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Matthew listened as the party went on a few rooms away from where he was, the distant and cheerful sounds filling the painful silence floating around him. Warm teardrops soundlessly poured from his eyes, his hands wandering where his flask would always be. But tonight, it wasn’t there – he had promised James and Lucie, he had promised Cordelia, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t have done it again. Not after last time. And yet it would have been of great use in that moment in which pain and sorrow where having way too much fun, scratching him from the inside and torturing his senses which, for once that night, were anything but numb.
When will it stop? I just want it to stop… his voice would scream so loudly and desperately inside his mind.
He was sitting in a dark corner, his fingers tangled in his golden hair, behind William Herondale’s large piano in the music room, when the door opened, and the sound of a woman’s heels and skirts startled him and diverted him from his tormented thoughts. From the way the woman was breathing and sniffling, he could have sworn that she was crying, too.
«Who is there?» That voice was unmistakable. Matthew lifted himself up from the corner, carefully trying not to scare her. His voice was so weak that she could barely hear it.
«Cordelia?», he called her.
«Matthew, is that you?» she said, walking towards him until she could see him quite clearly in the dim light of the candle which was resting on top of the piano. «Oh, Matthew! What are you doing here all alone? Are you – are you crying?»
«I could ask you the same things» he laughed weakly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. «What happened? Why aren’t you dancing and having fun with the others? And, before you ask me – I just was not feeling like partying tonight, you know.»
Cordelia sighed. «It was all fun and games until James… until he just left me – again – in the middle of a dance because Grace Blackthorn blatantly called him for help, and he… he ran away like an obedient dog and just disappeared with her as soon as she told him something else I could not hear. And now I just have no clue where he could be, and most of all I feel so ashamed because he said he is in love with me, that he is going to marry me, and yet he still leaves me like this, in front of everyone, when that girl appears – like he is under a spell or something. I feel miserable.»
She started crying again, and Matthew readily leaned forward to hug her. «Shush, I will go talk to him as soon as he shows up again and I swear to the Angel he is going to get a big piece of my mind. He is not getting away with this – who on earth would treat his beloved fiancée like that? Especially if it is you. Come on now, I will help you freshen up, we will get some water and maybe some air in the yard and it will be alright–» Cordelia interrupted him before he could go on and drag her out of the room by putting a finger on his mouth and looking at him straight in the eyes.
«Wait. That is very sweet of you, Matthew, but you have not told me why you were crying in here all by yourself. Just so you know, I will not accept some mere excuse – and I know how good you are at making them up».
Matthew tried to avoid looking at her in the eyes and quickly answered, «I can assure you it is nothing, Cordelia, really. Please, let’s go» he tried to move past her, but she stopped him again, this time by placing his hands firmly on his shoulders.
«There is something weighing on you, Matthew,» she said, touching him more gently now. «A secret. Will you tell me what it is?»
Matthew froze, his eyes turned a darker shade of green and his voice started shaking. He took a deep breath and said, «You do not know what you are asking.»
«Yes, I do. I am asking for the truth. Your truth. You know everything about me, and I do not even know what makes you so unhappy.»
The walls he had built around himself suddenly fell apart, shattering onto the ground. He burst into tears again, leaping into Cordelia’s arms and resting his head on her chest. He took her by surprise – she stood still for a second before holding him in her warm embrace.
«It's okay, Matthew. I am here. You can tell me anything, I will not leave you.»
«Not even James knows… he does not know! I – it happened some time ago and I… I cannot afford to lose you now, Cordelia, you – you will hate me. You will look at me as you would look at the monster from your worst nightmares.»
Cordelia shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. What horrible truth could he be hiding, that he is so scared to talk about it? She was strong, she could most certainly bear anything he had to say.
«Matthew, I would never, ever turn my back on you. Whatever truth you need to unfold, as bad as it is, I will listen. Whatever burden you are carrying on your shoulders, I will carry it with you. I will not leave you, Matthew Fairchild, I promise.»
She gently stroked his back with her hands, trying to reassure him.
«I – I killed…» he started; Cordelia gasped subtly. «I did something terrible. Someone… spread some rumours about my family – about my mother. Those were some pretty bad rumours» his voice broke for a moment, «And I wanted to know, I just wanted to be sure that they were not true – if only I had waited some time more… Cordelia, please, do not hate me.»
«I would never hate you» she was about to cry as well. «Please, do go on. I will not judge you.»
