Visiting Vegas

Disclaimer: No own CSI, no own Discovery channel, no own Clue (the game).

A/N: I want to tell any Mormons out there that I'm NOT poking fun at their vans. It's just what we call them. And I love Clue. Oh, and no animals were harmed in the typing of this story.


I blinked. OH MY GOSH. The world slowed down. Christie and I turned to look at each other. Out faces said the same thing. No way. CSI was just a show! But… we couldn't have stumbled on to a set because we HAD called the cops and there were no cameras. Our faces said it again. No way. As we watched in dazed awe, Brass stopped Nick and spoke to him while Sara and Catherine moved on to process the room.

"Christie…" My mouth was trying to work again. "Christie. Christie, LOOK." I couldn't even point. She nodded. "They're… real. Oh my gosh, Christie, they're REAL!" With that I sat down in the middle of the hall. Nikki nudged me with her foot. My chin flopped down once again as Brass motioned to us and Nick snapped on some gloves. Christie just stood there, watching and not freaking out. She was handling this way better than me. In fact, most of my friends were. But that was probably because they had NO idea who was walking towards us. Walking up, he set down his case and gave me an odd look.

"Okay, so which one of you called this in?" Christie pointed down at me and I pointed up at her. Nick raised an eyebrow. "So who was it?"

My mouth stopped working all over again. Christie picked up the ball and ran with it. "It was her phone and she dialed, but I talked to the dispatcher." I nodded.

"Okay, I'm going to need fingerprints from all of you. Will that be a problem?"

I shook my head, but Christie said, "You need a warrant."

Suddenly my chin stopped hanging and I heard my self speaking. "Christie! You can't be serious! I mean, come on! That's just mean! Why should he need a warrant when we're all here and just standing around?" Then I stopped looking at her and turned my attention to Nick. "You can take my fingerprints."

"I want to get served a warrant at least once in my life and what could be better than getting one from these guys?" My eyes widened. So Christie was excited. She was just better at hiding it than me. Nick just stared. I almost laughed. Then it was back to business.

"Who else will do it with out a warrant?" he asked. Everyone except Christie nodded their head. I tried not to laugh. "Great." He squatted down in front of me and opened his kit. Reaching in, he pulled out an inker and some fingerprint paper.

"Oh, wow, this is so cool." I was trying not to wiggle too much.

"Your right hand please." I held my hand out and he carefully inked each finger before pressing it down on the paper. Then he asked for my left and repeated the process. Whoo! I was being fingerprinted by Nick Stokes of the Las Vegas crime lab! If that crazy lady had randomly shown up and shot me, I would have died happy.

"Thanks," he smiled. "You next," he said standing up and looking at Nikki. I sighed. Nikki nudged me with her foot. Again. I sighed and stood up. Crap, my leg was asleep. I began hopping around and wiggling it around, cringing at the zingy pain. Nick was, once again, giving me strange looks as he moved towards Nikki.

"Right hand, pl-"

"Hola," an odd voice interrupted him. Nikki smiled.

"Uh, what was that?" He looked confused.

"Just Dante," she said, with a smile. I slapped my hand to my mouth and stared at her.

"No way." My voice was muffled so I moved my hand. "You didn't…" She just started to laugh. "Nikki! You're going to kill him! How could you? Poor Dante." I stalked over to her, followed by Melissa who knew exactly what I meant. "Show."

Nikki put her hand up to her shoulder and pulled a slightly ruffled green parrot out from under her hair. "Hola," it said.

Melissa took him and I eyed Nikki suspiciously. "You don't have any other critters around, do you?" And I ushered in the evil glare of doom. "No geckos or crabs? No Mero and Tori? No fish?"

"Well…" Nikki began. "I do have a Fish right there." She pointed. At Melissa.

"Nikki! You know what I mean!" More evil death glare of doom.

Chuckling, she shook her head. "No, just Dante. I couldn't leave him at home, he'd miss me!"

I just shook my head. By this time, Nick had finished Nikki and had moved on to Emily, trying oh so obviously to ignore our conversation. I think he was beginning to wonder if we, the witnesses, would be more of an issue than the crime. That made me want to laugh. A lot. But I refrained and tried to look in control. I failed miserably. I was just too excited about the CSI's actually being here and being real. Having figured out our animal control problem, Christie and I began to shadow Nick, watching his every move carefully. Christie had a reason to. She was in the process of becoming a forensic pathologist. I just wanted to see the stuff in real life. I mean, it was like the Discovery Channel LIVE! (cue applause). And it was SO cool. I think Nick was about tired of it when we began to mimic his movements. Occasionally he would let out sighs coupled with very soft, almost inaudible why-me's. But we were undaunted. Soon there was only Sarah and Aubree left. So I worked up my courage and asked.

"Can I try?"

"What?" He stared at me.

"Can I try? You, know, fingerprinting." I motioned to his ink and paper.

"Me too!" Christie said eagerly. With her on one side and me on the other, Nick looked a little trapped. So he caved.

"Well, I guess it would be alright. Let me show you first, and then you can try it."

"ALRIGHT!" I jumped up and down for a moment, before standing quietly beside him to learn the art of finger printing.

"First take the finger and roll the pad across the ink pad, like this…" And he demonstrated. "Then roll it across the designated space on the paper." And he demonstrated that, too. "Now you try." He handed me the ink pad.

"Whoa. This is awesome." I was so excited. I took Sarah's finger and I rolled it across the ink, then across the paper. "Oh my gosh! That was so freaking cool. Oh, wow!" I was jumping up and down again. Then Christie got to try it, though she acted calmer than me. How boring.

