At almost three in the morning, Michael was dragged back into the land of the living by the smell of something burning. He twisted onto his back, untangling his limbs from the sheets that had coiled around them, and sniffed. Beneath the acrid stench of ash, he could make out the faint trace of bacon. With the alcohol still swimming around in his system, and the recent dregs of sleep painting his focus into a hazy blur, he might have been fooled into thinking that Amanda and the kids had come back.

But then he started to hear it. The cursing. The stomping. The general pain-in-the-ass cacophony that was Trevor Philips.

"Oh fuck..." he muttered to himself. His voice sounded nasally, and just as he started to wonder why that might be, the pain hit him and he jerked up. The woman on her knees, the jealous not-so-better half, both of them down for the count at the mercy of a very angry and messed up Canadian. It all came back."Fuck." he said again.

With a great deal of caution, Michael guided a trembling finger down the bridge of his nose and found that it was still in place. He took a shaky breath through his mouth, wincing when the cold air of the room shot out through his nostrils. The pain was a dull throb, but each inhalation stung like a motherfucker.

Whatever Trevor was currently doing downstairs (cooking? Torching the place?) required Michael's immediate attention. He decided to feel sorry for himself later on, when there was no threat of his property going up in smoke.

When he tumbled out of bed, it took a moment longer than he cared to admit for his body to get on track with his brain. His legs were still heavy and boneless under him, but he somehow managed to guide himself out of his bedroom and down the hall. The stairs seemed to glare at him as he approached, as if in challenge. He pressed his weight against the wall, and slid-shuffled down the steps one at a time. Under his palms, expensive frames with ugly portraits rattled and became askew.

At the foot of the stairway, Trevor's angry exchange with the frying pan-

"You piece of shit!"

"Fuckin' burn me."

"I'll bury you six feet under, you fuck!"

-was as clear and concise as a soprano in a concert hall.

Michael waved his hands in front of his face, wafting away the thick gathering of smoke that was as determined to burn through his eyelids as Trevor was to burn through the entire kitchen. He turned and headed towards the commotion, a very loud complaint on the tip of his tongue about manners and ungodly hours and so on and so forth.

But it died in his throat, along with whatever sanity he had managed to hold onto for all these years.

Trevor stood in the middle of the kitchen with one hand on his hip, and the other doing its best chef impression with the pan in his hand, which was spitting a considerable amount of fat and oil that Trevor managed to narrowly avoid by jerking his hips in the most absurd manner. The counter-tops were flooded with bottles, both empty and half-full, and packets, and containers, and plates piled high with meat and bread, and candy, and jars, and-

-it was a mess. It was pandemonium.

And actually, Michael could have dealt with that. Because the chaos of his kitchen was not what had his attention. It was the dress that was stretched taught over a wiry frame with scarred flesh. It was the hem of the skirt that was swaying with each ridiculous jerk of those sharp hips. It was the way the zipper at the back only closed up half-way and went no further, leaving a patch of knobby spine and rounded shoulders on display through all the smoke.

It was the way the fabric shimmered when Trevor finally turned around to acknowledge him with a wolfish grin. The fucker was wearing-wearing one of Amanda's dresses. And there-right in the far corner of the room, scrunched up like an ugly rose made of worn fabric-were Trevor's sweatpants, splashed red with the blood of the man he had killed only a few hours ago.

"Heeeeey there, sleepy head." greeted Trevor amicably. There was a drunken slur in his voice.

Michael looked him over-from the dirtied suede of his boots, to the socks pulled up just below the knee, up, up, up the length of his thighs-and then promptly turned away, shaking his head. His nose was positively throbbing now as the smoke singed its bruised insides. The pain alone reminded him that he was awake, that this was real.

"I'm making early morning breakfast." Trevor tossed the pan onto the marble counter-top, splashing more shit over the floor, and began to rummage through the cutlery drawers. "Oh, I kinda forgot to wash my hands before I started," he said over his shoulder, but Michael could barely hear him over the drone of his own inner ravings, "so I've still got your dick all over my fingers."

That did get Michael's attention.

"The fuck are you talking about?" he asked, sounding almost desperate in his confusion.

Trevor stared at him. "Your cock," he said, "was out. I tucked the little fella away."

The thought of Trevor putting his hands on him was... terrifying, yes, but-and this Michael was happy to blame on the alcohol-not quite as terrifying as it should have been.

"But hey!" said Trevor suddenly, gesturing wildly with his bare arms, "You've probably had your eager little hands on it a whole lot lately, right? So don't worry about it."

Michael tried to ignore the altogether different sting Trevor's words inflicted.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" said Michael.

"No." Trevor's eyes had narrowed to slits, the smile gone from his face, "I'm honest." He picked the frying pan back up and it came away with a hiss. Michael was sober enough to consider how bad of an idea it might be to get into an argument, but his ego had swollen under the effects of the night's binge, and right now it was saying 'fuck you' to self-preservation, and 'fuck yes' to reclaiming a few points for his wounded masculinity.

He found himself taking a step forward. Trevor watched him, his mouth a grim line, his hand clenched around the handle of the pan. Michael could see the scorched oil spitting over the sides, and took another step. This time Trevor straightened out, rising to his full height; a warning written in every tight coil of muscle.

It was then that something clicked. Michael saw with perfect clarity that Trevor was holding back. All these years, all the fights, all the tension of the recent weeks, it was a force of sheer willpower Michael hadn't even realized the man owned.

And then something else occurred to him. The days before North Yankton, when people had hung to his every word, Trevor had been among them. He'd been just as riveted and willing to follow as everyone else. For all of his unruliness, he had still fallen into rank and embraced his role as a follower.

Trevor didn't want to be in control. He was clinging to the memory of a dead friend, of a man who had called the shots. What Trevor wanted was a ghost, a ghost that would put him in his place and force him to submit.

Michael wasn't that man anymore, but maybe, just for tonight, Townley could rise from the grave and put this wild animal back in his cage.


A/N: Sorry this is so short (and terrible), I really struggled getting this part written, and it did not come out how I intended. I need to stop thinking about it when I'm bed, or at least start getting out of bed to write down the stuff, ehhh. Slash is coming, I promise.