#I JUST WANTED THE BANNER TO LOOK SEMI OKAY AND ITS THE ONLY DRAWING WE GET OF HIM POST TIME SKIP AND HE'S SO CUTE
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the open door | Ethan x MC
Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC
Warnings: swearing, some brief mentions of corpses and body horror, spooks and possible spectres
Word count: 7.7k
Premise: Bryce invites Sloane, Sienna, and Aurora on a tour of a haunted estate on the night before Halloween. What could go wrong?
Notes: I’m super bummed that we didn’t get a Halloween-themed chapter for this book, especially since it’s my favorite holiday. Takes place post chapter 11, though I’ve played with the timeline a bit to include Halloween. Re-post because it fell out of the tag, as posts seem to want to do as of late.
Taglist: @maurine07 @caseyvalentineramsey
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“You are aware there’s no such thing as witches, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Bryce scoffs. “Maybe. Besides, I said she was rumored to be a witch. That’s a whole different thing.”
“Oh, right, of course it is.” In the backseat, Aurora rolls her eyes. “Just tell that to all the people killed during the Salem witch trials due to mass hysteria.”
“Hey, now -- it’s not like she was killed for being a witch.”
“Right. She pulled a classic Rose for Emily,” Sloane mutters while Sienna makes a gagging noise.
“What?” Bryce asks.
“It’s a short story by Faulkner.”
“Oh.” There’s a brief pause. Sloane wonders if he even knows who that is. Then: “Is he the dude that had a hard-on for the Civil War?”
“Yeah,” Aurora snorts. “Basically.”
“Yeah, never read any of his stuff. I think I used SparkNotes for one of his books in undergrad.”
“Same,” Sloane admits, to which Bryce shoots her a look of faux-surprise. “Yeah, yeah, we all had to skate by sometimes.”
“Well, well, well,” he crows. “Looks like the ‘next generation of medicine’ isn’t so high and mighty after all, huh?”
“Wait, how did you--”
“Ramsey was four drinks deep at Donahue’s the other day, and one of the interns came up and bothered him about a possible spot on the team. Which meant we all overheard the twenty-minute spiel about what a great doctor you are.” He snickers as she puts a hand over her face and groans. “Yeah, it was real sweet. Real obvious, but sweet.”
She’s saved by the GPS on her phone, cutting through the music playing over the car speakers; Bryce takes the next exit as instructed. The off-ramp spits them out onto a two-lane county road. Posted across from the solitary stop sign, the blue services sign offers nothing but blank, white squares.
“There’s a bathroom, right?” Sienna asks. “Because I’m not seeing a gas station.”
“It’s a house, you guys,” Bryce scoffs, “not a cave.”
“A haunted house,” she clarifies.
“Well, I mean, I don’t think the toilets are haunted.”
For several miles, there’s nothing but sweeping woodlands and the occasional passing car. Long squiggles of tar decorate the asphalt, snaking across the empty, leaf-strewn road. The setting sun casts a golden hue over everything, spears of light cutting through the tree trunks. It would be a nice, evening drive if it weren’t for where they were headed.
Forty minutes north of Boston lies the small, nondescript town of Angler. Even under the cover of dusk, Sloane can tell that it’s one of those towns. Pretty Tudors line the main street, their porches decorated with smiling scarecrows sitting on bales of hay; banners along the telephone poles advertise the annual apple festival. The bank and the post office and the dry cleaners are all tucked together in the refurbished general store. It’s the stereotypical, pleasant, all-American town. Which means that it’s the perfect place to hide a dark stain of history.
Why Bryce signed up for such a thing and how he won the tickets is beyond her. When he asked them all to join him for a haunted house, Sloane expected the typical theme: some dingy warehouse refurbished enough to meet modern building codes, full of tight mazes and masked actors with chainsaws.
“Nah, guys, this is the real deal,” he gloated over lunch the previous afternoon. “Back in the 1800s, this woman -- uhh Margaret, or Maggie, I think, yeah Maggie Angler -- she was one of the Boston Brahmins, owned this estate out in the country, blah blah blah. No one knows a whole lot about her because she was a little weird and she kept to herself. At some point, this dude woos her and they get married. But then, a few years later, he dies. Neighbors drop by to offer casseroles or whatever, but she won’t answer the door, so they give up and leave her alone. A few months go by, and suddenly this dude from town goes missing. Then a year, and another goes missing. This continues for several years and--”
“So, what, she’s some kind of black widow?” Elijah asked.
“No, this isn’t one of those Marvel--” Bryce’s brow furrowed and then lifted, realization striking his handsome face. “--oh, heh, yeah, sorry. But yeah, sort of. It wasn’t until word got around that the latest dude was seen talking to Maggie at the store that people got suspicious of her. So, they gather up some people and storm the house, where they find a Satanic Bible and other spooky shit. But that’s not the only thing they find.”
They all glance around at each other, waiting to see who will encourage Bryce to break his silence and finish the damn story. “They also find... the missing dudes.”
“What, buried in the backyard?” Sloane asked, and frowned when Bryce shook his head.
“No, not buried. She killed them and then kept them in the house. Supposedly, they were posed at the table or sitting on the couch, rotting away.”
Sienna made a show of pushing her plate away. “That’s disgusting.”
“I know there’s a group of people in Indonesia that keep their dead relatives at home,” Aurora said, “but they’re preserved and cared for. This doesn’t sound like that.”
“Nope.” Elijah shook his head. “Definitely not the same thing.”
“What happened to the woman?” Sloane asked.
“No idea -- get this: they never found her.” Bryce lifted his eyebrows for dramatic effect. “But the story goes that she still haunts the place, searching for her lost lovers, and maybe… trying to get some new ones.”
Jackie, who had been busy scrolling away on her phone through the tale, snorted into her salad.
“And you want us to come with you to some evil witch’s house on the night before Halloween to go ghost hunting? I may not believe in any of this shit, but no fucking way.”
“Yeah,” Elijah sighed, cringing at the crestfallen look on Bryce’s face. “Sorry dude, but I’ll pass. My idea of fun is a John Carpenter movie marathon, not a tour around Jane the Ripper’s house.”
“Okay, understood.” With that, Bryce looked to the remaining three and turned on the charm, draping his arm across Sloane’s shoulders. “C’mon, ladies, whaddaya say? Hard to pass up the prospect of touring a bona fide haunted mansion with one of the most handsome men you know -- second only to Elijah here.”
Tapping at her chin, Sienna nodded and grinned. “Sounds fun. I like scary things.”
Aurora, on the other hand, shot him a skeptical look. “Are you going to shout at the air and act like you’re possessed, like I’ve seen that one ghost hunter do on TV? The one with the spiky hair?” she demanded to know.
“Uhhh no to all of those things, but especially to the spiky hair.”
“Okay, then,” she shrugged, “I’ll go.”
Every eye at the table turned to Sloane; Bryce squeezed her shoulder in encouragement.
“Alright,” she agreed. “It’d be fun to get spooked, I guess. I’m down.”
Which is how she comes to be in the passenger seat of Bryce’s car, leaning forward onto the dashboard as they take the final turn onto a hidden lane. A thick tunnel of trees swallows them up as they drive deeper into the woods. After several miles, there’s a break in the pines, and then: sprawled atop a hill, looming above them, is the house. Even if she hadn’t heard the backstory, Sloane feels like the place would still give her the creeps. With its filmy lace curtains and its tall windows glowing yellow in the approaching darkness, the house looks like it’s been pulled from an Edward Hopper painting. Worn pavers lead from the semi-circular driveway and up to the front porch. Framing either side of the steps, thin, brittle blades of tufted hairgrass shift in the wind. Two people turn from the front door and raise a hand in greeting.
Bryce kills the engine and twists around in his seat to grin at his compatriots.
“You guys ready to get scaaaared?”
Sienna wraps her hands around Sloane’s seat and leans forward, her eyes wide as she stares out the windshield.
“Why does it look like The Amityville Horror house?”
“Is this a bad time to mention that the Blair Witch Project’s producers used this place as inspiration?”
“Yeah,” she hisses, “definitely a bad time.”
Shouldering open her door, Sloane lets in the cool October air in an attempt to corral their attention. It works; the rest of them pile out of the car with her and approach the couple.
As the current owners of the property, Jack and Nancy Bell guide them through the main floor of the house, pointing out spots of reported activity. The interior is lovely -- one of those Sloane would see in a Pictagram post of a wedding venue, with all those carved banisters and original wainscoting. Her brother, a successful carpenter in the Twin Cities, would have a field day in here. Most of the furniture is original to the house, as well, and in surprisingly good condition.
The only aspect setting the house apart from any other on the historical registry are the props. In the front hall, a bulletin board hosts an array of newspaper clippings. The earlier articles blame a serial killer, dubbed the ‘Butcher of Angler,’ for the mens’ disappearances. Then, starting on October 28th, 1892, the headlines change to the ‘Wicked Witch of Winthrope County.’ In the drawing room sits an Ouija board, surrounded by melted candles. A cauldron and a Satanic Bible share space on the kitchen counter; corked bottles of what look like cooking spices and herbs clutter the open cabinets. Mannequins lounge at the dining table or on the sofa, dressed in dusty clothes, their jaws slack, their painted eyes still and dull. Beside them, framed in cheap plastic, are the grainy photographs of the corpses as they were found. To Sloane, it all feels hokey, like a regular haunted house with the strobe lights turned off.
