A Slippery Slope
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
I've always liked Isabelle, my boss Samira is a major bitch who has had a grudge against me for months, and working in this little cafe with just three people staffing it has been stressful… but Isabelle almost made coming into work enjoyable.
She's always been nice to me, she's nice to everyone, and she's always smiling and happy no matter how bad a mood the demon we call 'boss' is in.
It brightens the place up, lessens some of the oppressive air our illustrious boss leaves in her wake.
It helped that she was so easy on the eyes… even despite her amazing body and soft beautiful face, her eyes are her most alluring trait, an unusual steely-grey that just draws your gaze… no matter how tight her work uniform happens to be.
Not that she hasn't caught me looking at her when she has to bend over the counter to grab something but she's always just given me an amused smile and said nothing.
It's why this caught me by surprise so much.
"It'll have to come out of your salary, naturally." Samira says with a hint of malicious victory in her dark eyes as she glares at me, a hint of her foreign accent coming through.
"I haven't even been back here all day, and that thing costs more than I make in a fortnight." I argue, knowing it is pointless.
Isabelle stays silent of course, not willing to draw Samira's ire.
The incredibly expensive, and brand new coffee machine Samira ordered lies on the ground, smashed from the fall.
I'm not lying, I've been on the cafe floor my entire shift, but Isabelle came back here earlier and there was a crash… she claimed she'd just dropped one of the jars and that she'd already swept it up… and like an idiot I trusted her and went back to serving.
And the moment Samira returned Isabelle claimed I broke it, which of course Samira immediately locked into.
It's not even my fault she hates me, her entire grudge is based on how much her husband liked me when he was the owner before their divorce, and she sees me as some remnant of him now he's fucked off to Fiji or somewhere like that.
She can't get back at her husband, so the guy he personally hired is the closest target… it's not fair but then Samira has issues and she's not really focused on 'fair'.
It's not like I don't get it, Isabelle has bills she needs to pay, she lives alone and the rent for an apartment in the middle of the city is… expensive. Not to mention she has a car, student loans, city life is expensive and she couldn't afford to pay the 3k for that oversized piece of junk.
So she threw me under the bus.
At least she looks guilty over it.
"You don't make that much in a month, actually~ but that's your problem, unless you'd rather just quit?" Samira asks suggestively as I glare right back. "I'll wave the cost if you'd prefer just to leave."
She can't fire me until my contract runs out without major cause, something a workplace accident wouldn't count as, but I can quit.
"No thank you, Ma'am." I say calmly, I'm a stubborn bastard if I'm honest.
Also, she hates being called Ma'am since it makes her sound old.
"Then you can leave for the day, you've done enough damage for one day." Samira half-growls, storming into her office as I give a rueful smile at my minor victory.
Grabbing my stuff, I barely catch Isabelle mouthing the word 'sorry' as I head for the door. She looks like she is as well, almost in tears as she quickly looks away.
It's not going to save me from having to lose a small fortune, but c'est la vie. I'm almost impressed by how well she got away with it, Samira would have ignored me even if I had a video of Issy smashing the coffee machine with a baseball bat while chanting 'Fuck Samira.'
Waiting for the bus, I pull out my wallet and sigh as I flick through the notes.
I've also been robbed, again. Yup, that's just perfect. Just what I needed today.
Pulling out a note for bus fare, I sigh as I count them tk work out how much I'm missing.
$30 this time.
One of my sisters has a habit of 'borrowing' my money, I even know which one it is… I've just never caught her in the act.
I should just rely on paying for everything with my card, but for certain reasons I prefer paying with cash, which means until I can prove it's Megan I'll have to deal with vanishing notes.
As the bus pulls up, I quickly pay and take a seat near the back, taking a seat next to a pale sleeping man a few years older than him.
An odd place for a nap, the man was far too well dressed and groomed to be homeless, maybe he just had a long day?
"Don't mind the lazy fucker, he always sleeps when he can." A deep voice said, attracting his attention to the seat next to him, an unnaturally good looking guy with white hair looking over at him with a wide grin "Oi! Wakey wakey~" he said with a chuckle as he tossed a rolled up newspaper at the sleeping man.
"Yeah, yeah… I'm up. Are we doing this?" the sleepy man said tiredly, his voice surprisingly deep, almost reverberating around the bus despite his quiet tone.
"Yup, so! Benjamin Grant, how would you like the power to change your crappy life?"
It was at this moment he realised that every single other person on the full bus was utterly unmoving as the lazy man and the grinning pretty boy stared at him.
Looking out of the window, he felt his heart jump when he realised that nothing was moving, the bus was frozen in place… he could even see a pigeon paused mid-flight as it fled with some poor fools sandwich.
"What… what have you done?"
"Hmm? Oh, I didn't do anything. Kuro did that. Time is kinda his thing, so he just gave us some time to talk. I'm Shiro, a pleasure to meet me, I know." the grinning pretty boy said, humbleness clearly lost on him.
"It's just how he is, it's like 90% an act anyway." Kuro said with a flat tone, resting his head on his hand as he stared at him.
"You-"
"Can read minds, yes. Not that I had to… it was written on your face. Look, let's get this over with. We are both ridiculously powerful beings, calling us gods would be downplaying it, and we've picked you to settle a bet." Kuro said bluntly, clicking his fingers as something appeared in his spare hand, a black ring with a purple gemstone in it, a slight glow leaving it.
"Why-"
"You? Literally no reason, Benjamin Grant. I let Kuro pick and I'm fairly certain he picked you entirely at random. The point is, we needed a fairly average dude with a less than optimal life. Not too bad but not too good either." Shiro said with a smirk.
The constant interruptions were getting annoying, but judging by the smirks that was probably the point. He wasn't crazy enough to call out two… whatever they were though.
"Smart man, the last guy I picked wasn't so smart. Kinda why I had to pick another." Kuro drawled with an amused smirk.
"He was a dick, and I'm not apologising." Shiro cut in.
"Meh, it was pretty funny. Anyway, to cut the chase, we imbued this ring with power and now you have a choice… take the ring and use its power to improve your life, or decline and we find someone else." Kuro said, holding his hand out palm up, the ring sitting comfortably in it.
Somewhere in the back of his head, the saying 'Don't deal with the devil' whispered into his mind.
Later
As time started again, he looked down at the black ring sitting on his finger, two seats of the formally packed bus now empty.
In response to his gaze, the ring briefly gleamed, the purple glow unnoticed by the other passengers.
AN: Right, explanation time.
I've noticed a problem with my writing, I'm too impulsive. I get an idea for a character/power/whatever and I immediately want to include it in one of my stories. It bloats things and usually just makes the stories worse.
So I made a plan to help deal with that, just write short stories to use those ideas, without it affecting the main three stories.
That's what this is, a short story for me to fuck around with (compared to my usual stories).
This will be mostly smut tbh, with a heavy emphasis on mind related powers. This was just the set up chapter.
It won't be put into the story rotation and will be treated like the bonus chapters where I just update it as I feel like it. I'm also going to do shorter chapters as you can see.
Influence Tracker
Benjamin Grant
MC/Barista
Played by Anton Yelchin
Samira Stewart
Boss
Played by Gal Gadot
Influence Level - 0
Isabelle Johnson
Co-worker
Played by Alexandria Daddario
Influence Level - 0
Current Powers
None