Author's Notes: While I aimed to be as unsettling as possible with this story, I don't think I overstepped the bounds of what happens to Lydia in canon. See end notes for more specific, spoiler-y warnings.
Title from "This Is Why We Fight" by The Decemberists. All information on Wolfsbane came from Wikipedia, though it's been paraphrased for my purposes.
Scientific Name: Conitum columbianum.
Wolfsbane grows by the road.
Lydia thinks, it's dangerous. Lydia thinks, I need dangerous. Lydia picks it in the small hours of the night. No one notices her leaving the house out the back door, lingering by the vines growing up the side of the house and the pool water reflecting the moon. No one notices her return between three and sunrise. No one notices a handful of plants dug up and replanted behind the pool house, or the dirt under her French manicure.
Common Name: Columbian or Western Monkshood
Lydia walks to Jackson's house most nights. She wears stilettos with red soles. The first time, they catch in the grass and sink into the mud up to her heel, sending her arms pin wheeling until she catches her balance again. After that, she sticks to the road even when headlights behind her warn her to get out of the way.
She unlocks the door without knocking, because he gave the key back. She walks up the stairs and to the left: Jackson's room. He looks up – blue, bolt from - and says Jesus, Lyds and what happened and come here.
She comes. He wipes the blood from her lips but ignores the trickle at her hip, the pool between her legs, because he can't see it.
Later, when they're lying together and watching the clock numbers slide past her unenforced curfew, what happened
Nothing happened. Nothing happened to Lydia Martin. Lydia Martin is Fine, Jackson, why wouldn't I be? Sleep.
Grows wild in certain parts of the western United States, including California.
Her father asks her to return to the irritating fly-buzz of a guidance counselor. She stares him down over a grapefruit. She's French-Canadian.
He hums in response and pats her on the head and slips her two hundred-dollar bills later. He is forgiven and she buys a needle.
Fatal when ingested. Symptoms of ingestion include gastrointestinal and cardiovascular presentations.
Stiles watches her at school. At first, Lydia assumes that his obsession is back. That it will feed her ego again. That he will demand nothing but try to take everything with his - brown – eyes.
Lydia is wrong.
He stops his jeep beside her on the highway. It rolls forward when she doesn't stop walking. Lydia looks sideways at him. He's wearing a t-shirt, black, and a white hoodie. It is not a suit and tie and she is not wearing a party dress.
Lydia stops walking.
What the hell are you doing, you're going to get killed. He sounds like a fly, too, like Morrell. A fly on fire. Fire destroys the flowers by the road and Lydia watches until he touches her, until he lights her on fire. Is that what you're trying to do.
She runs and fears the burn.
Symptoms among werewolves unknown.
She lets the plants grow until they flower again and then chops off each and every flower with the garden sheers. The stalks remain, but she doesn't think she'll need them anymore. She wears gloves to gather them up in a basket but sheds them at the door.
The pot is old and forgotten in the back of the cabinet. Lydia fills it with water, but she forgot the ginger. Instead she adds sugar. The steam is warm on her lips like Peter's tongue.
Boiling with ginger root is a traditional means of detoxification, but results are inconsistent.
Lydia finds him in the shell of his house in a fever-dream. She smiles, and he returns it.
You're doing so well Lydia like Stiles and the guidance counselor, he sounds like flies. Lydia smiles.
Of course I am. As if she would be doing anything else. She walks through the ruins, nudges aside charred wood and ruined carpet until they are standing toe-to-toe. He's tall, but not tall enough. With her shoes she can just reach one hand to pull him down.
She's wearing her battle armor: pink lips, smoky eyes, pink party dress. His eyes are blue, not red, but Lydia can make due.
His lips taste like ash and rot. There's a fly in his mouth that crawls into Lydia's throat and into her brain. She doesn't let it distract her, though, because the hand behind her back is holding a needle that slides into his neck like it belonged there.
Intravenous.
Peter didn't look surprised. Without hesitation – no bubbles – Lydia pushed the plunger home. She pushed him off of it and watched with satisfaction as he fell into the ashes.
Third time is the charm.
There's just enough liquid left on the needle, under the blood, to taste.
.End.
Author's Notes II:
A Partial List of Warnings: Suicide, Homicide, implied PTSD, very vaguely implied sexual assault, and dark themes.
...Happy Halloween? This is my first real go at writing horror and I'm not sure if I hit it or overshot the mark into cheesy pretension. Let me know what you think please!