There’s something else, though, something underneath the fine layer of dust and the creaking floorboards and the shrouded furniture. It skitters across her neck and down her back, making her shiver, which she discounts as a wayward draft in the old house.
It’s the distinct feeling of being watched.
“Aside from the big house, there’s a carriage house to the left there. We rent it out in the summer and fall for overnight stays.” Jack gestures to the east as they step out onto the back veranda, where, just beyond the slope of lawn, a smaller house sits with a solitary porch light glowing. “And back down the path there will lead you to the lake. When we bought the place, the deed stated that there was a cabin out near the state park line, but we’ve never been able to find evidence of it.”
“Maggie’s been seen down by the lake, too,” Nancy chimes in. “People say they see her there, inside the boathouse, or walking along the shore with her head down, as if she’s searching for something.”
“We’ve got lanterns here if you want to use them as you go about the grounds, though you’re welcome to use your flashlights.” Jack nudges a neat row of antique lanterns with his sneaker. “For the optimal experience, though, we recommend turning off all the inside lights and using secondary light sources instead.” He chuckles when Sienna makes a throaty noise of dissent.
The couple leads them back through the house and into the front hall to finish the tour. While Jack goes over the various rules, Nancy motions for Sloane to follow her out onto the front porch.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your friends,” she starts off in a whisper, “but I wanted to talk to you about our son, Ben.”
For a fleeting moment, Sloane thinks that she’s going to get questioned about his bowel movements or a mysterious rash, that Bryce must have told them he was bringing along his doctor friends. “When he was seven, he nearly--” Nancy cuts herself off, pressing a hand to her heart, “--he drowned when we were at the beach in Florida. I did CPR until the EMTs got there, and they were able to resuscitate him, thank God.”
“I’m sorry,” Sloane murmurs, “that must’ve been awful.”
“It was. But I’m -- the reason I’m telling you all this is because, after that, Ben seems to be more… open. More open than the rest of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Sloane says again, though this time out of confusion, “but I don’t--”
With a huff, Nancy shakes her head and waves her hands. “No, no, I apologize. I must sound crazy. I just wanted to warn you that, due to what happened to you, you might see things or experience things that your friends can’t. That’s all, dear.”
Sloane opens her mouth to question her further, but they’re interrupted by the rest of the gang filing out beside them. “We’ll be back at one a.m. to lock up behind you,” Nancy says as she follows her husband down to their car.
With a cheery honk, the little Subaru rumbles down the winding driveway and disappears. The sun having set during the tour, the landscape before them is now draped with the heavy blanket of night. The moon peeks at them from just above the treetops, as if still deciding on whether or not to come out. The only lights are far-off, unmoving: porch lights of the houses back in town; cell towers with their red stars blinking lazily against the dark. A cold wind moves through the trees, rustling the leaves and scattering them across the front walk, the dried edges hissing along the brick.
“Can you believe he said no alcohol?” Bryce breaks the silence with a whine. “I read about this fun séance thing you do with tequila shots and--”
“No séances!” Sienna declares. “And definitely no tequila!”
“Can we argue about this where it’s warmer?” Aurora suggests and steps back into the house.
As she and Sienna wander off into the drawing room, Sloane wraps a hand around Bryce’s arm and pulls him back.
“Did you tell her about me?”
His nose scrunches up to meet his furrowed brows. “Tell who about what?”
“The-- Nancy, did you tell her about what happened to me? With… with the senator, and…” it’s embarrassing how much of a struggle it is to get the words out, even now, even after three weeks and two therapy appointments.
His face falls from confusion to concern. Bryce reaches up and lays his hand over her own.
“Slo, I didn’t tell them, I swear. I would never,” he promises. “Did she say something to you?”
She loosens her hold, frustrated at herself that she even considered he would do such a thing. He’s one of her best friends, the man who handed over the reins to a cutting-edge surgery just to be by her side.
“Yeah, no, listen: it’s fine,” she stumbles through a paltry reassurance. “She was probably trying to scare me, that’s all.”
He gives her a quick once-over, lips twisting into a frown as he debates on whether or not to push. She bites back a breath of relief when he relents, his hand releasing hers.
“Okay,” he says, and nudges her into the house ahead of him. “C’mon. Between the two of us, I think we can convince them to turn off the lights.”
------
Although he puts up a good fight, Bryce loses on the no-lights front.
Which is just as well, because by the time they reach the second floor, Sloane is glad for the light from the antique lamps. To be fair, nothing actually happens: no spooks, no spectres, and no signs from the former resident. Nothing she can point to with any amount of certainty. Whatever it is hovers out of reach, just on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t seem to give it a name. Maybe it lies -- like any good, scary movie -- in the setting. For as grand as the house is, time and dereliction have taken its fine features hostage. Thick, gray dust coats the wooden spindles and curled handrails of the antique staircase. The corridors are tight, the shadows gathering in the space where the lights can’t seem to reach. Small curls of peeling wallpaper look like fingers reaching out from the wall, backlit by the sconces. The cloying scent of wood rot and mold fills the air, like a pile of papers left to curl and yellow with age. The rooms are small, cluttered with furniture and trinkets and artwork.
Sloane stares at such a portrait in the master bedroom, where a couple stares down at her from above the fireplace. The man sits in a chair, the woman standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder. It would be any other family portrait, if it weren’t for the unsettling glaze over the man’s sunken eyes.
“Bryce, please don’t-- aaaand he’s sitting on the bed.”
“You do know that’s where they found her husband, right?” Sienna points out. “That’s why there’s a mannequin on it. And a picture of his dead body on the nightstand.”
“Maybe Maggie will see what a catch I am if I’m laid out for her. I’ve never met a woman over the age of sixty who could resist my charms.” Bryce waggles his eyebrows as he bounces once, then twice on the mattress before stretching out. “What’s up, bro?” he asks the mannequin beside him before doing a double-take. “Hey, it’s Annie!”
He snatches off the ugly wig and fake beard, and lo and behold, an old CPR dummy gapes up at them all. Sloane snorts and shakes her head.
“Looks like the years haven’t been kind to her.”
“Probably saddled with student loans just like the rest of us,” Aurora mutters as she wanders over to inspect the photograph. “Had to get a second job here.”
“Hey, that was a joke!” Bryce commends. “And a pretty good one at that.”
“I do jokes.”
“You so do not.”
A muffled bang from somewhere in the house stops their banter. Everyone glances at each other, verifying that everyone in their group is indeed in the room.
“What was that?” Sienna whispers.
“Probably the pipes,” Aurora says. “It is an old house.”
As if on cue, the lights flicker once, then switch off, sinking them into complete darkness. There’s a flurry of noise as everyone digs out their phones; the bedroom seems even creepier, now, under the white glow of their flashlights.
“What do we do?” Sienna hisses, scurrying from the window to latch onto Aurora.
“We could always search for the breaker,” she suggests.
“Which would be where?”
“In the basement, most likely.”
“Um, no,” Sienna balks. “Hell no.”
“Are you guys serious right now?” Bryce hops down from the bed and pokes his head out the open doorway. “This is so cool! Who wants to go downstairs with me and grab the Ouija board?”
“If you bring that thing near me, I will break it in half.”
He grimaces at Sienna’s threat.
“You’re not really supposed to do that with them. It’ll keep the door open for the spirits to come in.”
“It’s a toy made by Hasbro,” Aurora scoffs. “It’s not going to ‘let in’ anything. And the planchette doesn’t actually move on its own. That’s due to the ideomotor effect.”
Moving over to the window, Sloane presses her temple against the pane’s edge and squints. Just past the eastern wing, she spots a faint halo of yellow light on the lawn.
“Hey,” she raises her voice over their bickering. “It looks like the carriage house still has power.”
“Great!” Sienna squeaks and pulls Aurora with her towards the door. “Let’s check it out. I… love carriage houses.”
They push past Bryce and start back down the hall. Turning from the doorway, a coy smile spreads across his face, a single eyebrow lifting at his wordless request.
“Oh, no.” Sloane shakes her head as she crosses the room. “I’m not staying up here so you can play Twenty Questions with a ghost.”
She ignores his good-natured grumbling and leads him to the staircase, where Aurora and Sienna are waiting on the landing. Aimed at the ground, their flashlights slice at the hand-carved walls; dustmotes dance in the twin beams, kicked up by their feet. The air feels heavier, mustier here, too, like breathing through wet wool. They tromp down the stairs and across the first floor to the kitchen. Being at the back of the group, Sloane can’t help but glance back now and again at the shadowed recesses, searching for the source of her uneasiness. That she finds nothing amiss doesn’t seem to curb her anxiety.
The sensation wanes when she closes the door behind them, sealing up the house once more.
“How is it warmer outside than in there?” Sienna asks as they start cutting across the lawn for the carriage house.
Bryce zips up his coat and shrugs. “I’ve heard that ghosts tend to suck the energy out of a room, creating cold spots when they mani--”
“Please stop talking,” she begs. “At least until we’re somewhere with electricity that actually works.”
“Aw, come on, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’ve seen enough scary movies in your life to know that we’re safe if we travel together. Besides, everyone knows the funny guy goes first.”
“I think that honor belongs to people of color, now, sorry.” Aurora chuckles when he spins around to wince at her.
“Yeah, fair point.”
Coated in fallen leaves, the ground crunches loud underneath their shoes, blocking out the night sounds as the four of them approach the smaller house. “But for real, I don’t think we have much to worry about from Maggie here. I mean, almost all ghost stories are about little white girls from Victorian times named Sally or Sarah or Kate.”
