#ozsey

Curious what was so amusing, he followed the sound through the halls of the palace, where many nations were currently staying as honoured guests, until he found the room it came from. Just as he peered around the corner of the doors, a more familiar, masculine voice joined in the laughter.

Australia had grown a lot over the past half-century, and was now a tall, strong young man, but he still had the same mischievous laugh and wild hair as centuries before. England could see that right now, he was only wearing a short-sleeved undershirt despite the draught, and that the female nation with him in the room was, in fact, Seychelles. Her dark hair was still piled on her head in artful curls, but she was now draped in several layers of clothing over her formal dress—including both Australia’s shirt and jacket.

England shook his head, unnoticed. The boy still had no sense of propriety.

“You can’t be serious!” Seychelles was saying through laughter, tugging the jacket tighter around her shoulders. From his place hidden by the doors, England could see both of their profiles, and he saw Australia grin as he leant forward in his seat.

“I promise, Sey, I’m dead serious. Smuggled himself all the way to Sydney. Never seen England so baffled again.”

Sey? Honestly, that boy. And—wait—not that story!

“Just as well, probably,” she was saying, drawing her feet up on the settee (!) and smiling back at Australia.

Really, England thought, leaning against the doorframe, he ought to put a stop to all this.

“Could be,” Australia replied, voice gone curiously soft all of a sudden. It was quite startling to England, who’d only ever known him as loud. “It’s not all bad, anyway.”

“D’you reckon?” Seychelles asked, and now she sounded… Teasing? What had France taught that girl?

“Well, good chance I’d never have met you if not for the Queen, yeah?”

“Long live the Queen then, isn’t it?”

“Long live the Queen.”

England peeked around the doors again and saw that both nations had now leant far forward in their seats, Seychelles sitting cross-legged and with sleeves covering her hands in her lap. She looked down at them, then up at Australia, and smiled again.

“Sey,” he started, and England had no idea what passed between the two of them in the moment after that, but he saw Australia stand suddenly to step close to the settee. Seychelles tilted her head up to him, then lifted one sleeve-covered hand to his face as he leant down and kissed her, both hands curling around her jaw.

England clasped a hand over his mouth to stifle a noise that wanted to escape and quickly hid behind the door again. No propriety at all! Anyone could see! Not to mention… Oh—they’d probably not see each other for years and years after this, having no close political ties and only being in London for the coronation.

Foolish young nations. That was a hard lesson to learn, England knew this all too well.

Cautiously, he peeked once more. The two of them were now both on the settee, faces close together and talking much too low for him to understand.

That's a bit how they became friends at first. Australia also brought her on other kind of adventures. She enjoyed listening to him talk about fauna, mostly because he was so passionate about it and because she liked learning new things. She loved when they met colourful birds.

When Jake found out about surfing years later, he immediately wanted to try and master it. Of course, he asked Michelle to join him (he asked New Zealand first but he wasn't interested). She was hesitant at first but she accepted. That's when they fell in love with each other. They were around 16-17 human age at the time. They often stayed up late by the beach talking and laughing about everything.

Small gestures like hands brushing, eye contacts, or when Michelle is cold and Jake gives her a blanket or his shirt to warm her up made them feel butterflies in their stomachs.

Jake went to his dad to seek advice about how to ask a girl out. Arthur wasn't very helpful in that area. You could ask England about war, how to make a cup of tea or even about sports. But love? Love wasn't his specialty. He did redirect him to France and Veneziano about him, but warned him to take France's pieces of advice with a grain of salt. Since Jake didn't know what that mean, he shrugged it off like "lol ok dad"

When he met France, Jake felt uncomfortable because Francis tends to touch people as he gives advice. Jake thought: old man, please don't touch me. He did try to push him away but Francis would still wrap an arm around the teen. He couldn't focus on what the old man was saying and to be honest, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know so he quickly thanked him for the advice and moved on to Vene.

Feliciano was more helpful. He told him to give her flowers or something she would like and just compliment her. He also went to set an example by flirting with a lady on the street, but Jake thought that was too much. He wasn’t asking to flirt with many girls, just that one. He thanked Feli anyway and left.

So he did find so pretty colourful flowers. He remembered how her favourite colour is blue so he got some blue, purple and yellow flowers from his land for her. So while Australia was nervous about it, he is still a man of action and mostly just went for it. He ended up saying something in the line of “Hey. I like you. Would you like to go on a date sometimes?”

