This time, I intercept the alarm and let Jensen go back to sleep while I hit the trail.

I'm wearing shorts that don't mold to my ass, because apparently hell hath no fury like Jensen when someone gives said part of me a lewd onceover within a fifty mile radius of him. And if they chance a playful slap, Jensen flinches like the blow is to his very soul.

I'm genuinely sorry for the poor, deluded bastard, because he clearly thinks my ass is made of solid freaking gold and engraved with his name.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

When I return to my trailer, drenched in sweat and panting heavily, Jensen's still looking like a demigod lying on the bed.

I absolutely don't stare at him.

At all.

After a quick shower, I towel off and change into clean clothes. I move quietly around the room, retrieving my laptop and charger cord. As I tiptoe past the bed, however, I can't help but glance furtively at Jensen out of the corner of my eye.

One of his arms is thrown behind his head and his jaw is relaxed, forehead smooth. His chest and abdomen are flushed pink with sleep and his honey-coloured hair is softly mussed, a stark contrast against the white pillows.

I'm not ready for this moment. I never expected to experience it. But here it is, nonetheless: the early dawn light bathing Jensen Ackles' naked torso, my sheets tangled in his legs. I shiver at my luck.

I should wake him up and smuggle him the hell out of here before someone notices. I should at least pull the blanket up around him; those boxers are slung perilously low on his pretty hips.

I swallow and walk resolutely to the kitchenette.

At the table, I drop my hands to my laptop, taking my frustration out on the keys as I pound out my search term.

But I can't stop peeking over the screen at Jensen: a nagging, flesh-and-blood reminder of how fucking screwed I am.

I stand up and sit back down in the chair facing away from the bed.

It doesn't help.

The minutes seem to crawl by at a glacial pace and, after a while, I stand up again. I spin around, grabbing frantically at my hair. I tug, hard, but the pain does nothing to ground me, fear and dread clogging my throat.

I'm headed for the biggest fucking fall of my life; I've been falling for what feels like forever now and I can't even see bottom. Misha, stop stop stop stop-

"Zero to sex hair in five seconds." The sound of Jensen's low, gravelly voice jolts me out of my Deep Thought Territory. "That's my Mish."

I grip the edge of the table with whitening knuckles as Jensen yawns, sitting up and scratching absentmindedly at his bare stomach.

Shit, you're so beautiful, Jensen... Do me hard-

Huh?

"Morning," I blurt.

Slowly, he pulls back the blanket and clambers to his feet, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

With a mumbled good morning, he shuffles over to the counter to fill a glass of water, downing it in one go.

"Uh, I've got tea, coffee," I ramble, pointedly redirecting my attention to my laptop. "Whatever you want."

Jensen turns to look at me and blinks slowly.

"Whatever I want?"

I frown, looking up to see him advancing slowly towards me. Despite the early hour, his eyes sparkle hot and dark, a sudden, playful smile flitting across his handsome features.

"Oh no you don't," I warn. He's looking too fantastic and too close to naked and I know way better than to let him stay another minute.

I back up, bumping against the table, my chair skidding across the floor. "You just stay over there with your hipbones and your happy trail, and your - crap."

Jensen backs me up against the sink, crowding me. Grinning, he slides his hands under my t-shirt, inching it up so he can play with the muscles that quiver along my stomach.

"Too much clothing, Mish," he growls, low and sultry. "Already told you."

"Jensen-" I moan when he cuts me off, tongue reaching deep within the recesses of my mouth. "Mmm," I mumble, too preoccupied now with hot, hot lips and warm, wet tongue. He breaks away long enough to lick a long, wet stripe up my neck and loop one finger in my belt loop, tugging me closer.

"You were saying?" The words are punctuated by small bites of suction to my throat.

"You're treading a fine line here, Ackles," I breathe, swiping a thumb across my bottom lip. He chuckles and leans away slightly, providing some much-needed distance. I take a deep, cleansing breath. My head is still hazy and I wonder what the hell we're doing, how the hell it came to this.

