In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night

"I'm sorry for making you cry." Oliver mumbled, as his hand was on Delilah's face. He couldn't let the conversation pass on without that.

Oliver's eyebrows turned in. He didn't feel like someone had done him wrong. If anything, he had done himself something wrong. "I don't think that there is a someone. If it's in my head, doesn't that mean it's me? My brain is made of me, and my brain is taking me down. It's like an Oliver Civil War." The son of Letus said, his voice soft and quiet. His throat hurt from screaming and he barely felt like he could speak with the pounding headache. He also barely even wanted to be heard.

Oliver watched as Delilah pulled a coin out of her pocket and held it up to show him. It caught the minimal light from the window and shone. In a way, the way that Delilah was holding it reminded him of when he'd have to go to communion at the Lutheran church his grandmother went to when they would visit her in Georgia. Oliver and Jasmine had never been church going folks, but when they visited his Grandma Helena, they always had to go. One time he faked sick to get out of it and his grandma found out and made him pray out loud on his knees for 2 hours straight.

As Delilah talked about the phone, he couldn't help but think that it was funny that the coin had reminded him of his grandma, when Delilah had gotten it from hers. Maybe there was just something old lady like about it. As she explained it and called it her lucky coin, Oliver started thinking about tv shows and also the thing people did in real life where they gave a kid something and told them it was lucky, and because the kid believed that they were, they succeeded. It was the event equivalent of the placebo effect, really. A small part of Oliver's mind had to wonder if that's what Delilah was trying to do. It looked just like an extra shiny denarii, but as she talked, he could only believe her. Her words were full of such raw emotion.

Oliver felt the weight of the coin in his hand and he closed his fingers to it. He held his fist up to his heart and said, "I'll cherish it forever. I'll try not to use up all the luck, in case you need it back." His voice was a little stronger now, but was still raw on this throat.

There was a little bit of nerves that surrounded the daughter of Epione as she was introducing the coin to Oliver and holding it up to him. Part of her felt as if she were stupid to be introducing him to the idea. Of course she knew that no single coin was actually that lucky or was a magical thing that could do something for you, but it was nice to try and believe in something, and maybe that's part of why her dad had led her down the path of God when she was so young. It was just hard to believe in something that had led you down the path of darkness, led you down a path from your nightmares. Sadly Delilah couldn't even imagine those things in her nightmares before, but they were all that her dreams consisted of these days.

With the thought of that she could feel the pressure on her tear ducts that made her want to cry again, but she tried her best not to dive into those feelings. "You didn't say or do anything to make me cry." She spoke with a hushed tone, she wasn't even doing it on purpose now, it was just easier to talk softer and more quiet like. She feared if she spoke up too loud she'd break down crying, it was an odd concept that she couldn't quite wrap her mind around.

"I don't have the answers for you. I know you aren't asking me for them, but I wish I had them for you. I think maybe it could be yourself doing it, but I don't like to think like that, not with so many unknowns." It was moments like these that Delilah could remember her thirteenth birthday. A moment where it felt like they were just kids. They weren't anything else, they weren't children of gods or they didn't have parents that were children of gods. They were such simple times and ones that she missed. It made her wish she could rewind time to those moments and feel that way again, it made her wish there was a way they could just extract the part of them that tied them to this crazy reality. Where they could just be seventeen.

"If we were just normal seventeen year olds, there wouldn't be many choices or options to whats going on. We aren't just normal seventeen year olds though, there could be so many possibilities. But regardless of whatever the answer is, you got me." Delilah said, and she realized that her saying that was a big commitment she didn't have to make, but she wanted to be there in his brightest days along with his darkest days. Maybe she could be a lantern for him, maybe she could be a superhero after all despite not seeing her in such a role.

"If you do use up all the luck, I can just use you for luck instead."