Chapter Text
“Just stay with him,” Scott commanded out of frustration.
Lydia looked over at the boy on the bed. Boy was an understatement she supposed. He was six foot, at least, a werewolf, and now had a nasty gash in his side. Boys weren’t like that. “I can’t do anything for him!” She exclaimed.
Scott sighed, trying to calm down. “Just watch over him, call me if anything goes wrong. I need to find Derek.” Turning back to Isaac he came to look down on him. “Don’t change, I know that’s what you’re body is telling you, but not until we find Derek. Okay?”
In frustration Isaac grit his teeth. “Yea.” There was a moment between him and Scott where a silent warning passed between them. Isaac knew the danger. He also knew the danger if he shifted around Lydia.
Satisfied, Scott turned and left.
The door slammed behind Scott leaving Lydia to observe silently the rather unattractive loft. She didn’t spend much time considering her surroundings. Turning, she faced the werewolf that was currently sprawled out bare chested on the bed in the middle of the room. With a determined sigh she walked over to him. “Why aren’t you healing?”
Isaac forced open his eyes, squinting because of the light. His head pounded and the light did nothing to help that. “It’s an alpha bite.”
Lydia released an exasperated sigh and looked around again. Finally, she settled for taking a seat on the sofa and entertaining herself on her phone. There was nothing she could do but wait.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was an hour later when he made a slightly pained noise and she looked up from her phone. Lydia stood and walked over to him, noting the lack of color in his face, the light sheen of sweat that covered his body. “Isaac?” She said softly, but you didn’t respond.
Bending slightly, she pressed her hand to his forehead, he was hot, burning up. It occurred to her to take his temperature, but she doubted Derek actually had a thermometer and to be quiet honest she had no idea if werewolves had the same body temperature as humans. All she knew was that he was hot as hell and wouldn’t wake up no matter how hard she shook him. With a soft curse she hurried across the loft to the kitchen. She made quick work of putting some ice in a bowl, filling it with water and grabbing a towel. The least she could do was get his fever down.
Bowl in hand, Lydia sat on the side of the bed and dipped the towel into the ice water and preceded to wipe his face with it. “When I’m with a half naked boy it usually goes differently,” she mumbled to herself. Gently, she wiped him with the towel, starting from his face and moving down his shoulders, chest and stomach. It would have been a lie to say she didn’t bit her lip as she tried to ignore his upper body. As she made her way back up, wiping his cheeks, long lashes fluttered open and blue eyes were staring at her. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead. You’re burning up.”
“What do you care?” He croaked and closed his eyes again, wishing she would go away and leave him to his misery or, better yet, to just die.
“I suppose you’d rather me say I don’t care so you can hate me. Fine, I don’t care.” He looked at her again, his eyes tired and sunken, then rolled his head to the side to stare across them room.
“Then leave.”
“I’m not. I told Scott I’d stay. And contrary to what I just said I don’t think you should be alone.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At some point she’d drug a chair to his bed side, deciding it best to stay close to him. That’s where she found herself two hours after his initial spike in fever, curled up in a chair and staring at him. Scott had checked in twice, letting her know he had indeed not forgotten about Isaac. Lydia didn’t go into to much detail about Isaac’s condition, by the worried and panic tone of his voice she figured he already understood.
Twice more she’d wiped his body down, desperately trying to keep his fever low. It worked, somewhat. He seemed lucid. Enough that he watched her silently, never saying anything, just watching her.
At some point her eyes became heavy, lids fluttering closed. Lydia attempted to fight it, because as much as she didn’t particularly like Isaac, he needed someone right now. It was when she heard panting that her eyes snapped open to find him gripping the sheet of the mattress and squeezing his eyes closed. “Isaac!” She snapped and hurried to his side. As she sat next to him she brushed his hair from his face and cradled his cheek. She could feel his jaw working, grinding down. “Isaac!” She screamed again, grabbing his arm and shaking him. The muscles tensed beneath her arm and she looked down to see his entire body seem to tense, muscles cramping as if in reaction to something. When she looked up again she gasped, finding his eyes already changed, shining yellow in the darkness. “Isaac no, remember what Scott said? Don’t change.”
“Leave,” Isaac growled out through gritted teeth. He tried to fight it, but he could feel his bones cracking, muscles tightening as the change slowly began to take over. She shook her head, red hair swinging in front of her face. “Go!”
