((Authors? Note: Rated MA!!! The following is Mature Content, please be advised. For timeline sake; this is the first part of Act III of ?When Worlds Collide.?))

Star Shine

Westend, early evening, today.

Since his encounter with Sid, Gabriel has kept pretty much to himself. He and his ?companion?, Rachel, have been busy setting up their new home somewhere inside Westend, close to the Dockside. Gabriel has kept himself buried for months now and has no idea what has been happening. He knows nothing of the kidnapping of Viki and he has intentionally kept his distance from the senior partners of DCH and any of the Bloods. Gabriel isn?t avoiding confrontations, he?s avoiding facing his *feelings*, something he would have preferred never to have known.

The struggle within him is fierce and crippling. Emotions were never part of the package until now. Since he is forced to feel them he has little choice but to deal with their effects but he finds himself more than a little confused. Desires, needs, wants, guilt; all collide creating chaos and confusion. And for a being older than dirt and created narrow-minded he finds it difficult to adapt. He longs for his past when everything was black and white, cut and dry; decisions were easy then and remorse wasn?t even an afterthought.

Rachel is no company at all, what with her moans and groans, her cries and whispered pleas for release. The girl would rather have died than be trapped as she is inside the corpse her body has become. If he didn?t need the assistance he would release her just to shut her up! But he has never had to deal with such trivial things such as a house, a bed and food. He needs her, he hates that he needs her but he does.

As the sun begins to set in the western sky, Gabriel steps out onto the balcony that lines the third floor of the building he has come to call his home. He looks out over the township, letting his thoughts wander as he drinks in the sights. He wouldn?t have picked Rhy?Din as his physical home. He would have preferred someplace more elegant, more high-tech but he can?t deny the beauty of the place and especially at this time of day/night. There is something comforting about dusk he finds.

Lost to his thoughts, time creeps by barely noticed. He stands like a silent sentinel, lonely and confused, with no idea how to cope.

The warm night is bathed in the light of the full moons of Rhy'Din and he remains unmoved, alone atop the third floor balcony. Gabriel lifts his head to the sky above, green eyes narrowing at the myriad of stars. He misses his home, an odd feeling in contrast to anything he's felt before. He's never really had anything to miss. Yet tonight he finds his thoughts turning from the Above, from the reason he was created towards thoughts of the Seer.

It's been months since he last saw her. He's kept his distance because of his run-in with Sid, whose scent still hangs off of him like a dark shroud, screaming what had happened. He has never known guilt like this, he doesn't even know what name to call the emotion and yet he feels as if he's betrayed so many with the one brutal yet driven act. How had it come to this? Why had it come to this? But mostly he wants to understand why he wants more.

A scent on the warm air captures his attentions, sings to him as only one ever has? She is on the wind; in the night sky. She is away from the city proper and open to his finding. Briefly he considers ignoring that call, turning away and offering her haven rather than forcing his attentions on her, but the thought is quickly overwhelmed by another, much more driving need; the need to be near her.

?Nau, it is naut the Blue. Different taste. Nor the Foreigner for he has nau breath and he does naut..?

She was focused on the ground, eyes slip-sliding beneath stagnant, still waters, no current to be found. Perhaps a minnow rounded her toes, but that was all for movement's sake. Then, a step forward, a press of soles upon pebbles. She didn't flinch at the texture, rather, glided. A sylvan creature was as home here as anywhere wooded and natural.

Mud painted the tops of her feet as she disturbed small frogs in their beds. Her mouth was still in motion, though sound seemed caught between her teeth. She was obviously speaking to some thing or some person, though there was no one clearly visible in her proximity. And then, she lifted her head with a start, off-blue taking a definite saucer shape, large and full and round as the lake she claimed a swimming hole. They were fixated on the angel-naut.

Gabriel bends and snatches up her dress. Yes, he knows she's spied him. He holds the garment overhead and waves it at her, a playful smile, meant to be reassuring curves thin lips.

"Ah, sweet Viki, you look lovely tonight." He moderates his voice, keeping it soft, gentle, as non-threatening as possible. He knows her first instinct will be to run and that is the last thing he wants. "I come in peace?"

Half joking, half serious he watches her closely for her next reaction.

