Thought You Said It Was a DEAD Body

Who: Jakob, Sam, and Aaron
Where: Alley behind nondescript bar in Chinatown
When: Early morning

The call had come in to Homicide first thing in the morning. No one even had a chance to get coffee yet. There was a dead white guy laying in a pile of broken down boxes next to a dumpster in Chinatown. The anonymous caller was sure he was dead because it looked like stray cats were chewing on him and he wasn't moving. Other than that, the only information given before the caller hung up was the location, which happened to be between two bars.

Upon arrival, the officers found the area curiously quiet. Not a living thing in sight, except the stray cat sitting on the chest of their man, eating vomit out of his mouth. The only indications that he was, indeed, the white guy they were looking for and not some other body in an alley were that half dried blood had stained his hair bright red, indicating that it must have been a light color to start with, and the parts of his carved up torso that were visible between streaks of mud and blood were paler than most in that part of the city. His face had been beaten to the point of being a misshapen mass of purple bruising and his bare upper body had several slices and gashes in it. He was missing a shoe and his pants were ripped all the way up one leg. There was also a knife in his groin. Whatever had happened here had not happened quickly. The amount of bruising and swelling indicated that the man had been alive for some time after those wounds were inflicted, and that they had possibly been spread out over some time. The remains of his shredded clothing lay strewn about the alley, along with his wallet, which was lying open with its contents scattered.

While Jakob may not have had time to get coffee before the call, he'd taken that time once he'd arrived on the scene. He was particular about his approach, prefering to move in on foot and study the scene like his perps might have seen it. It offered so many wonderful chances to catch guilty stares, nervous fidgets, or half-glimpses of people watching him from the windows. That, in particular, always proved useful when knocking on doors. Not that he'd waste the time here; not many people spoke English in this particular stretch of Chinatown, and even if they did? Showing a badge would make them mute.

So he'd walked in with Sam from the corner up the street, stopping at a little market and procuring a cup while he studied the residents. They gave him the same wordless treatment he usually got here, so he hadn't lingered. He was approaching now, blowing curls of steam from the edge of his cup as his eyes narrowed on the prone form ahead of him. "Some days? I truly envy the fry cook down at Nighthawk's," he said sidelong to Sam, "His mornings never start this way."

"That's because Tommy butchers his prey the night before," she replied lightly, hiding her grin behind the rim of her own cup of coffee. Before becoming a cop, Sam had never been allowed to go to Chinatown. Even as an adult, there were explicit orders that she shouldn't set foot there and when she was just a regular uniform, it hadn't been a problem but this was her second time in Lotus territory in the past week. So far, her parents or grandfather didn't know but with a dead white guy in the middle of Chinatown? Sam wasn't looking forward to it. So while Jakob was eying the local scenery, Sam was focusing on her coffee and ignoring the looks sent her way. "You going to that big fancy party being thrown in your honor tomorrow?" she asked as they skirted bright yellow crime tape.

Without getting up close, the body was unrecognizable, covered in slashes and blood and vomit. And was that a knife in the guy's groin?

"I'm obligated to," Jakob said with an air of disdain that was all show. He'd enjoy himself at the party for certain, if nothing else just from watching Jackson squirm and lining up his next move in orchestrating Brett's release. "The commissioner tends to be displeased when he has a medal for you and you're not there to receive it," he joked, grinning more than someone who was heading for a corpse should. He crouched low, shooing a stray cat away with a particularly good hiss of his own as his coffee was set down. "So... we have a dead male. Age unknown, time of death unknown," he mused, looking the body up and down, "Cause of death..." He managed not to smirk as he nodded in the direction of the knife sticking from the man's crotch, looking back to Sam. "Blood loss from multiple lacerations? Possibly asphyxiation, given just how much vomit I'm smelling on him. Care to check his pockets, detective, or shall I?"

