Page 85 of Discordant Cultivation

The footsteps stopped. For a moment there was only the sound of Kieran’s guitar and his own ragged breathing, then he felt Vale drop down behind him, the sudden warmth of his body pressing close, knees bracketing Kieran’s hips on the cold basement floor.

“Keep going,” Vale whispered against his ear. “Play through it all.”

The guitar strings hummed under Kieran’s fingers, steady despite the fire still licking through his torso. Vale’s voice slithered in, reading another comment: “‘Fake tears, fake fall—Thorn’s just thirsty for viral fame.’”

A random shock hit the abdomen pads—sharp and erratic. Muscles contracted in painful waves that made his sternum seize. Kieran screamed, the sound ripping from his throat raw and guttural, twisting into something that sounded more animal than human. His back arched against Vale’s chest, seeking relief that didn’t exist.

Hurts. Everything’s burning. Skin on fire.

But his fingers kept strumming. The rhythm remained unbroken even through the agony because somewhere in his fractured mind he understood that this was the point. The lesson. Access the rage through the pain. Make it real enough to bleed into the performance.

Tears streamed hot down his cheeks. Mixed with drool that escaped his clenched jaw, dripping sticky onto his collarbone. He sobbed, his chest heaving with hurt that clawed deeper than the electricity. He was pissed at the faceless commenters, at their casual cruelty, at Vale for making him feel this…at himself for needing to be broken open just to access honest emotion.

Vale pressed closer. “Are you angry, beautiful boy? Tell me.”

The question ignited something feral in Kieran’s chest.

He screamed through the melody without stopping. “Yes! I’m f-fucking angry, I hate them, I hate you, I hate m-me!”

“Not angry enough.”

Two fingers shoved into Kieran’s mouth without warning, pressing down on his tongue. Vale thrust them in and out roughly, stretching Kieran’s jaw while murmuring another comment: “‘Attention whore—real seizures aren’t this photogenic.’”

Kieran gagged, throat convulsing around the intrusion, saliva pooling thick and threatening to choke him. He couldn’t breathe properly, he couldn’t do anything but keep his hands moving on the guitar because the training was stronger than humiliation.

Another abdominal contraction hit, the electricity amplifying everything. The violation in his mouth. The helplessness of kneeling blind and restrained by nothing but the fear of what came next if he stopped.

“S-stop,” he begged around the digits.

Vale withdrew his fingers, and for a moment Kieran believed it was over. He was angry. He could do the song now. The walls were broken down and he could play his nervous system like an anguished harp, just like Vale wanted.

But Vale’s saliva-slick fingers plunged into the back of his boxers.

No. No no no.

The movement started slow, tracing deliberate circles that sent involuntary shivers up Kieran’s spine. A cold sweat broke out on his lower back.

This isn’t about the anger anymore.

“V-Vale, d-don’t—”

Vale tsk-tsked right in his ear. “Missed a note. Focus on the fire.”

One finger pushed in.

Kieran gasped, hips jerking forward involuntarily to escape the burning intrusion. Even as he shook his head, as if trying to deny that he was feeling what he was feeling, he kept playing, hitting the strings harder, using the body of the guitar to create percussion in hope of drowning out the wet sounds echoing in the air.

Vale’s lips grazed the back of his neck. “So hot and tight back here. This heat…it’s what the song needs. Raw and consuming, just like your anger.”

The song. Right. This is for the song. He’s helping me access—

No. That’s bullshit.

Vale pushed deeper, his finger thrusting hard before curling inside him and scraping him raw. Kieran heard his mind crack,splitting into pieces that couldn’t quite connect. The anger at the comments. The pain from the electricity. The violation happening to his body. The music still flowing from his fingers like his hands belonged to someone else. Distantly, he heard himself sobbing.

“S-stop, Vale, p-please—it hurts, take it out—!”

He felt a second finger go in and he couldn’t even scream. He just dropped his head to his chin and whimpered, biting the inside of his lips.