Chapter Text
“Don’t you ever get tired of being so angsty all the time?”
Hope whirls around at the sound of the voice to see Penelope Park of all people, standing behind her with her arms crossed.
“What do you want?”
“What are you brooding about today, Tribrid?” Penelope saunters over to sit next to Hope, who instinctively leans away a bit. Penelope just looks at her.
“I’m not brooding,” Hope says. “Why do you even care?”
“I don’t,” Penelope shrugs. “Just trying to make conversation.”
Hope’s eyebrow raises in suspicion. “With me?”
Penelope doesn’t answer. Hope realizes that somewhere in this very short conversation, Penelope has somehow materialized a joint out of thin air. Hope rolls her eyes and goes back to staring aimlessly at the lake in front of them.
“What the fuck,” Penelope begins, “Was the person who first discovered that cows could be milked thinking?”
Hope takes a second to process before bursting into laughter. She looks at Penelope, who for a second looks surprised that Hope was expressing positive emotions around her, before her green eyes sparkle with humor.
“Dude,” Hope says. “Why would you ever think of something like that?”
“What can I say? 1am is the time where all the best thoughts come out.”
Hope doesn’t know what to say to that, so she stays silent. To be honest, she’s kind of uncomfortable at the fact that she’s comfortable, you know? With Penelope Park, especially. Hope suddenly wishes Penelope would go away.
She doesn’t.
Hope doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually a flurry of movement catches her eye and she looks over. Penelope has stretched out, lying on her back with her legs dangling off the dock. Her eyes are closed. Hope takes a second to appreciate her before snapping her gaze away.
It starts to get darker and the temperature starts dropping, and Hope thinks she should go in soon. Penelope seems to have fallen asleep, her breathing steady. Hope debates about waking her up, but there’s something so peaceful about Penelope Park sleeping. She’s less guarded, and her features look softer.
Every few seconds or so, she shivers. Hope’s inner debate grows stronger, and she stomps in frustration before pulling off her hoodie and awkwardly draping it over Penelope. She walks off towards school, firing a text to Penelope as she goes.
Hope, 7:32pm: You better give that back tomorrow, Park.
The next day, Hope goes back to the docks. Penelope and her sweatshirt is gone, replaced by a sticky note fluttering in the breeze, clinging to the dock. Hope picks it up before it flies away. All that’s on it is a doodle of a cow.
She smiles.
Later, she’s lying on her bed, thinking about the previous day. Penelope still hasn’t responded to her text, and for some reason Hope hasn’t seen her all day either. Hope decides that if Penelope doesn’t show up in the next 2 hours, she’d go to Penelope. She really likes that sweatshirt.
Her quiet is interrupted with pounding at the door. Well, that was fast, she thinks, getting up to open the door. Instead of a raven haired, green eyed witch, Hope is faced with both Saltzman twins. Lizzie looks furious, for what Hope doesn’t know, but it makes sense because Lizzie’s always irritated at something. Josie is the one who surprises Hope, because she looks sad, but like, she also has this look in her eye that she gets when she’s about to set something (or someone) on fire.
Hope takes a step back. “Um. Hi?”
Lizzie pushes past her and closes the door and looks dead into Hope’s eyes. Meanwhile, Josie is looking anywhere but her. After a few beats of tension-filled silence, Lizzie speaks calmly. Which scares Hope way more than if Lizzie had yelled.
“Mikaelson. Care to explain why Satan’s wearing your hoodie?”
Hope splutters. “She’s wearing it? Around other people?” Hope kinda just thought Penelope would return it after using it as a blanket, not flaunting around with it on. But no, of course. Because Penelope can’t do anything without causing drama.
“Josie almost set her on fire,” Lizzie complains. “I had to drag her away, although I would love to see the she-devil burn.”
Hope and Josie both glare at her until she puts her hands up in defense, rolling her eyes.