"You won't have to." There was a wallet laying a few feet away, slips of paper and a few coins scattered around. She pulled on a glove and carefully picked up the beaten leather wallet. "Got some ID -- oh." It was him. Aaron Black -- Biddix Aaron Black. As in the guy she had some really incredible sex with and then later threw a more adult-like version of a two year old's temper tantrum. Moody bastard. While she expected he'd get himself worked over one of these days, she didn't expect this. She came closer to Jakob and Aaron's -- the dead body and leaned in close to take a look at his neck, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Yep. There's the hickey. Dammit. She pulled away and looked back down at the wallet. "Biddix Aaron Black, age 24," she announced, holding out the wallet to Jakob. She wasn't guilty of anything. She hadn't seen the guy in over two days.

As his name was announced, there was a low grunt. Aaron shoved a piece of broccoli left behind by the cats out of his mouth with his tongue, and croaked in a hoarse whisper, "Dun call me that." His purple lumpy head turned slightly, and the one eye that wasn't swollen complete shut opened just a crack. "Hey Beth..." And then he went quiet again, not really having the energy for a conversation.

Sam jumped, she wasn't going to deny it, when Aaron had moved. He was supposed to be dead. Having the audacity to call her 'Beth' again (really, where the fuck did he get that from?), even half (or was it mostly?) dead proved a few things. One: This was the right guy and two: apparently no brain damage. Hesitantly, she poked him in the shoulder. "You awake?" She poked him again, a large part of her preferring him to either be unconscious or actually dead this time.

"You know him?" Jakob asked with unabashed surprise, his curiosity getting the better of him. She had to, the familiarity of those two simple words spoke volumes. Which, of course, made him wonder what sort of people his partner knew who would end up in this state of being, in this particular neighborhood.

Sam felt her face burn and she cleared her throat and threw Jakob a dark look. God, he looked like a little kid with his eyes all big and wide in astonishment. "What? You think guys are the only ones that can go around and pick up a piece of ass for some fun?" It was said perhaps a little more harshly than intended, but dammit, Sam was on the defense and she was blushing. "I let him win at pool and we banged. He's not my super secret husband or something and I'm not going to give you details either." She looked down at Aaron with undisguised annoyance on her face. "He's like a fucking two year old. No wonder someone stabbed him in the nuts."

"And you're a paragon of sympathy," Jakob murmured, crouching back down and reaching over gingerly to feel for Aaron's pulse. It was weak, which was no surprise. The surprise was more that he'd survived at all, given the extent of the wounds he bore and the climate surrounding him. Well, it was one of the surprises. The others were each a large hickey, several of them adorning Aaron's neck, at first indistinguishable from his other bruises. She's a biter... he mused with a flicker of a private smile.

"Next time, detective? Wait for me to pass judgment before you react to it. It's only fair," he chided Sam, shirking his overcoat and waving his good hand to ward her back enough that he could drape it over Aaron. "Can you try to keep him conscious? I'll go find a phone, try to get him some medical attention."

Sam rolled her eyes, beet red and angrily drinking her coffee. "Yes, fine. Go. I promise not to hurt him." Perhaps, on his own, Jakob would realize exactly the kind of work enviroment Sam had to endure before becoming a detective. It was not an "equal oppurtunity" paradise. She looked down at Aaron, laying there, pathetically dying or something in blood and vomit and it smelled terrible. She gently lowered herself onto a clean patch of ground and reached out to touch his neck, monitoring his pulse. "Aaron?" She said, a little more personable this time. She was a cop. Her job was to protect and serve. Aaron was a civilian, who just so happened to work for either her father or grandfather. "Aaron, can you hear me?" There wasn't much response. "Biddix?" she tried. It woke him from the dead last time.

Aaron's partly open eye moved, looking for her face. He didn't answer her, though, until she called him by his first name again. "Samantha." His throat was dry and raw, so even at a whisper his voice sounded harsh. Everything hurt, and he really wished he could just be unconscious again for a while. He was tired and cold and he just fucking hurt. Even the shallow little breaths he was taking. Speaking took deeper breaths and more effort, so he was hoping like hell she didn't intend to keep making him answer her.

