#skeptic!abolish

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

Abolish Veylocke has a perfectly satisfactory work-life balance. He gets a minimum of six hours of sleep each night, he regularly talks to his coworkers, and he makes a habit of jogging every morning. Sure, he spends more time dealing with the supernatural than anyone else he knows, but that’s because he’s competent. If he left it to someone else, people would die.

Apparently, the organization disagrees. He’s on a bit of a mandatory vacation until he can “prove he can make friends” and “have enough of a personality that someone will notice if Abolish gets possessed.” First off, rude. Even worse, it’s an inefficient use of resources. They’d be better off training everyone else to not die when a haunting gets completely out of hand, and then friendships might actually last long enough to matter.

To make a long story short, since Abolish can’t do his actual job, he’s been stalking a local group of amateur ghost hunters.

…Amateur may be putting it lightly.

—

Apo Kuna isn’t completely drowning in classwork. Unfortunately, every time she gets a moment to breathe, her three least sane friends beg her to let them potentially get themselves killed in whatever condemned building they latched onto this time, and Apo has a difficult time saying no. At least they pay her back for gas.

Usually, Apo spends the outing doing readings in the car until the others scare themselves silly and she has to go collect them, but the past few days, she’s noticed someone watching them. Apo would ask the disaster trio about it if there were any chance they wouldn’t immediately declare the stranger a ghost. Most likely, their repeated trespassing pissed someone off and she’s going to have to be diplomatic about it. Ugh.

It’s probably better to figure out what’s going on with this guy sooner rather than later. They owe her so much for this.

[curiosity-flame]

Silverhellfire from @the-ruler-of-rabbits’s Skeptic!Apo AU

If they won’t give me a canon Skeptic!Cherri design fine, I’ll do it myself

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

Skeptic au Apo managing to get sick and Abolish who's like. SHIT. I DIDNT THINK SHE WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT and she's like leave me alone I got medicine but Abolish obviously cant just leave a powerful demon alone while they're in a state that (probably) makes it more likely for some part of their magic go wrong and that risk is so dangerous.

Makes her soup and slips rosemary in and Apo is just raising her eyebrow like "I thought you hated me" and abolish is very much forcing himself to believe it's just for the safety of the world!

Bonus points if Apo ends up falling asleep on him or smth for some reason. And now Abolish is freaking out because she's really pretty he doesn't know if she would eat his soul if he accidentally woke her up. Totally.

... But she doesn't look bad, even while pretty obviously miserable. Although that's not weird for demons to look nice!!

He tells himself its to make sure not to risk aggravating her on accident when he takes off all of his stuff with crosses. Totally not to make sure she has as much power as she can to get better. Why would he willingly allow a demon like her potential to gain power? It's for his own safety that's it. Totally.

Bonus: Pyro grabs a picture of them once Abolish falls asleep with her to tease Apo with later

[part 2:

]

Oh this is an incredible scenario. your Mind.

Apo texts the GHGCFG+A (Ghost Hunting Group Chat For Geeks + Apo) a picture of a positive covid test and goes "you're walking."

Abolish is like "wait she can get sick? I didn't think she could do that. oh no I now have an impaired demon loose on campus full of civilians I need to go visit her immediately for everyone's safety. And bring soup." and immediately gets himself quarantined with her bc he is not a student and does not know the official university covid restrictions. Pyro spends at least five minutes snickering at him through the door.

Apo: why are you here. you can't leave now.

Abolish: I'm checking up on you. what?

Pyro, through the door: the plague rats are banished for a minimum of three days and I'll tell you right now my headphones don't stay charged for that long so-

Apo, laughing and then coughing: you should come in here and repeat that.

Pyro: I Don't Think I Will, Actually.

Abolish, internally: oh I did not think this through at all

And then they're stuck in Apo's bedroom with one (1) bed and her Clothes Chair (the chair where unfolded laundry migrates to) and Abolish is like "oh I can sleep in the chair I've done worse" and Apo goes "fuck that. I'm so sick I can't think, if I have to wake up to you sitting there looming over me I'm gonna scream. just get in bed like a normal person."

Abolish: ?????!!!!?!!!

and then (totally not ripping from my own covid experience) Apo just goes to sleep. Abolish is stuck. her breathing is raspy because she's congested, she's really warm, her roommate is being less than helpful ("isn't it cute? she snores like a lil kitten. I told her that and she threatened to hang me out the window upside down") and the most dangerous person he's ever met outside the mirror is napping on his chest like he's someone safe to be vulnerable around.

