Rainy Nights in Paris | Matthew Fairchild x Reader

Part 3

March 1904

Soft snores woke you the first time.

The sun was slowly making its way up the sky, the clouds were covering the blue and you watched through the window how the leaves flew in the wind.

The bed was warm, blankets were spread over and under you. You watched how the rays of light entered the room and caressed Matthew's calm face. His head was facing you as he slept on his back. Some of the covers were lightly fisted in his right hand, while his left one had his fingers unconsciously intertwined with yours.

Sleep was still clouding your senses and without even realising you were once again caught in its grasp.

When you woke up the second time, the sun was up in the sky and you were alone in bed. You looked for your guest and you caught his tall figure on the other side of the room, right against the window frame. He had a lit up cigarette between his lips and you could smell the smoke from your place on the bed.

Your bare feet had met the cold floor before you put them in furred slippers. You took the dressing gown from a chair and the warmth shielded your body from the cold early March air that slipped through the open window.

You put the kettle on the stove and turn to the blonde by the window while the water starts boiling. He didn't look at you for some time and you continued to watch the rays hug his hair, brightening its colour and the cigarette burn, how his cheeks softly hollow while he inhaled. He exhaled the smoke, sometimes in circles, sometimes in annoyed puffs. They showed that what he was thinking about something important, made him sadder and sadder. And you knew that the cigarette between his lips and fingers was just a reminder of reality, something to remain anchored to.

He turned to you when he finished it and threw it in the ceramic teacup that he had used last night, filled with ash. His shirt has its top two buttons open and from around his neck, a gold chain with a cross hung. If you didn't know that he was a Shadowhunter, you would have easily thought that he was a believer in God.

"Did you eat anything?" You asked right before the water vapour appeared. He shook his head as you turned off the stove and pulled two cups from the upper cabinet.

"Tea or coffee?" You asked while rummaging through the cupboard for bags of coffee or tea.

"Coffee," you pulled out a tin case and a jar of sugar. Put two spoons of coffee powder in the tin, whisked the composition and let it sit, while you went to rummage for some food in the freezer.

"I have... eggs? Or we could go to a restaurant, but I don't think they serve breakfasts anymore at this hour." You eyed your freezer. And without looking at the young man that sat on a chair at the table, you decided what you wanted to do that late morning. "We are going down the street." You walked back to the table and poured the coffee in cups before sitting down and sipping from the hot beverage. Matthew took a sip from his cup before he complimented the taste of coffee.

The silence that fell between the two of you was broken by the sound of your grumpy intestines, in need of fuel for your whole body. Reading the clock that was hung on the wall over the freezer, you realized that it was not long past ten.

You finished yours first, but the two of you rose from the table at the same time.

"I'm just gonna go..." he started talking and pointed to the place by the window, a chair vacated there, one that he had probably used before you woke up.

"I'm going to change," you said in return. Halfway to the wardrobe you turn to him and ask: "Do you need anything else?"

Matthew raised his head, back towards you, while setting the tobacco and the papers that he would use to make his next cigarette from. His green eyes found yours from behind rogue hair strands.