She happily accepted. I’m debating whether I’m giving Seychelles a traumatic past or not. It would fit and while she does like Jake, she’d be fearful of dating him because of her past. She asked to take it slow and Jake agreed to it because he was already happy to be her friend and spend time with her. Dating her would be a plus because now, he could hold her hand and kiss her. So Jake is mostly a very patient boyfriend and Michelle really appreciates it.

in my human au, i have different headcanons. They keep their relationship secret from their parents and they kinda catch feelings the same way. friends to lovers trope you know.

“Yeah, I pulled some strings,” Riley says inthat innocent way of theirs, before going to introduce themself to Angélique.(David swears one day Riley’s going to land himin jail and he’ll never even know what for.)

They meet ‘their’ kids, a dozen hyperactivethirteen-year-olds who are still convinced the summer camp is cool (it’llprobably be the last year of that) but not so much that they should actuallylisten to what their counsellors tell them. It all ends in a lot of shouting.David can practically feel himself going hoarse, but he also gains a lot of satisfactionfrom watching Arthur’s eyebrows crinkle ever more.

Poor man. He probably wishes he had a real job.

David accidentally catches Angélique’s eyewhile he’s busy suppressing laughter at the supervisor, and she bites her lipwhile grinning, gaze flicking to Arthur and back again. The man is turning vaguelyred now, and it doesn’t look like it’s the sun causing it – yet.

Ah, so she’s a little less decent than hethought, then. Good. He might need to get to know her a little better.

They have their first excursion right away onthe first full day of camp, taking the teens into the surrounding forest toplay some games that end with people being pushed into mud or hiding in trees(that last group including David) and Arthur covered in ants. Angélique can’tstop laughing even while she helps him bat them away.

David has to tell them that they can’t showertonight, and is understandably mobbed by mud-caked kids. (He didn’t even tellthem that he is allowed to wash.)

“You’ve got a little…” Angélique tells himwhen he joins the counsellors for dinner, as she gestures vaguely at her own face.

“Yeah, I’m moisturising,” David jokes,grimacing when he wipes his forehead and his fingers come away muddy. Angéliquelaughs and hands him a paper tissue.

Later, when they’re watching the celebratory we-survived-the-first-day-of-campcampfire burn out while Riley and Arthur herd the kids to their cabins, Davidtells her about some of the weirdest things that have happened in previousyears, including the time last year when he and Riley discovered that a very Romeo and Juliet-type romance had sprungup between two teenagers from their respective groups, and they decided toprotect them from the rest of the counsellors. (They all hated the two of themby the end. Maybe that’s why they’vebeen put together now, with the new recruit.)

“I think that’s why Arthur was so surprised I’mback this year,” he adds, grinning as Angélique laughs brightly. Her eyes aresparkling in the firelight, and they look very deep.

“Well, I’m glad you are,” she replies. Shebites her lip, absently grabs her necklace, and shakes her curls out of herface. “I think it’ll be fun, this week. And the kids seem to love you.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” he assuresher. “Except on the kids’ parts. I hate those little arseholes.”

She laughs again, and David keeps grinninguntil he goes to bed and Riley thwackshim over the head with a pillow. Although Arthur eventually appears to tellthem to stop their ‘utterly childish’ pillow fight, he decides it’s been a muchbetter first day than he could have expected.

The second day is much the same, except that theyhave an outing to the sea, where Angélique demonstrates admirable surfing skilland also that she looks very good in a bikini top and boardies, and whereArthur Mr Kirkland does, in fact, get sunburnt, this much to everyone’shilarity. While he sits in the shade and grumbles, hiding his face behind hisclipboard, Riley, David and Angélique lead the kids in a chaotic game ofCapture the Flag that eventually devolves into Angélique’s and David’s groupsganging up on Riley’s, because (as always) Riley has come up with a strategythat’s far too serious and complicated and apparently includes booby traps on thebeach.

David is running from some children withAngélique when she trips over one such trap and sprawls on the sand, gettingtangled in ropes.

“Fucking shit,”she almost-shrieks, squirming. “Damn it!”

David’s brain practically screeches to a halt. Sheswears. And not entirely mildlyeither. That is about the opposite of what he expected from her – seemingly mild-mannered,most likely religious Angélique Verlaque.He stops running to look at her, all sandy curls and yellow fabric and waytoo much damn skin.

“You kiss your fucking mother with that mouth?”he asks, almost in awe.

“No,” she says, still struggling, “butsometimes I kiss yours.”

“What the h—”

The kids take him down, Riley looming over himlike a malevolent god as he falls to the sand.

Worth it.

