#loft conversion price

[lordansloftsuk]

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[hellenhighwater]

A month or so ago I came across a listing on Marketplace with one photo, a price of $50, and the following description: "12x8x1 i have 45". Now, $50 for 45 pieces of stained glass of that size is an insane deal; $50 per piece of stained glass is...well, it's not crazy, but it's not a price I'd be willing to pay. Glass generally isn't as expensive as you think.

So I messaged him, and he clarified that the price was per piece, and I did my best to politely explain that I was not interested in paying $2,250 on stained glass slabs. Extracting myself from that conversation took some time, since he was keen to make a sale, and I had zero budget for it, but I did eventually make my graceful exit.

And then three days ago he messaged me, saying he was moving and to make him an offer on the glass.

I told him I really don't have much room in the budget for this, and I know it's not a number he'll like, but the best I could do is $200.

He said sold.

So yesterday I went and fetched forty five slabs of stained glass, each an inch thick and a foot long, and eight inches wide. My plan is to use some in the aviary, and also I may use some for book pressing, because they're pretty. The glass is so thick that you can hardly tell what color they are when they're laid flat. The colors are mostly a range of dark blues, purples, greens, and browns, which works great with my color palette. I want to eventually add a loft so that the doves can be out year-round, and ideally natural light would be good. However, doves are easily startled, and transparent glass runs the risk of them trying to fly through it. Stained glass is both prettier and safer.

They're intended for a stained glass technique called Dalle de Verre, where slab glass is chipped into irregular facets and set in concrete, which was popularized during the Brutalist movement. It's a cool technique! I don't know if I'll try it, but it is lovely.

[princessfbi]

“Tummy kisses” 🤲 ‼️

Tummy kisses

Eddie woke up over heated with a numb arm and cotton mouth which he only got when he mouth breathed in his sleep. Something that only happened when he was down and out in a deep sleep where you didn't move even if the earth was shaking and the house was on fire which, admittedly, was not something that happened to Eddie very often. Never say never but Eddie was used to be a light sleeper.

Eddie was always up and moving at the scent of coffee by the time he was sixteen and could drive his sisters wherever they needed to go. The resentment of having to be up before the sun was always tampered a little bit by the fact that his mom would let him have a cup even when his sisters always whined about it. He always drank it black back then even though he'd preferred it with a little bit of creamer because drinking it black was how "adults" drank it and Eddie had prided himself on being an "adult". Sleeping light had transferred into his years in the army and war then to fatherhood and firefighting. Now, knowing what he knew from therapy and all those self reflection exercises Frank made him do through eye rolls and gritted teeth, he could begrudgingly admit that maybe the underlining current of anxiety that skated up his spine might have something to do with the fact that he couldn't remember the last time he slept like a rock but whatever. That wasn't the point.

The point was that he'd been out like a fucking light and he couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

Hell, he couldn't even remember shutting his eyes.

But it all came back to him in fragments by the soft rise and fall of the body beneath him.

A soft snore whistled from above him and Eddie knew it was because Buck had somehow managed to fall asleep on his back again. He always preferred to sleep on his side for that very reason but the couch was too small for both of them stretched out like they were. And yet somehow they made it work.

That felt like a statement that could describe their entire relationship Eddie thought if he was being honest.

Buck had been stretched out on the couch watching some documentary he'd been so patiently saving for when he didn't have to stop and start because they had a shift or a school pick up or errands and work out to run to and from. For the first time in a long time, they had forty-eight hours just to themselves in Buck's loft where Eddie didn't have to pack a bag to stay over anymore because he had a space in the closet and spot on the sink with his normal toiletries.

Eddie had kissed Buck with the insistence that he go watch while he cleaned up dinner and for once Buck hadn't bothered to hide the excitement from his smile when he asked if Eddie was sure. Buck's affinity for documentaries was not something he shared but it had taken a lot of fumbled versions of the conversation for Eddie to vocalize that he didn't mind when Buck indulged in them while he was there. That he liked the quiet and getting to just spend time with Buck without having to carry on a conversation.

When the dishes had been cleaned, Buck's attention had been fully captured by the... whatever it was he'd been watching. It wasn't that he didn't care. It was just Buck had so many interests at one given time that if Eddie tried to keep up with all of them he was pretty sure his head would explode.

Besides, Buck was his boyfriend now which meant apparently, Eddie was allowed to want things without having to pay a price for them. Things like cuddling with his boyfriend on the couch after they'd had a delicious dinner while he watched a documentary about some castle or something.

He had crawled onto the couch and bullied his way into Buck's space without so much as a grunt of displeasure from said boyfriend. Buck had merely gotten comfortable before Eddie had settled his weight on top of him and wrapped his arms around Buck. Buck's fingers had eventually found his hair and it had been lights out for Eddie.

Apparently for Buck too since the TV had turned off but the lights to the kitchen and the soft glow from the loft above were still on.

Eddie wiggled his arm out from being pinned between Buck's hip and the couch and squinted at the time on the oven. They still had a few hours left and Eddie knew that a few hours would be enough to save them both from a backache they wouldn't be able to shake if they stayed there.

Eddie ducked down and pressed a kiss to the sliver of skin where Eddie's hand had shoved up under Buck's t-shirt in his sleep. Buck's stomach was soft beneath his lips and Eddie couldn't help but indulge in a few more kisses before he reached up and rubbed his palm to Buck's chest.

"Baby," Eddie said, his voice croaking from disuse.

Buck sighed in his sleep but refused to wake up and Eddie pressed a trail of kisses up from his stomach to his chest as he climbed up Buck's body. He didn't stop until he was up his throat and to his chin, sitting up so he could straddle Buck's hips and kiss his lips over and over again.

"Wake up, baby," Eddie said between kisses as Buck groaned. Blue eyes appeared from beneath tiny slits as Buck scrunched up his face and Eddie huffed out a laugh as he brushed a thumb over his birthmark. "C'mon. Let's go upstairs."

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I was very curious to see what a $2.5M condo in an 1895 school in Washington, DC looks like (there's also a $350mo. HOA fee.) The unit has 3bds & 3ba.

There's a large foyer off the main hallway.

Very spacious living/dining room.

Either walls were taken down or new stairs were built, but that's the difference between a professional conversion and a DIY.

In the corner of the living room is a bar.

All of the high ceilings and windows are intact and the floor is original.

The kitchen is cool. Interesting architectural details were worked around and incorporated.

This is nice and it actually looks like science lab cabinetry.

What a cool vintage bath. The cabinets actually look like they were in the old nurses office. Love the green pedestal sink.

The primary bedroom is so open. It's huge- look at the size of the TV area. This unit is on several levels, so it's very large.

A sitting room area is on the other side of the primary bedroom.

Bd. #3 looks like a spare or guest bedroom.

Gigantic bath is 2 rooms.

This child's room has a castle theme with it's own loft.

The children's bath.

I don't know what the owners do, but there are 2 floors of work rooms.

Looks like they do something with plants or flowers, and it's so large, they must live and work here.

I'm assuming that this yard isn't shared and each unit has its own.

Well, for the price, it seems like unless you have a use for the workshops and a child who would enjoy the castle room, it wouldn't be worth it. The 3rd bedroom is disappointing and it infringes on the privacy of the primary bedroom.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/111-Quincy-Pl-NE-1-Washington-DC-20002/490453_zpid/

[breakyourrxles]

『paradise lost』 ; 01

❝ do you ever wonder? ❞

↳  finding out about one of your friends spending a night with your best friend changes the trajectory of the way you view him...forever and for always.

⎯ ୨series mlist୧ ⎯ ○ ⎯ ୨next୧ ⎯

『 pairing 』 : kim hongjoong x fem!reader

『 genre 』 : friends to lovers, romance, explicit sexual content.

『 rating 』 : mature

『 word count 』 : 10k

『 warnings 』 : drinking, smoking, sexually explicit content: unprotected penetrative sex, oral sex (f rec), (nice) dirty talking, light possession play, light humiliation play.

“Have you ever done it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“Definitely not.”

An admission of complete truth: you hadn't.

That was, of course, until you had.

It had been four years since that gloomy Thursday evening — rain drizzling and water pooling on the sidewalks from the numerous days prior that the weather had also made itself to be less than pleasantly known; you had made the mistake of putting off shopping for sewing materials for too long, materials you now needed and had no choice but to brave the elements to acquire.

Atypical of you for sure, calling a cab to haul yourself around town, but with the weather in such disarray, it was a last ditch effort, and in a hurry you remember the sequence of events as if they had transpired just yesterday. He also doesn't often let you forget: the grabbing of your bag from the seat next to you in the back of the car, and the harsh swing of the car door — not another thought present to you besides the acquisition of your items and the hastiest way in which you could find your way back home.

That swing of the car door. Only seconds later followed by a shrill “oh shit” and a loud thud accompanying, with enough force to slam the door right back shut in your face.

“I still kind of feel like you did it on purpose, how did you not see me?”

“I didn't look! I was just trying to get in and out, I didn't think about it!”

Your best friend raises his eyebrows, rim of his glass pressed to his lips with a hum and the sound reverberating inside of the emptiness where no more drink resides. His response is almost silent, but it speaks the same words he always does when the topic is revisited.

That he doesn't believe you. That he one hundred percent believes you meant to annihilate him with a taxi car door in the pouring rain.

Kim Hongjoong. Art student when the two of you met, now turned art guy. Relatively accomplished by his own right, nothing fancy but enough to get by and comfortably at that. The kind of bizarre stereotype of an alternative guy who has Michael Jackson and My Chemical Romance on the same playlist and buys five hundred dollar Jordans second-hand even in spite of the markup in price just because he wants to reform them himself. A little eccentric, no stranger to the occasional binger, but he was kind. Thoughtful and available in ways that you, over the years, often found surprising. Through tough break-ups and family disasters, Hongjoong was somehow always available. On the night that your boyfriend of two years broke up with you — and even though he had only just moved into his loft apartment; with only his bed and some loose couch cushions for furniture, before you knew it you were waking up alone among the comfort of his pillows and blankets, only to gaze down at the man — curled up onto the cushions like a cat in the living room area, as if it not his first time in such a scenario.

He was your best friend. You don't recall the conversation happening, though. No large, fanciful declaration of fondness from either of you but the nights together at his place grew longer and with less time in between them. When he needed help painting the walls or shopping for interior, he called you. 

And when he finally announced his place having been “finished,” it was you that he called over for a movie and drinks. Just you.

One thing you had gathered over the years, was that Kim Hongjoong didn't date. Perhaps not in the traditional sense. Maybe he saw people, but he didn't have a partner — not that you could ever tell. In all of the years the two of you had been together, through all of the partners of yours that you had introduced him to, the opposite had never occurred. Hongjoong's private life was simply never a topic that had ever come up — because he never brought it up.

Pulling your attention back to the present — watching the man in front of you with dark turquoise blue hair, crimped, curly and messy in his face order another drink, the memories pull a smile across your lips, catching him off guard as the waitress waltzes away to retrieve the next round.

“What?” he asks, cautiously inquisitive, as if worried he's done something wrong.

“Nothing,” you answer casually, “just thinking about all the years we've been friends.”

Raising an eyebrow again, curious as always, Hongjoong leans forward across the small wooden table of the bar that the two of you currently reside in and smirks. “What about them?”

The waitress comes back faster than expected, and Hongjoong pulls himself back upright to thank her before settling back into his somewhat domineering position. Expectant. As if the conversation has now taken some sort of quiet turn into a power struggle, of sorts.

It hasn't, and you know that. He just naturally carries this sort of essence. Unmanageable confidence and conviction. Sometimes, you think that you've never known anyone who knew themselves as well as he did.

And truthfully, you loved watching it. As if being around him rubbed off on you in some magical, intangible way.

“I don't know,” you start, taking a sip from your new glass. “That I'm glad, I guess.”

“Me too.” he quickly chirps in response, and somehow, the unrelated reply jogs your memory about another topic you had meant to inquire about.

“Oh! While we're here, are you going to be able to come with me to do fabric shopping tonight? I know we never made concrete plans but...since we're here.”

You watch Hongjoong shake his head gently in response, swallowing the brown liquid quickly in an effort to explain as soon as possible. “Can't, got plans tonight, actually should head out soon.” he adds, illuminating the screen on his phone to check the time.

