Work Text:
“Ugh! I just cannot be bothered to braid my hair today!” Stella exclaimed from the couch in the common room, her head thrown back over the back with her ringlets flowing down it.
“Why don’t you get Brett or Foster to braid it?” Mouch said, reading glasses sitting on the tip of his nose as he looks down on his newspaper.
Stella groaned in frustration, “They’re both on call, how did you not notice?” Mouch just shrugged and went back to reading. Stella just mumbled and somehow sunk even deeper into the couch.
Otis, while in the middle of playing scrabble with Cruz, Capp, and Tony, popped his head up from his intense focus, “Hey, um, I could braid your hair if you want, Kidd?” Cruz just looked at his best friend in shock and he scoffed in disbelief.
“Otis! You know how to braid hair?!” Stella perked up, jumping and turning around on the couch to face the Russian, “Well, get over here! We need to test your skills, man! Let me get a comb and some products!” She hopped off the couch and ran to the locker room before they got another call.
“Brother, since when did you know how to do braids?” Cruz lightly punched Otis and laughed.
”Um, since always? I’m great with hair, just couldn’t show you my skills for um… reasons.” Otis defends himself and rubs Cruz’s hairless head. Cruz deadpans at his best friend and sarcastically laughs.
Just then, Stella runs back into the common room, arms full with products as if she’s ready for war. Striding up to Otis, she dumps the products right on the table in front of him, disrupting all the letters on their game of Scrabble.
“Hey!” Capp protests. Tony placatingly places a hand on his friend’s shoulders, Stella clearly ignoring them.
“Alright, let’s see what you got.” Stella grins, pulling up a chair in front of Otis and faces away from him, her curly hair dangling down the back of the chair. Otis grabs the bottle of hair oil on the table and a comb and starts gently applying it into sections and detangling. There’s a soothing rhythm to Otis’s method, the care and love he puts into doing Stella’s hair obvious in the gentle way he runs his fingers through her curls to check for knots. The common room grows quiet, even Mouch having put down his newspaper, all watching the normally joking and bumbling truck member become quiet and focused. Halfway through detangling Stella’s hair, he starts quietly singing something in Russian; the others don’t know what type of song it is but it’s clear that it’s part of the routine. As he gets through the last section of Stella’s hair, he finishes the song and starts going through the products Stella brought to look for hair ties and gel.
As Otis splits Stella’s hair into two sections to make two braids, Herrmann speaks up, “where did you learn how to braid hair like this, buddy?” Otis’s hands stop and he looks up, seemingly having forgotten that he was at work at House 51.
“When I was younger, I was always the one to braid Katerina’s hair.”
“Another cousin?” Cruz questioned. There was a pause as Otis broke down the first section into three and started braiding meticulously. He drew a deep breath in and started speaking, his voice shaky.
“No, my, um… my twin sister.” He replied quietly. There were exclamations of surprise around the room, nobody having known this information before this moment.
“What?! Why didn’t I know this, when can we meet her?” Cruz questioned, a mixture of excitement and confusion coming through his voice. The others repeating the same sentiments.
There was a short pause before Otis spoke back up, hesitation, sadness, and grief making itself known in his words.
“She died. When we were 15.” It was as if the air got sucked out the room, everyone’s voices of shock quietening down. Cruz especially looked devastated for his best friend. When everyone really thought about it, they realised they truly did not know much about Otis’s history and family other than the fact that he comes from a family of Russian immigrants and has three older brothers, Nick, Dimitri and Vlad. Was he happy growing up? Was he bullied? Did he have many friends? Nobody truly knew.
Otis drew in a deep breath and started talking again, “Her name was Katerina. She had this gorgeous curly hair, long enough to reach her waist. Our mother’s job started too early to braid Kat’s hair before school, so I started trying to do it when we were 5. God, it looked so bad at the beginning.” Otis chuckled to himself.
He continued braiding Stella’s hair, nearly finishing with the first one.
“I got really good at it by the time we were teens. Shit, I was even doing those intricate braids after a while,” He sucked in a deep breath, “10 years, I did her hair. We even joked that I would be the one doing her hair when she eventually got married. But, obviously… it’s not happening now.” A tear pathed itself down Otis’s face, his head down to try and hide it.
Cruz got up and pulled his chair directly next to his brother, placing a steady hand on Otis’s back. Otis heard a chair scraping as Casey got up to join, standing behind Otis, providing an unwavering figure.
“Otis. What- what happened?” Tony spoke up, a rare case for him.