"I'd give you something to drink but I just have some hot coffee," she told him. "Wanna tell me how you ended up with a knife in your nuts?" What was it with people knifing others in their groin? Was it a guy thing she wasn't aware of?

It was hard to judge expression, really, with the swelling and bruising and busted lips and dried blood and dirt, but there was definitely panic in that one partly opened eye and his breathing picked up in spite of the pain. Much of his memory of what happened was a blur, but he did remember what Johnny had threatened to cut off. Aaron's hand twitched toward his body, but he wasn't strong enough to reach the wound, which was probably a good thing since the knife was still there.

Sam grabbed his hand, firmly but gently. "Paramedics should be here soon. They'll take care of it. Aaron, can you remember what happened last night?" Standard police questioning was the best way she could come up with in trying to keep him awake. She still had her fingers on his neck. His pulse, while still weak, was slightly stronger as he became more alert. "Who did this to you?" she asked instead of 'What did you do?', memory of his half-naked tantrum in her apartment a few days earlier still fresh in her mind.

Aaron's only concern was taking inventory. He couldn't even begin to break free of her grasp, but he was struggling weakly against it. As for her questions, he was ignoring them completely.

Sam sighed, looking around for Jacob but he was still off getting paramedics. Aaron was struggling against her hold and, impatiently, she flicked the tip of his nose. "Hey! Up here, buddy." She snapped her fingers in front of his good eye to get his attention. "I need you to tell me what happened so we can find out who left you out here for dead." Jakob was right. Aaron was damned lucky to still be alive.

It took a moment for him to look for the snapping fingers, and longer for his eye to focus on them. All she got out of him in response was an urgent little grunted noise as he continued to struggle. Seriously? There was a much more important question that needed answering and even if he was in any shape to talk, he wouldn't. Aaron wouldn't be able to kill that fucker if he was in jail.

Sam started getting nervous. She was still holding onto his wrist and she could feel his pulse quicken a little more as he continued to move, his struggles weak but Sam wasn't sure if he was hurting himself or making any damage worse. "Need some help here!" she called out to an officer standing a little ways away. She looked back down at Aaron, gripping hsi wrist tighter. "Aaron, you need to calm down and stop struggling. We don't know where else you could be hurt."

This was the moment when Jakob came jogging back, breath fogging up the air as he left behind the same little store his coffee had come from. "How is he?" he called Sam's way, jaw chattering and clenching at the same time as the cold worked wonders of pain on his healing shoulder. "The ambulance shouldn't be too far away, it's early enough that they'll miss traffic." He slowed down as he got closer, eyebrows raising at the sight of Aaron struggling in vain. "Obviously he's well enough to be... oh," Jakob trailed as he pieced together the movements with what he'd probably be doing in that same spot. "Did he tell you who did this, detective?"

"He won't answer me." Sam looked from Jakob to Aaron, unsure of what to do. "I don't know if he's going into a seizure or something." Sam was getting a little nervous. Jakob, while looking cold and slightly in pain, didn't seem bothered by Aaron's agitated movements. She felt a headache coming on, growing at the base of her skull and between her eyes but her hip flask was in the car. God, not one of her headaches. Please not one of her headaches.

"Sir," Jakob said more directly, to Aaron finally, "You need to hang on, we've got help coming. There's still a weapon in you, dislodging it could kill you..." Which wasn't unlikely, given how weak Aaron already seemed. Still, Jakob wished he was better with live victims just for the rare times like this one. "Try to stay focused, they'll be here any moment. Did you see who it was that attacked you? Was it a gang?" He already had the Lotus in mind, for certain. Crimes out in Chinatown were brutal things to discover, so brutal that witnesses were more rare than living victims.

Aaron didn't give a shit about what got dislodged as long as he found out if anything was already.... dislodged or not. It was difficult for him to even focus enough to understand that they were talking to him, much less what they were asking. He was feeling sort of fuzzy and dizzy and thought that maybe he should lay down or something. After he got a hand on his bits to make sure they were still there.

