Hello me, it's me again

You can subdue, but never tame me

It gives me a migraine headache

Thinking down to your level

Yeah, just keep on thinking it's my fault

And stay an inch or two outta kicking distance

Mankind has got to know

His limitations

Alex doesn't dare try to sleep again after that.

He as the virus doesn't need sleep to survive. He never tires physically unless he's been over expending his biomass. Sleep, food, water, air even, he's all beyond that. But he's scared to even think about lying down for a nap for the thrill of having a nap. He's scared the moment he closes eyes, he'll be back in Penn Station with his creator sneering down at him.

Yet, even without resting, Alex starts to dream of the monster in his waking world. Every shadow he double checks, because it feels like there's a phantom hiding in them that's ready to spring out at him. He'll catch blue out of the corner of his eye, and Alex fears it may be the doctor's gaze following him. Sometimes even Dana looking at him for too long starts to unnerve him.

Alex hasn't even attempted to try and talk to Dana about this. How could he honestly tell her? Sit her down and say, "You're madman of a brother came to me in a dream and is possibly stalking me in my my own head."

He'd end up looking like the real madman.

It's also not something he's sure he really wants to tell her anyway. Her brother is dead, and now she's stuck with Alex. And while Dana assures she loves him and cares for him, Alex occasionally worries any attachment towards him is merely superficial. He only looks like Dr. Mercer, and the similarities just about end there. Maybe in the beginning he acted like the man, but after that earth shattering revelation, after New York, Alex had been dead set on changing that. On becoming Alex, his own being with his own memories and traits.

Despite that, more Mercer-y tendencies seem to pop up without him realizing it. And he fears because of that, it might seem like Dana's brother isn't really dead at all. Now that Alex knows he's certainly not, the last thing he'd want to do is expose that to her. Because Dana is precious to him, his anchor to the world, the only thing that keeps him going, gives him a reason to answer the call of his nature and destroy, consume, infect. He wants her to like him because he is him, and not her brother.

The more Alex thinks about it, the more the panic sets in. Over the course of a few days after the fact, Alex slowly begins to suffer from a minor identity crisis.

He starts to think to himself, who is he as Alex Mercer? Who is he as a living being, as the Blacklight virus? He stole everything from his creator, face, memories, personality, family. But who was Alex Mercer now? Who was the Blacklight virus?

What did he have that was his own?

x-X-X-x

It's on a day when Dana makes a trip into town and leaves Alex to his own devices. It's on this day Alex steals away into the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror. His reflection looks back at him, anxious, uncertain. But it's still Dr. Mercer staring back at him. It's not his real face in that mirror. So then what is his real face? Alex thinks about his armor, the smooth mask that covers his head. What would be the face underneath it? Would there even be a face?

So he decides to experiment, he will make himself a face.

He will remake himself.

The lips he plays with, thins out and then makes full again, and he shifts between the two before he finds a balance he likes, but with a pout that feels entirely characteristic of him. His cheekbones (or the visible curve of them) he lowers and lifts over and over until he settles for higher, sharper cheeks. The bridge of his nose he lowered slightly, his chin flatter and less round. His eyes, more round, the creases beneath them disappearing, but the tinge of red he keeps.

The brows he lifts ever so slightly, and his whole expression seems to change. He doesn't quite look like Dr. Mercer anymore, the similarities are still there, but it's not exact. It's no longer the exact same, and already he feels like a completely different person. Alex has never been more pleased with himself, and he turns his head this way and that to fully admire his new reflection.

Alex is ready to burst at the seams by the time Dana gets home, oh so eager to show off his makeover to her. She doesn't have a strong initial reaction, and he has to point everything out to her about his new face before she finally sees it, finally recognizes.

"What was wrong with it before though?" Dana asks him.

"It wasn't me," Alex answers simply. She gives him a quizzical look, and he continues on, "I just…I just wanna be me. And I wanna look like me. It's…I don't know how to explain it to you. Just…Do you like it? Are you okay with it?"

And maybe he's looking at her a little too hopefully, a little too desperately. Dana studies him for a second before finally nodding.

"I think you look great no matter what, Alex."

Alex relaxes after that.

x-X-X-x

He let his guard down and it did not go unnoticed.

Alex had been curled up on the couch with Dana, watching some horribly dumb movie he didn't understand but Dana just loved. He thought he'd just close his eyes for a bit, still capable of listening in without actually watching it. But somehow he fell asleep. There was no other way to explain it, he had just fallen asleep, and when he opened his eyes again, he was standing in a dark expanse with only a single door before him.

He wants to turn and run, his mind is screaming at him to not move forward, wake up, get out of here. But only dream logic works here, and dream logic dictates that he ignore what his mind says, and that he should go through that door. Which he does, the door marked "Laboratory 302". Inside is dark save for a single spotlight shining down on a lab table at the far end of the room. Without wanting to, Alex strides across the room to approach the table, almost fearing what he'll find.

