#aatgm

Happy birthday to my good friend @millenianthemums! Here’s a pic I got from @sarcasmprodigy of Ava and Simon! I’m so glad I’ve gotten to watch your characters grow over the past few years, and I’m so grateful you’ve included me with this story as much as you have!

Plus, here’s a little ficlet to go with it under the cut

The parked Prius on the side of the road remained where it was.

The person in front of it, however, paced angrily around it.

“Of ALL the times, why now?” Ava asked, the roadside asphalt crunching under her feet as she circled. “Why do all my inconveniences become life-threatening?”

Simon smugly grinned from his perch on top of the car. He turned another page of the Prius’s manual, looking at the pictures. “Please, Ava, spare us the dramatics. This can’t possibly be that tough to fix. I’ll have us out as soon as I diagnose the problem.”

Ava twirled in place to glare at Simon. “Listen, you. I’ve been fixing cars my whole life. I knew the problem the second I opened the hood. We blew a spark plug.”

Ava gestured with frustration towards the car’s trunk now. “And because I plan ahead, I have spares with me! But I took the tools out last week to fix some stuff in the house and didn’t put them right back because I didn’t think I’d get CHASED BY KILLER ANGELS ACROSS THE COUNTRYSIDE!”

Ava huffed, then trudged back to the front of the car to survey the damage again.

Simon pretended to read the manual for another minute, then tossed it aside and slid off the roof. Walking up next to Ava, he peered inside as well.

“What tool do you need?”

Ava scoffed. “Oh I’m sorry, you didn’t figure out what to do already? I thought you had it all figured out.”

“Ava, just…” Simon closed his eyes. It helped clear his thoughts. His demon eyes weren’t used to a human world.

“Ava, please tell me what tool you need. What it looks like.”

Ava rolled her eyes, but she did take out her phone and hit google. After a second, she showed the screen to Simon.

“It’s called a socket wrench, and normally I have one with me to take off the plug, but I don’t have it and there’s nothing I can do without it.”

Simon studied the ratchet for a minute, looking closely and not saying a word. Then he closed his eyes again and stuck out his right hand.

Ava almost instinctively went to shake it, but held off and just watched with a vague curiosity. Slowly, she watched as Simon’s hand began to turn a faint shade of silver.

“Simon, what-“

“Shhh!”

His hand stretched, and then thinned out, and then wasn’t even a hand anymore. Panting slightly from the strain, Simon opened his eyes to see that he had successfully shapeshifted his hand into a socket wrench.

Mostly, anyway.

“Simon, that’s amazing, but it also looks like shit, dude. There’s no way we could get the spark plug off like that. Look at the socket, it’s all wrinkled.”

“Hey, excuse me for saving our asses! It’s been a while, let me see that pic again.”

Ava held up her phone and Simon focused again, trying to iron out the imperfections.

Ava couldn’t help but ask: “Since when could you do this? Shapeshift into people, sure, but something like this?”

Simon shrugged slightly. “Back when I was learning how to shift, I thought trees and stuff were good to test with because I was embarrassed to ask someone else to practice with. I got pretty good at shifting into inorganic matter. The other demons thought it was stupid though.”

Ava contemplated that. “Well, they should have appreciated you better, that’s a great skill to have.”

“They meant well, I’m not explaining it good.” Simon held up his “hand” for inspection. It was just like the picture on Ava’s phone.

Simon looked at Ava with a let’s-move-on-from-this look. “It’s complicated.”

Ava shrugged. “Alright, Lefty, let’s get you to work then. Hope you’re ready for to get messy cause fixing cars is not for neat freaks.”

“Lead the way, oh expert of mine.”

“Hey, Simon?”

“What?”

“Thanks for the help.”

I did research on cars for this

I realized late that simon might not be able to actually read, but also that it didn’t matter

now to be clear i’m not saying that incredibly successful film director and youtuber Markiplier saw my writing blog @aatgm or any of my 12-note posts about my book and plagiarized my ideas. i’m not saying that.

some OCs i haven’t drawn in a while! this was their dynamic for like 3 years lol

au of my novel where this is how these two meet.