(BL) Hunting The Field Guide-Chapter 425: We are doing a good thing

The next day rolled around. Kellen’s normal dinner plans with his Guides wasn’t allowed due to how overprotective Rhys was being, so he pushed it back to today.

Kellen had kicked up a stink to sleep in his own bed, and after Kellen threatened that he was going to sleep somewhere else besides the Medical Bay, whether or not it was his apartment or otherwise, Rhys relented.

That meant Kellen got to wake up in Rhys’ arms when the alarm rang in the morning for his gym session. He was looking forward to this. He hadn’t been neglecting his body, or his workouts, but it had been a month since he’d had a companion in Brent, so it was an exciting day.

Rhys grumbled when Kellen took his arm off of him and got ready to go to the gym. Feeling a bit sorry for the man, Kellen gave him a kiss before heading down, anticipation thrumming through his body.

When he got to the gym, Brent was already there. Kellen felt a huge smile split his face and noticed that Brent wasn’t able to contain his excitement either. The two men approached each other and this time Kellen was able to give him an actual hug instead of the one he’d given him the day before.

It was a warm welcome, Kellen lifting up the other man as he laughed.

"That excited to see me, huh? Rhys’ll get jealous." Brent teased and Kellen just laughed.

"He knows better. My heart practically beats for that man." Kellen told Brent without any remorse or embarrassment. Brent’s face went red at Kellen’s easy way of saying it.

"Wow. I feel like a lot has happened while I’ve been away. Anyway, shall we head in?" Brent suggested, waving with his prosthetic arm for them to enter the gym. The usual crowd was inside, but they all lit up when they saw Brent. They went around chatting to everyone, Brent getting some hugs and pats of welcome that had the man grinning.

It was about 20 minutes after Brent had caught up with the others that they started their workout. It was nice, this moment that he had with Brent. He had really missed this routine that they had gotten into when he had gone away for a month. Kellen knew it was important for Brent to be on the front lines, and that he was going to take the next round of Guides with him when he went back this time, but it still felt a bit sad that he was going to miss more time with the man.

He didn’t realise having a friend that he had been close to for along time would impact him this way. Before, Kellen wouldn’t have cared. He had told himself that it was normal for friends to ignore each other until they were face to face. It was clear that was just some conditioning he’d had to get used to from his old ’friends’.

Now that Kellen was going to therapy for that issue, and the others had made it clear that that wasn’t what true friends were like, Kellen felt like he had a lot of feelings.

Well, he’d always had them, but he was feeling them in the moment now instead of suppressing them. Which was why he was able to surprise Brent when mid press, Kellen spoke up.

"I missed this. I missed you." Kellen told the other man sincerely and Brent nearly dropped the weight. Kellen caught it, helping him, while Brent stared at him, wide-eyed from where he was laying down. The other Esper’s in the gym spun to stare at Kellen. Kellen, for his part, didn’t understand why everyone was reacting at his words while Brent’s expression softened.

"I missed you too, Kellen. What brought this on?" Brent asked, sitting up and Kellen frowned slightly.

"I’ve just been working through some things with my therapist. Nothing crazy. We’ve just been unwinding my feelings about my previous friendships and my stance on relationships as a whole. I realised that I like friendships, and that what I was in before was just...financial abuse, honestly." Kellen murmured before he let out a deep sigh. "I like hanging out with you. I didn’t realise how much I was suppressing my feelings until I saw you again and how much I was looking forward to this morning." Kellen told him. "Plus, things had been tense between Casper and I for a while, so..." The words ’I was lonely’ caught in Kellen’s throat.

Brent’s expression softened further, and he tugged Kellen down to sit next to him on the bench.

"I’m glad you were able to realise that and that you’re working through that shit." Brent said earnestly. "I’m glad that you’re being open with me, and honest. I like spending time with you too, and I was also excited to work out with you this morning. I missed it too. There isn’t anyone I can tease as easily on the front lines, nor someone who I trust as much to have my back. It was...it was hard to make sure that everyone was safe, that everyone made it out alive. It’s different from before. Before, there wasn’t as personal of a connection. I was able to let some injuries roll off my back. With the new recruits?" Brent sighed, dropping his head as he slumped his shoulders. "I don’t know how you did it. Over and over."

Kellen was a little perplexed by what Brent was referring to, but Brent clarified it before Kellen needed to ask.

