Rat-games

by Tinselcat

Rating: PG

Summary: my little explanation as to why Krycek is not dead. takes place right after he's been shot.

Disclaimer: Alex Krycek, Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, Jeffery Spender and the X-files are creations of Chris Carter and property of him and ten- thirteen productions. They are used without permission.

The gunshot echoed ominously through the parking garage. Mulder and Skinner stared down at the prone body of Alex Krycek. His eyes stared blankly ahead of him, blood adding a harshness to his pale skin. Mulder and Skinner walked away, leaving the body behind them, to be found, unidentified and disposed of. Just another nameless body in the morgue, with no importance or reason to investigate the murder. Killings went unsolved every day, and this case certainly wouldn't warrant an investigation. If anyone did find out about who the corpse used to be, they would find dozens of people with dozens of motives as potential killers, all of them unreachable. So the body was left to lie, alone in the parking garage. Skinner and Mulder hoped it would be quickly forgotten, though knowing it was unlikely.

Silence seemed to permeate each atom of existence in the parking garage, as if time itself had stopped. That's how he knew it was safe.

Krycek blinked, and flinched. He slowly pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing at the pain that lanced through his head. And why not, he'd just acquired a bullet in the brain, why should he have a monster migraine? He sat up and poked gingerly at the flesh surrounding the hole in his head. Damn, that was certainly going to leave a mark.

He grumbled grumpily as he stood up and tried to remember where he parked. Stupid Skinner. If he was going to shoot him, why couldn't be in the chest or something? Why the head, where anyone would notice it? He wove his way unsteadily through the rows of parking spaces, finally locating his car. He collapsed into the driver's seat, pulled down the sun visor, looked at his bloody face in the mirror and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. He mopped up the blood on his face and was pleased to notice that the hole was already starting to heal. Well, that's the advantage to being yet another experiment in alien hybridology. Non-toxic red blood, but able to take a bullet in the head and walk away with a simple headache. He smirked. Wait 'till that dork Mulder got a load of that!

He reprimanded himself. He wanted Mulder to be in ignorance of his life for as long as possible. After all, what was the point of getting that testosterone-demon Skinner to shoot him if he was going to just pop back into existence? No, it was much more convenient for his operations if he remained dead to those dweebs, at least for the time being. He had his own motives to worry about, and though they weren't all that different from Mulder's, that wuss always managed to screw things up for him.

He started the car and cursed himself for parking so close to two other vehicles. How was he going to get out of the space without scratching up this beautiful new car? After a 15-minute long odyssey of backing up and going forward, and turning and backing up again, he finally got out of the space.

A stray though entered his mind. What if Mulder and Skinner came back for his body? What if they didn't want to leave it to chance that he would be found and disposed of? Hmmmmm… thinking hurt when you had a hole in your head.

Of course! The consortium! They wanted to clean up their mess, so they scooped up his lifeless corpse and spirited it off to wherever it was they disposed of useless corpses. Mulder and Skinner had no idea that Krycek wasn't henching for the consortium anymore, they though he was still their pawn. He snickered. Yeah, they would blame it on the consortium and he was home free. he began to whistle "hit me with your best shot", by pat benetar, but flinched at the pain the pressure in his skull caused.

As he drove down the road, he whipped out his cell phone and speed- dialed his current penthouse pad,

"Hello?" came a chronically nervous, quiet voice.

"Good news, weasel-boy, it worked! Skinner shot me in the head and the nerds think I'm dead!"

"Stop calling me that!" came Spender's whine, "Tell me you didn't bleed all over my car…"

"your car?"

"I paid for it, it's mine! You just drive it around like you own it!"

Krycek grumbled, but let the ongoing argument pass, "hey, is there any food over there, I'm starvin' and I've lost, like, a gallon of blood!"

"What-ever, Alex."

Krycek continued to gripe with Spender, as he drove off. He shoved the content thought into the back of his head, that his involvement with the FBI, the x-files and aliens was faaaaaar from over.