The Blood Sings, and I Listen |OPEN|

[Gabriel Sullivan]

'Nerd cop.'  All things considered, it was an amusing title for Gabe, but he definitely saw how it applied.  He was a cop, technically, but he worked on the quieter end of the spectrum.  He could have easily been one of the people out there chasing criminals down, putting his senses and abilities to use catching the 'bad guys', but he stood by his decision.  He thought what he did was incredibly interesting, putting together the story of what had happened just from the blood left behind at a scene, and he didn't like to be bored.  It felt like being offered up a new puzzle every time he went into work.  He could have bet that working his way up to detective status would have gotten old fast, and he didn't need the 'excitement' of their job.  He'd seen his share of violence firsthand plenty of times, and now it was just nice to look at the end result and ponder without having to worry about swords, bullets or cannonballs rushing towards you.

He'd seen plenty of all three of the above right up until the end of the 19th century, and then he'd STILL seen plenty of bullets and blades.

Today, he had his work cut out for him, and it entertained him to wonder what a MORTAL blood spatter expert would be thinking in this situation.  AS a vampire, his senses picked up more about a situation than a human would, AND he didn't really stress out in quite the same way, or grow tired.  If he'd been a human in this day and age, he'd probably be annoyed instead of curious at this point.  With the level, direction, pattern and sheer AMOUNT of blood spray he'd found on the walls of the victim's apartment, not to mention the floor, there should have been a dead body.  Instead, there was a trail of blood that DEFINITELY wasn't from the body being dragged, almost as though the person walked out of there.  This was where he wondered what a human in his position would think.  As a vampire, he was assuming that the victim was either a vampire itself, or a shapeshifter.  Without testing its blood, he wouldn't know, which was exactly why he was sitting in his office after hours.

"Huh.  That's interesting."

[Katherine Summers]

If Gabriel was known as the 'Nerd Cop', Katherine was definitely known as the 'Weird Cop'. She was accused of being crazy half the time, mostly because she was a forensic pathologist. She didn't play in the chemicals or analyze blood splatters, she just got to cut the bodies up - and she had fun, doing it. She had a wickedly dark sense of humour that didn't seem to match her sweet demeanor or girlish features, and along with the 'Brunette Brigade' that consisted of LeCroix, DeMortei, Sullivan and Korakas, she'd made her niche in quite nicely. She, of course, was the only mortal out of the bunch, which she had no idea about, but that was fine - she brought enough 'weird' to the table that she was easily accepted during lunch runs.

She also had a bad habit of staying around work late, and was actually just coming from her own office when she saw the light on in Gabriel's. She leaned into his doorway, still wearing her extremely messy gloves, and chirped a cheerful "Hey!" at him so quickly that she was hoping she'd startle him. She was small enough that she often jumped out of corners at her coworkers without meaning to, but Sullivan she could never stun.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

Katherine was definitely little, and definitely sneaky, but there were few moments when Gabriel was ever really surprised.  A few nights earlier, getting mugged headed out to his car, was a fluke, and he was NOT going to repeat the incident anytime soon.  In fact, he'd found that car, and made that man regret what he'd done. 

It had been satisfying, and there was no blood to require a conflict of interest if the body was found, though he'd ensured that nobody would care.  Laws regarding corpses with no apparent murderer were somewhat different overseas.  Go figure. 

In any case, he wasn't often surprised by much of ANYTHING, and Katherine was no different.  He heard the soft footsteps after she'd noticed his light on, and expected her to stop by.  Naturally, she did.  "Watch you don't get that mess on my door, Kitty Kat.  I don't want someone thinking I killed someone," he told her, leaning back and spinning in his chair to smile at her.  He'd started telling her to watch the mess before he'd even looked at her, but he could smell it.  Nothing smelled quite like the truly dead. 

[Katherine Summers]

Katherine was had - twice. His sudden speech before she'd been able to say anything made her jump instead of him, and she frowned as she looked down at her hands. "Aw, man! Not again!" she exclaimed, peeling the gloves off carefully. Thank god there was a little waste bin with a biohazard logo in it nearby, because she was not walking all the way back to the morgue area. She whipped a little hand sanitizer bottle out of her purse and rubbed it on her hands vigorously while simultaneously walking into Gabriel's office and plunking her tiny frame down in the chair adjacent to his desk.