“That’s because of the spiritualism boom in the late nineteenth century,” Aurora answers.
Bryce sighs and quickly changes the subject, uninterested in a history lesson.
Converted into a proper guest house sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, the carriage house lacks the severe decay of the main house. Though not as grand, the wallpaper here is intact, the dust not as heavy. It might just be the comforts of amenities such as central heating and electricity, but the inside of the house feels much more benign. As they complete a loop around the building, though, Sloane realizes that the feeling of being watched still remains, growing stronger when she passes or glances out one of the windows. With the glare of the lights, though, it’s hard to see much of anything past the panes. None of the others seem to be frightened -- or if they do, they keep quiet. The same can’t be said when Sienna flips the light on in the parlor.
Toddler-size dolls lean against the walls, their porcelain hands cupped around their faces. Each wears a pretty, pastel dress trimmed in white lace, their hair falling down their backs in long, springy ringlets of dark brown, cherry red, and honey gold. Bryce makes a noise of disgust when he spins one around, its face blank: no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Time-out dolls, Sloane tells them, remembering her grandmother’s friend who owned several back in the early nineties -- though hers were all dressed as clowns.
“People actually rent this place out? They pay money to stay here?” Sienna shudders. “I’d rather sleep in the other house, even with all the cobwebs and mannequins.”
“And the ghosts,” Bryce adds.
“Ghosts don’t exist,” Aurora says.
“Okay, Scully, that’s enough out of you.”
------
As the clock ticks closer to ten, Bryce votes to go check out the lake. Aurora and Sienna, however, vote to stay in the warm, well-lit kitchen. The plan is decided to split up and then meet back at the main house in time for midnight.
“You know,” Bryce explains as he and Sloane make their way across the lawn, “because it’s the witching hour.”
“I thought it was three a.m.”
“It is if you’re taking into account REM cycles and all that, but I’m not. All the legends I’ve read say…” he trails off, frowning as he jogs up the main house’s back steps. “Hey, you shut the door when we left, right?”
Her phone’s flashlight sweeps up the French doors; one of them is ajar, standing open several inches. She reaches for the handle and shuts it, listening for the snick of the latch.
“I guess I didn’t pull it closed enough.”
“Or,” he taunts as he grabs two of the lanterns from the porch, “something else opened it.” Ignoring her scoff, he pockets his phone and hands one of the lanterns to her. “These are nice. Do you think they’re original?”
“Bryce, they bought these from a Cracker Barrel. And besides, they’re battery-powered.”
“Oh.”
The back of the estate has been left to run wild. Overgrown swath rolls along the ground like dunes, snagging dead leaves between the dry blades. Thickets of barren shrubs creep out from the distant tree line. The path to the lake is marked by an old fence post, tied with a tattered ribbon. They make their way across the wide expanse of lawn, the trees ahead towering higher and higher the closer they get to the forest. Sloane can’t help but check over her shoulder. The house is just as they left it, though the moonlight is too weak to see if the door is still closed.
Gravel crunches under their feet as they step onto the trail. The quiet night is broken by a ding from her phone.
How goes the ghost hunting?
She hooks the lantern in the crook of her arm and taps out her reply: Fun so far, lights went off by themselves. Very spooky 10/10
Ethan: What do fractions have to do with what you’re doing?
Sloane: Nvm
Ethan: This isn’t 2002. You do have a full keyboard under your fingertips.
Sloane: so?
Ethan: So there’s no excuse for using T9 acronyms.
Sloane: Never thought I’d see the day you reprimand me for texting
Ethan: I’ll spare you the lecture and let you get back to your witch hunt. Text me when you get home, please, so I know you returned safely.
She hits send on the next message. Several seconds later, a red bubble appears beside her will do!, informing her that it refused to send. A quick glance at the top of the screen shows the one measly bar of service her phone is clinging onto. With a sigh, she tucks it away.
“How’s Dr. Ramsey?” Bryce asks.
“Preparing a TEDtalk on prehistoric cell phone etiquette.”
His nose scrunches up. “What?”
“Nothing,” she chuckles, exhaling through her mouth just to see her foggy breath.
The light from the lanterns casts an eerie, yellow glow across the tree trunks and underbrush. Creaks and knocks echo up out of the dark -- branches smacking against each other as a cold wind sweeps through the area. The last vestiges of October skitter along the ground; the leaves almost sound like footsteps, dragging across the dirt behind them. The trail tightens as it winds down a small embankment and into a hollow. Their pace seems to pick up, though neither of them mention it. Sloane burrows into her scarf at the sudden dip in temperature.
“How’s Keiki?” she asks, more so out of need to make conversation than actual curiosity.
“Probably eating her way into a food coma with the pizza money I left for her, and beating all my high scores on Need for Speed.” He’s grinning as he says it, though, which Sloane finds encouraging. “I invited her to go with us, but she said no.”
She doesn’t miss the crestfallen expression that crosses his face for a moment.
“Trust me when I say this, because I speak from the experience of having a younger sibling, but she didn’t say no because she doesn’t like you or anything. It’s because she thinks you and your friends are dorks.”
He sputters at the insult. “I’m not a dork!”
“You so totally are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too!” she argues. “Ethan thinks I’m bad, but you -- you come in on your days off and you like it.”
“That’s called dedication to the craft.”
“That’s called being a dork.”
What little she can see of the path ahead is more winding turns, more endless seas of bark and brushwood. But just when she thinks that they’ll never reach the end, that they’ll wind up stumbling upon Elly Kedward’s house -- there’s a small dot of light and then a break in the trees, where the path spits them out onto a rocky shore. The lake glints under their lanterns, the pearlescent gleam of the moon dancing on its surface.
“Oh, hey, that was nice of them.”
Sloane’s gaze tracks along the shore and over to where he’s gestured. A solitary lantern sits in front of an old boathouse, illuminating the weathered cedar shake.
“Too bad they can’t install lights along the path,” she mutters as they make their way to the structure.
“What part of ‘bona fide haunted mansion’ did you not understand? This is the thrill of it!”
Bryce shoulders open the door to a dim room with a half-sunken rowboat in the center.
“Thrilling,” she drones, side-stepping his attempt to whack her arm. “Right.”
They poke through the dirty raincoats and rusted tackle boxes. The wooden planks under their feet jostle and flex. Everything smells of wet and mold, the walls slick with grime. “I can think of several better places to haunt.”
Bryce hums his agreement as he prods at a stack of old hunting magazines, the pages sealed together. Sloane steps over to look down at the boat, where minnows dart underneath the oars to escape her light.
“Watch where you step,” she tells him as she crosses to the starboard side. “Some of these boards are really falling apa--”
The rest is lost to her shriek as the floor underneath her snaps. Her foot goes through the wood. She drops the lantern and scrambles to stay upright. The soggy planks slip from her grasp as she falls backwards, and then: water, the icy rush of it closing over her head.
She fights back a gasp at the sudden cold. With her knee trapped in the joists, she can’t get her feet under her to kick to the surface. Her hands sweep out, flailing desperately. Something hard slams against her neck. She twists at the waist; the sunken lantern illuminates the long shadow of the boat. She digs her fingers into the wood. The cold saps at what strength she has, her muscles refusing to work as she tries to push herself out of the water. Her lungs ache; her heartbeat thuds inside her skull. Down in the murky depths below, a long shadow reaches towards her. Fingers, then hands seize her waist; her skin hits the cold air. Sloane blinks away the muddy haze that coats her eyes and sucks in a lungful of blessed oxygen.
“Sloane!” Bryce shouts, as if he was expecting to pull out someone else. He ropes an arm around her back and helps her up out of the water. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of--” the rest of his words are lost to an undignified oof as Sloane wraps her arms around his neck.
“Thanks.”
His hands come up to rest along her back, gently rubbing there to warm her frozen skin.
“I would say don’t mention it, but please do. The notoriety of me saving your life needs to make its way back to the hospital, so Rahul will finally go on a date with me.”
She fights the urge to roll her eyes.
“You would be concerned about getting a leg over while mine is still stuck.”
“Oh, whoops. Sorry, here, I’ll...” Sitting back on his heels, he steadies her against him and helps her shimmy out of the hole she’s made. Despite how saturated the planks are, her jeans are torn along her knee, where blood wells across several scratches. “Ouch,” he hisses.
“Nothing a few bandages and a tetanus shot won’t fix,” she assures. Wobbling as she stands, Sloane limps over to the storage chest in the corner. The blanket she finds is tattered and smells of mold, but it’s better than braving the night’s chill in just her soaked sweater. “Alright, I want out of this place like yesterday.”
Bryce picks up his lantern and nods, following her out onto the shore and back onto the path.
------
“And, I don’t know, he’s also distant with me sometimes, ya know? He’s hot, then he’s cold. He’ll flirt with me and agree to a date, but then he bails at the last second.”
“I get you.”
“That’s why I’m coming to you, oh wise one,” Bryce says with a grin. “Teach me your ways of dealing with difficult guys.”
Sloane laughs, the sound echoing through the quiet forest. Tucking the blanket tighter around her shoulders, she shakes her head.
“Trust me, if I knew how to, I wouldn’t have such problems with my own.”
The cell phone in her pocket burns at the reminder of Ethan -- not that she could contact him if she wanted, given that the freezing water had zapped the last of its battery.
“Yeah, but you could at least give me some pointers on how to wear him down.”
“Oh, my god, Bryce--”
“Okay, okay, not… ‘wear him down’... more, like, encouraging than that, I guess....” he trails off with a shrug.