“Damn,” you sigh, checking your own phone as well. “Alright, well let's get you out of here then, Mister.”

It's playful, and Hongjoong rolls his eyes in response as he grabs his things and stands up from the table. The both of you pay on your way out of the bar and upon exiting, still in front of the large doors of the establishment. A trendy, sort of dusty place that Hongjoong likes — out of the way for you, but you're happy to oblige his peculiar tastes.

“What are you up to, anyways?” you ask, innocently enough, but your interest becomes all the more piqued when he elects not to indulge you with the details of his evening.

“Just got some stuff goin' on,” he says, tossing his bag onto his shoulder and giving a half grin, “I'll text you later?”

It wasn't particularly unlike Hongjoong to leave out information, in fact, it may have been less like him to indulge you with all of the details — but something about that instance, you found bouncing around in your mind for the rest of the evening.

Grabbing your fabrics from the store and heading back to your apartment, your best friend and whatever happenings he has going on for him are quickly dismissed from your mind as your girl friends all begin staggering in for the evening. Wine, music and chatting — it has been quite a bit since all of you able to get together for a night in, and after finding a nice corner for you to not so beautifully shove all of your sewing projects in, the lot of you all clinked your glasses and got the night underway.

“So, anything new going on? Any new interests?” one friend asks, and she always was the nosiest one.

“No, no, nothing like that,” you respond, hand gently waving in the air as if to dismiss the words physically. “If it were anything like that, you guys wouldn't be here right now.”

Laughter erupting in the joint dining and living area of your condo, the same friend then leans in towards you — nearly empty glass in hand and quite evidently feeling the effects of such, she smiles a wickedly coy turn of the lip before speaking quietly. “How's your friend?”

Not the first time he's been made the topic of discussion, and certainly wouldn't be the last. You roll your eyes with the insistence of again? but play along all the same. “He's fine.”

“Oh, you're asking the wrong girl!”

It's a comment from across the room, and pulls both of your attention to it immediately. Eyebrows furrowed in confusion, you almost can't even comprehend the turn which the conversation has taken. 

That is, until you see the bright red ears of the friend sitting next to her loud-mouth roommate, and slowly but surely, the pieces start coming together. You can't even help the genuine, audible, shock-response. The gasp and widened eyes, hand pulled up and over your gaping mouth.

“You what?” and before she even has a chance to consider answering, you double down again, “Him? You? Wow.”

Humiliated in jest and with a face now hidden away behind hands, your mouth still lies open with surprise. It isn't the fact that they did, but more so the confirmation that he even really sees anyone at all. Someone that stands such a low profile romantically, socially, sexually — you were sort of anticipating never seeing the day where you were to be faced with the knowledge of the fact that Hongjoong might actually be a sexual being.

Not really information you needed or even really cared about, but intriguing nonetheless; if for no reason other than you being nosy.

“Imagine my surprise when I had to pick her up from the same place I've picked you up from like fifteen times.”

Now you're really gobsmacked.

“Wait, tonight!?” you certainly can't hide your shock now, “You were with him tonight!?”

Bashful-friend falls backwards onto the couch in an attempt to escape the cascade of humiliation befalling her, but to no avail. “I was out with Hongjoong tonight, he told me he had something to do but I didn't think he meant one of my friends!”

“Oh — are you jealous?” another friend pipes up, but you're more than willing to shoot the thought down with confidence. “No, I'm just — surprised he wouldn't tell me, I suppose.”

The room falls silent for a moment, originally-nosy-friend snorts at the turn of events and begins pouring you and herself another glass of wine but the friend insistent on causing problems on purpose that night has other plans on the agenda: cause more problems, of course.

If you were able to go back in time, stop yourself from hearing certain things, or seeing certain things; keep parts of your consciousness locked behind doors that you never were aware of — looking back, you think that you might. Looking back, you remember how quickly it all happened, and how doomed you were from the word 'go.'

How, sincerely, you didn't stand a chance.

It only takes a moment, after all. One piece of information that works its way into your mind, forever changing the way you think of someone, or something. The way you view art, or a film, or hear music.

Or see someone.

“So then,” the friend begins, leaning down towards the girl attempting to melt into your couch. “How was it? How is he?”

“Oh man, come on,” you groan, not interested in hearing the intimate details past this point. Sure, you had been curious about his goings on, but you've learned quite enough now.

“Let her speak,” the friend says, reaching down and shaking the girl with the red ears, hands still completely covering her face — but once the room stills and silence takes it once again, she breaths deeply, slowly exposing her reddened face and staring at the ceiling, she speaks.

“Fucking incredible.”

Whoa, you didn't expect that. 

“The best I've ever been with, like —“ and pausing, she leans up to make eye contact with you, your own features heating at the words already spoken, “Sorry, you probably don't want to hear about this—“

You urge her on, insist that it's not a big deal. It really isn't.

You think.

“So attentive and intimate and just—“ and she pauses again, as if taking a moment to relive the experience in her mind before carrying on to expose more of the details of her love life with your best friend. “I can't explain it, sex with him was like...on another level, like nothing I've ever experienced.”

Hongjoong? Your best friend, Hongjoong? That guy?

And nosy-friend pipes up again, gleaming with excitement at the dirty narration of events. “So are you guys like...a thing? Seeing each other?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” she answers quickly, and you feel a sense of relief wash over you that you neither understand nor are proud of. “Was just a one time thing — I mean, I would, but he was pretty clear about what he wants so that's fine.”

Clear about what he wants? One time, no strings attached sex? 

You're not proud of the fact that this information remains to be the only thing on your mind for the rest of the night. Through more glasses of wine, more stories, more dancing — through it all, it's the same thought, the same visage in your thoughts.

Your best friend, Kim Hongjoong.

Being honest with yourself all throughout your life is something that you've found to be very important.

It's taken years to get to a place where you could. Where you could just sit down with yourself and be clear and concise about your feelings, your desires, your thoughts — but you had reached that place. Somewhere in adulthood, you managed it — it isn't perfect, but functional enough.

Albeit, sometimes the things you have had to make peace with haven't been your favorite. This was one of those things.

Three days since the night you had the ladies over, Hongjoong had texted you that evening just as he said he would, and you opted out of responding. Not necessarily unusual, but the two of you remained in frequent enough contact that you knew the ongoing silence was going to start to ring some alarm bells.

But you simply don't know how to deal with it. Deal with it. Thinking it even to just yourself pained you, and you really wondered how you allowed things to spiral out of control to this point. Maybe you should just fuck someone. Not him, but someone else.

Because, well, you wanted to fuck him. 

But you haven't seen him since before you found this information out, and perhaps it was simply a false alarm. Having the knowledge of your best friend being some sort of sex god is not so easy to swallow, as it seems, especially when you tend to be living entirely unfucked, currently.

It really has been all you have thought about since that night, though. Unending visuals of him and you in scenarios and positions you had never even considered for a moment prior. Sure, you had always thought Hongjoong was attractive — obviously he was — but your friendship together has simply never taken that turn, not even for a moment. Not on his end, and certainly not on yours. You've agonized for days since then, trying to remember a moment in time where maybe, just maybe, Hongjoong had tried to put the moves on you. Tried to make something happen, and you failed to find with each and every passing thought.

It seemed as though, in all four years of your friendship, Hongjoong truly did only ever view you as a friend.

Mindlessly thumbing through pages of a fabric book, zoned out and once again lost in the same thoughts you had been for days since, it's the vibration of a notification received on your phone that jolts you back to reality — and not thankfully so, because you don't have to check to know who it's from.

>Hongjoong: what the fuck dude lol

you: oh hey

>Hongjoong: don't oh hey me you've been ignoring me for days???

you: i've just been busy omg you're so needy??

>Hongjoong: you're such a dick lmao whatever do you wanna go to the bar tonight?

The question makes your skin crawl in a way that it typically wouldn't. An otherwise normal, casual, everyday sort of inquiry, now adorned with shiny new appeal that only you — the receiver — are privy to. A few minutes pass as you get lost in your thoughts before your phone vibrates again.

>Hongjoong: wow are you really ghosting me again already

you: sorry I got caught up in this fabric book yeah let’s go, what time?

>Hongjoong: uhh it's like 5 now so idk, 7?

you: yeah that's good i'll see you there

>Hongjoong: cool will you stop being so fuckin weird then?

you: buy me a drink and I will consider it hehe

Hongjoong opts not to respond again — not unusual of his texting habits as the time and date has already been set, but the open-endedness of the night leaves you writhing in anticipation. Could it happen? Do you even want it to happen? In all likelihood, the actual doing of banging your best friend tends to change the relationship forever, and you aren't entirely sure if that is something you are willing to commit to.

Yes, you wanted him. Yes, you are curious, but are you willing to throw it all away to sate those desires? You really can't say.

Having already been out and with things to do upon plans being made, regrettably, you aren't sitting at what you felt to be your highest rate of sex appeal. You look fine, sure — hell, even good, but if you're going to try to make a move, you'd have liked to have time to make a bit more of an effort.

Standing outside the front doors of the bar, you're not waiting long before the familiar silhouette of your short-statured friend strolls up, cigarette in one hand and a bottle of half-empty beer in another. Torn up gray wash jeans and a simple white tank under a black blazer — colorful paint splotches adorning it, it's easy to tell where he has just come from.

“Busy night?” you playfully jab, grabbing towards the bottle in his hand as he pulls it away from you.

“Uh-uh, you're not a very nice friend! Leaving me on read for days at a time!” he quips back, black painted fingernails and cigarette daintily hanging between two of them as he points towards you with squinted eyes, as if examining you.

And you are so gleefully comforted by his inability to read inside of your head at this moment, because you can't help but think how sexy he looks, and how doomed you truly are from here on out.

But really — and you know this as well — nothing has changed. Hongjoong has shown up to your meetings like this time and time again, already with a buzz and reeking of smoke and paint thinner — this is nothing more or less than the guy you're friends with, and always have been. The only thing that has changed, is you. 

“I told you I was busy,” you respond as Hongjoong pushes you inside of the building, ordering drinks with a quick wave of his hand to a regular bartender who knows him and setting the both of you down at a table in the corner. You can't help yourself now — watching his every move more intently than you ever have before: blowing blue curls out of his eyes before placing another cigarette between his lips and bringing his hands up and around to light it, you look at his hands, small but pretty — well kept because he frequently goes for manicures, which then only brings your attention to the length at which he keeps his fingernails...for very specific purposes, and you can feel the flush of heat pooling in your ears again already before the bartender interrupts to bring the drinks — that, which you are thankful for.

“Right so,” he begins, taking a sip of his cocktail and leaning forward over the table towards you, “what's been going on with you?”

You know what he means, but you seek a way out of acknowledging it.

Taking a sip of your own drink, you simply shrug and smile. “I told you, just busy!”

Hongjoong hums at the response, taking a swig of his own drink followed by a puff of his cigarette, but never for a moment breaking eye contact with you as he glares you down. His stare feels intense — almost stifling, inescapable in so many ways — though you find you may not want to escape, either. A natural domineering aura to him that while always there, only now lights something deep within you. A newly unlocked side of you that you wish for him to explore.

“You're lying,” he says with totality, squinting briefly again but leaning back in his chair, still watching you intently. You don't show weakness, and carry on with the contest. “Why didn't you text me back that night?”

“I was busy, girls were over.”

By now, you figure he's aware that you are aware, and now it's just a question of how the two of you are to navigate the waters of arriving at the point, and then out of the jungle that is the awkwardness of having such information.

It's not awkward for you, you want what she had, but navigating that is a whole other forest in and of itself, and it would have to wait until you've made it out of the weeds of this one.

You watch a grin take Hongjoong's features, his eyes finally shifting away and him huffing through his nose. You watch him take the side of his bottom lip between his teeth — just briefly, before sighing and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Aha, so you know. She told you.”

Part of you wants to deflect, play the game, pretend you don't know what he's referring to, but the longer it drags out the further you get from your goal, and at this point just being in his presence this long, you find, is having an unbelievably adverse affect on your ability to maintain a cool, calm, and collected stance.

