Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "Preacher." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Based on the popular fan theory that Fiore and Deblanc are actually Genesis parents. I wanted to examine their backstory a bit and ended up getting ahead of myself, so-

Disclaimer:canon appropriate violence, blood, gore, injury, death, religious imagery/definitions/symbolism/discussion.

Temenos

Chapter Eight

Fiore was waiting for him - restless and unhappy - the next time they were able to meet in the mountain cave. It was the first time in months and the separation showed. Fiore might have been indignant, but he in contrast was moving slow. Careful. Exhausted. Feeling ten times his true age was as the sharp of his ribs showed prominently against his filthy hide.

"Where have you been?" Fiore demanded, on him immediately. Wings bristling in affront like he was directly to blame. Going as far as to deliberately clip him with a wingtip as he nodded a greeting and slipped deeper into the cave. "I thought-"

"You thought what?" he prompted, joints aching as he eased back against the rock with a pained grunt. Hyper-aware that the angel was following his every move.

"Never mind what I thought!" Fiore snapped, clearly agitated. "Where have you been? I couldn't find you. You weren't here, where-"

Fiore paused mid-rant, cocking his head. Looking him over before the expression on his face softened a fraction.

"What's wrong with you?"

"I got sent on a mission. Top-side. To Earth. Something that needed special handling," he explained, wincing when the gnarled knots of abused muscles pulled uncomfortably tight under his skin. "Things did not go exactly as advertised."

The angle of Fiore's wings checked themselves dramatically. Slowly unpuffing before smoothing flat. Settling back down into something approximating normal before he spoke again.

"Earth? Humans?"

"Yeah, and all their little foibles," he answered, only slightly bitter. Missing the open skies and the softness of the soil. The smells. The food. The sounds. Everything. It was the first time he'd been to ground since he'd been made and the memories it'd drudged up had been relentless. They were vague impressions mostly, barely understood flashes and long dead sensory experiences that seemed determined to haunt him. "Ever been?"

"No- course not," Fiore needled, like he needed yet another reminder of the differences between them. "Never had permission."

He looked up at the angel with a smirk.

Jealousy.

Clearly he was rubbing off on him.

"I didn't have the opportunity to warn you," he said after a moment, apology unvoiced but meant all the same. "But I did bring you back something."

Fiore's head jerked up. The action alone threatening to make him grin as the dry of his lips pulled painfully against the cut-up corners. Feeling something tighten pleasantly in his chest as he pulled the bundle he'd hidden inside his steel-sheath and handed it to him.

"It's a comic book," he explained, as Fiore took it delicately. As if one wrong move could send it powdering to bits. "It has pictures and words; it tells a story. Lots of people like them for the story- but I figured you'd like the buildings. It had a city on the cover so-"

He trailed off with a shrug.

"You got this for me?"

Fiore's face was naked. Stripped bare and painfully open as he stared at him. Making him suddenly aware of the moment and all it's intricacies as the air inside the cave muddled itself into a grudging, comfortable warmth.

"Figured it was only fair, burned your other book, didn't I?"

Fiore dipped his head, saying nothing. Unrolling the comic with careful reverence. Acting like it was some sort of holy object. Almost like-

"What is it like?" Fiore asked after a moment. Voice surprisingly hoarse. Running his thumb down the stapled edge of the cover before tracing the bold letters of the title.

"Sit down," he countered instead, patting the rocky ground beside him insistently. Seeing an opening and taking it unashamedly as Fiore turned to look at him - assessing and questioning all at once. "I'm done in, least you can do is make it so I don't have to crane my neck while I tell you about it."

He'd baited the hook. He'd admit that much. But somehow he had a feeling that soon he wouldn't have to. Experiencing something possessive and clean ripple through him when the angel did just that. Lowering himself beside him before looking up expectantly.

Their shoulders were almost brushing.

It was distracting.

Good.

"Tell me," Fiore hummed. Flipping to the first page where a dark alley lit up by distant street lights and a sickly city glow glinted from its glossy pages.
"It is busy. Busier than it used to be," he answered slowly, trying to relive it. Trying show him by just telling. "The air in the cities isn't as fresh, but you can still taste the water in the air. The country is better. More open. All long grass and a sky that seems to go on forever."

"What kind of buildings are there?"

"Every kind," he returned. Some are just functional; some are more- more works of art than anything. Things have changed down there, that's for sure. That's humans for you, though. Always busy doing something, figurin' it's new. That it's never been done before when the truth is it's already been a thousand times. Recycling and all that."

