au where hypno is a demon!
the human xb summons him not to sell his soul but with a business deal, see, demonic deals work that its a soul in exchange for whatever you want, not necessarily your own soul, but a soul. hypno cannot interact with people except his summoner, but xb can run a business where he asks for “harmless” IOUs from people, getting them to sign a piece of paper which is actually a contract for possession of your soul. since xb is a regular human, it would mean nothing, but with hypno’s help it’s magically binding and they enter a mutually beneficial deal where hypno gets a ridiculous amount of souls and xb is given what he wants by hypno.
their partnership starts off solely as a business one, but as time goes on, they grow closer and also begin to care about the business that was just supposed to be a front for them to gain souls, and once xb gets the power and wealth he originally wanted, they focus their efforts on growing Horsehead Farms as a company. they advertise themselves as a “safer” alternative than dealing directly with demons, giving people whatever they want in exchange for an IOU - not a real soul (it is their real soul, but they don’t tell them that). they manage to become a major competitor to all of hell. since it has a human head of the company, people assume it is more trustworthy. xb and hypno engage in all sorts of evil capitalistic ventures
eventually hypno gets kicked out of hell, a feat no-one thought possible, for ruining every other demons’ livelihood, and is reincarnated into a regular human. xb is investigated by officials due to the scammy and dangerous nature of Horsehead Farms, and in an epic car chase where xb tries to escape, he crashes and dies. for all the human lives he’s ruined by stealing souls, he is sent to hell and becomes a demon. they find eachother, and seeing how there’s still one human and one demon overall, they see no reason to not start their business again
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The Three Eowyns from my 1920s Middle Earth au, "A Dance at the Palantiri"!! The White Lady of Rohan, Dernhelm, and a flapper dancer!
aka the three personas of Eowyn that Faramir falls in love with simultaneously without realizing that they are all, in fact, the same person LOL
Fic Summary: It's the 1920s in Middle Earth, and Éowyn just wants to get away. Just for a week, to be able to truly be herself, not just an esteemed Princess of the Riddermark. When she escapes under the disguise of a man named Dernhelm to Osgiliath, by fate she crosses paths with Lord Faramir, an infamous playboy and partygoer, who manages to rope her into becoming a bartender at his equally, if not more, infamous club and bar, The Palantiri.
The Palantiri is more than meets the eye, same as its owner, however. Éowyn quickly realizes that the club is not just for people to lose themselves, but to lose their secrets too. There's more than meets the eye of Faramir, too, she finds.
Suddenly, Éowyn finds herself neck deep in a years old secret operation in the war effort, and must do so while keeping up the guise of a man.
Trying out and having fun with a different to my usual style "very stylized" style :D
Also should I update this fic?
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Sabezra in a fantasy au for the ask game?
I have no idea if this was what you were looking for but it's what my brain invented, so ta-da!
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Mother had forbidden---Forbidden, actually with a capital F---Sabine from leaving the Seelie realm to look for trouble.
So the next time she got restless, she made sure she'd already found trouble before she left.
Today, trouble looked like a grungy teenage boy, in ratty jeans and a faded orange sweatshirt, stomping through the woods. He seemed like the type she could mess with. Bored with life, discontent, easily fooled. Maybe she could even trick him into following her home for a while and see how he fared there.
(She'd ask him for his name, first, of course. She always did. It was an old trick, and rather overdone, but that was why she did it. If a human was stupid enough to ignore all the old stories and warnings and just tell her that right off the bat, she didn't feel bad about causing them further trouble. They earned it.)
She waited, unseen, until he had passed her by. Then, with a last glance over her shoulder to make sure no one of her mother's Court had noticed her, Sabine slipped through the dark mists that parted one world from the other.
"Hey, there!" Sabine called out at his back. He stopped in his tracks and turned around, looking at her in curiosity, but with far too little suspicion.
Sabine smiled.
This boy may not know what she was---not yet---but if Sabine had her way, he would find out.
Oh, he would find out.
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Fish, 7 (For your prompts! ❤️)
Hi, anon!! Thank you for the prompt, you were the very first one to send one in! 7 was, again, the wildcard, so I randomly generated a different number to land on Yue Qingyuan (from Scum Villain)! I have no choice but to dedicate this to @bytedykes, because I told her about this prompt and she said “yqy pet fish mental health speedrun” and we went, uh, a little insane about it. Enjoy some yuefang, folks!!!!
“Mu-xiong,” Yue Qingyuan says. “I’m sorry to bother you. Are you available?”
“Yue-xiong is never a bother,” Mu Qingfang says warmly. “And I am, actually, yes. Is everything okay, Yue-xiong?”
“I think I need help.” A bit dramatic, perhaps, and Yue Qingyuan hates to trouble Mu Qingfang on a rare day off, but Yue Qingyuan and impulse have never been the best combination, and he would appreciate a second opinion.
Mu Qingfang’s voice turns hard. “Where are you? I'll come right away.”
“What—?” Yue Qingyuan stares at his phone like the blank call screen will tell him why Mu Qingfang suddenly sounds so serious. “I'm at home, but—”
“I'll be right there,” Mu Qingfang says, and hangs up.
Yue Qingyuan stares at his phone for another second, then lifts his gaze to his sparkling new aquarium. His new betta, white and black and resplendent of fin, stares back. Was his crisis of faith about his viability as a fish owner really so deserving of such urgency…?
—
“So,” Mu Qingfang says. “This was your emergency?” He looks about as unimpressed by the betta as it does by the two of them.
