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theprettybeta ([info]theprettybeta) wrote in [info]paradisolog,
@ 2016-04-25 03:34:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:~isaac lahey (theprettybeta), ~lydia martin (eunoia)

WHO: Isaac Lahey & Lydia Martin
WHERE: In the jungle and then Lydia's shelter
WHEN: Backdated to Saturday night, during the bonfire
WHAT: Taking a minute to breathe
WARNINGS: Body image issues, language
STATUS: Complete

Your increasingly long embraces, are they saying “sorry” or “please?” I don’t know what’s happening, help me.




When Derek had told Isaac to take the night off and just concentrate on himself, Isaac had a feeling that he didn’t have this in mind. But it was Isaac’s free day, his first one in a long time, and he had tried to just sit and relax, he truly did. Well, he thought about trying to sit and relax, which was practically just as good, and he couldn’t settle enough with that idea because he felt so useless. There were better things that he could be doing than sitting on his hands, and although the majority of the community was at the bonfire, Isaac had decided that he was going to skip it this time. Last time hadn’t gone as well as he thought it did, sleeping with Jemma was great and all but the fact that he might have been overheard by others made him uncomfortable, and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to control his temper if he ended up seeing her in person again. Every time he went to one of these bonfires, he barely managed to accomplish anything. So, he was skipping it.

And he doubted that he was the only that was skipping it. He knew that Lydia had been feeling unattractive, and he knew that it would probably last for a while. She could go one of two ways, either get more and more discouraged the bigger she got, or she would bounce back and embrace her size, going down the ‘sexy mom’ route which, honestly, Isaac wouldn’t have been surprised by at all. All that mattered was right now, though, and right now she was miserable. There was no way that she was going to purposefully put herself in the public eye.

So he left her old shelter, the one she had offered him, and walked to her new one, staying outside the doorway as he called in. “Lydia, it’s me. Can I come in?”

It seemed like it was pretty much a given that there was going to be another bonfire and while Lydia had mostly enjoyed the first two, she was not in the mood for one tonight. The last one had left her emotionally raw as it was, between Gale’s story and telling her own; everyone had been laying themselves out for one another and on the one hand, that was really refreshing and it felt safer to be herself. ...but on the other, she didn’t think she could do it again tonight.

Every passing day, she felt like she was getting bigger in the middle. She was more tired, more lethargic, more angry about important and stupid things alike. Lydia hated what this pregnancy was doing to her and she’d questioned more than once why she’d done it in the first place. Lydia thought that being first meant she would be the best, but no one cared about the fact that she was pioneering Arva’s children. Everyone was too busy worrying over Malia because she was more vocal, or clamoring to get laid, or working on the medical facility — which, she of course appreciated and wished she could help with, but in all honesty, she’d prepared herself to go it out in the rough without anything fancy when she’d decided to become pregnant in the first place — or else she imagined that the rest of the camp decided that she was a raging bitch. If they felt that way, then they felt that way. Lydia couldn’t change the way that her hormones were fluctuating and upsetting her normal personality, nor could she change the way she felt about things when she saw them. If everyone hated her, fine. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone.

Which, in her opinion, she’d already proved, since she’d chosen the one person she thought she could completely depend on to give her both physical and emotional support and he had done exactly neither. Lydia didn’t think it counted as support if every attempt started with a question. She didn’t know what she needed. She barely even knew what she wanted, and being incessantly asked those two things was becoming more stressful than she suspected being ignored all together would probably be. She felt stupid for choosing Stiles, now. He was pandering to her point of keeping their relationship clinical to the point of frustration and Lydia was more sure now than ever that this decision and this endeavor was going to fracture their bond irreparably...and that scared her.

So Lydia didn’t want to be around people tonight. Instead, she’d opted to stay in the shelter, working on her poor man’s maternity dress just to keep herself busy, sitting cross-legged on the bed that always felt equal parts shared and empty, and she tried to ignore the sounds of mirth outside. Lydia felt disgusting on all fronts. She’d manipulated Stiles based on the affection she thought he still had for her and that was bad enough, but in addition to find that he wasn’t even showing it to her; she felt like the world’s biggest idiot. She wasn’t presenting what she felt was her true self to the rest of the camp because she didn’t feel like she was her true self anymore; just a bloated, naked-faced and disheveled shell of herself. An incubator. And an unattractive, sickly one at that.

She looked up from her stitching at the sound of Isaac’s voice, shifting the fabric in her lap to cover the bump that was still small but now impossible to hide. “Yeah, sure,” she called back. “I’m just sewing.” Poorly. Sloppily. Badly. She was good at exactly nothing in this place. She couldn’t even be pregnant properly.

Isaac really should have prepared himself, but he wasn’t a smart man. Lydia had been walking around the camp in his shirt for days now, something that he couldn’t help but noticing, and for some reason that caught his eye so completely that he had admittedly tripped once or twice. He didn’t know why he stared. He didn’t know why he liked it, it was stupid, it was a shirt, but for some reason it looked so damn good on her and Isaac thought about it a lot more than he probably - no, a lot more than he definitely should have. So, he should have expected to see her in it. But he hadn’t thought that far ahead. When he moved he immediately caught sight of her, cross legged on the bed in his shirt, hair slightly disheveled, face clean of makeup and big eyes looking directly at him. So, naturally, he didn’t look at anything else.

Isaac was 6’2. Doorways weren’t made for people who were 6’2, and ever since he hit puberty he had gotten used to having to duck his head just slightly whenever he entered or exited a room. Unless, apparently, Lydia Martin was in that room, somehow looking pretty damn amazing despite doing nothing special to make that the case, and when Lydia Martin was in the room Isaac Lahey didn’t duck. And when Isaac Lahey didn’t duck, he hit the top of his head on the doorway. Hard.

“Oh fuck me,” he snapped with a wince as his hand immediately moved to his head, his other one stretching out at the same time to gesture for Lydia to stay where she was to prevent her from moving towards him and embarrassing him further. “No, its fine, I’m fine, I’m good, don’t move - fuck what is that made out of, concrete?” His eyes moved to the top frame of the doorway with distrust as he dramatically ducked under it, sinking much lower than necessary before coming up on the other side and letting his eyes move back to her. The dull throb of pain was already starting to fade and had gone ignored when he saw her again. “Hey there, Marilyn.” He teased with a small smile, his gaze flickering down to her legs before he silently scolded himself and instead looked at the dress that she held in her hands. He approached the bed and sat beside her, gently taking it from her hold before unfurling it so he could see what she was trying to do. “You have to turn it inside out,” he instructed dismissively, doing so for her and swiftly and re-threading her needle. “If you want to let out the seams you should work with it inside out so you don’t see the stitching, that’s why you’re having trouble.” He glanced over at her with a sheepish shrug. “I never really got a lot of new clothes, so I would just fix my old ones. ...Or hem in Camden’s until I ended up getting taller than him.”

Isaac had been working all day but he hadn’t looked it beyond the scrapes on his one shoulder, left there by hefting large wooden beams shirtless to organize all of their supplies. It would fade soon enough, but he had managed to take as long of a bath as he wanted in the pond thanks to Derek and he felt refreshed. Still tired, due to his lack of sleep, but refreshed, which was something he hadn’t been able to say in quite some time. “I’ll show you later,” he decided aloud as he placed her dress aside carefully, eyes shifting to the way she looked in that goddamn shirt before quickly pulling them back to her face. “Come on.” He held his hand out for her. “I want to bring you somewhere. It’s not the bonfire. I promise.”