?Name-Like-Bells.? She offered affirmation to whatever lay listening beneath, perhaps feeding her further advice and secrets.

Her innocence was somewhat mislaid, perhaps product of her impish whims. Summer stretched far in the space between them, riding the air, lacing it with far sweeter things that that which Gabriel wrapped his words. Limbs stiffened at her sides. She seemed not to notice her attire, unaware of how the water had at her, clearing marking swells and curves of youth, angles of bone protruding in pieces here and there, a collarbone, a hip, but mostly, the dips and valleys of something definitely female stole the show. Renoir would've died.

Gabriel is most certainly aware of every inch of her. Dripping wet in such revealing garb he couldn't have ignored the delectable sweetness of the Seer were he being attacked by Daugolozan. He licks at suddenly dry lips, stepping closer towards the shoreline with her dress gripped tightly in hand.

"Do not be afraid, Seer" A hand lifted as if in surrender, "I have not come to hurt you. I thought we could?"

Perhaps it is the time of year, with Spring running rampant and life burgeoning anew? Or maybe it is the resonance of Sid's chaotic energy, driving his needs, feeding his desires? Whatever the reasons, his words are lost and he is left staring at Viki his mouth hanging ever so slightly ajar. Her sleek slender body lay practically bare through the sheer beige slip and he feels an irresistible urge to touch her.

He steps closer still, cautious in his approach, like one might be around a skittish doe. "Talk?"

Dawn of realization in the middle of the night. A light throws shadow aside as she lifted her head to look at him. Her face was a blend of emotion, a swirl of certain fear and underlying intrigue. Perhaps his struggle to understand the curious consequences of their connection was shared by she, the seer, who only had answers in the form of riddle, puzzle pieces colored all the same, shaped in a thousand different forms.

Lashes fell, striking the tops of cheeks. Pink claimed that plane, akin to the pink of her mouth. But as he drew closer, she stepped back, wary of his wrapped want, as though, for the first time. Her dark brows dipped in unison. She looked as if she were putting together a time line. Flashes of Manon, now Mother, and her eternal melancholia masked by a smile, or lulled by a temporary White. She paused, eyes in pursuit of some possible escape.

?Just words?? She did not sound convinced.

The little thing looked more like one weighing facts than passing judgment. She nodded at this, this understanding he so spoke of, upsetting those very curls he longed to touch. They gave a bounce at her elbows, then collided with the sleeve of his shirt. Again, there was no notice of this, as her chin lifted, her face moving to a more appropriate angle, as if to align with his eyes. Daggers, they were, at times, but not now. She did not seem to poke or prod at the angel, did not pass surfaces of skin to upturn secrets.

Little beacon, little thief, they went hand in hand, but for now, she was simply a fairy girl, center of a wooded utopia. Crickets clamored in the brush, weaving melody to the night. She tilted her head to one side, a crawl of off-blue both inspective and expectant, but as to what?

She inhaled deep, filling her young chest and holding tight to her claim. Her small hand endlessly hovered over his, half afraid to venture further, but only half.

?You do naut hate, then?? This was posed almost as an afterthought.

The truth is Gabriel is oblivious to everything save Viki. She is the center of his being and has been a beacon to him for a long while now. It is as if she were the only sustenance in the world that could stave off his hunger, but tonight? It is her nearness that seems to feed it.

The sounds of the night pass by him unheard for he is lost in the radiance of her.

Long fingers graze over the flesh of her hovering hand. It is a light gesture, and yet explosive for him. The air becomes heavy and thick, hard for him to breathe as the energy of the Seer sears him, filling him with a delicious torrent. Something only she seems able to do to him. He can't explain why she has this power and right this moment he doesn't want to. What he recognizes is that this is what he has come to crave.

He wants more. He always wants more of her. The tight hold he's kept is starting to unravel.

She's asked if he hates and perhaps he should answer cautiously, choose carefully his words but too late comes the thought.

"No, Seer, do not confuse what I say. I hate. But I do not hate Manon. I hate. But not you. Never you."

This is the first conversation they've ever had that hasn't gone awfully wrong. He feels as if an intimacy has been planted and if properly nurtured it could grow. This thought offers some sense of reassurance and yet darker needs beat too close to his surface.