Later, he and Riley form the rear of the groupas they walk back to the campsite. There’s still sand all over him, but Davidfeels fucking amazing.

“Riley,” he tells them, and takes theexasperated sigh he receives in answer as a sign to continue, “I’m in love.”

“Because she told you she kisses your mum?”

“Don’t you see, mate? She’s perfect. She’s the perfect woman.”

“Because she told you she kisses your—”

He throws his hands up. “No, because she can keep up with me, Riles. She doesn’tmind, you know…”

“Your terribleness?”

He takes a breath. Releases it. “Yeah, basically.”

Riley chuckles. They’ve been dealing with Davidlong enough themself to know what he means. David knows he’s a chaotic man, andprone to saying things he really hasn’t thought about (sometimes, justsometimes, he doesn’t like that about himself) but not a lot of people manage tostick around once they know that. Angélique, maybe, could. The signs are good.

“Excellent,” Riley says. “I’ll prepare a shoveltalk.”

“I’m honoured, mate.”

“For you,Dave. That poor girl.”

“I take offense to that.”

“You deserve it. Don’t worry, I have all thereasons why outlined in the speech I’ll give at your wedding.”

The kids have to prepare dinner for everyone,and it turns out surprisingly good (because Riley distracts Arthur so he can’t ‘help’and Angélique actually does help) soit’s another good evening. They leave them to a spirited game of truth or darewith some of the other counsellors keeping watch around nine in the evening,and David goes to take a much-needed shower.

When he exits the cubicle, not wearing a shirtand still fumbling with an uncooperative zipper, he catches Angélique’s eyes inthe mirror over the row of sinks. She’s brushing her teeth.

“Hey,” he says, stilling. She quirks hereyebrows, leans forward to rinse her mouth, and then turns to him.

“Hi.” She presses her lips together. “Ah,David, I wanted to say sorry about that thing I – that thing I said. About yourmum.”

He smiles, letting his zipper be. “Don’t worryabout it. I’m sure she’d be flattered.”

“Good to know.” Her dark eyes very quickly flitdown his chest, but she meets his gaze again after a second. “She isn’t single,is she?”

“Ha, no, she’s not, sorry to disappoint.” Heruns a hand through his damp hair, watching through his eyelashes as Angéliquetakes a deep breath and swallows.

“Too bad,” she says, leaning against the sinks,back arching. “Any other family members you can recommend for swearing at?”

Briefly, David thinks about his brother, whopretends to be scandalised every time someone uses a single swear word (but he’sheard him talk to his schoolmates) and his sister, who is not allowed to swear(but he’s heard her talk to herschoolmates and damn).

“Me, maybe,” he says. “If you’re not opposed to,y’know, swearing at men.” He doesn’t think she is, but she’s full of surprises,is Angélique. Well, he’s only known her three days, after all. Who knows whatother interesting things he can learn about her.

“I’m not picky.” She shrugs. Then, she laughs,arms crossing. Her necklace glints in the bright lights in the bathroom. “Youshould have seen your face, though!You’d think I was propositioning you, David!”

Then, suddenly, Riley’s voice from the otherside of the mirrors. “Can you two get a room? Jesus Christ.”

Angélique does flinch at that last one, justslightly. David resolves to stick to God-less swearing from now on. (Oh, fuck,he’s already in deep.)

“Thanks, Riles!” he calls. “They’repropositioning me for you, I think.”

“I absolutely am, and you better get a damnmove on, mate,” Riley replies. The bathroom door opens and closes, and Davidgrins down at Angélique, who is looking very intently at him. Her eyes haveflecks of green in them in this light.

“Problem?” he asks.

She just says, “Oh, fuck it,” and reaches forhim, wrapping a hand around his neck and resting the other against his chest. Hequickly shuts up altogether.

(His mum, David later reflects, is definitelymissing out with regards to being kissed by that mouth.)

(He’s very glad that the kids are determined torepay him for the Romeo and Juliet situation from last year, although he couldhave done without the extensive alarm system they set up to warn them everytime Arthur is approaching.)

When David’s pickup came rumbling up the still road that their house stood at the end of, later in the afternoon, it didn’t send clouds of dust swirling through the air anymore, although the fenders were still caked in it, and, knowing David, would be until July at the earliest. They both thrived in summer, and if the dust would remind her husband, Angélique wouldn’t tell him to clean it off as long as it wasn’t damaging the car.

“Look at you being lazy,” the man in question was saying, before hitting his shoes against the side of the veranda to get the dirt off and scratching the dog behind her ears. She’d been lazing around all day.

