#/ anyway lol.

[thosewickedlovelies]

I don't think I could write a reader who didn't go toe to toe with their man honestly, like. If you want my affection you gotta be able to handle the sass, idk what to tell you 🤷🏻‍♀️

Crossroads: the first meeting | Joel Miller x Reader

Summary: The first of your and Joel’s promised three meetings

Tags: honestly still none. demon!Joel. not an age gap fic. GN!Reader except for Joel referring to them once as ‘the lady’ for the purposes of being a Southern gentleman

Words: 1,723

Note: So this is a short chapter, but I think a necessary first one. I am basically happy with it however i've been staring at it for too long and my uterus is telling me it sucks but we're not waiting another week to post it so \*here we are*/

The next chapter will have much more ~intrigue~ (and im actually almost done with it already), so buckle in kiddos/fellow sluts 😎😅😘

Crossroads | Masterlist

“So what kind of powers do you have, exactly?” 

Joel slanted a glance at you, one eyebrow lifting sardonically. “Straight down to business, I see.”

You shrugged without apology, though your heart was trotting like a nervous horse. “If I want to make the best deal for myself, I should have as much information as possible, shouldn’t I?”

“A question like that don’t come without a price.” Joel stopped, right there on the sidewalk. “What’ll you give me for an answer?” His golden eyes gleamed, as pale as the sunshine falling all around.

You glanced up and down the street, shifting in place. In spite of your wishes, Joel had insisted that for your first meeting you show him around town. Every step you took through the place that had raised you prompted probing questions from him and terse answers from you. And now you were here, smack dab in the middle of Market Street with a representative of the devil himself, garnering all manner of curious looks. 

Joel’s unearthly aura didn’t come with an off switch, it seemed.

An idea seized you. “How about lunch?” You gestured to the building behind him. “Ruby’s does really good food. All the interesting people in town hang out there.”

Joel appeared taken aback by your offer. But he dutifully turned to the restaurant in question, scanning the signs proclaiming seasonal specials and a new cocktail menu.

“What’s a…gastropub?” He pronounces the word with suspicion, his brow wrinkling.

“Um- I’m not really sure, honestly. A place with nice food and nice drinks? They recommended me the whiskey I brought you.”

(Was he really going to give up such information for a lunch?) 

“Well…all right.”

“Great!” Joel’s answer barely finished twanging before you were dragging him inside. He looked even more startled by your hand on his arm.

“Table for two, please. Hi, Ruby.”

Contrary to what her name suggested, Ruby was not a redhead. Her hair was dyed an icy, platinum blond that hung halfway down her back in thick strands that belied her age. Her lipstick was her true namesake- she always wore a shade of rich, shimmering red. Occasionally it smudged into the wrinkles around her mouth, but when she grinned, radiating delight and her ever-present zest for life, nobody dared call her old. 

“Well, if it ain’t our little Kitten! How are ya, honey?” For all her diminutive stature, Ruby hugged with a force that squeezed the air out of you. 

Kitten? Joel kept his delight to himself.

“And who’s this handsome piece?” Ruby looked Joel up and down, her face full of mischief.

“This is my friend, uh…” You glanced at him.

“Joel.” He offered his hand, and when Ruby took it, he brought hers to his lips. 

“Well, ain’t he a charmer!” Ruby cooed. But her glance was suddenly sharp, and deep within Joel’s mind, a memory flickered. 

She snagged a passing server. “Roddy, honey, give Kitten and her friend Table 20 for me.” 

Table 20 turned out to be a booth on the far side of the room, distant enough from any other guests that they had a bit of privacy. Young Roddy offered to to take their drinks order with a fumbling nervousness. 

You ordered something sweet-sounding. Joel eyed the bar with contemplation. “Tell Ruby I’ll have any whiskey she thinks’ll suit,” he instructed.

And then you were alone. 

Your tongue dried up in your mouth. Joel seemed to fill the booth across from you, lounging with the same provocative carelessness he’d had when you first met. Why was it so different seeing him here, in a restaurant filled with people, than it was at a table he’d magicked up in the middle of nowhere?

It was still the eyes. Glinting like chips of amber, like twin signs proclaiming him not of this world; they were utterly at odds with his working-man aesthetic and the plastic-coated menu in his hands.

“So,” you prompted. “Your powers.”

“Uh-uh. I ain’t had my lunch yet.” Joel primly turned a page of the menu and studied it with rapt absorption.

Jaw clenching, you glared at your own menu. Irritating fucking demon.

The corner of his mouth twitched. 

–

Lunch was fucking delicious. The food always was here, but today the flavors seemed to sing, as if your anxiousness to keep Joel happy had infected the cooks. 