The memory of her purring softly makes up for him getting covid and that's the most embarrassing part.

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

I was stuck in the car all day which means of course I have a day worth of thoughts (and... much less of a finished fic for this au than I meant to have lol)

But anyways!

Apo and Cherri are both very prone to getting cold. Really cold. And they get sleepy when cold. They are basically attached at the hip during winter because their combined warmth is enough.

Abolish makes Apo some sort of accessory as a christmas gift, but it has warming runes inscribed on it. VERY hidden because if Apo doesn't know about the runes, maybe they'll work? (And maybe they do.. until she's like hey I'm weirdly warm for this time of year and it immediately fails. Abolish has to go take deep breaths)

I think Apo has low alcohol tolerance. Normally demons can't get drunk. She is the exact opposite. Bonus points! She's generally just kinda sad while drunk, misses her gf and shit. but if she gets drunk enough stuff starts to go wrong. Flickers of very much Not Human features keep appearing and ohhh her eyes are glowing slightly. Ohhh. Okay then. How the actual fuck is Abolish gonna avoid Pyro noticing any of... Well. Everything. He's so glad that Apo can't get drunk while with the ghost hunters because they would IMMEDIATELY try to tell her and in this state there might be a chance that she believes them and if she does that for even a second... Well, Abolish hopes she ends the world. Cuz otherwise he will have a LOT of paperwork.

ohhh my god. Yes. Incredible. Apo and Cherri essentially hibernate in each other's laps when left to their own devices unless someone (Pyro) takes a picture (a very motion-blurred Apo in midair towards the camera)

I think Abolish's gift works until she picks at the seam line - absently, just how you do - and 1) accidentally destroys a rune and 2) notices it's not quite as thick as she thought it was. Half of the fun of Abolish constantly giving her charms is Apo avoiding them like Bugs Bunny. She always has a tangible thing she can point to that triggered the shift, even if what actually changed it was her realising it was weird and subsequently undoing it.

I agree 100%. She gets tipsy off one drink and nobody notices anything wrong (it's normal for drunk people to be flushed) but if she gets drunk then. uh. it's her, as she sees herself,

I think Pyro canonically hallucinates, actually. Maybe not visual hallucinations, but he definitely has paranoia-induced sensory hallucinations (feeling Scott watching him, feeling blood on his hands, tasting things, etc) so we can have that! Pyro has psychosis <3 he Will bring it up the next morning and Apo (hungover) will go "nope. come put your hand in my hair if you need. no horns in there" and Pyro will pet her hair and then go "okay thanks" and leave. Abolish watches this happen and has to throw out the past three hours of frantic contingency planning on how to gaslight Pyro.

(Pyro being psychotic has absolutely nothing to do with the violence. It's hallucinations and delusions. He can't always tell what's real and what's not. Take a moment to imagine how disorienting and confusing that would be, and then imagine you have Scott Goldsmith telling you that you're an irredeemable monster and your only hope of acceptance is if you stay with him.)

(I am not here for asks about psychosis being evil. it's a neurodivergence.)

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

Ok so I have to ask at this point because I might be reading it wrong but, skeptic!Apo au is Pyro in anyway apart of the poly relationship forming because of his weird third thing with Apo that feels like it would bleed over to Cherri and Abolish if given the chance (there is already an ask that confirms that they think Abolish is hot) or no?

Are Apo and Pyro involved? Yes. Platonically? No. Romantically? Also no.

Pyro is schrodinger's polycule member. He's not involved, but he's also not not involved. He's not dating any of them, but Cherri and Abolish aren't dating each other, so clearly that's not mandatory (/j)

I think the best and funniest way to explain it is through how I see their living situations. Abolish has his own apartment that he got partially through the organisation. Cherri has her own apartment. Pyro and Apo share, and have no plans to change this. There is no endgame where silverhellfire all move in together, they would actually dislike living together I think. If anything, Abolish and Cherri become platonic roommates and Apo keeps living with Pyro, because if Abolish and Apo tried to live together they would have a category 5 clutter incident and leave no survivors and they both Know This. (Apo removing the silver from the watchtower made Abolish so mad he had to go to the mines to cool off. they could NOT live together. INCOMPATIBLE!)