"And humans? What are they like?"

He thought about the people who'd passed him on the street. The newspaper with the bold headlines being sold at a corner shop. The old man screaming at shadows with gin on his breath - ignored by people hurrying past. The woman with the tired eyes, but honest smile who'd served him coffee from a dent pewter carafe. Ruddy cheeks coloring prettily when he'd called her "love," and told her to take care of herself when he left.

He thought about the man walking home from work with a coal-dust cough. Breaking into a wide smile when the sound of his children calling his name in chorus reached him. About the gang of street urchins pinching wallets on main street with thin faces. The soft swell of an expectant mother slowly getting onto a state-car, her husband's driver hovering behind her like any moment they expected her to fall. Her angry words drifting through the shuttered window as she said something scathing to the person inside.

He hummed an open-minded note.

"They just are. Some are good. Some are bad. Most are somewhere in between Teetering between heaven and hell with no idea what's at stake. If they knew-"

"They don't. They can't. That's the point," Fiore reminded primly, sounding like he was reciting from the scriptures again as his wings flared imperiously. "When humans began to doubt, it was decided. Those that decide to be good, that are good, that try- they ascend. The others-"

"Fall," he finished bluntly.

Just like he had.

Just like the soul that had worn this skin.

Fiore said nothing for a long time after that.

There wasn't anything to say, really.

Hours passed before Fiore spoke again.

Long enough that the shadows at the mouth of the cave had deepened in shade and depth. Adding a layer of severity and a certain heaviness to an already sour mood right up until Fiore set the comic down between them with an audible sound.

"Why?" Fiore asked hesitantly. Like he wasn't sure if he should. "Why did you fall?"

"I didn't. He did," he snarled, the last bit leaving his mouth in a spit of distaste as he gestured down at himself. Down at the shell - the skin. Displaying the coarseness of his hide - the way it pulled taut over the bones as bile surged thick in his throat. Cutting the air between them with the sharp of his claws and his curving black horns. Hell's very own badge of honor for those strong enough to survive the pits and pitch head first into the Endless War.

Fiore's head jerked up.

"They never told you?"

"Isn't how it works down there," he answered, sinking into himself slowly as exhaustion tried it's best to steal him away. Saving him from the rest of the conversation until Fiore's blue eyes pinned him down through the gloom. "You fall, that's enough. That's all that matters. Isn't that what they teach you up there in your shining halls? Some ascend, some fall, simple as that, right?"

He was angry.

Wounded.

Maybe even still bleeding.

Realizing it only belatedly as Fiore's wings quivered.

"No," Fiore murmured, no louder than a whisper as it issued up from a bowed head and eyes that wouldn't quite meet his.

"No?" he parroted, part condescending, part desperate. Feeling like they were inches from a thinning overhang and even less from a bottomless abyss that offered no second chances. "No what?"

"They do say that- that you rise or you fall. But I don't- I don't know if I believe- if I know that's true anymore."

Something in him stilled.

Pitching like dying frequencies in his ears as his heart thundered.

"It can't be. You're here. We're here. That has to- that has to mean something. You're different. You have to be. When I first saw you, you were…in color- like everything else was a sea of black and white. You stood out. I didn't understand it then. I'd never seen- Deblanc, you have to be, otherwise none of this would be-"

A cold sweat shuddered through him like an infectious disease.

Panic.

Uncertainty.

Confusion.

Fear.

Want.

Why?

What did it all mean?

How could this be happening?

It couldn't.

It was impossible.

It didn't make sense.

He bared his teeth, hissing a violent breath that made Fiore stiffen beside him. Lashing out the only way he knew how as he tried and failed to force his bones to move. Wanting to get up. Get away. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but-

"Don't pander to me," he warned, digging his nails into the rock just to feel the grounding surge of pain. More than a bit lost when he realized it didn't made him feel any better – any clearer. If anything it made him feel worse. "Don't tell me I'm something I'm not. I know what I am. Where I deserve to be. And I'm right here, in the center of it."

Fiore opened his mouth to respond, wings agitated and arched above his shoulders. Clearly spoiling for the same fight he was ready to toss himself into without reservation. Anything to push the moment away and bury it deep. But it didn't happen. Instead, Fiore made an aborted move backwards the same moment he leaned in. Hands falling on top of one another – touching - as everything else came to a screeching halt.

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be more to come, stay tuned.