That's When We Uncover [Jensen Ackles + Misha Collins | Cockles | mxm]

Chapter Forty-Six

"Get up, Jensen," Misha urges.

As soon as I've risen shakily to my feet, Misha drops to one knee before me, assuming the same stance he's just told me to abandon. "I'm saying no to you, Jensen, because I don't deserve your offer." His lips are tight with suppressed emotion, quivering. "And because I already said yes to you once before."

"Jensen Ross Ackles, you are..." Misha blinks furiously, fighting the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. "You're fucking crazy. Crazy for putting up with me all this time, crazy for not giving up on me when any other self-respecting man would've called it quits." He breathes in harsh and laboured.

"I know I haven't made this easy for you. But it hasn't been easy for me either," Misha confesses. "You have no idea what you've been doing to me. How hard it's been to hold back. To act affronted, indifferent, unfeeling. Jensen, I tried so hard. So damn hard to forget you. I think I deserve a fucking Oscar."

Misha's laugh is bitter with the sting of remorse, laden with heartache. "I've been going through hell, coming to terms with myself. But ending your marriage, coming out to the world...I didn't know how you could be so brave. I was so...divided, for so long, between all the things I had to do and the things I wanted. I didn't know what was right anymore. I had always assumed we were wrong, but the way I felt for you...called all my convictions into question. I wasn't sure of anything anymore. Except that I loved you. I tried to stop feeling anything for you for the sake of everything I hold dear. I tried to rise above it, and it seemed a worthy endeavour, until I couldn't do it anymore."

My pulse escalates with growing realization. Everything comes flying together - all the conversations with his wife and his kids, that first night we went out and what we talked about - like pieces of the most important puzzle.

"Oh, fuck," I whisper. It all makes sense now. The math is adding itself up in my head and I close my eyes with a shallow breath, heart tripping all over itself. "You and Vicki already divorced...didn't you?"

The silence is long and heavy.

"Yes," Misha replies at length. "We finally ended it after that talk you and I had on our first date, Jensen. But it was a long time coming. She thought so too."

So that's what everyone was trying to tell me. But - that night was - how could...

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I felt I had no right," Misha whispers in a voice that sounds more broken than whole. "How could I just...waltz back into your life after everything I'd done and expect you to forgive me and take me back? You never gave up on me," Misha intones with rising despair, "on us." He rubs a hand over his eyes and lips his lips, quivering with emotion. "And then you got down on your knees and - God, fucking shit, Jensen, I don't deserve you." He lowers his gaze contritely. "I'm the fool." He grips my hands breathlessly, squeezing. "Remember how I told you that night to let me go?"

I nod, breath caught in my throat, the thick swell barely allowing the words past.

"You told me to move on..."

"I lied."

My heartbeat flutters fast and Misha finally looks up at me again. "And I told myself I wasn't going to do this, that it would be asking too much of anyone after what you've been through because of me. But hearing you tonight gave me hope. Jensen, I'm afraid to ask this, because I don't think it is humanly possible to feel less deserving of something than I feel of you right now. But tell me one more time, if it's true. Do you really love me?"

The answer spills forth without hesitation, clear and unchanged.

"Yes."