She is so near him the scent of her enfolds; like a comforting blanket, like the warmth of summer. He leans his head close in towards her. She is petite and so much smaller than he; fragile like an exotic blossom. The heat that radiates off her is stealing his thoughts, blinding him. He should leave now, before he ruins the progress he's made. Yet his feet do not move, his body does not turn, he remains rooted as if he has become a tree.

The density and the dark did not hinder that surge of power. It trampled over all, searing through the delicacies of the seer's glittering flesh, though the touch was light and temporary, for as soon as fingers grazed her own, she withdrew. The retreat did not give way to flight, and strangely, she did not recoil. She simply reclaimed her hand, coiling thin limbs over the wet plane of her stomach. That muted fabric she wore was the only buffer. It now clung only in patches rather than serve as a second skin. Air pockets lifted cloth over pieces of her, ringing round her navel, but the wet still stuck to her hipbones, and the under part of breasts.

Staring at him with a subtle shift in expression, guarded curiosity giving birth to serious interest, she blinked, her head shifting its tilt: right to left.

?I do naut understand. She who would know what I am, you do naut hate, but you hate all the same. But I can understand, if.. if..? If he allowed her access, but in turn, she would run the risk of his own invasion. Teeth sunk into her lower lip, harsh enough to draw red, but stopped just shy. She spoke again in a whisper. ?This happens when I am near. When we are near. For we were once all very High, but I am naut like you.?

"No, Seer, you are not" he agrees as eyes of glittering green graze feverishly over her flesh, as if the sight of her offered vast treasure alone.

Gabriel can't explain why she calls to him, why he finds his thoughts nearly obsessed with her. Yet nor can he deny the inexplicable pull. As Viki withdraws her hand, the loss of contact brings a stab of physical pain. A void, no, an ache that stills his breath, capturing it inside tightly locked lungs.

'What is this?' He has chance to wonder, but already cohesive thought is crumbling, overtaken by something much more primal, a dark driving yearning.

"I would know what you are, Seer, I would know the taste of you on my lips, the feel of you in my arms." Yet Gabriel realizes well enough the foolishness of such a declaration. She's made it plain and clear to him that she does not feel the same way.

How do mortals handle rejection? He has never had to; then again, he's never wanted anything as badly as he wants her.

If he had a better grasp on emotions perhaps he could have been prepared for the surge of unqualified need. Alas, the level of this intensity isn't remotely familiar to him.

Summer, Spring, the tang of Heaven. She is a promise of what's lost even as the very essence of him is polluted by dark, depraved lust. The first taste, the whispers of all things Celestial, of rich fragrance and sunny warmth's, push him ever further beyond the brink of return. Thoughts are little more than the buzz of insects in the heated night air.

He doesn't pull back, he doesn't seek to explore her emotional state, instead he finds in her submissive fear that which is barely present; her acquiescence to his demand.

Hungry for every inch of her, he rips the thin slip from her delicate, fragile frame, removing any obstacles from full exploration of her flesh. His lips roam from hers, down the graceful slope of her neck, to nestle in the niche of her shoulder. Teeth nibble as his tongue sups on the musky warmth of skin blended with fresh lake water. She is like a nymph rising from the elements; earth, wind, fire and water entwined.

The power of her nearness is blinding, it inches him closer towards the abyss, towards the sin of the physical. Yet Gabriel no longer cares. What redemption he has sought, he feels it found in the arms of the Star, although this realization is lost in waves of consuming rapture. What she is, why he's so drawn to her, are forgotten as the craving and energy overwhelm.

With the nearness of her, the heat of her, his power responds. A merging of the two, a dance of Celestials' that never should have been, is food to the starvation of his ravished soul. He sups deep on their creation, filling himself just as surely as he seeks to fill her.

Gabriel is no novice to the art of lovemaking, yet what gentleness he might have employed under other circumstance is forgotten as fervor engulfs. Hands move to her waist, lifting her free of the ground as his lips continue to rove over supple, tattooed skin at last to find purchase of tender bounty. He suckles as he rests her against him, basking in the mounting energy of their closeness.

Keeping her secure with one hand, the other begins fumbling with his clothing. Intent is he to have his skin pressed to hers, and perhaps allowing her the chance for escape.