“It wasn’t, like,” Hope tries to explain. “It was… we were at the dock and she fell asleep and you know.” Hope gestures with her hands, willing the twins to understand. They just look at her with blank looks. Hope winces. “It’s just werewolves run hot, and Penelope’s not a werewolf, obviously, but she fell asleep and it was getting cold and I wasn’t thinking so I just. Gave it to her.”
She looks between the twins frantically, hoping they would just leave her alone.
Lizzie looks like she’s buffering, and Josie looks way too calm for Hope to be comfortable.
“So… wait…” Lizzie starts.
Whoever’s at her door saves her. Hope rushes over, for once hoping it’s Alaric with a new monster to fight. But because nothing in Hope’s life can ever go right, Penelope Park stands in the hallway, Hope’s sweatshirt draped over her arms.
“Mikaelson,” she says, raising an eyebrow. Hope tries to block the twins from view, leaning against the door casually.
“Now is not the best time, Park,” she hisses through clenched teeth. She tries (and fails) to shoo Penelope away, which only makes the other witch more curious.
“JoJo?” She asks, peering over Hope’s shoulder, before pushing past her.
Hope groans and follows Penelope back into her room, falling into an armchair and curling into a ball, trying to avoid the situation that’s unfolding.
“Penelope,” Josie replies curtly.
“...What are you doing here?”
“We’re Hope’s best friends. We actually have a reason to be here, unlike you,” Lizzie snaps. Penelope blinks and Hope suppresses a snicker. It’s rare to see the Head Bitch off her game.
“I’m just here to give this back…” Penelope trails off and she looks at Hope, but her eyes dart to Josie every few seconds.
Hope glares at everyone in the room. “Chill out, guys. It’s just a damn sweatshirt.” She snatches it from Penelope, whose mask has fallen back in place. Penelope smirks at her, her hand lingering in a way so Hope’s would brush against it.
“Well, this has been fun,” Penelope drawls, “But unlike you losers, I have places to be.” As she walks out the room, she throws a wink at Josie and blows an obnoxious kiss to Lizzie, who flinches back in disgust as if the witch had actually kissed her.
As soon as Penelope leaves, Hope throws the sweatshirt onto the chair and dramatically collapses onto her bed. Josie and Lizzie exchange glances before tentatively joining her.
Over the past year and a half, Hope has grown surprisingly close to the Saltzman twins. She counts them as one of the only people she can be almost fully open to.
“So. I don’t want to like, invade your personal space or whatever-”
“Yes you do.”
“-But what the hell was that?”
Hope rolls her eyes at Lizzie. “It’s nothing. I don’t even know what happened at the dock. We were just sitting and then she fell asleep. Nothing else.”
“Huh. Seems pretty gay to me.”
This time, Hope lightly whacks her arm. After a few seconds of silence, Hope speaks.
“What was the person who first milked a cow thinking?”
A few hours later, Hope is folding the sweatshirt when something catches her eye. Another sticky note. This one just says “thanks” with a little arrow drawn in the bottom corner. Hope flips the note over and reads “if you count all the numbers out loud, your lips won’t touch until you reach one million.”
She smiles, opens her desk, and carefully sticks the new note to the first once, careful not to rip anything.
She doesn’t quite know what comes over her, but she suddenly finds herself outside Penelope’s room, holding a tub of ice cream. Penelope answers, surprised, and Hope smiles weakly, offering her a spoon.
They end up watching Glee and making fun of everyone, and for a terrifying second, Hope realizes she’s happy. She’s happy around this person who she doesn’t even know, someone who she just started hanging out(?) with less than 48 hours ago.
This startles Hope out of whatever weird trance she’s in. “Um. I just realized… I have to… I told someone I’d meet them. Right now.” She winces at how obvious that sounded.
Penelope just smirks, playing along. “At,” she glances at the clock. “11pm on a Monday? Mikaelson, are you cheating on me?” Hope blushes, hoping Penelope couldn’t tell with only the computer screen as a light. “I’m kidding. Night, Wolfie.”
Hope playfully glares. “Don’t push it, Park.” And before she can second guess herself, she steals Penelope’s sweatshirt that she threw on the floor a few hours ago and dashes.
