Author: SyndicateGirl
Archive: Yes, definitely! But please keep my headers attached and let me know where it is if you can. Thanks!
Spoilers:
Rating: G
Classification:  Response to fanfic challenge: Someone (any character) goes to the DMV.
Summary: CSM gets stuck at the DMV.
Disclaimer: The X-Files characters are Chris Carter's and 1013 Productions', not mine, unfortunately; no infringement is intended. Please don't sue - I'm a writer, and have no money! :D

TITLE: CSM at the DMV

The ear piercing shriek of an ill behaved child echoed through the building and rang in his ears, instantly stealing his attention away from the newspaper.

He scanned the room, searching for the source of the ear shattering noise, and his eyes settled on a remarkably unconcerned mother.  A screaming brood of 5 hell beasts running around at her feet.

He sighed, and silently wondered for the umpteenth time why he bothered to save humanity.  
Some days he questioned the wisdom of such a decision.  Today was one of those days.

After all the years of living above the law (or below it, however you wanted to look at the situation), he had finally been caught and imprisoned.  No, not the authorities.  That would never happen.

No, he had been clutched tightly in the talons of an inescapable monster that few in this modern world could escape.

He was at the DMV.

The great Cigarette Smoking Man (as he had been called many times by friend and foe alike) was stuck at the Department of Motor Vehicles staring at the strangest offerings of humanity, breathing in the smell of recycled air and floor wax.

He had always said that most government buildings in the US lacked interest or style, and this building was further proof.

He sat back in the hard plastic chair and mused at the sight of his “fellow man.”  Taking a sweeping glance around the large room, he wondered what had happened to society, while he was living behind a thick shroud of secrecy.

He quietly mourned the loss of style, common sense, and manners.  In no more than a minute, he watched someone screaming into her cell phone, saw a man cut in front of an old woman, and listened to another young man arguing with the clerk about how he shouldn’t need to fill out so much paperwork for a license.  ”Too much reading,” he had said.

CSM snorted, now also mourning the sorry state of the educational system.

A woman in her late 20s passed in front of him, and he marveled at how unremarkable women looked in this new, modern era.  Particularly this one. There was a time, not that long ago, when a woman took pride in her appearance.

Flowing dresses, curvy hips, red lips, softly coiffed hair, an air of gracefulness as she spoke…a gracefulness that, as he had argued many times, was far superior to the often brutish ramblings of men during that era.

To modern women, though, it seemed that “taking care of herself” meant dieting to the point of being stick thin (leaving many women disturbingly similar in appearance to 15 year old boys), and waxing various parts of her body.

No grace, no curves, no femininity.

The soft coiffures of yesteryear replaced by long strings of overprocessed hair; the eloquent speaking replaced by foul mouths and worse attitudes.  

The woman in front of him was a good example of the sad shift for womens’ fashion.

She wore a pair of tight, pink camo pajama pants, bad posture, a head full of shockingly light blonde highlights, and a shirt that had the word “Princess” emblazoned across the front.

“Figures,” he snorted out loud, “Everyone’s a princess now.”

The woman beside him looked over, obviously amused by the old man talking to himself, and CSM shifted in his plastic chair, uncomfortable with the sudden attention.

He leaned back, closed his eyes, and thought back to a more pleasant era, silently thanking a higher being for having been born during an era that allowed him to experience a long ago, more attractive world.

His thoughts drifted to Teena’s nearly black waves of gorgeous hair, of Cassie’s big, beautiful cerulean eyes…He loved them both in such different ways…

“NUMBER 98!” a voice boomed through the antiquated sound system, slamming him back to the present.

He looked down at his ticket: You are Number 137.

“Damn it.”

This time he didn’t care if the woman beside him stared.

As his eyes scanned through the dregs of humanity he marveled at just how unsavory a cross-section of the general population could be.

There was the man with the mullet, sporting a stained Nascar shirt, and a pair of acid wash jeans.

Next to mullet man was the young gentleman wearing a sideways cap (protecting his ear from the harsh sunlight perhaps?) and a pair of pants that threatened to fall to the linoleum floor at any minute. He looked like a 10 year old waiting to grow into his school clothes, and CSM smirked when the boy, in a vain attempt to be cool, repeatedly tripped over his own trousers.