As Isaac made his way inside, he slammed his head on the top of the entrance way and Lydia gasped, immediately shifting as if to get up to make sure that he was all right, eyes wide, because it sounded like it hurt. But he staved her off with his words and a gesture and while she wasn't sure she believed that he hadn't hurt himself, but when he looked up at the doorway like it had intentionally come down on him or something, her lips pressed together in an attempt to keep from laughing because that look...she couldn't help it.

Her cheeks warmed at the moniker and Lydia rolled her eyes playfully in spite of the little smile that she couldn't hide at the new nickname. "Hi Isaac," she greeted in a playfully patronizing tone. The smile faded a little when he sat beside her and took the dress from her hands, effectively drawing it away from the intentional way she'd had it covering the baby bump she was so self-conscious about. Maybe she'd feel better about it when it was bigger and more obviously a baby, but right now it just looked like she'd had a few too many bacon cheeseburgers or something. She shifted a little on the bed, tugging the front of Isaac's shirt so that it was taut against her back and hung loosely in the front. Not a perfect way to hide it but not entirely ineffective either.

Her eyes moved to his hands as he re-threaded the needle and she looked up again when he went on advising her. "Well...if I was working on the seams right now..." she said quietly, a little smirk on her face. "But I'm trying to get the little...belt loops in place. I started yesterday but I hadn't finished by the time I lost the light. That guy Mikhel was trying to show me; I'm trying to make it an empire waist. He said it'll give me room for the bump to grow," she said which translated meant: for now, it'll hide it entirely, so I want to finish this goddamned dress.

Isaac set down the dress again and held a hand out to her and Lydia's first response was to look back at him reproachfully. Even though he promised he wasn't planning on taking her to the bonfire, Lydia didn't want to go out at all. In spite of the trepidation in her tone, she took his hand. "...where?" she asked, "and why...?"

“Oh, I’m sorry, an empire waist,” Isaac repeated the phrase with the same dramatism that he had used when ducking beneath the doorway, his hands moving up in defense as he enunciated the words with a purposefully pretentious tone. He found himself smiling a little, though, and reaching out to carefully grab the seam of the shoulder in his - her - shirt and move it to it’s proper place after she had given it such a tug. God, it looked good on her. He scolded himself for even thinking about it again. “You’re going to look amazing in whatever you put on. I think you’ve already made that very clear.”

Instead of responding to her questions Isaac stood, pulling her gently by the hand to her feet and starting to lead her out of her hut. As promised he led her away from the bonfire, instead heading into the jungle down a barely made pathway that led to a pool of still water. A lot of people had been using it to bathe in or check their reflection because of the remarkably still surface, and Isaac had a feeling that one of the higher being had something to do with that. His hand automatically moved up to his hair when he saw himself, messing it up more in the effort to make it lie flatter, because it was still curling despite the fact that he had Ruby cut it for him. Lydia wanted the curls, as did Malia, according to her. So he kept the damn curls.

“Alright. You’re going to be really pissed off at me,” he began with a warning, his voice oddly chipper about that as he led her closer until she could see her reflection in the pool as well. Isaac moved aside and stepped behind her, looking over her shoulder into the serene surface, and he placed his hands on her shoulders. “But just be patient with me. Just… I want you to tell me what you see. And don’t say you and some idiot,” he added warningly before she could start. “I mean, seriously. What do you see when you look at yourself right now?”

Lydia rolled her eyes and gave him a playfully annoyed expression at the dramatics in his tone when he repeated back what she’d said. “No, I think nobody could make this thing look good, I should just give it to Mikhel and let him do it,” she sighed, except that she wanted to be able to say she actually accomplished something in this stupid place, for once. Even if it looked like a lump of misshapen fabric wrapped around her — the first image that sprang to mind was Ariel’s dress made out of ropes and a sail when she’d first come out of the ocean with legs in the Little Mermaid — at least she could say she’d done it all by herself. That was what she wanted.

Isaac dragged her to her feet and Lydia paused to carefully put the pin into the dress in such a way that no one — Stiles — would stick themselves with it, but also so that she wouldn’t lose it in the fabric, and then she let him drag her out of the shelter and into the jungle, relieved when he held true to his word and didn’t take her to the bonfire.

The pool of water was almost impossibly still and she winced a little seeing her reflection in it before she looked up at Isaac when he spoke. Her eyebrows lifted at his preface and she frowned when he forced her perspective by moving her closer to the pool and standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

What did she see? Lydia stared begrudgingly back at her reflection. “I see…” she started and then sighed, frowning. “Failure. I see that I need a brush and I’m aching for eyeliner and mascara.” She paused. If he wanted honest, he was going to get it. “A huge stomach. Boobs that make me look top heavy under the shirt and it looks like I have no shape at all, like I’m a freaking blob,” she complained. She couldn’t see her ankles in the reflection but she assumed they were nearing ‘cankle’ territory by now. “This is stupid, Isaac,” she moaned, trying to step back from the pool, frowning.

“Nuh - uh uh uh, come on, come on,” Isaac’s hands tightened a little on her shoulders when she tried to step back from the pool so he could move her back into place, a slight smile on his face as he stared at her through her reflection in the water. “Just give me a chance here, alright? I’m not trying to make you feel awful about yourself for no reason.” He said it with promise and a little bit of a plead for her patience, and when she didn’t immediately try to move away again he relaxed a little and looked back at her in her reflection with a once over.

It killed Isaac to see Lydia putting herself down in such a way. He had always seen beauty in her, and although he had never gotten along with Stiles back home he was one of the few people who understood how the boy could have spent so long chasing after someone he didn’t really know, just based off of her appearance. If anybody had an appearance to justify a reaction like that, it was Lydia. Isaac had been attracted to her since the day he laid his eyes on her, it was why he asked her out on a date in their freshman year. She laughed at him, of course, but the point still stood; Lydia Martin was a beautiful woman. And Isaac wanted to help her see that. Not just because he thought that she was being obtuse, he knew that she wasn’t purposefully viewing herself in such a negative way, but because he knew that Lydia was a vain person. And perhaps that wasn’t the best quality to have, but they all had bad qualities. If Lydia’s worst one was that she cared too much about how she looked, then she was doing pretty damn well. She was invested in the way the world saw her, and it meant more to her than she let on, Isaac knew that. That was why this was important. That was what he was here.

“Alright, so, now it’s my turn,” he started with a slow hesitance, because although he had thought about this, and hoped that it would work, it would have been so easy for Lydia to take it the wrong way. Or, perhaps, take it the right way, and still be offended or disturbed. That wasn’t Isaac’s goal, but it was a risk he was very aware he was taking. It was either that or leave her thinking she looked awful and unattractive though, and, because he cared about her, Isaac rather Lydia get the wrong idea about him than get the wrong idea about herself. His hand moved off of her shoulder so he could take her hair, pulling it across her back to hang over one side, and he reached around her to pull a stray strand that he always noticed so it would fall to frame her face just right.

