And you love trouble...

“God Alyx, why am I always breaking into places when I’m with you?”

Alyx rolls his eyes “Well it was either break into this cabin or camp outside in the snow storm and I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of frost bite.”

Grace smirks “Oh, you’re not a fan of anything” 

 Alyx glares at her, his emerald eyes catching the light from the first sparks of the fire he’d been trying to start 

“You could at least thank me for not abandoning you in the woods — which, for the record, I’m really starting to regret.” He turns his attention back to his fire and grins when it flares to life, slow at first but the flames grow, singeing the wood. 

“Thank you,” Grace gives him a small close lipped smile “now, if you’ll excuse me I have to try let Cam know where I am.”

Alyx looks back at her, moving to sit on the chair near the fire place 

“Cam? Oh of course, how could I forget?” He replies with a smirk “he’s that rich airhead, right?”

Grace’s hazel eye’s widen, a few strands of her onyx hair slipping out from under her beanie “He is not an airhead. He’s my boyfriend and he’s probably worried sick.”

“Sure,” Alyx says, an almost amused iota lighting up the green depths of his eyes “I’m sure he’s scared out of his wits. He’s probably even called multiple radio stations and is about to send out a whole search team for you. So,” he leans in slightly, his green eyes twinkling with laughter “any other lies you’d like me to tell you?”

Grace scowls, genuinely annoyed she’d thought he was trying to reassure her. 

“Oh, go to hell.” She mutters under her breath but Alyx just smirks, clearly having heard it. He notices his fire is slowly dying and isn’t producing much heat so he takes the poker and pushes at the wood. 

“Well, at least it’d be warmer than here.” 

She whips her head to face him, her hazel eyes narrowing dangerously “yeah — and who’s fault is that? You drag us in here and then you make that excuse of a fire?”

Alyx eyes narrow right back, “Well I don’t see you rushing to make a better one” 

Grace scoffs and moves off the only other chair in the cabin and leans down towards the fire, blowing on it. She takes the the poker stick from Alyx and uses it to reposition a few logs. Looking around for a while, she smiles brightly when she sees a few loose papers lying on the wooden table near the window. 

Alyx regards her strangely as she grabs them and advances back towards the fire place “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? I knew you were twisted but damn, don’t you think even I deserve a better end than death by paper-cuts?”

“Oh trust me,” She scrunches them up and smirks “that’s far too nice a fate for you.” Before he can reply to her quip, she takes the balls of crumpled paper and throws it into the fire. Alyx watches, impressed a moment, as it blazes to life. 

Grace admires her work for a second then sits back down, turning to Alyx with a triumphant grin

He though, had wiped the awed look off his face several seconds ago and now just stares at the her, that same sardonic eyebrow raised “and you couldn’t do that earlier because —” 

 “Okay, you know what — I give up.” She huffs and turns away from him. Alyx scoffs but he feels a strange sensation in his chest. Guilt? he ponders but shakes his head no way, I’d to care about her for that to happen. He plans to wait the unsettling feeling out but not after even half a second, he hears himself saying

“Okay look, I’m sorry. I admit that was uncalled but we’re going to be stuck in here for,” he peers outside, examining the swirling snowstorm “the next couple of hours or so and things would be a lot easier if we weren’t resisting the urge to strangle each other, so,” he stands up, walking until he’s in front of her because he figures since he already apologised, he may as well ask for her forgiveness too, “ what do you say,” He crouches down so they’re at eye level and sticks out a hand “truce?”

She regards it skeptically, but when she finally brings her warm hazel eyes to meet his usually cold green ones, she finds they aren’t nearly as hostile as they usually are so she nods, taking his hand and shakes it “truce.”

Alyx smiles and she realises it’s the first time she’s actually seen his smile. It’s different to when he smirks, not so distant or mocking or amused.

“You know,” she says before she can think better of it “your smile is actually kinda nice,” 

The smile falls off of Alyx’s face and her eyes widen, both of them shocked by her sentence “obviously,” she adds, looking away as he stands back up and moves to the opposite end of the cabin “it’s the only nice thing about you.” 

Alyx looks back at her, her added insult calming his accelerated heart beat. 

“Yeah,” he ignores the feeling he got when she had complemented his smile “if you weren’t half as annoying, you just may be fun to hang out with.” 

Grace looks up, catching his eyes and smiles“I think that may just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” She pushes away her embarrassment from earlier and decides to at least try to be civilized. They had made a truce after all. Alyx though, hardly focuses on her words since he’s so caught off guard by her smile. She hasn’t ever really smiled smiled at him but he brushes it off and moves to sit down on the chair next to hers. Grace realises he isn’t going to reply so she just stares back into the fire. She had always found fires mesmerizing. The way the flames, bright orange at first and faded into blue at the tips, danced and twirled around the wood. The sudden bursts of glowing little fiery sparks and the new scent she’d smell every time a different type of wood burned never ceased to surprise her. All of those things reminded her of her grand father. He had loved sitting by the fire place too. Alyx though, isn’t nearly as fascinated by the fire as she is. Though he does find himself intrigued by the bright green flecks in her brown eyes and the way they’re hung like stars in the night sky. He regards them carefully. Like a galaxy of stars but messier, more random. Though, he mentally admits, they are a beautiful mess. 

He shakes his head, trying to shake the thought in the process. When that doesn’t work, he tries a different tactic “So,” Alyx clears his throat “your boyfriend didn’t pick up?”

Grace turns to him slowly, shaking her head “Nope. There’s no service or WiFi or anything remotely similar that we need to contact people while we’re in here.”

“Well, that’s convenient.” He rolls his eyes and she laughs slightly, glad to see he’s back to his sarcastic self. 

