Father || Teen Wolf

10 - The Moon, the Moon, the Moon

It's an odd feeling, when someone you know better than anyone else starts behaving strangely, and their actions no longer fall within their usual patterns. Has something in them changed? Or when was it that you stopped paying attention, and you let them drift away for so long that the next time you looked at them you couldn't recognize what you saw?

Those things are easier to let slide when they're purely physical, like when someone you see everyday slowly loses or puts on weight, and only when you look at older photographs do you notice the change. It's easier to accept, because you can always think that those things are gradual and slowly happen over long periods of times. The day-to-day changes are so small that there's no way you could have noticed. That excuse may still be valid for a change in character, but that doesn't mean they're just as easy to accept.

Lydia Martin was dealing with that very feeling that night as she gazed upon the crouched figure in front of her, barely visible beneath the faint light of the full Moon. The face that was staring back was the exact same as a few months ago, but she was only then starting to notice how much the person behind those blue eyes had changed. The envelope was the same, and that was what made the change so troubling. Never before had she seen such a look in these eyes.

Never before had she thought that one day, she would look at Jamie and feel fear.

Her back was to the wall, flat against the panel, her hands feeling the unpolished woods beneath her palms. Her face was drained of color and her lips parted, but no air escaped her lungs - she was frozen in place, no muscle moving but her heart that beat erratically in her chest.

She wanted it to stop, because she knew he could hear it. She knew he could feel her fear, taste her terror on his tongue and discern her horror in her scent. She wanted time to freeze so she could think, so she could process the sight in front of her and understand why she felt like there was a gaping hole in her chest. She didn't get a pause.

The growling sound grew louder and Lydia slid down to the floor, a barely audible whine escaping her throat. The chains rattled and scraped against the floor, metal and wood clashing. Reality hit her full force, unescapable. The plan had failed.

Lydia didn't know what to do. For the first time in her entire life, she had no idea how to make things right, how to bring back some sense into her own life. Her lower lip quivered when the rattling sounds stopped and a sharp inhale was heard.

"Lydia?" a voice whispered, tone thick with confusion. "Lydia, what's going on?"

Lydia lowered her eyes, willing her lip to stop shaking and her cheeks to remain dry. She didn't look up when the chains rattled again, gently this time. He was trying to come closer.

"Lyds? Please talk to me, I don't know what's happening," Jamie pleaded again.

She didn't need to look at him to know exactly what expression was on his face - she had already seen it twice that night. A sheer, genuine confusion would be etched on the traits she knew so well, and the expression would be laced with fear and concern for her. The eyes would hold no ill feelings, no dark thoughts. They would be his eyes, the real ones. Not those which shone with hatred, quite literally.

She couldn't look because she had looked before and she knew what would happen. She would soften at the sight of him and when she would get closer and extend her hand, the eyes would shine again, vicious and hungry, deranged almost, and she would see Peter's face in his, and she would feel fear.

"Lyds why do you look so scared? What have I done?"

Was witnessing her boyfriend lose his fight to the Moon time and time again somehow easier than listening to his broken pleas? She knew the answer as soon as the question formed in her mind. Yes, it would be easier to see him lose his sanity rather than hear him suffer. The one who threatened and scared her wasn't him, it was the monster within. The one who suffered was just Jamie, and he would suffer because of her.