“So, I see… that your hair has this wave to it. This natural curl, here, see? This one,” he lifted her hair for a moment before letting it fall back to her shoulder. “And when you let it fall it kind of frames your face in this… messy, just left the bedroom look. Kind of like when you roll over in the morning and you see her, right? And she just looks perfect before she showers and straightens and curls and everything, you’re carrying that around. That roll over in bed and there she is look. Where yeah, it’s messy, but somehow it’s the best you’ve ever seen her? And,” he pressed on, his hand returning to her shoulder so he could keep her in place, “your eyes aren’t brown.”

His head turned to look at her directly with hesitance, waiting for her to make him stop, and when she didn’t he let himself look back into the water. “They looked it because I mean… the makeup was dark. And don’t get me wrong, the makeup looked good but now when you look at you, your lashes are lighter and your eyes… they’re hazel, aren’t they?” He sounded almost surprised, because when he had first realized that, he was. “There’s green in them. Not a lot but just enough so when the light hits you it’s like they change color, and your skin is fairer now without… whatever it is you put on it.” He knew makeup existed. He had no idea what foundation or concealer or any of that was, he wasn’t a mastermind. “It’s lighter but it makes your cheeks look pinker because of your hair… like,” instead of explaining with words his hand moved, and he tousled her hair a little to make it fall closer to her face. “See? And your mouth-” he stopped there. Because, honestly, Isaac had nothing appropriate to say about her mouth and it showed on his face with the slight blush that came to it. So he cleared his throat and moved on.

“And,” he took the middle of the shirt she was wearing from behind and pulled it a little tighter, showing off the curves of her body including the little pooch she was forming at the stomach. “Look.” He tied the bottom of the shirt in a loose knot to make it stay that way before he took her arms and lifted them over her head, and Isaac let his chin rest on her shoulder as he ran his hands down her body, hovering maybe half an inch away from actually touching her and making it obvious just how much her waist was curving in from her swollen breasts to the exaggerated slope out at her hips. It was an obvious figure, one that Isaac knew Lydia hadn’t had before because… well, he noticed. Not because he was looking. He was so busy not looking that he noticed. “Look at that, Lydia. Like, holy shit,” it slipped out before he could really stop himself, and he let her put her arms down before before untying the knot in her shirt and letting it hang loosely again.

Isaac toyed with it, making it fall a certain way with a tilt of his head, and he gave a little sigh mostly to himself before his hands moved to her shoulders again. “So. I see, this… tousle-haired, flushed cheeked pouty...lipped… woman, who’s hiding these curves, who’s got a killer rack, by the way,” he said the last part scoldingly, as if personally insulted that she could even suggest her breasts could do anything but make her look amazing, “with these hips that you just want to grab onto. Walking around in a mans t-shirt and showing off just enough for you to be able to tell how nice her legs are shaped. Lydia, you look like a goddess. You look like you just walked out of some… nineties PG-13 movie that leaves a bunch of guys walking out wondering who the hell was she? And I see it every day. And you try to hide it.” He frowned a little at her, his hand moving in her hair to make it fall different ways as if showing her how good she looked no matter how she let it rest. “You’re gorgeous. Every time I look at you all I see is just this… this woman who I honestly didn’t think could get any more attractive than she already was but you are. And not in a way where you’ve surpassed your past self or - or whatever, just… different. It’s such a different type of sexy. But god, Lydia, it suits you. I just wish you could see that.”

Isaac held her in place and moved her forward again, eliciting an indignant sigh through her nostrils and a deepening crease in her brow. She felt bad enough without looking. Looking only made it worse. Up until this point the lack of a mirror had been her only saving grace. Isaac took that away. The tone in his voice begged for patience and hers was already wearing thin, so scowling, she stood still to figure out what the goddamned point actually was if not just to show her what she already knew without seeing — she was a mess.

His turn, he said, and Lydia stiffened reflexively. She knew that he wasn't going to say anything bad about her, not when he knew she already felt shitty enough, but the response was automatic and still somehow foreign. Lydia wasn't used to not liking the way she looked. Even after the humiliation of being the Naked Girl in the Woods, she'd held her head high. Even after being strangled by the Darach, she'd worn the bruise around her neck from the garrote with the pride of a survivor rather than the shame of a victim. She'd been so sure that the "glow" of pregnancy would suit her, but she hadn't taken into account the bloated sensation she would perpetually feel which, instead of making her feel pride for the bump in her middle, made her resent it.

Isaac started to fuss with her hair and she watched with a mixture of frustration and curiosity. The more he talked, the softer her frown became. It didn't fade away, but it melted into something less harsh. Isaac's reflection turned its head and Lydia looked over her shoulder and up at him reflexively with a hint of question before looking back at the water when he did. Of course her eyes weren't brown, they never had been.

She blinked a little at the idea that she'd been inadvertently hiding the hue of her eyes with the makeup she wore; that hadn't ever occurred to her. "Bronzer," she supplied when Isaac faltered on the terminology. Her eyes moved over the reflection of her face and she tried not to take note of the fact that she thought it looked puffy. Lydia lifted her eyebrows when he started to say something about her mouth only to stop and change tack.

Only that change in tactic had him pulling the fabric of the shirt taut against her and Lydia's brow creased with discomfort. "Isaac, don't," she complained, frowning heavily again, shifting her weight awkwardly as he raised her arms and she felt his chin resting on her shoulder. Because he'd told her to, and not because she wanted to, Lydia looked back at her reflection as his hands traced the shape of an hour glass just shy of touching her body. Her expression softened again. Still not a smile, but no longer a scowl.

Isaac let her arms fall back to her sides and he untied the knot that had drawn the fabric in against her body, causing it to hang loose again only for him to fuss with it for a moment before letting go. Lydia took a deep breath and her eyes shifted up from her reflection to his. The comment about her "rack" surprised a little laugh out of her and she rolled her eyes, but the smile that was residual from the laugh, while weak, was still there.

It occurred to her that this conversation was the sort of thing she'd envisioned having with Stiles and she wondered why Isaac saw all of that when Stiles didn't. She would've thought Stiles being attracted to her and reminding her that she was beautiful in spite of her insecurities was a given...instead she'd gotten a generic "you're still beautiful" out of him and the follow up question when she said she didn't feel it of, "what can I do to make you feel beautiful?" If she'd known the answer to that, then the question wouldn't have had to have been asked. The funny thing about it was that by asking it, Lydia assumed that he genuinely didn't think that she was and he felt obligated to say it, so he was seeking answers how to expand on something he didn't actually believe. She'd been feeling especially down since that comment in spite of the fact that she was sure Stiles had meant well when he'd asked it. He always meant well, but he never seemed to deliver.

"Do you really think that?" she asked, looking back at Isaac's reflection with uncertainty in her eyes. In the back of her mind, she wondered if he'd rehearsed this whole monologue for Malia and had simply given it to Lydia because she was the one who actually gave a shit what she looked like. That thought made her stomach twist in jealous knots and her heart sank. She wished she didn't care how she looked; she wished that this conversation didn't actually need to happen at all. "That's what you really see?" she asked and finally turned her head to try to look over her shoulder and up at him again.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:35 am UTC (link)
Once Isaac had finished he was practically holding his breath, because this could have gone one of two very different ways. Either Lydia could have understood where he was coming from and maybe even see some of the points he was making (he didn’t expect her to see all of them, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t at least try), or she would tell him that he was objectifying her and it wasn’t all about how she looked. And, of course, Isaac knew that, but he was banking on the fact that, to Lydia, a lot of it was about how she looked, and that made it important. He didn’t want to come off as creepy, but he had a feeling that Lydia needed to hear it. He moved back a little when she shifted just enough to look up at him, and he straightened his back so he could look down at her, his hand moving to brush her hair behind her ear, and he gave her a hesitant smile, still not positive that he wasn’t in trouble.

