Chapter 32 #2
The second verse shifted dynamics, Jericho taking the lead while Kieran’s guitar provided intricate accompaniment. When he rejoined her vocally, his voice rose into its higher register—crystalline notes that soared above her grounded alto with heartbreaking beauty.
"Minotaur-metaphor for everything that’s twisted in the industry;
Where innocence gets listed as commodity, predator-pedagogy—”
The performance was building toward something explosive, both artists moving with increasing urgency.
After the final chorus, they launched into a rondo of overlapping vocals that created layers of meaning—accusations and responses weaving together until it became impossible to tell who was singing which truth.
Jericho began tapping her microphone against her palm for percussion, each strike creating a sharp crack that punctuated their voices. Vale’s attention sharpened—something dark spattering with each impact.
Blood.
Kieran swung the guitar to his back like he’d performed the movement a thousand times, the strap settling perfectly across his torso. His glare swept the crowd—finding Nox with laser focus before finally landing on Vale himself.
The look that passed between them was electric, complex—hurt and defiance and what Vale recognized as gratitude, all twisted together into an expression that made Vale’s pulse spike with pride.
Kieran’s hand disappeared into his pants pocket, emerging with something small and glinting. Before Vale could process what he was seeing, his palm slammed against his chest in rhythm with Jericho’s microphone percussion.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd as blood bloomed across the white gauze, spreading in patterns that looked like abstract art painted in crimson.
Kieran’s hand came away red, glass shards still clutched in his fingers, and he struck again, then again, each impact creating new puncture wounds that bled freely down his torso.
No.
The word formed in Vale’s mind with absolute horror, his hand clenching at his side hard enough for nails to bite into palms. This wasn’t his work.
This wasn’t his controlled methods, his calculated lessons in the relationship between pain and art.
This was Kieran choosing his own violation, directing his own breaking, making himself bleed without Vale’s permission or guidance.
He’s hurting himself. Without me. He’s taking control of his own destruction and I can’t—
Vale’s jaw ached. His whole body had gone rigid, fight-or-flight screaming at him to move, to intervene, to reclaim what was being stolen from him in front of hundreds of witnesses.
But even as horror flooded his system, Vale couldn’t deny the terrible beauty of what he was witnessing.
The blood spreading across white gauze created patterns that looked like wings—like Icarus falling, like an angel’s descent, like every mythology reference in Kieran’s lyrics made visceral and real. The crowd was mesmerized.
I should stop this. I should pull him off that stage and make him understand that his pain belongs to me, that I’m the one who decides when and how he bleeds.
But he didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Because the performance was transcendent, and stopping it would be like stopping a symphony mid-crescendo, like interrupting a masterpiece in the moment of its completion.
My beautiful boy. You’ve learned to make art from suffering so well that you don’t need me anymore to access it. And that terrifies me more than anything.
The song ended with both performers breathing hard, blood decorating their white bandages like battle wounds. For a moment, the room was absolutely silent.
Then Kieran swayed slightly, his face twitching repeatedly like he was grimacing with only half his face.
No. Not here. Not in front of everyone.
But Jericho was already moving, her hand finding Kieran’s arm as she guided him off the small stage before the seizure could escalate into something more visible. Her movement was so smooth, so protective, that most of the audience probably assumed it was part of the performance.
Vale’s phone kept recording as the crowd erupted in applause, but his attention remained fixed on the side of the stage where Jericho supported Kieran’s weight, keeping him upright while his consciousness seemed to flicker in and out.
Vale moved toward them through the crowd, already mapping the fastest route to get Kieran somewhere safe. He grabbed the arm Jericho held.
“Is he—?” she began.
“Where is your dressing room?” Vale demanded.
She nodded and walked ahead of them.
Vale guided Kieran down the hallway toward Jericho’s dressing room, one hand steady on his elbow, the other spread across the small of his back.
