Page 105 of Discordant Cultivation

“You d-do,” Kieran gasped, desperate to fix this, to make Vale understand he knew he’d fucked up. “You were right, I sh-sh-should have st-stayed, I won’t—”

“You won’t what?” Vale’s eyes searched his face. Knowing. Dissecting. Peering into his soul.

Kieran couldn’t stop the tears streaming down his face and burning in the split of his lip. “I understand. I d-do. I n-need—I need you. To keep me safe. I c-can’t—” His voice broke. “I can’t trust my own judgment. I can’t prot-protect myself. I need you t-to tell m-m-me what to do. I just—I f-f-fuck everything up.”

“There it is,” Vale murmured, leaning in to press his forehead against Kieran’s. “There’s my good boy.”

The smile that spread across Vale’s face was terrible in its warmth, its satisfaction, its absolute certainty. His hand left Kieran’s throat to cup his face with both palms, his thumbs wiping away tears.

I need him. I need someone to tell me what to do because I can’t be trusted. I disobeyed and look what happened. Look what I let happen to myself.

“I n-need you,” Kieran whispered, the words surrender and relief and absolute truth. “I’m s-s-sorry I didn’t listen. I’m s-sorry I left the bar. I’m-m-m sorry I—”

“Stop.” Vale pressed a finger to Kieran’s lips. “I know you’re sorry. And I know you’ll try harder next time. Won’t you?”

“Yes.” The word came out muffled against Vale’s finger.

“Good.” Vale pulled back slightly, studying Kieran’s face. “Now. You want to perform tonight. You want to take what Nox did to you and transform it into art. Make the pain mean something.”

Kieran nodded frantically, relief flooding through him that Vale understood, that Vale wasn’t going to take this away from him.

“Then let’s make sure you stay in the right emotional space,” Vale said, the smile growing on his face as his eyes darkened. “Because I can already see you trying to distance yourself from it. Building walls to protect yourself from the memory.”

He’s right. I can sense it happening. The numbness creeping in, the dissociation trying to carry me away from the horror of what happened.

“I need the wound to stay open,” Kieran said quietly. “Long enough to perform it properly. But I can sense myself— I’m already trying to forget. To make it not matter.”

“Because that’s what survivors do,” Vale said, almost kindly. “They protect themselves by distancing from the trauma. But you’re not trying to survive this, Kieran. You’re trying to transform it. And transformation requires you to stay present with the pain.”

Vale’s hands moved to Kieran’s shoulders, gripping with just enough pressure to ground him.

“Close your eyes,” Vale instructed.

Kieran obeyed, his eyelids fluttering shut. His other senses sharpened immediately—the smell of the spilled vodka andblood, the sound of the event continuing somewhere beyond the green room door, Vale’s hands on his shoulders like anchors.

“Think about the moment Vander left you alone with Nox,” Vale said softly. “The exact moment you realized he wasn’t coming back. That you were alone with a predator.”

Kieran’s breath hitched, the memory slamming into him with visceral clarity. Nox’s smile widening. The door closing. The silence deafening.

“He grabbed m-my tie,” Kieran whispered, throat tight. “Twisted it around his hand. Used it like a— like a leash.”

“Like you were something to be controlled. Something that belonged to him.” Vale’s grip on Kieran’s shoulders tightened. “How did that feel?”

Wrong. Terrifying. Like my body wasn’t mine. Like I was just an object.

“It was like dr-drowning,” Kieran managed. “Like I c-couldn’t breathe. Or think. Couldn’t—”

“Couldn’t fight back,” Vale finished. “Because you didn’t know him and you didn’t trust him. Your instincts told you to freeze because he was a stranger. That’s what happens when you’re with someone who doesn’t care about you. Someone who sees you as prey instead of someone precious to protect.”

Kieran’s eyes were burning.

“But with me?” Vale’s voice dropped lower, intimate and certain. “You know my touch. You know my control. When I tell you to comply, when I guide you through a lesson, you trust that it’s for your growth. For your art. That I would never hurt you the way he did.”

No. That’s not— you do hurt me. You hurt me all the time.

But even as the thought formed, Kieran couldn’t hold onto it. Because Vale HAD saved him. He burst through that door with violence Kieran had never seen from him before.

“The difference between Nox and I,” Vale continued, still in that hypnotic murmur, “is that everything I do—every lesson, every command, every moment of control—is to protect you from a world full of predators like him. To keep you safe.”