lemon to a knife fight

She hadn't realized the lack of breaths she had taken in until Skye was standing between her and Lachlan. She could feel herself trying to catch up on oxygen, or maybe she was close to having a panic attack? She never had one of those before, but she was starting to freak out mentally about one, so to avoid it all she just closed her eyes for a few minutes to try and get some sense of grounding. Delilah couldn't help but start to cry in this moment, her lip had been trembling, her throat felt swollen, and before she knew it the tears came out despite trying so bad to keep them in and to push down her feelings.

The Legacy's eyes were open again looking at Sky and Lachlan, but before anything else could be said Oliver walked in talking as if he just came in with a gust of wind, were they sure he wasn't some wind kid's god or something? Deep down Delilah knew that he wasn't and she knew he struggled with some of those things. In some weird way there was a sense of relief to see Oliver there as he broke some of the tension and diverted it onto him.

"It's nothing." Delilah said quietly in response to Oliver asking what was going on and immediately she began to retrace her steps closer to the door, still staring at the two of them before turning on her heel and walking towards the door and opening it. Leaving the building sucked in a weird way. It was a relief to get back outside and away from the mess, but it sucked because she was doing what she always did. She would just cry and walk off or run off. What else was there to say though? To stick around and play little group therapy, plus Lachlan? Yeah, no thanks. Was group therapy even helping her at this point? What was the point of it if she was going to be angry and be the same person she always was, she got it that she was the one who needed to change, but how do you change so many things about yourself that are so embedded in you?

Yeah, we're all fucked up beyond recognition. Our parents suck. That does not mean we can throw glasses like animals. Yeah okay there Dr.Burke/Skye, but animals can't throw glasses, they would need opposable thumbs to even pick up the stupid glass in the first place. It was a stupid analogy, everything was just stupid.

Skye had come here to decompress, to forget about the real world for a moment, but as she stands in the middle of Lachlan's club house, trying not to step on glass, she knows that it had done the exact opposite. The shouting has abruptly stopped, the only noise coming from Delilah as she leaves, the door to the club house slowly swinging closed. Still, Skye can feel the frustration coursing through her veins, the feeling of her heart pumping just a little too fast. She can almost feel a migraine setting in. They were literally giving her migraines. She knows she plays a large part in this, but honestly, their yelling seemed to have more to do with each other. She was just the catalyst.

Once its just the three of them, Skye looks over at Oliver, "Your timing is impeccable, Oliver." She half means it. Him showing up seemed to diffuse most of the tension, but she can still feel it in the air. She glances over at Lachlan for a minute. The things she wants to say to him though are not things that she should say in front of Oliver. So instead she goes into the kitchen and picks up one of the dish towels, returning to the broken glass and using it to pick up the shards. If she knew where the broom is, she would probably go find that, but the towel would have to do for now.

Oliver watched as Delilah passed him and out the door and then looked back at Lachlan and Skye. She was calling him out on his timing and as much as he wanted to believe that it was genuine, he highly doubted it. He threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes. He turned to see Delilah walking across the door. He turned and pointed to Skye

"Are you going to... No? Okay, well, uh guess that means that I'm up." Oliver turned to follow Delilah out the door. For a second, he worried about leaving Skye and Lachlan together. From what he understood about the two of them from pinning Lachlan into the conversation was this kind of anger was going to mean one of two things: hook-up or murder-suicide. Oliver knew, though, that being there with an angry Lachlan like that was bad for him. He didn't need any more grey hairs at this point.

It wasn't hard for Oliver to catch up with Delilah when he was more than half a foot taller than her. When he caught up to her, he matched her pace. "Hey, let me make it sure you make it home okay." Oliver knew she didn't need to be protected, but he was worried she wouldn't head straight home without a little railroading. "Do you need to talk about anything? Cry on someone? A human punching bag?" Oliver asked. He just wanted to be helpful.

---

Lachlan watched as Oliver walked out the door and shut it. Lachlan grabbed the spare key which had been left on the counter and threw it aggressively into the sink, turning the garbage disposal on. He stormed to the bathroom while the sound of metal on metal screeched and grabbed a broom and dustpan out of the cupboard.

He went back to the kitchen and turned off the garbage disposal, grabbing the maimed key out of it and throwing it back on the counter. "Just leave, alright?" Lachlan mumbled, going to work on the glass on the ground.

