"As if I don't stare at you training with every available opportunity you adorable, perfect man. Do you know every time I look you up and down and imagine you as you are now, my heart begins to race and I feel suddenly flushed and weak-kneed? This is the effect you have on me, my Jack. I feel like I'm drowning in your ocean of radiance. And I am a willing victim. Never you fear that," he said with a small grin and another soothing kiss.

Theo kept his touches light and tender as he took in all of Fletcher's words. Giving things up and wanting things to be over so others could continue.  A future. Their future. He hadn't really considered it until then. Wanted it of course. But it was a forbidden, hidden thing kept buried beneath the locked doors of his heart's vault. It was not a thing he dared dream of. But here was this amazing, beautiful man being so bold as to dream it for them both. A man who wanted to fall more in love with him. A man that like himself danced around saying the actual words but all the same all but screamed it for the stars to hear.

"...What is something you'd like to do together once this is all over and I'm no longer engaged?"

Fletcher grumbled and came as close as he ever did to a pout. "But I like all that. I want all that. You know it's been ages since anyone's done that thing you do like you're imagining me without a shirt? At least be a little bad, won't you? When there's no one around but the two of us?"

He bit his lip as he gazed down at his love. "I can't wait for this to be over for you," he added quietly. "This is living. This, here. And I hate the thought of giving it up for the sake of being careful." He leaned down and planted a kiss on Theo's lips: a tender one that spoke of his hopes for the future. "Everyone's a puzzle," he replied as he drew away. "Everyone has secrets and inner workings that they keep close. You do. I do. So I'll never have you all figured out, no. But I've seen enough to know that anything else I learn about you will just make me love you more."

"I assumed it was an insult, that you called me it because I am noble and soft-handed without hardship. I did not think you actually meant it because you found me pretty. It is a welcome surprise that you do."

He made a soft concerned face and gave Fletcher's shoulder a squeeze. "I am the incautious one. I tease you and crave you and challenge you in broad daylight in public when I should not. Your eyes are not the only ones that linger. I will be good. We will make sure we do not get sloppy in our excitement to be close. That is all."

Theo settled back into the bed more and looked up at Fletcher curiously. "Have you figured me all out now? Or am I still your puzzle?"

"Oh, no, I never said it was," he smirked as he drew away. "Just said I can be. We'll save wild for a day when it's just the two of us here. And I see you joking, Pretty Boy, but you did. I've been calling you that in my head since the first day I arrived. I've been trying to figure you out for just as long. So smoke on that, hmm?"

Fletch thought a little more on what he'd said. About being cautious. Not being too greedy. He craved Theo like a drug. The last thing he wanted was less of the man. His smile began to wilt. "What part of it's not careful, anyways?"

"This...was you wild?" He grinned with a rarer seen confidence. "I enjoy your wild, my heart. We just must continue with care. I would not want to lose this with you because we got too greedy too fast."

Theo smoothed his hand over Fletcher's chest, feeling the man's heartbeat pulsing against his fingertips. "I find myself becoming that man the more I bask in your presence, the more I find a safe harbor in your embrace."

A sly grin curled his lips then as he pulled Fletcher in by the back of the neck for another kiss. "Did I not turn your head then when we first met?"

Fletch blinked like he'd been spoken to in another language. He shifted to prop himself up on one elbow. "Well, yeah. I mean...I suppose. I just know I can get a little wild is all." Even though Theo now had some idea of what he meant by it, he still looked sheepish at the thought. "Just trying not to scare you. As for the rest...it's not everyone's cup of tea. Certainly something I'd prefer not to be on the receiving end of, so...if you don't like it either, then you don't. We can set it aside. This right here was all I wanted: just not having to hold back for once. Just...telling you how much you drive me wild. The rest — it'll happen when it happens."

His tired and satisfied smile returned. "Speak for yourself. Do you know how bloody hard it is for me not to stare at you when I'm on the job? You're just so..." Fletch released Theo's hand and reached up to brush his fingers over the man's shoulder. There was no word powerful enough to do him any justice. "When you were reading today. I think I'll have that in my mind forever. Just you. No one else's expectations. Just...you. Happy. I'm...I...I'm so shit at this, Theo," he chuckled. "You're beautiful. You'd turn my head if you were a stranger. But I guess I'm trying to say that...the man I'm desperate for is the one I saw earlier."

He petted his lover's face, loving the feel of stubble beneath his fingertips as he offered quiet reassurance. "I know. I swore off too and then in you came barreling into my life and I feel pulled like the current to your shore. No escape. And no desire to try."

Theo tilted his head though at the reassurance returned to him. Something Fletcher kept saying gave him pause. "You know you're not bad for having desires that do not match my own? Any more than if I had desires at a time you didn't I am not bad? We say stop, we stop no matter what stage."

He cupped the other man's chin and gave it a tweak. "I cannot imagine making you wait much longer. If this is how this feels...I could easily be made content under your mastery. Just...you know it is not because of you? It is entirely me. You are deeply attractive and charming and I feel safe with you. I know when I am ready it will be with you. And I've never imagined that before with anyone."

"I...wasn't looking, either, love." He faded out for a moment, lost in thought, and wherever his mind took him left him just a little melancholy. "When you came along, I wasn't ready. I didn't think I'd ever be ready for it again, after...after how he went. Certainly not within a matter of a couple of years. You know?" He came back to the present suddenly and with an intense need to clarify, and he squeezed Theo's hand back with a steadying firmness. "But I was wrong. I am. I want this. Wherever it leads, I want this."

Fletch looked more and more concerned as Theo thanked him. "Theo, that's...that's how it's supposed to go. These aren't special things I'm doing. It's basic decency. You're the same with me. Anyways, I...had a lot of practice being good and waiting...for a very long time, love, so...it's just how this has to be. You say stop, I stop."

He squeezed his hand back, equally. "One hell of a meant to be, huh? The market. The job. The gods seemed to not want to take any chances it wouldn't come to this. I know I certainly wasn't looking for this. I was...adamant I would never feel this again. And then you had to go and be so...kind."

His eyes misted up as he turned his head enough to kiss Fletcher's chin. "Thank you. For all of it. For being kind. For taking care of me. Respecting me and my wishes. I know how hard that is. For being patient because I'm...so new to all this and shy. I don't know what I did to deserve you. But I'm grateful it was you."

He lay there quiet for a long while, chest heaving and utterly spent. His mind was blank but for the impulse to evoke the three simple words that had fallen loose in their torrid passion. Because after all, he did love the man. Didn't he? He did. He'd fallen for Theo so wholly, so completely. It wasn't a trick of the mind. It wasn't the intensity of the moment, or the enticing danger in their affair. He'd thought he knew what love was before, but he truly had never felt quite like this in his life. And it had started months ago, too. At the night market. He'd realized then that he cared. He just...didn't know how much until now.

Fletch rolled to face Theo. The intensity of his fire had quelled to a gentle warmth, and an ever-present, sleepy little smile softened his features. As he basked in the man's presence, the depth of his infatuation couldn't have been more plain. "It's a little different every time," he said. "But...yeah. More or less. If you can't walk by the end of it, it means I've done my job. And if you can't talk, well..." He sought Theo's hand beneath the blankets, found it, and slipped their fingers together, seeking an altogether different entanglement. But whether it was his addled state or his hesitancy to say what he truly wanted to, his words didn't come easy to him. "Theo. That day in the market. When I knocked you over. And made the worst impression I could have possibly made. I...what were the chances, you know? What were the chances that I'd...that I'd found someone so damned beautiful?"