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Phone calls had been made. Paperwork had been filled out. Roles had been explained. Long story short - tomorrow afternoon he had an interview at the district office to discuss his pending promotion.

Jody had assured him it was mostly a formality and that as long as he showed up in decent clothes, made it clear he knew what he was talking about regarding the store, and tried to avoid his deer-in-the-headlights look as much as possible, he'd be in.

Kendall, in short, was excited as it was a drastic upturn from the recent slew of events. A better job meant better pay. Which meant having money left over after giving over his share of the rent, groceries and utilities. Which, honestly, could mean all sorts of things.

Plus, it meant finally having a bit of sway in who he worked with...which had long been a bone of contention.

He let himself in, unzipping his jacket and tossing it over its usual hook as he bounded up the stairs, in surprisingly good spirits, to see if Raven was home to share the news with. If not, the guild was having its message of the day changed to reflect recent events. Yes, it was THAT important.

Kendall stopped dead.

The look of utter rage in her expression made his good mood wither, and her words shocked it away entirely as he blinked at her in utter bewilderment.

It was true what they said....you were only ever allowed to be as happy as the unhappiest female in your household. It had held true when he'd lived at home, it had stayed true when he and Raven still lived in the apartment, and it was once again proving itself here.

After several moments of silence, he finally had roused up enough of himself to make a retort to her question.

"....what?"

"Wha--NO!" he protested, taking a step back from her. Not only was she angry, apparently in the six hours he'd been gone to work, she'd also gone insane as well.

....or maybe something had happened? Either way, he didn't much appreciate getting a faceful of it. "Where the hell did THIS come from?"

He'd followed her up to a certain point. Yes, he knew several people who fit her description. And a couple were even regular customers at his store, for that matter.

It was when she started the chocolate comparisons that he got a little lost. And in the time it took to try and follow her wavering train of thought to catch back up with her, found himself with her accusations turned quickly back on him again.

....what the hell?

"I didn't do anything." he said, feeling himself beginning to lapse from confused to indignant. "I mean....what's -any- of that got to do with me?"

He felt it was a fair question.

"Okay wait. WAIT a minute!" he said, taking another step back and holding up his hands as if erecting an invisible barrier between himself and the crazy.

Inwardly, he was torn between betrayal and panic. Where had she decided that something had happened that night? And furthermore if something DID happen and she remembered it, why didn't she -tell- him? HE sure as hell didn't remember any of it, much less what he did or did not do.

It was her mocking laughter that teetered him back from the brink of 'freakout' and tilted him into the fires of anger, however.

"You were just as wasted as I was that night..." he began, trying to cling to rationality and the idea that this could still be diffused before it got any uglier.

One brown ear twitched, betraying the twinge of unease that had sparked in him at recalling the bruises he'd discovered on his neck the morning after. The ones he'd puzzled over for a minute and then assumed must have been the result of beaning himself with the car hood when he'd tried to figure out for himself what had been wrong with the clunker when it had died.

But that was all. Just a twinge. And then both ears flattened into the scruff of black hair on his head, nearly out of sight. Rationality was a good thing, and it would have served him well in situations such as these.

....it was really too bad that her tone, her implications, and her laughter had all greased it enough that he couldn't keep a grasp on it anymore.

"Shut up." he growled warningly.

The words struck him just as surely as if they HAD been a low blow, and hurt, humiliation, and rage all bubbled to the surface in a froth. That night when all of that had gone down. When she'd hugged him. When she'd told him everything was okay. When she'd told him she didn't blame him for reacting that way....

His eyes narrowed.

His teeth ground.

Any trace of the good mood he'd been in upon coming home was forgotten. The reason FOR the good mood was forgotten. In fact, right now, his focus had become an angry tunnel vision on the skullmonkey before him.

"So because I didn't race to strip down and bang some girl I barely KNOW, that makes me gay?" he recapped. "Is THAT what you're trying to tell me?"

The question, apparently, was meant to be rhetorical as he didn't give her a chance to answer it. "What the hell is your problem??" he exploded suddenly.

"All that bullshit about wanting to be friends, and then...then because I don't turn out to be some ******** creep, you just think I'm gonna just stand here and take whatever s**t you feel like slinging at me because YOU had a bad day??"

His tail lashed, fire blazed in bi-colored eyes. He was pissed.

He wasn't just pulled down to her level as he was slam-dunked onto it, and he'd hit the mat fighting. He might have felt guilt at her words if she'd not waited this long to get to them. She HAD done a lot for him, and he'd done little to reciprocate. This, however, had been far from the way to bring it to his attention.

Part of him knew he was giving her exactly what she wanted by reacting this way. But a much larger part of him did not CARE. The horses were out of the gate, and at the moment Sense&Sensibility was eating the dust of Snarlin Angry and Shut Your Face.

"God DAMMIT you're just like every other girl I've ever met! All these ******** headgames and you can't just SAY what you want!" Had he known it was the last thing he was to say in that argument that even tried to be reasonable, he might have cherished it as it flew from his mouth. <******** me?? ******** *YOU*! ******** your bullshit, ******** your laughing, ******** whoever the ******** ******** got you started on this s**t in the first place!"

He paused to catch his breath, realizing that as the bile of profanity had spewed forth, the distance he'd tried to keep between them had been lost at some point, and he was, very much, in her face.

Which gave him a wonderful vantage point to make his final, and perhaps most important, point as he jabbed a finger once sharply at her collarbone.

"AND I AM NOT. ********. GAY!!"