Humming as she thinks over her plan of attack, Sloane slows her pace to drop behind Bryce to skirt around a fallen tree -- until she can see it no more. “Fuck!” Bryce curses from in front of her, rattling the lantern as if abuse will bring it back to life. “Batteries must be dead. Let me…” There’s a rustling of clothes, a brief, hopeful inhale, then: “Fuck. Phone’s dead too. Must be the cold or something.”
Sloane closes her eyes and opens them again, hoping that they will have miraculously adjusted to the dark -- but no such luck. With what little moonlight seeps through the canopy and the dusting of fog that’s rolled in, it’s hard to see farther than a few feet ahead. It will make this slow-going trek of theirs even slower. She scans the woods surrounding them and stops when she sees a pinprick of light back down the trail.
“I have an idea,” she says, “but you’re not going to like it.”
He does not, in fact, like her idea. But even he can’t argue against it. Besides, they’d only made it about a half-mile up the path, and the boathouse wasn’t that far back.
Which is how Sloane comes to be sitting on the log, trying her best to ignore the darkness pressing in on her from all sides. If Aurora were here, she would be explaining that being afraid of the dark is just a concept carried over from early hominid days. Then again, if Aurora were here, she wouldn’t have had to send Bryce back for the other lantern, and they’d be back at the house by now. Sloane knows she should keep moving to stay warm, but she’s cold and wet and her knee is throbbing something awful.
She’s uncertain of how much time passes before that silly bundle of nerves in her stomach morphs into the proper weight of worry. Bryce should be back by now. She knows he made it to the boathouse because the light through the trees is gone now. Her eyes have since adjusted to the night, which means it’s been at least thirty minutes. Maybe that lantern died, too, she reasons. Sloane listens for his familiar cursing, or his footsteps on the path -- but there’s nothing. The nighttime noises of the forest are gone: no animals, no birds, no wind. The stillness is nothing short of eerie, especially when she feels that now-familiar sensation of being watched.
“Bryce?” she chances.
From out of the black, she can hear someone walking down the path.
“Bryce!” she shouts, struggling to her feet. “Sienna? Aurora? Is that you?”
Whoever it is doesn’t respond. She starts down the trail towards them, cursing when she nearly trips over a rock. “Seriously, guys, I’m not in the mood--”
An awful sound echoes out of the dark, like a high-pitched whistle played over radio static.
She freezes, pebbles and twigs skidding across the dirt at her sudden halt. Every hair on her body stands on-end, her muscles locked as adrenaline races through her. Sloane swallows and clenches her blanket tighter.
The high-low tone of the whistle sounds again. Whatever’s out there is just beyond the reach of her vision. Sloane wheels around, her gaze darting across the shadows, as if she’ll be able to even see-- a light. It’s several hundred feet out in the forest, back in the direction of the house. It’s too far away to make out who’s holding it. It has to be Bryce, though -- playing a prank on her, as if she’d find this sort of thing funny in the state she’s in.
She bites back a curse and hurries after him as best she can, keeping low to the ground in an effort to hide from whatever animal is out here with them. The trail becomes rougher, more overgrown as she trudges through the leaves and shoves away sticker bushes. Forced to waste precious time watching where she’s going, she glances up only to keep track of the light that grows closer every second.
The whistle comes again -- louder, closer now. Whatever it is, it’s still following her. Sloane pushes through a thicket and stumbles into a clearing. Tucked between a small grove of pines in the center is a cabin. With the caved-in roof, sagging porch, and front steps that form nothing more than a woodpile, it’s obvious the place has long stood abandoned. Sitting on the porch and casting a glow into the open doorway is a lantern -- the same make as the others. Approaching the steps, she slowly leans up and snatches the lantern from the porch.
“No fucking way,” she mutters to herself. “I don’t care if it is a bobcat out here, I’m not hiding in the Evil-Dead-looking-ass cabin.”
The dark silhouettes of the trees rustle under the cold wind that blows through the glade. Carried with it is a different sound: voices, all slurred together, but forming one syllable. She steps away from the cabin and back towards the forest, straining to make it out. Her name, she realizes with relief. They’re calling her name.
She sucks in a breath to yell back when movement catches her eye. Something dark curls away from the tree line, only to dart into the tall grass when she swings the lantern in its direction. Sloane squints at the underbrush it disappeared into, waiting for it to appear again. For a few, blessed moments, she thinks it’s run off, that it’s finally given up.
Until a black shadow crawls out of the underbrush towards her, shrieking, braying like an animal in pain. It’s an ear-splitting cry, echoing across the clearing. Sloane tightens her grip on the lantern and bolts. Ducking back into the trees, she heads in a single direction, knowing that she’ll either hit the lake or the house -- of, if she runs far enough, the town.
Shoving through low-hanging branches, she glances over her shoulder to see the shadow chasing her, peeling itself out of the shadows as it moves between the trees, somehow darker than the black surrounding them. Her foot hits a patch of wet leaves and she slips, skidding down the hillside and tumbling out onto a stretch of asphalt. She grits her teeth against the pain in her leg and crawls forward into the middle of the road. With no time for hesitating, she pushes to her feet and runs, hoping she’s picked the right direction.
It wails again, in the trees to her left, scurrying across the hillside after her.
“Fuck off!” she screams.
Another noise comes roaring out of the dark, drowning out her cry. Lights -- searing, blinding -- swing around the curve. Brakes squeal as the car swerves, narrowly missing her; glass shatters as Sloane staggers to the roadside, her lantern cracking as it hits the pavement and rolls off into the grass. The guard rail is like ice beneath her palm where she clutches it, using it to stay upright as her heart threatens to vacate her body through her throat. The hillside is drenched in red from the car’s tail lights.
“Sloane!”
Ethan -- it’s him, his car, he’s here, but he should be in Boston, shouldn’t he? He was when he texted her and that was only an hour ago so why is he here and how did he-- all of her panicked thoughts cease when he folds her into his arms and hugs her tight. The night around them is still, save for the purr of the engine and the soft dinging of the door ajar warning.
“What the hell were you thinking, standing in the middle of the road like that?” he hisses, pulling her back to pin her down with his glare. “You could’ve-- I could’ve killed you.”
“You’re here,” she whispers.
Her lips are numb from the cold and shock. She reaches up for the blanket, then realizes that she must’ve lost it somewhere along the way.
“Of course I’m here. You really need to stop scaring the hell out of me, you know that.” His brow furrows as he frowns, taking in the state of her. He slips off his own coat and bundles it around her. “Honey, you’re freezing. Let me--”
“We have to go,” she urges, remembering what’s waiting for her, out in the forest. Grabbing hold of his hand, she starts tugging him towards the car. “There’s -- in the woods, there was -- I don’t know, this thing, and it kept screaming, it was horrible--”
Ethan shushes her rambling and guides her into the car, buckling her seatbelt when her hands won’t stop shaking. She tucks her nose into the collar of his coat, breathing in the comforting scent of his cologne. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he backs the car up and turns back towards the estate. With one hand on the wheel, the other finds hers and holds tight.
“Your friends called me when they couldn’t find you, wanted to know if I’d heard from you, in case you’d made it to somewhere with a working phone. I called you-- well, more than I’d care to admit, though it was obvious your phone was dead.”
“How did you get here so fast?” she wonders aloud.
“I got here around twelve-thirty, did a sweep of the woods. Around one I started driving around, hoping that I’d come across you in case you made it to the road.” He gives her a worried glance before returning to the road. “The others have been out with the sheriff’s office and the owners, searching the woods.”
“But I… that doesn’t make any sense,” she tells him with a shake of her head. “It wasn’t even midnight when me and Bryce started back, and he was gone for twenty, maybe thirty minutes. And then I saw him-- well, not him, but at the time I thought it was him being an asshole-- and then that… thing chased after me and I got turned around, sure. But it couldn’t have been more than an hour.”
“Sloane, it’s nearly three in the morning.”
Her immediate reaction is to protest, but the concern in his tone and the clock on his dash render her mute. Which is for the best, she realizes later after pulling up to the house and seeing the driveway choked with cars: Bryce’s, the Bell’s, and several police cruisers. Modern floodlights tucked below the eaves turn the dark house into a bright beacon. Blue and red lights of the cruisers swirl across the lawn. As soon as they pull up, her friends race over to the car and wrap her into a hug. One of the cops takes her statement, ignoring Ethan’s insistence about getting her home and taking it over the phone instead.
“Must’ve been a coyote,” the cop tells her after she’s finished. “We get a lot of reports of them out here, being so close to the state park.”
“A coyote,” Sloane repeats.
“Well, sure,” he says with a shrug. “Unless you think it was something else?”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. Having dealt with her fair share of wildlife coming down from the mountains and into her backyard growing up, she can’t remember ever hearing anything similar. Even her grandfather’s tales about the Wampus cat, her favorite spooky story as a kid, didn’t hold a candle to… to whatever was out there.
After the cops leave and the Bells lock up, her friends pile into Bryce’s car for the ride home. Though not before Bryce shares with her his own experience with the mysterious shadow. However, he’d gotten a good look with the lantern.
“It wasn’t an animal,” he whispers to her. “It was her. It was Maggie, I swear it.”
Sloane didn’t know what to say to that. So she hadn’t said anything, just squeezed his hand and hugged him goodbye. Returning to Ethan’s car, she settled into the passenger seat, thankful for the change of clothes he had in the trunk -- and the first aid kit, of course.
