Chapter Text
If you were to ask Jen, it came from nowhere, completely unprompted and she’d tell you she did nothing wrong. If you were to ask Lizzie, it all started because gods are self-absorbed, prideful snobs with no respect for mortal beings. The truth was, naturally, somewhere in between.
It starts with a girl’s night in, in reality. Gathered together in Jen’s workshop turned into a movie night, with blankets and pillows and snacks that may or may not contain weed. The rest of the workshop is dark and forgotten, but the area surrounding Jen’s television is alive with floating magic fairy lights and while Hope and Lizzie are sharing the couch, Cleo and Finch are on the floor on one of the many blow up lilo’s Jen got out for the girls, and Jen has claimed the armchair. They’re all dressed for sleep, but none of them have any intention of resting when they’re barely half way through their marathon and Finch is explaining in depth the lore of magic in Shadowhunters to a room full of actual magic users.
“Of course, all this sounds like total shit when you know how real magic works,” Finch giggles, having munched through four cookies before Jen got around to warning her what they actually were. “I was so into this show as a kid, but knowing all you guys now it’s looking kinda silly.”
Hope looks at Finch giggling like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen. “No, no it’s sweet. Right guys, it’s sweet?”
They all chorus in agreement and Finch tries to wave them off.
“I will take Humans embracing magic in their imaginations rather than fearing and hunting us any day,” Cleo assures her, aiming to pat Finch on the shoulder, missing, and stroking her face instead. She had gotten through one and a half cookies before Jen’s revelation. “In my day, we were lucky to find people who respected us. Europeans were coming in boats with all their big… their big…”
“Bigotry?” Finch offers softly.
Cleo shrugs, gesturing vaguely, and then cracks up laughing.
Lizzie and Hope look at each other in wonder, trying to imagine what living in a world where witches, technically still Humans, were actively hunted. Hope looks soft around the edges to Lizzie, like she might be fading out of existence, so she reaches out to grip tightly onto Hope’s hand.
“So you don’t float away,” Lizzie murmurs, patting the back of Hope’s hand reassuringly.
Hope, the only one who hadn’t given the cookies a nibble nor tried them after finding out what they were, bites her lip to stop herself from laughing at her friend. Aware now that Lizzie’s past it, Hope instead turns to Jen, who’s tolerance is far higher than their friends.
“You were around then too, what was that like?” She nods to the television, where Magnus is staring forlornly out his balcony window. She’s lost track of the story line now but figures that’s not what’s important: what’s important is spending time with her friends like a teenager should. “Back when this kind of thing was so scandalous?”
Jen, curled up like a pretzel in the armchair, scoffs. “It was ass.”
Hope’s eyebrow lifts. “Wow.”
Cleo and Finch burst into giggles, loud like a gaggle of geese, lost in their own little world just the pair of them and Hope is pretty sure the only person paying attention to the show anymore is Jen. Possibly Lizzie, she checks, and sees how the heretic is transfixed by the screen.
“Well you know, the fact that magic users in this show are all children of demons should probably be offensive, actually.” Jen elaborates, frowning at her television. “You guys are Human, through and through, the children of demons thing was a lie made up to alienate you and make non-magic users feel less bad killing you. It was ‘othering’.”
Immediately Hope regrets asking, looking down at her drink. Her fun night with the girls is spiraling.
“But this guy, he got style,” Jen’s eyes narrow as she nods slowly and Hope quickly reassesses her assumption that she and Jen were the sober ones. Clearly Jen’s not as tolerant of weed as she claimed she was. “I can forgive the… is it racism against witches? Witchism? Magicism? Whatever this is, because Magnus is dope.”
She purses her lips when the goddess finally looks her way with a lop sided, clearly high grin on her face.
“He’s dope.”
“He is,” Hope carefully agrees, covering her lips with her fingers to physically stop herself from chuckling.
Jen suddenly gasps, catching the attention of Cleo and Finch, and making Hope jump. “Oh my god, Ben’s like Magnus!”
Cleo and Finch blink at her.
“How?” Lizzie asks, staring at Isabelle Lightwood intently. The only one in the room not looking at Jen.
The goddess nearly knocks over her drink as she gesticulates. “You know! He’s half Human, half summin’ else otherworldly, I mean it’s gods not demons but still that’s all a matter of perspective really: he’s a dude who likes other dudes, his boyfriend came out for him, and he knows magic.”
She wiggles her fingers and the air shimmers gold around them.
Cleo snorts. “Ben doesn’t know magic, he’s learning it.”
“And Magnus is bi, Ben’s gay.” Finch points out, like that’s the biggest gotcha of the whole thing. “And Asian. Ben’s a Cau… oh my god, he literally is a Caucasian.”
She and Cleo shriek with laughter.
“Learning magic still means you know it,” Hope lightly corrects, but it falls on deaf ears. “None of us know magic if we’re being technical, not everything there is to know. I’d say Ben’s doing pretty well in our lessons.”
Jen scoffs and Hope looks away, feeling shamed. She’s not sure why she’s trying to be logical in a scenario that’s clearly in jest. It’s like even now, surrounded by friends who are all off their tits at a sleepover, she still can’t fully relax and just enjoy it. Hope eyes the cookies.
Lizzie turns sharp eyes on Jen, suddenly much more sober than a few minutes ago.
“What was that?”
Jen leans right over the armrest of her chair to peer up at Lizzie through her lashes. “Wass’what?”
