Distractions

Cookouts and Music Videos

This is the second drabble for @Snowisawesome's Everest has a secret talent prompt. Hope you enjoy! Please note, this chapter is centered around food, so if that is a possible trigger for you, please skip this part. I want everyone to be safe while reading this story.

And yes, I used this drabbles as a way to freak out about Måneskin's new music video, I Wanna Be Your Slave. It's great and I highly recommend you go watch it if you can. But some of the lyrics in the song are written here too, and they're not the most PG, so if that could potentially trigger you, please skip it. Again, I want everyone to be safe.

Everest could cook, kind of. She could cook enough food and well enough that she couldn't kill a kitchen or starve, but in no way was she a master chef. She could bake box mixes and chocolate chip cookies, but not much else besides that. However, she had grown up with Luke Garroway and Brad and Jay Karter, all of whom loved a good cookout. As such, she learned very quickly how to work a grill and how to grill most anything. From chicken and beef, to vegetables and seafood, Everest was the person that her friends and family asked when they wanted something grilled.

Due to the love of grilled food and cookouts among Everest's friends and family, the food-filled gatherings were a frequent thing. During the warmer months of the year the large group could be found at the Karter's house (since they were the only ones who lived in a house at the time and they didn't want to drive three hours to the farm every other weekend) with all sorts of food laid out on folding tables and sitting in lawn chairs with various drinks in hand as they all talked and laughed with each other.

There hadn't been a cookout in a while, what with the twins and Simon being shot into the ShadowWorld, Luke becoming leader of the New York pack, the craziness of Gino and Roslyn's lives, and the intense schedules of the Karters. But now it was summer and they had all planned to have the day off for a cookout; they weren't going to let anyone or anything stop them from having this cookout.

"Do you guys want to go to a cookout?" Clary and Everest asked simultaneously as they approached Alec, Magnus, Izzy, and Jace in the Ops Center.

"What?"

"What's that?"

"When and where?"

"What'd you say?"

Everest laughed at the varying reactions and went to stand by her Parabatai. "Do you guys want to go to a cookout tomorrow at like eleven? It'd be a bunch of friends and family, a lot of food, lots of stories, and probably fires."

They all agreed and the rest of the day was spent laying around the Institute and then later Alec, Magnus, and Everest went back to their apartment for the night. Their evening was as peaceful as it could have been with Everest having to get on an emergency call with a few of her online friends to figure out how to fix an issue with one of their projects. But eventually the issue was fixed and Everest was able to go to bed at last.

"Everything all right?" Magnus asked as she slipped under the covers beside him.

"Yeah, it's all fixed now. Someone accidentally emailed some files to someone who's not supposed to have the files, but we got the files back and so it's all good," she told her partners.

"Glad it's fixed," Alec said from the other side of Magnus. "You sounded very stressed when you were on the phone."

"I was," she muttered, resting her head on Magnus's chest and letting her eyes flutter closed. "Night Alec, night Magnus. Love you."

"Goodnight, I love you."

"Sweet dreams, love you."

...