Chapter Text
Paris was a beautiful city.
The famous city of love was the home of curving streets and green parks, where you would usually spend your time on a blanket with a book or sketchbook.
Even though this city was known for love; the rainy night, the blonde man hunched in a tavern over a glass of cognac, they showed you that the city you loved, was not for everyone. There were still miserable people walking down its streets.
Your long coat was not helping with the chill of the March night, but the bar was warm when you entered, crowded with men of different ages. You should not have been there, a lady of your age, not linked to any man besides their father, was not allowed to walk the streets alone, without a companion, a man to ‘protect’ them. But they couldn’t see you anyway. Your attire was just as out of the ordinary as your attitude.
You wore a bright coat that wet from the rain. And from its hood, drops were falling on your face. The skirt of your dress was not even reaching your ankle and your brown boots rose to your knees. The right part of the skirt had been cut from the middle of your thigh during a fight with a mean werewolf, who was too friendly, and around your waist hung a belt of weapons freshly cleaned, hid under the warm material.
You got word that the Consul’s youngest son was needed back in London and that he was somewhere sulking in the city of love. So, you were sent to find him.
Paris was a big city and it was full of places perfect for a young man to find someone to spend the night with. Some of these locations were luxurious and some literal dumps. And you were now standing in a pub on the other side of the Seine, of the Louvre.
The place was warm, the walls were painted in deep colours, very similar to the inside of pubs you remembered hearing about from your older friends when they described England to you. The daily rain, the fashion and the way they talked were the very common aspects they told you about. But Louis, a great friend of yours, described every necessary and unnecessary thing he could think of: the taverns, the walls of the Institute and the small designs symbolizing some of the big Shadowhunter families and the colours the people wore.
He would’ve loved to see the inside of this place. A part of England in the heart of France.
Perfect for a British missing home.
You saw how the coloured eyes of Downworlders turned your way when you entered the room. The glamour on you made it easier to make your way to the mass of blonde hair that was crunched over a glass at the bar.
You waited a minute, took his still impeccable attire in, no drop of alcohol spilt, no speck of dust. An antithesis to the emotion his whole stance suggested to you. He was sad, that was a known fact.
“You could at least unglamour yourself, you are going to stay here a long while here if you are looking for me,” he said in English, his voice broke you from your moment of assessing. He didn’t even turn your way, he just started playing to his now empty glass. You saw how he looked at you out of his corner’s eye. You took a place at the bar, the stool next to him previously empty, while still wearing the magic.
Matthew was a beautiful young man, younger than you by at least a year. His dark green eyes were clouded and even from just admiring his profile you could easily see a forest during the storm in his irises. His lips were very pink, almost red and wet from the possible dozens of times he had licked them with his tongue. His hair was parted in the middle, but there was a rogue strand that didn’t like to be away from his gaze, so it chose to sway before his left eye. His fingers were long, adorned with silver and golden rings and on the back of his right hand, behind healed thin scars, his Voyance rune covered his skin.
“If I do that… I would get weird glances that are supposed to be yours, Mr Fairchild,” you replied after a long pause.
Matthew took in a deep breath and moved to stay against the chair’s back, his arms crossed. Only watching him seemed like watching a play, a flower or those astonishing new motion pictures on a screen. He was breathtaking.
A small smirk appeared on his face, he nodded and said: “They usually admire me for my immaculate looks.”
You raised your eyebrows and moved your head in agreement. He looked very well put together, in a place like the one you sat in.
“My mother wants me back in London, am I right?” he spoke after a while spent in silence, once again.
His British accent was deep, not as hard to understand as everyone told you, but it gave you chills nonetheless. Your accent was usually thick on your tongue, but the years spent in Paris, in the presence of tutors of French heritage, speaking various European languages had made it slowly fade, but some of it, still present.
“Yes, she told the Head of the Institute that something had happened, she needs you home.” your tone was calm, the fact that you sounded so much like a concerned lover took you off guard, but you couldn’t take it back. Matthew didn’t seem phased by it, he looked just as miserable to the world as before, but a thoughtful demeanour filled his face.
He suddenly rose, took his time to close each button of his green coat, the movement of his fingers catching your eye. He tied his scarf, dropped coins the value of his reckoning on the counter and started walking towards the door.
“Mr Fairch-” you started, but he was already out the door before you could finish.
You were running in order to catch up to him and when he reached the waterfront, he stopped. The ends of his shawl and some strands of his bright hair flew softly in the wind. The hood that you have just managed to put on fell off your head, the water now dropping right on your braided hair.
You had no idea why you were still following him. You could have just called a carriage and gone home to your cold apartment and single Parisian life. But… for some reason, you were looking at a ravishing beautiful English man, who you have just met, in the pouring rain. You couldn’t see his eyes, but you felt his pain.
“She chose him.”
His voice broke the silence.
His tone broke you.
You had no idea why, but a tear fell down your cold cheek.
A flash of light shot through the sky, thunder followed moments after. Fog surrounded the two of you. You couldn’t even see the other side of the river, you couldn’t even see anything besides him. His formally clean attire was now wet, his hair stuck to his face, his back to you, hands fisted. You managed to put the hood back, hoping to regain control over your sight, but it didn’t help.
