67 Chapter 67: Cocoa Butter and Conciousness

Sometimes the dreams were typical. Cliche nightmares. Battles with gods…. Giant cats snarling atop pyramids and spires in a Wakandan jungle. Or pale skinned black eyed celestials with liquid armor and tendrilled swords.

The Limbo Dimension….

And then other times. He simply dreamt. Like a child again.

A child with monstrous legs and endlessly long arms swinging a jumping through a massive concrete jungle. Singing to the stars. Singing to children who thought the boogeyman had come upon their window. Petting the dogs who had homes in dark alleyways— giving them fire and food…. healing.

Finding the wounded and wrapping them in his stretchy symbiotic embrace, only letting go once the cuts and injection marks along their limbs were no more.

They were nice dreams. They reminded him of back then…

Back when he flew through the night doing those things himself. It was therapeutic.

Being a hero— helping people, made his own problems feel more manageable to his teenage mind.

To take charge of your life. To be the variable that continues— saves, someone else's.

Romulus couldn't take that from him in life. But he sure did in death.

Now only dreams….

And like everything well and good, those too came to an end.

His eyes burst open as the feeling of steaming water reached his hindbrain in a jarring explosion of heat.

He popped his claws in his left hand, shearing the cold water knob off the faucet handle.

"Son of a b—"

"Tay….. Hey you up? I brought you some breakfast."

Brontë tried his best to get his bearings as he shuffled in the shower.

The rag in his left hand was full of suds. Pinked by….

He brought it to his nose.

"Blood…."

He checked under his nails on his hands and feet. His hair. His teeth.

Nothing….

"This sleepwalking shit is getting outta hand…." Bronte mumbled as the hot water washed the soap scum off his smooth skin.

His ears twitched amidst the rising rivulets of steam inside the beige shower stall as the door opened.

In came the scents of jasmine… cocoa butter …. Vaseline. Citrus perfume. Olive oil. Gun powder…. In that faint after scent sort of way that told him it rested beneath the nails. Settled into the hair and rested on the epidermis of the skin. The smell of someone who knew their way around a firearm.

Her silhouette was all he could see through the crowded glass shower door. She wore her hair in a curly afro that was so well moisturized it could've shined in the shadows. Her brown skin spread under the bathroom lights like spilled hot cocoa as she stripped out of her clothing and jewelry. Until she stood as her whole self next to the door "You're up early….".

"Am I…?" Bronte didn't know the time. Or if he was even awake….

She opened the door and stepped in. Brontë turned to face the water.

The woman laughed, "You getting shy on me? That might cause a problem considering what we get into on a regular basis."

"Stop playing." Bronte tried his best to squeeze and wash the blood out of his rag.

Hands tipped by acrylic nails massaged his shoulders and ran through his dreads.

"What's good, Misty?" Bronte turned his head but continued to face away from her.

The steam began to collect on her brown skin like crops of diamonds in an endless field of soil. It added to the contours of her body. Highlighting her lithe collar bone in a reflective liquid sheen. Her toned arms….. the stretch marks around her breasts and hips….

"Nothing much. You leave your door unlocked so I make it a habit to stop by. Can't have the only man in New York that's a good lay get killed in his sleep." Misty said as she massaged his back.

"Who's killing me?"

Misty's freshly trimmed and shaped eyebrows raised. He couldn't see it but he heard it in her tone. "Ummm….? I know for damn sure you didn't forget where you stay at? New York ain't the place to have some ego. Or would you like me to go over another case with you about how a man in a scorpion suit poisoned someone so badly they melted?"

"Oh I'm good on that. I don't read the newspapers for a reason."

Misty sighed and dropped her hands to his low back, running her fingers through the muscular grooves of his external obliques. "That's the problem. You don't read anything….. or do anything but work that music."

"It pays the bills."

"But does it pay the soul?"

Now it was Bronte's turn to raise an eyebrow, "What you know about soul?"

Misty grinned, taking on his previous reply, "Stop playing, boy."

They sat in silence for a while as she continued to massage him inside the shower stall. The scents of lavender soap swallowed them entirely and mixed with their own individual scents.