Angélique smiled at him, folding her arms behind her head demonstratively.

“Now look at that, Ally,” David told the dog, which licked his hand. He wiped it on his work jeans, kicked his shoes off, and leant on the lawn chair to kiss Angélique.

“Come be lazy with me, then,” she said, and he grinned, promising to be back soon.

The dog, Alligator, followed him inside, then got stuck on the other side of the screen door when he closed it. Angélique rolled her eyes at her.

“Dave!” she called, unwilling to move from the perfect patch of sunlight she was in. Soon, she heard him return.

“You’re an idiot, aren’t you?” he asked Alligator, putting on a high voice as if talking to a child. “Yeah, you are. Dumb dog.”

Angélique smiled, closing her eyes and folding her hands over her stomach. The screen door opened, and Alligator bounded down the veranda to the garden.

“Both of you are lazy sods,” David admonished, laughing. “Lique, what’re you teaching her?”

“Nothing good,” she promised, opening one eye to look up at her husband’s tall form, now clad in a Henley with most buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Oh, hand me an elastic.”

Sitting down on the edge of the lawn chair, David rolled his green eyes fondly and pulled one off his wrist, leaving the rest of the assorted leather bands, hair elastics and bracelets. Angélique used it to tie her curly hair out of her face while scooting over slightly, allowing him to swing at least one of his long legs up as well.

With some manoeuvring and a few gentle pushes, they managed to both fit on the lawn chair in the sun, with Angélique tucked against David’s side, plucking absently at his shirt. Alligator bounded back up to the veranda and lay down next to the chair with her shaggy head on her paws.

“I think your day has been more useful than mine,” Angélique said, “but I did actually walk the dog.”

“You always do, that’s not impressive.”

She snapped the collar of his shirt against the tanned skin of his chest, and he grinned at nothing, eyes closed.

It was rare that it was peacefully quiet in their house like this, or even just between the two of them, but it had been occurring more often lately. Maybe they were both growing up, finally. Maybe words had just seemed superfluous on the winding road to autumn, lost to the shimmering heat over fields and beaches.

“Might be one of the last days like this for a while,” David eventually mumbled, the words rumbling through his chest. Angélique hummed. “Feel like I should go take a swim or something.”

“This is good,” she said, and David didn’t move. He’d already taken a swim this morning anyway, as he did most mornings.

“It’s been good, hasn’t it?”

She smiled. Apparently, he was feeling the same nostalgia as she was. It was unlike him, really. David was a man who lived in the moment, sometimes a little too much. She was like that herself, but less so now than she used to be. It had taken David some time to catch up with her in that, and it had been one of the reasons their relationship had been on-and-off for several years in their early twenties.

They’d come a long way.

After a while, she heard David’s stomach rumble, and she poked it, laughing at him fondly when he slapped her hand away and groaned, tilting his chin up.

They lived in a beautiful spot, but no one delivered here, which was a pity sometimes. Like now, when it was evident that neither of them wanted to get up. Nevertheless, Angélique hadn’t actually eaten that much over the course of the day and knew she’d start feeling it soon, so she stood with a groan and set about digging up leftovers from the fridge, with Alligator hopefully following her inside. She pushed her out of the way with her feet on the way to the stove.

“Maybe, one day, we’ll teach you not to be in the way all the time.” Well, she supposed the dog got that from David, so it’d be hard to dissuade.

“Need any help?” David called from outside.

“No, I’ve got it!”

They ate a mishmash of vegetables and scraps of meat that Alligator tried to steal and then resumed doing absolutely nothing on the veranda. It was getting dark far too quickly, the sun a violent blaze of red on the sea and the dog chasing after the bats that came out of hiding, but it wasn’t cold yet and probably wouldn’t be tonight.

“’S gonna be hot tonight,” David said, as if reading her thoughts, while he tugged gently on a dark curl that had escaped the ponytail and snaked its way across his chest.

“Hm.”

“Maybe even metaphorically.”

“That’s a big word, Mr Clarke.”

He tugged on the curl again, and Angélique snorted.

“Aw, Lique, it might be the last warm night we get until next summer, hm? We don’t even have to move.” Demonstratively, he swung his legs out and hit Alligator in the head while the lawn chair creaked. “Okay, scratch that last part.”

The dog seemed fine, already chasing after another bat.

“Next summer will be different, though,” Angélique told him.

“Of course.”

“No, I mean...” She took a deep breath and propped herself up to look into her husband’s eyes, the green colour of which was nearly invisible in the rusty glow of the sun. He raised his thick eyebrows, raising a hand to rest it on her waist. “I mean that—Dave, I’m pregnant.”

