Fffc March Special Bingo - Tested

[m_findlow]

Title: Tested
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Angelo Colassanto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 822 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Miracle Day Ep 4.7
Author notes: Written for fffc March Special Bingo Card - Prompt 6 - God's plan
Summary: Angelo misread the signs he was given.

Angelo panicked as he watched on helplessly. One after the other they came at Jack, screaming infidelities, lashing his body with knives and whips, broken bottles and guns. His screams pierced the room with each painful flagellation, each cut, each bullet that tore through him and left him hanging there limply, his life force draining away from his body. There wasn't time for pleading before the next one came at him. All the while the butcher's wife was gathering the women around her, scooping up Jack's blood, still warm, into bottles and vials, praying to the Lord as they worked. When Jack's body went silent and still, it was almost a relief to Angelo. If God was really here watching them, he prayed that perhaps this time Jack didn't wake back up. When he did, it would only begin again, with the same amount of religious fervor.

It had all gone wrong. He'd seen Jack die with his own eyes in that alleyway. The bullet had gone straight through his skull, killing him in an instant, leaving him crumpled on the ground. Yet as Angelo finally stepped out beyond those prison gates, having served his time for the same crime Jack had lost his life over, there Jack had been standing, waiting for him. Jack looked just the same, sharp and polished in that suit, same cheeky smile and dazzling blue eyes. Angelo had spent that whole year in prison trying to understand why he'd gone against God in loving another man, and decided that he'd been wrong. When he got out of prison, he'd make good on his faith and find himself a woman to love. Now Jack had walked back into his life and lured him straight back down into the depths of hell. He'd though Jack must have been the Devil, coming to tempt him into sinning again. This was the test, and this time Angelo had been determined to slay the Devil for his wickedness.

Jack no longer looked like any devil Angelo could imagine. Rather he looked like the son of God, chained there in the cellar, hanging bloodied and bleeding, shackled like Christ to the cross. He thought that God had been testing him and he'd been right, only it wasn't the Devil that had been set in Angelo's path, but a savior. Hadn't Christ also resurrected after death? He had thought that his God didn't love him, ashamed of him for loving a man, but perhaps it had been God's plan to show Angelo just how much he was loved by giving him the one thing he needed more than anything: a friend and a companion to see him through all the years. And now he'd gone and done the unthinkable, offering up God's gift to these God fearing people.

As the beatings and the horror continued, he disappeared from the room, unable to listen to the screams and the chanting and the praying anymore. He'd done this. Done this to Jack. He'd condemned him to what he'd thought must be a penance for their sins. He should have been the one tied up there, flailed by the masses for the wickedness he'd brought here. He'd taken God's gift and shamed himself.

Eventually the chanting and the women's prayers ceased, each of them slowly returning to their homes, laden with their gifts, Jack's blood, concealed in baskets under cloths and deep within apron pockets. Inside it was no longer a butcher's shop, but rather a place where butchery had taken place. Before he could return, three men in suits passed him by on the street and were admitted into the butcher's cellar. He waited in silence in the dark until they left. They were not carrying any evidence that they'd also taken blood, nor did they seem to be religious men. He could tell that whatever their interest, they did not wish Jack good fortune. He knew the criminal sort when he saw them. He had to get Jack out of there before anyone else came back.

Perhaps that was the test God had set for him, a chance to right the wrongs he'd made. He would not fail this time. He realised that he loved Jack, no matter whether that was right, wrong or otherwise. He owed it to Jack to try and fix this. Whether Jack would trust him was another matter entirely. He hadn't wanted to give his heart over, even before this. He'd take them away, though, far from this neighborhood and these people. What had Jack said? Head for the west coast, a face good enough for the movies. They could escape New York and head west, or south, or anywhere. Or they could do this Torchwood thing together. Either way, they'd run far from here, where nobody would know who they were or what they were. That was the only plan he meant to follow from here on in.