Page 35 of Discordant Cultivation

When Vale finally removed the hood, Kieran was sobbing. Not the angry, resistant tears of the first few days. Something deeper. More broken.

Vale wiped his face with careful fingers, murmuring soft reassurances that felt like mockery except they didn’t sound like mockery. They sounded genuine.

“J-just k-kill me.” The words scraped out of Kieran’s throat raw and desperate. “Please. I c-can’t— I c-can’t d-do this anymore. Just k-kill me.”

Vale’s hands cupped his face, his thumbs brushing away the tears. The touch was gentle—such sharp contrast to yesterday’s violence, to this morning’s firm grip steering him through breakfast, to the calculated precision of the session they’d just finished.

“You don’t want to die, sweetheart.” Vale’s voice was so soft it hurt. “You want the confusion to stop. I can help with that.”

“I d-don’t want your h-help—”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t know how to accept it yet.”

Vale helped him stand, an arm around his waist when Kieran’s legs wouldn’t hold his weight. He guided him upstairs with that same careful support that felt like care if Kieran didn’t think too hard about context.

He tucked Kieran into bed. He brought him water. He sat there. Patient. Gentle. Always gentle except for when he wasn’t.

Kieran wanted to tell him to leave, but couldn’t find the energy. He couldn’t find the anger anymore either. Just exhaustion and confusion and the horrible, shameful comfort of Vale’s hand stroking through his hair.

He fell asleep with Vale’s fingers still carding through his hair, too tired to hate himself for not wanting them to stop.

When he woke hours later, Vale was gone.

But the phantom sensation of that gentle touch remained, and Kieran hated that he missed it.

Two o’clock came with its usual inevitability.

Kieran had been waiting for it, dreading it, that knot of tension pulling tighter in his chest with every hour that passed. He’d played along all morning—breakfast, pills, pretending he was becoming what Vale wanted.

But not this. Not today.

When Vale appeared in the living room doorway, Kieran was already on his feet.

“It’s time to go downstairs.”

“No.” The word came out steady. Certain. He wouldn’t do it. Hecouldn’tdo it. “I’m n-not doing it today.”

Vale’s expression shifted—not quite surprise, more like recognition. Like he’d been expecting this, waiting for Kieran to reach his breaking point so he could watch him shatter.

“Sweetheart—”

“I said no.” Kieran’s hands clenched at his sides, body coiled with desperate energy. “I’ll f-fight you on the stairs if I have to. I d-don’t care if I break my n-neck. I’m not going d-down there today.”

For a long moment, Vale just studied him, reading something in his posture, his defiance, the way his whole body was shaking.

Then he nodded slowly. “Alright.”

Kieran blinked. “What?”

“I said alright.” Vale’s voice stayed calm. “We can do a different lesson today. One that doesn’t require the basement.”

The relief was so sudden and overwhelming that Kieran nearly collapsed. “You—r-really?”

“But you need to understand something first.” Vale took a step closer, and the relief curdled into something else. “Once you make this choice, you can’t back out of it. No matter how much you want to. Do you understand?”

Kieran’s mouth went dry. “What... what k-kind of lesson?”

“A necessary one.” Vale’s eyes held his with uncomfortable intensity. “One that will teach you why the basement is a mercy you didn’t appreciate.”