Hope doesn’t sleep that night. She thinks and she thinks and she thinks about a certain green eyed witch. She ultimately decides that being friendly with Penelope isn’t a bad idea. The people in her life who love her have slowly made it easier to care for people. It didn’t mean she still wasn’t terrified of losing everyone.
Even so, it’s just Penelope Park. Hope wasn’t worried about getting too attached.
She groans as the first few rays of sun stream through her window. She forces herself to get up, because she should probably be productive today instead of overthinking (or, brooding, as Penelope would say) for hours.
Some time later, her phone lights up with a series of texts, and Hope automatically smiles when she sees who it is. Then she catches herself and rolls her eyes. At herself or at Penelope, she doesn’t know. She puts her paintbrush down and unlocks her phone.
Penelope, 9:12am: mikaelson
Penelope, 9:12am: youre a hypocrite
Penelope, 9:12am: do you really want the school to think were fucking
Hope, 9:13am: I mean, they already think something’s up. Plus, karma’s a bitch.
Penelope, 9:13am: come on now wolfie what would the saltzmans say?
Hope, 9:13am: Don’t call me that. And it’s none of their business.
Hope, 9:14am: Look, if you really want it back, I’ll come by later and bring it over.
Penelope, 9:14am: nah its all good just watch out or josie might light u on fire or smth
Penelope, 9:14am: just dont like idk get it dirty or whatever idk
Hope rolls her eyes at Penelope’s shit texting grammar. She’s about to start painting again when a loud boom sounds from outside. Hope sighs in exasperation.
She’s the third one to make it outside, as Alaric and Kaleb are already scouting the woods. Hope is followed by the Saltzmans and MG, who are followed by Jed and Kaleb, and so on and so forth.
“What the hell was that?” she asks, a little irritated about getting bothered.
“I have no idea,” Alaric responds unhelpfully. “A new monster?”
“Well, that much is obvious,” Hope snarks. “Where is it? Let me kill it and get it over with.”
Another boom echoes throughout the campus and Hope is already running towards the noise, leaving most of the others behind.
At the site of the noise, Hope skids to a halt, Josie and Lizzie on her tail. The body of a serpent of some sort is cut in half, the trees around the area blown away. At the center of it all sits Penelope on a tree trunk, looking bored and picking at her nails.
“Penelope,” Hope says, surprised. “What happened?”
“Well, I was chasing this snake thing,” she says, gesturing towards the obvious corpse. “And my first spell missed, hence the trees. But I cut it in half on my second try, so I’d say that’s a win.”
“Are you hurt?” Hope asks, stepping around the large tail of the serpent. Josie and Lizzie stay where they are.
“Aw, worried about me Mikaelson?”
Hope crosses her arms. “No. I’d say that if it were anyone.”
“It’s kinda hard to take you seriously in my sweatshirt.”
Hope whacks Penelope’s arm, but fails to hide a smile. Behind them, the twins exchange glances.
Alaric steps into the scene way too late. “Great job, Hope!” he says, nodding his head in approval. “That was fast.”
“It was Penelope, actually,” Hope says.
“Oh,” Alaric clears his throat awkwardly. “Well then. Good job, Penelope. I’ll take it from here.”
Hope and Penelope walk back to school side by side, with Josie and Lizzie behind them, watching carefully. Once they go in, Lizzie pulls Josie to the side.
“Are you jealous?”
“What? Why would I be jealous?”
Lizzie scans Josie’s face for any sign of sarcasm. When she comes up empty, she sighs. “Hope likes Penelope.”
“...Are you sure about that? Lizzie, they just started talking, like, 2 days ago.”
“You people are so oblivious.”
When Hope gets back to her room after saying goodbye to Penelope, she finds another note on her bed. This time, it’s a simple drawing of a hoodie. Hope briefly wonders how Penelope somehow found the time to deliver a note when she was fighting a monster, like, half an hour ago, but she brushes it off.
Hope Mikaelson and Penelope Park. Who would’ve guessed?