“You have a pretty laugh.”  

Grace’s eyes flick to his and his mouth falls agape but no words come out. He shuts his eyes oh God Alyx, do not tell me you actually just said that. She has a boyfriend and-

“Thank you.” Alyx opens his eyes to see her smiling at him, but more surprising than that, he swears a slight blush is colouring her cheeks.

“You’re welcome.”

Alyx pushes the words out of his already dry throat and turns to look out the window. 

 Grace though, hasn’t taken her eyes off of him. For the life of her, she just can’t figure him out. One second he’s acting like the world’s biggest jerk and the next he’s a complete gentleman. 

“You’re not as bad as everyone says you are, are you?” The words involuntarily fall out of her mouth but she doesn’t regret them. Alyx, though surprised by her question, still doesn’t turn around as he replies “I guess that depends on who you ask.”

“Okay then,” she turns more to him, though he still doesn’t look at her “who should I ask?”

“Well,” he shifts so she’s facing her again but makes sure to avoid her shining gaze “I guess that depends on what you want to hear”

“I want to hear that you’re a good guy.” Grace has no idea what possesses her to be so honest but since that’s the phrase that came out, she plans to stand by it. 

Alyx raises one of his dark eyebrows and finally brings his green eyes to her hazel ones “sorry but that’s something no one will tell you. I’m not a good guy Grace. You of all people should know that.”

Grace bites her lip, thinking back to the first time they met — how he’d tricked her into helping him break into the school store room when he told her someone was stuck inside. He needed the items for a school prank but she’d figured it out and took a video of him without him knowing. She showed it to him and said she’d get him expelled if he went through with it so he hadn’t and maybe because of that, she still had some hope for him. She looks back into his eyes defiantly, her next sentence completely throwing him off his game 

“Well I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Think you're a bad guy.”

Alyx inhales sharply but prays she doesn’t hear it “You think you know me but you don’t.”

“I think I know more than you want me to.”

Alyx hears his heart beat reverberate in his ears, he can’t tell is it’s from fear or attraction but he doesn’t want to find out. He needs to put a stop to this 

“I’m not who you think I am.”

Grace looks at him closely, the slight fear in his green eyes, the white patches on his knuckles from who tightly he’s clenching them and she shrugs, their eyes meeting like fire and ice 

“Do you even know who I think you are?”

Alyx doesn’t know how to reply to that so he doesn’t. He just looks away but Grace’s voice pulls his gaze back to her

“I think you’re a guy who doesn’t like letting people in. A guy who distances himself the second anyone shows him even the slightest ounce of kindness.” She takes a breath, her eyes never leaving his, “You’re a guy who is so smart but hides it, so funny but covers it with sarcasm.” She shrugs, “I think you’re a hero playing a villain.”

“Gra—”

“You Alyx, are just a guy who spends every single day tricking the entire universe.”

Alyx’s eyes widen but he knows she’s right. He just doesn’t know how she’d seen through him so fast “do you really believe that?” 

Grace nods “I do.”

Alyx takes a breath, not willing to admit the truth to her “Then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”

“Maybe.” She looks up, smiling, her eyes catching the sparks from the fire “or maybe I’m the only one smart enough to see the truth”

Alyx looks at her, stunned into silence a moment but he can’t help it, he asks the question he wanted to ask since he met her “who are you?”

“Me?” she smiles and tilts her head, contemplating it “I guess I’m just the girl who thinks the guy everyone thinks is the villain just might not be the villain after all.” 

Alyx’s eyes widen but he doesn’t speak, he can’t seem too. Grace doesn’t break the strange comfortable silence that hangs between them. They can both feel it, the astonishing feeling that seems to settle in their bones. That creeps it’s way into their heart and nestles down into the deepest corners of their minds. Alyx chances a glance at Grace but she senses the movement and meets his eyes. 

As they look into each other’s eyes they both find it strange, how they are trapped in a cabin because of a blizzard with no one else around and can’t be further from reality yet neither of them have never felt more real than they do right now. And that feeling, that feeling is a dangerous one. 

“You’re trouble,” Grace whispers, her eyes shimmering “aren’t you?”

“Funny,” Alyx whispers back, getting lost in the depths of her hazel starry eyes “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

Grace’s eyes widen and she looks down, a slight blush colouring her cheeks. Alyx tilts his head smiling at her, only one thought on his mind. There are 2 types of trouble, 

His eyes trace her features, as the light from the flames cause shadows to dance across them.  the type you run from, Her hair catches the shine from the fire so it looks various shades of black at once, and the kind you chase. Her dark eyebrows are perfectly arched, graceful in a way that he hadn’t noticed until now. I never run from trouble, I’m the type of guy that chases it. Her eyes shine with curiosity and light. Alyx feels his heart thump louder when he sees those sparkles in her eyes . Always. Her nose is slightly rounded toward the end, a stark contrast to his pointed one but this time ... Alyx’s eyes catch on her lips, the curve and pinkness of them making him inhale sharply I may have to make an exception if I wants to survive this.

He quickly looks out the window again, observing the grey sky and white ground. Noticing suddenly now how dull it is. He looks back to Grace, her rich onyx hair and green-gold eyes the only colour in the grey and white world around them. Just then, she looks up, her eyes meeting his and Alyx gulps. Yes, definitely. Run, Alyx. She’s the type of trouble you run from because she makes you forget everything else. The type of fiery trouble that can scorch the whole world and destroy you if she wishes to and you’d let her. She looks down again, that same adorable red tint covering her cheeks . So run Alyx, run, Alyx looks away too, his mind a mess, his heart rattling like a prisoner behind bars because she’s trouble, he takes a breath, and closes his eyes, not being able to look at her anymore and you love trouble...