“No!” She yelled back. His body arched slightly and she heard something rip. She looked down just in time to see his nails rip through the mattress. When she looked back up at him there was wide eyed panic in his eyes. Lydia grabbed his face with both hands this time and forced him to look at her. “It’s okay,” she whispered and brought her face down to his. “You can do it. I know you want to change, but you can fight it. Okay?” He only shook his head. Bones snapped and she looked down to see his ribs moving, becoming larger, wider. Now she understood the panic he felt. Turning to look at him she shook her head. “Isaac no!”
“Lydia,” he said, his voice guttural, half man and half wolf. There was more that Isaac wanted to say, but it took to much effort.
“I’m not leaving,” she told him resolutely, “so it’s up to you. Control the change or don’t.”
Isaac’s wolf had remarkable control, but under the current conditions he didn’t know what would happen. It was possible, once changed, he would be more animal then man and kill her without a second though. Why did she have to be so damn difficult?
“Just....focus on something okay?” Lydia said calmly, rubbing her thumb over his cheek. “Isn’t that how this works? Focus on something, something to ground you. Something human.”
Isaac tried the old tricks, the things that would help him fight the change during the full moon, but none of it worked. His ribs snapped painfully into place and he threw his head back, screaming and snarling. It normally wasn’t this painful. In fact, it was never this painful. His body was forcing it though and he was fighting it.
Lydia cried out and jumped back, wincing at the pained noises he made. Then he was panting again, a slow rumble in his chest as he did so, signaling to her that there was something else inside of him fighting to get out. Determined, Lydia took her place at his side again. “Isaac Lahey,” she grasped his face roughly, “you will not be changing on my watch do you understand me?! I’m in charge and I said you can not!” Yellow eyes stared up at her, pained and hurting. Against her will, Lydia felt her heart hurt just a little. “It’s okay,” she said softly, relaxing her hold on his face and again brushing damp curls from his forehead. “It’ll be okay,” her voice broke as she spoke, “I promise.”
Isaac gripped the shredded mattress, ignorant of the damage he’d done to it. Everything else had failed to ground him, so he did the last thing he could think of, he focused on Lydia. From her red hair, to her pink lips, wide eyes staring down at him and her perfume. He thought he saw tears there, thought he had heard her voice break with emotion, but that was impossible. Lydia Martin would never cry for him or even care about him. Except he felt her palms on his cheeks caressing his face gently.
At some point his breathing slowed, bones cracked in his chest and settled back into their rightful place, their human rightful place. Then his body relaxed. When she looked down his fingers were no longer imbedded in the mattress. They were now relaxed, claws gone. Lydia sighed as she looked back up into his yellow eyes. “Okay?”
He released a relieved breath and let his eyes close for a moment. His body relaxed, no longer overcome with the force of the change. A moment later he opened them again, this time her face less clear. His eyes had returned to normal. “Yea.”
Lydia nodded, relaxing as she began to realize crisis had been averted. She pulled her hands from his face and moved to stand, but a hand on her wrist stopped her.
“Don’t leave,” he said without even realizing what he was doing. Her eyes widened slightly, no doubt surprised by his request. Even he was surprised.
“I’m not,” was her response. The evening was all full of surprises, because Lydia didn’t like Isaac, not in the least. He wasn’t a bad guy, but she was pretty sure he tried to kill her once and he had a tendency to be short tempered and get into trouble. Not to mention he’d never been close enough to her on the social ladder to give him a second thought. The pleading in his eyes broke her though, and against her will she felt bad for him. Even worse, she wanted to stay there and help him. “I’m just going to sit right here.”
Isaac glanced at the chair at his bedside then at her again. Lydia didn’t understand, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. It felt as if at any moment he would snap and the transformation begin again. As much as he hated to admit it, focusing on her had helped. The feel of her hands on his face and the concern in her eyes had grounded him, pulled him back. Isaac wanted to tell her that, he wanted to tell her that physically touching her helped, but there was no way he would ever tell that to Lydia Martin.
Lydia frowned and looked at the chair. Awkwardly she reached behind her and drug it closer. When she turned back to him she spoke gently. “Hold my hand.” He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then slowly he released the vice grip he had on her wrist and slid his hand down. Lydia wrapped her fingers around his hand and moved from the edge of the bed to sit in the chair.
Maybe she did understand he though. Somehow she understood, at least that’s what he liked to believe.
Thirty minutes later Scott and Derek rushed in. Lydia moved out the way, pulling her hand from Isaac’s tight grip. Scott thanked her more then once and Derek glared at her. Lydia collected her belongings and made her way to the door, glancing back only once to look at Isaac to find him staring after her. She swallowed, uncomfortable, for reasons she didn’t even understand, and quickly yanked open the door and left.
An hour later, after arguing with herself, she text Scott and asked about Isaac. When he text back stating Isaac would be fine she cursed herself for being relieved.