So people liked my 'Someone Please Die!' story so much, I decided to write a Miami one. Maybe I'll write an NY one, too, but ideas are running out.
Notes: Yes, I know it's probably impossible to play 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' on glass, but it's one of my favourite pieces, so I had to put it in somewhere. The mini-motor car incident is something that one of my friends did at school, which resulted in the car being confiscated after an RTA involving said car and our head-of-year's shoes. Oh, and the practical joke in the mortuary was a story a family member told me; this joke always seems to get played on anyone who works in a mortuary.
As in the original, there have been no murders for three days in Miami and the CSIs are getting bored to the point of insanity.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters and concepts of CSI: Miami.
Someone Please Die: Miami
Calleigh walked past the door, stopped, backed up, and looked inside.
Ryan was sat on the floor, surrounded by various sized and shaped glass containers, filled with varying amounts of water and several spoons in each hand. He was beating out a tune enthusiastically and didn't notice Calleigh until she started clapping.
He looked up and grinned. 'Do I take that you wanting an encore?'
'Label me very impressed,' she said, smiling. 'That was actually very good.'
'It's not that difficult.'
'I didn't actually think it was possible to play 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' with a few glasses and spoons.'
'With a little practise, anything is possible,' he said. 'Would you like to request a song?'
'Not really - ' she began.
He polished the spoons on his knees and stretched his arms theatrically. 'Here goes.' He began to beat the glass with increasingly speed and strength.
Seeing what was about to happen, Calleigh backed out of the room and silently counted.
As she reached four, there were several loud crashes and a wave of cold water swept gentle out of the room, accompanied by a wail from Ryan.
'You all right?' she asked innocently, poking her head around the door.
He glowered at her from the puddle he was now sat in.
'There's a mop in the corner. And a bucket. I guess that means the show's cancelled, doesn't it?'
His scowl became, if at all possible, even darker.
'Oh, is that the time?' she said quickly, glancing around. 'I really must go.' She left the room, hearing the mournful strains of 'Near, far, wherever you are' ringing in her ears. Clearly, Ryan wasn't ready to give up being musical just yet.
As she headed towards her lab, a purring noise sounded from around the corner, gradually growing louder and louder and suddenly, a mini motor car zoomed into view. It crashed into her foot, backed up and crashed into her again before finally backing up and zipping around her.
Calleigh looked up and saw Eric sauntering towards her, all his attention focused upon the controls in his hands, his face screwed up in an expression of intense concentration. The car continued on its way, occasionally crashing into walls and feet and tripping various people up.
She walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up and grinned. 'Hey, Calleigh!'
'Eric, what are you doing?'
'Doing laps,' he said. 'Seeing how many I can do – '
'Before someone stamps on the car and throws it out of the window?'
'Pretty much.'
'Oh.' She smiled brightly. 'Carry on.' He did so, sending the car reeling drunkenly into the DNA lab. There was a sound of breaking glass and then the sound of Valera swearing. Calleigh didn't stop to witness the carnage, but carried on to her own lab.
'Okay,' Alexx said briskly. 'This is a game of Hunt the Slipper.'
Eric sighed and folded his arms. 'That's really boring, Alexx.'
She smiled. 'It's Hunt the Slipper with a difference, boys.'
Ryan and Eric exchanged looks. 'Different how, exactly?' Ryan queried.
'It's still got a foot in it.'
Ryan and Eric exchanged looks again and then walked out.
'Come on!' Alexx called after them. 'It'll be fun!'
'So what would you call this game?' Ryan asked Eric five minutes later.
Eric considered. 'I'd call it a jigsaw.'
'I'd go one step further,' Ryan said thoughtfully. 'I'd call it the biggest, craziest jigsaw ever known in the history of humankind and are you crazy, Calleigh?'
She gave them both her trademark bright smile. 'It's fun and intellectually stimulating!'
The other two exchanged looks and shook their heads.
They had come in to tell Calleigh about Alexx's 'hunt the slipper with a difference' and had found a gun lab in chaos. She had taken every single gun down, dismantled them and thrown them in the air. Now she was in the middle of having to put them all back together, which she was doing, to their joint amazement, surprisingly fast.
