(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 496

Chapter 496: A debrief for the ages

Hill was all business, not letting herself slip out of her Lieutenant persona as Kellen went through the briefing that he had wanted to give this whole time. He also had Rhys help him by grabbing his bag. Thankfully, Taylor had already removed the ’items’ from it by the time that the bag touched Kellen’s hands again.

That was one thing he just couldn’t deal with right now.

Taylor also untied him, since he clearly wasn’t going to thrash about in his current state, and he needed his hands to show off his finds. Kellen easily handed over his little diary, sure it would have gotten more nonsensical as time went along, but knowing it was a good documentation of that as well.

How good his suit worked, how long it took for him to get severely poisoned. What happened in the gate and how a ’normal’ person viewed it versus whatever Kellen was like in the last bit. Kellen had known he had written in the diary, but even he couldn’t recall what he had written. It was probably all about what Kellen had witnessed and heard.

How he kept hearing Rhys’ voice in the forest, but how he knew it wasn’t him. He hoped he’d made notes of how Bree was holding up. How she had been only able to focus on one task at a time.

He made sure to let Hill know about that part anyways, and his little theory about how everyone passed out when they reached their limit of poison intoxication.

From the look Taylor gave him, she was already having that thought as well. Good. Kellen was glad that they were all on the same page, even if he had been unconscious. It also wasn’t lost on him that they had probably put everything back in the bag after Kellen had passed out, and then shoved everything back in the bag once he had woken up again. He didn’t care.

That was the same thing he would have done in their footsteps, and it was wild to him that they were being so delicate around him. Kellen had been a C Class a lot longer than he had been an A Class Guide. He was used to rough treatment, even from Hill.

She had treated him more like an Esper than a Guide when she had known him on the front lines prior to him getting together with Rhys. Kellen hadn’t hated that either. Kellen knew that they weren’t being so careful with him because Kellen wanted it.

He knew it was solely because Rhys was who he was, and he was pretty close to the edge.

Mid brief, Carlos came in with Isabella on his heels, shoved the others out of the way and approached Kellen right away. He went to him, going for his good eye and examining it, before he ordered the lights to be dimmed so he could take off the eyepatch without further damaging Kellen’s eye.

He didn’t seem to care about anything around him, so focused on his task that Kellen wondered if he was alright. From the sunken look of Isabella’s face, no, he wasn’t alright, but he was allowed to get away with this kind of treatment because it worked.

He was clearly onto something if Kellen had made it out, was awake, and was also functioning in the face of the others who weren’t awake yet.

When Carlos looked at Kellen’s eye, Kellen wasn’t able to see anything out of it. Carlos asked, doing several things that Kellen couldn’t see because they were all on his left side, before Carlos let out a heavy sigh, put the eye patch back on, and then turned to Kellen’s hand.

Kellen, since it was clear that Carlos wasn’t really going to ask him anything about a hand that had been so heavily affected by a topical poison, turned to continue speaking to Hill.

Hill seemed a little unsure for only a second, before they continued their conversation. Kellen was right, he wasn’t asking him questions about his hand, just checking on the condition. Kellen refused to look at the state of his hand.

It wouldn’t help him right now to see it, and it certainly wasn’t going to help the anxious Esper next to him.

Mid talking point, Kellen turned to Rhys and gave him a pointed look as the man looked stricken as he stared down towards Kellen’s hand.

"Rhys, stop. Up here." Kellen told him, and Rhys swallowed, jerking his gaze towards Kellen. He looked helpless, terrified, and in so much pain that it was almost comical. "Rhys. You don’t need to focus on that right now. Listen to my report instead." Kellen told him, and watched as Carlos and Taylor gave a little nod in agreement.

They were trying their best not to show it, but Kellen could see it. The relief in their expressions now that there was someone awake who could manage the man. It would be a different situation entirely if Gunther was here.

But he wasn’t. So that fell to Kellen’s shoulders, and he was fine with that. As long as Rhys let him do his damn job as his partner.

Kellen turned back to his debrief, leaning his head on Rhys’ stiff shoulder as he did so. It was unlike him, unlike what anyone in the room thought he would do, so he could feel the shock in the room. Kellen didn’t really care, not when after a few moments Rhys relaxed.

Carlos was finished with his checkup before Kellen was done with his debrief, since now Hill was asking more technical questions after she’d heard everything he’d seen with his eyes through his eyes. Carlos pulled Taylor out of the room so that they could speak about what he had observed in the time he had been in the room, and Isabella gave Kellen a small wave and a dip of her head.

Kellen smiled at her softly as the tent flap fell behind her as the two healers? Left.

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