A Slow Burn // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek // Chicago Fire ✔️

22 || CONSEQUENCES

Getting out of bed the morning of her second shift under the command of Chief Pridgen was a lot harder than Riley had expected it to be, but eventually she managed. However the minute she stepped foot into the firehouse common room, she regretted her decision of not calling in sick.

"Hey, there he is." Pridgen said around a chuckle as Otis entered the room, not five minutes after Riley. "Just the man I wanted to see..."

After Riley had had stern words with the guys in the house about calling him gutter ball or mentioning anything about the call the day before, Otis had hoped the incident would finally be put to rest... Except Chief Pridgen just couldn't let it go.

"Got you a present." In his hands, Pridgen held up a black and yellow bowling shirt, the name gutter ball embroidered on the front.

The look on Otis' face was enough to make Riley want to give Pridgen another reason to write her up, but with a stern look from Herrmann and Casey's words from the shift before echoing in her mind, she bit her tongue. Hard. She really did want to punch that smirk off his face.

"Don't tell me I never did anything for you." Pridgen chuckled, another punchable smile on his face as he tossed the shirt towards Otis, who looked like he want to be anywhere else but at work.

"Wow, look at that." Otis said flatly, the embarrassment of the moment filling him again. "Hilarious." He tossed the shirt onto the table, his face clearly showing how pissed off he felt in that moment.

"No, no, no, you gotta put it on. I promised my buddy I'd get a picture of you wearing it... His shop did the embroidery." Pridgen said humorously, his phone in his hand as he waited for Otis to put it on, which he clearly wasn't about to do, he'd rather do anything else but appease Pridgen.

"Oh, come on. Don't be such a wet blanket." Pridgen scoffed out, his eyes flicking from the unamused Otis to Riley, whose jaw was tensed so much it might have snapped in half. It was clear to him that she wanted to say something, so of course he'd try and egg her on. "Something on your mind, Wolf?"

"Oh, there's a lot of things on my mind right now, Chief." She spat the word Chief as if it was poison, which it was. A man like him should never be Chief. "However most of them might be considered, I don't know, illegal." She shrugged, noticing the looks of concern now clouding the others faces.

The others also seemed to come to the conclusion that perhaps Pridgen hadn't gotten the shirt made to annoy Otis. No, it appeared he may have just done it to get a reaction from Riley, who they could tell was a split second from doing one of said illegal things.

"It must be killing you that you can't stick up for your little boyfriend here." Pridgen said smugly as he gestured to Otis, thoroughly enjoying the look of pure anger in Riley's eyes.

The use of the word boyfriend didn't even seem to phase anyone, except Otis... The word making his heart twinge a little before Pridgen spoke again, spoiling the moment.

"Not wanting to get written up again, huh?"

"Go ahead and write me up, I don't care... But you know you have no reason to this time, I haven't done anything." Riley held her arms out, stepping towards Pridgen a little, making the others suck in a breath, but Pridgen just laughed.

"Give it time, sweetheart, it's still early." He said arrogantly before he strolled out of the room, Riley just letting out a scoff at his brazen attitude.

"I don't know how long I can keep working under this asshole." She said seriously, briefly pointing in the direction he just went. The word sweetheart coming from his mouth, directed at her was enough to make her nauseous.