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 Ten

The next day he was already pacing in the cave, waiting, when Fiore ducked inside. He looked up, momentarily wary. Suddenly unsure if they were on the same page until he realized Fiore was heading right for him. Stubborn and sure in a way that eased the knot in his throat before meeting him halfway. Raising his palm with a small, abortive movement that Fiore swallowed easily with his own. Grasping each other like they'd waited all this time to do just that.

"Deblanc, I-"

He cut him off with a look. Not knowing he needed exactly this until he looked up and caught Fiore staring at him. Looking at him like he never wanted to see anything else. Like what he saw didn't disgust him or even-

"What do you see?" he asked quietly.

Fiore's throat dipped before answering.

"You."

Outside the cave the clash of swords grew loud. Making the tendons under his skin threaten to tighten as the risk of being discovered grew the closer the sound of the battle became. The cave was remote, yes. But not inaccessible. Especially if you happened to have a pair of wings. They'd been careful – but mostly just lucky up until this point. He knew it. Fiore knew it. And yet here they were all the same.

"And what did you see before?" he asked, forcing the words out between hidden, gritted teeth. Feeling the sharp, pressing pressure of his elongated canines digging into his gums. Using the familiar blunt of pain to ground himself as the angel shifted impossibly closer.

Fiore's wings draped over his shoulders like a tentative invitation. Tickling across bare skin as the now familiar ache in his horns throbbed like a someone was digging underneath them with something blunt and piping hot. He was starting to understand why, but he didn't move away. Nothing in all the made and unmade universe could make him turn away now.

Not from this.

Not from Fiore.

"You," Fiore said again. Soft as anything but strong this time like he knew. Like he'd decided. "It's all there ever was, you just had to look hard enough. Hell didn't take everything. Not all of it."

He sucked in an unsteady breath. Allowing himself to be confronted by a truth he couldn't escape. Not even if he wanted to. Knowing Fiore would never lie to him. Knowing that it wasn't going to be this simple. Knowing that something was building just beyond their reach. Knowing he had to give up this much – this part of himself - if he wanted to start-

His eyes were wet. Tacky moisture beading off his lower lashes as he blinked uncomprehendingly, momentarily lost. It was the first time in he'd tasted the salt of his own tears. Not knowing he'd waited his entire life just to hear those words until the moment had them by the throat and forged them into something stronger – something better. Something more than they'd been before.

It was an achingly appropriate and equally impossible metaphor.

But it was theirs.

It fit.

And he supposed at the end of the day, that was the point.

It was some time later, long enough for the tears to stop and the salt to tighten into translucence crusts across his filthy cheeks that Fiore moved again. Reaching out with silent eagerness as the angel swayed into the heart of him with giving exhaustion. Letting Fiore ghost his hands across his face. Tracing him. Memorizing him. Lulling them both into a place that was almost devastatingly intimate.

He'd watched humans like this. Couples so wrapped in each other that the sky could have fallen and they wouldn't have noticed. But he'd never understood it. He'd never had the capacity for it. Never known it was possible until now. Until-

His eyes had drifted closed long before Fiore's fingers skirted around his horns. Making his back arch like a cat before tipping up his chin with the curl of his forefinger. Tracing his cheeks and the lines arounds his mouth before trailing across the glossy back of his horns again. Unable to leave them alone. Every time the angel touched them, his horns burned. It hurt, but he didn't pull away. He was close to something. Something he had no baseline for, no system of measurement. Only the knowledge that he wanted and wanted badly.

His hands firmed around Fiore's forearms like an anchor when the angel's cheek brushed against his. Nuzzling and close as soft lips explored the harsh black scales. Distantly aware of a fond, almost blissed-out hum coming from somewhere – someone – making tracks through the heavy, humid air.

Oh.

His eyes cracked open just in time to see determination flash across Fiore's face as he leaned impossibly closer. Lips parted. Close. Dry. Almost-

The moment their lips brushed was a ghost. See-through and just as fleeting. Knowing immediately that it was something he wanted to do again and again. Over and over. For as long as Fiore would let him and maybe a few extra minutes longer while he was still protesting, lips puffy-red and sore. He wanted it all. Every single second of it. He wanted to feel Fiore's skin give and cleave in the purest way - without steel or the iron tang of pain and blood.

