#hebelieves

( meme ) // ACCEPTING //  Album prompts:  Amanda Lovelace

There was a small shrug, the sound of long nails clacking against the hard surface of the table they were sitting by. The sun was bleeding in through the tall windows, the bars creating shadows that ran across Lowkey’s wrists as they laid flat against the table, as though he was bound or handcuffed once more. The air felt heavy, and it wasn’t because of the sweaty men in the corner of the cafeteria playing chess with bottle caps with carvings and sketches on them to differentiate who is the pawn and who is the king. 

“I once knew a guy who was mad in love with someone he couldn’t ever have. Not how he wanted, anyway, y’know what I’m sayin’? Was wrong and bad and it hurt more people than it had to...” Poor Echo and Ameinias, suffering under that damned love. Poor Narcissus, too, but who could really have too much sympathy with a guy who wanted to bone himself more than anyone else? That’s just askin’ for trouble.

“He sorta made people believe there wasn’t nothin’ better than that love he had for that someone, and that they were better off just not lovin’ anyone else than him anyway. Love’s a fuckin’ dangerous thing to try and convince people of, Shadow, mh-mhnm. Now, I been lucky enough to have me a wife and some ladies before that, hell I even got some hell-spawn out there somewhere causin’ all kinds-a trouble, but I never once tried to convince no-body about the love I got for ‘em. I never had the need to. Who you love and why? That’s your damn business. If you can love someone even though they’re so far out of reach you only know how to feel ‘em when you’re dreamin’ about them and huggin’ your pillow, then that’s the love you have. You don’t gotta convince me that that’s the good love. Shit, boy, I been locked up and parted from my girl so long I get horny smellin’ the rain ‘cause it reminds me of her. But I don’t go and tell you, ‘hey, Shadow, sniff that rain-puddle huh? Ain’t that just the sexiest scent you ever done smelled?’“ 

His long claws clicked on the table again, and again, in a quiet rhythm, when he took a moment to breathe. 

     CIGARETTE SMOKE IN THE AIR       cool and alien and stagnant in a mouth that hasn’t known  warmth  since the barest press of lips to a man she once questioned love for.     not about the nicotine  ,  three days  was all it took for the addiction to bleed from you   ——-   more a life style choice  !   (  or should she make that death ?   )   what was the point in stopping ? would dead cells live anew just in time to kill her again ?   that seemed like it’d be   JUST HER LUCK.     the alcohol didn’t burn but then again she was   ALMOST   sure that  , that had stopped long before she’d ever kicked the bucket.   fingers tighten on the tumbler before her , cold   , cruel  ,   impartial to the way prints are left behind on the polished surface.   a quirked eyebrow, a tilted mouth  ,  IMPLIED LINES  of teasing caught in the corner of pallid lips.   eyes for one man and   ONE MAN ONLY   the light at the end of her tunnel. a flick of her cigarette, ash leaving smudged streaks of ash white on the worn wood.  

it’s been so long since she’s felt anything but cold.   there is something akin to a    HEARTBEAT   thrumming under her skin.   a pressure behind her eyes and she      feels.    human.   so fucking human.   so belligerently  ,  irreverently human.   there is no higher power  ,  whatever may come  ,  whatever the old man and the bastard of a cereal mascot says.   love won’t break the curse  , and more often than not you’re caught in a hell of your own making.   IT WAS HER LIFE TO FUCK UP.    if you’re unhappy   YOU   need to be the one to change it.    why worry about losing something comfortable if you’re already miserable ?    the inside of her lip is caught between teeth.   chewed  ,  not quite spat out.  there is apprehension in her gaze.  in the way she stares into his eyes.    DIRECT    no flinching away.   laura had treated love the way people who’ve never felt it do.   she didn’t believe in true love  , she believed in being comfortable  , she believed in    EASE     she believed in   THE NEXT BEST THING.   she doesn’t believe in love. didn’t.    coming back to life did something to her  , opened her eyes or made her feel something or     ——–   something.   if it wasn’t love before     (   the thing between her and shadow, the thing that’d grown to fit the space it’d been gifted  , the one night stand that’d become a miniature lifetime.    remember, a voice says:   an overdose is a lifetime supply.     she hadn’t wanted to push him away so she didn’t  , she’d welcomed him into the empty gaps in her life and hoped that his bulk  , his warmth  , his personality would fill them  , and when they hadn’t she’d been unsurprised and still desperate.   )   it is now.    love is something that just happens to her  , in the spaces between breathing  , in the mornings after sex  , it’s either there or it’s not and you can’t force it to appear.

      “    i heard about the messes you’ve been getting into.   sounds like everyone else owes you an apology.   can’t people just    talk   anymore   ?    “     a hand gets held out for a shake   ,   all the hundreds or thousands of people in the world:    EYES ON ME !    what made you so special  ?   old man in the new age   ,    do you need    urbandictionary  ?      “    social media.   not to be mixed up with ...... i love lucy  ?  or monroe.   different brand.   “    THROWBACK THURSDAY     does this ring a bell  ?   can’t flash a tit  these days   ,  user agreements.   smile still fixed in place  ,  uncracked.   “   let’s be friends  ,  okay  ?   “

He had come to the conclusion that, between the old and the new, Shadow would much rather socialize with the OLD GODS. They avoided clichés and were, at the very least, honest about their SHIFTY tendencies. But one thing Shadow had also concluded was that he didn’t particularly appreciate the FAMILIARITY with which all these deities seemed to INSTANTLY treat him. They always got too close or too PERSONAL too quickly. And Shadow , like any man forced to live inside a cage, valued his space. Meddling with others’ lives wasn’t really his CUP OF TEA. This man was like the gods he’d been bumping into ever since he left jail ; UNINVITEDLY CLOSE.     ––––––––    He was ready to tell this BRADLEY to back off but when he turned to face him, Shadow no longer felt annoyed. The grip on his coin had loosened and his shoulders were now relaxed like they hadn’t been in YEARS. He eyed the man from head to toe. Shadow had never heard a voice like that. Bradley, has he had heard him being called,  sounded warm and patient; the sort of patience one would expect from OLDER WISER MEN.  Shadow shrugged, now embarrassed at his initial hostile attitude.                ❛     Sounds like a waste of stone to me.     ❜    

The effect was almost instant, even if unintended — sure he could dial up the charm, and really sway people with just the movement of his lips, without words if need be and if he so chose — for that was just what he is. It wasn’t the same as from the succubi, incubi and sirens; no, they were hardly comparable. Bragi’s very voice seemed to literally be dripping honey, the kind that was a key ingredient in the Mead of Poetry.

“There are many stones, but of you there’s only one.” Different versions, sure. But just like him, there was only one of this very Shadow Moon, in this very timeline and universe. “Then again, each stone is uniquely different. Maybe, just maybe there’s a stone for everyone, you ever see it that way?” The First Poet stroked his chin as men do, and were you to view him in the True Sight, you would have seen an age-old man stroking his full grey beard — and that image would overlaid the younger, more youthful appearance he now wore. The old god gestures vaguely at nothing in particular, and there in his hand he holds a smooth rounded marble stone.

Coin tricks, Shadow? Think BIGGER. Be bigger.