City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

22 || STAY

[ warning: this chapter contains a smut scene towards the end ]
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One whole month. That's how long it had been since Otis had seen Rory, or heard from her. An entire month and truthfully, he was miserable. In fact, he was more than miserable in that he was downright depressed.

He hadn't been himself since that night, the night on which he should have told Rory the truth instead of allowing her to run off, all the way to the airport and all the way to L.A. He didn't think it would be this hard to tell her he loved her, but when she was across the country and had her phone off every time he tried to call her, it was proving pretty difficult to even get a hold of her let alone tell her what he needed her to know.

"Yo, Otis." Cruz said again for the fourth time, finally breaking Otis out of his thoughts and reminding him he was meant to be serving drinks behind the bar. "Can I get a beer?"

"Hm? Oh, uh, right. Yeah." Otis babbled, shaking his head as he turned to grab a clean glass from the rack behind him. "Sorry, guess I was miles away." He added, turning back around and beginning to pour the drink for Cruz.

Cruz simply nodded his head, his lips pressed together out of sympathy for his friend, who he knew was taking Rory's furlough harder than the rest of them. He'd caught him stalking her on instagram sometimes, lingering on photos of herself she'd posted whilst in L.A. He knew it was hard for him to be without her for so long, especially how things between them ended, and he often did get distracted outside of work, but Cruz didn't say anything, instead he simply remained patient with him, rather than push him further into his slump.

"Oh, hey guys, it's a text from Rory." Sylvie said cheerfully, her words alerting those from fifty-one who sat around her, Otis especially, who'd set Cruz's glass a little too hard on the bar top which resulted in some beer sloshing over the edge. "Oh..." She hummed out, her previous happy face falling as her eyes scanned the words before her.

"Oh? What do you mean oh?" Otis asked, his heart hammering in his chest over what she could possibly mean by 'oh'. Was Rory hurt? Was she not coming back to fifty-one? Was she extending her furlough even longer? He needed to know, but luckily for him, Sylvie didn't keep them in suspense much longer as she'd begun to read out one of two messages that would change Otis's life forever.

"I know this is probably going to come as quite a shock to you guys and I've been trying to think of the easiest way to tell you since I got back yesterday, but I figured being plain and simple would be best so here goes... I got a job offer from the LAFD, as a paramedic chief, and I've decided to take it which means... I'm moving to L.A." Sylvie began, those four words crushing Otis's very soul the minute she spoke them aloud and into existence. "I want you all to know that this was never my intention when I left but I think, right now, it's what's best for me. I'm going to miss you guys, more than you know, but for now this is goodbye."

"Goodbye? What does she mean goodbye? Are we not going to see her before she leaves?" Cruz asked, glancing towards Otis whose face had drained of any and all colour.

"That's all the message says." Sylvie said quietly, turning her phone to show them the short message.

At that point, Otis's phone dinged, causing him to rumble frantically into his pocket for him. The number on screen wasn't in his contacts, but he knew by the message who it was from, and it's safe to say that those few simple, yet heartbreaking, sentences were enough for him to know what he had to do.