He's just a friend; something you have to constantly remind yourself through the visual of him bending you over the bathroom sink in the back of the bar.

Face contorting into what appears to be a wince, Hongjoong brings his cigarette-free hand up to run it through his hair before rolling his eyes and taking another drag. 

You're surprised by how genuinely disgruntled he finds this information.

“Guess I kinda knew she would, I mean, I was hoping for the best but—“ he says, stamping the white stick between his fingers out into the ashtray and taking another sip of his drink. “This is why I don't fuck friends of friends.” he finishes the thought, tipping his glass towards you as if signaling some sort of lazy toast to loose-lipped acquaintances. 

If you're honest, you find it awkward. Taken aback by how stiff the atmosphere has become with the knowledge bestowed upon him, you find yourself unsure of what to say. You don't want to downplay his legitimate feelings of discomfort at the disclosure of his sex life, but at the same time...it's you. His best friend.

“Well,” he begins again, and you're thankful for the break in silence on his end.

“What did she say?”

Nevermind, not thankful.

And of course, you don't want to lie. She said you were abysmal, that sucks, because he probably knows otherwise anyway, but telling him the glowing review might make the journey for yourself just that much trickier. What if they continue on together?

“She said—“

“Actually, nevermind, I don't want to know.”

“You sure?” Surprised, you almost beg to grant him information you weren't thrilled about him knowing to begin with.

Hongjoong snorts, drinking the rest of the liquid from his glass down and setting the empty thing on the table in front of him, pulling forward with elbows firmly planted and leaning towards you again. “No—“ he sing-songs in response, “you'd probably be mad at me if she said I was selfish or bad, which I know I'm neither, but you're nosy and annoying so I'm sure you'd be upset with me for something already.”

“I'm annoying? Says the guy running through my friend group.”

“Hey! That's not fair! It was one person, we hit it off back at that party in October. It's not a big deal.”

Smiling, you wave down the bartender to order another drink before Hongjoong stops you suddenly. “Hey, would you be okay with taking this party back to my place? I kinda have some shit I wanna work on.”

Not an unusual request, again, for your friendship. The anticipation pools in your gut all the same, however. You agree.

Hongjoong's loft is always precisely what you would expect it to be.

What that means, in totality, is that it perfectly exemplifies the man himself: right down to the old, broken down lock that holds the door together while he's gone, one that you've insisted time and time again that he get replaced as it neither holds a lock well or unlocks particularly well either, but he stands firm that it's a piece of the puzzle. As everything around him is. Every single minute part, however simple or intricate, Hongjoong always has a purpose or a vision. It's far from the first time you've entered his place, but this time it feels different. You know that it's the anticipation you're placing on a series of events that only stand out to you. Gazing at the piano-painted walls — alternating; one black, then one white, then black again, and repeating all of the way around the perimeter — all of the way up to the unfathomably high ceiling, you remember the day that he signed for the place and how cheap he had gotten it due to its horrifically poor condition. One whole year of friendship dedicated to refurbishing his home, and time you find that you would never trade for anything.

Kim Hongjoong's home, that feels distinctly like your second. Your own sweat, blood and tears in every corner and crevice — knowing that he would never have it any other way.

“The kitchen is kind of a disaster—“ he begins, and you cut him off before he has a chance to explain. 

"What are you doing to it now? The kitchen was the only nice thing about this place when you bought it.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, stepping through some cardboard box towers of who knows what on his way towards the dining room space. “I think that's why I kind of hate it, though.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Dunno, I'll figure it out.”

You're unsurprised when the two of you make it to the arched opening to find that the majority of the nice marble and tiling — the only thing that had made the apartment worth anything at all to begin with when purchased, has already been torn apart by the man with the blue hair standing just in front of you.

“So you tore it up before you had a plan on what you wanted to do with it.” Not a question, a statement.

Hongjoong hesitates before replying, but only for a second. As if hearing it out loud for once has caused him to realize how truly insane it actually sounds. “Yeah, guess so. Drink?”

Nodding, you continue looking around, trying not to step on chunks of marble and stone that lie scattered across the area like a construction site. You figure, if it were anyone else, living in this sort of chaos would make a man go mad — but for Hongjoong, this is where he thrives. His creative process, how he functions and works best, is among the chaos of things and people. A man that grows tired of anything he sees too much of, and quickly, at that. Painting walls and tearing up fixtures and changing his hair color...all just examples of the ways in which Hongjoong thrives in the mayhem of everlasting change.

You come to find eventually that the only constant in Hongjoong's life is you.

And this thought does not weigh on you lightly, the implications slightly dizzying, you try not to think too much of it. That's typical of friendship, which is true. But also—

“Hey, are you okay for real?”

With the sudden inquiry pulling you out of your shaky head space, you have to quickly come back down to earth. “Y-Yeah, why?”

Hongjoong's eyebrows furrow playfully, he looks at you as if you have three heads on your shoulders. “You've been so weird tonight.”

It's true, and you know it. Pressing your back against one of the only intact counter tops next to the fridge where the man shuffles through items, you take a deep breath before continuing on in an effort to save the evening, and your dignity.

“Yeah, just a lot on my mind I guess, busy.”

“Like what?”

Well, he wasn't supposed to ask. 

Now, you are faced with a decision. Shoot your shot and have it pay off, thus getting what you desire and potentially changing your friendship forever, shoot your shot and be denied, with the same potential outcome, or do nothing. Carry on as if you never learned this information, and as if your desire for him never changed.

Easier said than done.

“Umm, I guess—“ you begin, then follow it up with a deep inhale and closing of your eyes. You hear Hongjoong shut the refrigerator door and shift to stand next to you as he sets up beverages of some sort, but you choose to ignore him in an effort to focus on your plan. You're going to do this. You've got to do this.

“—Been thinking about what she said, about you...and her.”

And once the words leave your mouth, what feels like hundreds of other worries quickly replace the ones you've just allowed free. You worry that it's not enough, that you'll have to elaborate. You worry that it is enough, and that he'll find it weird that you're even thinking about it, caught up in it.

It's the huff through his nose that you hear from your right side that lets you know he very much is aware of what you mean. Followed then by a gentle hum, and the man next to you only carries on with the drink making that he had begun.

Slowly prying your eyes open to survey the scene, what you suspected to be the case has been just that: Hongjoong next to you, a delicate curl to the corners of his mouth as he simply continues making the both of you the cocktails that he had originally set out to.

“That's all?” he finally says.

You sort of feel as though you should lie and say 'yes.'

You don't get a chance to, though.

He's fast, his shift in movement from next to you to in front of you, and the first thing you feel is the distinct press of his fingertips against the skin of your exposed thigh — you hadn't worn a skirt for this purpose, as you had already been out anyway when he contacted you, but you now thank 'you' from the past thoroughly. 

The touch is light, delicate. Barely felt as the tips dance across the skin, and slowly crawling up. Your breath hitches in your throat once your brain is finally able to catch up to the situation at hand and you're able to take in the sight before you — Hongjoong wedged between your legs, you sitting partially perched up on and against the counter top before him, and his bottom lip coyly pulled between his teeth as his gaze turns from his hand playing teasing games, to up and at you. 

“Mmm, I get it,” he begins, playful lust gracing his features as he looks at you through hooded eyes. “You want what she had.”

True, but the question makes your insides swim with anticipation, exhilaration. The coming to fruition of precisely what it was that you had come to terms with desiring only days prior, but unsure if you would ever have it. Hongjoong is playful, a tease, even; but you didn't think he would go this far without intent behind his words — actions. Icy to the touch from just having been in the refrigerator, his fingertips continue upwards, leaving a cool trail of where they just seconds prior have been, and you dare not break eye contact with the man to look down at the sight as his hand disappears beneath the hem of your skirt — curling around to the outside of your leg and making faster work of inching up to hook two fingers into the side of hidden away fabric.

“The Kim Hongjoong Experience,” he chuckles out, as if in an attempt to lighten the mood, and it's only after that you realize you've been holding your breath for the duration of his hand's journey up your leg. Maybe for the best. Maybe he really does know what he's doing.

“Yes? No?” he finally asks, because you have yet to answer him, and with the words lodged in your throat along with the furor of the pending encounter, you can only nod quickly in affirmation.

His other hand carefully slides up your opposite leg to match hooked fingers on the alternate side, and with a gentle tug, you know that he's signaling for you to pull off of the counter enough to release the garment from you. Once free, you step out of it and place hands on either side of yourself for leverage against the counter. Unsure, at this point, of what to expect. Hongjoong leans forward and into you, much to your surprise — warm, soft, lips lightly against your own and it takes you a split second to realize before you're melting into the kiss, teeth grazing against bottom lips as his hands slowly place themselves back up your thighs. You can't help but feel exposed, despite not being all that much more than before — the gentle pry of your legs apart by him to accommodate the width of himself between them, and then the light placement of his palm against your core has you keening into his touch already — putty in his hands, just waiting to be molded by him.

An art piece shaped to perfection by Hongjoong, you simply want to be the next.

“Are you okay?” he whispers into your mouth, low and confident but in need of the affirmation to continue all the same. You say that you are — feeling the curl of his lips against your own just before his middle and ring fingers press between your folds with such ease that you feel the rush of heat to your cheeks. “Tell me what feels good, or doesn't.”

You nod again, focus lost on his words and demanded down between your legs — to the way that his middle finger ghosts circles over your clit, then dipping back down to the source of the wetness — deftly pressing in and accommodated with ease, but not rushing all the same. Stilling once knuckle deep, Hongjoong pulls from your lips only an inch or two, and it's as if with anticipation of hearing the whimper that falls from your bitten-red mouth once freed. You watch him as he watches you, smooth, shallow flicks of his wrist into you as to survey your every reaction — the way that he watches you is truly as if he's working, and it's not wrong. He is, in fact, working you. 

“Feels good,” you manage to say, knowing that he needs to hear the words and it takes everything you can muster to get even that much out. “Good,” is all he whispers in reply, before pulling his hand back and resuming the circles against the most sensitive part of you. When you had fantasized about what it would be like, you thought you would handle it better. You expected to have a better grasp, hold out longer, not so easily melt into every touch and word he gives you. A false sense of confidence, because as short as the encounter has been you can already tell that this is Hongjoong's motive; to break you down by hand in such an intense and masterful way that you're already worried you may never get fucked like this again — not by someone else, at least. As the muscles in your legs and abdomen tighten and pull with every slow swivel of his fingers against you, you vaguely recall all of the ways in which the signs were always there that this would be the case. Vastly outclassed by him, even if he were too humble to ever admit it. You find out by accident that this is only another example of it.

“Still good?” he asks, snapping you out of your daze — a daze somewhat induced by the fact that your orgasm is already quickly approaching, and you are trying to buy yourself some time.

“Yeah, I'm close—“

“Really?” he says, eyebrows pulling upward and and surprise lacing his tone, as if it's taken less work than he had anticipated, and you might be more embarrassed if not so hopeful for your impending release. 

“I think we should wait, better if you wait,” he says, slowly pulling his hand from you, the whine escaping you bringing a smile to his face as he instead takes you by the hand. “Geez, not too long. Should move to the bed, I can't work here.”

Work, such a particular and pointed vocabulary, yet exemplifying him to perfection.

Hongjoong leads you upstairs to his bed by the hand, never letting you go for even a second until you lie back against his mattress. You watch him peel his shirt off and you realize that you don't think you've ever seen him this way before then — deceptively toned, nothing excessive and clearly not from working out, but not as thin as previously thought. You watch him pry at his belt, then his pants button, and then discarding them off and to the side before he climbs up the bed and between your legs again to kiss you — this time, with far more intent than previously in the kitchen — as if this truly were where he did his best work.

Pulling off, he whispers for you to sit up, slipping your shirt over your head, then wastes no time with your bra.

“An expert, huh?” you joke at his precision, and he shrugs.

 “I've done it a few times.”

“Get around, huh?” Another playful question — this time met with his groin pressed hard into your own and his mouth hot against your ear. “Maybe, does knowing that make you come?”

Typically, your answer would be “no,” but in that moment, you aren't so sure anymore.