With the classical music floating out of the speakers and the warmth of his hand in hers again, it would’ve been easy for Sloane to close her eyes. She can’t help it, though, when they back out of the drive. She looks up to the long row of windows. It could be a trick of the headlights, but something watches them from around the lace curtains. As they start to pull away, it slinks back into the shadows of the house.
------
Author’s notes and what-have-yous:
The inspiration for the Angler Estate is the abandoned Uplands Mansion in Baltimore, MD. If you like urbex stuff, I highly recommend looking up some videos of it on YouTube. It’s a gorgeous place, despite all the vandalism.
The owners’ surname being Bell is a fun nod to the Bell Witch Cave, my state’s claim to supernatural fame. The mention of The Evil Dead cabin is another poke, since the 1981 original was filmed an hour away from where I live.
The “watch where you step” line is pulled directly from Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
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FEH Divine Code Path Breakdown
So I am a near-launch player and am semi-F2P outside of the FEH Pass and occasional orb packs. I’m a hoarder of premium currency that isn’t orbs and I was starting to wonder what the overall return on investment a full path of Divine Codes would yield to someone who might also be a F2P hoarder. Since many F2P players who have hoarded their Divine Codes will begin hitting the 6,000 Divine Codes mark soon, I figured now was a good a time as any to look at this from a mostly fodder standpoint (no need to tell people who to go for if they’re looking specifically for merges). The final member of each path’s fodder more or less speaks for itself, so what else will you get along the way?
It’s been almost half a year since we learned what the Divine Codes were going to do, and the meta has already shifted in some ways, so I suspect this semi-analysis will be outdated by the time new paths are added.
The last obvious asterisk to all of this is that every player can and should evaluate exactly which path yields them the most usage, whether via merges or fodder. This is colored by my experience, but I’m going for objectivity.
Below is the full write-up, but here are a couple of interesting facts that I found after reviewing all of these:
Every route offers roughly 8 or 9 full skill sets, depending on what you invest in additional fodder. Radiance is the highest, but requires the most additional outside inheritance investment.
Almost every single additional investment to make the most of your choices requires sacrificing a unit available in the Grail pool.
Every route except for Holy War includes at least one inheritable weapon. Heroes is the most at 4 inheritable weapons. The vast majority of them are powercrept or less “meta” choices, but they are super fun aesthetic weapons.
Four of the six paths will net you Swift Sparrow 2.
Only three of the thirty available units have specials that are worth inheriting. I personally view that as IS needing to increase the number of interesting specials we have. I'm tired of mostly every unit showcase having one of the same 5 specials.
It goes without saying, but IS has some very, very strange positions on what skills are considered more premium than others. But, I find that most of the routes are balanced and, true to intent, will draw different players for different reasons.
Let me know what Paths you choose! I’ll probably choose mine in the next week or so.
Awakening/Fates
Summer Cordelia — Fallen M!Robin — Owain — Dancer Xander — Adrift M!Corrin
Summer Cordelia — It’s safe to say that S!Cordelia’s main skills are her Shell Lance+ and Dull Close 3. Neither of these are top tier fodder, but Shell Lance+ provides at least a little bit of utility with its inherit spectrum blow and Dull Close has the distinction of being a decent B Skill for physically-minded fliers. Shell Lance+ also has the aesthetic factor for many, never count that out. Dull Close 3 is only available at 4* on Cormag, so not a bad way to avoid spending grails. If you want her lance, you can also get Sturdy Blow 2 (make sure to pick up Armored Blow 1 from Gunter, Titania, Athena, or Catria). Otherwise you’re getting her lance and Dull Close 2.
Fallen M!Robin — The prize for continuing down this Path is either A) a merge for the OG Armored Dragon or B) Vengeful Fighter 3 and maybe Ward Dragons. If you’re here for the merge, you’ve already likely grabbed it. Otherwise you’re probably here for Vengeful Fighter 3. We don’t have a 4* option for Vengeful Fighter yet, so this is a solid fodder gift. For what it’s worth, the only other character with Ward Dragons is Spring Idunn. I wouldn’t blame you if you were shooting for Ward Dragons, but I’d have to ask how your Dragon Emblem team was holding up a year after the meta moved on.
Owain — The man with the hungering hand will net you Blue Flame (if you’re not considering this, I suppose I’d just be confused) and your choice of one extra ability: Atk/Def Bond, Wrath, or Spur Spd/Def 2. Theoretically, you can get Spur Spd/Def 2 and also level 1 of the other two, but that’s just dealer’s choice. Atk/Def Bond is also on Fjorm, Young Summer Tiki, New Year’s Hrid, Rutger (at 4*), Groom Hinata (at 4*), and, funnily enough, Adrift M!Corrin. Wrath is now on a cavalcade of 5* heroes and is most notably available on Astram. Wrath isn’t the premium fodder it once was, but it’s got its uses. If you’re looking for a more or less “free” Wrath without spending the grails and feathers to get Astram to 5*, then this is a pretty solid choice. Spur Spd/Def 2 is available on Oscar, just pull on Blue for a while and you’ll get it.
Dancer Xander — This is the first place in this Path where the choice for fodder is not an enviable one. Close Counter is the prize here, no doubt about that. So what do you take in addition? Dusk Uchiwa+ is a budget version of Dancer Micaiah’s Dawn Suzu and has at least some utility in AR and other modes. However, that requires choosing a dagger user that wants to be used in that way. The other (and more likely option, from my vantage point) is Quick Riposte 3. We’re 3+ years deep into this game and there’s still not a common unit with 4* QR 3, that value is hard to pass up for F2P. Another small note of commentary — it’s interested that Close Counter is considered less valuable than Distant Counter, even with no character having unconditional Close Counter built into a weapon, I’ve stopped trying to decide why IS makes the decisions it does.
Adrift M!Corrin — Finally, your grand prize for this Path is a character who just got powercrept by his own nightmare/fallen form. Null Follow-Up 3 is the jewel of this path and it makes sense — it’s still the main tried and true method for Infantry units who want to punch through those big, nasty armored units and their fighter skills. You can snag Atk/Def Bond 1 or, if you’re merging onto another infantry dragon, Hone Dragons. The only other character with Hone Dragons is Myrrh, so you’d be forgiven for pausing to consider infantry dragons that could utilize this skill.
All in all, you get Shell Lance+ OR Dull Close 3; Vengeful Fighter 3 with potential for Ward Dragons; Blue Flame, dealer’s choice of Atk/Def Bond 3, Wrath 3, or Spur Spd/Def 2; Close Counter, Dusk Uchiwa+ OR Quick Riposte 3; Null Follow-Up 3 with potential for Hone Dragons. That’s 7 to 9 full skill sets across 5 units, which is an okay haul.
Radiance
Leanne — Dancer Elincia — Lethe — Bridal Tanith — Valentine’s Greil
Leanne — Leanne might actually have the most interesting fodder of the 400 Divine Code options. But you’re likely here for one of two things: a Leanne merge or Flier Formation 3. If you’re interested in the merge, you’ve already likely grabbed it. Flier Formation 3 is only available at 4* on two grail units that are both popular in their own ways: Spring Loki and Young Minerva. As noted before, fliers don’t have access to a ton of B skills so this is a solid way to get it for “free.” Interestingly enough, Mirror Stance 2 is only available at 4* on Gharnef, so you’re spending grails for this. It’s by no means a top tier skill, but it has its uses on some builds (or, specifically, holding onto it as an easy way to get Mirror Stance 3 from Osian with a little less headache.) Finally, Hone Beasts is only available on Leanne and Lethe, who also makes an appearance on this path. You can grab both Flier Formation 3 and Hone Beasts for some special flying beastie.
Dancer Elincia — They continue to increase the difficulty of the inheritance math with Dancer Elincia. At her release, Dancer Elincia was probably the 3rd most enticing member of her banner, with her dragon-effective dagger being the main draw. Push skills were flawed and only desirable as one of the only options offensive healers got. Now, with the advent of Push 4 skills and the growth in dragon effective weapons, the calculus on Dancer Elincia’s fodder has changed. Her best fodder utility is to help you get Atk/Spd Push 4 onto the unit of your choice. If you do go the dagger route, you’ll get that and Atk/Spd Push 2. Drive Res 2 is available on Soleil, Lyon, and Summer Rhys, so you could at least get Atk/Spd Push 3 and Drive Res 1. If you’re here for her Dancer Skill in Rockslide Dance 2, you’re also getting one level one of the other two skills.
Lethe — The calculus for Lethe, on the other hand, isn’t hard at all. She’s the only character with Spd/Def Solo 3 and (as stated) one of only two characters with Hone Beasts. While it’s not the same as Atk/Spd Solo, boosting Speed by any means necessary is the name of the game for most units. Plenty of Calvary units would thank Manual Lethe for her sacrifice. Funnily enough, Lethe falls into that barrel of heroes where her base kit is mostly asynchronous, especially since she’s the one that wants the Hone Beasts buff. If you have a character in mind that can inherit all four, you’re a lucky Summoner.
