(BL) Hunting The Field Guide - Chapter 391

Chapter 391: A late night pick up
For the next week the sense of unease never faded, never left. It was eating away at him slowly, making Kellen a paranoid shell of himself. Gwen had made a comment about it at one point, and Kellen had laughed, trying to brush it off. It was when Rhys brought up that Kellen seemed jumpy and upset that Kellen had to face it.

Kellen thought that this sense of unease was linked to his parents coming back. He was, as always, worried about whether they were going to come back safely. It wasn’t normally this deep of a concern, but given all that was going on, his worry was valid. That was the case until they sneakily arrived back into the city without anyone knowing, including Kellen and Gwen.

~

His parents had arrived late, almost 2 am in the morning. When Kellen received the call early in the morning, Rhys was the one who answered his phone in his stead.

Kellen woke up to the sleepy rumble of Rhys’ voice against his ear, his head resting against his bare chest in their bed. Rhys jostling must have been what had woke him up first. Rhys was a light sleeper compared to Kellen.

“Hello?” Rhys said into the phone, while Kellen slowly woke up. Kellen was mid yawn when he heard the voice of the person on the other end of the line.

“Oh, sorry Rhys. Didn’t mean to disturb you lovebirds. Just wanted to let Kellen know we’re safely back in the country. We were hoping we could get a ride back, but-” Kellen’s drowsiness disappeared at his Mom’s voice and he snatched the phone from Rhys’ hand, much to the amusement of Rhys.

“We’ll be right there. Same airport?” Kellen asked and it was like water washing over a parched plant to hear her laughter.

“No need to rush. Take your time to get here. Your Father is just having a rest. There was a crying baby on the last flight and it killed him that he was unable to reveal himself and comfort the crying child.” That sounded exactly like something his Dad would have problems with. Kellen sat up, pushing his hair out of his face. He needed a haircut soon.

“We’ll be there soon. I didn’t prepare anything so don’t expect any gifts.” Kellen told her, a joke from his childhood. His parents barely, if ever, had returned with gifts from their travels. Obviously, to a younger Kellen, he didn’t know that they were going on missions so he wasn’t able to wrap his head around why they weren’t able to get him anything. So, when he had been younger, he thought that they had spent all of their money on him and his sister. That they weren’t able to afford gifts while on vacation because they cost a lot to raise.

So one time he’d waited for them to come home and presented them with coming home gifts. His parents had melted, and also felt terrible at the same time. Gwen had felt left out and thrown a fit when she realised that Kellen had done it all on his own.

So the next time they did it together, him and Gwen. His parents, after seeing both of their children giving them welcome home presents, started making sure they brought a little something for them back. Even if it was something as simple as picking up a cake or a new toy on the way back. It became less and less of a problem as they got older, but it was something Kellen said to them sometimes still.

His Mom paused, before she laughed a little louder.

“Ah. Well, sadly, we weren’t able to bring anything back this time either.” His Mom said as Kellen tossed the sheets off of his body, moving towards the closet on quick, but silent feet. Rhys was only a few steps behind him, picking out pants for Kellen as Kellen grabbed a t-shirt to quickly pull on. Kellen tossed one towards Rhys.

“Not surprising. How many vacations is this?” Kellen teased, putting the phone down to pull his pants on and then jerking the shirt onto his body quickly. He’d only be able to get an arm in without putting his phone down.

“Too many, my son.” Kellen almost paused at the tiredness in his Mom’s voice.

“Did something happen?” He asked quickly, catching onto the strangeness right away. Silence on the other side.

“We’ll speak of it when you come to pick us up.” Kellen didn’t like the sound of that, but he was going to pick up both of his parents, so he wasn’t going to let himself panic much.

“Well, alright. I’ll let you go for now. I’ll call when we’re closer.” Kellen told her and she sighed.