And just as quickly, Hongjoong pulls away from you to shimmy your skirt down your legs, dropping it off the side of the bed and leaving the only clothing left on sight being his boxer briefs. He assumes the position again, hovering over you and nipping kisses along the line of your jaw.

You're still lost in the thought of him asking if something about him makes you come, though. By the second, you lose confidence in the fact that you may make it out of this experience the same woman that you went in as.  

Hongjoong slips down, kissing along the skin of your neck, and meeting with your breast, hand working the opposite in tandem as his tongue swirls over the other and you involuntarily arch your back into him, hand smoothing upwards and nestling into his hair, he makes it a point to pull off only enough to look up and at you — the visual of his tongue dipped out of his mouth and against your flesh as he stares at you enough to make the arousal crash over, you drop your head back down against the mattress. “God,” you whisper, as if exhausted already.

“I'm gonna eat you out, if that's okay,” you hear him question, and you don't bother looking up at him to agree, needing a break from the bombardment of visual stimulation you've already had to suffer through thus far. “Yeah, okay.”

Hongjoong slides down further between your legs, lips loosely pressed to various places on your torso as he makes his way down to pry your legs apart. “Can you not come?” he asks, gently sliding a single finger up your slit. You sort of don't know what he's even asking of you.

“What?”

“Want to wait, it's better if you wait,” he reinstates from earlier in the kitchen, but you thought he meant he was going to make you come now and not even later, but you figure he has a plan. Regardless, curiosity does get the best of you.

“I don't know. Why?”

He chuckles against the inside of one of your thighs, in between pecks. You're still opting out of looking at him. You can only imagine how fucking sinful he looks now, if he looked like that just a second ago from your chest, and if he's asking you not to come, then looking you cannot.

“I like it,” he starts, and the drop in his tone is equally sinful, “a lot.” 

You don't have to be a literary genius to put the logic together that he's telling you he likes to eat pussy, and quite probably more than you're able to hold out for. Knowledge that's dizzying in and of itself. Stand alone. Then there's everything else about the night accompanying it, as well. You weren't going to make it out of this alive.

“Might have to—“ you're cut off by Hongjoong's mouth making contact with your most sensitive flesh, enough to make you jolt up the bed at the suddenness of it. You hear him chuckle under his breath in response, but you focus on the task at hand. “Might have to wait.”

You realize the answer doesn't even make much sense, but it's all your goo-brain can muster, and Hongjoong seems to understand it well enough, replying with a simple “next time, then” and another press of his tongue into you, but one thing remains in the fore front of your mind.

Next time? 

A pointed swirl of the tongue against you, and the thought is lost — thighs threatening to clamp down against his head in spite of his attempt to hold you open for him, you huff out an “oh god,” at the rush, tossing an arm up and over your face in an attempt to ground yourself. You absolutely are not going to make it for whatever sort of marathon cunnilingus session Hongjoong had hoped to have tonight, but with the way his mouth is working you in such little time, you're happy to let him have his way in the future. Bringing a hand up and pressing the same two fingers from before into you once again, the arch of your back has you involuntarily pushing yourself down and against his mouth even more — much to his delight, as far as you can tell, from the way the gentle suction of his lips against you briefly intensifies.

“Good, feels good,” you stammer, breath shaky and trying not to allude to the fact that you're close again as if hoping to come before he's able to stop you, but as a man tailored to the craft, Hongjoong picks up on all of the signs; even as a new and previously unexplored partner — slowing his ministrations against you to eventually pull himself away entirely, and much to your dismay.

“Can't trust you to tell me.” he laughs, and you bring your arm off your face just in time to watch the man before you sit back and on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before giving you a look that so distinctly tells you that you've misbehaved.

“You're insane,” you huff out in response, and it brings him to a chuckle again. 

“I've heard that before.”

Crawling back up the length of your body, Hongjoong wastes no time pressing his lips hard into your own, this time much more aggressive than the previous — more teeth than before, breathing heavier and more ragged — groin pressed into the apex of your thighs a bit more snugly, but the feeling of it, the need to feel him, see him, weighs heavier and heavier on you. As he pulls away from your mouth to trail kisses back down your jaw and toward your ear, you whisper out to him, “want to taste you,” and much to your surprise, he shoots the idea down immediately.

“Next time,” Hongjoong answers swiftly, a heavy whisper into your ear and deep press of himself against you again, it feels like a bid to get you to forget, to change the subject. Like he doesn't want you to, yet doesn't want to say that.

“But I want to,” you plead, an assumption that he may think you don't really want to and are only offering because he has been so gracious, but it's the following giggle into your ear — a tickle with the puff of his breath and his hand floating up to the side of your face, opposite of where he reside, thumb tracing your bottom lip to eventually lightly hook into the corner of your mouth — you welcome it, tongue swirling against the black painted finger, you pull a groan from his throat, almost pained, dripping with elicit desire and want.

“Next time,” he reiterates. “Not about me.”

You conclude that tonight — the first time — he makes all about his partner, although his insistence on there being a next time rings heavy in your ears as someone well aware of his alleged “policies.”

And yeah, you want to suck him off, but you want to allow him the reigns of the experience even more. Next time, then.

Hongjoong pulls himself up again, kneeling between your legs and runs a hand through his disheveled, blue hair. “I don't usually do this, but since we're close—“ he starts, and it's the first time you can tell through the entire experience that he seems uncertain of anything. 

“I have condoms, but—“ and he pauses again, you realize you're watching him think through this in real time, that it must have been a thought that came to him only just now in this moment. “Obviously it's fine if you want to use one, just saying.”

Looking him dead in the eyes, you ask, “How often do you give partners this option?” and immediately, he responds.

“I don't.”

“Then I kind of—“ and you pause, a wash of humiliation taking you in the moment at how desperate you realize you are to feel him, and paired with the fact that you're getting an experience that no one else does. The Kim Hongjoong Experience? Then what was this?

Corner of his lip curling only briefly, Hongjoong settles back down against you to kiss you; lips, jaw, chin, down to your neck and around to the juncture where your ear meets. Humming into your skin, hand dipping down and between the two of you to gently press into you and work you open for him again, you moan into the touch. “Ahhh,” he says, an innocent enough passing commentary that you think is about your maintained slickness.

“So you really want to feel me, hm?”

You realize then, that he's referring to your willingness to go without protection, but the words send the arousal pooling in your gut straight south more, tightening around the fingers already buried inside of you. Now he truly knows where you stand.

“You like when I talk dirty,” he adds. Not a question, but a statement. He knows this, and is simply informing you of the newfound knowledge that he has acquired. “Can I?” he asks, and without being entirely sure of what it is that he's asking permission for, you grant it with a quick nod, followed by the feeling of him removing his hands from you and freeing himself from his own confines. 

Hongjoong rests his weight on one forearm as his other hand remains between the two of you, head buried into your neck as he slowly rubs the tip of himself along you — collecting the wetness but not yet pushing in, you reel at the feeling of being so, so, close and still not having it. You're not one to beg for dick, but you're certainly reaching a point where you might have to. Hips pressing up and against him in an attempt to feel more, you hear him snort in laughter — hot puffs of breath against the skin of your neck and face at your neediness for him. “God, you want it so bad, you poor thing, how have you made it this long?”

In truth, “this long” has only been a few days, but at this point, you're not sure how either with the intensity in which you need to feel him inside of you.

“Joong, I—“ you start, but you insist to yourself on not wanting to beg for it. He picks up on it too quickly, though. 

“Yes?”

“Don't play.” It's not begging, you're just asking nicely. 

“It's okay to ask for what you want,” he whispers in response, nearly pressing into you enough to enter, but only with intention of egging you on. “I'll give you anything you want.”

Hot and laced with want, but more than that, the desire to please, and you can't help yourself any longer. “Joong, please,” you respond, and he hums at your compliance as he slowly sinks himself into you until his hips meet flush with your own. Hongjoong stills once you are made full with him, bringing his arm back up to bear equal weight on both sides and interlocking his own fingers with your own, you find the experience of finally having him inside of you intense. Intimate. Passionate and raw for all of the obvious reasons but even beyond that, you find that it's the way he looks at you from atop you — takes in your every movement and breath and sound that is truly what makes him the lover he has allegedly been made out to be.

The first withdraw, followed with a glide forward of his hips is slow like the first, the second and third similar. Then he shuffles himself in position slightly and retracts again — this time, the roll of his hips forward has you gasping out. He notices, with the way his face changes, as if he has found what it is that he's been looking for. You realize that he has. 

Nothing about sex with this man occurs by accident. Everything carefully planned out in accordance to precisely how and when he plans on making you come.

Your breath hitching in your throat as you attempt to swallow down a particularly pathetic whimper, you watch him smile in response to it, as if he's having fun being the unraveling of you.

“Feel good?” he asks, and you respond “yes” in a gasp as his hips snap back into you at the same angle, but quicker and with more force. The feeling nearly knocks conscious thought out of you completely, the aftermath has you reeling. “Good, I'm gonna move, okay?”

Nodding, Hongjoong kisses you before pulling up and to his knees again, still buried inside of you but once again adjusting his positioning, he places his hands at your waist and pulls you down against him, your feet planted flat on either side of his hips, knees bent, and you realize now that he's constructed the perfect angle. 

He draws back again, this time pulling you onto his cock with more force than his own push, but with the weight behind it as well as the angle, you immediately reach down and grip into the bed sheets. “Fuck,” you whimper, then another snap of his hips, “fuck, fuck, Joong—“

“That good, huh?” he replies, almost as if the scene before him is simply an experiment and you're the test subject. Just a man on a journey to find the most optimal angle, albeit, you don't imagine that's too far from the case.

“Fuck, I think—“ the words falling from your lips sooner than you're able to stop them, and Hongjoong chuckles in response. 

“God, can't do anything to you or else you'll come.”

It's humiliating, and kind of true.

“Might have to just let you so we can really have fun.” he continues on, changing position again so that he lie atop you just as the two of you had started, and you'd be lying if you said that the idea of it didn't excite you.

“Didn't know you wanted it this bad,” he says, snaking an arm down to hook under your knee to grant a new angle, and you groan first in response to the sudden, hard drive of himself into you, then at the contact of his lips to your jaw. 

He's clearly better at having conversations throughout, you already feeling completely fucked out, and having lost the ability to form coherent thought, you want to play along nonetheless. “I didn't know either, not until—“

The knowledge makes him still for just a second, then a slow, deep grind into you in response. “Hearing it from her did it?”

You nod, it's all you can do with the thick drag of him against you and pelvis pressed firm, but you notice that the information is exciting to him, that much is clear.

Hongjoong shifts positions enough so that he's able to pull your wrists up, clasping both of yours together and over your head — quite a switch up from how things had just been, but the grin on his features tells you that he has something in particular at play, something you're excited to become privy to. He settles back down between your legs, carefully restraining you and solidly kissing you on the mouth again, tongue hard against your own before pulling away — and for the first time that night, the look in his eye is almost animalistic. Primal.

“Tsk, tsk,” he finally starts after a myriad of movements. “You only want me because someone else had me, is that it?”

Hongjoong snaps his hips again, this time harder than ever before, and at just the right angle — he has you crying out already, and much to his pleasure.

“You can have me too, but you won't want anyone else after,” he adds, now fixed into a steady drive that makes your skin feel like it's electric, body weight pressed firm against you to free up his hand to rub fingers into the narrow space between the both of your hips. “You'll just have to be mine, you okay with that?”

You nod, only pathetic whimpers falling from your lips as your eyes clench shut at the swiftness in which your orgasm approaches. Hongjoong never relents in rubbing or talking you through it, fucking into you hard as his fingers dig brutally into the wrists held over your head.

“Look at me,” Hongjoong says, the whisper in which he says it betraying the sort of demand it feels so strongly to be, and you follow his direction all the same in spite of its difficulty. “You like it?”

“Yes” you whisper, airy and fucked out.

“You want to come?”

“Yes,” you manage out, but you're losing the ability by the second.

“If you come, you're mine, you know that right?”

You don't care how insane he sounds, because the things that he's saying to you have you clenching hard around him, and every muscle in your body tightening painfully, desperate for the release he's dangling in front of you — any second now at the precipice of granting you what you need from him so badly, so badly that you'll say anything he wants to have it.

