La Maison 5: Darkness (Complete: mxm BDSM)

Arc 2 Chapter 12.1

Gabe was trembling. The tight strings cutting into his fingers. But the pain wasn't helping, and he moaned a tiny, desperate sound. Nothing would help.

"Gabe!" Laurent came into the music room, a look of horror on his face when he saw the mess Gabe had made of his fingers.

He picked Gabe up, carrying him easily downstairs and calling for Leeanna to bring the first aid kit. She tried to fuss; Gabe could hear her even with the roaring in his ears as he pressed his face into Laurent's chest. His hands were gently pulled away, but even the sting of some liquid across the tips of his fingers did nothing for him, and the tears fell from his eyes, saturating Laurent's shirt as he held him close.

Gabe vaguely heard more murmurs from Laurent to Leeanna and then a different tone that was Laurent on the phone, but he didn't listen for words, and he didn't react when he felt himself lifted and carried back up the stairs.

When he'd been laid on a soft surface and lost the warmth of Laurent's body, he finally opened his puffy, waterlogged eyes. He didn't recognize the dimly lit room, but he recognized what it was.

"Gabe, I need you to listen very carefully. Can you?"

"Yes, Laurent," he said in a whisper.

"François has given me permission to use his room. Are you comfortable being in here?"

"Green," Gabe responded, glancing around with a little more interest. He couldn't see all of the details with such low light, but he could see a St Andrew's cross in the corner and several large and ornate cabinets. There was a breeding bench to one side and he winced at the flash of memory. Laurent glanced to where he was looking and then moved to stand in front of it.

"I won't put you on that. How do you feel about the cross?"

"Green," Gabe responded, with something like a frisson at the thought.

"You're nervous," Laurent told him.

"I'm not, I promise." Gabe looked up at him with sincerity. He was the opposite of nervous now it seemed to be turning into a scene. He wanted to know where it was going and could feel himself getting hard at the possibilities.

"Not of this, Bambi. You're nervous about your audition."

"Oh, that. Well, yes, maybe." He shrugged, trying to play it off, but Laurent's sharp eyes were hard and knowing.

"Definitely. And I think you need to get out of your head about it. If you keep hurting yourself you won't be able to use your bow tomorrow."

How could Gabe admit that maybe that was the point? He shrugged again, instead.

Laurent went to a bag by the door that he must have taken from his room during their journey upstairs. Gabe couldn't see the things he took from it, laying them carefully on the cabinet to his side, but now he was beginning to tremble in the good ways, waiting from his next instruction, which came with a quiet but stern voice.

"Strip, Bambi, and go stand by the cross."

Gabe hurried to comply, neatly folding his clothes on the bed and standing by the cross, running his hand over the smooth, polished, wood, careful of the small bandages on his fingers. Laurent approached behind him, gently placing his hands on Gabe's shoulders, massaging residual anxiety out of them.

"How do you feel about me dropping you?"

"Can you?" Gabe pleaded, suddenly feeling all the force of the worry he was having about the audition. What if he wasn't good enough? He'd practiced, sure, but there'd been almost a year when he'd barely picked his cello or any of his other instruments up, and even after that it had been sporadic, not the focused, controlled mastery that had defined the previous dozen years. He needed to be taken right out of his self-undermining thoughts.