It's just papers mostly, with almost illegible writing scratched across them. But there's a microscope next to several test tubes in their stands. And then there's a petri dish filled with pulsating black liquid, but Alex knows it's not that. He's staring down at himself, the beginnings of the Blacklight virus. Essentially, it's the infant version of himself, an entity with no comprehensive thought in its head other than live, survive, exist.

Alex leans down to examine himself further, enraptured by simplicity that was once him. Nothing more than a mass of cells compiling together to become something more deadly. Then he feels the hand on the back of his head, and he's being slammed face first into the table.

"You little shit," that familiar voice hisses into his ear. "Whatever happened to not forgetting? You promised me Alex, and here you are, already going back on your word. Don't you love me?"

He gasps and struggles underneath Dr. Mercer's grasp, but he can't move, he can't get away. Dr. Mercer lets out an amused huff in his ear.

"Now I thought I was a rather handsome devil, but I guess someone's good looks is rather subjective. But had I known you hated me so much…"

"I don't hate you," Alex whines. "I didn't mean it like that. I just want-"

"To be you, just wanna be yourself," and Dr. Mercer laughs. "That's so rich coming from you. Don't start thinking such foolish things, you know you're trying to lie to yourself again."

Alex is wrenched up away from the table and thrown to the floor. He's free, but the urge to get up and flee the way he came is nonexistent. Instead, he flips over to stare up at his creator with wide eyes, to tremble beneath him (he, the mighty virus that had previously brought all of New York City to its knees).

"You don't have a 'yourself' to be," Dr. Mercer spits at him. "You copied me, remember? All you know is me, I am your everything. What makes you think you can be anything different? Remember the marvelous mind flushing we went through after we left Manhattan? Those fun filled weeks of tearing your mind apart and putting it back together again so you'd only be you up in there that head of yours? So you'd only be me?"

And he does of course. The memories of the ones he had consumed, his personal web of intrigue he destroyed once the Outbreak had been put behind them. It was for his own mental stability to get rid of the thoughts and ideas of others, needing no one else is in his head other than himself. Well, no one other than his creator anyway. But that hadn't been expected, nor would he imagine the remaining conciseness of his master to hide away in the far recesses of his mind, and then come out of the woodworks when it best suited him

"Well you got what you wanted, my dear creation," Dr. Mercer went on, an ugly sneer spreading across his face. "You got me, just me in here. You got yourself. I am you, and you are me. And that's not negotiable. You can have all these concepts and ideas of creating a self-identity, and I applaud you for that, but let's be honest with ourself. I'm not something you can get rid of. No matter how hard you try."

Alex picked himself up, or rather, he felt himself moving into a standing position, but it was his creator's inky tendril of a hand that shot out to the collar of his shirt to help haul him up. And when he was standing, the tendril reeled him in until they were sharing the same breathing space.

"So let me ask you again Alex, don't you love me?"

"Yes." Alex automatically responded because it was the answer he knew the other wanted to hear.

"I don't think you love me enough."

"But I do."

"No, no, I need you to looooove me, Alex. You need to if we're going to make this work."

His brows furrowed together. He didn't understand. Dr. Mercer sighs, and the tendril leaves his shirt collar to travel up and around his neck to the point of choking, and then travel up the back of his head and wrap itself around his forehead.

"Maybe a little applied science will help you learn what I mean. Pay attention, I don't like repeating myself."

Before Alex could even ask, their heads were being smashed together, and their lips were awkwardly slotted together. Alex struggled, tried to push away, resist this alien feeling, this invasive action.

But he wasn't very good at fighting himself.

x-X-X-x

"I'm worried about you," Dana says to him another few days later. Alex had been like zombie since he woke up from that second dream, shuffling around their small abode aimlessly, no direction, no sense to it. He was certainly more jumpy than usual, more wary of the shadows, avoidant of his own reflection. If Dana was worried, it was because he wasn't trying to hide anything, because he didn't feel like he had anything left to hide.

"You can tell me if something's bothering you," Dana went on, looking up at him with all the sisterly concern she could possibly have for him. "Even if it's something weird you don't understand. Just don't shut me out, okay?"

Alex nods to her, of course he understands, of course he'd love to talk to her. But the horror still flashes behind his eyelids, his creator's hallow laughs ringing in his ears, the scent of blood still lodged up his nostrils. Dana offers him a reassuring smile and hugs him, squeezing him as hard as she can. Alex wraps his arms around her, but doesn't exactly return the gesture.

For the first in months, ever since that hunter smashed through the wall and stole Dana away from him, Alex feels fear.

Dr. Mercer grins at him from the shadows.

Feeling claustrophobic

Like the walls are closing in

Blood stains on my hands

And I don't know where I've been

I'm in trouble for the things I haven't got to yet

I'm sharpening the axe and my palms are getting wet