City of Smoke // Brian 'Otis' Zvonecek ✔️

15 || AMY

The weeks following their moment in the locker room, neither Rory nor Otis had said a single word to each other that wasn't work related. Neither of them could even bring themselves to even look at each other, let alone talk to each other as the pain from that day was still so strong inside them.

It was hard for the two of them, not being able to be near each other as even beneath all the hurt and the misery they both felt, they truly missed each other. They missed what they used to have, in those days between Rory forgiving Otis and the day he met Amy. They missed being around each other, laughing, joking... flirting.

Rory missed listening to Otis's podcast, missed hearing that voice she'd grown to love so much. The one that was capable of making her stomach flutter more furiously than ever before. She missed Molly's as ever since that day in the locker room, the day Otis literally broke her heart, she hadn't stepped foot into the bar she loved so much as the mere thought of seeing Otis behind it. Seeing the cute bartender she once had a crush on, before it turned to nothing but pain filled love, was too much for her to bear.

Honestly she didn't know how much strength she had left in her before she broke. She didn't think she could take another shift where she had to go out of her way to avoid Otis, much like he did with her which you would think would make it easier, but no. It did not make it any easier as half the time they ended up in the same place after hurrying to get away from one another.

Which is why, after a quick call to a school where a kid had had an unfortunate run in with a locker, Rory and Sylvie found themselves sitting in the ambulance overlooking the ocean, where they'd stay until Rory was ready to return to, what she now thought as, the dreaded firehouse.

"Hey, are you doing okay?" Sylvie asked softly, her hand landing atop Rory's as the two of them sat with a coffee in their hands, watching the twinkle of the sun against the sea.

"I guess." Rory shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee and allowing the vanilla flavouring to coat her tongue. "It helps, you know, sitting here... Getting out of the firehouse for a while."

"I don't mean to sound rude, or anything but... If being around Otis hurts you this much, then why do you stay?" Sylvie asked carefully, not wanting to make Rory think she wanted rid of her or anything.

Rory sighed, her fingers fiddling absently with the loose thread on her pants before she brought them up and ran them through her hair, which went unclipped nowadays as she didn't haven't the energy to fight with her claw clips to get them in right. 

"I've thought about it." She murmured, allowing herself to look briefly towards Sylvie, just long enough to flash her an apologetic look before her attention fell back onto the ocean. "Even found myself outside Chief Hatcher's office a few times but each time I back out... And I know that must seem, I don't know, confusing given the fact that we're currently avoiding the firehouse." She added, gesturing around her.

"But believe or not, I actually love being at fifty-one." Rory continued, sighing again before she took another sip of coffee. "I love having you as my partner and being around the others... And I don't want to let what happened with Otis get in the way of that, you know?" She turned to Sylvie, who nodded briefly as she tried to hide the way her lips twisted out of pity. "I just wish things were different... between me and him. I wish they could go back to the way they were before."

"Before what happened in the locker room?" Sylvie questioned, feeling the sympathy rise in her again as she remembered what Rory told her about that day.

"Before Amy." Rory said plainly, sighing from frustration as she took too big of a sip of coffee that the heat of it burned her tongue. But she didn't care, in fact she was glad for it as at least then it would give her something to feel other than misery.