She was so angry that she hadn't even realized fully where she was going, she just knew she was leaving Lachlan's house and she was going towards her own house. Delilah honestly just felt like screaming there was so much pent up anger happening right now that her fingers had curled into her own hand digging into the flesh. Delilah hadn't even realized that she was doing this or the fact that her pace had slowed so much, she seemed dazed and confused at the same time despite the fact her house wasn't that much farther from her.

Her tears had still been rolling down her face as she continued to just walk a bit almost heading out onto the street when Oliver caught up to her. It was only then that she would look down at her hands and see the little crescent shaped marks in her hand which only made her want to cry more. She looked over to Oliver with tears welling up in her eyes again and her lip trembling. She had talked to him a little bit more with the whole group therapy thing, and honestly Oliver was the best person to see right now. She didn't want to see Lachlan at this moment, he would just fill her with rage, and Skye...Well it was hard to be mad at her, but yet there was still an anger burning there for Skye.

"I could never punch you." She said blubbering a little bit but yet with a small hint of a smile there. Oliver was too genuinely pure to want to punch or to hurt in any way. Instead of doing anything violent she just walked the couple steps to close the distance between and she wrapped her arms around him as the tears fell down her face.

Skye dumps the glass into the trash can, listening to the key being destroyed by the garbage disposal. The sound of it only makes her headache worse, but she says nothing, waiting until it was quiet once more. There's almost a ringing in her ears once Lachlan switches the garbage disposal off. Skye's heart is still pounding, the anger is still in her core.

This time, she doesn't use that fire. Instead she channels every ounce of Caroline she has, cold unfeeling rage, and she says, "This can't happen anymore." She means it, she means every word. She had come over for easy and simple, and she had gotten difficult and complicated. She realizes now, that it has always been complicated. Mess is complicated. They had tried to ignore that, except it only caused the fallout. So, it had to actually be simple between them. They had to follow their rules, keep their promises, and put the mess behind them. Otherwise any semblance of walls they built for themselves would come crumbling down.

The truth is that they have broken their first rule, the one they made back when they started this when they were sixteen. They've started to feel. They're both made of walls, and they both know that those walls cannot come down. So, they have to stop whatever it is they were doing, and go back to the days where they were ambivalent to each other. It's easier and simpler that way anyways.

"Goodnight," Skye says, as she leaves Lachlan to the empty guest house. She won't return tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. She keeps her word. She follows her new rule. Except there's a feeling inside that she cannot shake. A little bit of heartbreak. Maybe she's more like Caroline than she thinks.

Oliver's arms wrapped around Delilah as hers wrapped around him, pulling her tightly into his chest. He remembered a day that felt like a lifetime ago, more than 14 months ago, that they laughed with her arms wrapped around him. Just how much the world could change in a year. Oliver felt as Delilah's tears soaked the front of his shirt as he held her. It'd been a while since he felt anything that strong and he could feel a bit of emotion swelling up inside of him. In a way, it felt nice to feel something that wasn't anger or rage or the ice cold flame that lit inside of him, so he held Delilah tighter.

After a minute, he let go and took a step back. The sun was fully below the horizon now and it was starting to get completely dark. The solar powered little tiki lamps around the pool area were lighting up along with the pool light, creating a weird blueish glow around them.

"C'mon, let's get you home and in a comfortable bed."

---

Lachlan scoffed audibly when Skye said that this had to end. What was there to end, anyway? Some weird lie they were both telling themselves for their own conveniences? He didn't want to live with that either. 'You're right. it does. It needed to  have never started." Lachlan didn't look up at Skye, because he knew that he couldn't. From her voice he knew that he wouldn't see Skye standing there. He'd see Caroline Hanson, and that was too much for him to handle today. So instead he swept glass into a dustpan and let it slide into the open trash bin.

"When you're lonely and there's no one to pity you or treat  you like the hero, don't come crawling back here. I'm not going to let you in." He had made the mistake. He was looking at her now, and it hurt. It hurt like he'd shivved himself with the mangled key on the counter. It was a pain that demanded to be felt before he could let her go. He felt it, and as she walked out the door, he felt the resolve watch over him.

"Goodnight and goodbye, Skye."