He parted his lips and widened his eyes, breathing out slowly.

“Is it mine?” he squeaked, then immediately cringed at himself. His hand slipped down to her yet-flat stomach.

“No, David,” she said drily, used to his mind’s weird jumps by now, “it’s the milkman’s.”

“I knew it,” he replied, but his voice had gone soft and his fingers spread over her stomach, the calluses catching on her linen belt. Angélique threaded her own fingers through his. “Yeah, next summer will be different.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Lique, how long have you known? How far along—”

“About a month. I did the test this afternoon.”

He smiled so brightly it nearly hurt to watch, and Angélique’s answering grin was quickly interrupted by David cupping both of his big hands around her jaw and peppering her face with kisses. Alligator jumped around the lawn chair enthusiastically, and Angélique laughed when she pushed her head against her hip. David pushed her away with an admonishing hum.

“You, Dave, will be an amazing father,” Angélique said, running a hand through his hair.

“’Cause of the dog?”

With a kiss, she replied, “Because I know you, and you’ll—you’ll love our baby with everything you’ve got.” She bit her lip. “And that’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” he said, wonderingly. “Yeah.”

He lay back down, tugging her against him and putting a hand on her waist again. The last sunrays played across his handsome face, highlighting his awed expression, the light in his eyes. Angélique sighed into his neck and drew shapes on his chest.

Belarus/Estonia nightfall

“I told you we were going the wrong way,” Nadzeya tells him.

“Yes, well—” Eduard pushes his glasses up. Glances at her. She’s got her feet up on the dashboard of his car, her seat tilted back, and is cleaning her nails with a small knife that she must have been hiding somewhere on herself. This despite the fact that her dress is skin-tight and she isn’t wearing any shoes. Eduard is kind of impressed and, as always, weirdly turned on.

They are definitely going the wrong way, he has to admit. But he also has to admit that, even if they’re going to miss half of the wedding they’re supposed to be going to, he doesn’t actually mind so much. It’s not like he knows Nadzeya’s distant cousin that well, anyway.

“Keep going,” she says, smirking in that mischievous way he loves, so he does, and drives until nightfall.

 Bulgaria/Hungary ft Romania candlelight

Erzsébet looks about ready to beat someone up.

And by someone, Stefan means Dragos. He’s kind of inclined to agree this time. The man may be his best friend, and he and Erzsébet may have reached some sort of truce in the past few months, but that doesn’t mean he can—

“It’s not fucking funny, Rotaru!” Erzsébet yells.

“It’s kinda funny.” Dragos’s thin lips twitch as his rust-brown gaze flicks between her and Stefan. “Mrs Borisov.”

“Héderváry-Borisov, thank you.” Candlelight bathes her angular face in strange shadows, and Stefan has to smile. Sure, Dragos has turned off the electricity during their wedding, but that’s just who he is. No event would be complete without his weird pranks.

“Listen,” he says, and they both turn to him, his wife and his best friend. “Dragos, go find someone who can sing. We’ll do the first dance by candlelight.”

 Australia/Seychelles desert

“No, no, it’s definitely that way,” David says, pointing down the dusky road. The woman also trying to help the (pretty unconcerned) couple find their way to a wedding shakes her head, brushing dark curls against his biceps.

“You’re sending them straight into the desert!”

“Am not!” he says, but by then the man driving the car has figured out he’s got reception here and looked up the right route on his phone.

They watch the car drive in the direction the woman had pointed out, David feeling rather sullen.

“Told you,” she says, looking up at him and winking, before turning and walking away.

“Hey, hold up!” David calls after her. “There’s way more than desert in that direction, you’re missing out.”

She turns, laughs beautifully. “Yeah? Show me?”

Her name is Angélique, and David shows her everything.

Norway/Romania hidden

Dragos finds him hiding behind the cake in the shadows the candles cast on the room, still visible because of his pale skin and hair. The man’s eyes, though, are dark.

“Hey Einar.”

“Hello, Dragos.”

They look at each other across the darkness for a while, both probably remembering the last time they met at the wedding of either of their best friends. Dragos would be lying if he said the thought of it happening again hasn’t crossed his mind.

“You really turned the electricity off?” Einar asks eventually.

“Yeah, Erzsébet is pissed.” He grins. “But hey, I haven’t seen her and Stef in a while.”

Einar just nods, gaze on Dragos.

“We haven’t seen each other in a while either,” Dragos continues, because he’s had a little too much champagne and feels courageous.

