(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 225

Chapter 225: My heart dropped out of my chest with the Captain

Captain Rhys Thatcher was a man known for his logic and reasoning skills. Sure, there were times where things went...off the tracks, but that could be forgiven. He was an S Class, after all, and that came with some weird side effects.

His mood swings were one of them.

He still hadn’t fully figured out what influenced them. Was it his lust? Or lack of it? He wasn’t quite sure, but he did know that Kellen had always had a way to affect him. In good, and bad ways.

On the front lines Rhys would admit that he had turned into a monster. Kellen played a role in that. For 7 years the two of them had danced around each other and Rhys wasn’t sure if it would have been any better if he had acted. He felt that if he had tasted Kellen too soon he would have ruined him, and ruined the new relationship that they were developing.

It was so...precious, and new, and so unlike anything Rhys had had before.

He wasn’t going to call Kellen a prude, but the man was stubborn. If he wanted something, he would focus all of his attention into that one thing for as long as it took for him to accomplish that task. Rhys admired that drive, but it did mean that Kellen ended up neglecting a fairly major part of his life.

His romantic life.

Rhys wasn’t complaining. He liked being practically the first of everything Kellen had experienced, but he also knew that it wasn’t good for the part of him that was a damn monster.

The part that never wanted to let Kellen go. Lock him up somewhere ’safe’. Clip his wings. Keep him in a cage. He can still be beautiful even if we smother him.

Most days, that voice was pretty quiet, but for some reason, it wasn’t as quiet today. It might have to do with Kellen’s slightly odd behaviour in the morning. And that Kellen was leaving the Guild on his own to visit Guiding Centers.

The same places that took Kellen away from him in the first place.

Rhys knew his gaze had to be fever bright and possibly blinding. Gunther and Hill were wincing, trying to make eye contact with him, while the other staff weren’t even trying. He felt bad, but there was nothing he could do. Not with his emotions riding him this hard. He just had to be the calm, respectful boyfriend, or he was going to scare Kellen away.

God. It felt so good, yet so strange to be able to call him that. His boyfriend. Kellen was his boyfriend. He was Kellen’s boyfriend. They had mutual feelings for each other. He wasn’t pining after a man who didn’t love him.

It felt like the last seven years meant nothing. All the hardship, pain, sleepless nights were gone. Now, it was the way the man twitched in his sleep, and furrowed his brow when Rhys got too far away from him in his sleep. His warmth, his touch, everything about Kellen meant the world to him. Rhys was just...happy. He could honestly say he was happy for the first time in his life.

Kellen was so diligent too. He had made a schedule, and kept to it. Which meant that Rhys could ambush him when he knew the man wasn’t going to accept his help without force.

It was so cute that Kellen thought that he could outwit Rhys. Rhys had told him that since Kellen was now intertwined with his fate that he couldn’t see his future, but that wasn’t quite the truth.

He could see some things, the same way he could see some of his fate. But it was sporadic, and one of the other Time Espers that he had spoken to told him that focusing on himself would only make him go crazy faster. So he rarely did it, and that Esper had long since succumbed to his own powers.

Rhys was happy that Kellen even picked out the car that he had made for him. He’d selected everything for the car tirelessly, hoping that he’d be able to gift it as a birthday present to him last year, but with everything that had happened, him leaving, it just hadn’t happened. He also hadn’t gotten close enough to him to be able to gift him anything.

Rhys wouldn’t lie to himself and say he didn’t also avoid Kellen on the front lines.

But being able to be there with Kellen as his eyes lit up as he looked over the car? Rhys would be thinking about it for days. He was so happy that it had gone over so well. Even when Kellen had flushed and given him a hug. It was the best outcome he could think of.

And then he had to go about his day, constantly checking his phone for updates. When Kellen messaged him about how he had been treated upon arriving at Guiding Center C, his heart had nearly dropped out of his chest.

Who the fuck were they to treat his pair like that?

It didn’t help his temper in the slightest that he was taking it all in stride. He even seemed amused about it all. It was a great insult to him, and to Rhys the way they were treating him. Knowing that things could go badly, Rhys demanded that Hill have the best A Class Esper in the building be on standby for Kellen’s use if need be.

Which was how he was able to hear the phone call to Green from across the conference room. He was just tuned into anything involving Kellen. Whatever had happened at the Guiding Center warranted a huge amount of shakes being sent that way. Rhys didn’t like it, so he forced the Esper who had been on standby to deliver them.

That way he felt a little bit better. He couldn’t be there, because Kellen would be furious with him if he went there in person, but he could be there in spirit. In support. In any way that Kellen would allow.

It was a small blessing that Esper Blake had his number, and sent small, but informative texts to him as the two of them spent time together. Rhys got to know everything that Kellen was up to. Including how cool he looked standing up to the Guiding Center Manager and how he had helped the young Guide who was clearly getting used. Rhys, who’d had some interaction with Esper Blake before this, began to realise that he needed to get to know her better.