Bridal Tanith — Again, they’ve decided to make the Summoner’s decision pretty hard. Getting both Lofty Blossoms+ and Swift Sparrow 2 on your favorite lance unit is nothing to sneeze at. However, you’d be forgiven for taking a few extra seconds to consider the other combinations. While Chill Attack 3 is available on 11 different units (tied with Chill Speed 3 at the time of writing), all of them have Chill Attack 3 5* locked. Gharnef and Conrad, two grail units, are the only characters that are easily obtainable, and you’ll be spending 20k feathers for the pleasure of inheriting that skill — not exactly economical. Sacrificing a 4* Gharnef or Conrad for Chill Attack 2 helps with the math, but you’ll have to make your own decision about that. If you do go that route, you can snag Chill Attack 3, Swift Sparrow 1 & 2, and Harsh Command+ (Harsh Command can be found on Clair, Gunter, and Saizo in the common pool) OR Fortify Fliers. So while this set up requires sacrificing a grail unit and a common, it’s a pretty potent combo. Fortify Flyers is available on Caeda, don’t spend 1,600 hard-earned Divine Codes on Fortify Fliers alone
Valentine’s Greil — You’ve made it to the end of this path! Your prizes are Aether and Fury 4, with some combination of Faithful Axe+ and Armor March thrown in for good measure. Ike’s heroic, if flawed, father has two skills that are excellent for Arena scoring, if that’s your thing. If that arena scoring character happens to be an axe unit, even better! You’ll get Faithful Axe+, Aether, and Fury 4 (make sure to pay homage to our Fury 3 lord, Hinata, beforehand). If these skills are destined for an armored unit, I’d suggest Fury 4 and Armor March 3. Grab a wayward infantry Chrom, stuff him full of 20,000 feathers, and Aether is yours as well. Obviously there are plenty of units that would love an Aether/Fury 4 combo and those alone are a pretty solid gift from Greil, don’t fret too much about the decision (Faithful Axe+ isn’t that great anyway).
This Path nets you the following: Flier Formation 3 or Mirror Stance 2 and potentially Hone Beasts; Atk/Spd Push 3 and Drive Res 1 OR Cloud Maiougi+ and Atk/Spd Push 2 or Drive Res 2; Spd/Def Solo 3 with potential for Hone Beasts; Lofty Blossoms 2 and Swift Sparrow 2 OR Chill Attack 3 and Swift Sparrow 1 or 2 (depending on other fodder) OR Chill Attack 3, Swift Sparrow 2, and Harsh Command+, for those willing to spend; Aether and Fury 4 with potential for either Faithful Axe+ OR Armor March. All told, this Path nets you 9 - 12 full skill sets over 5 units (with maximum inheritance investment). That’s pretty solid for people willing to make the math work.
Blades / Sacred Stones
Valentine’s Lilina — Amelia — Flying Nino — Winter Ephraim — Valentine’s Hector
Valentine’s Lilina — Hector’s pride and joy’s first Alt didn’t age well. She personally pity broke me 4 times while attempting to entice her father to come home, which he never did. I’d say she was Atk Tactic 3 fodder, but Legault really has that covered. HP/Atk 2 has some utility on HP-support builds, but is available at 4* on both Valbar and Iago. Green Gift+ has Dull Ranged built in, which provides some interesting builds, but that’s all there really is to say about it. After all that…yeah, she’s Atk Tactic 3 fodder.
Amelia — While hovering on Amelia shows you her PRF weapon in Grado Poleaxe, Amelia is also packing Slaying Axe+. She’s the only character who comes with Slaying Axe+ naturally, otherwise you’re evolving it from Beruka, Hawkeye, and Sheena. This is the default “best axe” for Axe Heroes who don’t have a PRF, so I’d actually give it a bit more weight than the original draw of Amelia — Armor March. If the intended recipient is an Armored Axe, you’ll need to choose between the two unless you want to spend 20k feathers to inherit Killer Axe+ and send it on over.
Flying Nino — She can’t read, but she sure can fly! Your likely goal here is a “free” Swift Sparrow 2, and you’re not wrong. However, Aerobatics is great for flying units and, something I’ll mention for a 3rd time on this write-up, Fliers are hurting for B-skill options. Speed Smoke is a great skill, but is available on the otherwise lackluster Chad as well as Fallen Takumi (although you’ll spend 20k feathers for it from him). You’ll need to make a not-so-fun choice between those, but Swift Sparrow fodder is becoming more available every few months, so I personally feel Aerobatics is worth more.
Winter Ephraim — I will break F2P form slightly with W!Ephraim. At the time of writing, the man who can’t be bothered to put down Siegmund in any of his alts is featured as a Hall of Forms unit. Now would be a pretty decent time (if you like him) to grab a merge and enjoy using him with some primo fodder. If not, he’s got plenty of options for the more casual Summoner. Atk/Def Solo 3 is the main draw. Only available on 4 total units, this skill is regularly coveted by those who want a little more bulk. However, Bold Fighter 3 might be more your speed. I will caution, however. Bold Fighter 3 is available on 12 unique units and that list grows every time IS wants to add an Armored Unit but can’t think of what to put in their B slot. You’ll likely find other options for it (from personal experience, Kjelle might as well change her name to be Bold Fighter Fodder). Close Guard 3 is a Sacred Seal and also available at 4* on the Death Knight. Grab it if you really want, but know you have better options.
Valentine’s Hector — He’s DC fodder. If you know you need DC fodder (which is more or less evergreen in this game), this has been your prize from the start. Pamper your favorite new unit that wants to smack others from near or far.
Our friends from the Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones Path gets you Attack Tactic 3 OR HP/Atk 2 and Green Gift+; Slaying Axe+ and Armor March 2 OR Armor March 3; Aerobatics 3 and Swift Sparrow 2 (with investment) OR Aerobatics 3 and Speed Smoke 1 OR Swift Sparrow 2 and Aerobatics 2 etc; Atk/Def Solo 3 and Close Guard 3 (with investment) OR Bold Fighter 3 and Close Guard 3; Distant Counter. This totals to roughly 7 or 8 full skill sets across 5 units, which is the lowest return on investment so far. However, you now have Distant Counter fodder, so was it worth it?
Holy War
Leif — Deirdre — Sigurd — Lewyn — Dancer Ishtar
Leif — If you’re here for his merge, take it and go and don’t look back. If you’re looking to use him for fodder well, Drive Atk 2 is your main bet. However, with proper investment from common units, you can get Steady Blow 2 and Drive Atk 2 in one fell swoop. Easy, simple, no fuss.
Deirdre — So, Gamepress has Deirdre listed as Tier 2 on their Heroes Tier list. They make some questionable recommendations, but this one is a real head scratcher. Her Res holds up well and she has decent flexibility with her Dragon effective weapons but, I just don’t see it. Regardless, you’re here for one of two things: Quick Riposte or Speed Ploy. As mentioned four Paths ago, there aren’t any 4* QR users, so a free QR that’ll save you 20k feathers is excellent. Especially considering Speed Ploy is available at 4* from Saias, a rather unremarkable Grail unit. If anything, this goes to show you that the Ploy skills really need an upgrade and also they need to spread out their skills a little more evenly, this is just ludicrous. Take QR and don’t sweat the decision.
Sigurd — Our favorite BBQ father is an example of the level of power creep that now takes place every few months. Six months ago, we were only a month removed from the inclusion of Chad — a straight to 3/4* unit that packs Speed Smoke at 4* in the hell that is pulling on colorless. Most Summoners have now had 7 months to pull on colorless and find Chad waiting for them. You maybe are here for Close Defense, because you have a pretty solid idea for stacking Close Def on the A and SS slots on a stall tank. I respect it. Also, Miracle isn’t rare, but it’s here. Take Close Def 3 or Speed Smoke 3 for fodder but, I suspect you’re here for a merge. Honestly Sigurd and Deirdre should be switched, if they were following any kind of real rarity considerations, so just thank the stars you got QR 3 1,200 Divine Codes ago.
Lewyn — Special Spiral. Don’t even hesitate. Swift Sparrow 2 is great, and you can snag that as well if you’re judicious with your Grail sacrifices, but don’t let Odd Atk Wave 3 cloud your judgement, especially since Spring Bartre was just added to the Grail pool. It’s Special Spiral or bust.
Dancer Ishtar — One of the few dancers that can boast to have offensive utility outside of dancing, maybe you’d like a merge. Otherwise, you’re here for Swift Sparrow 3 and I don’t blame you. However, if you’re content to hoard a little longer, this skill will continue to be added on newer units that you might snag and not care for. Outside of Distant Counter, Swift Sparrow 3 is the second most available skill of the 2,000 Divine Code options. If you don’t spend them, you pretty much have enough to snag the first three options from any other Path…sometimes F2P is about quantity over quality. One last thought: if you’re particularly fond of Flier teams, Air Orders is an excellent C skill and some lucky flier could get both Air Orders 3 and Swift Sparrow 3 as new tools in their tool box.
This Path has the distinction of having only one unit that’s a seasonal, everything else is in the summoning pool. This makes it the Path I suspect the fewest people will take (as well as a testament to just how little IS seems to care for the Jugdral cast.) You’re getting Steady Blow 2 and Drive Atk 2; Quick Riposte 3 and Spd Ploy 1; Close Defense 3 and Miracle OR Speed Smoke and Miracle; Special Spiral 3 and Swift Sparrow 2 with the right move; and Swift Sparrow 3 OR Air Orders and Swift Sparrow 3, depending. That’s roughly 9 skill sets across 5 units, but I’d say the quality of those skills is lower, simply because most of this path’s units are available in the summoning pool.
Mystery / Shadows
Bridal Caeda — Celica — Picnic Genny — Spring Palla — Kliff
Bridal Caeda — Listen, Bridal Caeda has a nigh-useless weapon, and skills that are either borderline between useless and powercrept. You started on this path for a Bridal Caeda merge, and you likely took it months ago.