You were still in the middle of a storm.
“Mr Fairchild, please. You should get to the Institute, Mr Herondale must be waiting for you.” You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know what he was talking about, you just wanted to get out of that storm, find cover and somehow not catch a cold.
“I can’t go back to London. She is there.” You felt like you were talking to a wall, but he turned his face fully to you.
“I… What’s your name, Miss?” you finally met each other’s eyes.
The forest in his eyes was more beautiful than you had initially thought. He had a scar right below his eyebrow and another very small one in the right corner of his mouth, one that you had no idea how you saw. His lips were perfectly curved. And his eyes… they held a story of hurt, love and disappointment.
You saw him.
You didn’t know why, but you felt how a spark inside of yourself, something dormant, caught flame.
“Y/N Y/L/N” you replied breathlessly.
Matthew just nodded. His eyes shone bright, but you could still decipher something as hate, not for you, for something else, inside of them.
“We…” he started.
“I think we should go back to the Institute.” You said instead, which made him shake his head.
“I don’t think I should go back yet. Since have you been searching for me?” he started walking towards the empty street, no worry that the rain was violently hitting his pale skin. He seemed to like to avoid questions about himself, preferring to aim the conversation to the other person.
“Not long.”
“Your dress would say otherwise,” he replied jokingly. The air hit your leg covered in dark grey things. The street lights were not as powerful as you had usually thought, the absence of light making you almost trip over stone on the street because of it and the fog that became thicker and thicker.
“My dress had an interesting encounter with a werewolf somewhere by the Louvre. They mentioned something about art…? They compared me to it at some point.” Your tone was brighter than before. The conversation started to pick up, which made you feel better, for some reason.
He laughed softly. The sound echoed through the street and also through your head. And you held onto it.
He was walking through the middle of the street and, you didn't notice when he managed to pull it out, Matthew now gulped from a metal flask, swaying and then regaining his balance, just like it was part of his act.
“Mr Fairchild-“ you started talking, but he interrupted you.
“Matthew, please call me Matthew.”
“Matthew…” you tested the name on your lips. You thought that it felt sweet, but somehow sour, just as wine. “I think that we need to pass the next bridge and reach the Louvre. There is a hotel on the same street, Regina and there must be some carriages… maybe even motor cars that could help us reach the Institute faster.”
“Do you have a place of your own?” he asked, ignoring your explanation.
“I do in fact. Why are you asking?” you were confused about his interest.
Maybe he was trying to sheer away from someone or something. Maybe he really didn’t want to go back to the United Kingdom.
“I feel like spending another night in Paris before I get to see everyone.” You didn’t expect that to be his answer. Matthew didn’t look like the person to give more meaning to things than what they already had, but it seemed like he was more than the eye could catch.
“Uhm… sure. But tomorrow I need you to go to the Institute and talk to the Head. I'm new to this whole French life and I don’t want to cause any trouble. There is still enough to be done in a big city like Paris.”
“New to this French life? Does that mean that you're not from Paris? Where are you from then? The accent… sounds different.”
“I’m from [your country]. I moved to France when I was around sixteen, so I was not born here, but I’ve been living here for around three years,” you answered.
Matthew only nodded, but you could still feel his eyes on you somehow, even though he was facing the pavement. You were walking by the Seine then. The wind was still brushing your cheeks, chilling them, his hair and scarf softly dancing with the air. Unconsciously, you finished crossing the bridge. During the gloomy night, you could not identify much more than the shape of the familiar building of the famous museum.
You continued your walk, even the rain seemed to calm down slowly. Matthew drank thrice more from the flask in his jacket, a fact that concerned you. You stopped in front of a tall building, where various windows had lights turned on. The clock pillar that stood in front of the entrance in the hotel read an hour past midnight.
Not many carriages were still in front of the hotel, but you saw how one driver climbed in his seat, arranged his hat and raised his collar to keep him warm against the cold.
“We could stay here,” Matthew said while looking at the sign before him. It did not powerfully lighten up, but the soft hues still caressed his face still covered in raindrops. He had his hands in the pockets of his former bright green coat, whose colour had darkened even more than before.
“Why would I pay to stay in one of their boring rooms, when I have my own just a 20-minute carriage drive away?”
“You know that nothing you had just said sounded better than this place.” He nodded to the entrance, where a man in a white coat watched the two of you with interest.
Or maybe watched only Matthew, because you still haven’t turned off your glamour. The employer looked long in your direction in a way that made you feel unsettled. Maybe he could actually see you. Maybe he had the Sight. Maybe he was a Downworlder.
You might never know because you didn’t want to spend the night in a room, in an expensive Parisian hotel when you had a perfect place in the same city.
“It doesn’t cost.” You shrugged and started walking to one of the carriages, stopped only to annul the rune on the back of your left wrist.
“ Excuse me, Sir. Are you able to take us to the Palais Garnier, please?” you saw how your French words startled the driver. Matthew’s steps on the pavement had filled the silence before the chauffeur answered your question. He only nodded after looking judgingly at both of your wet attire.
So, you and the Consul’s son climbed in the carriage and the sound of the cab moving echoed through the empty Parisian streets in the night.