Page 69 of Discordant Cultivation

The voice in that video, the hands stroking sweat-damp hair with unconscious tenderness—that wasn’t professional. That wasn’t artistic fascination. That was something Vale spent thirty-seven years learning to bury beneath clinical detachment and intellectual superiority. Something primitive and possessive and desperately, achingly human.

I need him. Not his music, not his artistry. Him. All of him.

The admission felt like stepping off a cliff into free fall. Vale set his phone aside and returned his attention to Kieran’s sleeping face, allowing himself to appreciate the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones. The small scar above his left eyebrow that suggested childhood mischief. The way his lips parted slightly in sleep, making him look vulnerable and innocent in ways Vale wanted to corrupt and protect.

I want to know how you got that scar. I want to know what your laugh sounds like when it’s not filtered through fear. I want to know what you were like before I started breaking you into the shape I needed.

I’ve had your suffering.

Now I want your joy.

The thought settled in his chest with the same possessive heat as watching the view count climb. He’d collected Kieran’s tears—every variation, from silent tracks down pale cheeks to messy, choking sobs. He had his screams memorized by pitch and duration. The desperate pleas, his transcendent artistry born from pain. The catalogue was extensive, carefully curated.

But incomplete. He’d only cultivated half of what Kieran could be.

He wanted to see Kieran smile because Vale made him happy, not just because the pain had finally stopped. To hear him laugh without the edge of hysteria that came from relief. Real laughter—the kind that started in the belly and surprised its way out. He wanted to watch him create art from joy instead of only fromsuffering and form melodies that didn’t require bloodletting to birth.

I want all of you. Every piece. Every expression. Every version of Kieran that exists.

The desire circled through his mind, sharper now with purpose. Everything was changing, had been changing since the moment Kieran kissed him back, but the video made it undeniable.

The world thought they were in love.

And terrifyingly, impossibly, the world might be right.

20

When the world is fast asleep, he thanks the hands that hurt him for the promises they keep…

Kieran

Consciousness returned in layers, like swimming up through thick honey toward a distant light. Not all at once—it came and went, pulling him under and releasing him in cycles he couldn’t track.

Kieran’s first awareness was warmth—not the clinical warmth of hospital blankets, but something alive and present that seemed to radiate safety. The second awareness was the gentle pressure of fingers in his hair, stroking with rhythmic patience that suggested they’d been there for hours. Days, maybe. Time felt unreliable.

Safe. Whatever this is, it’s safe.

The thought came before memory, before context, before the ability to identify the source of comfort. Kieran found himself leaning into the touch, seeking more of whatever was making the world feel manageable again. His cheek pressed against something solid and warm—fabric over muscle, the steady rhythm of breathing that wasn’t his own.

The fog pulled him under again.

When he surfaced next, awareness came with a little clarity. He was in a bed.

And he wasn’t alone.

Vale was in the bed with him. Not sitting beside it in a chair, not perched on the edge—fully in the bed, stretched out beside Kieran with one arm around him, the other hand gently rubbing up and down his side.

The realization should have alarmed him. It should have sent him scrambling back, demanding explanations. But his body was heavy, unresponsive, still recovering from the familiar ache of a tonic-clonic seizure. And Vale’s presence felt... safe. Warm. Real in ways that cut through the post-ictal haze.

“Vale?” The name escaped without conscious decision, rough and uncertain.

“I’m here,” came the response, his voice soft in a way that felt unfamiliar but not wrong.

Kieran’s vision sharpened gradually, bringing Vale’s face into focus.

When did this happen? How long have we been like this?

But the questions felt distant, muffled by fog that made thinking akin to walking through quicksand. The important thing was that Vale’s arms were around him, solid and steady, and for the first time in weeks Kieran’s body felt like it belonged to him instead of epilepsy or fear or basement lessons.