"Mish, does that pretty, pink mouth of yours come with an off switch?"

Against my better judgement, I nod helplessly and open my mouth under him in another deep kiss.

I moan when he licks his way into my mouth and our tongues slide together, warm and sweet, his fingers feeling like little sizzles of delightful fire on my face. We kiss for a long time, too long, until I feel like I'm going to pass out from the heat and lack of oxygen and the throbbing desire in my veins.

"Jen-" I warn, pants achingly tight, his full name too much for my thick tongue.

And that's when I realize that we're going to have a problem if I don't walk away right fucking now. Actually that needs to be done, like, yesterday, because Jensen is unbuttoning my fly with a quick flick of his wrist.

"We have at least two hours before either of us has a scene to shoot," he murmurs, pushing his fingers into my fly. "That's plenty of time."

I grunt, screwing my eyes shut. "Jensen, stop," I manage to whisper. "Can't do this."

"Can't or won't," he asks calmly, pulling my zipper down as far as it'll go. He smiles at the ridge of hard flesh springing to life under his hand.

"Fuck," I gasp, prying the searching fingers from my fly, but he applies a very convincing argument with lips and tongue.

"Now you're getting the idea," Jensen chuckles around my mouth. His hips press against mine in a slow, blatant grind. "Let's stop trying to fight this, okay?"

I feel strangely detached, as though watching myself through a window, or maybe that's my consciousness screaming at me to stop before I can't turn back. Sweet frissions of pleasure skirt along my spine. "Don't you want this," he whispers into my stubbled cheek. "Don't you want me?"

"I don't." I shake my head in a desperate attempt to convince myself that I'm not as utterly and hopelessly fucked as I suspect I am.

"You let me in. That night after Jared's." He's licking and kissing and sucking long and hard at the exposed skin of my neck.

"I was confused," I whisper, bottom lip trembling.

Jensen was standing there looking like a goddamn Greek god with his jeans soaked jet black, t-shirt translucent and sticking in all the right places across his shoulders, chest and abdomen. "You jumped me. What was I supposed to do?"

I try to suppress memories of rain dripping from his hair, over sharp cheekbones, down into his mouth. Pelting down on us as we ran cold, wet hands over heated flesh...

"Fine."

Jensen sighs, zipping my pants up with a theatrical flourish. My brain is too fuddled to form words as he pulls on his own clothing.

Then he leaves me, leaning against the counter, cold and half-hard and convinced that there is a very real possibility I might die.

When the door slams behind him, I glance at the digital display on the microwave and think, time of death: 7:03 A.M.

***

"We're here," Jared murmurs, drumming his fingers lightly on the wheel and glancing askance at me.

I lie still and quiet in my seat. Clicking the button on my seatbelt and letting it slither slowly off my chest.

"C'mon, man," Jared smiles as I follow him out of the car. He's got on a blue flannel shirt underneath his coat and his hair is hanging in his eyes. The throbbing pulse of music spills out through the double doors. "You looked like you could use a pick me up."

I concede that I like the buzz of the place, the frantic energy that always seems to surround a busy bar team who've worked together long enough to be a well-oiled machine, tossing bottles and setting shots on fire with cheerful smiles on their faces.

The bartenders are whipping from one end of the bar to the other and dispensing shots and cherries and flirtatious winks alike. One of them, a purple-haired man with enough earnings to start his own jewellery store, bends down to retrieve a bottle from the chiller cabinets, pours one last sloppy shot of whisky, and then he's in front of me.

"What's your poison, good sir?" I watch his eyebrows climb towards his shocking purple hairline.

When I don't offer a response, Jared leans over with a complacent smile and orders a round.

He has no idea why I've been so down lately, ever since Jensen left my trailer that heated morning almost a week ago.

Not only has he never stayed the night again, but Jensen even avoids my trailer as a hangout venue, insisting that we all chill at his place or Jared's instead.

The worst part is that he isn't even angry with me.

No, he doesn't bless me with even the barest semblance of a frown, because that would be acknowledging that something happened between us, and Jensen seems determined to pretend it didn't.