Yue Qingyuan feels obscurely like he’s being scolded. Mu Qingfang is one of the nicest men he knows, but that just means that his censure takes the form of a blunt instrument of mass disappointment.
“In my defense,” he points out meekly, “I didn’t say there was an emergency. Mu-xiong just assumed.”
“That’ll teach me,” Mu Qingfang huffs, but at least he looks amused. “Yue-xiong should get used to asking for help more so this gege doesn’t have to panic every time he does ask.”
Yue Qingyuan’s mouth almost drops open. He can only hope his cheeks aren’t as red as they feel. “Er—well, I asked this time, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Mu Qingfang allows, looking something horribly close to fond. Yue Qingyuan swallows and tries to hurry on.
“So—not an emergency, but I do want your opinion,” he coughs out. “I’m having… doubts. About the fish.” Mu Qingfang’s eyebrows contract. Yue Qingyuan rushes it out. “Do you think I should keep it?”
“Yue-xiong…” Mu Qingfang looks politely incredulous. “Why does my opinion matter? The fish is already yours, isn’t it? If you don’t think maintaining its upkeep will be feasible, that’s one thing, but… Surely Yue-xiong did the research before getting it?”
He doesn’t sound judgemental, but Yue Qingyuan feels his cheeks warm. “I did, but I wasn’t planning on getting a fish; I was only admiring the tanks. There was a salesperson who was… very insistent.”
Mu Qingfang regards him doubtfully, which is fair. Yue Qingyuan towers over most people he meets, and his bulk only further adds to the impression of immovability. It’s only when he opens his mouth that it becomes clear how spineless he actually is.
Yue Qingyuan falters. “I had thought… I thought it might be nice.” The bettas had seemed so majestic in their tanks, iridiscent monarchs of false grass and plastic coves, and Yue Qingyuan had thought, wildly, that one might be rewarding to keep, might breathe a touch of life into his immaculately sleek living room. The whole affair hadn’t even been expensive by his shiny new standards, forget difficult to physically arrange. It was only when installation and set-up for his new aquarium had finished and he was left to watch that jewel-bright being swim disaffectedly through its new home that doubt had seized him, all-consuming and black. He had, admittedly, panicked a little after that.
(Yue Qingyuan’s apartment is very large, and very clean, and very empty. It holds the barest amount of decoration and muss to qualify as lived-in rather than a snapshot from a magazine ad. The fish may, in fact, be the only thing in the entire place which really qualifies as his. No wonder Yue Qingyuan wanted to jettison it from his life as soon as he got it.)
Mu Qingfang’s expression hovers between concern and simple confusion. “I’m sure Yue-xiong will be a more than adequate caretaker,” he says, more gently than Yue Qingyuan and all his neuroses probably deserve. “What’s this really about, Yue-xiong?”
Ah. There it is. Being the mildest person of Yue Qingyuan’s admittedly sharp-tongued social circle doesn’t preclude Mu Qingfang’s wit from being as keen as the scalpels he works with.
“I don’t…” Yue Qingyuan falters. How to express to Mu Qingfang how manifestly unfit Yue Qingyuan is to care for any living creature at all? He changes tack. “I think he hates me,” he admits dolefully.
Mu Qingfang stares at him for a long time, long enough to imply that he’s reevaluating certain opinions about Yue Qingyuan’s intelligence. “Yue-xiong, with all due respect to your new pet—it’s a fish.”
“Fish have emotions!” Yue Qingyuan argues. He flushes at the volume at which it comes out, and at the way Mu Qingfang’s eyes go wide-eyed in startlement. But the salesperson had been very insistent about that, as well. “Bettas are intelligent animals. They dislike certain colors, apparently, and they’re very sensitive—ah, to environmental disruptions, that is. And—”
Mu Qingfang’s eyebrows are still high, but his face has relaxed into a smile. “It sounds to me like you like it quite a bit already. Isn’t that reason enough to keep it?” His tone curls with sudden mischief. “Have heart, Yue-xiong—you’ve hardly known each other for a day! Give it time to adjust to you, and I’m sure you’ll win it over as surely as you do everyone else.” And he grins, sure and easy in his trust that Yue Qingyuan won’t fumble and shatter something so small and monumental as a life that he could cup in his palms.
While Yue Qingyuan is still dazed by that, Mu Qingfang’s eyes alight with interest. “Ah, Yue-xiong—what have you named it?”
“...”
Mu Qingfang’s face falls as devastatingly as it had lit up. “Yue-xiong…”
“Mu-xiong is aware that I was unsure of whether or not I’d keep him!” Yue Qingyuan is terribly aware that his ears are now heating up to match his cheeks. Mu Qingfang’s ensuing laughter does not help with that matter.
Yue Qingyuan is not very good at holding onto things. More often than not, he makes a mess of whatever he’s set his clumsy hands to, lets it fall right through his scarred fingers. But Mu Qingfang’s words ring through his head: Isn’t that reason enough to keep it? And, well, isn’t it? Surely Yue Qingyuan is adult enough to follow through on this. Maybe happiness can be look like his new betta swimming up to the tank to observe the new colorful form moving in front of it, can come as easy as Mu Qingfang quipping that his knowledge about fish is clearly lacking and vowing casually to read up on bettas to be a better fish uncle.
Yue Qingyuan buries a smile and walks over to let Mu Qingfang know that bettas can be trained to follow fingers around. The betta’s clear preference for Mu Qingfang over Yue Qingyuan is as good a marker of intelligence as any fun fact the pet shop worker could have given him. Yes, Yue Qingyuan thinks with a smile—he thinks he’ll be keeping this after all.
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