“It’s ironic really. She’s the whole reason I became a firefighter, you know?” Otis cut himself off, grief causing him to waver, “She was sick, so she stayed home from school one day. Nothing too bad, just a bad cold. I tried to stay home to take care of her but our dad dragged me to school and our mum couldn’t ‘t afford taking a day off work. We were already going paycheck to paycheck. The older three, they were already at college by this point. I spent that whole day worrying, wanting to go back and make her some borscht. I truly thought that the worst thing that would happen that day is that Kat would be too tired to get herself some lunch. God, was I wrong!”
Otis’s hands shakingly started braiding Stella’s second section of hair, his voice cutting off. Otis seemed to zone out until he felt his Captain’s steady and firm hand pressing onto his other shoulder, joining his best friend’s hand. Otis gathered his strength and continued.
“When I got home, our house was in flames,” Otis calmly said, the others drawing in sharp breaths at the revelation.
“A neighbour had called the firefighters after they came back from work but, by then, it was too late. The paramedics tried their best but she died on the stretcher, alone and in pain.” Otis, silently cried as he revealed this, the tears streamed down his face as he remembered how Katerina looked on that stretcher, her face contorted into an expression of pure anguish, “I remember, that morning, I braided her hair, as I always did, and sang her a Russian lullaby like our mother did when we were younger. I told her to feel better soon, and I left. And when I came back, she was gone.” Otis finished speaking as he finished the second braid, patting Stella on the back.
As soon as he did this, Stella whipped around and pulled Otis down into a hug. She placed his head into the crook between her neck and shoulder and he just weeped. His cries echoed around the room as he broke down at the memories of his sister that he desperately tried to suppress for his years. His shoulder shook, heavy with the weight of an indescribable grief. Stella’s hands rubbed up and down Otis’s back, the two braids carefully made on her head feeling infinitely more special. Everyone else in the room all collectively felt their hearts breaking as they looked at one of their youngest members breaking down. Cruz finally moved to join in and wrapped up Otis in his strong arms, his movement finally breaking everyone out of their shock and they all scrambled to join in.
“Oh, Otis… why did you never tell us?” Herrmann rasped, his voice shaking under the knowledge that one his fellow firefighters, one he even saw as a son, went through so much as a child.
Otis picked his head up from where it was resting on Stella’s shoulders and sniffled before saying, “Honestly? I just wanted to forget - but every night, I think about how I became a firefighter to try and prevent this from ever happening to anyone else and I dream of her. I miss her so much, it’s like a part of me died the day that she did. And now? Now, I’ve lived more years without her than I have with her.”
Cruz stood up and brought his best friend into his arms letting him cry into his chest, soothing him.
“God, I am so sorry, Otis.” Cruz whispered.
“It’s okay. I guess I just never really allowed myself to think of her after I moved out of home. My parents didn’t approve of me becoming a firefighter after their only daughter died in a fire and after… after my dad died, my mum only tried to hold on more tightly. It was suffocating and so one day, I just packed my bags and I left. I don’t really speak to my family anymore, other than Baba.”
“What about your older brothers?” Cruz asked.
“Ah, Nick left just like me, he was the one closest to me and Katerina, but he admitted to me one day that whenever he looked at me, he just saw Kat. So he left. I can’t blame him, I see her when I look in the mirror too,” Otis croaked, his voice raspy, “And, well… Dimitri and Vlad, they blame me. Funny, they work in Chicago too but somehow we’ve evaded each other all this time.” Otis chuckled to himself darkly.
Herrmann pushed his way towards Otis and kneeled in front of him, placing his strong hands on his shoulders: “Otis - Brian, it isn’t your fault. It never was. You were just a kid.” Otis’s face scrunched up and he broke down all over again. He placed his head in his hands and mourned; he mourned for Katerina again and for once, mourned their childhoods - Kat’s, that got cut off too soon, and his that died with her.
Boden walked up to Otis next, causing him to look up at the Chief - Otis’s eyes looking especially doe-like and innocent.
“Brian, I’m sorry you were part of a family that abandoned you after such a great trauma. Just know, your family here, your true family in firehouse 51 will never do that. We are always going to support you. No matter what.” The Chief stated, not a doubt in his mind about the permanent place that his truck member will hold in his firehouse.
Cruz held his best friend’s face, turning him towards himself and said, solemnly, “Brother, we will be with you, always.” Otis burst into tears once more and his family, his true family, gathered around him.
“Thank you,” Otis keened, “I love you all so much.”
Just then, the bells go off, calling for truck 81 and ambulance 61. Captain Casey pats Otis’s back and truck rushes out, everyone at firehouse 51 feeling closer than ever before.