so bored by the third day that I wandered over to check it out. The shop was dark and dingy from the outside, so I was surprised to see that the counters were clean and that there was an autoclave against the back wall. The little gal that did the piercing had more metal in her face than I was comfortable with at the time. I'd never seen anybody with a stud through the septum of his or her nose before except in National Geographic. She flirted with me and I was still so firmly in the "Agent Alex" mindset that I swear I blushed. The "crunch" of the metal through the cartilage in my ear seemed to mirror the "crash" of that first assignment falling around my head. Afterwards, as I looked in the cracked mirror over the stained basin in the flophouse, the black stone in my left ear seemed to match both my mood and my soul.
The first time Spender whipped me it was over Melissa Scully. Fucking Luis said I'd hesitated. Maybe I did, but I told myself that I was just trying to be professional and identify my target like I was trained to. But Cardinale said I'd frozen; he blamed me for the fact that he was so quick off the trigger that he shot the wrong sister. It wasn't supposed to be a kill shot in the first place, damn him. We were supposed to just wound Scully; the plan was to get her into the hospital and away from Mulder. It was a cluster fuck all the way around.
The Smoker blamed me. It didn't matter that Luis was older and more experienced or that he was the one that actually pulled the trigger. It was somehow my fault. I think Spender was just waiting for a chance to take a whip to my ass. He stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray on his desk. "Boy, I think you have some explaining to do." He didn't want an explanation; he wanted a scapegoat. There was an umbrella stand by the coat tree and I nervously watched as the old man sauntered over to it and pulled out a long, thin object. A riding crop. I swallowed hard and the wrinkled corners of Spender's nicotine stained lips quirked. He laid it on the desk between us and said calmly, "Boy, assume the position."
I fought like a wild man when Luis and Mike caught a hold of my arms and bent me down over his desk. As they put their weight on my shoulders, pinning me down, I cursed them and him and the world in general, kicking and trying to break their hold on me. Then the Smoker said, "Well, boy, you have a choice. You can take this like a man or I can find employment for you elsewhere." When his words registered, I went still, my sweaty forehead pressed against the dark oak. I hadn't been told much at that point about the real business of the Consortium, but I knew what a threat that was. If he didn't use me as a spy or assassin, he'd put me in the rough trade brothel, or the porno industry that turned out very discrete and very real snuff films, or in the labs. Funny, none of those 'job' options that Spender was referring to were ones that I wanted to face. Though I found out later that at least two of the three were survivable.
I tensed as Luis reached under my belly and undid my jeans. "What's wrong, college boy? Think ya've got anything in there that we ain't seen before?"
'Someday I will kill you, Luis,' I thought. The air in that upscale office was cold against my bare ass and I flinched when Spender walked around behind me. There was a 'whish' noise in the air, but no blow hit. Son of a bitch was messing with me. "Just do it," I grated out.
"Very well, Alex. You missed a kill; what is worse, you alerted the target." The first stroke laid a line of fire across both of my butt cheeks. I tensed against Luis and Mike's hold. The second blow hit at the top of my thighs in the crease and I bit the inside of my lip. The next one forced a gasp out. I think it was the fourth that did the most damage. I twisted --just a little -- unconsciously trying to escape the tip of the crop. But by doing that, the wider braided leather cut into the outer curve of my right hip, biting deep, drawing blood. By the fifth blow, I could both taste blood in my mouth and feel it tricking down the back of my thigh. I lost count after twenty, but I remember asking ... no, begging him for mercy. He didn't grant me any, of course.
When he stopped it was like the world had ended. My universe had narrowed down to the swish of the crop through the air, the impact on my flesh and the trail of blood down my leg. It probably took me two or three minutes to even realize that Luis and Mike had let go of me. Spender rested his hand on the small of my back; I didn't even twitch except that my gasping breath sounded even a little closer to a sob. He traced the deep cut with a casual forefinger, "That one will scar, boy. You shouldn't have tried to avoid it." His hand lifted off my ass and wiped his fingers absently on my tee shirt. "We won't ever have a repeat of today will we, Alex?" I silently shook my head and indeed, I have never hesitated at a target again. Except years later. At Mulder.
A couple of weeks later the scab came off. I was looking at myself in the locker-room mirror, trying see just how much damage was still visible. "Yeah, college boy, the old man got ya good," Luis drawled. "Marked your pretty ass for you."
I snarled at him. "Whatever." I pulled on my sweats roughly and shoved my feet into my trainers.
"Whatsamatter, don'tcha like wearing Spender's mark?"
"Fuck you," I muttered and stomped out.
The idea of wearing that smoking bastard's "mark" on my ass bothered the hell out of me. I found myself tracing the ridge of scar tissue in the shower, rubbing at it as if I could erase it. It wasn't a large or obtrusive scar, only about two inches long and a little wider than a knife cut, but to me it seemed huge.
I was killing time in a bar about three or four months later, just waiting until it was time to call a contact. The bar was pretty quiet and I could clearly overhear a couple of girls in the next booth. "I don't understand, Belle. Why a tattoo?" one asked in a puzzled voice.
"It was time for me to reclaim my body. This was MY choice," Belle answered, firmly. "He put his marks on my body. Now they aren't there any more, or at least you can't see them anymore."
It got me thinking, that overheard conversation. A tattoo could cover the scar. It wasn't like I had to be able to resurrect "Agent Alex" ever again. I'd rather liked the low voltage buzz of the needle going into my skin when I'd gotten that first tiny tattoo in college. And who the hell was going to be inspecting my ass anyhow? I started pondering designs.
I debated a pair of lips and snickered to myself at inviting Spender to 'kiss my ass'. But I wasn't sure that was something that I'd want on my skin for the rest of my life. I finally settled on an Orthodox cross. The slanted cross bar and dark red colors would cover the scar nicely. I was in Kansas City for some god-only-knows-why reason and found a little shop called "The Illustrated Man". They'd been there a while from the variety and age of the flash on the wall and the bald guy with the tattooed skull was happy to take my cash.
After a small contretemps about me refusing to lie down with my back to the door, we got started. The alcohol on my skin was as cold as Spender's crop had been pure fire, and I grinned as the needle slipped into my flesh. 'I reclaim myself,' I thought as the endorphins started to flow.