(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 483

Chapter 483: Casper’s guild

Casper was barely holding it all together.

He’d been the perfect person to say goodbye, he’d gotten all of the ducks in a row, he hadn’t let himself crack. He couldn’t let himself crack.

Not until he got word that he arrived safely, Rhys was down in the Medical Bay, and no news had arrived for anything else. No news about Theodore, no news about the E.A.G., no news about Guide Jameson.

Casper finally gave himself a moment. He locked himself in his office in the tower, the Guiding Division, and just broke down. He felt like everything he had worked for was slipping through his fingers and he had no way to stop it. There was nothing he could do.

Everyone was making their own choices, listening to themselves, and Casper? Casper had put his feelings on the backburner because there was no space for his right now. This wasn’t about him. It was about the two pillars that held up this Guild, and how one had gone into a gate that had only shown up once before, thinking he’d get out with hopes and prayers, and the other had gone to sleep in favour of losing his mind and hurting everyone and everything around him when he surged. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

To Casper, it was a when, not an if. He believed in Kellen. He had faith in Kellen.

He had no faith in that fucking gate.

It was swallowing up their happiness, their joy. The first thing it did was lie, and it was Kellen who caught it. They had all thought it was just going to be a jungle biome gate, but then the funky colours had snuck in and no one had thought the wiser. Casper believed that the D.E.C. might have misled them on that so that they could make it someone else’s problem, but he couldn’t view everything with an acronym badly just because of the E.A.G.

Even if he had less than stellar experiences with them.

Then, it had swallowed up their people and literally spat out their bones and body parts like an actual monster. Then, it had begun to poison everyone and everything. It was a relief that the Peach Guild had someone on their team who could work with poisons, but it felt like that research just wasn’t able to move fast enough given how big of a threat this was.

And then...the fucking thing had surged, swallowing up their futures, Kellen’s sister, while a monster raid happened on the front lines induced by the E.A.G. Casper just wanted the Guild to catch a fucking break after the attack on Kellen and his Father’s life.

That didn’t happen at all. Especially with Theodore gone from the Guild. Casper’s chest ached.

He had slumped down on one of the couches in his office, sobbing, his chest heaving as he cried, but when he thought about Theodore, he halted, the pain so immeasurable it stole his breath. He fell to the floor, going to his knees as he pressed his clenched hands into the couch cushions, his face staining the dark blue cushion.

Theodore.

No one had heard from him in days. He knew that Kellen had put together some locations for him to rest, catch some Guiding, and then head back into the fray. The fact that Kellen thought that he could hide that from Casper was cute, even if it annoyed Casper a little bit. He knew that was Kellen’s way to look out for the man, but Casper still felt angry about it.

Until he found out that each drop had pictures of Casper and updates about how he was doing in particular. Then Casper stopped being angry. Kellen was just trying to look out for two people who Rhys cared about, and who Kellen also cared about. He was just...awkward.

But Casper? Casper was conflicted.

Yes, he’d kissed Theodore before he’d left. He’d done it, and while he didn’t regret it, it had made this only harder on him. Casper had wanted to leave. Had wanted to give this place to Theodore, his home, because while Casper knew that it would tear out parts of his heart to leave the Saturn Guild, he could rebuild. Theodore?

There was no way he could rebuild. Rhys was his home, his safety. That was how this whole thing even blew up in the first place. The two had thought they were exactly the same so they hadn’t communicated any of their damn issues to each other until it swallowed them whole and others around them. Like Casper.

He still loved him. Casper wasn’t actually sure if he could ever not love him, which was what was making this harder.

No one had heard from Theodore. Not any of the undercover informants, not any of the Guiding Centers, not even the D.E.C. when they were pushing on the E.A.G. sites that they knew were there. No one had heard or seen him in a while.

The last communication had been the damage to the generators on the front lines, and what he’d told Rhys from doing that. Casper didn’t want to think of the worst case scenario. He wouldn’t, but with all the death and gloom around them, and the fact that the captured E.A.G. members had killed themselves with a drug or poison, Casper couldn’t help but circle the drain.

So, he sobbed. On his knees, crying over the man that he wanted but couldn’t have, how he’d made this choice for them, and how Casper didn’t want that to be how they said goodbye. That wasn’t supposed to be a forever goodbye. That was supposed to only be a temporary one.

He grabbed his glasses from the coffee table, sliding them onto his face as he spiked his hair. A force of habit that hadn’t gone away from his teen days, and still continued well into his thirties.

When he unlocked the door, Charlie practically spilled into the office, his eyes wide and wild, and his expression full of concern. Casper was surprised by the display, and even more so when Charlie locked the door behind him and ushered Casper further into the office by grabbing his shoulders and pushing him back.

Charlie pushed him onto the couch that he had just cried on, being forceful in a way that he had never experienced the other man, before Charlie pulled out his phone and with shaking hands pulled up a video. It was a news story about how some famous person died overseas. Charlie pointed a finger at the screen, his face pale.

"I-Is that Brent?" He asked, and that got Casper’s attention. The video was paused, so Casper pressed it, and then felt his whole world tilt on another angle.

Casper could barely hear what the person was saying, the words sounding like garbled gibberish as he saw a man with blonde hair, green eyes, and the scars that Casper knew and loved, walk while surrounded by four Esper bodyguards. He looked gaunt, shaken, and like he hadn’t slept properly in days. He was wearing an ill fitting suit, and he had no prosthetic on. Unlike how Guide Jameson normally dressed, the sleeve wasn’t rolled up and professional, instead hanging like a damn reminder he was missing a limb.

Casper’s stomach rolled, before the video stopped and then Casper pressed play again. This time, he listened to the words, and that only made things worse.

Brent was the sole heir in a very messy inheritance battle. The family had thought that the grandfather had left portions, or shares to the other family members, including his two sons. He had not. He’d left the whole thing to Brent, and now Brent was being held captive since he had a giant target on his head.

Casper felt sick. What did this mean? Apparently his last name wasn’t even Jameson, so Casper felt strange calling him that anymore. What was clear to Casper was that he wasn’t in the gate, like everyone had feared, and wasn’t in the stomach of a monster, which was the other fear.

He was in a completely different war zone, where no one could go right now. Fuck.

Casper pulled out his phone, calling up to the conference room.

"Get Pamela on the phone. She needs to come back, asap. I don’t care if she’s fighting with her girlfriend, she’s needed here, now."