In his mind, CSM went through various Syndicate members, putting each of them in each of those two outfits. When he got to the Well Manicured Man with a mullet, he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

When that game exhausted itself, his attention shifted to the mother with the unruly herd of screaming children. He silently pondered why he hadn’t pushed a little harder for that population control project. God knows the earth needed it.

Oh well, in another few years, that’ll be the aliens’ problems. Let them deal with it.

He stretched his long legs out, and thought briefly about getting up to stretch. “No,” he thought to himself, “the view’s too good from this vantage point.”

In the next few minutes, he watched as a man who reeked of gin got a license to drive a bus. listened as a blowhard with a bluetooth ear piece tried desperately to sound more important than he actually was…either that, or the guy had no ear piece, and he just came to the DMV to talk to himself. Either way, CSM was amused.

“NUMBER 113!” the voice crackled over the loud speakers.

How time flies when you’re lost in your own thoughts. “Maybe this is what you need for your writing. Real life experiences. Time to think. Inspiration,” he thought to himself.

His mind was changed with the man with B.O. walked by scratching himself.

Another man walked passed, and CSM caught the smell of stale smoke. CSM took in deep breath. God, he needed a Morley. Hell, after this day, he’d need a whole carton.

He didn’t dare leave his hideously orange, plastic chair, though, for fear of missing his number when it was called. He refused to spend any more time in here than necessary.

He looked down at the gaudy, almost neon orange prison cells the DMV called “seats.”

They reminded him of a bowling alley. He remembered bowling once, a long time ago.

He and Cassandra had met Teena and Bill at the Greenbriar, and they had made use of the on site bowling alley.

They had all been so young, so full of life and hope.

He and Bill had whooped, danced, and hugged with every strike much to the amusement of their wives. Cassandra and Teena had laughed until tears were streaming down their faces.

So long ago.

Those had been good times. Fun, innocent times. Before the tests, and the abductions, ad the betrayals, the multiple murders, the divorces, the hateful words spat at each other by lovers…he shook his head, “No. Don’t do this. Eye on the mission, Spender.”

“Spender,” he thought, laughing mirthlessly at the string of letters that had at one time or another represented first name initials. C. G. B. J. R. Q. M. A. …hell, he’d practically gone through the entire alphabet during his life.

After all, a man can hardly live by one name if he is to keep a low profile, and not be found. He’d been a Craig, a Jason, a Raul, a Gregory, a Charles, a Lawrence (what the hell was he thinking with that one?), a Michael…Sometimes he almost forgot what his real name was.

“NUMBER 122!” the voice boomed.

122. 1/22…January 22…the day his little girl was born. He remembered looking down at Sam for the first time. Seeing Teena’s eyes, and his own stubborn expression in little Sam’s furrowed eyebrows.

The bustle around Bill and Teena fell silent as he smiled down at his little girl where she lay in her crib. Would he know his daughter? Did Bill know that Samantha’s father was his own best friend - Samantha’s godfather? Would Bill ever suspect? Would Cassandra ever find out? She was Samantha’s godmother, and if she spent a lot of time with Samantha, maybe she would start to notice the similarities…

He looked up to see Teena smiling, a knowing smile, and instantly his fears abated. He loved that woman. He couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“NUMBER 129!!” the voice boomed, breaking him out of his thoughts.

1/29…January 29th…the date that he and Cassandra married. His beautiful young bride, looking as radiant as he could ever remember, walking towards him down the aisle. He was nervous. Excited. It was the first time he had felt needed, depended upon…a protector of his small future family of two - husband and wife. He wanted to be a good husband.

He had once said that he never loved Cassandra. It was a lie. A lie told by a man so consumed by guilt over her abduction, and so cloaked in pain and anger, that he could barely remember what the truth was. He needed to protect himself from any more pain. Cassandra hated him, he was sure of it.

“…never loved her,” he shook his head. It was a lie he regretted as soon as it left his lips. Of all the lies he told, he felt, perhaps, most guilty for that one.