“That’s what I really see,” he promised her. A moment of silence stretched between them. “It’s hard to keep my eyes off of you,” he finally admitted, looking almost ashamed. “You look amazing, Lydia. And that’s not even everything, that’s just everything that I can start with. That’s what I see. And I wish that you saw it too, I know that you can’t just turn it on and off like that but just know that, you know. You’re still gorgeous when everybody else looks at you. You might not feel it, and that’s understandable, but from what everybody else is seeing versus what you’re feeling… it doesn’t match up.” He felt heat rise to his face again as he moved his hand to the back of his neck in an awkward rub. “I mean jesus, I hit my head just walking into your place because I saw you sitting on the bed like that with your legs cross and I kind of just… forgot about doorways…”

When he finished, Lydia gave a humorless little huff in place of a laugh that she didn’t quite feel, but that felt appropriate in its place. The smile that dragged up the corners of her mouth didn’t reach her eyes, but there was a little hint, at least, of amusement there at his comment about the doorway. She chose the partner that she was sure was a safe bet...and had handed the actual best partner to Malia on a silver platter. God, she was an idiot.

“Stiles doesn’t see it,” she finally said after a long pause, shrugging her shoulders. She let out another one of those soft huffs that should’ve been a laugh except that her feelings were too hurt to round it out. “I thought he’d be a sure bet, but…” her voice trailed off and she shrugged again before taking a deep breath and sighing out, “I was wrong.” She lifted a hand to run through her hair, pushing it out of her face and back over her shoulders as they slumped with defeat. It wasn’t so much that she wanted Stiles to see it as she wanted her partner in this endeavor to feel it. Whether that was Stiles or someone else didn’t really matter. She just...thought Stiles was a safe bet and she’d put her money on the wrong horse.

When Lydia told him that Stiles hadn’t seen it Isaac looked at her with confusion for a moment before he finally realized what she meant. Well, what she must have meant, because Isaac knew for a fact that there was no way Stiles didn’t see how amazing Lydia looked. It sounded, though, as if he hadn’t said it aloud, and that caught Isaac by surprised, because it was the first time he was hearing of any issues there between her and the person that she picked to have her baby with. People didn’t really understand why she picked Stiles, or at least Scott had said it was strange for her to do so when she was apparently ‘out to get him’ by telling Malia that the concept of Alpha didn’t matter here. Isaac, however, never questioned her decision, because it made sense; he was smart. And he liked her, everybody knew that Stiles had liked Lydia, so she probably assumed that he would be more than happy to dote on her and show her the affection she knew she would have needed.

(Reply to this)


[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:38 am UTC (link)

But apparently he wasn’t. And now it suddenly made sense why Lydia was so depressed. It made sense why she was miserable and felt like she looked awful, because although Isaac knew he was reassuring her, he didn’t know he was the only one doing it. “He totally sees it,” Isaac said firmly, and there was no doubt in his mind that that was true. Stiles saw it. Isaac knew Stiles saw it, the guy wasn’t blind and he already had an attachment to Lydia in the past. “...I don’t know why he’s not saying it. But he sees it, Lydia. He’s not fucking blind, everybody can see it. Hey.” His brow pinched a little in frustration and when she looked so defeated he took her chin in his hand and lifted it a little to meet his eyes. He stared at her with a directness that was hard for Isaac to do, because he had gone so long purposefully avoiding eye contact. “Right now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, alright? He’s not here right now, and later you can worry about what he does or doesn’t see - I know if I asked him what he thought he would tell me that you looked amazing but that’s beside the point - right now all that matters is that I’m telling you, you look great, Lydia. I’m telling you that you look beautiful, and sexy and cute and just-” His eyes moved down to that fucking shirt and he hated himself for even looking, but it was the second time he trailed off and decided it was best if he didn’t say his thoughts aloud. “Everything. You encompass everything that’s just so… attractive, I don’t even know how to say it.” Without using the word ‘fuckable’ and honestly, Isaac wasn’t trying to get hit.

He let his hand fall away from her chin so he could take her hand, shyly brushing her fingertips with his own before twining them. “I’m telling you that. And you know I would never lie to you, Lydia. Even to make you feel better, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Lydia shook her head. “No Isaac, he doesn’t,” she said firmly, a frown in place. “It’s not that he’s not saying it, it’s that he’s literally asking me what I want him to say. If he saw it...he wouldn’t need to ask. He doesn’t see it, he wants to say the right thing, so he asks. Which, you know, honestly just makes it even worse than if he just didn’t say anything at all,” she concluded, depressingly sure of her answer’s accuracy.

It surprised her a little to have Isaac lift her chin, but she let him, looking both confused and engaged as she looked back at him. He trailed off again and Lydia didn’t miss it this time, either. She wasn’t sure if he’d lost his train of thought this time or had cut it off like last time, but either way it left her hanging.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:39 am UTC (link)
Her eyes shifted subconsciously back and forth between Isaac’s eyes and his mouth a few times before settling on his eyes. He promised that he meant it and she actually believed him. She didn’t see it, but she believed that he did. Finally, a genuine smile came. “Thanks, Isaac,” she said, her voice cracking a little at the lump she felt in the back of her throat because Jesus fucking Christ, literally everything made her cry these days; it was the most obnoxious thing.

Isaac wanted to argue with her, but he bit his tongue. She had obviously convinced herself that Stiles wasn’t attracted to her and that, to Isaac, was absolutely ridiculous, because how couldn’t he be? But there was an obvious underlying issue there that Isaac knew he shouldn’t touch upon, both because whatever Stiles was or wasn’t doing, it was effecting Lydia, and also because he didn’t want to make anything worse for either of them by being on the outside. He made a mental note of speaking to Stiles if the moment felt right, because if he really wasn’t telling Lydia how amazing she was without asking for guidance first, someone was going to have to tell him that that was the wrong way to go. And he knew Lydia didn’t want to be that someone.

When he saw her smile Isaac smiled as well, and he couldn’t help but huff an endeared laugh when he heard her voice crack. That, at least, was something that he was getting used to, the crying. Lydia and Malia cried about everything now and he was quickly learning that overreacting and asking her what was wrong wasn’t only unnecessary, but it made things worse. So instead, he stretched his arms out and said “you’re welcome, Lydia”, his own voice cracking in a little tease as he moved forward to hug her. An acknowledgement that, yes, he could tell that she was emotional. And yes, he knew that she hated the fact that she couldn’t control it, and that it was okay that it was happening. He squeezed her tightly, kissing the top of her head before sighing loudly and moving back to take her hand and start leading her out of the jungle. “Alright, come on. If that’s really the case and I’ve been the only one telling you how hot you are right now, then we’ve got to sit down and I have to make up for a lot of lost compliments. Let’s go somewhere. Anywhere you want, Derek is with Malia tonight and I think that this is my first night were I don’t have to run away anywhere… I want to make it count.”