When she was gone, Lachlan was alone in the clubhouse. He didn't know if Oliver was coming back, and at this point he didn't want him, too. He didn't deserve to be around Lachlan like this. He hoped that Oliver was in the Lockwood house consoling Delilah. She was the one of the three of them who deserved to have someone there. Lachlan looked around the clubhouse and knew that he couldn't stand to be in there for another minute. He walked out the door, slamming it shut behind him. He looked at the stupid ceramic frog and in a moment of rage, kicked it as hard as he could into the pool. He watched as it sank as he walked towards his family's fancy glass house. He slid the back door open and closed behind him.

Lachlan climbed the stairs to the second level and opened the door to his bedroom. He closed it behind him and looked around. This bedroom felt like when he was young. And for the first time since he was maybe 14, Lachlan pulled the comforter on the large bed back, laying down in it.

It has felt like so long since Delilah had been in an embrace like this. Last time was about a month ago when her father held her for the last time for what would be a long time.

Delilah wasn’t even sure what sa going to happen with her dad, but all she knew was that feeling the right embrace from Oliver was the more secure and comforted she had felt in a long time.

At the suggestion of being walked home and finding a comfortable bed she nodded her head and started to walk with spiced beside her to her house, the moment felt rather reminiscent of when they walked from the field of mars to her house about a year ago.

Upon entretint the Lockwood mansion she closed the door behind them just taking her shoes off at the door before going up the stairs leading Oliver up to the double wooden doors. The wooden doors was what separated the second floor from the foyer.

Once in the hallway she took a left and then at the end of the hall she stopped in front of the door on the left before she’d look over to Oliver, “Thank you, Oliver.” She said softly feeling if she spoke any louder her voice would be a little hoarse.

Delilah opened the door to her room and stepped in before turning to him again, “did you want to stay a little bit?” She asked and she’d hope he’d say yes, because this house was beyond empty and felt like it’d suffocate her if she stayed in it alone any longer.

Oliver looked back just to see Lachlan moving into the main house as the door shut. He hadn't seen Lachlan in there for than 5 minutes as long as he had known him. Part of him wanted to go and make sure that his best friend was okay, but he knew that most likely Lachlan would just scream that he was fine, probably throw something breakable against the wall, and then calm down, still not actually saying much about it to Oliver. As the son of Letus looked down at Delilah, he knew that he needed to be with her right now.

It felt weird being in the Lockwood house. The last time he was inside the house he was drunk and was on a mission. This time he took in the entry way as he took off his shoes, following Delilah's lead. He followed behind her quietly as she went up the stairs. They passed through a set of double doors and Oliver was reminded of how nice this house really was. He almost just felt lucky to be inside of it. As they approached the door to, Oliver assumed, Delilah's room, Oliver prepared to say goodbye. That was when Delilah asked if he wanted to stay. Oliver was happy staying, but he could hear in her voice that she wasn't really asking if he wanted to stay, but if he would.

"Of course I'll stay." Oliver said with a compassionate smile. "I don't have anywhere to be until brunch." He said, his smile widening a little bit. The word 'brunch' was just a little funny all the time. Oliver followed Delilah through the doorway.

Upon entering Delilah’s room you could see how light the room was and how open it was. The floorboards were the same light oak that had carried throughout the house. There was a window on two of the walls, one looked out to the cul de sac and the other looked over towards the Reid house. There were white curtains hung up on the silver curtain rods.

On the wall without a window but not the one with the door was where her bed would sit perfectly in the center. Her bed had a silver bed frame that went up onto a canopy where she has white netting hanging down, on the bars of her bed she had string lights coiling down them. It was like her own little fort.

Delilah gave him a warm smile when he said he would stay and he mentioned brunch. “How do you think brunch will go? It doesn’t seem like anyone is really going to be talking to each other and you mom deserves better of your friends.” She said sitting down on the edge of her bed. “You can stay until brunch if you want, it gets really lonely being the only person in such a big house.”

Oliver looked around the room as he walked in. It was so totally Delilah. The bed was sweet and contained, just like he saw Delilah. He liked collecting more and more information about his friends. They were all pretty awesome, weren't they? Unfortunately, he didn't think it was a given that they were all going to be friends again after what he walked in on tonight. He pushed that to the back of his mind.

