Dog Day, by AbsolutAnda

Words: 3,126

Standard disclaimer applies quite nicely here, don't you think?

Alex jerked awake as a bright light forced its way through his closed eyelids. He pried his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight streaming through the open window, illuminating the entire room. The thought crossed his mind that, considering it was supposed to be seven in the morning, there was far too much sunlight, but he ignored it for the moment, turning over so his back was facing the window. He pressed his head further into his pillow and closed his eyes again, intending on sleeping for another half hour before getting up for school.

Wait a minute…

His sleep addled brain finally caught up with his surroundings. At seven in the morning, there wasn't nearly that much sunlight in his room and the sun was supposed to be at a different angle. He bolted upright, his neck cracking at the sudden jolt, and grabbed his cell phone sitting on his bedside table, charging. Flipping it open to look at the clock, he was surprised to find it blank; the battery was dead. He looked at the clock on his desk and felt a rush of panic race through him.

"Nine fifteen?" He exclaimed, swearing as he swung his legs over the edge of his bed. How could it already be after nine? It felt like he'd only been asleep for a few minutes. He wasn't actually sure how long he had slept; he'd been up into the early hours of the morning working on make-up work for all of the days he'd missed, and he honestly couldn't remember at what time he had managed to stumble from his desk to collapse into his bed.

He paused to study his cell phone, wondering why it had chosen today of all days to fail to charge. His inspection showed that the cord at the base of the plug had been worn down over time, the rubber coating split open to expose a frayed, broken wire.

"Last time I use the phone alarm." He growled, throwing his phone back onto his bed angrily as he hurried to the bathroom for a quick shower to wake himself up. After tripping over his football duffle that Jack had thrown into his room, Alex stumbled in front of his mirror, taking a quick moment to sum up his appearance. A corpse looked livelier. His last assignment had left him with a nasty bruise on with right temple that traveled down to his cheekbone that was still visible. He probed it gently with the tips of his fingers and winced. It was still tender too. He ran his hand over his left cheek and was disappointed to feel the familiar roughness of stubble. He needed to shave.

He took his shower with speed that the military would envy and stepped out, fully aware of the soap still running down his legs as he briefly toweled off. He scraped his way through one stroke of a shave with a dull razor that he should have bought blades for, nicked himself, and gave up before he returned to his room to root through his closet for clean clothes that weren't worn through. One of the downsides of leading his active lifestyle, was that his clothes were prone to rips and holes, either from his assignments, or just sports and mucking about with his friends.

Alex managed to find a relatively clean uniform, although his white shirt was slightly too small and pulled in the shoulders. He threw his schoolwork into his bag, making sure to get everything off of his desk and then hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Jack had already left for her job at a nearby bookstore, but had left half a pot of hot coffee on the counter, which Alex dumped into a mug and downed quickly, even as it burned down his throat. He wasn't usually a big coffee drinker, but he was going to need it today. He found himself needing it more and more lately. It was reaching the point that he drank a cup every morning before class started.

He grabbed his house keys and shoved them into his pocket as he stepped into his trainers, not bothering to tie them; the laces weren't that long anyway. He tightened his bag around his back before leaving, shutting the door tightly behind him before jogging around the house to his bike. Even at seventeen with his driver's license, he had yet to get a car of his own, but it didn't bother him too much as he had always taken the Tube anywhere he needed to go.

After returning to the house to get his football duffle as he remembered he had practice after school, he was finally off, speeding through traffic and weaving in and out of cars. He knew it was dangerous, but he couldn't afford to miss any more school than he already had. Besides, if he could navigate through a forest while being chased by assassins with guns, he could bike to school in the morning. A block from school, he was brought to a screeching halt as a woman in a large car ran a red light, cutting in front of him. He swerved sharply to the right to avoid hitting her, just barely putting his foot down in time to keep his balance, then continued around her car, ignoring her yells that it was his fault.

He finally reached Brookland at nine forty-five, over an hour after school had started. He had already missed his first class, English, but could just barely make it to French for the big test that was probably half over by now. He quickly parked his bike with the seventy other bikes (piled on top of each other as no one really seemed to care if their bicycle remained upright after they locked it) and then ran across the front yard and into the school. The halls were empty as everyone else was in class, but he could hear muffled conversations through the doors as he hurried to his language class, trying to be as quiet as possible. He had plenty of experience sneaking around, but every step seemed to echo through the entire building.