Gone, gone, gone, was the starling in his arms, not even adequately enabled to pursue escape. Pressed and lifted, her bare legs dangle beneath a flood of exposition, a glitter of damp skin engulfed by heat and power. Once free of fabric, the black inkings call his attention, especially the way in which they wrap her breasts, spill around her sides in distinct tribal fashion. It is the obvious language of her Lover, though what it says, the girl cannot say.

In fact, she couldn't say much of anything.

The only sound which stirs the life of the seer is a habitual inhale-exhale. Beneath, blood boils and her heartbeat leaps with no element of rhythm. But hands and limbs attached usher movement, and coil around his neck as he grapples with his attire. Still, with off-blue blocked and her head slumped to his shoulder, fingertips chart the region of the back of his neck, the blades of his shoulders, searching... Though, again, a misinterpretation is possible, for her warm touch bordered on the sensual. Palms fell in key places over his back, weak and slow to steady their chosen path, and once there, settled, and called to what was supposed to be. Fingertips were feathers in their graces, echo of the relics that lay claim to the sky. Did they call them back to life?

The temperature soared, first in her palms, and then spread to the rest of her. What was wet, now lay dry or drying, and an eruption of steam lay claim to the small space between and around them. The curls of her hair reacted in earnest, a frizz of twin colors, though the result only highlighted that nymph-like quality. She moved her mouth against his collarbone, which then slipped to his ear as he repositioned himself to peel away his clothing. She murmured what could have been divine revelation, or plea for release, but the sense and sound was lost to the mounting physical chemistry. Abnormalities, aberration, all became natural; the beck and call of secrets to unlock.

Clothing discarded, torn or tossed it no longer mattered as he is immersed in the entirety of her. The tattoos are like paths drawn to follow, and his lips indeed do. No meaning of them necessary for they are simply a part of her as is her eyes and hair. Teeth graze lightly while his tongue continues to lap at her as if she were milk to a kitten. Her breath matching his yet his is growing ragged with a deep, pressing longing.

He gasps as if air is of little importance in lieu of the feel of her, the touch against his bare, naked skin. The heat of the Seer against him is a mirror of what he feels inside, he takes it in, absorbing her but it is he who is being consumed.

Kneeling he takes her weight upon him, leaving her upright as hands caress the passage of tattoos, lingering in hollows and over womanly curves. She is like fire to his cooling rain, burning and yet fluid, a combination of elements in an intricate, primal dance. He couldn't deny his desire for anything and thoughts like logic and ration are gone, lost in the texture and essence of that which is Viki.

A low growl rises as he lifts up to capture her lips once more with his own, hands cradle her face gentle yet firm. He will not be denied the intimacy of her mouth. This kiss lingers before his hands fall to her shoulders, slither down her arms. So hot, yet silken and supple.

Briefly he struggles to retain a hold on his urge, to draw out her passion, to coax her in to wanting him as badly as he wants her. But it is a useless struggle, quickly vanquished. With irresistible yearning his patience flees. Hands once loving and tender, stroking and tame become demanding as his kiss deepens. He lifts her once again, pulling her down upon his manhood with a sudden surprising force.

All is lost to him as he penetrates her, the force of his thrusts like a raging storm of passion. He has become the beast and she his prey.

Betrayed again, by way of flesh, a dull throbbing ache designed by his coaxing. The power surge is in control, rip-roaring through veins and tissue, latching to muscles like marionette strings. Illumination charmed by sex and skill, a small ray of scattered, trembling, fearful girl left abandoned on the roadside as inherent nature comes to the forefront.

The seer is in combat with two forces, one tangled and entrenched by fingers and lips, the other within, and growing ever more evident. Not a shield but a beacon, but perhaps she was right about the will. Weaken in body and weak in mind; did she ever have a chance?

Her eyes flew upon at the virile onslaught, a bright bleed of off-blue into incredible green. Tears which would lay claim to her cheeks, to tackle delicate angles in a spill of rivulets, evaporated the moment they were evicted from her eyes. She cried out, and willed her arms to action, attempting to sever invisible strings while at the same time forcing her freedom of him.

No use.

She crumbled under the weight of impossible power and felt her mouth push against his, though the threat of flat teeth was there for his tongue. She chased the threat with action, and bit him hard. Her assaulted sex seemed to differ in opinion, responding with a sticky glaze for every forceful thrust. In turn, her hips shot to his waist, her back arched, her whole little body bucking to his very wild rhythm.