Joel set down his napkin with a deep breath. “Well, I can’t argue that you didn’t hold up your end of the deal. That's some of the best food I’ve had in years.”

“So…you’ll answer my question now?”

“What was it again?” Joel, resting his head back against the cushioned seat, cracked one eye lazily.

After a lunch of tentative but normal, if surface-level, conversation, you thought you had a clearer idea of the shape of him. You gave him an unamused look. “Your powers. How do they work? What can you do with them?”

“That’s two questions,” Joel pointed out. His eyes glimmered the same color as the whiskey in his glass. He swirled the remaining liquid, holding your gaze.

“But they’re related. Interconnected.”

Joel tipped his gaze skyward- though surely a demon couldn’t be praying to the heavens for patience. 

He downed his last mouthful of whiskey. “You mind if I get another?”

“Two whiskies, two questions,”​ you challenged, mimicking Joel’s brazen insolence.

“Walked right into that one,” Joel muttered. He caught Roddy’s eye and waggled the empty glass at him.

When Roddy deposited a fresh glass, Joel said, “And another one for the lady.”

“Oh, um-” You didn’t remember the name of your drink, but it had been delicious as its vivid red color suggested. “-yes, please, thank you.”

You sat in silence until your drink arrived. You wrapped your lips around the straw and took a deliberate suck. Your eyebrows raised. Well?

Joel looked away, clearing his throat. “How they work and what I can do with them are essentially the same question. My powers are based in…desires.”

“Desires,” you repeated. Heat prickled under your collar. 

“Yes. I don’t grant wishes for free. I make bargains, but the end result is the same- I get people what they want. That’s what my powers do. They make it easier for people to…articulate their desires. And then ask for them.” Joel sat back, regarding you with wary yellow eyes. 

“That’s why…”

“Why what?”

Your face went hot; you hadn’t meant to voice your thoughts aloud. “You have this...aura, don’t you? It makes everyone around you want to…do what they want. What they really want, I mean.”

“Yes,” Joel said simply.

“Can you turn it off?”

“No.”

“Can you make people do things?”

“No.” His voice was hard. “That’s a human excuse. ‘The devil made me do it.’” Joel sneered the words, but his anger wasn’t at you. You waited, silent, while it ebbed.

“I can…turn it up, I guess. I don’t usually. Feels like cheatin’. But that’s where the ‘tempting’ comes from.”

“Could you show me?”

He met your eyes again. You found yourself caught in their depths, like a fly in honey, unable to read whatever thoughts were behind them. His mouth twisted slightly. “Not here.”

Something to remember for next time, then. You sipped your drink, savoring its berry flavor.

“What would you call yourself? Are you…a demon?”

It was a fair question, you hoped. Joel’s face puckered, but he answered. “I suppose.”

“Have you always been a demon?”

“Jesus,” Joel muttered. “You ever heard of small talk? You already got my powers out of me today, and that was more than I shoulda said. Three dates, three questions.”

“Three dates?” You looked up, your eyes slightly wide.

“Three- business meetings.” With conscious effort he made his voice stern, but it was too late. He’d said date, and now your mouth was pressing itself flat to prevent a smile from slipping out. Joel looked away, his jaw ticking.

A thought occurred to you. “Do you go on dates? I mean, do you…have a life?” You winced at your clumsy phrasing.

Joel only grunted. “Technically. It ain’t as nice as a human life, but I am alive. I have…colleagues.” His mouth wrinkled as if he didn’t quite believe his own words, and he took a large swallow of whiskey. 

“H-how many of you are there?” You weren’t sure you wanted to know; you didn’t really expect him to answer. 

“‘Representatives’, like me? Not as many as you’d think. Other demons? Too many.”

Joel watched you, his eyes yellow as changing leaves in fall. Here one minute, gone the next. You stared back silently.

A crash from the direction of the bar broke the moment. You flinched reflexively, glancing over.

Joel chuckled. You raised a questioning eyebrow. 

“New bartender really wanted to impress somebody,” Joel explained. “I’m guessin’ he tried a new trick that didn’t work.”

Behind the bar, a man holding the top half of a cocktail shaker was looking forlornly at the other half, which was on the floor, splattered with its contents. A figure seated on a barstool opposite him had their head turned and a hand over their mouth, as if to hide a smile. 

You looked back at Joel with a new wariness. “You can sense what people desire?”

Joel lifted his glass, a smirk creasing his face. “That sounds like another question.”

“I don’t think so. It’s clearly related to your powers,” you argued.

Joel hummed. “Sort of. It takes concentration. Most of the time I just let it all wash over me. Like how in a room full of people, you have to focus to hear one particular conversation.”

You shook your head. The more your drink disappeared, the less sense things made, but for once there was no correlation between the two. You licked the last of its sweetness from your lips, wondering if the bright red syrup had colored your mouth. 

