<span style="font-family:Metrophobic">Despite all other things that were on Mathieu’s mind right now, he could not eliminate the fear of this man he’d run into as being among his top priorities at the moment because the more he looked at the stranger, the more he realized that he didn’t know who the man was. He could’ve swore he’d seen the face - or, actually, rather hidden expression - come and go before on rare occasions, but there wasn’t even a name that popped into his head to go with it. That made the man in front of him rather terrifying because it was the men he didn’t know who were usually in Master Stirling’s highest confidences. They were the ones who knew that they were more than allowed to punish the boy plaything at any time or occasion they saw fit because he was just that - a plaything… a pet. <br/>
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That fear was what drove him to take a rather large step back as Gabriel bent forward to… to… <i>‘to start picking things up?’</i> Mathieu was completely and totally astounded by the fact that someone so lowly as himself was being helped by someone who no doubt had a power here close to so many of Master Stirling’s associates that would’ve smacked Mathieu silly for such a thing. He couldn’t read the man’s face - seeing it was certainly hard enough behind all those mechanics that often disgusted Mathieu so much - and when the man wiped his shirt and mentioned that he was off the hook, all the thin young man could do was shake his head. Although he apparently was off the hook, he knew that he shouldn’t have been. <br/>
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“I’m… so so so sorry, Sir,” Mathieu apologized again, beginning to worry that perhaps this man was playing some cruel trick on him and trying to get him to drop his guard or something of the like. <br/>
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When Gabriel started picking up the spilled contents and putting them back onto the tray, Mathieu felt that he had to do one better as far as cleanup efforts were concerned. He got down on his hands and knees - literally crawling to try and keep himself below the man whose eyes he could not see - and started wiping up everything that he could. It almost seemed that his efforts paled in comparison to Gabriel’s though, because while Gabriel seemed to be taking the whole situation rather calmly, Mathieu was in panic mode. It kept occurring to him that something could go wrong and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Simply put, Mathieu didn’t know how to handle kindnesses; for him, they had been nonexistent for far too long. <br/>
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It was in the midst of all of that that a question danced to Mathieu’s ears and it was one directed at him. Any question directed at him was a question he had to answer and if his answer wasn’t good enough, he knew he could be beaten for it. That was how he’d been trained. “Y-yes, Sir. I am Mathieu, Sir.” He wasn’t sure what other title might apply to this man so he defaulted to the most polite term he could use for anyone who wasn’t Master Stirling. Master Stirling was always ‘Master,’ after all. <br/>
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As soon as it seemed that everything had been set back on the tray, Mathieu was quick and prompt to pick it up again and it almost looked like he was about to scurry off without another word. It was certainly fairly obvious that he wanted to, at the very least. However, he didn’t leave before Gabriel mentioned that he was going to put Master Stirling into a good mood and that was enough to draw a brief smile out of the skinny one. Then it was suggested that he change his shirt, though, and the smile vanished just as quickly. This man seriously thought that he had another shirt to change into? While he wasn’t going to say anything that would tell him otherwise, Mathieu wondered if his own appearance was that terrible that it might upset Master Stirling even after such good news. If that was the case, there really wasn’t anything he could do about it. <br/>
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All Mathieu could manage to do was mutter, “Thank you, Sir,” to Gabriel. Then he did, indeed, scurry off. <br/>
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Even if Master Stirling was being brought good news, Mathieu didn’t doubt that the man would still want breakfast and he wasn’t going to risk being in more trouble than he already had been. The cooks in the kitchen were quick to notice him and the messed up tray in his hands and the chef who took it away from him rolled his eyes. “You had to go and spill it before you even got up to him, didn’t you, Lad?” Of course, they all assumed that it was Mathieu’s fault that the tray came back down. Really, though, there had been nothing wrong with it when he’d tried to serve it. It wasn’t something Mathieu would ever say to them, though; they wouldn’t believe him even if he tried. <br/>
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“S-sure,” Mathieu mumbled and he watched as they hurriedly prepared another tray. Each dish and each piece of silverware was shining and brilliant; they would only send the best up to Mr. Stirling and the cooks weren’t going to be much better off than Mathieu would be if they ever did something to upset him. Granted, they didn’t have to interact directly with the man as much as his pet did. Finally, someone handed it back to him and once again, Mathieu was scurrying as fast as he could manage without losing his balance and letting everything topple to the floor once more.</span>