Celica — Another candidate for “you likely wanted a merge.” Distant Def 3, while 5* locked, is best used on units that can Distant Def stack (Guard Bow+ users), everyone else can just use the SS. If you’ve got a good Guard Bow+ user in mind, that’s solid fodder. Spur Def 3 is available on both Sully AND M!Robin at 4*… you have this.
Picnic Genny — Here’s where this calculus starts to get fun. The least painful decision is Toasty Skewer + and Fireflood Balm+, these are direct upgrades for most common healers (plus the aesthetic of Toasty Skewer+ is top tier). Your other options are weird, less satisfying choices of Wrathful Staff 3 and Def Opening 3. Similar to how new 5* armors get Bold/Vengeful Fighter 3 if Intelligent Systems is having a bad brain day, new 5* healers get either Wrathful/Dazzling Staff 3. Stay focused. Def Opening 3 isn’t a bad choice, but it is available on Cormag, a grail unit +20k feathers. It’s also just not as useful as Attack or Speed Opening. Your most satisfying bet is Toasty Skewer+ and Fireflood Balm+.
Spring Palla — IS is showing us that they really, really value the AR-related skills highly. For the layman, take Pegasus Carrot+ and Swift Sparrow 2 for your favorite dagger user, they deserve to be spoiled a little bit. Hone Fliers is one of those weird rarer skills that find their use on Flier teams. If that’s what you need for your barracks, no one will hold it against you. Otherwise, Armored effective items are always excellent to have for things like AA and various high-level Lunatic/Abyssal maps. If you must take Disarm Trap…I’ll leave it at that.
Kliff — I’ll actually say that, while Kliff isn’t a particularly effective unit, you gotta give IS props for trying to be creative. Fortress Def/Res 3 is your prize for finishing this Path. Make sure you inherit either Fortress Def or Res 1 from one of the various common units that possess it. Chill Speed 3 is enticing, but there are other avenues for it (or sacrifice a Panne). Enjoy your unit’s newly enhanced defenses!
This Path really doesn’t hit its stride until the third option. All told, you’re getting Blessed Bouquet+ and Attack/Res 2; Distant Def 3; Toasty Skewer+ and Fireflood Balm+ OR Def Opening 3 OR Wrathful Staff 3; Pegasus Carrot+ and Swift Sparrow 2 OR Disarm Trap 3 and Hone Fliers; and Fortress Def/Res 3 and Chill Speed 3 (if you sacrifice a Panne). Roughly 8 or 9 full skill sets from 5 units, half of which are (debatably) not worth the cost.
Heroes
Spring Alfonse — Yglr — Spring Bruno — New Year’s Fjorm — Summer Laevatein
Spring Alfonse — Alfonse’s first alt hasn’t aged well, but packs a couple of useful skills, namely Giant Spoon+. The seasonal version of Wo Gun+ has aesthetic appeal for many. You can also snag Def Smoke 3 if you sacrifice a 4* Panne or Rath as well, which is a decent return on investment.
Ylgr — The only non-seasonal unit in this Path. For a while, Ylgr was one of the only source of Speed Tactic that wasn’t on a Legendary Hero and is still the only source of Sorcery Blade (both of which are now seals). Speed Tactic obviously still has use on mixed teams, but the cost is much lower with the addition of Summer Lute. Sorcery Blade, while a fun skill, is actually better as a sacred seal, allowing units to shine with an A skill as well. Chill Speed technically has wide-spread availability, but on either 5* locked units, seasonals, or Panne. The skill is usually very nice to have on a team, and I suspect most Ylgr’s pulled will be for Chill Speed.
Spring Bruno — As with Picnic Genny before, Spring Bruno’s main draw is his Ovoid Staff+, which provides solid utility to teammates, especially in longer maps like Chain Challenges or Tempest Trials. Atk/Def Push 3 was rare for a period of time before released on Heath a few months ago. Dazzling Staff is useful, but widespread, with more units packing it surely to come. Atk/Def Push 3 is the main draw for boosting other staff merge projects and will be useful to hold on to for when Atk/Def Push 4 is released on a character not named Bramimond. Either pull and wait or use him for his staff.
New Year’s Fjorm — Another unit that will make you do some major inheritance math. Fjorm packs the Kabura Ya+ bow (which has Chill Speed 3 built in) as well as Atk/Spd Bond 3, Atk/Spd Link 3, and Even Res Wave 3. Chill Speed in a weapon allows its inheritor to be one of a short list of characters able to run the Triple Chill strategy, which has significant merit. Unfortunately, going that route more or less locks you out of a full skill in addition. Atk/Spd Bond 3 is available on 11 different units, the cheapest being Bridal Louise. Sacrificing a 4* Bridal Louise will allow you to snag Atk/Spd Bond 3 as well. Atk/Spd Link 3 is even rarer, appearing only on seasonal units, none of which appear at 4 stars. Even Res Wave is slightly cheaper, being on Brave Hector, but it’s honestly a skill you can pass on. If you’re willing to spend a Bridal Louise, grabbing Kabura Ya+, Atk/Spd Bond 3 (after sacrificing Bridal Louise), and a “free” Reposition is your best bet.
Summer Laevatein — And finally, the last unit on the last route, S!Laevatein. You’re gonna grab Mirror Impact, currently a skill only available on a Legendary unit and two seasonals. If you take the time to sacrifice an Oliver, you’ll be able to snag your choice of either Def/Res Link 3 or Odd Attack Wave 3 — both of which are available at 4* on Grail units (Sigurn for Def/Res Link 3, Spring Bartre for Odd Attack Wave 3). Feel free to attempt to snag Buoyboard+ as well for the aesthetic, but you’re better off with other tomes. All in all, dealer’s choice!
As stated, this route has the distinction of only having one non-seasonal unit and provides a decent amount of variety. You’ll get Giant Spoon+ and Def Smoke 3 (with Panne/Rath sacrifice) OR Sturdy Blow 2 and Def Smoke 3 with common sacrifice from someone like Athena; Sorcery Blade 3 OR Chill Speed 3 OR Speed Tactic by themselves OR Chill Speed 3 and your choice of the others with a Panne sacrifice; Ovoid Staff+ and Atk/Def Push OR Wrathful Staff 2, or one of those fully and a Martyr+ to avoid other feather costs; Kabura Ya+ and Atk/Spd Bond 3 (with Bridal Louise sacrifice) OR Atk/Spd Link 3 with Atk/Spd Bond 3, thanks to Bridal Louise’s sacrifice; and Mirror Impact and Def/Res Link 3 OR Odd Attack Wave 3 with Oliver sacrifice. All in all, you’re looking at 8 or 9 full skill sets across 5 units, which is an average return, but the variety in these skills is slightly higher due to the number of seasonals and Ylgr having a strangely high number of desirable skills.
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. I hope some people found this helpful!
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A Surprise Introduction
Steve Rogers x Reader
Anon Requested: “Could I request something where reader is dating Steve, and during age of Ultron, they go to Clints farm and it is revealed that reader has a child, that is also in hiding, that nobody knows about. Steve’s (understandably) upset, and reader explains everything to him and the rest of the team, fluffy ending, maybe with him getting to know the child. Sorry it’s so long and might not make sense 😂 Love your work 💓”
A/N: I just want to say that I loved this request very much and I hope you all can handle the angst and get to the fluff. Also, I couldn’t decide how Clint and the reader fit together, but I would just imagine it as a similar relationship to that of Clint and Natasha.
After Ultron beat us at our own game by unleashing the Hulk, Hill informed us that we shouldn’t go back to the compound. Maria suggested we stay in stealth mode until they can figure out a way to explain what happened and get everyone to calm down a little bit. Tony seemed to agree with her plan and we all accepted that we were going to be stuck in the quinjet for some unknown amount of time. As much as this didn’t sound like the ideal situation, I was quite content to cuddle with Steve even if it also meant sitting against a cold metal wall. I was half asleep, the physical and mental exhaustion of a mission gone wrong finally taking its toll, when I heard Tony ask Clint if he wanted him to take over. Clint declined and I heard something along the lines of “safe house.” That word coming out of anyone else’s mouth would’ve put me at ease, but Clint saying it had a whole different meaning to me. Steve felt me tense up and probably assumed it was just an after effect of the mission. He didn’t say anything, just held me closer to him and used one of his hands to rub my arm in a soothing fashion. Steve had no idea that I thought I knew where Clint was taking us, but god I hoped I was wrong.
I couldn’t fall asleep after that. Even with my aching body from the fight and my aching head from whatever that girl did to me, it wasn’t going to happen. Steve fell asleep next to me, and after a lot of quiet anger, I decided I needed to talk to Clint. I had a whole, calm, intro planned out for how I was going to explain to him that this was a bad idea. But that all went out the window the moment I got to him.
“You better not be taking us where I think you are,” I whispered angrily.
“It’s the only option,” Clint replied automatically as if he was just waiting for me to fight him on this.
“That’s not true. There’s no reason we can’t stay in the air.”
“You saw what happened to Banner down there, you really want to be trapped in this plane with him?”
“You really want to bring him to your home? You really want to share this with all of them?”
“(y/n), I know what you’re scared of, but you have to trust that it’s going to be okay in the end.” I knew Clint was right, but admitting it in that moment seemed impossible and I was seething. I noticed Clint look over his shoulder to where Steve was sleeping before he looked back at me. “He loves you, you know. This is the right thing to do, for all of us.”
