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His eyes snapped wide and, for one moment, Tourma would have been allowed to believe that she had won this pissing contest. That she had given him one final punch right where he was weakest, and that he would now slink off to his room in humiliation to retreat into his online fantasy world in hopes it would have blown over come morning.

On most days, one would have been right to think so.

This, however, was not most days. This had been a day something -really- good had finally happened for him. SOMETHING had finally paid off. And it had been torn away in favor of....this

The words may as well have been emblazoned in searing gold letters on a matador's cape as the challenge hung on the now-stark silence between them.

Prove it...? She wanted him to PROVE it??

Her face had made itself into a target. One that was begging to be slapped. His hands reacted before his mind had a chance to properly issue them a command, seizing her by the shoulders, and yanking her forward the short distance of space left between them.

He didn't know quite what he'd intended to do with her, until his mouth covered her own. There was no tenderness in the gesture, and no uncertainty. Only blind and furious determination.

He had thought, as she'd pulled away to stare, that that would be the end of it. That now he'd say something appropriately snide, she'd maybe haul off and slap him, and they'd retreat to their opposite ends of the house for the night. It was his turn to be thrown off-kilter as she, suddenly, and ferociously, returned the gesture.

The growl was answered with another. For a moment, better sense tried to intervene and warn him of the dangerous game they were both playing with one another. And that if they stopped now, and agreed to disagree, things may be awkward for a bit, but could still be recovered. They could still be friends.

Bullshit. snarled the angry presence that had commandeered his brain for the time being. She's TRYING to make me back down just so she can say she won. That idea became an obsession as he clung to it and it fueled whatever had sparked him to act in the first place.

He was not going to back down. For ONCE in his awkward, cowering-at-the-sight-of-girls life, he was NOT going to back down and prove her right.

The kiss persisted as her weight against his made his balance falter, though he struggled to hold it by pressing back against her. Maybe not the best of ideas presently. He wasn't sure whether his body's response had been natural or a subconscious answer to the challenge presented. Either way, he didn't care. And made no effort to hide it.

It was, indeed, getting out of hand. Every gesture was a new challenge to be met and surpassed. Sense had given up attempting to intervene and now sat off to the sidelines dejectedly as it watched this trainwreck unfold, groaning that he would hate himself when it was all over.

Somewhere along the line, having her pinned up against the wall became having the two of them tangled on the upstairs hallway carpet. Clumsiness was made up for in drive as the only sounds that existed between them were a duet of heavy breathing and the shift and shuffle of garments being rudely pushed out of the way.

This was not at all how he'd envisioned it being in the times he'd actually entertained it happening to him. Then again, given the circumstances of his first kiss, had he been able to recall it, he might have seen the humor in the running trend of things. As it was, the heat of rage and desire did not allow him to see anything beyond them.

The idea that he'd actually committed himself to seeing this through to its end, whatever that may be, did not dawn on him until he felt his jeans being loosened and tugged at.

....and somehow even that didn't give him pause.

His response to her statement was a weary grunt as he laid where he'd collapsed, still trying to catch his breath. Exhausting himself had done much to alleviate his anger and, as it receded, it allowed the gravity of the current scenario to haze back into focus.

This....had gone far beyond a simple shouting and shoving match. You could come back from one of those and agree it was forgiven and forgotten. What had happened here was something that, even if they DID decide to pretend had never happened, would haunt them both forever. They had both given to and taken something from each other that could never be given back.

He was silent, mulling it over, and, like her, wondering what was supposed to happen next. Did he say something? Do something? Part of him even still wanted to stay angry with her, though it simply didn't have the energy anymore.

"Think I've got nail marks on my back." he muttered at last, swallowing through a dry throat as he reached up to push sweat-matted hair out of his eyes. "You okay?" he asked. It was a stupid thing to ask, but was also reflexive and didn't sound like it was probing for any flattery or derision of the last span of time.

His ears had keened to hear what she'd said, and then he gave a snort of laughter that shook his frame a bit against hers. Her anger seemed, likewise, to have evaporated as the biting sarcasm and faux pity was gone from her voice, bringing her back to the Tourma he was more familiar with. It was almost enough to make him want to shrug off the whole mess entirely.

...almost.

The remnants of what she had said still jangled themselves around in his head unpleasantly. While it went without saying that he believed most girls thought of him as some sort of giant loser who was befitting only of pity at best, he found, for some reason, it bothered him that she might see him exactly the same way.

"Look...um..." he began, propping himself up on his elbows to look her more-or-less in the eyes. "....about the stuff you said...." he began, sifting through it mentally for the parts that he felt like he ought to apologize for. Though, really, he just wanted to know if that's truly what she thought.

He'd been ready to be angry all over again in case she should suddenly shift gears back into what she'd been when this had all started. And if she did, he thought this time he likely WOULD just crawl off to his room.

As she spoke, he went silent, holding perfectly still as he waited for the veiled suckerpunch that would surely come at any moment. But there was nothing like that. It seemed like a very long time before he finally collected enough brain cells to work his arms around her and give her a squeeze.

Everybody was entitled to go crazy-angry sometimes, he guessed. God knew he wasn't innocent of it as he'd done his share of taking out a bad day on his sister and vice-versa.

For the moment, he really couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound contrived or like he was trying to further make her feel like dirt.

"Yeah, probably..." he muttered, not too crazy about the idea of moving either. ....but there was also the matter of still having no idea if Ray was home or not. She tended to exist with her earbuds perpetually plugged in when she was in her room, so it was very likely she WAS home and had simply remained happily oblivious to all of this.

And if she happened to wander out to use the bathroom or something and caught them like this, he would never. EVER. hear the end of it.

Ever.

That thought alone was what made him start to disentangle himself from her and sit up, stretching the kinks out of his back with a groan. The final glowing embers of his anger extinguished, he felt safe enough to touch on the topic of their fight one last time.

"You were right though. About one thing, anyway..." he began, not looking at her as he fumbled his shirt out of the mess of clothes. "You've done a lot for me since I came here." He began to struggle into the shirt, muffling his voice as he did so. "M'sorry I haven't really done anything to pay you back for it."