I do not own SM. I do not own Starbucks. I do not own the arrogant worms. I wish I did though. Any would be nice. All would be wonderful. I'm a horrible morning person, and the free coffee at work is the beginning of an addiction.

The prime prerequisite for him in picking a home had followed the old real estate catchphrase of "location, location, location". For him, that meant it was less than ten minutes walking to the nearest coffee pot.

He should have been more specific.

Now he was truly stuck. He woke up early enough in the mornings that there was never anyone else in the store. That meant that he had no escape from the boy working as barrista.

What the hell kind of word is "barrista", anyways? Are people serving coffee to good to be known as "servers" like every other person in the food industry?

Every morning they had a similar discussion. Darien went in looking for his caffeine hit, and came face to face with a kid wearing a huge smirk. Darien was convinced it should be illegal to be that cheerful around people who haven't had their coffee yet.

Derrick, the kid on duty, started it off by trying to sell Darien something "chino". There was the mochachino, the frappachino, the cappachino and it's cousin the latte, and something vaguely calling to mind images of police zapping crooks.

Though the idea of zapping Derrick with a taser was very appealing at times.

None of those items held Darien's attention. His drink was coffee, straight up and strong enough that the spoon stayed that way too.

Then the kid would blather on about the overpriced bakery gods for sale at the shop. Three-fifty was way overpriced for a muffin. It wasn't even one of those muffins that filled your whole hand. It was fat-free too.

Didn't that make tons of sense? Buy a caffeine laden drink with enough sugar in it to power a space ship, then round it out with a fat-free muffin to complete your wholesome breakfast.

Darien still had nightmares about the one time he'd bought a cookie to shut the kid up. Who put cabbage in a cookie, for crying out loud? Raisins were mostly forgiven, same with cranberries, but since when was there vegetables snuck into cookies? He was still convinced that violated some natural law. It had to.

He also felt no need to smell like those drinks. Hawking coffee scented soap to people beginning to despair of ever seeing the real thing again was just cruel. That violated rules. The UN said so. Darien was sure it was cruel and unusual punishment. And as soon as he could think, Darien was going to report this place.

After finally impressing upon the kid that he was in bodily danger if he didn't just give Darien his coffee, Derrick had another surprise up his sleeve.

"This dependency is really bad for you. Why don't we do some Tai Chi excercises to calm down, then you can have a chai tea and relax?"

Darien lost it.

He grabbed the kid by his collar and hauled him up to Darien's face. "Look, I just want a coffee that doesn't taste crappy! I want it black, and strong, and I want the biggest fricking size you have! Got it?"

When Darien ruled, he promised himself, his first act would be to abolish Starbucks.