a. "Mr. Rider... Mr. Rider.. Mr. Rider!" The teacher - someone from the classroom across the hall, come in as some sort of last resort so as not to leave the students unattended for an hour - looks around wildly. He can barely spot Rider's head
(ear to desk and arms around his head, cradling his skull, as if he's trying to leave the noise of the room behind and duck behind a cover of flesh and bones that break too easily and don't block out anything at all how useless-)
peeking out from behind a jabbering crowd of boys. He sighs, notes that Rider seems to be asleep, and remembers how that seems to be a usual occurrence, according to staff-room gossip.
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b. The excuse is that his head is in the clouds and he's rich enough and doesn't care enough that he can afford to sleep a little - a lot. The real reason is that the last time he slept in the dark, Alex woke up to a hoarse throat and almost jeopardized his entire mission. Here, he knows enough to bite down on his lip and clench his teeth and focus on the pain of his own scratched up nails dragging across old scars on his skin.
If anything wakes him up effectively, it's pain.
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c. Nightmares help too, sometimes. But the problem with nightmares is that, for all he plays pretend and makes up personas, at his roots, Alex still can't always distinguish the dream from reality. On those nights, he nudges Jack awake and crawls into her bed, curling up in the warmth of her worn, flannel pajamas.
He stares at the changing numbers on the alarm clock, neon yellow bleeding into blurry blonde figures standing on rooftops and the click of a gun in his hand.
(he wishes morning would come sooner)
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d. It is Friday afternoon and the floor is cold and wet - it smells like rust and iron and things that he associates with death and other unpleasant memories. Alex feels the taster slip from his hand as he tries to turn his head away from the puddle he seemed to have landed in.
There is something that sounds like the blades of a helicopter whirling high above his head, cutting through the air and silence and stillness. He is reminded of a science lesson from years ago, a half-forgotten bit about moving molecules and aerodynamics. Alex blinks and the world goes dark.
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e. According to the many, many times Alex has been in a hospital, a steady heartbeat typically indicates the subject is alive. He checks the clock on his bedside and lets the memories of the mission flood him, twitching in irritation at each beep. Alex thinks he should be more perturbed at how casually he dismantles criminal empires at this point - at this age, rather than being so preoccupied by the noise. He decides he'll deal with it in the morning.