He slipped into his class quietly after stuffing his football duffle into his locker and sat down heavily in his usual seat next to Tom, not expecting his keys in his pocket to hit against the chair loudly. Tom, looking up from his test, gave him a questioning look.

"What are you doing here?" He whispered, glancing at the teacher who had noticed Alex come in and was bringing a fresh test to him.

"What?" Alex took out a pencil and accepted the test with a guilty smile. The teacher, Mr. Dubois, gave him a stern, disapproving look and then turned back to the front of the room. Alex was suddenly glad he sat in the farthest seat from the front.

"Why are you here?" Tom asked again in the same whisper, trying to look like he wasn't talking. "Today is the test for people with grades under seventy percent." At Alex's blank look, he elaborated. "You have an almost perfect grade. You don't have to be here." Then he turned back to his test, leaving Alex to feel very foolish.

Alex sighed as he sank down in his chair, rubbing his hand over his face and wincing as he put pressure on his bruise again. He looked at the clock through his fingers; there was still over half an hour left of class. He might as well take the test, seeing as he had nothing else to do.

-break-

"What ran over your face?" Tom asked worriedly as they left the French class with the rest of the students, joining the hallway rush to the next class. "You look awful."

"Thanks." Alex answered flatly, stifling a yawn before continuing. "I don't even know how late I was up doing homework last night, and then my alarm didn't go off because my phone didn't charge and the battery died." He stopped at a bench and rested his foot on it, starting to tie his shoes. The laces had gotten caught in his bike chain a couple times and were chewed up slightly. "Figures…" He growled as the lace broke off in his hand. He angrily tossed the string into the bin next to him. "I feel like I slept with my fingers in my eyes, I'm so tired. I can't even keep them open."

"Yeah, I noticed." Tom started to walk again after his friend had managed to get his other shoe tied. "You almost fell asleep on your test. I thought Dubois was going to throw something at you." They stopped at Alex's locker briefly so he could empty the books he didn't need out of his bag. "Oh good, you did remember your football gear." He gestured to the duffle shoved roughly into the bottom of the locker with forgotten papers and assignments. "I sent you a text this morning to remind you, but obviously, you didn't get it."

"So far, remembering my gear is the only thing that has gone right this morning. Some lady almost ran over me on my way here and then blamed me for it." He muttered, slamming his locker before spinning the combination lock. He turned quickly to go to his next class and missed Tom's yell of warning. The next thing he knew, his left arm was engulfed with a burning sensation and there was a girl standing right in front of him, a shocked expression on her face and an empty cup in her hand.

"Oh my god, Alex, I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed. She didn't seem to know what to do in this situation, as she stood stock-still, frozen as she stared at Alex, who had yet to move or show any acknowledgement that he had hot tea running down his arm. He honestly wasn't surprised that something like this had happened, and he felt oddly numb to what normally would've been fairly painful, not being able to bring himself to the point of caring. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry!" The girl cried, her voice steadily growing higher as she looked near the point of tears.

"It's fine. It really doesn't hurt that much." Alex tried to assure her, but she didn't look convinced as she came back to life, using the dark blue cardigan of her uniform to try to wipe the tea off of his arm. He kept trying to politely push away the sweater, but she persisted, rambling as she dabbed at the stained sleeve of his white shirt. He was suddenly regretting taking off the dark jacket that would've hidden the stain nicely.

"But I just poured a fresh cup! It was so hot I couldn't even drink it; it was almost boiling…"

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Alex said with a forced smile, trying to make her feel less guilty about it, but any further attempt was cut off by the warning bell, signaling that class would be starting in three minutes.

"Do you want me to explain what happened to your teacher while you dry off? I'll take the fall for it. Oh god, I feel so bad, I've ruined your shirt…" She was steadily talking faster, trailing along next to Alex and Tom as they headed towards their maths class. The only upside to Alex missing so much school, Tom had pointed out, was that now they were in the same maths class. Alex had been in the class ahead of him before all of this MI6 business had started, but he had gradually fallen behind, eventually admitting defeat and joining the lower maths class.

"No, really, it's fine." Alex tried to assure her, having to keep talking louder to be heard over her panicked rambles. Tom wasn't helping in the least, as he trailed behind the two, a stupid grin plastered on his face at Alex's discomfort. "I'm okay, there's no harm done."

The girl –Alex couldn't remember if he had ever known her name, even though she knew his—didn't give up until they had reached the door of their class, where she finally relented and went her own way, but not before promising to buy Alex a new shirt to replace the one she had stained. He had tried to explain that it was too small anyway and that he had been planning on throwing it out, but she wouldn't hear it.

