The Time I Had Too Much Power

So Roger got stabbed.

It wasn't bad, but it was a bit of a wake up call. I thought that it would be the end of Leviathan and Mini-Might, that we would be done before we even started. I wasn't having a hard time accepting that. I was wearing a smile so often I'm pretty sure Leah, my summer help at the shop, thought I had a new lover.

Roger and I still met up for dinner or drinks a couple nights a week. He was using his hand sanitizer even when he was drunk, he wasn't talking about alterations to his costume, or where his next mission would be. Instead he was talking about work and listening to me talk about my bookstore. It was so nice.

Except it really wasn't. Even though he was acting happy, laughing along with our friends' jokes, getting up to sing karaoke on occasion, the smiles never reached his eyes. I knew better then to ask him what was wrong. I already knew and I was afraid. I didn't know what was worse: being a part of Roger's delusion or seeing him so profoundly unhappy.

Then I stopped smiling too. Leah assumed that the imaginary lover and I had split. It was ridiculous. Why should his happiness or lack there of affect me like this. It couldn't continue. So I made a decision. I bought him those martial arts lessons that he had mentioned. A friend from back home had also moved down to the city and opened up his own martial arts school. I went down there and had them draw up a gift certificate good for one term of classes. They had all sorts of self-defense, judo, weapons, things that I had absolutely no interest in. Roger would be bale to pick which one he wanted to start with.

The night I was to give it to him, Roger was so late I thought he wasn't going to show. Usually that only happened when his congressman was running for re-election or they were trying to pass some piece of legislation that the congressman was sponsoring. Things had been pretty quiet for him at work lately, and that always meant something was going to pop up to surprise them.

He walked in to the bar looking even more dejected then he had been as of late. He answered my unasked question, "I got splashed with water and barely anything. I think my powers are fading."

So I could have not given it to him. I could have let his 'powers' fade with time as he believed they were, or I could jump start it all again and have my friend happy again. It turned out to be a surprisingly easy choice.