Distractions

Thirty-Three: Good Talk, Good Shot

We're getting close to the extra dramatic parts of Season Two...I can't wait /gen

This chapter isn't as heavy as the previous, but there are still some heavy topics discussed, so please head the trigger warnings.

Trigger Warnings: Discussions of self harm and suicidal actions, descriptions of fighting, guns/shooting, violence, on/off page death, weapons

Trigger Warning: Mentions of death (on/off page) through entire chapter

Everest, dressed in jeans and a dark green tank top, leaned against the stone wall of Magnus's balcony that came up to her waist. She watched the traffic go by with a blank expression. A group of teenagers shoving each other as they walked down the street caught her eye. Once that had been her and her friends. Once that had been her, Clary, and Simon. Once she had been that happy and carefree, that relaxed. But here she was, not even six months later, dealing with an awful family situation and the impending doom of the Downworld.

Her peripheral vision filled with Alec and Magnus's forms on either side of her and she couldn't help but add something a little more positive to her previous thought. She also had two boyfriends that she adored greatly.

"How many Downworlders do you think live in New York?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know, but they're not all your responsibility," Magnus said as if he thought she was going to pull a Clary and try to save everyone. Which, considering she and Clary had similar tendencies at times, wasn't necessarily unreasonable.

"But you are," she said, tilting her head at him.

Magnus faced the city in an attempt to hide his smile, but she still saw it. "I can take care of myself."

"Maybe, but this is different," Alec said. He was watching her and Magnus but looked out at the city when she looked at him.

"You may have lived through the fall of Rome, but even the Dark Ages couldn't have been like this," Everest said. Her voice took on a lilt that she couldn't stop, one that almost always appeared when she was trying to take whatever bad thing was happening to her and generalize the experience. She hated that lilt. It always gave her away.

Trigger Warning: Discussions of self harm and suicidal actions

"Everest...I know things may seem bleak—" Alec moved so that he was next to Magnus and set a hand on his elbow. Everest turned her head to look at them. "—but nothing was as devastating as seeing you on that ledge."

"It was the magic," she said, trying to push away the thoughts of hospital beds and everyone she loved crying when she opened her eyes.

"I know. We know," Alec said.

"Magic can't create fears, only bring them out," Magnus added.

Everest shifted and her fingers began tapping on the pad of her thumb. "I—" She sighed and moved so that she was leaning back against the balcony, facing the apartment. They kept watching her. For the first time in a while, she didn't mind having people watching her so intently. "I want to explain, I do. I just—"

"It's hard, I get it." Magnus smiled gently at her, as if assuring her of something she didn't know. "I've been there, I get it. Just take your time."

She smiled faintly at him gratefully, though a pang of regret and pain ran through her upon learning that Magnus had similar experiences. "I've known Raphael since I was seven," she said, deciding to start at the less painful part of the story. "I was taking out the trash when I saw him in the alley. I ignored every single stranger danger lesson I was ever given and walked up to him. I said hi and kind of forced the conversation onto him. I kept seeing him and somehow we became friends and eventually he became like my brother. My nocturnal, weirdly never aging brother."