Pyro and Apo aren't dating but they ARE stealing each other's clothes and this DOES result in Pyro wearing Abolish's and Cherri's clothing too (because Apo stole it, and then Pyro stole it from her) so from the outside it definitely looks like it. However if asked if they're together Pyro would go "she wishes" and Apo would go "ew. no." and then Pyro would be offended she went "ew" and elbow her in the ribs and get his arm punched.

in conclusion Pyro is in the polycule but his title is "Apo's roommate"

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

A bit of dark comedy for the sitcom effect could definitely be Owen finding out about the other people’s kill counts.

He’s just monologuing to everyone (Apo’s not there) and says something like, “I’ve killed 2,799 people! You weaklings have no idea what it’s like to have gallons of blood on your hands.”

Instead of being afraid, the majority of people just…stare at him incredulously. We’ve got;

Cleo: was forced to kill 29,000+ people

Legundo: killed thousands using poison

Pearl: hunts and has canonically killed several werewolves. She probably has a higher kill count in this au since her job is more general.

Abolish: basically same thing as Pearl

The Cryptid Crew DOES react in the way Owen wants, except the fear is very short lived because Pearl immediately throws holy water at Owen and he screeches like a cat and runs away (or maybe this is when the rooftop incident happens)

Owen is furiously confused why the majority of people don’t care about his massacre. An angstier thing to happen could be him monologuing to Cherri about watching a loved one die in fire, and Cherri just stares at him with a [sickeningly] sweet smile and tells him she’s usually the one lighting fires.

In this au I don't think Cleo's kill count is nearly as high as canon just because like. I don't think we can properly visualise that number. 29,000 divided by 80 (because v!Cleo is in her eighties) is 362.5. That divided by 52 (weeks in a year) is 6.97. v!Cleo was killing a person a day for eighty years. That is so much fucking murder holy shit. Like at that point you can't keep it under wraps. You don't have time for anything else. The Organisation in skeptic au would catch you so fucking fast due to the trail of bodies you leave behind like a huge gory snail. Soldiers in the trenches of world war one killed less often than that! Twenty-nine thousand people? That's almost a quarter of my town! Skeptic!Cleo has killed, and she's killed often, but she hasn't been forced into being a serial spree murderer for eighty years. 2,799 people is a lot of fucking people to murder. That's almost as much as 9/11. I can give Owen this one because v!Cleo killed so many people it looped back around into being anime numbers.

He does have a smaller kill count than the doctor, though. Legs poisoned water and food. That's a war crime, vsmp just happens before the Geneva Convention. Legs, unlike basically everyone else, actually grapples with the implications of what he's done - hence the alcoholism and to a certain extent Owen - and tries to process the sheer number of lives he snuffed out because he thought he had to follow orders. Owen killing two thousand eight hundred people is bad, yes, but he can still learn to be better. (Owen doesn't know how to react to the doctor accepting it, and thinks it has to be because the doctor can't imagine it. The doctor knows more about death than he does.)

Pearl and Abolish have definitely killed several people! Legally they would be serial killers; I think Pearl might even have a dozen. Looking at how Abolish tends to act, I don't think his kill count is that high. In vsmp he spent months investigating, and left having killed one person. He's not going to shoot first and ask questions later, he's going to really take his time and only kill someone who's made it totally clear death is the only way to stop them from hurting others. Exorcisms of ghosts, sure. He's killed lots of mindless creatures, but he goes for talking over violence in almost every situation. However he also doesn't care when Owen gives his speech.

Avid and Drift believe him instantly and Shelby goes "okay but he has to be exaggerating right?" and they have to pull up casualty reports later and find that, no, he actually has the exact number. So much of the dramatic impact is stolen by Pearl throwing holy water in his face like spritzing a naughty cat. They're always going to remember the yelp and flail backwards.

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

Okay for the skeptic!Apo AU, I've now thinking about how you'd get through to them that the supernatural is in fact real.

It's her proximity that messes up the supernatural stuff, right? (Which I love btw) (She doesn't have an anti-magic shield because she's a sceptic, she's a sceptic because she has an anti-magic shield! It's brilliant and I adore it) Because there are definitely some very fun scenarios where you simply can't deny that something weird is going on

So picture this: Abolish is sent out to deal with a thing that ended up in the archive room of the university library— goodness knows how, but it needs to be gone like yesterday. Only issue, it's a very temperamental chest that comes with shadow claws. Wonderful.