“Please, please, Joong—“ you beg, unbeknownst to you until you hear the words in your own ears, and you watch the way Hongjoong's eyes darken at the sound, bottom lip pulled up between his teeth as he pulls his attention down and to the place where the two of you meet.

“Where do I come?” he asks suddenly and with a shake in his voice, his strokes becoming longer, fuller — you know that he's asking because he needs to know now. 

“Inside, ple—“ and you don't get to finish the thought before he's reaffirming your choice. “You sure?”

“Yes,” you exclaim, almost annoyed at his insistence on being such a thorough lover, but it's enough for him then, drives into you hard and long again only a few more times before the coil in your abdomen snaps with the promise of release and you do — hard — harder than you think you ever have before, and if it weren't for the fact that his industrial loft came with the added bonus of no neighbors, you'd be sure that he'd be receiving numerous noise complaints after tonight. Hongjoong fucks you through your high, calmly praising you through it about how well you take him, how well you did, until he reaches his own orgasmic inevitability — fingernails still dug deep into the skin of your wrists as he gently strokes himself through his own and burying deep against you. 

Nearly collapsing soon after, but having the awareness to catch his weight before crushing you, Hongjoong rolls himself off and to the side with chest heaving and one hand sloppily pressing hair from off of his glistening forehead.

You take the free moments to stare at the ceiling above, unable to move. The post-coital fuzziness of mind-altering orgasmic euphoria still ever-present and coursing through every nerve in your body.

Hongjoong coughs, throat dry from the previous activities before managing to speak. 

“Hey uhh, I didn't mean all that stuff by the way—“ he begins, taking on a tone as if to mock himself. “Like about you being 'mine' and all that, was just dirty talking you since you seemed to like it.”

You laugh, “I know.”

“You okay?”

You inhale deeply, still attempting to catch your breath, and as a result, the “yes” you exhale in response sounds entirely spent. Pleased.

Sitting up on your elbows, you look to your side at him, chest still rising and falling with a bit of quickness. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yup.”

“You kept saying 'next time,'” you begin, slightly worried that you may ruin the afterglow of the night. “Did you mean that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn't I?” It's a quick response. “Obviously we don't have to if you don't want to, you won't hurt my feelings.”

“I dunno,” you answer, even though you do. You decide to be forthcoming. “Heard you're kind of a one and done type deal.”

“Because of one person?”

When he says it like that, you realize how unfair the assumption truly is.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Ideally,” Hongjoong starts, so much seriousness to his tone that you find it almost alarming. “I'd like to get to a point in our relationship where I can eat you out for longer than twenty seconds without you coming.”

Caught off guard, you choke on your own spit, playfully swatting at his arm as he rolls away and off of the bed, rummaging through the pile of clothing on the floor.

“I actually do have work I need to get done,” he reaffirms from earlier — the whole entire reason the two of you ended up at his place tonight to begin with.

“So like I said, next time.” 

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask.  

⎯ ୨next୧ ⎯

[atlantathecity]

Nice! Urbanize Atlanta reports that the stalled effort to convert the 41 Marietta office building in Downtown to 120 apartments is alive again!

And now the development includes 36 units priced for households earning 80% AMI (area median income) or less, thanks to the city's Atlanta Urban Development (AUD) nonprofit.

AUD has partnered with developer Blue Lofts to resurrect this project after it went into foreclosure last year, following some initial work.

This is good news for Downtown, which desperately needs more housing, and also good news for the whole concept of office-residential conversion in a district where offices have been emptying out in recent years.

Fingers crossed that this happens as planned. I've learned to temper my optimism for all adaptive reuse plans in Downtown since many end up folding. Please let this one work out!

[theamberplumbob]

The Bride of Straud: Chapter 4

While Claudia was unable to see Caleb since her marriage to Vladislaus, that was not for Caleb’s lack of trying. He was constantly texting her, trying to schedule secret rendezvous.

Claudia kept having to deny him. It was too risky to be leaving the house so often so early into their marriage. She liked Caleb, well, physically, and she wanted to see him, but she had to admit, his constant pestering was beginning to get annoying. Finally she had gotten to a point where she felt it safe to meet up with him.

Caleb found a vacant photo studio in Magnolia Promenade for them to meet. When Claudia arrived he confessed his relief that she was ok. He could barely sleep he was so worried about her. He couldn’t imagine how awful it must be for her to live in that awful mansion with that awful man. Claudia found his concern quite endearing. She assured Caleb that she was managing it.

As they continued to converse it became increasingly obvious that she had Caleb completely wrapped around her finger. In his eyes she was a beautiful, selfless young woman who sacrificed everything and dedicated her life to ridding the world of Vlad’s evil. It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but she loved the way he looked at her, and loved having him under her thumb.

She also greatly preferred Caleb’s face to Vlad’s, and was itching to woohoo with him.  She decided to not waste anymore time. Consumed by the heat of the moment, Caleb led her up to the loft above the photo studio, and they woohooed in the shower. Not wanting to raise suspicions with Vlad, she left soon after, but promised to try and meet with him more often.

Later that day, Claudia was training in the gym when she suddenly felt nauseous, which she found a bit strange. A thought occurred to her, but she quickly pushed it to the back of her mind.

That night, Claudia was feeling hungry, as was Vlad. Vlad said he could call in a few people who owed him blood depts, like Alice. He made the call to two potential victims, one of whom was Ekram Elderberry. When Vlad called Ekram, he denied him, saying that he had been subject to Vlad’s whims for decades, and that he’d done enough. Vlad was furious, but the other human was on her way, so they thought they’d wait for her to show up first.

While they were waiting, the ghost of Alice appeared in front of the manor. Curious, Claudia went out to talk with her. Strangely, Alice didn’t seem to resent her. Alice knew the risk she was taking when she made the deal with Vlad.

She just wanted to have an easy life. Her husband always bragged about how successful his startup programming company was going to be, only for it to plummet them into debt. Making a deal with Vlad was the only thing she could think to do. To a degree, Claudia could sympathize with Alice’s story. She did what she had to do, just like Claudia did.

Vlad had gotten impatient with waiting for their meal to be delivered, so he asked if she wanted to help him get revenge on Ekram. She, of course, said yes.

The two of them traveled to Ekram’s home in Britechester. Outside they found Ekram’s wife, Eleanore. Since Claudia was so hungry, Vlad let her do the honors.

Claudia hungrily drained the elderly woman until she collapsed on the ground, dead. Ekram and his grandson, Rohan, ran outside. Vlad made it clear to Ekram that this was his doing. If he had simply done what was expected of him, his wife would not be dead.

He then asked if his grandson must pay the price as well. Ekram told his grandson to go inside. Ekram offered his neck to Vlad and he drank. While Vlad did not drink with the explicit intent to kill him, Ekram's old heart could not take it. He died from exhaustion.

Claudia had been chatting with Grimm, but she let him get back to work. The sun was rising, so Claudia and Vlad left for home, as Rohan came out to find both his grandparents dead.

Claudia was beginning to think that old person blood didn’t sit right with her. She had been feeling queasy ever since she drank from that old woman and it had only gotten worse. Then she remembered how sick she had felt the other evening. The thought turned into a worry, and that worry turned into a fear.

She went to the bathroom to discover if her suspicions were correct, and as it turned out, they were. The pregnancy test read positive. This was not according to plan. Nevertheless, she had to play this smart. She could make this work.

She came out of the bathroom looking happy, but nervous. Cautiously, she told Vlad that she was pregnant. They were having a child. To her surprise, Vlad seemed quite excited to have an heir. He offered to help her with whatever she needed in order to make the pregnancy go smoothly. She tried her best to match his excitement.

After that, Claudia went to the training room and took her frustrations out on the punching bag. This was a huge spanner in the works. She did not want to be pregnant.

Not to mention the teeny tiny complication of it not even being Vlad’s. It had to be Caleb’s. It was the only possibility given the timing, and in the heat of the moment she had forgotten to take the normal precautions she usually took while woohooing. Luckily, Vlad seemed to be none the wiser, however, she felt she needed to let Caleb know of this little development.

When Claudia arrived at the Vatore household and Caleb opened the door to find Claudia pregnant he was initially horrified. His horror shifted surprise when Claudia revealed that the baby was his, not Vlad’s. When Lilith heard this her expression grew tense. She insisted that the paternity of Claudia's baby must be a tightly kept secret between the three of them. Claudia thought that went without saying.

If the truth was ever to become known, the Hellions would surely kill both Claudia and the child. For all anyone else knew, this baby was Vlad’s heir. While Caleb certainly didn’t like it, he could recognize the danger his future child was in, and agreed to play along.

Claudia stayed with Caleb till evening. The two woohooed and exchanged many a romantic gesture. The way Caleb saw it, they were star crossed lovers, their true and passionate love forced to hide in the shadows of a great evil. In reality, Claudia simply found him to be a nice change of pace from Vlad.

Lilith gave Claudia some vampire training before she left. She wanted to be a good aunt and help Claudia protect her unborn niece or nephew.

After leaving the Vatore home, Claudia went to do what she told Vlad she was going to do when she left the house, and deliver the news to the Hellions.

While Kat and Markus gave her a formal congratulations on bearing Vladislaus an heir, Miss Hell gave her condolences, not understanding that this was supposed to be good news. The other Hellions laughed and gave her shit for it, but honestly Claudia found her condolences most appreciated.

Unfortunately, due to her pregnancy her physical training had to be put on the back burner. Claudia would have to stick to dark meditation and basic power training for the moment, which both Claudia and the Hellions found quite underwhelming.

To let out some pent-up frustration, Claudia went hunting. She found an elderly vet technician living alone in Brindleton Bay to drink from. Claudia easily broke into the home and attacked her prey. She didn’t kill the woman, but drank enough to leave her passed out on her floor.

Given her circumstances, Claudia decided to focus on the skills she could hone, as opposed to the one’s she could not. She couldn’t progress physically, but she could progress mentally. She’d played chess quite a bit with Vlad in the past, but she threw herself into practicing the game in order to hone her mental skill. Many a days were spent practicing chess in the game room. Meanwhile Vlad did what he always does, throw himself into music.

While he was a master of the pipe organ, he also recently dedicated himself to practice his singing, playing the violin, and the piano. Even from three stories below, Claudia could often hear Vladislaus' playing.

With time and patience, she became excellent at chess, and developed an incredibly sharp mind. Even sharper than Vlad's, in fact, as she was able to consistently beat him at chess. He was too charmed by her to even be mad.

Speaking of charm, she had honed that skill quite well, too. She paid visits to Caleb as frequently as she could under the guise of visiting the Hellions for training. She instead received training from Lilith, and built a different type of skill with Caleb. A skill that Vlad also benefited from.

Just because she was focusing on logic and charisma did not mean her vampiric training had fallen to the wayside. Between her lessons with Vlad, Lilith, and the Hellions, she had massively increased her power. She focused on studying the occult arts, and was able to dramatically increase the efficiency at which she used her vampiric energy.

All and all, her pregnancy turned out be less of a hindrance than she thought. In fact, if anything it was a reminder to stay focused. The Hellions were very adamant about the importance of physical strength, but that wasn’t so relevant to a royal. A royal needed a strategic mind and the charisma of a leader. If anything, she was more on track than she’d been before.

Her a Vlad had a nursery decorated for the coming child. Vlad acquired a special gift for his future child. A little violin, an expensive one, in hopes that they could one day share his love of music.

Finally, the time came for Claudia to give birth. Her and Vlad rushed up to the nursery, where Claudia gave birth to a baby girl.

She decided to name her Ophelia, and somehow she found while holding her new born daughter in her arms, that the pain of childbirth might have actually been worth it.

[alexanderlightweight]

hello! Happy Wednesday 💛

a prompt idea: someone tries to convince alec that magnus has/will inevitably cheat on him. Maybe even magnus finds out?

so i had to think about how to do this because i hate cheating and then i realized there was a canon scenario that i could use and just somewhat rewrite to my own preferences ^_^

i hope you enjoy!

<3 lumine

-lu

“Alec, you need to be prepared. Mentally, going into a relationship like this.”