“So we haven’t.” Einar’s lips part. “We should catch up.”

“We definitely should.”

Once outside, he sprints – as much he can sprint – to his car, lifting his feet above the water in the street. He must look like an idiot, but there’s no one around to see him. It doesn’t really stop him getting wet either, seeing as it’s still fucking pouring.

A helicopter passes over somewhere in the distance. The emergency services. They’ve been getting gradually closer to his town, which is good. He hopes they can get here before the situation gets any worse.

David takes the winding road into the mountains, where he and Angélique have been staying since the worst of the weather hit, about five days ago. And really, if anyone would have told him that was how he would be spending his time during the storm of the decade, he’d have laughed at them.

Once out of town, David presses play on the cassette still in his car radio. He only just got it before he was called out to Angélique’s place last Thursday.

It happened more often, people calling the station because Ms Verlaque was unnerving them again. She has a habit, and it’s a small town; people have to have something to talk about. If asked at that point in time, David would have said that Angélique was an intelligent and friendly woman who just sometimes fell victim to her own mind and would speak in doom scenarios, and he’d advise anyone not to pay attention to her when she got like that.

Now… He sighs. Well, turns out she had a point in the end, didn’t she?

Rain isn’t exactly unknown around here – clouds formed over the sea can’t cross the mountain range at the end of the peninsula and rain down on the valley completely – and sometimes the river floods, yes, but not… Like this. Not in a way that leaves the entire town covered in water, not over a week of unstoppable downpour. David has never seen anything like this before, and isn’t sure where he would be if not for the fact that he was safe with Angélique, up on the mountain.

She knew. And now she has been saying that there is something else coming, something bad. While he’s still skeptical, David has decided to listen to her from now on. At least about things like this.

He drums on his steering wheel, silently singing along to Fleetwood Mac while he drives up the mountain, leaving the ravaged town behind. The rain still beats on his windshield.

Angélique is standing on the porch of her bungalow when he arrives, safe from the rain under the awning, but she rushes out to help him with the supplies he got as soon as he kills the engine, and the music.

They get everything inside quickly enough, and David changes into some less damp clothes in the bathroom. He looks a little sick in the mirror, but a large part of that must be the green tiles. He doesn’t feel sick. Just tired, and cold. It’s damp even inside, even here, high up where there’s no flooding.

“Hey,” Angélique says softly. She’s leaning against the doorpost when David looks, arms crossed. Her flared sleeves are wrapped around her hands as if they will keep out the chill. “How was town?”

He shrugs in response. “Empty. Wet. I hope everyone’s safe.”

She smiles a sad smile before turning her back and walking to the living room. There’s a fire burning, crackling pleasantly like the world isn’t falling to pieces outside. David sprawls out on the rug in front of it, hoping to soak up some warmth. Angélique sits down to read a book, cross-legged with her back against the couch. Her hair has been getting curlier and curlier over the past days – whatever she did to it to make it straight before must be wearing off.

David likes it.

He, surprisingly, likes her. She’s been levelheaded throughout this whole mess – maybe that’s something that happens when you apparently know what’s going to happen, he thinks. Whatever that is. He feels bad about having dismissed her all this time.

It doesn’t hurt that she is, well, a very attractive woman.

“Hey, Angélique?” he asks, and she looks up, resting her index finger halfway down the page of her book. “Can I ask something about the whole…” He gestures at nothing. “The predicting the future thing?”

She smiles a little. “It’s not so much predicting, I think. I just… I look at people, or at things, every now and then, and I know stuff, and sometime that stuff hasn’t happened yet.” Her gaze skids away from David, and she chews on her full lower lip while her brow furrows.

“What do you know about me?”

“Hm?” She looks up again.

“When you look at me, what do you know about me?” he clarifies. Angélique closes her book and draws her legs up underneath herself, tugging her denim miniskirt down over her thighs when it rides up. Her legs look strong – David fancies she could wrap them around his waist and hold herself up without much trouble.

Wait, she can’t actually read minds, can she? Fucking hell. He thinks about the rain very intently.

“I know your name is David Oliver Clarke,” Angélique says. “You’re 30 years old, born January 26, 1939. You have… Two younger siblings, and honestly I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned them, considering how proud of them you are. You know your brother blames himself for that incident in ’54 that caused you to lose most hearing in your right ear, when you were teaching him how to swim. You write to him every year saying that he shouldn’t do that, and this year he’ll believe you. No one knows about the hearing loss, do they? You were afraid they wouldn’t let you join the police if they did.”