Lydia let herself be enveloped in Isaac’s arms for that hug and she closed her eyes, huffing an annoyed laugh at herself as she reached up around his shoulder to wipe her eyes with one hand. “So stupid,” she muttered, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. The unnecessary emotion, not the hug.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:39 am UTC (link)
She found herself taken pleasantly aback by his admission, whether he had meant to make it or not. Derek was staying with Malia. Isaac had a night off. Rather than getting to know new people at the bonfire or sleeping for an entire day in peace...he was here with her. “Dere’s with Malia and it’s your first night where you don’t have anywhere to run...so you want to spend it with the other pregnant girl?” she asked with a playful sort of incredulity. “Like, really, you hit your head pretty freaking hard on that doorway, honey...you sure we shouldn’t just take you to see one of the doctors and make sure you didn’t rattle anything important up there?” she joked, reaching up to tousle his curls. Which he’d cut. Yes, she’d noticed.

Lydia managed to bring a grin to Isaac’s face and he playfully pulled his head away from her when she teased his hair, the hand that was holding hers swinging back and forth a little as he guided her out of the jungle and onto the beach in the general direction of the camp. “Yeah, I get a day off and I spend it with the other pregnant girl,” he repeated with a roll of his eyes, glancing at Lydia for a second before shrugging and looking up at the sky. “In my defense, though, the other pregnant girl, she’s pretty hot. Have you seen her lately? Damn.” Before she could comment he held up a finger. “One. That was only one, I got one in there. I’m telling you Lydia, you’re going to be suffering through these all night, just watch.” He laughed a little, and his eyes were lingering on her for a moment before he brought them back to the ground before him. It was true, he knew. He must have been crazy to want to spend his free time with Lydia after spending so much time checking in on her, but there was something about her that he drawn to, and that was a part of the reason that Isaac didn’t let him think about. He didn’t want to linger on the fact that he meant every word when he told Lydia she looked amazing. He didn’t want to hash through why he was so attracted to her when she wore nothing but his t-shirt when she walked around. He just wanted to be near her. Thinking about that too deeply could undoubtedly lead to problems.

“I like being around you,” he admitted aloud, giving her an actual reason. “I can talk to you. And you understand it, I don’t have to… I don’t know. I can talk to you.” And that was a much bigger deal to Isaac then he let on. Lydia understood the pain of losing Allison, in his opinion, just as much as he did if not more. Isaac and Chris didn’t talk about Allison. He hadn’t said her name for two years until he showed up in this place. Lydia was the first person. She was the only person, and that was just one minor aspect. It didn’t take her brilliance into consideration, or the fact that she wasn’t afraid to put him in his place. She was grateful, and tender.

And those goddamn legs.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:40 am UTC (link)
“So, yes. I want to spend my day off with the other pregnant lady. Does she have a problem with that? Am I going to be sent away?”

Huffing what should’ve been a laugh but had lost its sound behind the lump that was still working its way out of her throat, Lydia shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she teased back when he laid it on thick with the compliments again. Even if he meant them, reiterating them so, she worried, was going to detract from their meaning and those words had meant a lot to her in the absence of the same sentiments from quite literally anyone else in the camp. ...well, that detailed, anyway. Malia, even, had told Lydia that she thought that Lydia was beautiful, unprompted and starkly honest the way that Malia just was when she said things. But so far, Isaac and Malia were alone in it since she’d started to show. ...hell, since she’d made it known to the rest of the camp that she was pregnant at all.

She realized belatedly that she and Isaac were still sort of holding hands and she couldn’t decide if that made her nervous or relaxed her. In the end, she settled on a little bit of both, if for no other reason than his touch was casual and comforting...but it stirred something that felt a little bit forbidden. Therefore, she chose not to acknowledge it.

It wasn’t lost on her what he was trying to say without coming out and saying it. Malia was...abrasive. And she was hogging a lot of Isaac’s time, if not almost all of it, with her pregnancy. Lydia felt a little bit guilty about that since she’d been the one to suggest him to Malia in the first place. She should’ve taken him for herself, instead. Clearly. What Isaac was trying to say, Lydia thought, was that he could just talk to her and she understood, because she’d felt that loss, too. He didn’t have to explain what happened as a preface. He didn’t have to relive the nightmare to someone who didn’t get it and never could. It wasn’t Malia’s fault and there was nothing she could do to change it, but she would never understand like Lydia did, because Lydia felt that exact same loss, quite literally, the night that Allison died.

Everyone seemed to have moved on smoothly. Hell, Scott was here straight after Allison’s death, from the sounds of it; it was a wonder her blood wasn’t still on his hands. Everyone else seemed to be getting along just fine both here and the ones she knew at home. The only one she hadn’t known about was Isaac, because he’d gone and now she knew that he handled it about as well as she did, which was to say not well at all.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:41 am UTC (link)
But Lydia felt that connection, too, that she could talk to him. Everything felt like a walk on eggshells in this place. If she was too quiet, people wanted to know what was wrong. If she spoke up, they thought she was a bitch. There was no winning there, but with Isaac, he took the good with the bad and he rolled smoothly from one extreme to the other. She couldn’t help noticing the conversations that he had with Malia in public because she found herself jealous of his attentiveness to the other girl. ...but she also couldn’t help noticing a distinct and glaring lack of gratitude for all of his efforts. Meanwhile, Lydia craved even an ounce of affection from Stiles who seemed completely unwilling or unable to give it unprompted by her. So when Isaac brought her combs and coconut oil, she thanked him. He might not be moving a mattress through the camp in the pouring rain while trying not to snap at the fact that the only response was not “thank you” but “where will I bring other men to fuck” for her, but the little things meant a lot to Lydia, too. A lot more, probably, than he realized given the complete absence of them from Stiles with the exception of the teacup. In retrospect, she wondered if that thing had been Isaac’s idea and handiwork, instead. She couldn’t decide whether she felt defeated or endeared by that idea.

“No, she won’t turn you away,” she said in a long-suffering sigh that didn’t match the little smirk tugging at her lips. “...sometimes she likes to have someone to talk to who gets it, too. ...and who won’t call her a bitch for opening her mouth and daring to have an opinion.”

Isaac’s smile faded at her last comment and his hand tightened around hers for a second before slowly relaxing once more. He had a hard time talking about that. He had a hard time thinking about it, because every time he did it made Isaac mad. He wasn’t trying to stay out of the fray for the sake of not picking sides, he was doing it because he didn’t want to get into a physical altercation with somebody. The idea of Scott looking at Lydia, someone who he was supposed to consider as a friend, and refusing to see why it was even minutely unacceptable to call her a bitch simply because she spoke to Malia about an Alpha’s role back home versus here, or because she told someone that it was none of their damn business when she decided she wanted to get pregnant, was infuriating to him. Isaac didn’t know what happened. He had never seen Scott call anyone a bitch since he had known him, and Isaac was around when the Darach had started to wreak havoc in Beacon Hills. He was willing to move aside when Isaac admitted his feelings for Allison. He was willing to forgive Deucalion after all of the damage he did and all of the bodies he left in his wake. And yet he wanted to call Lydia a bitch because he disagreed with her. The simple concept made his blood boil.