He was so wrapped up in it, he almost didn't notice that something was wrong. Because then, just before the moment grew stale and begged the start of another, the ache in his skull transformed into burning agony.

Bright.

Righteous.

Merciless.

Hard.

And he screamed.

Oh god, did he scream.

Only he didn't hear it.

He didn't have to.

He felt it.

Then- as suddenly as it'd started, minutes- or maybe decades earlier, it was over. Leaving him swaying in Fiore's arms as the angel quivered around him. Wings flared, protective and horrified all at once as a trickling river of pitch-red blood flowed down his face.

But there was no time to regroup. No time to even begin to figure out what to say. Because the moment his horns fell sharply across the rocks was the same moment the world underneath their feet suddenly trembled.

"They're still looking. It doesn't seem like either side can pin point what it was or where it came from. The Seraphim are gathering above the battle, in conference. They are directing the others to fight. They're...angry, unsettled. They're saying the natural order has been disrupted. Even Heaven sensed the aftershocks."

He was still trembling under his skin when Fiore returned with broken bit of polished stone. It was burnished to a glossy shine that was strong enough to show him his reflection. To show him the gaping holes where his horns had been. And how his skin was almost softening. Sharp claws blunting themselves into dirt-lined nails as the pale-peach of a remarkably human-looking skin started to overtake the dark scales of his demon form.

"They know," he rasped weakly. Voice ragged as he tested every word around the strange dull square of human teeth. Able to sense the shift in the air. The feeling that something integral had changed. "Both sides. They'll be searching,"

He was a monster with a man's face now.

Changed.

His lips threatened to quirk up.

The outsides finally matched the insides, it would seem.

"I'm sorry," Fiore whispered, guilt and sorrow almost overwhelming as he hung his head. "I didn't know."

"I'm not," he replied, less surprised than he figured he had the right to be, considering. Especially since it was the truth. He wasn't sorry. Whatever had happened? Whatever they'd done? He didn't regret it. After all, how could he?

"You won't be able to go back," Fiore warned. "One look and they'll-"

He cut through the angel's nervous, self-criminating babble with glance. More sure than he'd been of anything as he shook his head, smirking lightly. Realizing that in a strange, round about way he'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted all along. What he didn't know he'd been yearning for ever since he'd dragged himself out of the hell-pits and realized that the little broken voice in the back of his head really shouldn't have been there at all. It should have been burned away. But it wasn't. Some part of the soul – their soul – had survived.

Somehow.

"Who says I want to go back?" he asserted gently, bare feet curling around the sharp mountain rock of their cave. "Besides, we both knew this day was coming. Things couldn't go on like this forever. Straddling the fence. Wanting the best out of two worlds. We've been on borrowed time since the moment we saw each other, my dear."

Fiore's halo flared almost blindingly bright at the omission. Long limbs strangely restless as his wings curled tight around himself for a long moment before puffing up again. Looking like he was readying himself for something as the high, pure notes of a squadron of angels drifted in through the mouth of the cave.

"You can go," he started, already thinking the next few hours through. Compartmentalizing. Trying to give them as much time as he could before he figured they would eventually be discovered. You couldn't hide in Purgatory. Not forever. "We can hold out for a little while. I can stay here and wait for you or, umpph-"

His back hit the wall of the cave as Fiore surged forward and kissed him deeply. Hoisting him up with easy strength as a knee hushed between his thighs and inadvertently gave him something to grind against. Enjoying the syrupy hiccup of surprise that escaped Fiore when he tugged on the angel's lower lip with his teeth. Worming his hands south as the brightness of Fiore's halo grew blinding. Humming and sparking like electricity as everything he had – everything he was – rose instinctively to meet him.

It was almost too much.

But even then he was hungry for it.

Hungry for the dangerous ripple of static that started building when Fiore's hands firmed around his face. Tipping it skyward the same moment he tangled his fingers in the white of Fiore's thin, cotton shift and pulled. Feeling something hot, earthly and ready scream through him as they fell into each other like they knew. Counting down to the inevitable as they risked the end of everything they were – together and apart - for this one, imperfect beginning.

All in all, it remained true to them.

And the truth was, he wouldn't have had it any other way.

He had no idea it was even possible to make their situation worse.

But somehow they managed it.

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