"Let me in the house and I'll make it up to you, girl. You've got me out here naked, cold, and that's why I was pissed off. You didn't have my back at the family house, and - "
"Where's my holy water. I'm gonna..."
Damali's voice trailed off as her motions slowed down. Damn, she really took this the wrong way, and it was not about allowing her to douse him with that foul concoction of Marlene's tonight. It also disturbed him that he was back to needing a verbalized invitation to cross her threshold. That had never been the case, and it released another inner cry from his psyche that he couldn't totally ignore.
Carlos opened his fingers and splayed them against the shut screen, pulling away the last few minutes, closing his fist around it all, and then hurling it into the back of her mind like an erotic bad dream. "Hide," he murmured behind the small black orb that penetrated the base of her skull. Then he dried her clothes, righted all toppled furniture, put the baby Isis back in her hand, snapped his fingers, and released time.
"I'm going to get the stuff I need to douse you and your clothes. Stay on the porch," she ordered over her shoulder. But her tone was calm, as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. "I want you to see how your clothes just disappeared in the yard before."
"Okay, baby," he said in a weary voice, covering himself with his hands. "But can you at least bring me a towel?"
She laughed. He finally relaxed and smiled.
After a few moments, Damali appeared at the screen door. She absently threw the towel she was holding at him and half of it landed over his head. He sat appearing contrite as could be on the steps, watching her make a big production out of dousing his clothes. Total amusement filled him as he slowed her down again, his clothes on the ground disappeared, and he replaced them with new ones.
Battling emotions filled his mind as he watched her. A small inner voice kept repeating the word danger. It was a muffled cry, almost a sob. Then a stronger voice would override it and tell him to f**k with her. Carlos dropped his head into his hands and peered up slowly as Damali walked in a haze of altered time. Dear, G -
He stood yelling in pain. White-hot poker heat seized his brain and almost set it on fire. He held on to the rail and looked up. He could no longer hear the Name even casually, not just when he was an imminent threat, but no matter what? "Oh, shit."
Carlos covered his face with both hands and breathed into them with shaky breaths. What if he couldn't cross cathedral barriers, or whatever? What other limitations did his little dip down to Level Seven via the Chairman's throne have, he wondered? Why could he even cross here and be on this land, though? It was all too confusing.
"C'mon, y'all. Don't play me like this. I'm on your mission. Yeah, I took a tumble, but don't get new. Hey. For real. I'm serious now."
The starry horizon didn't even squint at him, much less produce a sign. "Okay, fine," he muttered, and sat down, then released Damali from the time aberration.
"I don't understand," she said, walking around the wet heap of soiled clothes in the yard. "Nothing happened."
"Nothing happened," Carlos repeated casually, "because, like I told you - nothing happened. I didn't relapse and whatever infection had me earlier passed out of my system. We're Neterus, immune." He looked up at the sky, as though arguing with it. "Everybody is making me feel like I've committed a crime, and I haven't done a thing. Y'all are being real unfair," he said, his face still heavenward. "There's a double standard. When you had your moment of trip-out, they were trying to help you, Damali. Everybody did all that they could to keep you on lockdown and safe in the compound, but see how they do a brother?"
When she didn't answer, Carlos gave her with a angry sidelong glance, abandoning his skyward-hurled argument. "It ain't right... and what hurts the most is, you're standing here at the bottom of the steps, a bottle of test water in one hand and salt and Ju Ju oil, or whatever, in the other, just looking at me like I'm the Devil himself."
Carlos swallowed hard and stared out into the distance. "Never thought I'd see that expression in your eyes, of all people, Damali... after all we've been through together? Bottom line is, you don't trust me. That hurts more than anything else."
He watched her slowly set the bottle of Holy water, anointing oil, and purified sea salt on the bottom step, then let out an unnoticeable breath of relief.
"I'm sorry, baby," she murmured, glancing back at his clothes, confounded. "We just have to be careful because of the newbies and the portal problem."
"I thought the foundation of any relationship was trust?"
She nodded and came up the steps and sat beside him. "I'm sorry, okay?"
He shrugged, and adjusted the waist of the towel sarong that had been shielding his lap. "Whatever."
"Look, why don't we go inside? You get washed up; I'll open some wine. We'll just chill, try to... I don't know, sync our vibe back up. All right?"
He shrugged away from her hand as it touched his cheek, and stood. "I don't feel like making love now, all of a sudden."
She stood and reached for him again. "Carlos, I am really sorry I didn't trust you."
He didn't pull away from her hold and allowed her to hug him, begrudgingly hugging her back, half afraid to touch her. "Been that way for months."
"I know. I've been going through changes I didn't even understand, and I guess I've been shutting you out, like you said. Maybe the contagion got me, too?"
"So, I'm welcomed in your home? You ain't scared that I might turn into a monster?" he said, brandishing fake claws with his fingers in the air and giving her a crazed expression to make her laugh.
"No," she said, swatting his chest. "You can fall by here anytime you want. It's me and you, okay? You have permission to enter, whatever all that unnecessary drama was about."
He smiled, but hesitated. Her mind was strong enough to still hold a bit of what had transpired before his memory block, and was clearly still recording impressions. It was as though her silver-coated gray matter was leaking through the dark orb he'd placed there, searching for truth beyond the illusion. He kissed her slowly, not sending anything extra into it that could make her bolt and run, attempting to erase the last vestiges of any sensations from the previous hour. When he lifted his head, he brushed her stray lock back from her forehead and stared at her mind. "Good."