“Sounds good. See you soon.” She hung up first and Kellen took a moment to stare at the phone. That was quite strange. His Mom was emotional and vibrant, but she wasn’t one to show her negative sides. At least not to Kellen. The most recent show had been in a moment of weakness, and Kellen wasn’t about to hold that against her.

Her life partner, her Guide, her imprint had been shot. Who was supposed to behave normally in those circumstances? Kellen couldn’t imagine he’d be fully okay if Rhys was the one lying down on the bed in the same fashion his Dad had. Kellen was pretty sure he would have behaved worse.

“You didn’t…hear that anything went wrong with the mission, did you?” Kellen asked, turning to Rhys. He didn’t think the other man would keep something like that from him, but he could be wrong.

When he looked at Rhys, even in the darkness of the room, he could see how confused the other man was. He was a little tired, his yellow eyes full of sleep, but he was clearly waking up the more time they remained on their feet.

He was wearing the same kind of outfit as Kellen, and it was not lost on Kellen that they were matching going to pick up his parents.

“No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t have kept something like that from you.” Rhys told him. Kellen nodded, turning with his phone in his hand. Rhys followed him out of the room and down the stairs.

“I know that. I just…I’m worried.” Kellen admitted as they moved quickly. Kellen paused at the door to pull on his shoes, his easy in, easy out shoes, as well as to grab a black jacket. Rhys did the same, only his jacket was a dark, navy blue. Kellen realised that a lot of Rhys’ stuff had been making their way over here.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, but things had slowly been taking up space. Now that he took a second to think about it, his closet, which had been mostly empty, had begun to fill up. Kellen knew he didn’t have a lot of clothes. Even with the clothes that Rhys had bought him, and his parents in the last little bit, it was too much.

It had to be Rhys’ clothes. Maybe his Dad had been right. He was a snake.

“Sugar, I promise, everything is going to be okay. I wouldn’t ever hold that back. If anyone ever expected me to, then they shouldn’t have told me. I heard nothing but good news about what they were doing over there.” Rhys’ voice cut through Kellen’s sudden realisation, and got his feet moving again. He grabbed his keys, Rhys giving him a strange look as he did so, Rhys grabbing his own and shoving them into his pocket as they left the apartment.

“Are you driving?” Rhys asked as they made their way towards the elevators.

“Well, yes. They did ask for me to come pick them up. I assume you don’t have an issue with that?” Kellen asked. He gave Rhys a look as they pressed the button for the elevator, waiting for it to come back to their floor. It was 2 am, so no one else should be out and about, but Kellen wasn’t going to judge anyone. People were allowed to have fun.

Which was why Kellen only smiled at the couple that was going to join them in the elevator as they were going down, but froze at the sight of Rhys and Kellen in matching sweats. For some reason, they didn’t want to get on with them, and Rhys had to hold his laughter in as Kellen frowned.

“You know I have no issue with you driving. Which of the cars were you thinking?” Rhys asked as they moved swiftly to the next set of elevators. Kellen was glad to notice that no one was in the gym at this time. It was a good thing that was the case.

“I was just going to take the one you gave me. Is that not good enough?” Kellen asked and Rhys chuckled, taking Kellen’s hand in his own, giving it a kiss.

“Love, that’s a two seater. You need something a bit bigger.” In his sleepy daze, Kellen had forgotten that fact. “Why don’t we go with the other car I was thinking about getting you.” Rhys said, raising Kellen’s hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss there. Rhys had been doing that kind of thing more often. Soft gestures, careful gestures.

Kellen felt like parts of him were melting, but in a good way. He had to talk to his therapist about it, and she had helped him understand that he was deserving of this kind of love. Kellen just had a hard time returning the same gestures. He could do it without thinking, but that wasn’t often.

Rhys was often giving and giving, and Kellen had gotten a few good shows of affection in, but it was lacking in comparison to what Rhys gave him. Kellen had a feeling he would be chasing this man’s small acts of affection for the rest of his life.

That didn’t sound too bad.