Work Text:
Hope Mikaelson knew her family was insanely complicated. With their tangled dramas, messy relationships, and endless Gordian knots. But she never had to accept that fact.
She was born knowing it—it was in her DNA, coursing through her veins along with her blood.
So she wasn’t the least bit surprised when, after centuries of existence, her father finally decided to get married [throwing a world-class celebration that lasted for days].
And she merely shrugged when, a few years later, he took a mistress.
A mistress Hope now welcomed at her doorstep, pulling her into a firm embrace, leading her inside, guiding her to a seat right beside her father.
She knew his wife wasn’t pleased - she could see it.
The strained smile. The hellish sparks of jealousy in her eyes.
The bent fork, tossed onto the floor.
She didn’t know the truth, but she suspected something.
She felt it in her gut, but she had no proof.
Those two were good at hiding.
But Hope had a vampire’s hearing, a werewolf’s scent, and a witch’s intuition.
They wouldn’t fool her.
She saw the stolen glances, the loaded looks, the fleeting brushes against a shoulder, the fingers intertwined beneath the table.
She had witnessed her father drop everything at the first call, eliminating any man who dared approach her.
He called it protection, said it was nothing unusual. After all, he had always done this cared for her, shielded her, hid her behind his back.
Hope knew all about the mess that had happened in Mystic Falls—knew even about that werewolf, Tyler Lockwood.
They hadn’t wanted to tell her.
Unlike Aunt Rebekah, who had personally shown her every skeleton in their well-locked closet, pulling them apart bone by bone. A smirk tugged at the corners of her lips when she caught the faintest trace of pine in her father’s scent.
His wife, on the other hand, loathed it—felt sick to her stomach but still forced that dazzling white-toothed smile, blinking her doll-like eyes. Blink-blink. Blink-blink.
Their home was infested with his mistress’s things—clothes, accessories, a denim jacket on the coat rack, a chipped cup on the shelf, even an entire bedroom of her own.
Her aura is everywhere, and flower arrangements cannot interrupt it, and her name is sure to come out of the mouths of every family member several times a day.
F ather's wife is torn by this and throws a glass against the wall-which has a huge family portrait on it, and, oh, my God, there she is, too: an empty glass, because she doesn't want to get it dirty.
Dad's mistress stands by his side more often than his wife, drinking whiskey by the fireplace in the evenings, playing chess in her spare time, going to bars, climbing swamps, and going on witch hunts.
Dad helps her wash the blood off her hands and waits dutifully in the yard to burn the bodies together.
And it seems like Hope shouldn't be happy about this, let alone indulge it.
In any other situation, she would consider this immoral and would be the first to condemn her father.
But there is one big "but" that fuels her ego and makes her inner child squeal with joy, clapping her hands.
After all, her father's mistress is her mother.