In Your Dreams // phan

out now: Special Boy

"Hey, Dan. Pizza?" my friend PJ asked as I sat at the table. I nodded excitedly, and he slid the paper plate toward me with a grimace. I could understand his lack of enthusiasm at the food; if you had been creating it your whole life, you're bound to grow to resent it. But I took an inhumanly large bite out of it, and PJ chuckled.

"Maybe your power is eating pizza," he mumbled, stabbing his plastic fork into his salad as though he was trying to murder it. I rolled my eyes as I did every time he mentioned anything about powers.

"It's not." I took another bite, some of the grease dribbling out of the corner of my mouth. "That's Anthony Padilla," I said, mouth still full. "You think you could do less grease next time?" He groaned, and took my paper plate as I finished the pizza, pressing his hand against it. Before my eyes a slice of pepperoni pizza grew from his finger tips, growing larger and larger until the point dipped off the plate. I grabbed it back and held it by the crust, testing the grease.

"You pass," I accepted, and took another bite. Chris, another one of my classmates and really the only other person that speaks to me, joined us, tissue box in hand as always.

"Hey." He greeted. He turned to PJ. "Hit me." PJ looked up and groaned loudly.
"I'm starting to suspect you only keep me around because of my power." But he grinned as he took my paper plate, my slice already gone, and made one for Chris, who accepted it quickly. He took a bite, but then froze suddenly, mid-chew. PJ and I were used to this, and continued our conversation.

"Well, maybe Anthony Padilla is only good at cheese." I rolled my eyes.
Chris jumped back in action, pulling a tissue from his box and holding it behind his head to the girl walking by behind him, who accepted it with a confused look. Chris held up three fingers, then two, then one-

The girl sneezed loudly into the tissue, sniffing, then turned to Chris with a grateful smile. She must not know who Chris is, but figured out very quickly that that was his power, because she thanked him and walked away. Chris slumped and crossed his arms.

"She could have Traded me." He grumbled, picking at his pizza crust. I raised my eyebrows.

"That's Jenna Mourey," I said incredulously. Sometimes I forget people don't have the same obsession with powers as I do. I wiggled my fingers. "Sponge hands." Chris rolled his eyes.

"She still could have given me a credit."

"Ah, yes, that seems like a fair trade. A credit for a tissue," PJ snorted, finally taking a bite of his salad. Trading is what people call it when you do someone a favour, with your power, in exchange for something. PJ gave a lot of people pizza, and Chris gave out these things called "credits", essentially money, owing someone a favour with your power, which can be cashed in, or more often than not, traded to someone else. You have to use credits for bigger things, like houses and cars, so PJ couldn't buy a boat with his pizza. He could get other kinds of food with it, but Chris and I had to fend for ourselves.

It was almost impossible for me to earn credits myself, so Chris and PJ were constantly spotting me. If they hadn't stopped keeping track of how many they let me borrow over the years, I'd be in deep, deep debt. My parents also gave them to me, after earning them with their own powers, so I wasn't taking too much from my friends. But I was 23; pretty soon I'll have to start figuring out how to make my own credits.

It's really hard to not have a power in this world.

Most children show signs of their powers around three or four years old, when they are unable to control them. Around that time, the kindergartener would take about a year off of school, perfect their power, and come back, ready to show off their new skill. I never showed signs of any sort of power. I tried, too. Toasting bread- nope. The control over plastic string- yeah, didn't think so. I even tested out some Big powers; flying, telepathy, telekinesis. Not that I was really expecting to have one. Bigs are one in a million; there's only a few of the desirable kinds of powers. I figured I was much more likely to be a Bad, a power that could be used for evil; body manipulation, lock picking, or Influencing, the power to change people's thoughts and emotions. There's lots of variations for those, and rarely do people who get them actually use them for evil. That's probably what people assume is my deal; I have some sort of terribly evil power that I prefer not to let everyone see.

If I was a Bad, I'd have a cop or something constantly on my tail. That's the thing about the really bad ones. Everyone has to register their powers, and then you'll be evaluated, licensed, and, if your power was something ghastly, followed pretty much the rest of your life. When I was only a first grader, a kid called Tyler in my class discovered his power of mind-control, or a form of, where he could change people's opinions about him. He had to be carefully watched for the next three years, until he discovered the trails he had acquired (which weren't hard to miss; big men in suits and sunglasses), and immediately turned on them, changing their minds and making them follow, you guessed it, me. Once they saw that ten year old Dan couldn't do anything, let alone something bad, they gave up, went back to their research facilities, and began to stalk the next six year old. I began to worry about Tyler, but he was always so kind to me.

Or maybe that's just what he wanted me to think. Regardless, he disappeared after high school.

"Did you guys hear the big news?" I asked, rubbing my greasy fingers on one of Chris' tissues. They both sighed in response. Usually, my definition of big news was nothing they would define as big at all. I appreciated the smaller things in life. I had to; with everyone getting work in their range of powers, I was stuck working the low life jobs that nobody wanted. I had taught myself to always be happy, to always smile, to get excited for people when some Big with a company expressed interest in them, when they were off from university and on to live the life they were destined to since they were six.

"Well, there's no need to be rude." I mumbled, ripping the tissue in my hands, feigning being upset. PJ just sighed again, and looked at me, fingers laced under his chin, elbows in the table, and smiling.

"Fine, Dan, we'll bite. What's the big news?" I looked up grinning, my sad demeanor melting away as I had at least captured his interest. I took a deep breath.

Dan Howell is so plain it's unique. In a world where everyone has a special ability, a "power", Dan is alone in having nothing to show for it. This fact is not exactly something he shares with the world, and, despite his overly happy demeanour, is constantly, obsessively searching for something, anything, that could mean he was special. But maybe all it takes is a certain Super showing an interest in him to make him truly feel like he doesn't need a power to make him special.