Page 117 of Discordant Cultivation

When they finally ended the call, Kieran’s head dropped forward onto the kitchen table with a hollow thud, his shoulders shaking as sobs tore from his throat. Not from relief—it wassomething deeper, more devastating. Crying that came from places too raw to touch.

Vale’s hand found his neck immediately, fingers settling over his pulse with familiar possessiveness, but the touch didn’t calm him the way it usually did.

“You were extraordinary,” Vale whispered, trying to anchor him with praise. “Absolutely extraordinary. You handled that perfectly.”

But Kieran’s crying only intensified, words tumbling out between gasps: “I d-don’t know why I w-wanted to be a musician. I’m n-n-not cut out f-fo-or this. Maybe—maybe this whole thing is j-just some prank. Maybe I’m t-terrible and the internet’s m-making a joke out of m-me.”

Oh, sweetheart. No…

Vale tried encouragement, tried validation, tried comfort that usually pulled Kieran back from emotional spirals. Nothing worked. He was drowning in self-doubt despite having just delivered the most articulate, compelling interview Vale could have imagined.

He needs something different. Something real.

Without planning, without his usual calculation, Vale began to sing. Not one of Kieran’s songs, not anything from their sessions, but something old and gentle—a folk melody his father sang when he was young:

“Oh, the summer time is coming; And the trees are sweetly blooming…”

His voice was untrained, nothing like Kieran’s, but it carried a vulnerability Vale rarely allowed himself to show, his facegrowing hot as he continued. He didn’t sing for people. People sang for him…

But Kieran’s sobbing quieted, his shoulders still shaking as Vale’s voice filled the kitchen, gentle and undemanding:

“And the wild mountain thyme; Grows around the blooming heather.”

When Kieran finally lifted his head, his eyes were red-rimmed but focused, staring at Vale with wonder. “That was beautiful,” he whispered. “Your voice—I’ve never heard you sing before.”

Vale felt suddenly self-conscious in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. “It’s nothing. Just something my father used to—”

But Kieran was leaning forward, one hand reaching up to touch the edge of Vale’s mask with trembling fingers. “Can I...?”

Vale nodded, his throat tight with unexpected emotion as Kieran carefully lifted the mask away from his face. When Kieran’s lips found his, there was no desperation. No fear threading through need like thorns through silk. No complex negotiation of power and surrender, no dance of predator and prey. Just soft exploration—as tentative as the first unfurling of petals after winter, sweet as something blooming in darkness that had never known it could grow toward light.

Vale made no move to deepen the kiss. To take control. To guide Kieran’s mouth into the precise shape he’d orchestrated in a thousand fantasies. He simply let Kieran set the tempo and dynamics; letting himself be the instrument for once—resonating with each gentle press of his lips, each soft sigh that escaped between them like music he’d never thought to compose.

This was what surrender tasted like. Not Kieran’s surrender, but Vale’s own—terrifying and exquisite. Like every defense he’d built over thirty-seven years of delusional isolation crumbling beneath something as simple as Kieran choosing to touch him without coercion.

Kieran’s hand found the back of Vale’s neck, his fingers threading through his hair with unbearable gentleness, and Vale felt his carefully constructed control dissolve like sugar in water, into a sweet molecular destruction he didn’t recognize. His stomach twisted with heat that felt too close to nausea, his breath catching on something that might have been a sound he’d never made before, his entire body trembling with the effort of not taking, of letting this moment exist as Kieran’s gift rather than Vale’s theft.

This is what it feels like when he chooses me.

Like a rose that bloomed without pruning. Without violence. Without any cultivation except time and tenderness.

The realization felt like standing at the edge of something vast and holy—an abyss that looked suspiciously like grace.

When they finally broke apart, Kieran’s gaze dropped to his lap. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For the song. For... for being gentle when I needed it.”

Vale pulled Kieran into an embrace, swallowing hard.

This is real.

What we have is real.

36

Mind's a fucking battlefield, thoughts like razor wire; Every step I take just feeds into the fire…

For five nights now, Kieran slept with the notebook pressed against his chest like a shield, terrified Vale would read what he’d been working on while he was vulnerable. Five nights of dreams that shifted between nightmare and fantasy until he couldn’t tell which was which anymore.

Sometimes Vale forced him—his hands rough, his voice cold with command, down in the basement—and Kieran woke, gasping, with fear and unwanted arousal tangled so completely he wanted to light himself on fire.