"Can you believe him?" Tom asked, pacing angrily around the living room of the house he shared with Mike. "That fucking punk bitch wanna-be thinks he's gonna start something with ME and get away with it? He's fuckin' lucky that I didn't beat him into next week."

Mike sat wearily in his chair watching Tom pace erratically around the living room. He couldn't help but smirk at the thought of Tom trying to beat up Jared. The boy may resemble a very tall puppy, but Mike knew there was steel in that boy's backbone. There was no way Tom could kick Jared's ass unless his alter ego of Superman came to life.

"What the fuck are you smirking at, baldy? And where the hell were you anyway? Why the fuck didn't you stick up for me?" Tom screamed, storming forward, stopping when he was standing in front of his boyfriend, forgetting the fact that both Jared and Tom were bigger than Mike.

'Why indeed,' Mike wondered to himself looking up at the man he'd been so very faithful to over the years and gotten so little out of that wasn't painful. He couldn't help but think of the way Jared defended Jensen and feel envious. He'd given everything to Tom only to be let down time and time again.

Everything he had and everything he was he'd put into Tom. Trying beyond the point where anyone else would have given up to be whatever it was Tom needed him to be so that he could love him, and yet it was never enough. He'd tried so hard and given up so much that he wasn't even sure where he was anymore beneath all the rubble that lay waste behind him. He'd sacrificed his pride. He'd sacrificed his other friends. He'd turned his back on Jensen just because Tom wanted him to and yet they still offered him a place to be safe.

Safe.

That was something Mike didn't really remember anymore. It was becoming some faint memory of the past that he was beginning to wonder if he'd ever find again.

He was tired. Tired in a way that couldn't be fixed with sleep, couldn't be made to go away over hiatus. He was tired of the show, he was tired of the bullshit. He was tired of Tom.

So caught up in his thoughts Mike missed most of Tom's ramblings and thus didn't see the warning signs of violence coming until it was already upon him. Because of this, he wasn't prepared when Tom struck out, his fist connecting with the side of Mike's face. Reflexively his eyes snapped shut as his head twisted to the side painfully, and he froze with the protective glint in Jared's eyes caught in his head. His words echoing like the promise they'd been. "When you're ready Mikey." Mike knew Jared. Knew Jared would never say the words if he didn't mean it. Knew Jared would never say the words if Jen wasn't ok with it.

And that just very well may have been what changed everything.

Jensen, who was so caught in his own private hell he couldn't begin to find his way out on his own, was willing to stick his neck out for a man who had turned his back on him, regardless of the reasons why. And even to Mike's own ears, the words were hollow. "It's what Tommy wants," he'd said, knowing how lame it sounded but unable at the time to imagine risking the loss of something he'd fought so long and hard for.

Now, though, it was different. The months he'd been isolated from everyone hadn't worked in Tom's favor. Deceivingly intelligent, Mike'd had plenty of time to reflect on his circumstances and how he'd gotten there, wonder if what he had was really worth fighting for, and question if what he'd lost wasn't more valuable than what he'd given it up for. Friendship, true blue honest to God friendship, the kind a man could bet everything he owned on and still come out the winner, that was what he'd traded this hell for. That was what he'd traded for Tom.

Later when the cops asked him to explain what happened, Mike would open his mouth to give the normal bullshit story only to find himself telling the truth. As if he was in some out of body experience he'd tell how he was gay and he'd been in an abusive relationship. He'd tell how his boyfriend used to drug him and he'd show the marks and scars on his body, both fresh and old. He'd tell his story to the officer, to the EMT, to the doctor, and to the psychiatrist at the hospital. He'd refuse to see the network rep who tried to get in, Mike thinking cynically, to do damage control.

All the while picturing Jared.

Thinking about that look in his eyes. That fiery passion, that hot anger when he'd realized that Jensen was being disparaged by Tom. Remembering that moment when he realized that what he had was so far lacking from what Jared and Jensen had. Trying to wrap his mind around the concept that Tom just wasn't worth fighting for and sacrificing for. Wondering how Jensen had found someone to love him when he was stumbling blind through a sandstorm and Mike was still lost when he'd thought he'd been keeping his eye on the ball.

Once he was released he'd go to the home he'd shared with Tom and pack what little he wanted to keep into his car before leaving hell forever.

Later he'd sit in Jared's driveway trying to work up the courage to go inside. To admit that he wasn't strong enough to protect himself and that he'd been wrong in how he'd abandoned Jensen.

Later he'd do a lot of self-analyzing and soul-searching, as his friends tried to help him heal. Later he would learn to laugh again and find the man he'd lost to Tom's abuse. Later he'd find new love and learn what it was really meant to be. Later he'd do a lot of things,

But right at that moment, with Tom standing in front of him, high and eyes blazing with hatred...

Right at that moment with his cheek throbbing, his heart breaking, and his spine straightening…

Mike took his first step.

Mike fought back.

Read Sixth Step: To Protect The One You Love in the Steps Verse