"Seriously though…. You don't talk to me…"

"Misty we have sex. That's it. I'm a twenty one year old highschool drop out living in the ghettos of Harlem. You're a well established detective looking to blow off steam. We don't gotta force what isn't there….."

"If I had my gun I'd shoot you." Misty wasn't easily hurt. She also wasn't a young woman with parental issues chasing after a scumbag. She knew what it was.

"If I had a lock on my door I'd start using it."

"No you wouldn't…. Then you wouldn't eat breakfast." Misty let her finger trail down his back and around to his frontside.

"Then I wouldn't eat a lot of things…" Bronte grabbed her hand and spun her around to the front of the shower, letting the streams of water cut through her nappy curls and weigh down her hair as she watched him.

"You don't want to talk to me that's fine. Express yourself another way. I got thirty minutes until my break ends."

"Take an hour."

"You don't got it like that…."

***

An hour past by in a blur of things better left unsaid and unseen by religious eyes.

Brontë laid in his bed. Sheets laced with sweat and perfume. Mind no less clear.

Misty was up at the end of his bed shimmying back into her jeans.

Who needed a tv when you could watch tha—

"Hey are you listening?"

"What's up?" Bronte sat up, feeling his muscles tighten with the movement.

"This music stuff is good… genuinely. You have a talent. You're on the come up. I'm hearing people on the street talking about you regularly. You're past being a micro celebrity…. You could do something with this. But don't if you're not ready. I'm tired of seeing young talents dead from overdoses and depression." Misty said as she dug under his bed looking for her socks.

"So stay broke…. Word word. Love talking to you, Misty."

She came up, Afro and hooped earrings bouncing, with a pair of women's athletic shorts in her hand.

An awkward silence spread.

"…..She better than me?"

"One, that's a set up. Two, I don't believe in putting down women like that if I'm being real. I got sisters." Bronte leaned back against his headboard that still held Misty's palm sweat from where she gripped it before.

She smiled and nodded, "Good answer. I like that. Now give me a good answer to what I said earlier."

"I don't have one."

Misty growled and pulled on her shirt and jacket.

A few minutes later she was fully dressed. Cheeks flushed and hair redone.

As she headed out the door she was still speaking to him.

"Im serious, Bronte. You can't live in the shadows forever drowning out your pain in drumlines and instrumentals. You need to talk to people. I see it everyday…. And worse. People are dropping like flies. We don't survive alone. Even with all the money and riches in the world. Go talk to somebody. If you don't I'm taking that gun from your bedside table. For your safety."

She shut the door.

Brontë listened to her heels click as she hopped down the steps.

"My safety…." He could've laughed.

His phone sat face down on the desk stop beside his window in the distance.

He didn't— he wasn't ready. Gabbie needed role models. She needed to see strength and composure. Laura needed to be reassured that he was ok. He didn't have that. He didn't have it…..

A heavy wind blew in from his window, pulling his attention to the cluttered world outside.

For miles apartment complexes with busted walls and boarded windows stretched. Train tracks and subway lines weaved through the grime. Above it all, a billboard stood out.

An ad.

Four beings stood together with outstretched hands in blue uniforms.

Brontë clenched his jaw in contemplation.

"Fuck it."

Brontë got out of bed and picked up his phone.

"Hey Reed, it's Bronte. If you're free at all today I can slide through…. For a check-up? Haven't had one of those in a minute. For obvious genetic reasons."

After sending the text, Bronte put his phone down and got dressed.

The feel of the wind spoke of moderately cold weather. Nothing as cold as Canada. Or Russia…. Or the mountainous regions in Wakanda.

He grabbed an old pair of black studded Ed Hardy jeans, Supermade sneakers and a black tee to go under a moto jacket he got as a gift during a show.

While he put in his earrings his phone buzzed.

He picked it up casually and checked the message.

"Bronte. I'm glad you reached out to me. A check-up would be ideal as soon as possible but you're welcome to request any of our services. Come by whenever you can. Preferable right now. We're free all day…. I mean until a celestial warlord decides earth is his golf-ball for today."

Brontë slid the phone in his pocket and left his apartment with his headphones on. At the back of his mind he continued to think about the text and how urgent it sounded. And the shake of the fingers in his left hand.

"I'm fine."