"Everywhere I looked, I saw people you had trained, people you had brought up from scratch. I hadn’t realised it when you’d left the front lines because there wasn’t any separation for me. But after I had been away, and you had been away, coming back with the people you had taken the time to seriously train, it was so obvious. Everyone wants those Guides, Kellen. Everyone wants who you’ve trained. There was a greed in all of their expressions. Such a heavy desire, and then the pressure to make sure that none of them got hurt while I was watching them was like a wound in my shoulder. I always felt it, always knew it was there." That wasn’t the feeling that Kellen wanted to give to Brent.

He was actually a little bit upset that Brent had had such a hard time.

"Brent, I-" Brent raised his hand up, silencing Kellen. It was clear that he wanted to continue, maybe needed to continue to speak.

"Don’t. I don’t want you to apologise. You so effortlessly trusted me with this task. You had such faith in me that I just...I didn’t want to let you down, you know? I’m not upset about that, I just felt the real weight of it when I was out from under your wing and I had the first half of the class with me. It took some adjustments, but I figured it out." Brent nodded his head, more to himself then to Kellen or anyone else. Agreeing with his own words.

"You did figure it out." Kellen agreed softly. Brent glanced at him, a grin on his lips.

"I did, didn’t I?" He agreed, more confident, more firm. "They were good, Kellen. All of them. Even when something happened that wasn’t normal, or wasn’t in the books, they didn’t freak out. They handled it well. While I worry that they are a bit too much like you in some regards, most of them were able to handle anything that was thrown at them. Granted, they were easy gates, cleared gates and we only did one overnight stint with each group, everyone handled it well." Brent sighed.

"Did anything happen that you didn’t put in the reports?" Kellen asked quietly. This was something that he had wanted to ask when Brent came back. Brent slid him a look, before he glanced away.

"Yeah. I could tell a few of them were overwhelmed. They probably aren’t cut out for it. I just...they put in so much work I just feel bad telling them to their face that they shouldn’t continue down this path." Brent said quietly and Kellen agreed.

They had risen to the occasion. While this had been a voluntary program with a slight money incentive, it hadn’t started easily. It had been pretty rocky, especially since they had started this right after Kellen had thrown around those damn idiots who had almost killed people.

They had put in blood, sweat and tears, though hopefully not many of those. Kellen agreed that he could sense that some of them weren’t going to continue. So, he spoke to Brent about something he had kind of been toying with.

"What if...we offer those who we don’t think are going to last on the front lines the opportunity to become trainers?" Kellen said slowly and Brent mulled that over for a minute before he turned to Kellen, his eyes bright.

"That sounds like a brilliant idea! We could shift the classes. Keep those who want to continue on as Field Guides in the morning class, and those who want to be instructors in the afternoon class. We’ll have to switch people around, but I think it’s doable. I can take the Field Guides for the first half, and then we can switch." Brent told him, excited and Kellen felt his chest warm as his shoulders relaxed.

Kellen was glad that he was so receptive to the idea.

"I know Pamela wants to basically create an empire, and with what you said about a high demand for Field Guides trained by us, this solves two issues. We can slowly show them the guidebook that we’ve been making, get them comfortable with the idea of being in control of others, and we can also do a few trial runs with the other Field Guides." Kellen suggested. Brent nodded.

"We can also throw in a few lessons from the instructor class for the other Field Guides too. It wouldn’t hurt them, since both you and I know that you do kind of train others as well. While I would like the instructors to have more experience on the front lines, having Field Guides trained in our style is pretty important too. You’ve noticed it too, right? The Field Guides we helped on the front lines...." Brent trailed off, the excitement dying slightly. Kellen nodded.

"They don’t die as easily." Kellen said quietly and Brent looked away, almost embarrassed about his excitement.

"Yeah. They don’t." The excitement had been sucked out of the air that easily. Both men were faced with the reason why they were pushing so hard, why they were doing this in the first place.

The front lines weren’t walks in the parks. They weren’t easy. Kellen had almost died several times, so had Brent. They had been to several quiet celebrations of life for Guides over the years and Kellen knew that if they moved forward, he would have more he’d have to attend. It was the nature of their world.

Kellen reached out, gripping onto Brent’s shoulder and sighed.

"We’re doing a good thing, Brent. It’s okay. All we can do is offer our support. If we plan to go this route, we should test the waters with the Guides. See what they think. We’ll also have to speak with Rhys and the others and see what the best plan forward would be. With the E.A.G. situation, travelling for either party would be dangerous." Kellen said and Brent nodded.

"Yeah. I agree, so we’ll just have to eliminate them from our city first." Brent said firmly and Kellen chuckled.

"Says the man who hasn’t been here for a month. Alright! Let’s finish this up so we can start working on that new plan, hmm?" Kellen used Brent’s shoulder to stand up, smiling at him, and Brent smiled back.

"Sounds good, Boss."