Her reaction to his carnal needs is electrifying. Perhaps it is because it walks the fine line between sheer pleasure and the offer of penitence in pain? Gabriel had never been one to answer the call of Lust, to crave the physical as if it was an addiction, yet he cannot deny the heft of his sudden, overwhelming need.

Fingers and hands pull and tug with violence in their insistence as he presses her ever closer. The heat radiating from her is as hot as a furnace, and yet it feeds him as nothing ever has. He sups on the energy as his blood flows from the wound she?s gifted his tongue, down into her resistant mouth. Yet he doesn?t let up, he continues his assault.

Confusion flickers over Gabriel?s features at her words. ?Not here?? But he holds her in his hands, has her pressed tightly against him. He?s never dealt with emotions of this magnitude or intensity and she?s not here?! He?s only ever tasted vengeance and death. But she understands that which he cannot.

?Not here? If you aren?t here, then where am I?? An odd question perhaps, but when the reality seems dense and softly touchable it begs to be asked.

Her hands on his face are like a balm soothing the ravages of his shattered beliefs; he has lost who he was and become something? else. He doesn?t know what or who that is or will be, but he does recognize he?s changed.

She holds a secret; she understands that which he cannot yet fathom. She confesses she holds it for another, this emotion inside of him, this feeling he has towards her. He would demand her to tell, but the words do not come. Instead dark green eyes fix to the off-colored blues and greens, sinking into the starlight that lingers in their zenith.

Would that this moment could last forever, and he could steal her for himself alone.

A shiver moves over his bared skin, flayed raw from the heat off the Star in his arms. Yet even now the traces of their joining are beginning to fade, as is the texture of her in his arms. Misty like a dream, insubstantial like mist, just the summer warmth scent of her filling him as she seems to whisper away with the light breeze flowing off the pond beside them.

?Wait, I don?t understand, I don?t dream! What?s happening?!? A demand uttered to a darkness that is growing, swallowing him.

Before the shadows sweep across the glistening, glittering girl in his arms, before dazzled eyes suffer the death of the dark, before bits of the seer slip away, dematerializing into a shapeless haze, she presses to him one last time.

?Like a man, Name-Like-Bells, you are for sleeping.. As am I.? Her small voice rings with her own realization, part in joy, part in dread.

This hasn't happened, and yet, where was she abandoned so that her sleeping self could meet him in an Otherworldly terrain? Thought is fiercely fragmented, for in sleep, the brain is only half a thing.

?If you would love me, Gabriel, find me, though I am far for someone else, and even if you do find, you may never have it in turn?? Though sad, her small words carry that last warning as she dissipates into the dark: two-tone and off-blue and all that was the seer.

She leaves him in the ether-grass by some fabricated lake, with nothing but his blisters, the only evidence of her presence; strange how they seem to congregate upon his chest, just so high above the plane that holds his heart. Strange how, when he looks down, they seem to spiral into language.

Yes: there, at his breast, in a branded DCH.

************************************************** *

Gabriel awakens jolting upright in his sweat encased bed. He?s cold and shivering with shock; shock from an event that happened only in his? dreams?! An un-event that has irrevocably changed his very existence possibly forever. Last he recalled he?d been on the balcony, how had he gotten to his bed, if dream it had been?

?Angels don?t dream!?? He mutters coldly to nothing and no one, but his tone brooks no argument, it is as if he would demand it so.

But he is not merely Angelic anymore, now is he? And obviously, dream he does.

The taste of the Seer still haunts him, on his lips, his flesh, soaring through every fiber of his being. Disbelieving green eyes gaze down upon his chest and there, in a swirl of black that could have been burnt or perhaps tattooed, lies the telltale sign. Yes, a dream but a dream that has left an indelible mark. A mark that to others would seem an odd configuration of symbols or mayhap simply pretty scroll work; a mark only he can read.

DCH.

Gabriel knows. He understands clearly what he must do and it will mean making enemies of his only real allies.

In a world where so few trust him, and fewer still offer to stand at his side, he is about to commit an act that any Above or Below would consider foolish and stupid. And he will commit it in the name of an emotion he doesn?t even understand.