And because Abolish is kinda preoccupied with making sure no one wanders in (it's after hours, but not inaccessible and this is all a bit close for his comfort), just a split second of distraction as he hears steps are enough to get his skin ripped open. His reflexes luckily aren't entirely gone, so his left arm bears the brunt of the damage, but this is really fucking annoying and not great all around, because the claws are still there and it's a little harder to sort out his wards with an arm practically incapacitated. And also the steps are approaching and— wait, they're familiar.

So Apo rounds the corner and the chest slams shut and Abolish just. laughs. Because of course. Of course."

And Apo is kinda freaking out like 'Oh shit blood' and ''What the fuck happened to you??'. Abolish is like "I'm fine. Ish. Just do me a favour— take a look at all my wounds and remember where they aren't". Apo stares in utter astonishment, but they oblige because... it's kinda hard to not listen to Abolish. Also, he sounds really calm, so (Is that bad? She doesn't know).

"Okay, now walk around that corner, pause for a bit, and then come back". Apo's concern rises, but again they oblige and they don't quite know why. They walk out of the room and wait for a few seconds. Then Abolish hisses in what sounds like pain and she darts back in despite herself, and—

What the fuck. Those are new. Those are definitely new gashes all the way down his right arm and they definitely weren't there before. What the fuck.

Also I just saw the post about the Abolish Possession Event (tm) so bonus points if it's after that and there's all that discomfort simmering under this entire interaction :D

Maybe Abolish kinda snaps back into 'oh shit I'm supposed to be avoiding them' and 'it's pointless to try and convince them what the fuck am I doing??'. It's so easy to forget and cave when he's around her, and the pain and blood loss aren't helping— Abolish is cursing that chest and his own idiocy more and more. He's really starting to slip.

So he just fully withdraws, throws the walls that he didn't even notice he lowered back up as high as he can, and is like "Sorry for bothering you, I'll now be leaving with this box" (just probably in less words).

And Apo obviously is like "Dude no??? You're like. bleeding out?? What the hell??"

And then cue conversation as she drives him home/to the Organisation (though I'm not sure how he convinces her not to go straight to the hospital) that is either:

a. Productive and realisation-bringing (yay!!)

or b. Incredibly tense and short, and they spend most of the ride in silence. Which is vastly more likely considering that Abolish has clammed up, and also really good. Because the seed of doubt has been planted now...

ooooooooooooooo I'm attached to Apo never believing but I do really love this.

Abolish is holding a spiky chest and scraped his arm on it, there's nothing supernatural about that! He's clearly struggling to carry it, that thing has sharp edges, it makes sense that it'd cut him open. But Abolish actively harming himself to insist that the supernatural is real is really out of character. He's on her side warning the others about the dangers of tetanus! He just also gives them "holy water" and reminds them to carry crucifixes.

She will take him to the hospital, and he sits there with a thousand yard stare worrying about the box in the back seat of the car managing to kill someone walking past until Apo sighs and gets it so he can see it's in one place. He's not doing good! She's going to help, even if she's mad at him, because that's just the decent thing to do?? Why is he acting confused at her not leaving him in the library at midnight with a bleeding arm?

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

Skeptic AU folks. What are people's thoughts and headcanons on demons in general, the thing that is Apo in particular, and the nature of Abolish's organization's old enemy? I feel like Abolish is going to end up researching that sooner or later, and who knows how accurate the organization's records are.

Follow-up question. If someone attempted to exorcise Apo, it wouldn't work, because successful exorcisms are evidence. What different problems would it cause, and how much of a headache would it be for everyone involved?

Ooooooo this is cool.

Personally I hc Apo as like... kind of a demon. Nothing specific, because too much detail kills the mystery, yk? She runs warm. That time the ghost tried to jump into her Abolish kissed her she chewed afterwards. Don't worry about it.

I feel like exorcisms are also about the casting out of something evil that is not welcome. And Apo is welcome. They can't do an exorcism designed to free the human being possessed, because that's just Apo! She's not possessing someone! She's just herself!

Other rituals do very much work but they are all designed to do things like "suppress this supernatural being's power down to human-normal" and Apo is already doing that. She's. She's already doing that. She hit Owen "as hard as she could" and it did not dent concrete.

Abolish figures this out on week seven of warding her apartment (only half of them are to protect her. all of them are to protect humans, but a good chunk are actually to kill Apo if she starts opening portals to Hell etc etc) and has to go into the woods and scream