A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! Wasn't quite sure how y'all would respond to this one. It's a bit...different...from the standard story, lol. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the emotionals it may cause. :)
Play the hand you're dealt.
Whoever made up that one is a goddamn moron. Go ahead. Tell a poker player to just play the hand. See what happens. That's like telling a baseball player to swing at every pitch just for the hell of it. Sure, he might get a lucky hit on a bad throw once in a while. Odds are better he'll strike out, or swing at a speedball aimed too close to his body and get his fucking knuckles cracked wide open. There goes that guy's career for the rest of the season. You don't play the hand you're dealt unless you're one of those lucky bastards who gets that Straight Flush right out of the gate. Odds of that happening before you die of old age or the dealer shoots you in the face because he's tired of you taking up a seat at his table? Go buy a lottery ticket; you might have better luck. You don't play the fucking hand you're dealt. No. You ditch your shitty cards, hope you get better ones, fold when you're about to lose your entire life's fucking fortune, or if you're good enough to not get caught, you cheat. You cheat whenever you goddamn can if you know everything's on the line. Dicking around with a bunch of buddies in a garage when you're betting with the bottle caps from your case of beer? Go ahead. Play the hand you're dealt. Make a fucking drinking game out of it – the guy who lays down the worst hand takes a shot. You'll all be puking drunk in an hour. In the real world? You play to fucking win. You play to fucking live.
~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~MI~
Brandt moved to put his pencil down, but a slight cough from the corner drew his attention to one of those other guys with the haunted eyes. The slightest eye contact was made before the man looked down at his own hands. His pencil was moving along at a steady pace. Brandt squinted, looked closer, and flashed the tiniest of grins. The tip of the pencil wasn't touching the fucking page.
She-bitch glanced his way and he adjusted in his seat, then went back to "writing," mimicking the pencil-off-paper trick. He felt her eyes boring holes through him for another few seconds before she walked off to harass somebody else with her mental criticisms.
How about that? He was going to get his gold star for the day, after all. Why? 'Cause that other guy was cheating to win and was nice enough to teach him how. That guy wasn't playing his fucking cards any more than Brandt was.
"Does someone want to share their piece? Agent Brandt?"
He slouched in his seat, crossed his arms, stretched one leg out beneath the desk, cocked his head, and gave her his best winning smile. "You just love to single me out, don't you?"
Her right eye twitched ever so slightly. You are making my job difficult, and I hate you for that.
"I'm trying to involve you in the group. So far you've been rather closed off, and I'm a bit concerned about that."
Brandt stared at her with that winning smile long enough to make her fingers tick just slightly, his proof that he had made her uncomfortable, before he shrugged. "Okay. I'll share."
"Would you like to stand up to read?"
"Nope." He picked up his book and cleared his throat. "Play the hand you're dealt. I got served the wrong thing at a restaurant last week, and decided I was too hungry to send it back and wait for the right order. Plus, I didn't feel like arguing with the fucking waitress over getting chicken instead of pork, because really, who gives a shit? So I ate my wrong order, and you know what? It was good. I'll probably order it again. In fact, I'll probably order it every time I go back to that place; and it was alllll thanks to playing the hand I was dealt. The end."
She frowned at him. "That was your first initial thought upon reading the prompt?"
"Yup."
He made himself look too damn confident to argue with. She gave him a curt nod. "Well done, Agent Brandt. Would anyone else like to share?"
Mr. First Grader raised his hand again. Fucking ass kiss. Probably had a schoolboy crush on devil-woman.
Another cough had Brandt looking back at his fellow cheater. The guy smiled and gave him a tiny thumb's up. Brandt gave the guy a crooked grin in return. He wondered how many times that man had been through a program like this, and was glad to have found an ally; but simultaneously hoped he'd never see the guy again once this was all over and done with. If he did, it would probably be a reunion within the program, which would mean he hadn't gotten over his shit. He had to get over his shit. He couldn't work with his team if he didn't.
Maybe tomorrow he'd actually read what he wrote instead of making up a smartass story.