“You scoffed,” Lizzie calls her out. “And rolled your eyes. You being mean about Hope?”
The goddess gapes and flails her hand in Hope’s direction, expression pleading. “No! No, no, Hope honey I wasn’t scoffing at you. I was scoffing at my dumbass baby bro.”
Hope feels a little better, but not by much, and swipes a cookie for herself. They’re modified to work on Jen, and they work on Lizzie, so here’s hoping they work on her too.
“Ben? Why? Would have thought you’d be proud of your brother.”
Curled up together, Cleo and Finch go wide eyed as Jen dares to snort derisively. In the corner of Hope’s eye she can see Finch turning red, and Cleo puts a hand on her arm to stop her in her tracks, but Lizzie isn’t so easily swayed.
“You just did it again! What’s your problem?”
Jen holds up her hands in surrender, and there’s a definite condescending tone when she explains herself. “Hey dudes, I’m entitled to my opinion.”
“Which is?” Cleo asks, visibly becoming defensive of her student. Hope is one more rude scoff away from getting involved too.
“That it’s kinda lame that Ben’s learning magic. Sorry, but it is.” Jen admits confidently, taking a long drink from her beer and sitting far too comfortable in her chair for the hellfire about to rain down on her.
For two entirely different reasons, Lizzie and Cleo puff up almost in unison.
“It’s not lame!” They both say, glancing only briefly at each other just before Lizzie lets Cleo continue. “Learning magic at a much older age is admirable, a lot of late bloomer witches find it difficult: because it is difficult.”
Lizzie visibly wants to throw her drink at Jen when the goddess cackles hysterically, and before she can do anything of the sort Hope takes it off her; glad that the heretic simply lets it happen.
“I get witches struggling with magic, sure, sure. But come on, even a demigod can do magic as easy as breathing. I mean it when I say no offence, because really, what the hell is there for Ben to learn? It’s like saying you’re teaching a rabbit to dig.” Jen’s analogy fits, given she’s digging herself a deeper and deeper hole with each word that passes her lips.
See the issue with the gods, and this includes Ben, is that they were prone to bouts of overinflated, pompous egos. It perhaps came with the territory of being a god. For the most part, Jen has lived on Earth long enough to have been humbled far more than other siblings Lizzie has had the displeasure of encountering in only a few months since discovering their existence within the supernatural community, but the perpetual family trait still lives in her and it's always just as ugly as it is now when it shows its teeth.
“It most definitely is not like that,” Cleo argues, and Lizzie gestures to her in thanks. “Jen, I ask that you show witchcraft more respect. Ben does.”
While she’s far more ancient than any of them, Jen behaves like the youngest of them all as she groans and throws her head back.
“Eugh, seriously he just likes you guys because you’re basically his babies. Just because he accidentally created you doesn’t mean he gotta ride this hard for you. Why do I always have to hear him gushing about all this shit you guys taught him lately, huh? Sure your tricks are cool, but we gods, we don’t need any of that. I just don’t get why he’s wasting yours and his time with it.”
Finch’s eyes are wide, darting from Lizzie, to Cleo, to Jen as if tracking the ball at a tennis match. It’s not just Cleo’s hand preventing her from getting involved anymore, it’s her own self-preservation, and Hope is about to tell everyone to take a time out and a breath when, apoplectic, Lizzie explodes at the goddess.
“Shit!? Wasting his time!?”
Cleo, just as angry but not nearly as loud, speaks too “tricks?”
“Can we all just-” Hope tries to say, but her soft, reasoning tone is drowned out by Lizzie’s ire.
“How dare you say that. Magic has been honed by witches for thousands of years, alone without any help or guidance from any of the gods, and it became so intrinsic to us that other types of witches developed over time: psychics… siphoners like me.” Lizzie jabs a finger at Jen, eyes ablaze in a manner that had Hope recognises from their childhood together. It’s been some time since it had been activated like this. “What you do is so far removed from what magic became in our hands.”
Jen blows a raspberry. “No, it ain’t.”
"You don't know the first thing about witchcraft."
"Girl, I was there for it all." Jen snorts. "I got it."
"Prove it." Lizzie snaps back, and smirks when Jen's grin slides off her face.
"What?"
"Prove to me you 'got it' all."
On the floor, Finch lets out a quiet ‘ohhh’ and Hope’s lips twitch despite the tense situation. Cleo elbows Finch, who elbows her back, and the pair are quickly distracted by their childish match, dissolving into giggles again, while Hope keeps a close eye on the heated staring contest going on between the heretic and the goddess.
Jen clears her throat. “Okay.”
Lizzie’s eyebrows lift. “Okay?”
“Sure. I’ll prove it.”
“Guys?” Hope checks, when she’s ignored she takes another large bite out of her cookie and wonders how long it’ll take to work on her. “Are we calm again?”
Lizzie’s razor sharp grin turns on her. “Oh, we’re calm.”
Hope nearly leans away from her.
See, at the time, Hope had left it there, figuring neither of them would remember the encounter once they sobered up. They had all gone back to watching Shadowhunters, poking holes in the lore based on their own realities- Finch had a lot to say about the werewolves, as it turned out, having not seen the show since before she triggered her curse- and eventually moved on to other things. Hope herself had pretty much forgotten the whole thing as the night wore on.
But really, this was Lizzie, and she should have known better by now that her dear friend never forgot things like this. Ever.
And Jen would soon learn what it is to be humbled by Elizabeth Jenna Saltzman.