talking, sort of

who: shane and jillian
where: his house
when: late afternoon

Shane was sitting in his room as opposed to somewhere in the house, chair pulled up to the window where he was staring out it. He had is arms crossed on the sill, and the cold from out there was sinking into his skin, but he wasn't moving yet. He'd been fairly quiet ever since the thing with Svetlana, but...well. He wasn't exactly the biggest sharer in the world. He didn't know if Jillian had even noticed or not, particularly in light of the surprise house guests. Jack of which he didn't really get along with that well, and Penny, who...well, he hadn't really talked to. And every night he went to sleep with Jillian in his bed and woke up alone. It fucked with his head. Everything fucked with his head lately, and he felt really alone in general.

Jillian had noticed what was up with Shane. It hadn't really struck her at first - she'd chalked it up to being shaken by their confrontation with the crazy knife chick. God knew she'd been thrown off track by it, too. And then strangers showing up in their house, and the way she kept waking up in the other bedroom every morning despite going to bed with Shane. That really disturbed her, proof that the scientists were able to get their hands all over her while she slept and she never knew. She couldn't stay awake the entire night, either, and she'd tried. That actually scared her quite a bit - she woke up every morning gasping, afraid this would be the morning that the door wouldn't open when she tried. She kept that fact to herself, however - it wasn't, after all, as if anyone could do anything about it.

Every day she tried to bring a few things back into Shane's room, making it seem a little more like normal (for them, at least), so today she was carting her acoustic bass from her room to his. She'd leave it there, probably come back and do a little playing later, but she knew she needed to find Shane first. Happily, entering his room was like killing two birds with one stone. Setting the bass down and leaning it carefully against the wall, Jillian joined him at the window, perching on the arm of his chair. "Storm's let up, at least," she commented quietly.

He wasn't aware of her until she was way too close, and he tensed when he finally did note her presence. He relaxed again right away when he figured out who it was, but still, there was that momentary tension, that stilling of his form before he started breathing again. He nodded. "Yeah." he agreed. Not that that helped anything. It didn't get the people out of his house. It didn't mean that he wasn't going to wake up alone again, knowing that they took her during the night and he never even woke up for it. Not even a little, like a half-remembered dream or something. To say he didn't like it would have been understating it to a truly negligent degree. He half reached out, brushing his hand over her knee for a moment before he went back to his original position, not even sure what that gesture was meant to be.

She noticed the slight tension in his body before he recognized her, though she kept silent about it. She did it to, to a certain extent, and she certainly couldn't blame anyone for being jumpy. She laid a hand on his back after he brushed her knee with his hand, stroking gently up and down his spine. "Talk to me," she murmured. He didn't need the full invitation; he'd know what she meant.

He didn't know what to say. He did in fact, know what she meant. He just didn't know where to start, or what at all to start. In the end it was fairly simple. "I pulled the trigger on that girl." he said. "The one who attacked and everything."

Jillian blinked. That actually hadn't been what she was expecting to hear - she'd thought maybe something about crazy girl, about their new roommates, about the reset that got pulled each night. But that he'd pulled the trigger? "Are you sure?" she asked. "I didn't hear a shot. We all would've heard it if it'd gone off."

"It didn't go off. Yes, I'm sure I pulled the trigger." Shane said, glancing more towards her, but not actually at her. Then he turned his gaze back to the window. "I didn't think about it. It just kind of...happened." And just because the gunshot didn't go off, just because a bullet didn't rip through the other girl's skull--that didn't take away the fact that he'd pulled the fucking trigger. And really, Shane was a whole lot of not alright with things. With that in general. What it said about him, and fucked if he knew what the answer was there. Fuck. He kind of felt like he didn't know anything anymore.

"Hey," Jillian said, voice soft but firm, realizing after he'd finished speaking that he was more concerned with the fact that he'd tried to shoot someone and not that the gun hadn't worked. "Hey. She had a knife, had already hurt you and at least one other person. She wasn't right in the head, and she was a danger to me, you, and Everett. You didn't do anything wrong, it doesn't make you a monster or whatever you're thinking about right now." She leaned slightly so that she could get her arm around his shoulders, her other hand sliding through his hair. "I'm more worried that it didn't go off when you trusted it to defend yourself. If Everett hadn't taken her down, she might have gone after you for that." The thought of Shane getting cut up made her sick.