“Because he’s a man?” Alec asks, casually uninterested in where Robert is trying to take this sudden and strangely personal meeting. “Or because he’s a warlock?” Alec really isn’t interested in the opinion of an ex-Circle member regardless of their status as his parents and it’s amazing how freeing the knowledge of your parent’s sins can be. The sudden release of a burden that was never yours to carry, but you were made to and blamed for it anyways and Alec is feeling lighter than ever… and less inclined to listen to his parents than ever before.

“Alec, that’s not why I wanted to talk.” Robert says and he grimaces, like this conversation isn’t going the way he wanted which is great. Because Alec enjoys watching him sweat and stumble over his stupid, prejudiced words.  “It’s about the type of person Magnus Bane is. And it’s not the kind of person I ever wanted any of my kids with.”

“Well, I didn’t want to find out that the reason my parents were pushing me to enter an arranged marriage was because they followed a genocidal maniac and contributed to his treason, genocide and terrorism. So… dad—” and Robert winces, because Alec’s never really called his parents informally and certainly not in meetings unless he’s being condescending.

“I think your opinion is not only irrelevant, but also unwelcome. Especially when it involves the level of hypocrisy that it does, coming from you. So, if you’d like to keep your tongue and not have to have Idris regrow it, I suggest you stop talking.” Alec smiles, the one that Izzy always says reminds her of sharks, and Robert pales further, “and leave. The sooner the better. Or I’d be happy to make your stay here a more permanent one. There are plenty of places here for you to rest.”

It’s the most blatant threat Alec has ever made to a family member and for a minute, he’s worried he’s too subtle like he normally is. However, Magnus is an incredible influence and Alec smirks as his point is firmly made and Robert backs up, sweating as he leaves, and Alec rolls his eyes. Whatever Robert wanted to tell him, was going to use over his head like a witchlight to guide Alec to the ‘right path’ isn’t going to work. While information is always powerful, you also need to be wary of where the information comes from and the price it will cost.

And there is a great many things Alec is willing to do to get information, but listening to someone insult Magnus and his relationship with Magnus will never be one of them.

Alec will accept the end of the world before he lets anyone insult Magnus in front of him, especially people who are supposed to be Alec’s family.

If needed, Alec will purge his life of whatever he needs to, in order to keep Magnus protected, even if it’s only from words and looks and insinuations. Magnus is older than him and knows so much more of the world, but Alec often finds himself wondering who protects Magnus, when Magnus protects the world.

Alec never had anyone to protect him until Magnus and now, Alec is going to return the favor, even if it’s only in small, invisible ways that Magnus may never find out about.

It’s with satisfaction that Alec goes to the loft that morning and is greeted with kisses and laughter and a deliciously dark smirk that Alec smiles contentedly against.

[mchacc]

gotta catch em all

I've been collecting sims 4 kits bgc conversions for the past 24 hrs and, surprisingly, found a whole bunch.

 I'm only missing these ones.

-Little Campers

-Blooming room

-Country Kitchen

-Courtyard Oasis

-and Industrial Loft

Sooooooo if anyone happens to have a link to where I can purchase (for a price of $0 wink wink) these I would be thankful.

[loucifersbitch]

I was tagged by @monsterrae1 and @buddiearemydads ✨ I haven't had much time to write this week except for the poetry event, but here's a tiny bit of ✨ Buck feels ✨ and pining Eddie (if you squint)

Eddie tunes Chim out after a while, choosing instead to check his phone for any update from Buck. There's a message from him saying, “almost home. 5 mins out,” and Eddie can't help the goofy smile that spreads across his face. Buck had recently started referring to the firehouse as ‘home’.

It feels more like home than my loft, Eddie. I think I need to move. The loft just doesn't feel right anymore. So, until I find a new place, the station is home.

Buck had shrugged, and that was the end of the conversation. Ever since, Eddie has had alerts set up on his phone (with Chris’s help) that let him know when apartments in Buck’s price range come on the market. Just in case. The only other option would be to ask him to move in with Chris and himself, but that would mean Buck sleeping on the couch - or with Eddie in bed - and Eddie's not that much of a masochist.

Tagging @rogerzsteven @spotsandsocks @shortsighted-owl @alyxmastershipper @mysteriouslyyounggalaxy @honestlydarkprincess @elvensorceress @singlethread if they have anything they would like to share 💚

[amor-immortalem]

The Price of a Soul

Summary: Solaris wishes he could bring back his mother from the afterlife- that he could right the wrong that he has done. He would give anything to make it happen but what could be worth the price of a soul?  

Word count: 5.1k 

Content warning for: natural disaster, and graphic descriptions of wounds. 

A/N: I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to format this as I wanted to try to write it like how a debriefing (is that even the right word? Ehh, I don’t know…) would be written detailing the events leading up to and after a natural disaster but I don’t know if I did such a good job at it…. 

This was supposed to be a one shot for Solaris' Birthday but somehow I lost myself in the writing and ended up with this part being 12 pages... oops.

Anyway, as you read, you’ll see the abbreviation btq. It stands for before the quake. Okay bye!  

・・・〆・・・ 

(24 August, 13:59, one week btq) 

“So, you want me to skip the whole back-to-school open house thing and just spend the day with Solaris?” 

“Do you have anything better to do?” The demon quirks a brow, “Aside from sporting events, you’re not allowed at school functions due to your tendency to get yourself into… trouble. I figured this would be a good way to keep you occupied.” 

Azalea thought for a moment. “What’s in it for me? I had plans to try out for the volleyball team this year- maybe branch out from just track and field… tryouts start that day, y’know.” 

“Nothing specifically other than having an opportunity to break your cousin out of his depressive state for the day. It is his birthday, after all,” Lucifer shrugs, “but if you’re so busy I can ask Melissa, Cyrus, Aurelius, or even Zulima to do it instead.” 

“Wait, no, don’t. I’ll do it.” She’s quick to shoot the idea down. “The only time Solaris ever wants to hang out is if he needs to study and doesn’t understand the material. It’ll be a nice change.” 

“You have my gratitude. I tried talking with him myself, but he seemed… disinterested in the conversation.” 

“Yeah, that tracks.” the half-demon sighs as she rubs the back of her neck. “Yer his dad. Some things are just uncomfortable to talk about with your parents. I got a whole bunch of thing I won’t tell mine…” 

“Such as?” Lucifer quirks a brow. 

“N-nothing.” The teen is quick to divert the conversation before it can get her into trouble, “Don’t worry about it. If it were a big deal, I’d have already come to you about it. Anyway, I gotta get going- I’m s’pposed to meet the boys for lunch ‘n I don’t wanna be late. Bye!” 

Azalea’s out the door before Lucifer can even get a word in edgewise. 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 09:00, 11 hours btq) 

The week passes quickly, and the day is finally upon them. Azalea found herself just waiting around in her uncle’s living room for Solaris to show his face for the day. Lucifer had given her his credit card and one sole instruction: Use the card to give his son the best day ever. 

After an hour of waiting, the half-demon is getting irritated and frustrated with just sitting around. She marches her way up to her cousin’s room and kicks open the door. 

“Rise ‘n shine, fucker! We got shit ta do ‘n daylight’s a-wastin’!”  

The sudden commotion frightens the black-and-orange-haired half-demon as he falls from the top of his loft bed, letting out a shriek on the way down. 

The pendant around his neck is now sparking with suppressed demonic magic as Solaris glares up at his older cousin. 

“Azalea, what- and I cannot stress this enough- the fuck?” His glasses are askew on his face. “I was sleeping before you decided to break down my door.” 

“I call bullshit on that. It’s ten in the morning now- you never sleep past seven. Anyway, c’mon, quit yer mopin’ and let’s get moving. Get dressed in something suited for walking. We’re goin’ out. Happy Birthday, by the way.” 

With a few grumbles, Solaris is on his feet. He dusts himself off as Azalea heads back downstairs to give him a little privacy. 

About thirty minutes later, Solaris makes his way downstairs dressed in the most comfortable clothes he owns. 

“Alright, I’m ready. Where are we even going?” There’s a tired irritation in the 16-year-old’s voice. “Wait, did Dad already leave for RAD?” 

“Hmm? Yeah, your old man already took off. Maybe if ya hadn’t been putzin’ around in your room all morning, ya coulda seen ‘im off.” 

“Oh…” Solaris frowns, casting his grey and red eyes downward, ���I thought I was supposed to go with him today. It’s the back-to-school event, after all. I was going to get a feel for the campus before classes officially started back…” 

“Ehhh, it ain’t all that special- plus you’ve been to RAD loads of times when you were little.” Azalea sighs. “But if yer that hard pressed to explore the campus, I’ll take ya up there later once the event is over myself.” 

“Don’t worry about it. There’s always another day, I suppose.” Solaris is quick to hide how disappointed he is- how he feels like his father seems to be almost embarrassed to be seen in public with him. 

“Aight,” she slings an arm around the younger teen’s shoulder as she herds him out the door. “Next stop: lunch and then Devil’s Coast!” 

・・・〆・・・ 

31 August, 11:00, 9 hours btq) 

Lunch wasn’t too bad, Solaris thought to himself. He really would have rather stayed in his room feeling sorry for himself all day, however. It didn’t take him long to figure out that his father had asked Azalea to spend the day with him. That she hadn’t done this of her own free will. 

Out of all of his cousins that Lucifer could have chosen, why Azalea specifically? Solaris loves his troublemaking cousin, there’s no doubt about that- in fact, there’s never a dull moment when she’s around- but at the same time he envies her. 

She’s everything he wants to be: Studious, self-assured, confident, strong. She may not see or feel it, but she is highly respected by most of her peers. And most important of all, she’s the pride of the family. And Solaris is… not any of that. The only thing he is a murderer- an embarrassment. 

14 short years ago to this very day, he took the life of his mother and unborn sister with his own claws, rending them to shreds in his father’s absence. Ever since that day, Solaris’ demonic powers have been sealed away by an enchantment his aunt cast on the pendant hanging around neck.  

Why did it have to be her? 

“Solaaaaaris, heeeeyyy,” the boy’s attention is drawn out of his thoughts by Azalea. 

“Sorry- I must’ve zoned out…” is all he weakly mumbles. 

“Man, yer too in your head, y’know that?” Is all the white-and-black haired girl sighs. “This is s’pposed to be a fun day. Don’t spend it stuck in a prison.” 

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Solaris still doesn’t smile although he appreciates his cousin’s advice all the same. 

“Yeah, I would. I know our situations ain’t the same and it would be wrong to equate them, but I still know what yer feelin’.” 

She really doesn’t 

“Anyway, I already paid for our lunch so let’s move on before Devil’s Coast gets too packed.” 

With a nod from Solaris, the pair make their way to the amusement park. 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 19:30, 1 hour btq) 

The pair of half-demons, with the help of Lucifer’s credit card, had a total blast at Devil’s Coast. There was only one attraction left to hit: The Hall of Mirrors. 

“They say it just reopened after being closed to prep it for Halloween.” Azalea smiles as she and Solaris stand at the entrance. The cousins were both avid fans of horror. “Wonder what kinda theming the park went with this year.” 

A cacophony of blood-curdling screams followed by the sound of howling laughter could be heard coming from inside the building. 

“We’ll just have to check it out for ourselves.” Solaris has the brightest, most genuine smile he’s had on his face all day as his grey-and-red eyes sparkle. “I bet they won’t get us with their tricks, right?” 

“Only one way to find out! And if we get separated, just meet me at the exit” And with that, Azalea is charging into the Hall followed close behind by Solaris. 

It doesn’t take the pair long to get separated, wandering around to dead end after dead end. The mirrors had been enchanted with a spell that mimicked the abilities of a bogeyman.  

Things started off small, each of them facing minor fears as they wandered but it wasn’t until Solaris had nearly gotten to the end of the maze-like structure that he came face to face with his worst nightmare. 

There, standing in the mirror in front of him, was an exact copy of his toddler self on the day his demonic powers fully manifested for the first time, a feral, unthinking look in his grey-and-red eyes, glasses hanging around his neck with the lenses broken out. He’s caked in blood and viscera- horns and wings a disgusting mix of red, black, and brown. 

Behind that was his mother’s lifeless body, deep gashes lined her chest as bone and flesh rose up out of the wounds. Her stomach absolutely eviscerated as blood hemorrhages from all the wounds.  

