Page 183 of Discordant Cultivation

The thought arrived clinical and detached, as if Kieran were watching a masterclass video instead of standing in a room with a corpse.

“You n-need to sit up straighter,” Kieran said softly, his hands guiding Alex’s shoulders back with gentle pressure. “Your posture is all wrong. The song c-can’t—”

Alex’s playing stopped abruptly as he twisted away from Kieran’s touch. “Please, I can’t do this anymore. Just let me go. I’m sorry I came here, I’m sorry about everything—”

Vale’s foot connected with Alex’s broken shin again. The scream that erupted from beneath the hood was raw, agonized, making Kieran flinch and his headache spike to unbearable levels.

I can still fix this. I can make him understand.

Kieran moved around to Alex’s front, his hands finding the hooded face with gentleness that felt disconnected from his own body. He sat down across Alex’s thighs, straddling him as he pressed their foreheads together, feeling the heat of panicked breath through the weave, the trembling that shook Alex’s entire body.

His heartbeat. I can almost feel his heartbeat through the hood. It’s so fast. Too fast.

“P-Please stop screaming,” Kieran whispered. “My head hurts. My heart hurts. You just need to f-focus on playing. The song has to be right.”

His thumbs found Alex’s cheekbones through the fabric, stroking gently the way Vale stroked his when he was overwhelmed. Soothing. Grounding. The gesture felt right even as something deep in Kieran’s chest screamed that nothing about this was right.

“Thorn, listen to me.” Alex’s voice was muffled but desperate. “We need to call the police. I’ll vouch for you, I swear. I’ll tell them it was an accident with Jericho. You don’t have to—”

“My name is K-Kieran,” he corrected quietly, his forehead still pressed against Alex’s. The intimacy of the position was strange but necessary, like he could somehow transfer understanding through skin contact. “Not Thorn. Just K-Kieran.”

Jericho called me Thorn. She’s dead now. Her vocal cords are—

He pushed the thought away before it could fully form.

Alex went very still. “What?”

“Would s-singing help?” Kieran asked, his mind unable to hold onto any one thing. It kept skipping like a scratched record, landing on random observations that had nothing to do with survival. “If you sang the words while you p-played, would it be easier? Sometimes the lyrics show you where the emotion is supposed to g-go.”

He found himself humming the opening phrase softly, demonstrating the melodic shape the way Vale had taught him. His voice was gentle, encouraging. Pedagogical.

What am I doing? Why am I teaching him?

But the thought slipped away like water through his fingers.

“You’re insane,” Alex breathed, the words carrying horror and disbelief.

Kieran pulled back slightly, his attention caught by the angle of Alex’s left wrist as it gripped the guitar neck. The wrongness of the position nagged at him with irrational urgency—more pressing, somehow, than the blood drying on the concrete behind him.

“Your wrist is wr-wrong,” he said, adjusting Alex’s hand position with careful focus. “You’ll get a stress injury like that. T-Tendonitis, maybe worse.”

Vale would be so disappointed if I let someone develop bad habits. Technique matters. Technique is everything.

The correction was automatic, muscle memory from months of Vale’s careful instruction about proper technique and injuryprevention. Alex’s wrist relaxed under Kieran’s guidance, falling into the correct position despite his obvious terror.

Better. That’s better. Now he can play properly.

“P-Please keep trying,” Kieran said, stepping back to give Alex space to play. His voice carried the same gentle encouragement Vale used during difficult lessons. “It’s going to be okay. You just have to f-focus on the music.”

The words felt true even as some buried part of him knew they were lies.

“So gentle,” Vale murmured, approval warm in his voice. “You’re perfect, sweetheart.”

Vale’s fingers found Alex’s collarbone, digging into the hollow with enough pressure to make Alex arch away with a strangled shout. Kieran watched Vale’s hands work and thought, distantly:He’s using the same technique he used on me before.

I don’t like that.

“I tried to be gentle with you too, Alex. But it didn’t help you. Neither did hurting you, really. You just don’t understand the way Kieran does.”