Work Text:
The room’s occupant stared at his choices of coffee and thinking of his mindset right now. At home where he was safe, doctored, in country, where he had to be alert, strong and straight. Was he currently safe? He made his coffee marine strength and black. Letting him know with the first taste on his tongue he was to be alert for further betrayals from around him. That his unconscious mind had picked up that he was no longer safe where he was at.
He took another drink of the hot coffee as he wandered around the rooms in the apartment his friend owned. Remembering that, contrary to popular belief put in place by a man who was his nominal superior, he never moved in to be with her as a mate, but as help for her mental state and to help her with her dying mother who lived with her in the living room.
He looked at the space where the lost one had lain not that long ago, and a little bit mourned her again as the space was empty. Empty too were her daughter’s things that she needed to travel with to get her own mind settled, she now sublet the place to him as opposed to that same lieutenant’s statement that he was living off her and she was ghosting him for another lover.
While a branch is cut off by external force, a person separates themselves through their own actions—through hatred and aversion, unaware of their disconnection from the whole. To quote the General and Roman Emperor Aurelius, he wondered to himself if that was true of him right now.
Frequent separations make reunification harder. A branch growing continuously on a tree is not the same as one that has been cut off and reattached; they may appear similar but have different natures. – Was he, again, separated from the group, this time from within instead of without through being captured by the enemy that forced his retirement from the navy. He cupped the empty mug in his hand as he looked out of the window and thought about it, then nodded to himself that the station had basically excluded him from the beginning which had led him to seeking comradery elsewhere and that was what got him in further trouble withing the cliquish and puritanical group of elders above him.
A branch cut off from a tree is naturally severed from the whole tree. Similarly, a person separated from others distances themselves from the community. The fiasco that was the therapist and the fallout from her as he had been forced to call his old friend from in country for a favor and he was serving as a team leader under a take no prisoners leader in NCIS currently, the less said about the Union Rep losing his job and the payouts to everyone in the LAFD who had tried to get her sanctioned from being a therapist but was blocked by that representative was massive. And quietly hidden from the public. His own team ignored the whole thing and kept bringing it up as slut shaming while calling it a joke was damning to their thinking about him. Most of which was caught on mic while on scenes talking in front of the public or in front of the stations cameras which his friend was quietly monitoring now for the judgement that was to befall them and was actually forcing the upper management to allow him to transfer after this upcoming shift without the permission of those that had been blocking his transfer and had actually placed him there when he had been slated to go to a station that would have used his certifications better when he left the academy.
But now that the department as a whole had actually this bias against him from the beginning and allowed a person or persons, including his nominal Captain to hide his time in the military with comments that made it seem he had rung out for cowardice with his wording and totally disregarded his qualifications that he brought with him because of his time served in the military? The department top brass was now hoping not to be investigated by anyone higher up in the military investigative services than they were already over it and were bending over and lubing themselves it was for their fucking they were going to get over the 118 and its stupidity and biases.
He was wondering for himself if it was all worth it to stick with firefighting and not just go back to FEMA where he had been for a few years after getting out on a medical discharge.
Later that morning, he called himself out as there was a stranger in the station getting attention for his Army service, and as he was getting played up as a big man on campus, there was a call that someone had tried to break-in to the apartment and set off the alarms the friend had set up with the boss’ approval and the owners stamp that it was okay as anyone going in there would have the key and numbers to check that it was legal.
The silent alarms went to the local federal building and the LEO’s who tapped into the feed and captured the picture of the intruders. Those being the door security and a female who was leading him into the main bedroom for a bit of frisky time. Agents of NCIS were on their way with Federal Agents going with them as there was an active investigation going on involving the person living at that apartment and threats had been issued against him, especially after the Catfishing which was just recently. There were still females attacking him in public over that little thing and it was part of the overall investigation as his lieutenant went and ignored protocol on an attacker of a first responder on duty and asked her out instead. Right in front of the station’s cameras to boot. With the Captain ignoring the whole thing.
The Department was forced to settle out of court over the trauma endured when the Captain’s side thing with a Police Officer got in the way of Agents doing their thing and arresting the intruders. As did the Police Department when that Officer still insisted on knowing what the troublemaker had going with that innocent female in his ghosting cougar of a female’s apartment, he was illegally staying in. She was arrested for interfering with an active Federal Investigation and Arrest of the intruders and threw such a fit over it.
The man’s friend at NCIS had a partner that was the liaison between the Police Department and the Agency and had been with the State’s AG before that, he set things up so that all parties involved against the innocent man were properly booked in NCIS’ cells to allow questioning by agents and at no time was the Police Department to interfere with the Officer except to bring in her representative and THAT WAS ALL.
The 118 A-Shift was separated after proper and complete investigations on each of them was made of those guilty of crimes were sentenced accordingly and those otherwise in trouble were told they were no longer welcome in the department. The newbie was sent to another station to serve and the person who this was all about was allowed to sever himself from the department with a cash payment that his friend got him.
He headed back to FEMA and was never heard from again except to see justice in the incarceration of the whole of his blood relations over their treatment of him and the tactic approval of his sister’s break-in to the apartment, for which she was sentenced to jail for two years and her medical license was taken from her forever.
Her husband was picked up the moment he stopped in the city and was found by the LAPD on a warrant for his arrest for the attempted murder of a friend of hers from work. He died in jail before he could stand trial as he talked out of turn to the wrong group. That was the end of him.
A branch cut off from a tree is naturally severed from the whole tree. Similarly, a person separated from others distances themselves from the community. While a branch is cut off by external force, a person separates themselves through their own actions—through hatred and aversion, unaware of their disconnection from the whole. Yet, the gift of Zeus, who created the great community, allows us to rejoin our kind and become part of the whole again. Frequent separations make reunification harder. A branch growing continuously on a tree is not the same as one that has been cut off and reattached; they may appear similar but have different natures.
- Aurelius, Marcus. MEDITATIONS:
Fini
11/28/2025
Edit
11/29/2025