Hosie Stories

Story 14 - 'Hope is not in love with Josie'

Authors note:
This is set between 1x11 and 1x12, aka the talent show episode and the crush confession episode. It doesn't really matter too much, but some of the events from 1x11 and earlier episodes are mentioned to help establish parts of the story. Also, in this Josie and Hope actually started to become friends after 1x03.

Feelings on their own can be confusing. Knowing how you feel about someone...that is even harder. And Hope Mikaelson is becoming too familiar with this. It started about a week ago, when the school talent show happened and people were infected with the slugs that lowered inhibitions. When Josie got up on that stage, Hope's heart beat a little faster. Her lungs were begging for air and her mind was asking all sorts of questions. The most obvious one being; Am I in love with Josie? Immediately, she had tried brushing it off, noting it down as being proud of her friend.

Fast forward seven days, and that question is all she can think about. It is on a loop, over and over 24/7. She can't escape it, no matter how hard she tries. So she does the next best thing, she avoids Josie, hoping that this will solve whatever is happening in her head. Perhaps she is overthinking it and she's stressing herself for no reason. Or perhaps, she's been deep in these feelings for a while and only recently have they slipped past the surface.

No, Hope is not in love with Josie.

Hope can't be in love with Josie.

But what if I am?

The thought has been keeping her up in the nights, much more than she would like to admit. And to make matters worse, when she manages to drift off into her dreams, they are consumed with brown eyes and a perfect smile. Or they are filled with images of Josie's perfect lips pressed against her own, or them holding hands in the school corridors, or them whispering loving words into each other's ears.

Hope realized within this miserable week of avoiding Josie, that sitting around on her own doing absolutely nothing isn't much help either, because one thing leads to another and she is suddenly thinking of the siphoner once again. It takes the simplest of things for Hope to fall back into this pattern: a yellow mug, running past one of Josie's favorite flowers in her wolf form, or even just the word 'incendia' (that Josie has said plenty of times in her life).

Josie Saltzman is everywhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope eats her breakfast in her room. She'd grabbed a tray of various items from the canteen and ran straight back out. She might've bumped into a few people on the way up, but that is their own fault really. They shouldn't have been in her way. A Hope Mikaelson on a mission is one you don't want to mess with.

Crumbs from her toast fall on her bed, but she's too tired to care. She bites into the golden-colored bread, enjoying the buttery taste before it makes her remember a late night spent in the kitchen drinking tea and eating toast. And the night had been spent with none other than Josie Saltzman.

It had been the day that they defeated the weird spider, Hope had been thirsty after a run and decided to walk to the kitchen. It was late, curfew long gone, so she'd assumed nobody would be up. Apparently she'd wrongfully assumed, and this was obvious the moment she walked in. Her eyes connected with Josie. Suddenly, Hope was feeling rather embarrassed of her post-run appearance. The messy hair was not an attractive look, although thankfully, Josie didn't seem to care.

Hope distinctly remembers watching Josie spread Nutella on her slice of toast, the look of concentration as her tongue would run over lips, wetting them slightly. Hope can remember thinking how adorable Josie looked in her unicorn pajamas and her fluffy pink slippers.