Page 90 of Discordant Cultivation

But Vale noticed the muscles in his face twitching and contracting in a wave, and Kieran knew he was having absences. He couldn’t hide them forever. After the fourth hour, Vale made him take his sedative and tucked him into the bed they now shared.

The clustered focal seizures continued on and off for two days after that.

He tried to insist that he was used to the smaller ones, he could handle it like he always did, but sometimes his brain would power off for a second and when he blinked, Vale would suddenly be staring at him with impossibly wide eyes, twisting his fingers in his lap like he was scared.

Was Vale scared?

He spent three days cocooned in soft sheets while Vale brought him meals on trays and massaged tension from muscles that remembered electrical currents like phantom pains. He fed Kieran by hand when exhaustion made lifting a fork impossible, hooked fingers under the collar—back around his throat within minutes of Eliza leaving—to tilt his face up for water, for medicine, to check his pupils…always gently.

On the fourth morning, Kieran felt steady enough to shower without Vale’s hovering presence. The hot water washed away the lingering fog that had kept him floating somewhere between sleep and waking for days.

I need to look like myself again.

The bathroom mirror revealed someone he barely recognized—hollow-eyed, too thin, his hair too long on the sides. The collar sat against his throat like it belonged there and Kieran found himself touching it briefly before dropping his hand.

He found Vale’s electric clippers in a drawer, ran them over the sides of his head until his usual French crop emerged again, sharp and clean. The familiar cut made his reflection look more like the person he’d been before basement lessons and viral videos, though the look in his eyes suggested that person was long gone.

The house felt different as he padded through it bare foot, searching for Vale’s voice that drifted from the office at the end of the hallway. Not empty, exactly, but charged with possibility—like the air before storms, pregnant with a change he couldn’t name.

“—understand that Thorn is totally indie,“ Vale said as Kieran approached the partially open door. “His artistry requires very specific conditions to maintain authenticity.”

Industry Vale sounded nothing like the gentle caregiver who’d been bringing him soup and stroking his hair. Nothinglike the man who bathed him in his medicated haze—Kieran remembered flinching at every touch, but he had been too tired to do more than let it happen.

“The viral response to ‘Library Card’ proves there’s significant commercial potential,“ Vale continued. “But creative control is non-negotiable. Thorn’s process can’t be interfered with by traditional studio expectations.”

Thorn’s process. Like I have any control over what happens to me.

Vale must have heard him walking down the hall, because he looked up as Kieran appeared in the doorway and gestured him over with a warm smile that made Kieran’s chest tight with confusion.

“I’ll need to call you back,” Vale said into the phone, ending the conversation as Kieran approached. “There’s my beautiful boy. Feeling better?”

The endearment should have made him flinch. Instead, Kieran found himself moving closer when Vale patted his thigh in invitation, settling into his lap and resting his head on Vale’s shoulder. It should have been an awkward position, from the outside it had to look insane, but Vale’s arms came around him with a protective warmth, and Kieran sank into the embrace anyway. The alternative—analyzing why comfort felt more dangerous than pain—required energy he didn’t have yet.

“What did they w-want?” Kieran asked, voice still rough from days of minimal use, from singing himself raw for a camera…from screaming in the basement…

Just don’t think about it.

“Atlantic Records, again. They’re very interested in the independent route we’re taking with your work.” Vale’s hand found Kieran’s hair, threading through the freshly cut strands.“There’s also a networking event this Friday. I’d like you to come with me.”

Kieran’s shoulders tensed. “Do I have to p-perform?”

“No.” Vale’s response came immediate and reassuring. “Usually there isn’t enough time for every producer to showcase their artists properly. It’s more about showing off and getting drunk on champagne.” His fingers stilled in Kieran’s hair. “But if you don’t want to go, I’ll back out. Your comfort comes first.”

For a brief, disorienting moment Kieran’s mind flashed to something else entirely:Other people. A crowd. Public space. I could—

His stomach dropped. The thought cut off as quickly as it had formed, replaced by something that felt uncomfortably like guilt. He should want to escape. He should be planning, calculating, looking for any opportunity to get away from the person who’d broken him down in a basement and then rebuilt him into something that made beautiful art when it bled.

But the impulse to run feltwrongnow. Not hopeful. Not like salvation. Just... wrong. Disloyal, somehow, in ways he didn’t understand and couldn’t untangle.

What’s wrong with me? Why does even thinking about leaving feel like betrayal?

He was mourning the impulse itself—grieving for the person he’d been before, the Kieran who would have seized any chance at escape without hesitation. That version of himself had died somewhere between the basement and the performance, smashed into pieces alongside his guitar.

“I’d like to go,” Kieran said. “I think—I think it might be g-good to meet people. To feel like a real artist instead of just someone hiding in b-basements.”

Vale’s arms tightened around him. “You are a real artist, Kier. I think this event could really help you see that.”

Or I’ll have a panic attack. Or start screaming. Or—