Acting Out

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John sat in anger management group therapy. It wasn't working. In fact, nothing in his day to day life made him as angry as the hour he spent in the stale, depressing community center meeting room. He looked around with sharp eyes, deeming every trainwreck in the room a failed human. This included the therapist and himself. He even gave the robot serving coffee a sideways look, noting that it made an irritating humming noise and probably needed to be replaced.

Dorian was waiting outside the room for him to finish and that was fucking obnoxious. He was all too aware that one of the DRN's many "secret" duties was to shuffle him off to group and make sure he stayed.

There was only one door, no windows, no escape.

Godmotherfuckingdammitsonofabitchfuck.

His turn to get talked at. He'd tried everything to get this therapist to release him, call him cured, end this monotony. Smiling didn't work. In fact, she had told him it was off-putting. Pretending that he was no longer angry in a calm, even, cordial voice had only resulted in her antagonizing him with facts that absolutely justified his anger in the first place. Being despondent and unreachable had landed him in Maldonado's office. So as she addressed him now, asking him how he was feeling, he calculated his response.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I was distracted. What?"

"Distracted by what?" the therapist asked, curious, cautious. The unruly detective had a tendency to run his mouth about other members of the very unstable group, many of whom could be considered ticking time-bombs of raw human neglect. The way some of the others made eyes at him when he put on his show, she often wondered what prevented Kennex from getting his ass beat in the parking lot after the sessions.

"I'm in love," John confessed. Chairs rustled. Interests piqued.

The therapist smiled and scribbled on her pad. John steeled himself for the next part of his scheme, which he deemed the get-out-of-this-room-full-of-losers plan. He knew this wasn't going to get him off the hook, but it might mean he could move on to a different group. Or maybe Maldonado would splurge on some individual sessions instead of this "gathering" bullshit. He turned to the wide-eyed murderer-to-be next to him, a rage-filled tyrant with bandaged hands from his last eruption, and planted a crushing kiss on his hideous lips.

A minute later, John limped out of the room with a pink piece of paper in his hand, a busted lip, and rapidly swelling eye. He also had a great big smile on his face.

Dorian observed him in shock.

"Good newths!" John whistled past his missing front tooth.