"I'll probably just tell her that everyone was busy and couldn't come. I doubt it's really the time to push the issue with any of you. Maybe I'll text Brian and Emily in the morning." Oliver said with a little chuckle, sitting down awkwardly on the bottom corner of the bed. He could already picture the look on Jasmine's face. She would know instantly that something was wrong and since he'd be alone would definitely push him on it.

Oliver always felt weird going back to the Barracks, especially when everyone else wasn't. That's why he usually spent as much time at Lachlan's. He could go for not going back.

"Yeah, I'll stay as long as you have a pillow and a phone charger I'll be fine."

Delilah looked over at Oliver and she could tell there was a little bit of awkwardness at the topic at hand. Hearing him talk about just showing up with no one broke her heart a little bit. She shook her head slightly, she wouldn't accept it and it wasn't going to happen. Oliver wasn't going to that brunch with his mom alone, Delilah was going to that brunch with Oliver and he was going to have a friend to bring to his mom. "Oliver, I will go to the brunch with you, I'd love to meet your mom and I'm not taking no for an answer." Delilah said trying to put some firmness in her voice, but it was hard when you weren't the type, but still she still meant it.

The legacy got up of the bed momentarily to grab the charger from the other side of the room and she plugged it into the wall near the night stand and handed Oliver the other end of the cord for his phone before she took her cardigan off and hung it up, the last thing she needed to sleep in was a thick cardigan on a summer night. She walked back over to her bed and and crawled onto the other side of it and patted the pillow on the side Oliver was closest to, "there's a pillow and a charger, anything else never be afraid to ask." She said with a small smile on her face. Part of her could still feel a twinge of anger, but being around Oliver made her feel calmer. She ended up laying on her side propping her head up. "How is your mom anyways?" The daughter of Epione asked almost as if she knew the woman already, but in reality she didn't even have a clue what she looked like.

Oliver laughed a little bit, rolling his eyes. "You're more than welcome to come along, but fair warning my mom will ask me about you every time she calls. She might even send you a Mardi Gras present." Oliver's family wasn't religious growing up. They did the normal secular Christmas thing with his grandparents, but nothing compared to them going hard on Mardi Gras. It was the one day a year that they didn't hold back. It was the true Garrett Christmas.

Oliver took the phone charger from Delilah and plugged his phone in and watched the little symbol pop up. He was a little afraid to turn it on and see the message that Lachlan had sent that he had missed. He couldn't oversleep brunch with his mom, so he needed the alarm. Oliver turned the phone down and set it face down on Delilah's nightstand.

Oliver took the opportunity to not sleep on a couch or hardwood floor gratefully. He pulled off the flannel he was wearing and laid it in a neat pile on the ground before turning in and sliding underneath the blanket. He turned on his side, propping himself up on his elbow to meet Delilah's eyes.

"She's good. I think it's starting to get really hard on her being back home alone. I keep telling her she needs to get herself out there and date but she has to keep citing that the last time she put herself out there, he was a death god. And, y'know, I can't really argue with that." Oliver laughed a little darkly. It was definitely getting harder on him everyday.

She had her eyes closed for a few moments as Oliver shifted around. It wasn't because she felt like she needed to clothes them or anything she just wanted to. It was the only kind of rest she could really get these days, trying to sleep otherwise was a chore when all you got was night terrors all the time. In a few seconds she would open them again as she watched Oliver get under the covers and begin to talk about his mom.

"I'm fine with that, parents love me, so its only natural." Delilah said with a little laugh as her hand went under her head and she shifted a little bit to get into a comfortable position and watched his eyes as he talked. They lit up in ways she never really noticed before, in a way it was one of Delilah's favourite things when she got the moment. The eyes were the window to the soul and looking at them just held so much truthful and raw emotion, that she just grew fascinated with moments likes these.

"Awe, your poor mom. Is there any way she could just move out this way? Be closer to you? Or is there some attachments to New Orleans? I would get that if that were the case. But I guess a death god is a little bit of a bad record for some." Delilah said with a sympathetic smile, she remembered the countless women that her father would try to quietly talk about with Sam Reid, of course she was sure when it were just him and Sam he wasn't quiet about it. Just guys being dudes, after all. "Maybe if she were open to it she could swing the way of girls, death god avoided." She said giving a little laugh, obviously it had been a joke to lighten the mood a bit despite her eyes feeling the heaviness.