He didn't fight her on things, but didn't necessarily go with it fully either. There was part of him that just didn't quite know how. He used to. Or, he'd know how to fake it well. But right now he just didn't seem capable of it like he had been. "I could have killed her." Shane said. "And maybe she did hurt someone, and maybe she would have hurt me, or...I didn't want her anywhere near you." he said, knowing he wasn't making the best sense ever. "But she was from our experiment. This was done to her. Whatever wiring got fried, that wasn't her fault."

"But you didn't kill her," Jillian said. "You didn't even hurt her." Which reminded her that she owed the bitch a fist to the face the next time they saw each other, trauma or not. She sighed, feeling bad because she knew she sounded mercenary, but sometimes she could be hard. She didn't like it, but she could do it. "We don't know what kind of problems she came in with, either," she pointed out gently. "I'm not saying she escaped the experiment scot-free, but we don't know how badly she was messed up already. I don't think she would have felt bad about hurting you or me, either. Sometimes, Shane," she said very quietly, "you have to do whatever it takes to keep yourself and the people you care about safe. I can tell you right now that if someone threatens you or me, I will do whatever it takes to take them out first, and I won't hesitate to do it, either. I might feel bad later, but the important thing is to first make sure there will be a later."

Shane didn't really think that it mattered so much to him that he hadn't hurt her. It wasn't the point, in his head. "I know that sometimes you need to do that. I know." he said. "I just...you know what? Just...nevermind. I don't--" he didn't know what to say. And he knew about protecting people, and he knew he'd probably even do it again, because he didn't want any harm to come to Jillian. That was a really strong impulse in his system and it wasn't going anywhere. He just...didn't know. He didn't know at all, and that was freaking him out. He didn't know how he felt about anything there, and he needed to. Because whatever it was, it was major. He just didn't have a correct identifying label to slap onto it.

"What?" Jillian asked patiently. "I'm here if you need to talk, Shane. What is it?" She wanted to be there for him, but she kind of sucked at this kind of thing. Half the time she didn't know how to make her own damn self feel better, let alone someone else. But she cared about him and he was hurting, and she'd do her best if he'd let her.

She was there if he needed to talk. Well, he definitely needed to talk, but he just didn't know what to say, or how to do it. Which generally speaking, blew. "I don't know what to even say." he admitted. "It's a mess in my head. I just...don't know. I probably don't make sense anyhow." he continued, because he was aware of that too. He wished his own mind could boil things down as simply as she'd just explained to him. That would be great if he could just flip his mentality to 'well, I did what I had to do'. He was just having a hell of a time doing that.

"You don't have to say anything right now if you can't or don't want to," Jillian said softly, doing her best to let him know through touch and her presence that she was just there. "Whatever you need, anything, just ask and I'll do what I can." It was hard, seeing him struggling with the things in his head and not being able to help take some of the load from him.

He shifted, putting his arms around her and settling his head against her side. Maybe it was the months of isolation. Just...never having anyone around to talk to but himself. Or maybe it was just him. Just some broken part of him that he was just discovering now, and that was it. He wouldn't be that surprised if that was the case. It just fucking sucked that it was. "I'm sorry." Shane said, voice quiet. He didn't know what he was apologizing for, just that he felt like he should.

"Don't be," Jillian murmured, stroking her fingertips through his hair while her other hand drifted slowly along his arm and shoulder. "You don't have anything to be sorry about." She started rocking gently back and forth, both arms closing around his shoulders as she leaned down to kiss the top of his head. "We'll figure it out," she told him, voice barely above a whisper. "If we take care of each other, we'll be okay." She wasn't sure if she meant just the two of them or their whole screwed up little community, but if she didn't think positively she'd go insane.

Shane had to wonder if he was capable of that. Could he take care of anyone? He wasn't even that good anymore at taking care of himself. He used to be. God, he just...would give about anything to be who he used to be. Anything at all. Having her there helped though. Helped a lot. he gave her a squeeze, and nodded, acknowledging what she said. He'd take it for now.

Jillian just kept holding him, resolving to be there as long as he needed her. She didn't know what tomorrow would bring, but she'd do the best she could today and it would half to be enough.