"Why're you here so late?" she inquired, nosy as ever as she leaned out of the chair to see his paperwork. Her brown hair cascaded over her shoulders, lightly dusting the edges of some of the photos he had lain out, and she cleared it over her shoulder absently as her brown eyes scanned them.

"Oh, I know this case," she said. "This is the one I'm waiting on for my body to cut up, right?" She furrowed her brows a little. "He couldn't have gotten far, judging from all that," she murmured to herself.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

His smile turned into an outright grin at her reaction, knowing that she was seriously trying to scare or startle him at this point, and he was going to do everything in his power to ensure that it didn't work.  She'd even stuck nasty articles from human bodies in his face suddenly, just to see if he'd jump.  He hadn't, and he'd gotten spattered with human juices as a result, which naturally prompted a pretty reasonable, 'That is fucking disgusting, Kit Kat.'  He had a lot of nicknames for her, and it could have been a LOT worse, given the situation.  He'd seen one of the boys in blue toss his cookies at THAT.

"This is EXACTLY the one, and I'm trying to figure out why you don't have a body to play with," he told her.  Unfortunately, he wouldn't be looking at the blood samples to see if they were human while she was there, so he'd have to put work on hold.  Even if he DID discover that it wasn't a human, he'd have to figure out how to relay that information past her.  Korakas and DeMortei would be easy to explain it to, but try telling a girl who LIKES cutting into dead bodies that she's not getting one this time. 

It'd be like disappointing a kid at Christmas.

"Most people wouldn't be able to get far with all of this.  From what I can tell, it was the jugular that was hit, and this is a LOT of blood.  At this rate, whoever this was should have kept bleeding."  Ironic, given his own experience a few nights before.  That only proved his point.  Even a shifter might have bled out and died, so he was betting on a vampire.  Afterall, his throat had been positively mutilated by that bullet, and he'd held on long enough to function.  He'd had to look at the mess the next day at work, and it had been significant.  He was hoping Katherine didn't mention THAT one, which was another body she should have gotten.

Understandably, she was glad she hadn't.  What would she have thought of THAT?

[Katherine Summers]

"Mmhm," she said, acknowledging him as she whipped out her I-phone. She settled back down in the chair and managed to multitask typing something in while she spoke. "Maybe the killer had some vinyl wrap or something with them? I guess we'd have to determine if this was isolated or not. I know normal people who go in and blast someone in the head or neck with a .45 caliber round don't think that there's going to be a huge splat. They think it's like the movies - and since all movies are like, PG13 now, I'd say it's a gross misunderstanding of how this really works."

She fell silent for a minute, concentrating fully on her phone, and then squeaked happily. "Ooooh, Horton Hears a Who is still playing!" she cried.

She glanced back up, obviously unphased by herself. "Of course, all of this doesn't matter to me, since I can't tell what the killer was doing without a body. Did you guys find any plastic residue or anything else in or around the apartment that would lead you to believe the guy only got so far before someone literally bagged him and ran off with him?"

[Gabriel Sullivan]

She had a point, and that was usually something that made his job easier.  Normal people had no idea what kind of mess killing someone was, unless they'd studied it or done it themselves before.  Gabe had done both, so he was set on that front, but most people HADN'T.  This, though...

"I didn't find anything, but there's always the chance we all missed it," he remarked in much the same way that she'd completely continued after her outburst, though he didn't think it was likely that they had.  From the looks of it, the victim had walked off.  Hell, HE'D walked away from his. 

With that comment out there, he smirked some and pulled a drawer open, revealing a bag of jelly beans he'd put in there specifically because the two of them were the night owls, and she liked them.  "You wanted to see that?  I heard mixed reviews, personally."

[Katherine Summers]

Katherine nearly came across the desk after the jellybeans. It was almost disturbing how quickly she was motivated by candy, and she ate them greedily when Gabriel finally released the bag into her custody. She started by dividing the colours out into little piles, and then eating from one of each until they were even.