"You're just having a rough day, aren't you?" Tom laughed as they entered their class. The room was already mostly full, but they found their usual seats empty and plopped down. Alex sighed as he started to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. He hoped that it would help disguise the brown discoloration of his left arm, but it didn't help at all.

"I honestly don't think anything else could go wrong." Alex sighed. Giving up on his ruined shirt, he turned to his bag to take out all of the maths work he had done the night before. All of his make-up work had to be turned it today, so it had added up to quite a stack of papers.

"Don't say that." Tom joked, but he was also being serious. "Last time I said that, I ended up with a broken leg." Had Alex not been there when it happened, he probably would've thought Tom was kidding. But he could clearly remember the day Tom had said "at least nothing else can go wrong," then promptly fell down a small cliff during a class hiking field trip.

"That wasn't very athletic of you, was it?" Alex said flatly as he rifled through his notebooks, trying to make sure he had all of the assignments ready to turn in. Tom scowled at him, though he didn't actually look mad. It was common knowledge that Tom was the best football player on the team, which was fortunate, because academics weren't his forte. Alex could have competed with him for captain of the team, but with his frequent "sicknesses" and constant studying while he was at school, he just didn't have the time for that kind of responsibility. That and the team would never forgive their captain missing that many practices.

Before he could retort, the final bell rang and class began with a pop quiz. Alex found himself growing more and more depressed as he realized he could only work his way through about half of the questions. Apparently, the teacher hadn't been completely honest when he told Alex that the test wouldn't include anything he didn't know already.

Alex felt that the day couldn't have ended fast enough. He managed to get through the rest of his classes without surrendering to the need to curl up in a corner and just wait out the rest of the day, but they weren't particularly enjoyable. After his failed maths test, he had nearly choked on his sandwich during lunch when someone slapped him on the back, tripped over someone's skateboard rolling in front of him in the hall, had his fingers closed in the locker next to his, and found out that he had completely missed an email from his Physics teacher about a paper due that day. By the time he stumbled onto the practice field for football, he was feeling utterly defeated with no hope of escape. For someone who had made it out of so many tight situations and gotten away without major incident, the idea that a single day in his school could wear him down to near depression was laughable. He would have laughed at himself, had he not been so depressed about it all.

-break-

"I just don't understand how a spy who has dodged bullets on numerous occasions manages to not see the biggest player on the team coming at him." Tom laughed as he carefully steered his car around the corner of Alex's block. "How's your shoulder?"

Alex just glared at him in response, shifting the plastic bag of ice he held to his bruised left shoulder, before turning to look out of the window again. It dawned on him that he had left his bike chained up at Brookland, but he just couldn't bring himself to care about it at the moment. All he wanted to do was go straight to bed and not get up until Saturday rolled around…and that was assuming he could make it to his bed without tripping up the stairs or something to that effect.

"Oh com'on, you have to admit, your day was a little bit funny." Tom continued as he pulled into Alex's driveway and parked. "I mean, how often does a bad day almost take your arm out of its socket?" He was enjoying this all too much.

"Let's see how hard you're laughing the next time you have burning tea spilled down your arm. It still stings." He opened the door and practically fell out of the car, dragging his bag behind him to the front door. Judging by Jack's car in the drive, she was home from work and probably doing something that would aggravate Alex's blossoming headache further.

"Wait, your duffle's in the boot." Tom called to him, that stupid smile still plastered on his face. It had been there for most of the day.

"Just keep it. I give up." Alex sighed back, not turning around. He trudged to the door and unlocked it after fumbling through his pocket for his keys. He pushed the door open and slammed it shut behind him with his foot, letting his bag drop to the floor unceremoniously.

"Alex?" Jack's voice rang out through the house just seconds before her head poked out of the kitchen. She stared at him for a moment, taking in the bag of ice he was still holding to his shoulder with bruised fingers, the brown sleeve, the nick from his shave that morning, and his haggard appearance. "What happened to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it." He growled, starting to shuffle towards the stairs.

"Well, that's life, right?" She replied, leaning against the doorframe as she watched Alex's slow progress. She wasn't being all that sympathetic.

"Don't even talk to me about life." He shot back, finally reaching the stairs. He started up slowly, hoping that he wouldn't actually fall back down. With a day like his, he wouldn't be surprised.

"Where are you going? I just made dinner."

"I'd probably just choke on it. I'm going to bed, quite possibly for the rest of my life—assuming I don't get hit by a truck on the way."