Page 102 of Discordant Cultivation

“Always,” Vale said, reaching out to cup Kieran’s face with infinite gentleness. “Always, sweetheart. I’m here now.”

31

The hands that used to hurt him now feel tender on his skin, and he's grateful for the darkness that he's learned to live within…

Kieran

The green room felt different now—smaller, the air thick with residual violence that clung to everything like cigarette smoke. Kieran sat on the edge of the couch where it started, watching Vale’s hands move as they rewrapped his gauze. Vale hadn’t spoken since the woman in white—Flake, the alto who’d burst in with her fake eyelashes and press-on nails scattered like evidence—left to get ice. Just quiet focus and gentle touches that trembled when they grazed the worst of the damage. His jaw was tight, hands moving through familiar motions of wrapping Kieran’s body like a gift, but something was wrong in how he avoided eye contact.

He’s not scared. Vale doesn’t get scared. But he’s... something.

Kieran’s split lip throbbed with each heartbeat, the taste of blood still sharp on his tongue. His face ached where Nox’s hand had pressed, cutting off air, cutting off sound, cutting off everything except the animal panic of suffocation. The gauze around his neck was too tight, even though Vale had wrapped it looser than usual. Every swallow reminded him of Nox’s fingers,Nox’s weight, Nox’s smile while Kieran’s vision sparkled with black dots.

The door opened and Flake returned, her makeup slightly smeared where she had been crying. She carried a plastic bag of ice wrapped in a bar towel, holding it out like an offering.

“Here,” she said softly. “For your lip.”

Kieran accepted it with shaking hands, the cold numbing more than just the split in his mouth. She settled into a chair across from them, maintaining distance while staying close enough to help if needed, like she wasn’t sure if her presence was wanted, but couldn’t bring herself to leave yet.

“I’m Jericho, by the way,” she said after a moment of silence. “Flake is just— that’s the stage name my label gave me. But I’m Jericho.”

You didn’t fight back hard enough. You just lay there and took it until Vale saved you. Pathetic.

“We should go,” Vale said quietly, securing the last of the gauze with medical tape. “Get you somewhere safe.”

Safe.The word was a joke. Nowhere was safe. The bar hadn’t been safe. The green room hadn’t been safe. Vale’s house wasn’t safe. Kieran’s own body wasn’t safe—it had betrayed him tonight, freezing when he needed to fight, going rigid with trained compliance when he should have been screaming.

His mind drifted elsewhere, caught on the napkin he’d been scribbling on at the bar before everything went wrong. The lyrics had been fragments then, half-formed thoughts about foster parents who wanted him to fail wrapped in methodological metaphors... He’d started reshaping them at the bar, adapting the betrayal to fit his surroundings instead.

The key is wrong. The whole approach is wrong.

Kieran’s hands moved to his jacket pocket and pulled out the damp paper, lyrics bleeding into each other where alcohol soaked through and smudged the ink. He could still read themand sense the shape of what he’d been trying to capture. The song was there, just underneath the surface, waiting for him to find the right key to unlock it.

Not angry. Mournful. This isn’t rage—it’s grief for a trust that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

“I need paper,” Kieran said. “And a pen.”

Vale and Jericho exchanged glances. Kieran caught the concern in Vale’s expression, his hand stilling on the medical supplies.

“Listen to me,” Vale said, “you just went through something traumatic. Maybe we should—”

“I need to write.” The words came out sharper than intended, bypassing rational thought entirely. His needed to get the thoughts out before they slipped away. “Please.”

Vale produced a small notebook and pen from his jacket—of course he had them, he always had everything Kieran might need before Kieran knew to need it—and placed them in Kieran’s lap.

Kieran opened to a blank page and began writing, words flowing faster than his mind could track them. The melody came next, hummed under his breath while his hands moved across the page. Minor key, slow tempo, something that ached instead of burned. Not the explosive rage ofLibrary Cardbut something deeper, more devastating. The kind of betrayal that dressed itself up as protection while destroying trust.

This is what I need to perform. This is what people need to hear.

He could feel Jericho’s eyes on him as he worked, but he pushed the awareness back. She’d probably never seen someone do this before—take fresh wounds and immediate horror and channel it directly into music without even a breath between suffering and creation.

But Kieran had. He’d done this with the other songs, with every lesson Vale had given him. Pain turned into art. Suffering turned into melody. It was the only thing he knew how to do anymore, the only way he could make sense of agony that would otherwise drown him.

“Are you okay?” Jericho asked softly.

Kieran didn’t respond, he couldn’t spare attention for anything except the words and notes clicking into place like puzzle pieces. The bridge needed harmonies—alto harmonies, the kind that would make everything seem inevitable rather than shocking. The verses were his, but the bridge needed someone else’s voice to complete the devastation on the backend.

He looked up from the notebook, meeting Jericho’s eyes with sudden clarity.