"Well," she said in between bites, "I guess we'll just have to wait and see. This isn't the only unsolved case we have baffling us right now. There are random spots all over the city covered in enough blood to make me think we just have, I don't know, zombies or something running around. Welcome to New York," she shrugged. "I'm sure between now and tomorrow they'll have plenty more bodies for me to go over."

"And yes," she added, after a moment, "Horton Hears a Who is still playing, and I want to see it." She glanced at her watch. "I think I have enough time if I leave now. Are you going to stay here and stare at these pictures?" she asked, hinting that he should probably not do that.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

Gabe's writer just about couldn't respond to this because of Katherine coming across the desk, but after a moment or so of struggling, managed to get through the problem to actually post.  Gabriel, in the meantime, took notice of Katherine's usually strange habits where candy was concerned, but didn't comment.  It was old news, really, though no less interesting as time passed.

He actually laughed when she mentioned zombies, easily making it look like he just thought the idea was ludicrous, but it was really the irony of the situation that he found amusing.  She was right in that it was undead wandering around, just off on the zombie bit.  He did not resemble a shambling corpse, thanks.  "I'm sure you'll love that, too.  Humming songs from Horton, you'll be cracking into those smelly corpses like a kid at Christmas.  And people ask me how I do my job."

Of course, he was joking, but there was some truth in it. 

Hmm, stay and stare at pictures, or leave with Katherine?  He may have been dead for a long time, and he definitely had a rule about snacking on people he worked with, but staring at some pictures of blood and some samples when he could be out socializing with someone he actually LIKED instead of the women he fed from sounded pretty stupid.  Even if she wanted to go see a movie he'd NEVER want to see himself. 

He also hadn't missed her 'hint'.

"I was going to, but for some reason, I've developed this insane urge to get up and leave," he remarked smoothly, smiling as he leaned back in his chair and stretched some. 

[Katherine Summers]

"Good!" she cheered, jumping up fluidly. It was disgusting how quick she was for a human, but Katherine was spry - she had to be. A woman of her size working in a place like this had to know how to use what she had to the best of her ability, and Kat sure did. She walked around the back of Gabriel's desk and gave his shoulders a good squeeze before grabbing his arm, causing his chair to turn (wheels, of course). She'd just start tugging him along, still in the chair, until he got up.

"C'mon, I don't wanna be late. I hear it's really cute! I'll even pay, since I know you don't actually want to see this," she offered, glad to be leaving work. Katherine loved her job, but Gabe loved his job - there was a fine line between healthy career and obsession, and Kat didn't want to see him burn out before she had a chance to spend time with him. She was greedy like that.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

It was seriously tempting to just let her pull him along in the chair like a child, but he allowed himself to be pulled just enough to sigh and move, grabbing the coat he really didn't need on their way out the door.  He'd put it in the washer after his 'incident', but he knew that he was fortunate it was black. 

"Cute?" he repeated, not disguising the uncertainty in his voice.  He didn't do a whole lot of cute, especially where movies were concerned.  Cute women were another story, but children's movies?  Not so much, though that really didn't mean she had to PAY, and he winced.  He wasn't going to make her pay.  He worked because he enjoyed it, not because he needed the money. 

Really, she wasn't paying.  She could say she would, but he wasn't going to allow it.

"That's not necessary, Kat.  I don't mind seeing it with you," he told her, smiling convincingly despite the lie about not minding seeing the movie.  He didn't mind seeing it BECAUSE of her, but the movie wasn't the selling point.  Of course, he was one of those foolish types that didn't like the read the minds of the humans he liked, so he tried to avoid reading her mind most of the time.  Sometimes, he did it just to keep her on her toes, but other times, he just...didn't want to know.  This was one of those times, and so he missed the thoughts she had on him loving his job, and burning out.  He actually wished he could actually burn himself out like that, just to remember what it felt like to work himself to his limits.  That didn't happen often anymore.

[Katherine Summers]

She linked her arm with his as they walked out of the building, giving a wave to some of the guys up front. "Yeah, yeah Peters, we're finally out. If I look at the blood splatters anymore I think I'll turn into a vampire," she teased. "Say hi to Maureen for me, would you? Oh yeah, don't forget about Saturday - bowling, 9 o'clock. Girls against boys. Tanith says she's bringing a frilly pink shirt for you to wear," she called, and was met with loud guffaws of laughter from the oversized detective at the front desk working on some last-minute case junk.

