theprettybeta (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} theprettybeta) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} paradisolog,@ 2016-04-25 03:34:00 |
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| 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. |