DEADLINE open thread. Have a party.

Er, what does "tossed her without thought when he was done"? If it means "had sex with her and went to sleep without a second thought", yeah, I get it, but given he was told "this is comfort sex", I find it hard to be sympathetic. But, yes, in that case, the reaction is human.

If it means "tossed her aside after sex", no. He fell asleep and woke up to an empty room, was given no opportunity to talk with Becks, and was promptly told he was worthless scum. Unless Becks misrepresented what happened -- which I don't think she did -- what people know is:

1. Shaun is so screwed up that he hears his sister's voice and he talks back to it. This has been going on for months.

2. There was a bet going on as to whether or not he was clueless about Becks' interest.

3. There was consensual sex. (I don't know whether Becks said, "I jumped him when he was coming out of the shower". If she did, this becomes "There was consensual sex initiated by an act that would be seriously creepy if their positions were reversed", given that gender roles don't seem to have changed that much.)

4. He called her by the name of his dead sister, you know, the one whose death broke him so much he's been hearing her voice and answering it ever since.

5. He fell asleep.

Nowhere in there is he culpable of tossing anyone aside or doing more than whispering the name of the person he loves most. (We'll ignore the fact that someone not inside Shaun's head might be forgiven for thinking this love was platonic or even carnal-but-unconsummated.) So, if that's what you were saying, I have to disagree. I'm guessing you were saying the first.

As for the physical abuse, he hit Alaric once. That was when he broke Alaric's nose, which I consider more than just "hitting". He was physically abusive to Dave many times. What we see is him throwing Dave into a wall, and his apology includes his thoughts that everyone will pretend he won't be physically abusive to Dave and they all know that he will. Apart from Dave not being female or in a relationship with Shaun, that sounds to my ears like a classic abusive relationship pattern.

What seems to keep us from crossing the line in how we feel about Shaun is that, for all that he says he has no problem hitting a woman, he doesn't seem to do that for reasons like a woman has said something he doesn't like about his relationship with Georgia or his mental status. Indeed, I can see Becks convincing herself that this Means Something (He must like me -- he hits everyone else, but not me, right? That proves something, right?).

Yes, everyone involved is human. And they're all on edge, and probably all broken in their own ways by this point. I think I'm twitching because there's a combination of a whole interesting set of gender things going off (You know, Maggie hits Shaun and could probably do so lots without ever losing our sympathy) and there's a sense that the entire fictional universe agrees that Shaun is a total shit for what he did to Becks, and that this is somehow worse than hitting male coworkers. I suspect that this is not true, but there's this whole section where three people tell Shaun he's a shit, he agrees and grovels some more, and... it just leaves a bad taste.