He loved his Cassie. Sure, theirs was not the fiery, passionate love that had consumed him and Teena, but it had been love, nonetheless. It had been a slower, more gentle love that developed over time, culminated from affection, and nourished through years of happy familiarity.

No one would ever know how it tore him up inside when she was taken back in 1973. No one would ever know the heart wrenching decision that they had made together. He swallowed hard, wanting to forget that particular memory…

He silently cursed his bad luck and getting a ticked that corresponded with so many bittersweet memories.

“NUMBER 136!”

He looked down at his ticket, as if staring at it might will the number lower. No such luck. But he was close now. So close to number 137

He mused at the predicament once again. He had seen presidents die, and yet here he was, anchored to a cheap piece of melamine furniture, waiting to get his freedom back again.

Freedom that, unfortunately, only come from talking to a surly, overpaid government worker with a chip on his or her shoulder.

Who were those cartoon characters? The crabby old ladies from the Simpsons…Patty and Selma. He had seen that show once upon a time. It amused him to some degree.
Curse his car registration anyway. It was, after all, the reason that he was stuck in this institution of bad decor and worse odors.

Shouldn’t this vehicle registration have been taken care of quietly, efficiently, from within one of the many organizations he served over the years. Surely the State Department had some way of ensuring that vehicle registration was taken care of for those associated with the organization.

It was probably that new kid, Harold, who worked with the vehicle registration paperwork. That kid was a fuck up from day one, always screwing something up - he’d undoubtedly be a low level paper pusher his entire life. Yet it was likely because of Harold that he was stuck here in this cultural wasteland.

He made a metal note to kill Harold. Slowly and painfully.

With narrowed eyes, and eagle sharp vision, he watched as the disturbingly scantily clad older woman at the service desk started to pack up her paperwork. This was it! He was finally next. A smile crept onto his face. He couldn’t remember feeling so happy in quite a while.

Soon he could escape this accursed lair of mediocrity and inefficiency once and for all.

He stood, smoothing out the trench coat that had been draped over his arm, and prepared to take his steps towards sweet freedom.

That’s when he noticed it. Commotion. An irritated young lady behind the counter hitting her computer, swearing under her breath.

Moments later: *CRACKLE “ATTENTION!”

He stopped in his tracks, and waited for the rest of the announcement. After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity, the disembodied voice floated through the room once again:

“ATTENTION! I NEED EVERYONE’S ATTENTION, PLEASE!”

Several minutes later the crowd fell silent. It was then that he noticed the lack of machinery. Nothing hummed, nothing beeped. It was just dreadful silence. Even the “Now being served” machine was unlit.

“DUE TO AN UNFORSEEN TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION, WE WILL BE UNABLE TO PROCESS ANY FURTHER DMV TRANSACTIONS TODAY. OUR MACHINES HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DISABLED, AND WE ARE UNSURE WHEN WE WILL BE BACK ONLINE. WE RECOMMEND RESCEDULING YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH THE DMV, OR RETURNING TOMORROW. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO WAIT, PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS UNLIKELY THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO PROCESS ANYTHING UNTIL TOMORROW, AND YOU WAITING HERE IS NOT AT ALL A GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL BE ASSISTED. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE”

By now he was seeing red, unsure of whether to scream, laugh, cry, or all of the above.

“DAMN IT!” he finally barked, turning on his heel away from the offending speaker.

As calmly as he could, he began making his way to the exit. He would not be returning tomorrow. Not after having wasted nearly 3 hours here already.

He would see to it that the State Department got the job done for him - it was the least they could do after all he had done for them over the years.

As for now, he needed to go have a conversation with young Harold.

Out in the parking, laughter could already be heard clearly from the darkened windows of a nondescript car. The deep laughter of a man followed closely by the higher toned laughter of a woman.

It was payback, in its purest form - revenge that they both knew would eat away at the Smoking Man like no other revenge could - a torturous fate for him. Being stuck with the general public needlessly and for hours.

The sound of wire cutters hitting the floor was followed by a prosthetic left arm signaling a turn out into traffic.

A guy couldn’t be too careful - after all, they were at the DMV.

CSM: Nothing vanishes without a trace...burn it!