“How the fuck—” David starts, instinctively covering his ear. Only his family knows about that incident – though it’s good news Josh will finally stop getting worked up over it.

She shrugs. “Told you.” But her dark eyes flit away again, as if she’s afraid of a rejection. Hm, she doesn’t know everything.

“Angélique,” he says, “that was boss.”

“I— What? You really think—”

“Yeah!” He pushes himself over to her and leans against the couch as well, close enough that their legs nearly touch – his corduroys and her freckled knees only separated by a tiny sliver of brown carpet. “Wish we’d known before. Maybe you could have helped with something.”

“But you did,” she says, her voice slightly wry, but she smiles still.

“Yeah, alright.” David pushes his hair back from his face and then rests his arm on the couch behind her. Some dark curls tumble over his wrist when she turns her head to him.

“Is there nothing in the future for me?” he asks, and as he says it, he realizes they’re still pretty much in the middle of a very dangerous situation and maybe there really isn’t anything in the future for him, and then what?

However, Angélique smiles and ducks her head, biting her lower lip again. Her teeth have left indents when she looks back up at him. They’re oddly transfixing, although David would much rather he’d made them. Absently, he curls a strand of her hair around his finger while they look at each other. Is she reading him now? Is that how it works?

“There’s, uhm.” She wets her lips now, and David shifts until their legs do touch. “There’s quite a lot of me in your immediate future, actually.”

He grins. “Really? How much is a lot in this case?”

“Oh, you know.” She presses their legs together more firmly and leans over to him. He can see a sliver of green in her eyes, this close, could count the freckles dotting her warm brown skin, which glows in the firelight. He leans forward too, while he touches his fingertips to her knee and lets them trace patterns on her skin.

“Is this alright?” he asks, because even if those hippies with their free love have a good point – he thinks – he doesn’t want to anger the woman largely responsible for his continued survival. Especially not when she knows so much stuff about him.

“That’s great, but it could be better,” Angélique answers with a laugh. “I’d ask you the same thing, but…” She hooks her small fingers in the collar of his T-shirt. “I already know.”

David laughs. “Well, that’s convenient. What else do you know?” His hand slides slowly up her thigh, and she bites her lip again. Her already dark eyes are deeper now, and both of them seem more than happy to just forget about the terrible situation outside for now.

“I don’t know anything that’s very interesting in theory,” she admits.

“I guess we better get practical then,” he says, and while the wind howls outside the bungalow and the rain seems to be on the verge of breaking through the windows with its force, he kisses her. She kisses back without hesitation. Well, if she knew it was coming…

David is unsure why he’s surprised that Angélique knows exactly what he likes – hell, of course she does – and hopes she’ll forgive him that he doesn’t know her preferences in return. She laughs at him when he tells her this, not unkindly, and suggests practice.

“I know not everyone is like me,” she adds, beautifully sprawled on the couch, completely unashamed.

“Have you ever met anyone else?” David asks, curious. “Who can do… Whatever it is you do?”

She gasps gently when he trails his fingers up her leg again, this time unhindered by any fabric.

“I don’t think so. And I’m pretty sure I would have known.” Her breath hitches. “See, I do like that. You’re – you’re learning.”

“Good,” he says, and then nothing for a while.

Over the next three days, neither of them go out because it doesn’t stop raining and there is no need, and he also learns that Angélique does indeed have very strong legs – she surfs, she explains, but not at the same spot he does, and when he asks if they might go catch some waves together when this is all over, she gets a faraway look in her eyes and says she isn’t sure –, that it’s much easier to stay warm like this even if clothes are eschewed often, that Angélique likes horror movies – she can always tell what the actors have really been up to, she says, which is most amusing when it’s horror –, that she loves animals just as he does, and that it would be very possible for him to fall in love with her, given just a little time.

She can’t say if he will. It doesn’t always work in a straightforward way, apparently. Some people are more past than future, “and you,” she tells David, “are very much the present, in a lot of ways.”

He could almost forget about the world falling to pieces outside.

And then, in the morning of the fourteenth day after it began raining, it abruptly stops.

Everything around the bungalow is soggy, and there’s no way the road will be in any condition to drive on, so they aren’t going anywhere, but it’s dry. The sky is clear. And anyway, staying a little longer is just fine by David.

He writes a letter to his sibling that he can post when this is over – they have got to be worried if they saw the news from over here – but can’t finish it, because Angélique comes practically running into the living room with a coat half on and waving a shoe at him while yelling that they need to leave the house immediately. He opens his mouth to ask a question, like what the hell, but has thrown the shoe at him and dashed off already.