'A little – too mind-taxing for me,' Eric said, grinning. He said to Ryan, 'Come on, let's go and find something else to do and leave her to her guns.'
It was a little while later.
Calleigh had given up on her jigsaw for the time being, and had gone in search of someone to annoy or, failing that, to talk to.
She spotted Ryan and Eric in one of the labs and frowned, wondering what they were doing. She went in. They were deep in thought, stood beside one of the glass boards upon which letters and dashes had been written. Calleigh realised that it was a game of Hangman.
There was also a pile of plastic bones lying on the ground.
'R,' Ryan said.
'Nope,' Eric said, quickly writing the letter R on the board, and then crouched down, picked up one of the plastic bones, which was a skull, and attached it to a frame. They had dismantled the plastic skeleton and were using it to play their game of Hangman.
Calleigh said, 'And you guys called me crazy?'
'That,' Ryan said, 'is because this is one skeleton. Not a lab full of guns.'
'Who's winning?'
'I am,' Ryan said, 'but Eric keep deliberately spelling things wrong!'
'Am not!'
'Are too!'
Eric brandished a plastic arm. 'Are you calling me a liar?'
'Well, I know you're not dyslexic!'
Calleigh stepped in before they could come to blows. 'It doesn't matter,' she said. 'There's something I think you should know.'
'What's that, then?' Eric asked, giving Ryan an evil look.
'Well, I just came in to warn you to be careful in the hallway,' Calleigh said. 'Someone has been setting up booby-traps so just keep a look-out, okay?'
'Oh we know about them,' Eric said.
'You do?'
'Yeah,' Ryan added. 'We helped set them up. Practically everyone in the lab came up with ideas and helped out.'
'I see.' She paused, then said, 'Horatio just called me. Stetler's on his way in.'
Neither of them looked remotely bothered.
She smiled. 'This should be fun.'
It all happened rather spectacularly, everyone agreed later. It was lucky that everything was captured on camera for everyone to enjoy later with popcorn and as a source of blackmail at a later date.
Stetler stepped out of the elevator, took a few steps and then tripped over a wire stretched across his path. He regained his balance with remarkable agility. Unfortunately, he then trod in a puddle that Ryan had neglected to mop up from his earlier, aquatic musical attempts, and went sliding off down the corridor. Grabbing hold of one of the doors, he got his balance again, only to knock a plastic bucket from where it was balance precariously on top of the door, filled with flour, and have it land squarely on his head. With a yell of anger, he hurled the bucket aside, stumbled forwards - onto another trip wire. This one was connected to a series of wires and strings which eventually triggered a plastic crossbow which fired a little rubbed arrow which, in a moment of perfect slapstick comedy, landed smack in the middle of his forehead.
To complete the comic moment, he fainted.
'It was poetry in motion,' Ryan said mistily.
Eric sighed. 'I want to fix this moment in my memory forever,' he said with a soppy look on his face.
Alexx swatted them both on the back of the head. 'He could have been seriously injured!' she said, barely concealing a grin.
'No such luck,' Calleigh said mournfully.
'Where is he now?' Ryan asked.
'Recovering with a bottle of vodka, I expect,' Eric said.
'No,' Alexx said thoughtfully. 'No, I think he went for a lie down.'
'Where?' Calleigh said. 'There's nowhere to rest around here.'
'Isn't there?' Alexx said innocently.
They all looked at her.
She grinned.
A terrified howl echoed down the corridor. They all poked their heads out of the doorway and watched a dishevelled Rick legging it down the corridor with a stricken expression on his face and terror in his eyes as he made a final bid for freedom.
They all looked at each other. Then they all burst out laughing.
Horatio peered over the top of his sunglasses at his team. They were all wearing identical expressions of wide-eyed-innocence. He took a deep breath, frowned at tem for a moment longer, then spoke.
'I will put up with ridiculous ideas for games and idiot behaviour from my team, but this is going a step too further. Rick has been seriously traumatised by this incident. I am very disappointed in all of you.' Horatio paused, then smiled. 'However, on the plus side, we won't be seeing Rick for a good few weeks! Good work, team!'
'Maybe he's so traumatised he'll have repressed it,' Ryan suggested.
'We can but hope,' Eric said happily.
Ideas for Someone Please Die: New York would be greatly appreciated!