“He’s not important.” Isaac finally spoke aloud, his voice a little flat when the words left him. He thought that he would have been, but Scott only gave a shit about Isaac when they were agreeing, apparently. It wasn’t okay for Isaac to leave Beacon Hills after watching Allison die, the first woman - only woman - he had ever loved, to stay with Chris, the only father who ever loved him, but it was okay for Scott to leave the entirety of Beacon Hills behind, including his own mother, who had done so much for Isaac, to get fucked on an island after Allison died. He had to take a deep breath in through his nose and slowly release it to keep his eyes from glowing. “It’s not important,” he repeated, a verbal confirmation that he was still thinking about it, and at that point he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Lydia or himself. It was hard sometimes, with Malia, because she was trying to figure out who she was and switching through different personalities and mindsets in the process, with Derek because of what had happened in the past, and with Stiles for the same reason. Scott, though. That was hard for different reasons. That was hard, because Scott was supposed to be his brother. And he didn’t even recognize him.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:42 am UTC (link)
Isaac didn’t know where he was leading Lydia but he ended up bringing her to her hut, and he walked in with her to pull her away from the distant sound of the bonfire that was happening around them. He had no intention on going, still, and he certainly wasn’t going to make Lydia go, so instead he led her to her bed so she could sit down as he grabbed one of the combs he made for her that was sitting there and sat behind her. He moved her dress carefully, making sure not to lose her needle and thread in it, until it was safely out of the way, and he moved to face her so that he could slowly start to comb her hair the way he would do Malia’s when he wanted to make her feel better. His touch was gentle, and for a little while he didn’t say anything, relaxing himself in the monotonous motions of helping Lydia, and it took him a while before he could actually speak what he was thinking. “Do you really like having me around?” He sounded uncertain and almost uncomfortable for asking. “I mean, when you said that you liked having me around to talk to. Do you really?”

“Oh, I know,” Lydia replied dismissively. Scott was a gnat in her ear at best, by now. She’d written him off a couple of weeks ago and she wasn’t going to look back. The problem was that she wasn’t entirely sure Scott was the only one who felt that way so much as he was the only one with the gall to say it.

Isaac led her back to the hut and Stiles still wasn’t inside, so she assumed he’d gone off to the bonfire with most of the rest of the camp. Good, it wasn’t that she didn’t want him around, but she was starting to feel a little claustrophobic sharing space. Not because it was Stiles, but because it was anyone. The hut was a lot bigger than most of the other shelters people had constructed in the camp, with very few exceptions, but it still was only a little bit larger than her own bedroom back home. She’d never had to share such a small space before. It had seemed like the best idea once the bed had arrived, and she wasn’t necessarily thinking that she wanted to go her separate way from Stiles just yet, but once the baby was born, she was definitely going to head back to her own shelter. She’d miss the bed and the extra space, but she would embrace the solitude again because sometimes with solitude came peace.

It took her a moment to realize, after she settled on the bed, what he was doing behind her, but when it clicked just before she actually felt the comb moving through her tresses Lydia huffed softly with amusement. This was not a night off...this was just changing the person to whom he was dedicating his time to pamper, she thought, and that wasn’t entirely fair to Isaac. The only problem was...she liked it when people played with her hair. It was why, even as an eighteen year old girl, she still had sometimes let her mother do her hair before school in the morning. She hadn’t needed the help since she’d been nine years old, but she liked it. Her head turned just slightly as if to look behind her without moving too much when he spoke.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:43 am UTC (link)
Lydia took a deep breath. That was a more loaded question than he probably realized right then as he was brushing her hair and after making her feel better about herself the way he had. She let it out softly and smiled a little, looking back down into her lap as she picked at her fingernails absently. “Yeah, I really do, Isaac,” she said honestly. “...I—” she stopped short for a moment, feeling guilty for thinking it so much just then that she actually almost said it, but then she decided she might as well. He deserved to feel as appreciated as he was, even if it would end up being a little more at Stiles’s and Malia’s expense than was entirely appropriate. “...I should’ve picked you,” she confessed, her lips pressing together into a thin line of self-disappointment after the words tumbled from her lips.

There was a moment there where Lydia had brought a smile to his face, having just confirmed that she liked being around him, and that was much more satisfying to hear than Isaac thought it would have been. Perhaps because he felt the same way about her, but hadn’t expected it in return because so often in Isaac’s life, his emotions were one sided. His hand continued to move, comb pulling through her hair carefully to make sure that he didn’t pull too roughly at any knots, and it slowed a little when she started to speak again as if preparing to continue before stopping herself. He was curious, and he thought about maybe pushing her a little to see exactly what she was going to say before she apparently beat him to it, and when the words left her Isaac’s hand finally stopped.

Was she truly that miserable? What she really that upset with how things were happening that she wished she had picked someone else, anyone else, in order to avoid the situation that she was in right now? Or was she just going through those horrible emotions that made her say things she didn’t really mean because she didn’t know how to word what she was thinking, and her patience for the effort that it took to dig through it all and define it was wearing thing?

Or did she actually mean it?

Isaac didn’t know if he would have said yes, if Lydia had asked him. When he had first arrived here it was awkward between the two of them at best, he had abandoned her and she had no idea what had happened that night with Allison. They were on strange terms, but now? If she asked him now? Of course Isaac would have given her a child. It wasn’t that he regretted saying yes to Malia, but she was confusing to him on the simplest of days. Sometimes she felt one way and sometimes she felt the opposite, which was to be expected for a pregnant woman, but a pregnant woman who was also trying to learn how to be human? It was a lot to try and handle, and to be patient with all of that on top of trying to build the medical center, keep an eye on Lydia… it took its toll. Today, she said that she didn’t want him to concentrate so much on taking care of her, but in the same vein admitted that she couldn’t take care of herself. Isaac didn’t regret it, not even a little, he loved his baby and that baby was in Malia. But doing this with Lydia…

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:43 am UTC (link)
“I don’t know if I can do this again,” he admitted quietly, his hand slowly resuming to pull the comb through her hair. His face was burning, because that admission, it came with so many different layers and possibilities, and Isaac found himself hoping that she meant it in ways that he really shouldn’t hope she meant it in. “It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted all the time. And I’m scared. I feel like I never get sleep. Probably because I don’t.” Isaac wet his lips and he glanced over at the side of her face where it was barely visible from his position, and the words sounded a little rasped when he managed to force them out.

“I would, though. If it was you. I would if it was with you.”

The quiet seemed to settle for a little too long and Lydia started to worry that she shouldn’t have said it at all. Her face started to heat up with the flush of embarrassment and her eyes closed; it took a conscious effort not to move away from him just because she felt so stupid for having said it out loud because it was too quiet now. ...but then he finally spoke and she took a deep breath, letting it out softly.

He didn’t want to do it again. Well, quite frankly, neither did she. Lydia didn’t want to go through all the changes with her body and, for that matter, her body image. She didn’t want people judging her based on whether she was fucking strangers or carrying a child. She didn’t want to feel fat and disgusting and crazy anymore, because one minute she was laughing, the next she was crying, and the next, sometimes, she was throwing up. And she was doing it largely alone. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. She opened her mouth to agree with him and then stopped herself when he continued.

Now it was her turn to force the pause between them. She wouldn’t be as much of a nightmare, she thought, as Malia had to have been. Between the hormones and the morning sickness and then on top of it still trying to figure out how to act like a human; Lydia had thought out her pregnancy and it just hadn’t panned out. Malia got herself knocked up on an impulse and Lydia wasn’t going to ever suggest she should have waited, but Lydia also thought...if she was in Malia’s shoes, she probably would have. At least until she’d crossed one bridge before taking on another. Lydia wouldn’t have wanted the bullshit that came with that kind of a struggle. Maybe that made her a weaker person than Malia or maybe it just made her smarter, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was both.

