He was chilled the whole way through, numb in more ways then one. He had stopped shivering already. The hot bath would burn him later, as usual, but it didn't matter. This was the way.
He'd run all out of tears, after Lisa.
Jack had held him together, but he had already been broken. Pieces holding shape through external pressure. But that pressure had been lessening as Jack's attention detoured and now he was only half a man. He used to wonder about how he could've been, living a happy life. Now he didn't wonder about anything. He played along with Jack's games.
Romance and drinks and art in bed, a complex game of roleplay.
I'll pretend to love you, Ianto, and you'll smile for me.
He didn't know what a smile felt like anymore, a hollow form.
If he wasn't like this, the feelings would kill him.
Want, desire, need. Love, hope, faith. Hate, anger, despair.
Ianto knew things. He knew so many things, so many more than he could stand.
He knew that when Jack had come back for 'all of them,' he'd gone to the vaults with Gwen and had, in that roundabout way of his, professed his love.
He knew that when Jack had asked him out, it was because Ianto had cut off his suggestive invitation for 'recreation,' and the Captain had known he'd have to play this game a little harder if he still wanted to get his way.
He knew this was no way to live.
He knew there was no other way, not for him.
Ianto didn't move when arms wrapped around him from behind, missed the naked pain in Jack's eyes when he pressed his cheek against sleek hair. He didn't taste the salt in the water on the man's face, didn't hear the trembling hitch in his voice, didn't translate the shaking shoulders as anything but a reaction to the icy rain.
"Come inside, Ianto." Fingers brushed against his cheek, his jaw, mapping his face, his blank expression. They twitched against his throat, Jack sucking in a breath at the sluggish pulse. "Please."
He didn't fight it. He never did.