Chapter Text
There aren’t many people that Josie could say she hated . Disliked, maybe, but she’s always made a point of forgiving with time and moving forward. Mind you, no one has ever been as annoyingly present and arrogant as Hope Mikaelson. Her hatred towards the other girl started late into Josie’s junior year of school, when early mornings were spent tossing and turning and being forced to listen to the Hope’s unapologetically loud sex in the bedroom over. While Lizzie had called dibs on the larger of two bedrooms when the twins and their mother moved in, Josie was stuck on the other end of the house with Hope.
Hope, whose bed began creaking at four in the morning on a Monday. Hope, who struggles to wake up early enough for school and shows up for only her afternoon classes. Hope, who stares at Josie with accusation and muted resentment when she stumbles into the house past curfew only to see Josie at the kitchen table completing extra assignments. And yet, with a sleep pattern so unfathomable to Josie, Hope has no problem staying up until four doing much more physically demanding activities than just waking up for school. On a Monday. With the bed squeaking to an unadulterated rhythm. Hope is lucky that the second semester has just started and that the classes were just beginning.
Irritating loud sex at four in the morning aside, Josie feels happy in her new home -- if it can even be called a “home”. Not entirely a mansion and not entirely the quaint home Josie and her sister first grew up in, she still finds herself lost every few days after not paying attention to where she was turning, winding up in the grand library instead of the kitchen. The drive to Salvatore School is short and easy, and the Mystic Café is conveniently on the way as well. One of the only things that has changed for the worst is the stares around school. Students with their brows knitted together in confusion, talking in hushed whispers whenever she and Lizzie walk the halls. And while her blonde twin has always enjoyed the spotlight, walking with her head held high and a pep in her step, Josie struggles to swallow down the anxiety bubbling in the back of her throat telling her she should run.
“ Can you believe they’re Mikaelsons now ?” Josie heard someone say once. “ They aren’t going to last a month with those monsters. ”
Though she and Lizzie have had their fair share of arguments before, it wasn’t anything they couldn’t move past. She may have ended up in the hospital that one time, after Lizzie started to have a meltdown and shattered the glass of a window Josie was standing near, but at least Josie’s never had the displeasure of knowing what her twin sounds like when she comes.
(As infuriating as it is, Josie doubts she’d sound as good as Hope does.)
The thought makes her shudder -- the last thing she wants to do is start letting Hope’s antics get to her in any sort of matter -- so she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Josie rises from her large, new bed and cringes when Hope happily lets her know how amazing her new fucktoy is by moaning out louder than before. And even though everything about Hope makes Josie’s blood boil and her jaw clench, she has to admit that the noises her soon to be step-sister has been whimpering out makes her uncomfortable in a way that isn’t completely unpleasant. Hope isn’t too high-pitched or whiny like her bed partners are. She’s airy and raspy and speaks in a voice lower than her normal one and --
Josie takes another deep breath, this one much more ragged than the last.
Something crashes in Hope’s room, and Josie does a little prayer wishing that this means someone is finally calling it quits for what she can only assume is some much needed sleep, but a loud cry reassures her that both parties are very much awake and not ready to take a break just yet.
As understanding and patient as Josie is, she still feels like all of this is unfair to her. She doesn’t really want to be living in this house, especially with Hope, and she doesn’t want her mom and Klaus only coming home from their trips to who knows where when it’s absolutely necessary, and she doesn’t want to only see her dad at school when he’s playing the role of Headmaster Saltzman. Maybe she could persuade her mother and Klaus to switch rooms with her, as all of the bedrooms on the second floor are similar in space and she’d be closer to Lizzie. It’s not like they use their bedroom with how frequently they’re on trips to help her dad find new recruits or whatever they do in Europe, months at a time.
It’s too early to be getting ready for school, especially with her free period in the morning, so she opts to throwing on a hoodie and grabbing her phone off her bedside table before trudging downstairs to make herself a coffee. She can’t help but cringe inwardly when she passes by Hope’s bedroom to see the door slightly ajar and catches the sight of two bodies tangled together. Josie sighs as she begins brewing her first cup of coffee, making sure to add enough coffee grounds so that when Lizzie, Hope, and Hope’s “friend” eventually make their way downstairs there’s enough for them. While she waits, she scrolls through her phone to find a playlist with suitable music for a soft, quiet morning.
The beginnings of a piano melody plays through the speakers and Josie hums to herself while entering the pantry and grabbing necessary ingredients for pancakes, knowing they’re Lizzie’s favourite. With all this extra time, she figures it’s better to occupy herself with a mindless activity.