Oliver laughed and shook his head. "Of course parents love you. It makes you even more powerful." Oliver laughed. He knew it was true because parents loved him, too. Adults, in general, liked Oliver.

"I don't want her to leave New Orleans, and I don't think she really could even if she tried. Her parents and siblings all live in Louisiana and Alabama and she could never be far from them. Anyway, I don't think the west coast is really her scene, which I definitely get." Oliver loved his friends and the legion and his life here, but a lot of the time he couldn't shake the feeling of just wanting to be back home. Things were easier when he lived in New Orleans. The people were kinder and less image drive and scared. Maybe that was a SoCal thing, but it felt so foreign to Oliver when he first got here. He missed the hospitality of Louisiana living.

Oliver let out a loud joke when Delilah joked about his mom and girls. "Trust me, playing for both- playing for all sides doesn't make it easier to avoid the crazies. In my experience, it's been the opposite." Oliver shook his head a bit. "Anyway, as fun and cool as Jasmine is, she is definitely full hetero." Oliver looked Delilah over and gave her a slight smile.

"You should get some sleep. I'm here if you need anything or if you want to talk about what happened." Oliver said, sweetly. "I can also just be a silent human presence, as hard as that may be to believe."

"Parents can't refuse a good little christian girl, although I guess that last part isn't true anymore, it definitely takes off brownie points,." Delilah said laughing half joking about it. Pillow talk was nice and it was rare that she got to have the chance for it, most times in her life it'd happen at little sleepovers between her and the gang. The pillow talk back then was usually between her and Lachlan or sometimes her and Skye. At various times it would be all three of them. The trio of them had been fairly close, not to say they weren't close with the other three, they just weren't close.

"I get that, home is home and you have to be near family. Sometimes you can't be near all of them either, not all the time .I bet you miss it back with your mom. How could you not, she's your mom and she sounds like such a good mom just hearing about her, I miss her." Delilah said with a slight joke in there hoping to lift the mood just a little bit and then she rested her hand on his. "You'll always have family here too, Lachlan's gotta be like a brother to you at this point, he wont be mad forever...He's a softie as heart as I'm sure you've guessed. That and you can always count on me for anything. If you ever miss home we can play some jazzy stuff, I've been practicing since a year ago." Delilah said giving him a small smile. It was strange to talk about Lachlan in a good way when she still had a little residue of anger left over. Unlike her sadness that would creep up on her, she knew the anger would burn out. If she were truly mad at anyone it would be at Skye and herself. The pair were horrible at communication and couldn't just say things. But maybe that's how it had to be, right?

A laugh erupted from her chest as Oliver explained it didn't make anything easy and she felt that statement, especially with everything that had just happened today. "That's a fair point, I've run into crazies on both sides, although sometimes I'm convinced I'm one of the crazies...You know in like a good way." When Oliver brought up that his mom was definitely straight she had a smile on her face, "Some people need to be in this world, we can't all be slightly gay or mostly gay or somewhere in between. Diversity." The daughter of Epione confirmed before letting out a yawn.

"I'll try and get some sleep, yeah. Whether I sleep I'm not sure." Delilah commented looking at Oliver still before speaking again, "Can I rest my head on you? It sounds weird, I know, but I'd rather ask than just do it." She said, part of her felt maybe if she could feel even a little bit secure she might be able to get an hour or two in.

"I think it'd be really funny if someone tried to get a read on you from just the things that you've just said about yourself. You're a good, formerly christian, some amount gay girl who parents love and is, hopefully, the good kind of crazy." Oliver laughed. He was thankful for everything that had learned about Delilah, and only confirmed how he felt about her since San Francisco. He liked the Delilah that he had come to know.

When Delilah asked him if she could rest her head on him, Oliver smiled and nodded, his heart skipping a quick beat. "Of course you can." Oliver moved to close the space between them and laid on his back. He put his arms around Delilah's shoulders and pulled her in close to him. He wished for a fleeting moment he could have protected her from everything that had happened that night, but he'd have to settle for this.

"Goodnight, Delilah." He said quietly. And so Oliver closed his eyes and prayed for a brief moment that the dreams would hold off for just one night and he wouldn't wake Delilah.
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