«I sought help, and they gave me a potion which was supposed to make me get the truth from her – instead, it turned out to be some kind of poison. My mother, my beloved mother was… she was pregnant, at the time. She lost her baby, my future little sister. And it was all my fault. I am a killer, Cordelia. I killed my mother’s child and since then I have spent every single day despising myself for what I did. When you found me… like that, a couple weeks ago, I was… I had not just had too much to drink. I was trying to punish myself for what I did, once and for all. I – I thought the world would have been a better place without a despicable human being like me.»
Cordelia promptly shushed him, and he lifted his head from her chest and looked in her eyes, his own filled with copious, salty tears.
«Stop it, Matthew – I still thank the Angel for how that day turned out in the end. I thank James and your parabatai bond, otherwise I would not be holding you in my arms now, nor I would ever be able to hold you again, and all of our lives would be ruined and empty without you. Do not dare to speak of yourself like that again, it hurts me deeply.» She took a deep breath and thought of her father, of how she had not noticed his issues, how Alastair and her mother had manged to keep all that from her. Maybe I could not save him, but I still can save Matthew. I want to save Matthew. «Listen... I understand how you must feel. What you have told me, it is not an easy matter to talk about. It takes a lot of courage – and you have got that courage, Matthew, you are so brave, and you always should be. You told me that I should hate you, now that I know the truth – so why is it that I feel so close to you, now more than ever before?»
Matthew did not answer. He looked at her, as someone would look at the most precious thing in their life. And she looked back at him, and then ran his fingers through his golden locks and pulled him even closer to her, their lips only a couple inches away.
«Cordelia» he whispered. His warm breath tickled her skin, and she was glad to notice that it finally did not taste like alcohol – he did keep the promise he had made to her and James. James… she did not even know where he was. He had once again proven that he was in fact not in love with her, and he had embarrassed her all over again, even though he perfectly knew how bad she had felt the first time.
Cordelia had been in love with him for as long as she could remember, and she had always known that he did not love her back, though that time at Hell Ruelle she had really thought he had finally come to his senses about her. Even that turned out to be an illusion.
But Matthew did not. Matthew was real, warm and fragile in her arms, miserable and vulnerable and full of undeserved hatred towards himself.
She closed her eyes as they both crashed against each other, locking their lips in a desperate kiss. Matthew tightened his grip around her waist, while her hands moved from his hair to his cheeks, gently cupping his face and pulling him harder against her. He swiftly lifted her and helped her sit on the back of the piano behind them, placing himself between her legs. Soon she was laying with her back against the cold and hard surface of the musical instrument, and he was on top of her, running his hands along her body and making her shiver under every, single touch.
Cordelia weakly whispered Matthew’s name when his lips moved lower to kiss her neck and then the top of her breasts through the fabric of her dress. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist, as they kept on exchanging devouring kisses and soft moans.
The magic of that moment suddenly ended as they heard heavy steps approaching the room, and immediately jumped up, trying to recompose themselves.
The door burst open, and a confused James entered the room, a witchlight in his hand.
The silver bracelet around his wrist was… glowing. He muttered, «Oh, y – you both are in here… I felt something weird, as if –» he sighed as he noticed their swollen lips and their messy hair, and suddenly realized.
Matthew and Cordelia had expected to see him break down in front of that unequivocal scene – instead, he wore the same blank expression he had always been wearing lately. That was, until a sharp, metallic sound startled them all, and James’s glowing bracelet fell apart and on the floor. His golden eyes widened in surprise, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare and struggled to make sense of what was happening.
«Jamie… are you all right?» Matthew asked.
«W – Where am I? What is happening?» James seemed clueless.
Cordelia bent down to collect a piece of that bracelet from the floor. Loyalty binds me, recited the inscription on it. She walked towards James, who was looking at her in a completely different way, for the first time since… Hell Ruelle.
«You are with us, James. You are here with Matthew, and me» she whispered, as she shared look with Matthew, who came closer to them.
«I feel… so lost» he looked at him, «like when… the shadows…»
«Shush, now» Matthew ran his ringed fingers through James’s dark hair «You are not going anywhere. Your fiancée and your parabatai are here, nothing is going to happen to you.» He sighed, turning to give a sad look at Cordelia as he opened his arms to hold both her and James in a comforting embrace.
Once again, he was putting all his strength into helping his beloved ones, whilst he probably was the one who needed that strength the most. He was alright with that, though; he had done irreversible damage to the happiness of his family and his friends, hence he thought he did not deserve the slightest bit of that comfort he was so desperately yearning for – that comfort he had almost found for a second in Cordelia’s loving arms. But she was betrothed to his beloved parabatai, the person he cared about the most in the whole world – he could not do that to him.
He would have kept him safe, away from the shadows, as he had promised, and would have slowly faded into his own, dark shadow instead. He knew it was for the best, for everyone else.