#skeptic!apo

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

i have this beautiful idea for an appleish fic where. okay so you know the prompt of "ghost hunters keep a skeptic in the trailer so whenever things start levitating and people are about to die they frantically radio the skeptic and the ghosts vanish as the skeptic would see it"?

Apo. Apo is the skeptic. Shelby and Drift and Avid are all amateur ghost hunters and they've all nearly died at least twice and Apo genuinely believes they all just get freaked out because a bookcase fell over. She's there every night because it counts as volunteer work for her degree and also because she's the only one with a driver's license. She does not believe in the supernatural at all.

cue Abolish, professional supernatural hunter, investigating this group of absolute randos who keep wandering into Level Five Hauntings and leaving alive, which was a weird coincidence the first time but it is now the seventeenth time and he should really check them out now before they do wind up brutally murdered and become vengeful ghosts in their own right due to soaking up a bunch of excess... ectoplasm? spooky juice? fuck it. resentful energy.

finding Apo in the van outside (Shelby's van, borrowed from her mother) eating chips and watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, answers none of his questions. he's like "so are you here to check out the haunted house?" and she goes "oh do you own it? my friends are Convinced there's something in there eating people 🙄"

Abolish, who knows for a fact there is in fact something in there eating people: what if they're right?

Apo: god. not you too. I thought for sure you'd be sensible. it's rotten floors. the basement is "eating people" because the floors rotted and there's carbon monoxide under them so nobody comes back out.

[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]

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.

[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]

omg i didnt know pyro has psychosis (i need 2 watch his pov) its so cool 2 see some rep for that!

anyways. applespice thought.

Pyro, after petting Apo, gets this stupid smirk and is like "yaknow i swear i saw a tail too" and apo IMMEDIATELY clocks him and is like "bro ik u just want an excuse to touch my ass. i get that its a nice ass but im so hungover rn" and pyro oh so dramatically sighs and laments but he's smiling and laughing.

Abolish is like wait theyre Roommates?

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH

Ideal applespice dynamic. to me. Apo has a girlfriend and a crush and also this asshole, who is not involved platonically or romantically but a secret third thing. he wants to get shoved against a wall sooooo bad and sometimes when he teases her she does it! wdym this "looks weird" this is normal roommate behaviour. you'd do it too if you had to put up with him.

(Pyro's defense is "you'd do it too if you lived with her" and Abolish just raises an eyebrow. They add "it's hot" and Abolish raises the second eyebrow before tipping his head in acknowledgement.)

he doesn't explicitly have psychosis, but he does have, yk, tactile hallucinations, an unreliable memory, and delusions of being stalked (which Scott ACTIVELY WORSENS by STALKING HIM) so I have decided. greasy lil rat is psychosis rep. (I don't think Pyro actually knows what happened with Czeslaw. He lies to us to paint himself in the best light, and lies to himself to paint himself in the worst one. All he actually knows is that Czeslaw was found dead the morning after a night he can't remember. There's an obvious conclusion there, but also, it could have been an accident too.)

[the-ruler-of-rabbits]

semi-ironic applespice content considering the most recent ask is applespice breakup, but anyway

as someone with psychosis: the best way to deal with a hallucination or a particularly powerful feeling is to do what you would do if it was real. apo can’t see the blood covering pyro’s hands, but pyro can see it and feel it, and they’re not having a good time about that. she knows telling them it’s not real won’t help (and she knows how upsetting it is for someone to invalidate something that’s a big deal to you, aka cleo accidentally on purpose antagonizing her). so they do what they would if there actually was blood covering pyro’s hands, and they help him wash his hands in the sink. they keep washing until he stops seeing it and scrub extra hard for good measure, and it works.

of course, because apo is apo, when pyro tells her he feels watched, she says no one is watching him. but then she also goes through the entire place, locking every door and window, closing all the curtains, and showing him every hiding spot until he is entirely reassured no one can possibly be there with them. then she gives them a blanket and sits them with their back against a wall so they can feel extra safe. and they watch cartoons until he feels less anxious

yesssssssssss applespice... I love them your honour

Yeah! Apo can help Pyro wash his hands and watch the door. She can accept that it's real for Pyro, and act accordingly. She'll say she can't hear anything, but she'll listen; she'll check, just in case. He's not in this alone. She won't be diplomatic about it, but the upside of that is that he knows she isn't lying, because it would be Incredibly Obvious.

Pyro: what if there Is someone in here though

Apo: then I'll fight them. we're fine.

^exchange that actually lets them calm down more. Apo would fight them. No hesitation. They don't believe there's anyone in the house, but if there is, Apo will fight them.