“I’m fine,” Kieran insisted, his post-performance breathlessness masking what his body was actually processing. “I’m okay, just need a second to—”
His face twitched mid-sentence, a wave of involuntary movement that rolled from his left brow down across his cheek like water over stone.
Vale’s grip tightened—he recognized the telltale signs of ongoing neurological disruption even as he forced his expression to remain calm.
He had spent hours watching videos of what focal seizures looked like so he could catch them.
Focal seizures. Cascading through his left temporal lobe. This isn’t good.
“You’re not fine,” Vale said quietly, steering him toward the dressing room door.
Jericho opened the door before they reached it. Her expression shifted to immediate concern as she took in Kieran’s appearance—the continued facial twitching, the way he leaned unconsciously into Vale’s support.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, stepping aside to let them enter. “How can I help?”
Vale pulled out his phone, tossing it to her. “Find the video recording of the performance. Tell me the exact time when you see Thorn’s face start twitching, then calculate how long it’s been since then.”
She caught the device with blood-sticky fingers, scrolling through rapidly while Vale guided Kieran to the dressing room’s small couch.
Another wave of twitching rolled across Kieran’s face, more pronounced this time, accompanied by what Vale recognized as abdominal atonia—muscle tone dropping out completely for several seconds that caused Kieran to slump forward against Vale’s shoulder.
“Here,” Jericho said, studying the phone screen. “Right at the end, just before I grabbed his arm. Eight minutes ago, almost exactly.”
Eight minutes.
Fuck. This is bad. This is really bad.
But he couldn’t show that. Not in front of Jericho, not when maintaining control of the situation meant maintaining control of his own reaction. Vale was already reaching into his jacket pocket, finding the small nasal spray he’d carried since witnessing Kieran’s first seizure.
“Kieran,” Vale said softly. “You’re having small seizures. Focal seizures that have been going on for eight minutes. I need to give you rescue medication.”
“I’m not—” Kieran started to protest, but another wave of twitching cut off his words, this one followed by a brief absence where his eyes went unfocused for several seconds.
Too long. Way too long.
Vale administered the midazolam, one hand supporting Kieran’s head while the other delivered the medication through the nasal spray. It took a few minutes, the facial twitching subsiding as pharmaceutical calm entered his blood stream and calmed the tension in the muscles he still had control over.
Kieran’s expression transformed as the medication took effect, anxiety and confusion giving way to the drugged euphoria that benzodiazepines provided. His pupils dilated slightly and his eyelids drooped as his body finally stopped fighting itself, consciousness softening into something manageable.
When he looked up at Vale, his voice was barely above a whisper, slurred but urgent with need: “Was it g-good enough?”
Even sedated, even post-seizure, even after eight minutes of his brain misfiring and potentially causing permanent damage—Kieran’s first concern was whether his performance had satisfied Vale’s standards.
Whether the blood he spilled, the wounds he opened without permission, the pieces of himself he sacrificed had been sufficient to earn approval.
“It was perfect,” Vale whispered. “It was everything I knew you could be and more. You were magnificent, sweetheart.”
Kieran’s eyes fluttered closed at the praise, leaning into Vale’s touch like a cat seeking warmth. The trust in that gesture—complete, absolute, and unquestioning even after everything—made Vale’s chest tight with emotions he didn’t want to examine too closely while Jericho was watching.
Vale’s attention shifted to the red coating Kieran’s chest and hand. He began peeling back the blood-soaked wrapping, revealing the damage underneath while keeping his expression neutral despite the horror still coiling in his gut.
Dozens of puncture wounds dotted the skin over Kieran’s sternum and ribs—jagged, irregular shapes. They were still oozing, red beading at the surface with each heartbeat.
He used broken glass to open himself up. Without asking.
“What was the thought process?” Vale asked, keeping his voice even as he assessed the wounds for glass fragments that might still be embedded in his skin. “Behind the blood?”
Jericho looked up from where she was picking glass shards from her own palm with tweezers, treating the self-inflicted damage like a minor inconvenience rather than harm.