Even if I was still upset with how this whole situation was panning out, at least I knew that Clint thought he was doing the right thing for the right reasons. I couldn’t argue with him about it anymore so I went back to where Steve was sleeping and tried to get some sleep myself so that I could at least be semi-rested before I had to take on what the next day held.
We got to the house mid-morning, my favorite time of day on the farm. It was weird to not feel the instant piece I’m used to as I walked up to the house, instead I was a bundle of nerves. Steve was as confused as everyone else and I couldn’t decide if I should play the part of being confused too, or if it was better to just try and be invisible altogether. I was able to hang back a little bit as everyone filed into the living room.
“Guys, this is Sarah,” Clint finished saying as I stepped around the corner into the room.
Steve gave me a confused glance from across the room, but I looked away as he tried to catch my eye.
I heard the rumble of little feet running down the stairs and braced myself for what’s about to come.
“Hi sweetheart, hey buddy!” Clint said as he picked up his daughter and pulled his son into his side
“Those are smaller agents,” Tony assured Thor.
Aiden was a little way behind the two older kids and he stopped in his tracks as he took in all the tall people standing in the room. He looked around for a few moments before he locked eyes with me. All my anxieties about coming here melted away when I saw my little boy. It had been way too long since I was last able to break away and I was shocked by how much he had grown, but I’m pleased to find I’m still able to pick him up when he leaps into my arms with a running start.
“Sorry for barging in on you,” Steve said from behind me in a voice that made me tense all over again.
“Yeah, we would’ve called ahead but we were busy having no idea that you existed,” Tony finished with his usual hint of sarcasm. Clint went into an explanation about how Fury set this up for us when we were recruited. Everyone listened and nodded in understanding, but I could tell I’d have to explain more deeply to Steve when we could get a moment alone.
“Momma, can I show you my drawings?” Aiden interrupted my train of thought and immediately eased the tension in the room, even if I did notice Steve’s hard swallow after the word ‘momma’.
“Yes, of course. I’d love to see them,” I set Aiden back on the ground and he took my hand to lead me to the dining room where the table was covered in arts and crafts supplies. I spent a good portion of the day in there, coloring pictures and playing games with Aiden. Nat joined us along with Clint’s daughter, Lila, and it all seemed so normal that I almost forgot that the rest of the team was there too.
“You know I’m kind of the queen of avoiding feelings, but I think you need to talk to him,” Natasha told me while Aiden and Lila were preoccupied with getting legos from the living room.
“Did you see his face? I don’t know how to come back from this.”
“Did you see how understanding he was when Clint explained?” Natasha countered.
“Yeah, well Clint isn’t his girlfriend,” I replied, expecting that to be the end of the conversation.
“Just trust me on this, please?”
“Fine,” I sighed as Lila and Aiden come back into the room. “Hey, buddy, I have to go talk to Mr. Rogers, do you think you’ll be okay with Aunty Nat?”
Aiden nodded happily before telling me that, “That will give us time to build the coolest ship ever!”
“I can’t wait to see what you come up with,” I told him before kissing his head, and with one final encouraging smile from Natasha, I made my way through the house to find Steve.
I looked out the window and noticed Tony and Steve chopping firewood along the side of the house. I made my way onto the front porch where I found Clint and Cooper measuring pieces of wood and Sarah watching them happily. I stood along the edge of the porch, just watching for a while before Sarah came to my side and pulled me into a hug.
“How’s the baby doing? Nat told me how Natasha is now Nathaniel,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah, she called him a trader, but I can’t say I blame her,” she paused before changing the subject. “Aiden was so happy to see you, and I know this is your job and I get it. But you know he misses you and I can’t even begin to fill the gap of you being away.”
“I know, I miss him constantly. It’s just when Steve and I started dating I didn’t know how to tell him about Aiden so I didn’t know how to take time off to come out here without Steve finding out. But look how well that all worked out for me.” I sighed as I looked across the yard and noticed that Steve wouldn’t even look at me.
“I was just gonna ask Tony if he could take a look at the tractor if you want a chance alone with Steve,” Sarah suggested as she noticed me watching him.
I pressed my lips together in an attempt to regain my composure and gave Sarah a terse nod. She made her way across the yard and broke up a seemingly tense conversation between Tony and Steve.
“Sorry. Mr. Stark, Clint said you wouldn’t mind, but our tractor doesn’t seem to wanna start at all. I thought maybe you might-”
“Yeah I’ll take a look,” Tony agreed and started walking away before calling back to Steve, “Don’t take from my pile.”
As Sarah lead Tony over to the barn, I made my way over to Steve. The hard set of his features didn’t soften when he saw me the way I was used to, and instead, I noticed the clenching of his jaw as he turned back to his woodpile.
“Can we talk?” I asked him when I was close enough for him to hear me.
He opened his mouth quickly but paused before any words actually came out. He seemed to deflate a little bit when he finally looked at me and said, “yeah, okay.”
I led him a little further from the house towards the surrounding trees so that I was sure we’d have some privacy from the rest of the team.
“I know you’re mad at me,” I started but Steve was already shaking his head.
“I’m not mad at you, (y/n).”
“You’re not?” I asked, the whole speech I had prepared going out the window.
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy with you, but I’m not mad.”
“So then, what are you?”
“Hurt, I guess. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was part of the original plan. When Fury asked me and Clint to join, leaving Aiden wasn’t an option and even if I could handle leaving him for periods of time, I knew that me doing this job would put him at risk. Anyone who wants to hurt me could do that by getting to him. And Clint felt the same way, leaving Sarah and the kids was just too risky. So then Fury pitched us this idea of hiding our families away. Nobody would know, not even the team,” I finished my explanation and Steve nodded, but still looks hurt.
“I guess I thought I was more than just another member of the team.”
“Of course you’re more,” I said as I took his hands in mine to make him look at me. “You are so much more, and you don’t know how badly I wanted to tell you. But I got so used to this secret and I got scared that if I told anyone, anyone, I would be putting him at risk. I can’t put him at risk,” the emotions of the day were finally taking their toll on me. Steve noticed immediately and pulled me against his chest. “That’s what I saw. That’s what that girl put in my head. Hydra found him and took him. Steve, I can’t lose him,” I sobbed into his chest and he let me. He let me be angry and sad and when I finally wound down to an occasional whimper, that’s he pulled back to talk to me.
“Nobody’s going to find out about him. It’s just us and you know now that you can trust all of us, right?” He coaxed and I nodded. “Does he, uh, know about us?” Steve asked awkwardly.
“No, but he already loves you as a superhero,” I teased.
“Can I meet him? Even if it isn’t officially as your boyfriend.”
“You want to?” I asked, surprised that he was even interested.
“Of course I want to,” he assured me, looking a little hurt that I would even suggest otherwise.
“I’m sorry,” I rushed through my words. “His dad left us when he found out I was pregnant, so it’s always a bit of a shock when people other than me want to get to know him. I’m a little overprotective,” I said, scrunching my nose in mock disgust.
“I know we haven’t been together all that long, but I hope you know that I never plan on leaving you. It would take a lot more than a kid to scare me away,” he added with a grin.
“I do know, but it’s still nice to hear you say it,” I said with a smile before standing on my toes to kiss him. He kissed me back for some time before we pulled apart and headed back down to the house so I could formally introduce the two men in my life.
“You know, I think that was our first fight,” Steve casually mentioned on our walk back to the house.
“Not much of a fight if you ask me.”
“Maybe, but I think I read somewhere that you’re supposed to have makeup sex after you fight,” Steve said cheekily.
“Oh yeah?” I scoffed. “Remind me after we defeat Ultron and aren’t sleeping in the same room as my son, okay?”
Aiden took to Steve immediately. He wanted to know all about his shield, what it was like in the 40’s, and how he could grow up to be just like Steve. Steve was a natural, even if he was a little hesitant at first. Once Aiden started asking questions no one could get them apart. I got a subtle wink from Natasha as she passed by Aiden’s room where Aiden was showing Steve his action figures. I also got a not-so-subtle thumbs up from Clint when he called us downstairs for dinner.
When everything calmed down for the night and Aiden went to sleep, I took Steve outside to show him my favorite place to look at the stars. I spread out a big blanket and we both laid down on our backs. After pointing out the few constellations I recognized, and getting shown up on my knowledge of our solar system by Steve, I rolled onto my side to face him.
“He really likes you,” I told him.
“I really like him. He’s just like you,” Steve replied with a smile.
“Crazy about Captain America?” I teased with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Funny and smart and kind-” he meant to go on but I stopped him with a kiss.
“Thank you, for making this surprise introduction go a thousand times better than I expected it to.”
“Thank you for trusting me with him, even if you didn’t want to,” he added with a smirk.
“Are you going to make me feel guilty about that forever?” I asked in fake offense.
“Hm, not forever. Maybe a couple years, or months. Depends when you agree to marry me.”
“Marry you?” I asked surprised.
“Yes, (y/n), I want to marry you someday. This is what a want, a wife, some kids, living the quiet life. I really hope you want the same thing or else I just ruined this.”
“No I do, someday.”
“Someday,” he agreed happily and met me in the middle for another kiss.
#Steve Rogers#Steve Rogers fanfiction#Steve Rogers fanfic#Steve Rogers x reader#Steve Rogers/reader#Steve Rogers request#The Avengers#avengers age of ultron#Chris Evans#chris evans fanfiction#Chris Evans fanfic#chris evans x reader#chris evans/reader
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