Chapter 27: A wandering mind

Brent thought he was going to lose his damn mind.

It had been 5 days since he had been brought to this fucking mansion, this fucking hell hole that he had intentionally escaped, and the fuckers had forgotten about him.

He just fucking knew it.

There was a reason he had left their line of sight. They wouldn’t care about him. They didn’t care about him. If he was out of their line of sight, they wouldn’t even care about the condition he was in.

They had no idea he was dying from fever. That his wounds were not healing well, and that he was in constant pain. No one had fucking checked up on him after Colby had come in to tell him that the fucking gate had exploded, and now not only was Brent emotionally fucked up, his body was shutting down.

He wondered what would happen if he fucking died in their hands before he signed the papers? He bet his grandfather, that cunning fox, had put a clause into his will that said that Brent had to live for certain periods before, during, and after the transition. Brent would have laughed if he didn’t feel like his whole body was shattering from the inside out.

He bet half of the fever was because he was going insane not knowing more.

Brent was at his breaking point though. He couldn’t go on like this. His body was strong, but he’d been guiding people all day before he’d been kidnapped, and then beat up, and then left alone with barely any food, no sunlight, and no sex.

He was dying.

“Hello?” Brent called, having dragged himself towards the door, leaning against the wall. “I bet someone can hear me. This is my final warning. If you don’t get someone to help me, I’m going to fucking die.” Brent warned. He was smiling as he said it. Those fuckers deserved watching all of their planned wealth getting donated to a charity.

He was sure that was what his grandfather had done. He’d ranted about it enough over letters that he would do something like that if they pissed him off too much. It would probably be one that Brent’s big brother would hate too. Like one that went specifically to widows and orphans. Oo, it could be to widows and orphans of different cities. That would piss him off more.

If the wealth left the city. It would make it harder to funnel it back to him if his grandfather did that.

Brent coughed, not even hamming it up. He was just genuinely not well. The fact that he’d been able to get himself to the door, against the wall, was a big feat. He’d passed out on the floor at one point, his body just giving out but no one had come by.

He was hoping that this plea would be answered. Otherwise, his grandfather’s plan was going to go into effect. He hoped that the fucking fuckers realised what they were messing with. Brent was just a guy. Just a cog in the bigger picture.

Leaving him like this wouldn’t make what his grandfather did change. Brent hadn’t even wanted it.

Brent heard nothing. Not a single sound on the other side of the door. Granted, he’d never been able to hear anything on the other side of the door, but he would have thought that his words would have made someone interested in what he was saying.

He wasn’t dumb enough to think that he wasn’t being watched by a camera. There was a reason he’d never jerked off in this room when he was a kid. He could feel eyes on him at all times in here.

Brent coughed, chuckled to himself, knowing that things were going to take a turn here in a few hours. He’d warned them. That was all he could do.

~

The sound of a machine beeping had Brent, drowsy, but on high alert. His body wanted to move, his eyes wanted to open, but his body was in such poor condition that it wouldn’t respond to him.

“You dumb motherfucker. I can’t believe you. You were just fucking acting, and yet here you are, causing us more fucking trouble. If you weren’t important, I would have teleported us to the top of the Guild Tower and dropped you over the edge.” The soft, gentle, soothing sound of Colby’s voice washed over Brent. It was so soothing to know that he was looking out for him.

How kind. How considerate.

What a great way to wake up after nearly dying.

Brent would have responded to him if he had the strength to do so, but he couldn’t even move a muscle to open his mouth. His body felt like jelly, shivers caused his body to shake and tremble. Even with the machines monitoring him, he felt like absolute shit.

Brent felt a tickle in his throat and wasn’t even able to stop himself from coughing. It sounded frothy, foamy. It was a disgusting sound and he couldn’t blame Colby for making a disgusted sound. Brent couldn’t stop coughing, his body heaving as it tried to clear itself of the infection it had gathered.

There was nothing Brent could do.

Eventually, he stopped coughing but only because his body was exhausted. He passed out again without even hearing the next vile words that Colby spat at him. If he wasn’t so sick, that might have been a cute moment.

~

Brent continued to wake up, cough, and pass out for several days. A sickness had never lingered like this before, but Brent blamed stress. What else could it be? Guides and Espers weren’t supposed to get sick. There was supposed to be enough magic in their bodies to prevent that from happening.

But, Brent had been on the front lines where the poison gate had been which no one knew what it could do to the human body yet. He was also a created Guide, so that could have some ramifications on what his body could and couldn’t handle. Granted, he’d never been sick like this before, but he also hadn’t dealt with these kinds of situations before. Brent had been guiding to his capacity to keep everyone happy and safe before he’d been kidnapped. He’d even helped Sergei out the night before he was kidnapped since the man had been not doing well and he had prioritized his people over himself.

Brent could not believe that he hadn’t realised that Sergei was just like Kellen but wrapped in a different font. While Kellen was clean cut, pretty in a natural way, and most people could doubt themselves for recognising him if they saw him on the street, Sergei was not that way.

Should Brent call him Captain Sergei because he was the Captain of another Guild? Yeah, probably. Was he going to?

It was his fucking mind. Everyone else could fuck off.

Sergei was just…Sergei.

A tall, quiet man who watched everyone to try and understand them. He spoke very few words, but his contracts that he’d made for Kellen and Brent were always the best. Even above the Saturn Guild, but Brent had never said anything the few times that Kellen had prioritized the Saturn Guild over the Nemesis Guild because it happened so few times.

Plus, Kellen did his best to not have a bias at all, Brent could let a few times slip up. It wasn’t like the Saturn Guild had been like the Peach Guild either. They were just quoting them a few dollars cheaper, not the highway robbery that the Peach Guild tried to pass as a normal deal.

That still made Brent’s blood boil. He couldn’t tell if the Peach Guild had just been pulling his leg, or Kellen’s, or if they were actually being serious. He’d have to ask Captain Sakura at some point.

Brent’s mind slid back to Sergei. He swallowed.

Things had been…different this time when he went back to the front lines. He didn’t know why, either. It wasn’t like he hadn’t run in the same circle as Sergei before. They knew each other, maybe not intimately, but they’d spoken. He wasn’t someone foreign to Brent.

He shouldn’t have been reacting the way that he was to Sergei. He would have thought it was all in his head if it wasn’t for the way that Sergei had smiled at him a few times.

Teasing, light, his eyes creasing at the corners ever so slightly. He should have had wrinkles, but the man barely moved his face normally. His piercings did a great work of making most people a little hesitant to speak to him, his tattoos usually finishing the job.

Brent’s breath caught slightly as he thought about the night that they had shared before it felt like the world was going to end.

He should have been spending it with his team. He should have been making sure the kids were okay. But…the fact that Sergei had come to him and asked him for help…

There was no way that Brent could say no.

Sergei knew all the rumours about Brent. He was on the front lines consistently because of his loyalty to the city and its people. He was an S Class Esper who looked scary, but cared deeply. That was made clear to Brent that night before.

Brent, the sex maniac that he was, was embarrassed to call what they had done as just guiding. Sergei had certainly not treated it that way, and if he treated all of his Guides the way that he had treated Brent?

The man should be fighting off Guides. Just clearing them off of his body with sticks. Brent had had to shove it to the back of his mind to remain sane given the seriousness of the situation that was going to be the next day, but now he was delirious, lying in bed, and missing everyone.

He just wanted to go back to the people he cared about, the city that he was growing to love, and an Esper who was making it hard for Brent to stay to his rules and regulations.

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