The way her lifeless grey eyes stare deep into Solaris’ soul makes his stomach turn but what finally breaks him are the remnants of what would have eventually been his baby sister in a few months' time. Pieces of cartilage and horn, an arm, a leg here and there- a barely developed wing or two even- scattered on the ground at his reflection’s feet like a broken toy. 

The half-demon falls to his knees huddled over as he gags and wretches, the lunch he’d eaten earlier this afternoon emptied from his stomach as it gushes past his fingers while tears stream down his face.  

“Look at what you’ve caused.” The boy’s head snaps up at the sound of his father’s voice. 

“Dad, I’m-” 

“I left you alone for 20 minutes and you couldn’t even control yourself for that long.” 

“I didn’t- I’m sor- it was an accident! Please!” 

“How embarrassing. I’m ashamed to even call you my son.” 

Those very words shatter the half-demon’s world. Sparks fly from the pendant around his neck as demonic energy starts to seep from it. 

Without any thought, Solaris takes off- runs faster than he’s ever moved in his life- to wherever his feet will carry him. 

Azalea is waiting outside the Hall of Mirrors for her cousin to emerge. It had been a half-hour already since she’d come out on the other side and now, she was starting to worry. 

“It shouldn’t be taking him this long. The maze wasn’t even all that hard…” she murmurs to herself. “Maybe he already went around to the front to wait for me?” 

Jogging around to the front of the attraction, the 19-year-old is confused when she doesn’t see her cousin. The park was closing soon so, seeing no other option, Azalea finds herself heading back to the entrance of the Hall.  

She’s stopped by an employee who’d told her the attraction was now closed for cleaning- apparently some poor sap’s stomach wasn’t able to handle the horrors of the mirrors’ enchantments. 

The news gives Azalea pause. These mirrors had similar abilities to bogeymen and what exactly was Solaris’ greatest fear? She wracks her head for the answer. He’d told her not that long ago so it should be a simple answer. 

In seconds, a massive earthquake rocks the park. Cracks appear in the ground as various demons shriek in horror. Solaris is missing and a giant earthquake nearly levels Devil’s Coast? Azalea doesn’t have a good feeling about this. 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 20:20, 10 minutes btq) 

The back-to-school event is finally winding down to a close. This wasn’t what Lucifer wanted to be doing on his only child’s birthday, but he can only hope that Azalea had made up for it tenfold with whatever plans she had made for Solaris. 

The demon does feel bad. He’s always hated having to choose between his responsibilities as RAD’s vice-headmaster and his responsibilities as a father especially on a day like today, but sometimes, in the end, it couldn’t be helped. He would just have to make up the time tomorrow. 

What a horrible father I am… Leaving my son to celebrate his birthday practically on his own… 

Perhaps, if he left right now, Lucifer would be able to make it in time to take Solaris out for a birthday dinner and then they could open presents together. 

“Thank you again for your help, Lucifer.” Diavolo smiles as he gives his dear friend a pat on the shoulder. “I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.” 

“I’m only doing my job. Nothing more, nothing less.” The demon remains distracted still beating himself up over this. 

“Still, Barbatos and I couldn’t pull an event like this off on our own.” The demon lord’s smile never wavers as he speaks, “We’re done with most of the work. It’s alright if you take your leave. The day may be over but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate what’s left of the night. Also, I have something for your son as well.” 

“Thank you, Diavolo,” Lucifer takes the gift, “I’m sure Solaris will appreciate it greatly.” 

As the Avatar of Pride turns to leave, a massive earthquake rocks the grounds of RAD, knocking out the power, collapsing several of the older buildings on the campus and knocking over entire shelving units and anatomical dioramas in the classrooms not as badly affected. 

Lucifer’s phone rings almost immediately after the earthquake subsides. His heart leaps into his throat when he sees just who exactly is calling. 

“Azalea, what’s wrong?” He tries to hide the worry in his voice as she hurriedly tries to explain what’s happening on her end. “What do you mean you can find Solaris?” 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 20:10, 20 minutes btq) 

He doesn’t know why he’s here, standing in the mausoleum Lucifer had constructed for Solaris’ mother fourteen years ago. Maybe it was the fact of knowing her body was entombed here underneath the statue of her likeness that gave the 16-year-old a small comfort. 

It was always like that for Solaris. Being so young when it all happened, the half-demon never got to fully grieve the loss of his mother. For the longest time, Solaris didn’t even know what had happened to her- the emergence of his demonic powers had not only caused him to run out of control, but the overwhelming pressure of it had broken all the bones in his tiny body. 

Lucifer had only told him a couple years later after Solaris, 5 at the time, asked if his mother would ever be coming home from the human world or if she was too sick from the Devildom’s everlasting darkness to stay with them anymore. Ever since, the teen always comes here when he’s sad or hurting emotionally. 

In the still quiet of this mausoleum, he can cry here and no one but the dead will know of it. 

“I’m sorry!” Solaris sobs, air catching in his throat as he presses his head against the stone at the statue’s feet. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so-” 

The black-and-orange-haired half-demon’s words are cut off in a fit of coughs induced by how harshly he’d been crying and the dust in the environment. His lungs ache from the lack of air as he gasps in between sobs. 

“I wish you were here.” His voice sounds so small, so fragile, as he speaks to his mother’s grave, “I miss you. I wish it was me that died that day- it should have been me! You guys could have just had another kid but you… you were irreplaceable! Nobody else will ever take your place in Dad’s life…” 

The 16-year-old’s body shudders as he takes a breath to compose himself a little more. Crying so harshly as he’s been doing is giving him one hell of a headache. 

“I hate myself… for what I did to you and the baby… all due to abilities that I can’t even use!” His hand comes up to grip the charm on his necklace, the once cool metal now searing hot as the impression of it is branded into the skin of his fingers and palm. “I would give them all up if it meant you could come back to life. My abilities, my life- even my soul! I’d give anything to take your place and pay for my crimes! Just please… come back…” 

Silence falls in the mausoleum once again until Solaris feels a shock to his hand. He recoils as the piece of jewelry breaks apart and the charm hits the ground with a ‘clink-clink’ and rolls away. 

Slowly, the ground begins to rumble and vibrate beneath him. The 16-year-old can only look around and he feels as though he’s being watched by something unseen. Energy is building up in the air around him that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up as his demon form manifests for the first time in fourteen years. 

And then he feels it: the violent thrashing of an earthquake. Amidst the quaking of the ground, the entrance to the mausoleum had collapsed, leaving Solaris trapped inside while fissures opened up around him as the entire structure tilts onto its side, the statue of his mother topples over leaving her grave uncovered as the teenager is sent flying. 

He can feel the way the back of his skull cracks as he smacks his head on the stone wall. Black spots invade his line of sight as he starts to lose consciousness as the earthquake ceases and he can hear a woman’s voice calling to him frantically. 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 20:40, 10 minutes post-quake.) 

In the wake of what was undoubtedly one of the worst earthquakes the Devildom had ever seen, the Avatar of Pride is out searching for his only child. Lucifer just hoped Solaris was safe and he hadn’t managed to fall into one of the many large chasms in the ground that had opened up during the disaster. 

Azalea had volunteered to search with him, but Lucifer decided she’d serve a better purpose at Devil’s Coast acting as a direct proxy for Diavolo to guide first responders in any search and rescue efforts and evacuation efforts. 

In the back of his mind, Lucifer can’t help but worry that Solaris might have been the cause of the earthquake. Before, when Solaris had first manifested his powers 14 years ago, he’d managed to collapse the foundation of their house. Now that those abilities have had time to grow in strength and stockpile within him, Solaris could easily cause widespread disaster due to his lack of ability to control himself. The very idea of it makes the Avatar of Pride uneasy- sick even. He doesn’t even know where to start looking for his son. What could have even happened for Solaris to ditch Azalea at the theme park to begin with? Something doesn’t feel right- like he’s missing something important. 

There are too many demons on the street- too many that might impede his progress in looking for his precious son so, manifesting his demon form, Lucifer takes to the sky. With a bird’s eye view of the city and extraordinary farsighted vision, the demon can see that the fissures that opened up in the wake of the quake all originate from one central location: the graveyard where his wife was buried. Something was nagging him to take a closer look there, so the graveyard is where he goes. 

Touching ground right in front of Aubrie’s mausoleum, the demon is shocked to see the front of the structure collapsed and caved in. Not only that but the air still crackles with pure demonic energy that’s not too dissimilar from his own. It feels like his worst fear is about to be confirmed. 

Removing the rubble from the entrance is an easy feat for the Devildom’s third most powerful demon, but what awaits him inside the mausoleum, Lucifer could never prepare for. His expectation was that Solaris- his pride and joy- would be shaken up from the earthquake but alive, nonetheless. What he finds is not only his beloved child unresponsive but his dead wife trying desperately to wake the half-demon, begging the boy to respond to her. 

How was this possible? 

The audible gasp he lets out is enough to draw the human’s attention to him. Her face is red from crying as more tears gather in her stormy-grey eyes. 

“Lucifer... He’s not waking up... I-I don’t know what to do.” 

・・・〆・・・ 

When Solaris wakes up, he can’t recall what he’d been doing or where he’d been. All he knows is that he’s surrounded by a deep pitch blackness. 

“Hello?” His voice echoes off non-existent walls. “Is anyone there?” 

“So, you’re awake, are you?” Something (or was it multiple things) in the dark calls out to him. It sounded like there were three voices, maybe more, all garbled and spliced together. It immediately puts the 16-year-old on edge. 

“Who’s there? Where am I?” The back of his head really hurts. 

All at once, the darkness gives way to a shining, golden light as it forms into some kind of creature in front of him. It was bird-like in appearance not too dissimilar to one of his uncle’s crows, but it felt ancient, threatening in a way Solaris had never felt before. 

“I...” the creature pauses, voice raspy and gravely like it hadn’t spoken to another soul in a millennia or five, “answered your pleas. You offered up a bargain and I gave you what you wanted in exchange for a price of my choosing.” 

“Pleas? What pleas? I don’t plea for anything.” Suddenly he can hear his own voice in his head. 

I would give them all up if it meant you could come back to life. My abilities, my life- even my soul! I’d give anything to take your place and pay for my crimes! 

“You offered up your soul if I would return your mother to the world of the living, did you not?” the avian entity tilts its head to the side. “So, I gave you just what you asked for.” 

And Solaris wants to say he wasn’t serious- he didn’t mean it. But he can’t. Those words said in the tomb came from the deepest part of his aching heart.  

“How can I know you’re not lying?” The half-demon asks, “You could tell me anything- lie to me as not to make me an unwilling captive. What are you even going to do with my soul now that you’ve got it? Eat me?” 

“It’s lonely here.” The being’s voice sounds pitiful and child-like now as its body also shrinks to the size of a child. “I’ve been here in the dark for so long- ever since I woke up, maybe even longer perhaps. All I want… All I want is a friend.” 

・・・〆・・・ 

(31 August, 22:40, 2 hours, 10 minutes post-quake) 

How did this happen? How does a dead person just come back to life? 

Lucifer and Aubrie stand face to face in Solaris’ room, their child had been carted off for another battery of tests to see how badly he’d been injured in the earthquake. He was breathing on his own, miraculously, and his body was mostly unscathed but the pool of blood beneath his head in the mausoleum was worrying. A head injury would be more than devastating. 

“Just tell me he’ll be alright, Lucifer.” Aubrie’s voice is hoarse from all the shed tears, “I just want him to be okay.” 

“The doctors are doing everything they can. He will be alright- I'll make sure of it.” It’s a promise the demon’s not sure he can keep. “It’s all going to be okay.” 

It’s quiet between them as he pulls her into a tight, protective hug, burying his face in her hair. She smells of graveyard soil and dust, reminding Lucifer that not too long ago her body had been buried beneath the earth. 

“I missed you...” his voice comes out quieter than it’s meant to be, in fact he’s not even sure if she’d heard him or not. 

“How long has it been?” Aubrie returns the hug. 

“Fourteen years to the day. Depending on the doctor’s findings, once they bring Solaris back, we should go home. We’ll come back tomorrow after we’ve had time to rest.” 

