Page 112 of Discordant Cultivation

“I n-need you to tell me what I want,” Kieran whispered.

The words left him like an exhale he’d been holding for months. Not defeated. Not desperate. Justtrue—the way gravity was true, the way his heartbeat was true, the way Vale’s hands on his skin had become the only language his body understood anymore.

The admission hung in the air between them like confession, like prayer, like the final piece of architecture clicking into place in a structure Vale had been building since their very first meeting.

And Kieran understood that he wasn’t losing himself. He wasn’t giving up. He’d let Vale hold the reins he’d never wanted to hold himself on this. Vale could make the music make sense. Vale could hurt him with purpose so the purposeless hurt of existence didn’t swallow him whole.

Tears streamed down his face, but they weren’t from grief. They were relief—terrible, shameful, transcendent relief. The cage had become the only place that felt like home, and that was okay for now. He needed to pick his battles. It would be okay to just…lose this one without fighting.

It’ll hurt less.

Vale’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer as he nuzzled against Kieran’s temple. This wasn’t a calculated comfort—it was genuine, raw and unguarded, and Kieran knew that this was real for Vale. Whatever else Vale was, whateverhorrors his hands would orchestrate, this moment wasreal. The tremor in Vale’s breath. The reverence in his voice when he whispered: “Oh, sweetheart.” That was real.

Kieran turned in his arms and buried his face in Vale’s chest and let the tears come like he always did. He let his fingers clutch Vale’s shirt like it was the only solid thing left in the universe. He let himself be held by the man who had broken him open and believed he found something worth keeping in the wreckage.

It’s not surrender. I’m not giving up.

I’m not.

34

Back to the pit, back to the pit; Why do I love the things that make me sick?

Kieran

Two weeks of gentleness almost made him forget.

Kieran stood in the home studio, headphones heavy against his skull, watching Vale through the control booth glass. His palms had healed to pale pink scars, and the puncture wounds across his chest faded to raised lines.

Two weeks of cooking breakfast together. Of Vale watching TV with him. Of gentle touches that felt protective rather than predatory. Two weeks of kind and caring Vale, and Kieran let himself sink into it, let himself believe that maybe the lessons were behind them.

You know better. You know how this works.

“From the top,” Vale’s voice came through the headphones. “Whenever you’re ready, sweetheart.”

Kieran adjusted the microphone. They were recording “Broken”—the song that started everything. The sad song he’d been playing when Vale first noticed him.

He closed his eyes and sang.

“I’m just a broken boy that nobody wanted,

Dreams get destroyed when your body’s haunted...”

The words came out controlled, guarded. He knew the melody, knew the lyrics by heart—he wrote them in a foster home bathroom when he was sixteen, pressing the words into a notebook like they could somehow contain the desperation that felt too big to survive. But that was the problem. Heknewthe song too well. He could perform it without actually touching the wound it came from.

“Cut.” Vale’s voice was soft, patient. “You’re holding back.”

I know. I know I am.

“I can g-go again,” Kieran said into the microphone. “I just need to—”

“You need to stop protecting yourself from it.” Still soft. Still patient. But Kieran heard the shift underneath, the subtle recalibration that meant Vale identified the problem and was deciding how to fix it.

Please. Not today. We’ve been so good together, so normal. Please let me just try again.

“Let me do one more t-take,” Kieran said. “I can get there. I-I just need to focus.”

Through the glass, he watched Vale consider. The moment stretched, and Kieran felt hope flutter in his chest—maybe this time, maybe Vale would let him find his own way to the emotional core, maybe—