A/N: Contains minor spoilers. I apologize for any mistakes I may have missed.

'The Three R's', that's how Trevor had put it. And he was right. Gloatingly, accurately right. Michael did have a break-up routine:

Rebound came first-scout the city for a very specific kind of woman, big tits, a nice ass, blonde; the type of woman Amanda would sneer at, the type of woman Amanda was so transparently envious of. Definitely young. That was the most important detail of all. The fall-back girl had to be young. Michael knew for a fact that if there was one thing he still had in common with his wife, it was bitterness for the wasted years of his youth.

Regret came second. It came hard. So too did the plans for the third and final stage of the routine.

Redemption-flowers, cars, yoga classes, whatever the hell Amanda wanted, she could have. It was less of a 'for her', and more of a way to shift the biting guilt that inevitably made itself a home in the pit of Michael's stomach. He equated expensive gifts with clawing his way back up the ladder towards decency. Trevor had pointed this out too. And again, he was right.

This particular cycle had him in the arms of some tart at the Vanilla Unicorn, with Trevor shouting something that might have been encouragement as his face was crushed into the woman's ample bosom. Michael felt-rather than heard-her laughing. If he opened his eyes he might spot the pink lace of a bra peeking out from the tight black dress, but his senses swam and threatened to knock him off his feet, so instead he welcomed the darkness and allowed himself to be guided around the establishment in a drunken waltz. It was warm and cozy in her arms, so far removed from anything he and Amanda had shared in recent years.

The woman laughed again as she guided him into a seat and then planted herself across his lap. Michael struggled to look up at her, the alcohol in his system felt like an insistent hand of gravity gently urging him back down, but he fought it until he locked eyes with a pair of green ones. Even in his drunken state, she wasn't the best he had ever landed; her make-up was smudged and there were telling little crow's feet and lines beneath the plaster of foundation she had slapped on. She was not as young as Michael would have liked and-

Christ, Tracey was right; he was a douchebag with women.

He must have groaned, for moments later the woman was shushing him and embracing him back into the heat and sweat of her chest. It was the alcohol that made him stay where he was, that was all. It certainly wasn't a need to be held. That would be pathetic.

"You look like you're enjoyin' yourself, Mikey!"

Trevor.

He had a bottle of beer in one hand, and another stuffed between his belt and his jeans. The strobe lights painted him in green, pink, green, white. Michael struggled to focus. If he didn't know any better, he'd have sworn someone had drugged him again. Something about this drunken haze was heavier than normal, almost oppressive. When he tried to raise his arm-to shove the woman away or maybe to push at Trevor, he didn't rightly know-it flopped back down atop a firm thigh wrapped around his waist. When had that happened?

More to the point, when had she started grinding against him?

Trevor was grinning at him, a wide display of glimmering enamel. His teeth were probably the only thing clean about him. "I'll bet you don't get this kinda treatment back home these days, do ya?" He took a swig from the beer in his hand, tossed the bottle to the floor, and then took a drink instead from the one at his belt.

He wasn't nearly as wasted as he should have been. Michael hated him just a little bit for that.

"Fuck you." said Michael when the room had stopped spinning. He was more than happy to insult Amanda, but she was out of bounds for everyone else. And quite frankly, Trevor was cutting close to the bone tonight; everything that tumbled out of his mouth was toxic.

Trevor leaned in close, the strobe lights made the top of his head look like a pink light bulb. Behind him, a group of strippers were getting showered with dollar bills. "Maybe later." he said. The growl in his voice could have been a threat... or a promise.

He pressed the lip of the beer bottle to Michael's mouth, tilting it until the liquid bubbled forth in a great spill.

The woman laughed again, apparently unconcerned with the alcohol staining the top of her breasts. When Michael tried to jerk away, a hand pinched the back of his neck and held him still. Too drunk to put up much of a fight, he opened his mouth and took what he could. What didn't slip down his throat soaked his shirt. He wanted to mind more than he actually did.

"You're getting' all tight-ass on us again, Mikey boy." Trevor was saying, "You need to lighten the fuck up, man. This is supposed to be a celebration!"

Amanda was gone, Jimmy and Tracey too. All he had to look forward to was an empty home after the night was done. Michael couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was he was meant to be celebrating.

After downing the questionable contents of Trevor's beer, Michael's grip on time was snatched out of his feeble grasp entirely. Minutes became hours, songs played and were repeated, groups of men replaced the earlier ones but the money continued to pour, and the woman in his lap was insistent with her fingers and her hips and her lips.

The Vanilla Unicorn shifted in and out of focus, a sticky wall met his hand as he staggered towards the figure in front.

He was outside-he was being pressed against a brick wall. The cement and gravel scratched at the small of his back where his shirt had been rucked up. A blonde head was bobbing back and forth against his dick. He wasn't hard.

The woman was huffing and cursing. She was annoyed, or offended, or both.

Michael turned his face up to the sky. He thought of Amanda. He thought of the last time she had done this for him.

A rough hand wrapped suddenly around his shoulder, too big to belong to the woman. Another was curled and met his face. The crunch his nose made was sobering.

"Oh my God, Dean!" The woman was screaming, her small frame wrapped tight around the bulk of a man almost twice her size. Almost twice Michael's size. Every cord of muscle was tensed, his teeth were broken bottles, sharp and dangerous. The cement was a second punch. Michael stared up at the man who had probably broken his nose, and tried to form the words to save his own sorry skin, but his tongue was drenched in blood, and he was choking, and all that fell forth was a garbled mess of nonsense.

"Dean, please-"

"You shut up, bitch!" the man snarled in response.

Michael was so fixated on the clenched fist coming again to wreak havoc on his anatomy, that he almost didn't notice when the fire escape behind the man's bulking figure swung open. He didn't, however, miss Trevor diving out of the shadows to land almost on top of the assailant, nor did he miss the glimmer of broken glass in the moonlight.

The alley was filled with the piercing shriek of the woman, followed by the breathless 'guh' of the man as the end of the bottle forced itself into the side of his neck, tearing flesh and ligament like wet tissue. He fell to his knees, the life slipping from his eyes like the blood from his wound, and then he was flat on his back. The woman continued to scream until Trevor knocked her over the side of the head, then she too was down.

"Fuckin' assholes." said Trevor when he had righted himself. He looked at his blood soaked shirt as though it were a minor inconvenience, then tore it off and tossed it into the waste bin at the side of the corpse. Behind him, the fire escape opened again, a confused bouncer come to investigate. He got two feet into the alley before one look at Trevor had him hurrying back inside.

Michael felt the alcohol rush back to dull his senses, chasing away the shock and the pain, and he let it. He didn't remember Trevor driving him home, or putting him to bed.