"Divide and Conquer"
By Viridian5
10/14/00

RATING: R; Krycek/other. If m/m interaction bothers you, leave now.
SPOILERS: None for The X-Files, but it gives away Fight Club’s major secret.
SUMMARY: Krycek infiltrates Project Mayhem... and other things.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: The Basement. Anywhere else too, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: Hell, yes. Feedback can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com
DISCLAIMERS: All things X-Files belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and 20th Century Fox. All things Fight Club belong to Chuck Palahniuk, David Fincher, Jim Uhls, Fox 2000 Pictures, Regency Enterprises, Taurus Film, and Art Linson Productions. No infringement intended. Suing me would be a waste of time.
NOTES: For the Little Black Dress Challenge. Since Krycek seems to be able to cross over into any fandom with ease, write a Krycek crossover of about 500 words or more.

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"Divide and Conquer"
By Viridian5
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Alex kept the standard Project Mayhem stern, blank expression on his face as he climbed the rickety stairs to the end of his assignment. He’d been told to evaluate and execute, and today he’d put his plan in motion and leave these crazies behind.

Infiltrating Fight Club had been easy, and his amputation earned him respect from the masochists who first came to the clubs to beat the shit out of other masochists and be beaten in turn. The Smoking Man hadn’t understood why men went to them or why they then gave up their regular lives and joined the founder’s weird terrorist group.

Alex had needed only one night to see it.

Founder Tyler Durden had charisma to spare and blazed with total, messianic certainty. He took away his followers’ doubts and gave them a cause.

The Syndicate hadn’t seen the danger in this group at first. Men in one city forming a club to beat the shit out of one another? Who cares. Men committing small, blue-collar acts of revenge--pissing and jerking off into diners’ food, splicing seconds of porn footage into movies, vandalizing people’s cars--also elicited disinterest. The Syndicate had forgotten that nothing succeeds like success and that you had to step on people hard and early, because Fight Club spread across the country and escalated into domestic terrorism.

That got an Oh Shit at last. And they hadn’t even known Project Mayhem’s ultimate plan when they sent Alex in. Tyler Durden intended to hit the computer networks of major banks and destroy the global monetary system. All the money that was really only ones and zeroes would disappear, and the world would fall into total chaos.

Alex had enjoyed all the happy anarchy and destruction, the pitch-black humor underlying most of their acts, until that. He could survive and thrive in a world gone mad, but why should he have to? They had to be stopped, and not just for the paycheck riding on it.

Alex knew how.

The ancient wood of the door caught against the floor as he struggled to open it, but he forced it through. Lying on a stained, bare mattress, Tyler Durden stared at the peeling ceiling and said, "If you’re looking for Tyler, he’s not here. I don’t see him much anymore."

There was the Tyler Durden who radiated certainty and walked around like a rock star and God rolled into one, and then there was the other Tyler Durden. The Mayhem people thought Tyler was testing their silence and resolve when he asked what they were doing. Maybe they lied to themselves about him or were too brainwashed to understand, but it hadn’t taken Alex long to see it. Or maybe they liked the idea of being led by a "mad genius."

Mulder would be intrigued. Don’t think about Mulder.

"I’m not here for Tyler," Alex said. "I’m here for you."

Tyler wore the body like a too small, secondhand coat, his outsized self bursting its seams, but this personality seemed right in it. It had the average, soft looks of the hippest kid in the math club, but battered now, face punctuated by bruises and scrapes, a chemical burn on his hand in the shape of a kiss, shadows under his eyes showing that he never, ever slept. Alex sat on the mattress and stroked his hair, unwillingly reminded again of Mulder.

"You’re different," he said. "We set out to make them think for themselves, but now they just mindlessly follow Tyler. But you don’t, do you?"

People didn’t want to think for themselves. "He’s leaving you behind. Doesn’t tell you anything. Making eyes at that blond."

He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. "It has to stop."

"You have to show him you won’t take it." Alex straddled and kissed him, knowing the risks. Tyler might pop up at any time. That and the desperate eagerness his prey responded with added a bit of spice.

Killing Tyler Durden would only martyr him, but seduce his other self away and Tyler Durden’s selves would destroy one another and the project with him.

Tyler had already pushed this self too hard and away. Alex needed to give him only one last shove.