He remains cool and impassive and reserved on set, eerily resemblant of pre-Destiel Jensen. Like I never happened. Like he never kissed me or told me he wanted to fuck me or slept in my bed with his goddamned hands all over me. Like I don't still have to wear collared shirts to cover the hickeys he planted all over my torso. Like... Like he regrets everything. Like he decided we were wrong.

Of course, I've always known that, but the fact that he reached this conclusion without us ever even talking about it stings more than I care to admit.

And we never did talk, not really. We never gave a name to what we shared in the dark, behind closed doors. But what we were doing was wrong, so I suppose I should be grateful that he decided to end it. I should be grateful that I had the good sense not to go any further. Never mind the hollow ache in my chest that says otherwise, and the cold emptiness of my bed, and the - goddammit, his absence is so real and palpable on my skin that it's hard to believe we never even had sex.

And yet, in some strange way that I can't explain, what we did have was way more intimate than sex.

Thinking they're doing us a favour, the writers and producers have decided to 'tone Destiel down for a much-needed break,' presumably out of guilt for having already pushed us so far out of our comfort zones.

Jensen is immensely relieved. And as far as everyone else is concerned, so am I.

But the truth is that I'm so desperate for an excuse to have him touch me again, for him to at least look at me for longer than three seconds, to talk to me about something other than whether I'd like more beer or what I want to watch on TV. And Destiel was that excuse.

I almost wish I had let Jensen have his way with me that morning.

Almost.

Because every time I Skype with Vicki and the kids, a small, sorely-neglected but rational part of my brain thanks me. For remaining faithful to my wife, loyal to my kids. For not letting things get out of hand.

If you're in love with two people, choose the second. Because if you really loved the first, you wouldn't have fallen for the second.

No.

I tell myself that whatever we felt for each other is nothing compared to the love we have for our wives, and that I did the right thing. Jensen probably does the same, and thus pass the days.

"Why did I let you talk me into this," I mumble around the rim of my glass. I have no idea when it comes to Jared and his damn puppy dog eyes.

"It's the eyes," Jared grins, as though reading my mind. He flutters his lashes coyly.

"Shut up," I mutter. "Go braid your hair or shave your legs."

Laughing, Jared reaches a freakishly long arm across the table and swats my head. I narrow my eyes, gaze bleary, trying to focus on the Cuervo logo on the bottle in front of me. It might be a good idea to make the switch to beer now.

"Misha," Jared sighs after a beat. His face loses all traces of his earlier mischief, replaced by genuine concern. "Look, man, I was hoping you might tell me what's been bothering you lately. And don't say you're fine."

"I am fine." I scrub the heel of my left palm down my face and attempt redirection. "Need some tequila, though."

I lean back in my seat, surreptitiously slanting my body so I can see the bane of my existence across the dim interior of the bar. He's laughing and talking and drinking it up with the others.

I try not to think about how much of that pocket bulge is cellphone and how much is Jensen. Goodness knows I'll never find out now.

I just want go home and die on my bed.

All night, he doesn't look my way once, or give me any reason to believe he might be thinking of me. And even if he was, I'm not sure it would be enough anymore.

There was a time when all I wanted was for him to think of me too, to feel like I wasn't out of my mind for wanting him. But now I know that he felt something for me, and he was mine for two nights and now he isn't. He may be the best thing that's never been mine.

And it hurts worse than if I'd never had him at all.

I let Jared ply me with shots while he stays stone-cold sober, looking at me through imploring, annoyingly soft eyes.

When I start a slurred, hiccupy monologue about how tequila speaks to me on a spiritual level, Jared decides I've had enough.

He wedges his shoulder under my arm to keep me upright and guides me to the parking lot with steady hands. The cool night air hits me like a slap, not quite penetrating my alcohol haze, but definitely helping me see a little clearer.

Back in my trailer, I roll over in bed and press my face into the mattress. It's hard to breathe, but I stay like that. The bed smells like my skin and fabric softener, and nothing like Jensen.

I drag the sheet over my body like a shroud.