And Aubrie can only nod at that. There most likely won’t be anything more that either of them can do for their son so it’s only logical that they leave and wait for more information when it’s available. 

・・・〆・・・ 

“Man, disaster management ain’t really my strong suit,” Azalea sighs as she sits outside the gates. She was feeling absolutely drained from all the running around she’d done. As the half-demon pulls out her phone, she notices the 30 missed calls from the entirety of her parental unit. “fuuuuuck they’re gonna kill me when I get home... I should call at least one of ‘em and let ‘em know I’m safe.” 

Azalea tries Thirteen first, praying to whatever unholy god is listening that she doesn’t get chewed out by the reaper for not answering her phone. 

“Where are you?” The line picks up immediately and Thirteen sounds absolutely pissed. “Do you know how worried we all were when you didn’t pick up the phone? You’re lucky your mother and father are out having to work disaster relief, or they would be-” 

“I know, I’m sorry!” She knows Thirteen can’t see it but the nineteen-year-old has her head bowed as if she was giving a deep heartfelt apology. “I was at Devil’s Coast with Solaris when this all went down and then Solaris went missing and then Uncle Lucifer put me in charge of managing search-’n-rescue and general disaster management right after. Look, I’ll come home right now, I promise.” 

“You had better.” Is all the pink-and-blue-haired woman can huff out. “I’ll let your parents know you’re safe, but I have to go. I’m getting a call from your uncle for some reason.” 

The line clicks off and Azalea starts to head back home. 

・・・〆・・・ 

“This can’t be good...” Mammon whispers to his older brother as Aubrie and Arella stare each other down. The latter looks like she’s seen a ghost. 

“You’re telling me,” The Avatar of Pride grumbles, “I’m still trying to figure out what the hell even happened at her grave. It has to be some kind of magic...” 

“Maybe it was a trade- a soul for a soul?” 

“Given Solaris’ current condition, I’m not above that being a possibility.” 

“How is he doin’? Ya said he cracked the back of his head pretty badly- any chance that’s gonna have lastin’ consequences?” 

Lucifer doesn’t answer right away, rather he heaves a heavy sigh through his nose. Solaris was breathing on his own and scans of his brain showed that there was no loss of function that might indicate brain death- on the contrary, his brain was incredibly active, and the scans also showed movement in his eyes akin to that of rem sleep. Lucifer doesn’t really know what to make of that. 

“The doctors think he’s just sleeping- that he’ll wake up in the next few days, but Solaris has never been this deep of a sleeper. I’ve always been able to wake him easily and, in the mausoleum, - Mammon he’s not sleeping. That much I can tell you with certainty.” 

“Wouldn’t hurt to have Belphie pay him a visit though. I know ya think you’re never wrong when it comes to your kid, but they could always surprise you.” 

Turning their attention back to Arella and Aubrie is just awkward now. Arella still has that disbelieving look in her eyes. 

“It can’t be...” The black-haired human says softly, “Who are you really?” 

“Rells, it’s really me. I don’t know how or why but I’m-” 

“No.” Tears are forming in her emerald-green eyes. “If it really is you, then show me the scars that formed when I failed to save you that day. I can’t accept any other proof.” 

Aubrie vaguely remembers the time just shortly before her death. How the last thing she remembered seeing and feeling before it all went dark was Arella’s tearful expression and her hands that were placed on her chest and stomach.  

Slowly the orange-haired human begins to unbutton the high collar of her dress shirt to reveal the deep scarring on her chest where Solaris had sunk his tiny claws into her. 

“Oh my god...” Arella brings her hand to her mouth as a gasp escapes her before she tackles her childhood friend in a tight bear hug, sobbing uncontrollably. “You’re alive! I’m so sorry.” 

“I know, it’s okay.” Aubrie’s voice is quiet and calming. “You did your best- that’s all that matters.” 

・・・〆・・・ 

(5 September, 5 days post-quake) 

The Devildom had slowly started to heal from the chasms that had formed in that disastrous earthquake only five days prior. Led by Beelzebub, demons with all kinds of magic based in the element of earth had come together to repair the disrupted ground and damage to housing units and shops. After that came the slow process of rebuilding those areas that had been most highly affected by the forming of the cracks. 

R.A.D. starts back later from its summer holiday break this year and for once, Lucifer is not there working himself to death. He’s with his wife and incapacitated child. 

Solaris still hadn’t woken up from what the doctors thought would only equate to a couple hours’ nap.  

They keep running tests on the half-demon all in an in-vain attempt at rooting out the cause of this mysterious coma. 

“They’re obviously missing something,” Aubrie mumbles to her husband after yet another meeting with the doctors. “I don’t buy this whole ‘just sleeping’ nonsense. 

“Agreed.” The Avatar of Pride nods. “I’ll revisit your grave later today with Barbatos. Perhaps that will give me more clues as to what went on just before the earthquake hit. For now, we’ll head home for lunch and then I’ll be off to pick up Solaris’ new glasses.” 

The grey-eyed woman nods as she takes her child’s hand and give it a gentle squeeze. She brushes some of his orange and black hair off of his face. 

“Dad and I are going now but we’ll be back again to check on you.” She says softly as she presses a kiss to his forehead, “We love you so much.” 

“Come back to us soon, Son. We’ll be waiting.” Are his father’s encouraging words. 

The pair wait just a few moments longer to see if there was any sign that Solaris could hear them- any sign at all that he was still in there but when nothing happens, they just frown to each other before gathering up their belongings and taking their leave. 

・・・〆・・・ 

To be continued

A/N: I always regretted killing Aubrie off for some reason, so I brought her back. Now let's see if I can make a plausible work around to keeping her alive while also letting Solaris stay around.

[lordansloftsuk]

Dreaming of expanding your living space without breaking the bank? Converting your loft can be a game-changer, adding valuable square footage and boosting your home’s value. But who says a loft conversion needs to be budget-busting?

[technovillain]

🖊Riu!!

RIU. I want to talk about uhhhhhhhh their relationships!!!!!!

Riu and Kai share a bedroom (the loft over the living room, where the final conversation scene of ep5 takes place) Actually let me get sidetracked and say that the Southcourts don't have a lot of money by any regard but they simply got lucky by living in an area with "breathing rooms" meaning that when their neighbors moved elsewhere, they were able to absorb the space that had once belonged to their neighbors for a discounted price.

Anyways. They share a bedroom and they definitely fight the most out of any of the siblings. They get into petty arguments a lot and sometimes physical fights too. But ultimately they still sort of get along somehow?? Idk that kind of sibling dynamic where they don't super get along but somehow that means that they do. It's because Kai has a tendency to be too "whiny" or "sensitive" for Riu's taste and they will get mean about it.

Riu and Mina are much more friendly with one another. Mina is simultaneously a good influence and a bad influence on them... in that she teaches them a lot of skills but also her own moral decisions aren't exactly board-of-directors-compliant. These two will get up to mischief together, and always get away with it. Because they're professionals, okay??

Riu gets annoyed by the quadruplets bothering them sometimes but she really just likes spending time with them because they get to play big sibling and get the power and not get any resistance to that. They take their lil sisters out to places to play a lot :]

Riu's close to both of the Southcourt parents pretty equally. Sometimes they are a little distant from their parents but only in a "I'm a teenager and I need to act like a big independent grown up right now" kind of way.

Riu just absolutely loves Edwin and waits for him to come around all the time like they mentioned in the first episode. They just have a great time playing games or just chatting.

They do not really like or dislike Calvin on a personal level. They just think its funny when thing happen to him, and by god do things be happening to that guy.

They are head over heels in love with Hiyoko. Think she's supremely cool and will act very stupid and do anything to impress them. They are not subtle at all about having a crush on her and they think they can tell that Hiyoko knows that they like her. (Hiyoko really just likes getting attention and uses this to her advantage.....but also she does catch feelings because of it. Good for them.)

[ambrial-blog]

Dark Stolas: synopsis.

 Stolas locks Blitzo away  once he realizes he can no longer string Blitzo along: like a beautiful Harlequin marionette. He locks Blitz inside  a white and gold hanging torture cage that he keeps suspended  in a secret dark room: only lit but the glow of a plethora of torches and black candlelabras that were fastened onto smooth stone walls. With various torture methods in place in case  the cage fails. Stolas gifts Blitz  with an ivory white/ blessed choker. Which was encrusted with an onyx owl with rubies for eyes: four rubies, a gift he embezzled from  Andrealphhus. The Icy peacock was intrigued  at Stolas’s dark request. “I want to see this new pet of yours” the Marquis  whines. “After  everything I’ve done on behalf of you, for you!” “Paitentce Andrealphus”  Stolas  reprimanded “You’ll get to see him in time” The Goeita prince promised.  I’ve just had a few setbacks, nothing to be concerned about. He reassures his brother in law.  As it swiftly dawned upon him  that his little impish plaything  had been marked by another  and quite crudely at that. Whatever had transpired between  the wrangler and his bodyguard  was quite distressful.  “Turn your head Blitzy,  Stolas Ordered  as he forcefully examines  the imp.  Those vermillion red eyes  darken. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear that  your littles were to be watching you or else I would’ve  had you tailed. “It's nothing Stolas!  Blitzo rushes to reassure the prince.  “We had our hands full trying to keep you alive!”  I would’ve told you sooner  but It didn’t seem important at the time. “Didn’t seem important my darling” the prince said darkly. As Stolas’s dark voice reverberates through the melancholy room.  Goeita was  beginning to regret  inviting the little Omega and his critters to the festival.  Stolas had thought he made it perfectly clear to Blitzo’s littles that Blitz was to take his vitamins.  He had even gone to the trouble of taking Moxxie off to the side  and had hinted at Blitzo’s true dynamic.  A dynamic that was greatly coveted.  A secret between friends. “Too bad, Fizzorolli had a big mouth”  Was it that hard to follow directions?.  Though the bird prince.  With the sudden abruptness of  what had happened at the festival the mood in the room soured.  The flighty bird was gone and in his place stood the regal prince. “You make it sound like I was in control of the situation” “Weren't you?” the prince inquired. “Ah- No!Striker was a lot slipper then we first thought. Blitzo exclaimed.  He was quick at disposing of M&M and then cornered me in the farmhouse. “Oh dear” “And then that asshole pursued me into  the nearest barn loft. I narrowly escaped wrath” “Oh dear, and here I thought you  were capable of handling a little o’l assassin. “Shut up Stolas!”  You might’ve been his prime target but I was fucking constalation prize!  I was the one who paid the price!  Now that inbred hick is hunting me down” “Excuses, excuses”  Stolas tutted.  If you had stayed by my side none of this would’ve happened” “No! Birdbrain!, If I had stayed by your side you’d have a blessed bullet in you  and we wouldn’t be having this fucking conversation to begin with!” “This Assassin is after your head! And my ASS!  He already got a taste for my ass and now I have to invest into some Cowboy repellent– and fast!  He is in my head Stolas!  His smug face!  And I can’t get his scent off me.  His fucking irritating face haunts me!  AND NOW I MIGHT BE CARRYING HIS VERMIN!”  “Why didn’t I steal the horse when I had the chance! There is no divorce!  No escape! “Blitsy, Blitsy, Blitzy calm down  darling  if this cowboy is a distraction then he has sung his last country song.  After all, you and I have an agreement that I don’t take lightly.  You and your critters depend on me and my grimoire to conduct your business leave this wrathian to me- He is probably Stella’s little toy.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I've never seen such a colorful and bright conversion as this cute little 1926 church in Winston Salem, North Carolina. 2bds, 3ba, $

Check out the entrance hall. Yowzah! That wallpaper.

Bath #1 is off the entrance hall.

Look at this cool living room area with the old choir loft above.

The dining area in front of the kitchen.

The kitchen is located in what was once the altar.

A small hallway leads to a back hall/entrance with a laundry closet.

View from the choir loft.

The primary bedroom is the first room as you go up to the choir loft.

Bath #2 is the en-suite.

Very nice shower.

The side of the building is right along the sidewalk. Around the back there's an entrance from the parking area.

Fence and gate to the garden.

Nice little garden along the other side of the house.

Lot Size (Sq. Ft): 6,534 The building seems to be on a weird bend in the road and it's awfully close to the street.

[bloger023]

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