She smiled up at Gabe as they walked out, just as cheery as ever. "I dunno why this movie doesn't interest you. Didn't you ever see the original? It's really sad! Everyone he knows totally disowns him because they think he's full of shit, and it turns out that he's really right all along. I hope this one is at least funny.." she trailed off. "Kids movies always have super sad shit hidden in them, it's like they try to traumatize us. I still cry when I watch the Last Unicorn," she pouted, waiting for Gabriel to unlock the car door and let her in.

"C'mon pokey, we're gonna miss all the previews!" she jeered at him.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

If Gabe had been younger and less capable of schooling his emotions, he might have looked just a little nervous as her mention of turning into a vampire, which still gave him a mental start, even if he didn't show anything for it.  He preoccupied himself with giving Peters a 'look' that suggested the guy really didn't need to mention the fact that they'd left together arm in arm, but the man wasn't likely to listen.  He'd have Korakas teasing him first thing in the morning.

Great. 

"Sorry, kids' movies tend to just completely pass my radar," he told her, though he understood exactly what she was saying about the storylines.  Even children's stories when he was alive were pretty traumatic, so it definitely wasn't a new thing.  He just found it interesting that humans still did it.  Perhaps they thought they were teaching their children lessons through it. 

"I read the Last Unicorn, though.  I liked it," he offered as he unlocked the door and rolled his eyes at her hurry.  He HAD read it, and he HAD enjoyed it, though it wasn't his usual.  He'd get bored and read everything in sight occasionally, and that happened to end up in his pile once. 

Once she saw him drive, she might stop worrying about being late.

[Katherine Summers]

"Jesus, Gabriel," she said, a giggle lifting her nerves through her voice. "You drive any faster and we'll be getting a ticket from our fellow bretheren in blue," she scolded. There was no way that he could ignore how anxious he'd made her with his moves in the car, however it was also obvious that she was 'shushing' her nerves as best she could, because she didn't want him to think she was a sissy. Kat was anything but, actually, although she didn't know the enigmatic yet highly sarcastic blood splatter expert well enough to just flat out display her wild side...

Well, not without a lot of alcoholic encouragement.

She smiled through locks of dark hair that had fallen in her face, and tossed them aside as they pulled into a parking spot. "Ready for the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss? Did you know he started out as a political cartoonist? Yeah, I read some of his old stuff. Cartoon Hitler is... yeah. Yeah..." she trailed off.

[Gabriel Sullivan]

It wasn't hard to tell that she was nervous, even without smelling it in the air between them, just from the notes in her giggle and the things she said.  He actually even slowed down to try alleviating it, but the damage was done.  They were just about at the movie theater, and they'd make her previews.

"I'm sure it's nothing you couldn't talk them out of with a nice little smile and a good 'innocent' act," he told her with a grin, seemingly not at all worried about getting pulled over.  The fact of the matter was that he always sped, and he'd had his share of experiences talking cops out of tickets.  Or, he just paid them.  It didn't really matter to him.

Gabriel probably wouldn't have minded seeing that 'wild side', to be totally honest, but there WAS the fact that he really didn't want to get seriously involved with anyone.  He'd gotten close plenty of times since he was human, and nothing he'd ever experienced since then had ever changed his mind.  He just...didn't do it.  He dated, entertained flings, fed from pretty girls, and went home to an apartment he really didn't mind being empty.  The idea of potentially getting involved with KAT was especially bad, even if it seemed like such a good idea sometimes, because he knew himself better.  He didn't want to have to face her everyday if things didn't go right, and they never did.  They'd go see their kids' movie, and he'd drive her back to her car without incident.

That was the plan.

"As ready as I'll ever be.  They should make a movie out of his political cartoons, instead.  I'd watch a Seuss-Hitler strut across the screen if it had a plot," he remarked, aware of just how bad political cartoonists could be.  They could also be incredibly entertaining. 

If her hair was going to keep falling in her face, he was going to have to dig out a rubber band so she could tie it up, JUST so he didn't have to watch it.  He liked dark hair far too much.