...but Isaac was going through so much right now and how he was keeping his head screwed on was beyond her. How he continued to even function was nothing short of a miracle. And he’d do it again...if it was Lydia.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:44 am UTC (link)
Her lips pressed together and she turned around to look at him, her heart beating a little too fast, her face a little too red, her stomach tumbling a little too much — nerves or morning sickness? nerves or morning sickness? — and she looked him in the eye. “...I would only do this again if it was with you, too,” she agreed. “Otherwise, fuck all this noise,” she said and she was only half-joking as her nose wrinkled to show her distaste and the lack of gravity in the statement itself. She didn’t want it to sound like she regretted the fact that she was giving Arva a child, because she didn’t. ...she just regretted that she had quite clearly made the wrong choice for a partner for the journey.

Isaac could hear that Lydia’s heart was starting to beat a little faster and it was putting him on edge, because he wasn’t sure whether it was due to the discomfort from his admission or because she had wanted to hear it. Either way, all he could do was wait for her to respond if she was even going to do that at all, and as he waited he continued to comb her hair. It was all he could do, because if he didn’t then it would seem like he was waiting for a response, and by doing that she could have perceived him as forcing her to have a conversation that she didn’t want to have. She didn’t have to answer if she didn’t want to. But he wanted her to. He wanted to know that she would be willing to do it again, if it was with him. Not because he was planning on it, that wasn’t even a thought in his mind, if he was being honest. He wanted the confirmation that Lydia could see him in that way, in a way that made him worth going through something because she trusted him enough to know that he would go through that journey with her. That he would go out of his way to make it something they would do together, instead of something she would be going through alone or he would be stumbling through blindly.

She had turned suddenly and Isaac almost dropped the comb, his eyes wide in surprise when she responded, and she looked directly at him when she said exactly what he had wanted to hear. It was another moment of not thinking too deep. It was another instance where he didn’t want to question why that made him feel so complete, or why it made his stomach flip a little and his head feel light. It just did, and Isaac liked it. He didn’t want to think about it any deeper than that.

He managed to huff a laugh that sounded like it was on the verge of amusement and disbelief, and in that second, that fleeting, split second moment, Isaac wanted to reach out for her and pull her closer to him. He wanted to drag her in and hold her - don’t think about it, not something to think about - but instead he reached out to brush her hair behind her ear, placing the comb aside for now since she had turned around so completely to face him. “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he decided aloud for both of them, his heart skipping a beat. “When we decide that we’re never going to do this again, and then maybe in the future down the road realize that maybe we might actually do it again for some unexplainable fucking reason… we’ll do it with each other. Because yeah, with anybody else, fuck that noise.” Another pause that seemed to stretch on for too long. “...You know that if you - I mean, I’m here. I’m going to be here for you whether you like it or not, so if you ever need anything beyond what I do, if you’re feeling unwanted… I’m here. I’m not going to say that I’m great at a lot of this stuff.” He wet his lips nervously as he held her gaze. “But I might be alright at making you feel wanted.” Because she was. “I mean, that’s all I really wanted to do in the first place.”

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:45 am UTC (link)
The more he talked, the more her stomach tumbled and the faster her heart felt like it was racing. She wasn’t sure she was ever going to be ready to go through this nightmare again, but at least if she did, for some reason, change her mind, she had proof that he’d be there for her when she did. He was willing to do that; she wasn’t even his responsibility and he’d taken it upon himself anyway, which was probably only compounding his problem to begin with, for which Lydia felt a little guilty more often than not.

She opened her mouth to respond and promptly snapped it shut again. Nerves or morning sickness? Don’t you dare throw up right now, Lydia Martin, don’t you dare, she told herself and her eyes slipped shut as she waited for the wave of nausea to pass. It was still a little early; it could pass if she tried hard enough. Right?

For a long moment, she stayed incredibly still like that, moving only to lift a hand to hold him off, because she was afraid that if he moved on the mattress to reach for her to make sure she was alright, that tiny movement would be the end of it. Finally, it passed, and she let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, her eyes opening slowly again and her hand lowering. “It’s getting to be that time of the night for me...I’m sorry,” she said, looking apologetic, if for nothing else than the God awful timing of it. “I know you’re here,” she added to address what he’d been saying before the wave of nausea had hit her. “And I appreciate that probably more than I can actually say.”

A look came over her quite suddenly that worried him, and Isaac was just about to move towards her when her hand lifted to signal for him to fall still. He did, recognizing that gesture right away as the ‘I don’t know if I’m about to throw up’ gesture, and when it finally passed he looked at her sympathetically before shaking his head. “You don’t have to say it. And it’s fine, here,” Isaac moved slowly to avoid shaking the bed too much, reaching out for her with a gentle touch to her shoulder so he could guide her to lie down. “Here, just, lay down, let me make you tea or something. Where did you put that ginger I gave you, I can soak it in some water and maybe it’ll help.” He wasn’t really trying to hover, this had just become second nature to Isaac. Despite how difficult it was and despite how much he struggled with keeping up and doing everything he needed to, moments like this still came naturally to him because it happened so often. Especially with Malia, considering she got sick more often.

“Yeah, if I did this again it would be with you,” he mentioned once more as he got out of bed, looking around to see where Lydia would have kept her things. He wore a crooked smile. “But I’m pretty sure you and I are never going to ever do this shit again. Ever.”

Isaac touched a hand gingerly to her shoulder to guide her back on the bed and she actually gave a soft laugh as she did so. “Honey, you don’t have to do that,” she told him. “It’s your night off. I’ll be fine, I’ve got another like half an hour or so before it actually really gets bad. But it’s over, there,” she said, gesturing to the left of the bed.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:46 am UTC (link)
She felt bad that he was already trying to go through the motions of keeping her comfortable when it was neither his job nor did she need it as badly as she suspected he worried she did, just then. Another laugh escaped her, this time with less humor attached to it. “Seriously though,” she muttered, frowning, an arm draping over her middle with her elbow resting on her side, hand settling over her growing bump as she laid on her side. “Isaac...I’m really okay, you know,” she said, a small but wry smile on her face as she said it.

“I didn’t ask you if you were okay, I asked you where the ginger was,” he responded with a lofty tone of ‘pay attention, Lydia’ before moving to where she gestured and finding it. He took it and broke a small piece off, looking around more for some sort of water reserve - practically everybody was keeping one in some way or another - and finding a canteen along with the cup that Stiles had made for her. “I’d boil it but if it’s getting around that time then you should probably just drink it as soon as you can,” he thought aloud, tearing the ginger apart in his fingers to reveal the fibrous inside so it would seep into the water. He dropped it in and watched it sink to the bottom before setting the cup down, letting it sit for a minute or two.

“I don’t mind,” he finally continued, looking at her as he sat on the edge of the bed to smile down at her. “This is kind of what I do now, I can’t really help it. It’s still my night off, don’t worry. Pouring water into a cup hasn’t changed that.” He brushed her hair off of her forehead to see if she was warm yet, something that happened when Malia got hit with a sudden wave of nausea before she had to get outside. “If you drink it now it’ll settle in your stomach and it could make it a little less intense for you. It’s not a big deal Lydia, seriously.” His gaze softened. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“I heard you,” Lydia patronized in return, rolling her eyes in tandem with the little smirk on her face. She watched as Isaac moved around the hut, preparing the ginger water for her and her stomach fluttered again.

