Dreamers Awake: Chapter 8.

Chapter 8

“Did ya ever think about what kinda power you’d have if you were a superhero?”

            His partner’s words caught him off guard and Rock couldn’t help but let a snort of laughter escape from his lips. Glancing at Jensen, his much younger and excitable partner, Rock took a sip of his coffee and then turned back to his newspaper, saying mildly, “Yeah, sometimes…”

            He heard the seat creak as the boy sat back, easing himself into a more comfortable position as he chewed noisily on his gum. His voice was breathy, broken with each chew as he nodded and continued to stare out the windshield, saying easily, “I always wanted ta be able to fly, like jumpin off buildings and shit, flyin around and no one could catch me, it was awesome.” Letting out a slight smile Rock shook his head and continued to read his paper, not glancing up as Jensen asked him another question. His voice was expectant as he turned to glance at him and said excitedly, “So…what was yours?”

            “Hrm?”

            A note of exasperation fell into mix with Jensen’s words and he heard him sigh, as Rock continued to read his newspaper, only half listening. “What would yer powers be, yeah? I mean, like, flying, laser vision or something, what’d you always wanna be able to do?”

            Dimly a thought went back to the dream he had had that night and how good it had felt to speed around the world. How he had been the fastest, the best, no one could ever catch him in those dreams. He always woke with a smile on his lips afterward, feeling invigorated, alive. And once he thought about it for a bit, he realized that he had been having dreams about super speed since he was little. And it was no different. He’d always wake up and the first thing he’d say to his Mother that morning over cereal was how awesome his dream had been. And still, to this day, he tended to chat to his wife about it, who simply smiled and said that that would be fun, though he knew she didn’t really care.

            So without really thinking about it Rock took another sip of his coffee, put the flimsy Styrofoam cup back into the holder and turned the page to the funnies, saying easily, “Super speed.”

            A moment of silence followed and Rock could only guess that Jensen was analyzing his answer. But then the boy was talking again, just as excited as ever.

            “Super speed, like the flash? That’d be awesome, being able to run around the world like 30 times in 3.5 seconds. When I was younger my brother let me borrow this book called Infinite Crisis and it was like about all these parallel universes in the DC comics universe and they all kinda got mixed up but there was this awesome part where like a mini super man was going apeshit and killing all these people but then all of a sudden three flashes show up and they’re just running him around the world again and again, it was awesome!”

            This time, the smile that came to Richard’s lips was bright. Finally looking up from his newspaper he nodded and said sincerely, “That does sound pretty cool Benny, you’ll have to let me borrow it sometime ok?”

            His partners brown eyes were bright as he smiled big and said, “Sure, no problem.” Then with a glance at the clock he let out a groan and started the engine, the squad car coughing to life as he sighed and shifted gears, saying loudly, “Lunch over, back to work, blah, blah, blah” while Richard just laughed, glad to have such an enthusiastic kid as his partner, it definitely made the days a bit more bearable.