Page 50 of Discordant Cultivation

14

Silence golden, truth unspoken, every social contract broken…

Kieran

Five days of freedom felt like drowning in slow motion.

Kieran sat on the living room floor, back against the couch, surrounded by crumpled pages covered in lyrics that went nowhere. His guitar lay across his lap, the strings loose because he’d been too anxious to tune them properly. Every time he tried to play something, his fingers found the chord progressions from ‘Poison Saviors’ and he’d stop, his heart racing with memories of Vale’s hands in his hair, of collapsing into arms that hurt him and held him.

Stop thinking about it.

But the thoughts came anyway, intrusive and persistent. The way Vale’s lips tasted like coffee and possession. The way Kieran kissed back without deciding to, seeking comfort his mind couldn’t process. The way Vale’s thumb had traced his cheekbone afterward, gentle as a benediction.

You kissed your kidnapper. You kissed him and you liked it and what does that make you?

Kieran dropped his head against the couch cushions, staring at the ceiling beams that had become as familiar as the wallsof his old apartment. Five days ago, he thought he wanted this—time without the basement, without the bag, without Vale’s hands turning his body into an instrument of compliance. Now he felt unmoored, drifting through hours that had no structure, no expectations, no clear rules about what was allowed.

Vale had been neutral. Not kind, not cruel. Just present in the peripheral vision of Kieran’s days, making meals and checking on him with the distance of a caretaker monitoring a patient. No inappropriate touches. No intimate conversations. No explanations about what the kiss meant or what came next.

Tell me what you want from me. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. Tell me something.

The uncertainty was worse than the basement. At least there, Kieran knew what was expected—suffer beautifully, transform pain into music, and let Vale strip away every protection until only honesty remained. Here, in the manufactured peace, he had no idea what to do.

I should be grateful. Five days without fear, without pain, without—

But his body missed the structure. Missed knowing that 2 PM meant basement sessions, that Vale’s hands on his shoulders meant something specific was about to happen. He missed the clarity of survival mode, where every response was simple: comply or suffer.

Now he had to exist in the gray spaces between captivity and something he didn’t have words for.

Kieran picked up his pen and tried to write something new. The words came as fragments, disconnected:

What do you call the space between prison and home? What do you call hands that hurt you into something better than you were?

He crossed them out immediately.

Kieran’s head snapped up at the sound of footsteps approaching. His hands tightened on his guitar, fear and anticipation pulling his muscles taut.

Vale appeared in the doorway with his laptop tucked under one arm. His eyes were bright with something that might have been excitement and Kieran realized he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

The last time he took off his glasses…

“Good afternoon.” Vale settled into the chair across from Kieran. “How are you feeling today?”

The question felt loaded, weighted with implications Kieran couldn’t decipher. “Fine. I’m f-fine.”

“Are you? You look restless.” Vale’s gaze took inventory—the scattered pages, the untuned guitar, the way Kieran had positioned himself on the floor instead of using the furniture like a normal person. “The freedom is overwhelming, isn’t it?”

Yes. God, yes. I don’t know what to expect.

“No. It’s—it’s good. Thank you for—for keeping your promise.”

Vale’s kind smile always made Kieran’s skin crawl. It was too warm. Too patient. “You don’t have to lie to me, sweetheart. I can see that you’re struggling with the lack of structure.”

The endearment made Kieran’s chest tighten. Vale hadn’t used it in five days, and hearing it now seemed wrong…but also right in a way that made him want to smash his guitar into a thousand pieces.

“I have something to show you.” Vale opened the laptop and positioned it so they both could see the screen. “Something that’s going to change everything.”

The YouTube interface loaded, and Kieran’s breakfast threatened to roil back up his throat. His own face stared back at him from a video thumbnail—flushed, tear-stained, caught mid-performance in the basement. The title read: “Unknown Artist’sDevastating Original Song - ‘Poison Saviors’ by THORN - RAW PERFORMANCE.”