Sam wasn't too good with live victims either, dealing better with kids, not ex-lays with knives in their groins. "Biddix Aaron Black, answer me right now," she tried, in the sternest voice she could muster. It unnerved her a bit that she sounded so much like her mother. "You need to tell us who did this to you right now or we aren't going to save your nuts. Do you understand me?"

He looked at her for just a second, focusing and going still... and it seemed he was going to say something... "Bitch."

Sighing in quiet consternation, Jakob just moved to brace Aaron's shoulders out of concern that the dazed fool would make his injuries worse. "Pay him no mind, detective," he chided quietly, "Let's just do our job until the medical technicians arrive, yes?" In his estimation, Aaron would be much more pliable once he had a morphine drip going.

Sam glowered down at Aaron, keeping hold of his wrists. "Nothing's been cut off from what I can see," she told Aaron, wondering if maybe that would calm him down. There was a minor pain growing behind her eyes but she couldn't exactly take a few gulps from her flask.

Being held down didn't sit well with Aaron. He grunted, then made a choked off noise. He didn't stop struggling entirely, but it did slow him down. He stopped when Sam spoke, though. He turned his head to the side where his 'good' eye could get a clear view of her. "See", he mumbled. He was starting to get a little fuzzy headed, or ... more fuzzy headed. Less focused. He was working hard just to look at Sam.

"We can't move you yet," she told him with a glance over her shoulder, hearing sirens in the distance. She was so not going to the hospital. Pack him away and get him taken care of.

Jakob sighed again, this time a touch more privately, before he squeezed Sam's shoulder to urge her away from Aaron. "Detective, I'll get what I can from him on the way to the hospital. You remain here, go over the scene the same as we did the day prior, yes?" he instructed, looking back briefly as the ambulance finally appeared up the street, "Ask questions of the locals, don't worry about getting answers. Instead, look for tattoos. Wrist, forearm, collar, anything you see repeated? Take note. I want to rule out gang violence first and foremost. Do that while I work on getting an account from your... associate."

Sam nodded gratefully. "I'll take care of everything here, see if I can get anything." She'd put her feelers out if they couldn't get anything solid. "Let me know if anything changes in the search." Of course Jakob would let her know. They both knew that. She stood slowly, grimacing a little at the pain behind her eyes. "I'll meet you back at the station?"

"You shall," Jakob assured her, turning again to wave his good hand at the ambulance, flagging it towards them, "Whoever gets the more substantial lead wins dinner, deal?" Obviously this was stressful for Sam, and while Jakob knew they wouldn't solve it, he didn't want her to get sloppy from stress either. A bit of levity could go a long way, especially when dealing with this sort of problem. You are a stubborn one, Mr. Black, he mused as the ambulance slowed, Do not prove to be a recurring problem for me...

Sam grinned, appreciating Jakob's understanding. So he wasn't such a bad, freaky guy after all. "Burger's at Nighthawk's are a-okay for me," she told him, patting his shoulder. "Have fun dealing with the heartbeat." Sam tossed him a smirk and headed away from her partner and the victim to see what the other officers had found.

Aaron tried to grab at Sam as she pulled away, and even grunted in protest, "Saaam." He was barely conscious, so escaping his grip took very little effort. So little, in fact, that she may not have even really noticed. His breathing became a little ragged and fast when she moved away. It wasn't like she was the love of his life or anything. They didn't even really know each other, but she was familiar.

The guy, on the other hand... he was just an asshole. Not that Sam wasn't, but she was the familiar asshole. He tried to put some force and conviction behind what he fully intended to be the only 'account' Jakob would get from him. "Fuck both you guys."

Almost afraid that he was going to run out of uses for the gesture, Jakob sighed again as he caught Aaron's low words, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. He waited for Sam to be out of earshot before he turned back to Aaron, crouching low and tugging his coat up over the prone man again as if to keep him warm. "In my experience, Mr. Black," he murmured once he was in close, "A head full of our city's finest painkillers will make you much more receptive. We'll speak again, I assure you. Enjoy the morphine." And with that? He stood back up, waving the ambulance crew over with a perfectly feigned look of concern.