Alright. He’ll ask questions later. The lesson about listening to Angélique has been learned.

In more ways than one, he thinks, with a grin at the shoe now on his foot.

It starts the moment he sets foot outside. The slightest tremor, like a train passing close by, but there are no trains anywhere in the mountains, and they wouldn’t be running right now anyway, so it’s something else. David clenches his jaw.

“Lique?” A nickname, caught on quickly – it happens often, with him.

She’s ahead of him, hurrying further up the mountain, jumping from stone to wet stone, but stops and looks over her shoulder. Her beautiful face is set in a grim line, her hair – now all bunched up in tight curls – swept away from her face and into a ponytail.

“Hurry,” she says. “I… I’m not sure what’s coming, but we need to be somewhere else when it does.”

The ground shakes beneath their feet as they climb, making it more and more difficult to keep going, and David wonders if it was the right thing to do, to leave the bungalow. They don’t get earthquakes around here, really, and he’s not sure what you’re supposed to do. On the other hand, Angélique knows… A lot of things.

They reach a stream that’s probably a little mountain brook when the weather has been normal. Now, it roars by with deafening noise. Angélique stops on its banks and pushes her hands into her hair as if in desperation.

“What’s wrong?” David asks, then repeats himself slightly louder to be heard over the roar of the water.

“This!” Angélique gestures frantically at the water. “I know what’s on the other side, I just… I don’t know if…” She swallows hard, and David reaches for her, tugging her against his chest. He rests his chin on her hair, she pushes her nose against the skin of his chest exposed by his shirt.

“Do we need to get to the other side?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t tell.”

“It’s alright. That’s how the other side lives, Lique.”

She laughs, wrapping her arms around his waist, hands clenching on his back. The stream sprays cold water on them, but they’ve been damp for the past two weeks; it doesn’t matter anymore.

Another rumble shakes the ground, and Angélique holds on tighter. David strokes his fingers up and down her spine and plants his feet firmly on the rock. What do they do now?

“Oh, fuck,” he hears Angélique murmur, and then she’s tugging him down insistently until they practically sprawl on the rock. A second later, a spray of debris sails overhead, scattering among the trees. The ground starts to shake again, and it doesn’t stop.

The forest creaks and groans around them, and the water gets even wilder. David and Angélique remain seated on the rock, even though he feels like they should be doing something. This is nature. You can’t stop fucking nature.

The shaking gets worse. A tree groans and falls over on the other side of the stream, and just like that, more go down, and more and more and David can only cling to Angélique when they hear an almighty crash from just below them, and he knows.

“The bungalow.”

He feels her nod against his shoulder where she’s hiding her face.

Then, another noise. An insistent, booming rumble that gets louder with the second. He tilts his left ear towards it.

“What’s that?” he asks anxiously.

“The dam broke,” Angélique says, and then water crashes around them, hitting like an icy wall and sweeping them both off the rock and away.

David tries to grab something, anything, blindly reaching out with one hand while the other refuses to let go of Angélique, who clings back just as hard in return.

A branch or something, sliding by his hand. He grabs it, and it holds, and he can pull them out of the water just far enough that they can breathe. The current still tries to drag him down, rips at his clothes and his shoe – just the one, he seems to have lost the other, but Angélique is still here, even if she’s apologizing into his chest for not knowing, for not having predicted.

“It’s okay,” he says, raising his voice over the water. “It’s not your fault, you can’t predict everything!”

“It’s not about that,” she replies. “It’s not about this, David.”

When he looks down at her, her eyes are rimmed with red in a way that isn’t just the icy mountain water’s doing. She’s crying.

“We’re fine.” He grips the thing he’s holding tighter, reassuring himself. “When this dies down, we’ll be alright. I’m sure!”

She closes her eyes. He wants to kiss her, but he can’t, not like this. Everything is heavy, but he needs to hold it up. Needs to hold her up.

“We’ll be fine,” he repeats weakly, speaking into the middle distance. His fingers are going numb. Angélique didn’t predict this. Did she?

Fuck.

“Lique?”

She looks up at him with a sad line to her mouth, as if she knows the question he’s going to ask. Come to think of it, she probably fucking does.

“You know how this ends, don’t you?”

Slowly, slowly, she nods. Her expressive eyes are deep and dark, her fingers cold when she splays them on his neck. Curls plaster to her forehead, her throat. She’s still beautiful. And she knows. She knows.

And really, David also knows.