It doesn’t take long for the pancake batter -- with semi-sweet chocolate chips, or else Lizzie won’t eat them -- to be ready, and Josie finds herself getting lost in the small routine of scooping the appropriate amount of batter onto the pan and waiting, flipping, waiting, plating. She makes two pancakes before another song fills the space around her, and Josie almost wants to thank Hope for waking her up with her persistent fucking. The little peace she finds in being consumed by the music and the smell of freshly made pancakes is almost worth being jolted awake at four in the morning and being forced to listen to Hope having sex.
She’s putting the large plate of pancakes into the oven to keep them warm and scowling at the fact that she has nearly two hours before Lizzie is up when her step-sister ( almost step sister , she reminds herself) descends the stairs with a tall, handsome guy laughing at something he said. His hair is long and blonde and bitterly, Josie makes a mental note of the fact that Hope had sex with a guy who looks like the prince from Shrek . Josie supposes she can’t be too unhappy since she luckily left her bedroom before she could hear their big finale. Irritation prickles Josie’s skin and she despises how the other girl manages to tick her off so easily.
Josie doesn’t bother with exchanging names and pleasantries and opts to busy herself with the dishes that need to be washed instead. She listens while Hope politely (as politely as she is, which isn’t much) kicks the boy out. She’s carefully washing a knife that was left in the sink from the night before when Hope catches her eye, taking a seat on one of the bar stools in front of the sink. The auburn haired girl’s robe is tied loosely around her waist as though she doesn’t care if Josie can see much if not all of her chest. Her hair is mussed and light blue eyes sparkle mischievously. Josie is torn between envy and annoyance at the fact that the girl sitting across from her is so contently fucked. She makes it look so good, too.
She tears her gaze away when her eyes stray dangerously over the skin unhidden by the robe, covered with red and purple marks that are slowly fading due to Hope’s werewolf healing. Josie blushes a little at the thought of someone claiming the other girl like that and this is ruining what had started to become an okay morning.
Josie had tried to be kind to the other girl when they were younger, and they were almost friends -- well, almost… something . The brunette isn’t naive enough to believe Hope keeps anyone who isn’t family very close, but she also couldn’t help roll her eyes at the irony that now, they were family. It still changed nothing between them.
She turns off the tap and dries off her hands before grabbing another plate from the cabinet and cutlery from the drawer, moving around the kitchen before taking two pancakes from the oven and handing them over to Hope silently. Before Hope can thank her -- not that Josie thinks she ever would -- the brunette is moving back into the pantry to get the other girl a bottle of syrup and placing it on the counter.
“Coffee’s on the stove,” Josie states before finally taking a sip of her own for the first time this morning, and of course it’s cold , because it seems that wherever Hope enters, Josie’s happiness leaves. And she knows it’s irrational to blame the older girl for her cold coffee, but she’s sure that she could find a reasonable excuse for why it makes sense.
The girl in question looks almost grateful before her face hardens and she gives a short nod instead. “Sorry if we woke you up.” Her tone and small smirk tells Josie that she’s anything but sorry.
Josie doesn’t feel bad about blaming Hope for her cold coffee anymore.
“It’s fine,” Josie lies lamely. “Gave me a chance to make pancakes for Lizzie before I have to get ready.”
Hope just mumbles in reaffirmation while chewing. She gets up slowly, not caring that her robe was sliding off her shoulder, and walks towards the pot of coffee to fix herself a cup. Josie choses to stare at her own cup of coffee that she holds in her hand, front leaning against the edge in front of the sink, instead of eyeing the expanse of skin on Hope’s back. Josie swallows hard when she thinks of possible marks the other girl has there, too.
Josie deliberates before she decides to make a dangerous statement. “Penelope’s coming over tonight, so try not to bring home someone too loud.”
“ Penelope ?” Hope questions, almost accusingly.
“Yes.” Josie keeps her eyes glued to her coffee and awaits for the other girl to say something that will no doubt sting.
There’s a long pause while the auburn haired girl takes a large sip from her coffee cup. “Lizzie’s going to kill you.”
“She’s at a party tonight.”
“So you’re going behind her back.”
Josie doesn’t respond right away -- both her and Hope know the answer. If Lizzie knew that Josie’s ex-girlfriend was coming over to “talk”, a fight would surely ensue. Hope takes the silence as an answer and surprises the younger girl by promising, “I won’t say anything to her.”
She turns around and sees Hope already looking at her, and Josie can’t help the faint blush across her cheeks. She goes to leave the other girl with her coffee and stops before the staircase to mutter a soft, “Thank you.”
When she gets out of the shower and is ready for a quick pit stop at Mystic Café before walking to school, the plates are cleaned and placed in the drying rack and the pot of coffee is empty.
Walking over to the little table by the front door, Josie grabs her keys and wallet from the decorative bowl and makes her way out of the house, making sure to lock the door before eagerly walking towards her second coffee of the day.