To judge by Joel’s fleeting glance, it had.

You finally spoke. “Do you want dessert? Everything here is good, obviously, or there's an ice cream place nearby...”

Joel tapped the side of his glass. “I’m more of a liquid dessert kinda guy.”

A smile threatened at the corners of your mouth. The number of times you’ve heard your own dad say that…

Joel noticed. “What?”

---

Thanks for reading! 💖

Masterlist

[lucienarcheron]

He really just flopped on the bed “paint me like one of your French girls” style 😂

[knifegremliin]

on my hands and knees begging for my body to let me sleep. please. please. just let me fucking sleep what do you WANT FROM ME.

[4byun]

૮ ◞ ﻌ ◟ ა

[guiiay]

jinx and isha visit a walmart

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Forget about torturing your blorbos, putting them through the wringer. I'm putting my blorbo in perfectly ordinary, pleasant situations. Their tortured personality will cause them anguish anyway, making an absolutely mundane scene into the most dramatic, agony filled affair as though the world is ending and it's all their fault

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

as an aroace person with limited sexual experience, no interest in watching porn, and poor sex ed as a teen, there IS something simultaneously funny and vaguely tragic about being 28 adult years old and realising how extremely tiny your frame of reference is for genitalia and deciding you should expand this to better understand bodies (yours and others). and then you're just there like "okay so what the fuck do I even google right now, anyway"

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[james-p-sullivan]

the older i get and the closer i am to reaching 30, the more the people around me try to deny me my age. it’s a constant ‘oh you’re just turning 29 again teehee 🤭’ or ‘dont tell your SO that, he’ll leave you for a younger model 😉’ and i just???? hate it?????????

i spent my entire teenaged years fighting for my life. i crawled through the deepest pits of my depression to cling to the promise of a life beyond that pain. i was so convinced that i was going to die young, that i would never see the grace of my age starting with a 2, let alone 3.

so im going to turn 30, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to stop me from loving it.

[emjaydoubleyou]

this post is fearmongering. the results of this study are concerning and should definitely be a matter of public discussion, but this is certainly not the conclusion the researchers came to.

the point of the study was to assess the risks of exposure to toxic metals- something one of the co-authors notes are “ubiquitous” fwiw- via menstrual products. Their research confirmed that these metals are indeed present in tampons, but no further conclusions are drawn. it is possible the metal entered into the cotton from the soil, which is a well-known phenomenon; cotton is so good at lifting heavy metals that it has actually been suggested as a part of the solution for revitalizing polluted ground.

the authors conclude with an acknowledgement that the study should be repeated- their sample size was 60 tampons- and a suggestion that further testing ought to be done to indicate whether or not these metals can even leech out of the tampon in the first place, let alone whether or not such leeching could occur at levels deleterious to human health.

there is, in fact, a body of research- too small, for sure, but much larger than this single study- indicating that long-term proper tampon use has no observable negative impact on health. i am grateful and thrilled that more research is being done and i hope that this study is the first of many on this line of questioning, but i am really frustrated at this post and the response it got.

obviously, if this study alters your approach to menstrual health, more power to you. consumers should be informed-risk-takers, and menstrual health is double-obviously a very personal choice. but it definitely wasn't the researchers concluding that you ought to “avoid using tampons at all cost," only this tumblr user did. the lead author of the paper, in fact, specifically says that she hopes people do NOT panic about the results.

(the notes of the post were disappointing. people affirming that they knew they were right to be suspicious of tampons all along, or even recommending alternatives that actually have very little to no research regarding the safety of long-term use, etc. it’s a different conversation, but categorical distrust of tampons is old-school misogyny. you certainly shouldn't wear them if you don’t want to, but there is nothing inherently scary or wrong about them, and people who prefer them are not being reckless or crass.)

((if you're really worried about exposure to heavy metals, you may want to turn a critical eye to fast fashion, as an aside))

[noka-exe]

Damian Wayne comes across a classic christmas carol known well among the children of gotham… pt [1/?]

[forgetbeam]

why do i keep seeing whole videos on advice for artfight from “veterans” or whatever. here’s all the advice you need:

you don’t need to draw every day

you don’t need to fully render every drawing, sketches still count and the person receiving it will still love it

you don’t need a fully polished ref sheet for every single character, having a basic one or even just a colour palette along with whatever other art you’ve done works fine in most cases

you don’t need to draw a fully rendered piece every single day do not burn yourself out or injure yourself for funny little internet points good lord

boom done there’s your 15 minute video

[wolfythewitch]

Henry Clerval and the creature

[doccywhomst]

[arinmoss]

painted Chappell again :3

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.