She smiled up at him, her hand rubbing absently at the bump in her middle as if to calm the nerves from watching his face as he leaned to brush her hair off her head. Her cheeks warmed when he said he didn’t want to be anywhere else, in spite of the fact that he was doing right now exactly what he would be doing if he was at his own shelter with Malia. “...I’m really glad you’re here,” she whispered.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:47 am UTC (link)
Once again Lydia managed to bring a warm blush to Isaac’s face, and the smile that came with it was genuine. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was lying there, her hair carelessly fanned out on the bed beneath her, hand resting on her stomach with a careful touch that he suspected was to ease her nausea but still managed to look tenderly maternal, and it suited her. Isaac knew that he shouldn’t have been looking at her the way that she was, because this was Lydia Martin. Even if he took away all of the obvious reasons as to why this was wrong, the fact that she was Allison’s best friend, the fact that he was trying to build a friendship with Stiles and still believed that somewhere in there the other boy had feelings for her that he couldn’t quite let go of, she was still Lydia Martin. And Lydia Martin was way out of his league. She deserved someone brilliant, he believed. Someone who could match her on an intellectual level in a way that Isaac couldn’t even begin to comprehend, someone who could push her forward instead of weigh her down with their own troubled past and insecurities. It had been a very, very long time since Isaac felt that flutter in his chest when he looked at a woman, and this woman was probably the worst one to be the cause of it. But that was Isaac’s luck. He shouldn’t have been surprised. And, really, he wasn’t, because he was only human and who couldn’t feel something for Lydia once they truly got to know her?

“I am too,” came his soft response, his hand moving to rest over the one that she had on her stomach so he could squeeze it gently before letting go to grab the ginger water he prepared for her. “Here. Drink. It might make you feel better.”

Lydia sat up again slowly when Isaac reached for the ginger water and she anchored herself with one hand pressed flat against the mattress. Isaac Lahey, who would’ve thought? It never occurred to her to bother to get to know him until he’d shown up here on the island, but now she wondered if he’d just always been this kind of guy. The kind of guy that cared when he didn’t need to, who cared for people when he didn’t need to and had no obligation to do so. She wondered if he’d always been this attractive and she just hadn’t noticed because she was too high on her own pedestal or he’d been ‘Allison’s boyfriend’ rather than Isaac...or if it was one of those things where a person became more attractive physically when you learned that they were super attractive emotionally.

Taking the cup from him, she took a little sip with a wrinkle of her nose because she didn’t actually like ginger water. Or tea. Or literally any of the herbal remedies around here, but she couldn’t deny that, in spite of their pretty awful taste, they still managed to actually get the job done. “I should probably make you leave soon,” she pointed out, even though she didn’t actually want him to go. “Stiles will be back soon and I’ll be out back throwing up and that’s just a hot mess you don’t want on your night off,” she said and...maybe she sounded a little disappointed that she couldn’t just...keep him for the night. But Lydia knew that she couldn’t. If she left for the night, she’d have to let Stiles know and if she told him where she was, it would start drama, she was sure. If she didn’t, then it would be even worse, she was willing to bet, because he’d assume she was off having sex with some random person. If Stiles didn’t want her having sex with other people while she was pregnant with his baby, then she could actually respect that, because...well. His baby was in there.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:48 am UTC (link)

She wanted Isaac to stay. ...she wanted him to stay all night, but she couldn’t just kick Stiles out of their shelter like that, either. And beyond that, wanting to have Isaac staying the night with her was absolutely not an okay thing to want. Now...or maybe ever. Her stomach tumbled again as she gave him an apologetic look.

A huffed laugh escaped him when her nose wrinkled at the taste, and when he spoke it was with flat and sarcastic amusement. “Slow down, I know you like it but you shouldn’t like it that much, make it last.” He waited until she was finished before taking the cup and placing it down for her again, and when she continued only to tell him that he was going to have to go Isaac felt a surprising wave of disappointment that he hadn’t been expecting. It showed on his face although he wasn’t looking at her, instead busying himself with the cup before taking a deep breath through his nose to recuperate himself. “Yeah,” he agreed begrudgingly, already well aware that he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t care if she was going to get sick, Isaac could be around for that. He wasn’t here because he wanted to deal with the side effects of pregnancy, he did that all the time. He was here because he wanted to be around Lydia, he had realized. He didn’t really care what they were doing as long as he was beside her.

But she was right, and he was overstepping. “I can go,” he continued with more effort to make his voice casual, eyes moving back to her with a forced smile. “I’m sure you want to rest anyway.” He didn’t know why it made him so uncomfortable. He felt like a dirty secret, even though they weren’t doing anything. They weren’t anything significant, it wasn’t as if he was crossing any hard lines, and yet he understood. He didn’t belong here. It wasn’t his place. “If you need anything you know that you can reach out for me.” Of course she knew. It was as if he couldn’t help but say it, afraid that she would forget that she always had the option to see him whenever she wanted. Afraid that she would forget about him. It was ridiculous and he knew it.

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[info]theprettybeta
2016-04-25 07:48 am UTC (link)

He lingered on the edge of the bed for a few seconds longer than necessary, as if waiting for something to happen beyond reality that would give him a reason to stay with her for as long as he wanted to, but Isaac knew that wasn’t the case. He didn’t know what he would do for the rest of the night. Perhaps sleep in her old shelter and think about how much he appreciated her giving him free range of it. Or think about how much he appreciated her letting him stop by and talk her ear off. Or, more accurately, think about how much he appreciated her. He forced himself to stand after deciding against kissing her on the forehead, and he didn’t know why, he just knew that in that moment it felt dangerous to get that close to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

A wash of disappointment flooded over her and the worst part was that she couldn’t make herself do anything about it. He was Allison’s boyfriend, she was pregnant with Stiles’s baby, and he was fathering Malia’s. Everything about the idea of wanting him to just…stay was wrong in the moment, so her lips pressed together when he agreed that he should go, because she didn’t want to tell him that she wished he wouldn’t.

He got up from the bed and she watched him, worrying at her bottom lip between her teeth before giving him a little smile and nodding. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she promised. And she meant that. Even if she had to seek him out, she meant that.

“Isaac…?” she asked belatedly as he was moving toward the door. “Thank you. Seriously, for tonight. I just really needed this and I really appreciate it. Thank you. So much.” She paused and looked down, a shy smile poking dimples into her cheeks before she looked up again. “Maybe we can find the time to do it again another night. I had fun. You know, once you quit making me stare at the blob in the water,” she teased just to get a rise out of him.

It was so unreasonable, how badly a part of him - no, all of him - wanted her to stop him before he walked out, so when she said his name while he stood in the doorway Isaac stopped abruptly and turned to look at her with restrained hopefulness that he tried to hide. It wasn’t a request to stay… but it was still something good, and Isaac rolled his eyes at her ‘blob’ comment before nodding his head in her direction once. “Yeah, alright, miss dimples. Sit on the bed and look at me with those bedroom eyes as you send me away and call yourself a blob, you don’t even believe it this time. Nice try though.” He grinned, the smile characteristically lopsided in the way it always was but in the way that Isaac had never even realized before.

“We’ll find the time. You’re welcome, Lydia. Get some rest.”

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