“That was my idea,” she admitted, very matter-of-factly.
“Accusations carry more weight when they’re written in blood.
It makes them feel more like testimony than performance.
” She held up a particularly large shard, studying it with detached fascination.
“The glass from that shattered bottle seemed... appropriate. Symbolic.”
So that’s what she was doing while I was handling logistics. Collecting weapons from the wreckage.
“I didn’t know Thorn was going to do the same thing,” she continued, glancing toward where he sat sedated and peaceful in Vale’s arms. “He watched me pick up the pieces, asked what I was planning. I told him, and he held out his hand without a word.” She shrugged, respect flickering across her features—or maybe recognition.
“When he slammed his palm against his chest during the performance, I thought he’d changed his mind about using them.
Then the blood started spreading and... it worked. The crowd went dead silent.”
Something unfamiliar stirred in Vale’s chest—the strange vertigo of being understood. Jericho spoke about blood and glass the way he thought about lessons and breaking points. No flinching, no moralizing. Just the clean recognition that art required sacrifice.
Dangerous, that understanding. Useful. But dangerous.
But understanding didn’t erase the fact that Kieran hurt himself without Vale’s guidance, had chosen his own violation, had taken control of pain that was supposed to belong to Vale alone.
“The wounds need cleaning,” Vale said, returning his attention to Kieran’s damaged chest with a singular focus that masked the conflicted emotions churning beneath his composed exterior. “And proper bandaging.”
As he worked, cleaning the puncture wounds while Kieran dozed against his shoulder, Vale calculated the ripple effects.
The performance would be dissected, analyzed, shared across every platform that mattered.
Industry professionals would debate the ethics of using actual blood in live performance.
But no one would be able to deny the authenticity of the performance.
No one would be able to claim this was manufactured or fake.
The thought filled him with fierce satisfaction even as horror continued to pulse underneath—satisfaction at the artistic achievement, horror at the loss of control, pride at Kieran’s transcendence, fear at what eight minutes of focal seizures might have caused, possession at having created something so beautiful, and rage at having that creation happen without his explicit guidance.
“You were in the ‘Temple of Flesh’ video.“ Jericho’s voice cut through Vale’s spiraling thoughts. He looked up to find her watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read—not accusatory, exactly, but assessing. Like she was fitting puzzle pieces together.
“The one holding him during the seizure,” she continued.
“I watched that video a lot after it went viral. The hands that caught him in the chair. The way whoever it was knew exactly how to position his head, keep his airway clear.” Her gaze dropped to where Vale’s fingers were still carding through Kieran’s hair.
“You touch him the same way now. Like you’ve been doing it forever. ”
Vale’s hand stilled. “I’m his producer. I was there for the filming.”
“Mm.” Jericho returned her attention to picking glass from her palm, but her shoulders had squared slightly, her body angling toward Kieran.
“Most producers don’t carry rescue medication in their jacket pockets.
And most producers don’t look at their artists like.
..” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Never mind. None of my business.”
Careful. She’s smarter than she looks.
“You’re right,” Vale said, letting warmth bleed into his voice, the particular tone he used when he needed someone to feel included rather than suspicious.
“It’s not your business. But I appreciate you asking rather than assuming.
” He met her eyes steadily. “Kieran has a medical condition. I take his care seriously. That’s all. ”
Jericho held his gaze for a long moment, a silent challenge passing between them. Then she shrugged, returning to her wounds.
“Like I said. None of my business.”
But she didn’t look convinced. And the way she positioned herself—not between him and Kieran, exactly, but adjacent. Close enough to intervene if she decided intervention was necessary.
Interesting. She’s protective of him already. After one performance.
He filed the observation away for later consideration, returning his attention to the boy drugged and bleeding in his arms. Kieran’s breathing had evened out, the Versed doing its work, consciousness retreating to somewhere the seizures couldn’t follow.
Rest now, sweetheart. You’ve earned it.
And tomorrow, we’ll discuss what happens when you bleed without asking me first.