(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 135

Chapter 135: A few moments later...

It felt like time passed by too quickly after that first day.

Before Kellen knew it, he found himself two weeks later, deep into classes with the new Guides, Brent a constant headache and news about him beating the shit out of Guides long forgotten. Where the time had gone, Kellen had no idea. All he really knew was that...something felt a little wrong.

During the two weeks that had disappeared in a flash, the higher ups in all of the Guilds had been hard at work. They had eventually identified all of the body parts that had come out of the gate, which meant family could finally be notified. They still hadn’t found anything from Carter Scott yet, but given the time, they had a feeling they would find him when they did their second scouting party.

Because of this, there were no relaxed evenings drinking with everyone anymore. In fact, Kellen rarely saw anything anymore, including the Captain. If it wasn’t for their guiding sessions that they were still doing with Taylor, he was sure he wouldn’t have seen him at all.

Even Taylor was hard to get a hold of right now. Besides the few times that Kellen and Brent went to act as the Field Guide representatives for them in meetings, the two of them felt like they were in their own little bubble, focused on training the new Field Guides as they waited for the shoe to drop.

Every time that Kellen saw Hill or Gunther, usually in passing, both looked stressed out of their minds. Hill looked disheveled, kinda like a raccoon, and Kellen had taken to sending her care packages of grape lollipops out of concern for her.

Gunther always had his hair up and braided, a style that Kellen knew he only wore on the front lines so that it didn’t get caught or tangled. The man somehow looked paler than he normally did, and Kellen had taken to sending him fancy coffee, since he knew that Gunther liked that kind of stuff. It was the only thing he took for himself on the front lines.

Whenever Kellen saw the Captain at the end of the day, he looked tired. He wasn’t using his powers an insane amount, but the ocean in him hadn’t softened. It was still that raging, turbulent and violent ocean Kellen had met with the day after the press conference. Kellen felt like he was coaxing a giant beast.

Casper was the busiest with truly Guild related business. He was dealing with the fallout of finding out that many of his employees hadn’t been doing their jobs, plus his own responsibilities with the gate issue. His hair was always spiked, he had huge circles under his eyes, and he was wisp thin. Taylor was shoving shakes at him any chance she could get, and Kellen was doing the same.

Kellen felt that they should have fucking i.v. dripped him since he had to be losing body mass at alarming levels. He wasn’t able to maintain his body. Brent wasn’t doing much better in that regard.

As soon as Brent had made that offer to help out, Casper had put the man to work. Where Kellen had been bulking, both of them had slimmed down, even as Brent tried to keep up with his normal body shape. Brent, thankfully, didn’t look ill like Casper did, but that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Things were going to come to a breaking point here soon.

All three of them were drinking at least $400 in shakes each, and whenever Kellen saw Taylor, her eyes were practically flashing money signs. Thank fuck the Guild had a stake in Taylor’s company, or they would be broke from three A Class Guides alone.

That being said, the Guiding Division was in shambles, and even with Brent helping out by guiding, and Kellen trying to help on the back end, it seemed like it was going to take a while longer before anything could be done. Casper hadn’t even had a chance to start looking into recruiting new Guides, and when Kellen had tried to bring it up, he’d shut him down. He simply didn’t have the time, and couldn’t trust anyone else to do it. Kellen understood where Casper had come from, but it still hurt to hear those words when he’d said them.

Bree was improving the most compared to the others. She was a good all rounder, lacking in a few spots, but Kellen wasn’t going to get mad at her when she was still the top of his class. She could use a few pointers from Veronica when it came to identifying plants, since she’d almost poisoned herself a few times, but generally, she was doing great. _{frёeweɓηovel.coɱ}

Kellen found that he couldn’t even talk to anyone about it either, since none of his friends were paired, and the only other duo were his parents, and he didn’t want to have this conversation with them. His Dad would potentially be understanding, but he didn’t want his Mom to laugh or poke fun at him.

He was very confused, and lost. He didn’t understand why he missed him so much, or why he yearned for his touch. It also didn’t help that after the Captain had said he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive without him, he had come across perfectly fine every time he had seen him. He didn’t pull him aside to kiss him, he didn’t touch him unnecessarily, and he wasn’t even teasing him. Not even over text.

Kellen wasn’t sure what was going on, only that he didn’t like it. The problem was, he didn’t know how to fix it either. Kellen had taken to wearing the Captain’s jacket around his apartment as soon as he got home, just to feel attached to him. He’d even done something even more shameful, and behind his uniforms, he’d put up a few of the old posters, just so he could look at them.

It was a quiet, safe place for Kellen to just sit with his thoughts. He’d bought a few cushions for the floor so that he could sit up there with a cup of tea when he got too lonely. Kellen hadn’t cried about it, but his chest had a deep ache inside of it. He was sure that over time, this tense, awful longing in his chest would fade.

Everyone was so busy. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Gwen, but she kept leaving him little gifts at the Guiding Division so he knew she was alive. No one knew he was feeling this way, but he didn’t want to burden them with his silly concerns. Everyone was focused on the gate, including the Captain.

Kellen was sure that was the reason why his emotions were so all over the place. It wasn’t the first time that the Captain and Kellen had been busy and hadn’t seen each other for long periods of time. This just happened to be the first time since they had become a pair. It was going to be fine. He was going to be fine. He had to be fine.