"Geez, guys," came Sarah's voce. "Now I feel like 'Criminal Barbie.' Ooo, ooo, mommy I want that one!"

It made me laugh. Sarah was good at that. And it made Nick smile, so I gave her a hug. She looked confused. But that was okay, because she had gotten Nick to smile. Just then Catherine stuck her head out of the room.

"Hey, Nicky, are you almost done out there? We could use your help in here."

"Uh, yeah, I'll be right there, Cath.

"Thanks." And she was gone. Christie and I were staring, chins dangling… Again. Man, it was almost freaky, it was so cool.

"Thanks, ladies and gents." He turned to Christie. "I'll be back with that warrant."

"Right-o," she replied. I stared at her. How the heck could she be so flippant? I mean, it was Nick Stokes! And she was practically cracking jokes. It was SO not fair. Nick headed for the room and disappeared inside. I started to giggle, but then Brass was approaching so I had to shut up and act un-stupid.

"Ok, you ladies first." He motioned to Christie and me, so we followed him down the hall. "You go talk to Detective Vega over there, ok?" he said to Christie. She followed his pointing arm and met up with Vega. He started asking her questions. Then Brass started in on me. Now, as excited as I was, it was still scary being interviewed for an almost murder. He was so serious and almost glaring, like he thought I did it. No way. I seemed to be thinking that a lot lately. And I knew we technically were suspects, first on the scene and all that, but I also knew that once they got the preliminary evidence in, we'd all be cleared. So I was trying to enjoy the experience of being interviewed by Jim Brass. It was almost hard because he was awfully glare-y and scary. But I got through it and, once it was over, I was thrilled! The two detectives interviewed everyone and were just finishing up with Josh and Kelly when all three CSI's strolled out of the room.

"Hey, Brass, we're finished here." Catherine said as they waited for the elevator. "You almost done?

"Yeah, this is it." He turned to us. "We may be back with more questions. Since I'm assuming you'll be around town, is there some way I'll always be able to get a hold of you?"

We all exchanged glances. Melissa nudged me. "I can give you my cell number. It's…" Brass copied the numbers down and turned to leave with the CSI's. My friends and I decided to forget the stairs and stood waiting for the other elevator. A soft bing sounded and everyone looked up. The down light was above the elevator we were in front of. Another bing sounded and the up arrow appeared over the elevator the investigators were in front of. I almost laughed as the groups switched places to get in the elevators. I was ducking Dante when I accidentally bumped into Nick.

"Oh, sorry." I smiled up at him. He smiled back and then stepped into his elevator. I got into mine and that was that. As the door closed the tension dropped like a rock. I sure hoped we didn't… Drop like a rock, I mean. Elevators are odd things after all. I think that we were all ready to pass on showers and just go to sleep. I mean, we'd been up for 24 hours. Excitement and adrenaline only go so far. We stumbled into the suite and headed straight for our respective rooms.

"'Night," some one mumbled.

"'Night," we all mumbled back.

I fell onto my bed and almost immediately leapt up again. I just wasn't THAT tired. I reached for one of my suitcases and pulled out a pack of new sheets and a quilt from home. Christie snorted when she saw.

"Melvis, what are you doing?" Nikki asked.

"I'm using my own nice, new, never been used sheets." And with that I began to strip the bed.

"I can see that, but why?"

"I'm NEVER sleeping on public sheets again." I said firmly as I began to spread my own sheets out. Her face said it: why? "Haven't you ever watched CSI? Man, the sheets they get are nasty! Ew, I don't even want to think about it." Christie snorted again. She knew what I was talking about.

Nikki still didn't understand. "Look, people come here on honeymoons and have S-E-X. Other people come here when they're paid to have S-E-X. Now all that S-E-X makes stains. And they last longer than diamonds, I mean, really. They're not coming out. And that's just gross. So here are my new sheets, no stains or anything. Not gross." I smiled. Nikki nodded and headed for the other room.

"You're insane," Christie told me.

"Nope," I disagreed. "Totally and completely out of Sane."

The next morning we split up. Sarah and Daniel were, believe it or not, headed to the Desert Rose Golf Club. I have no idea why. Attempting to hit little bitty balls with sticks is SO not my idea of fun… But, hey, if it floats your boat. Aubree and Kelly were spending the day at a spa some where or other. I missed the name. The rest of us were off to spend as much of the day in the Luxor as possible. I mean, what could be cooler than getting tickets to see the Blue Man Group, then going on all the fun motion rides? And Egyptian adventure rides? And the last time I was here, they had Egyptian trolls.

After over sleeping and breakfast at 11:00 a.m. we actually got to the Luxor at 1:30 p.m. We headed straight for the ticket place. And there was this guy in front of us…. He had no clue how to go about buying tickets. I couldn't believe it. We decided we'd try back later. So we went on this one ride that started out in an "elevator" in a dig in Egypt. Only it broke and we "plummeted" to the bottom where we were allowed to "climb out" and take our seats. It was so much fun! So cheesy. But then that's Vegas, right? Then there was this show in their theater and that was cool. Not quite as neat as the motion theater but slightly more informative. By then we were all hungry so we scouted around and found a cute little coffee shop tuck behind the Nile and some palm trees. Then we decided to try our luck at the ticket counter again. And, by gosh, there wasn't anyone there! So we scurried up like scarabs and asked for tickets.

"How many would you like?" the guy asked.

"Oh, lots," Emily said. We laughed as the guy rolled his eyes. "How about ten? And we'd like a show a couple days from now."

"Right. Ten." He typed like mad at his computer. "There are actually some seats open for the Friday night show, but they're not together. Saturday has ten together though."

"We'll take the Saturday tickets, thanks." I said. We paid and the guy gave us our tickets. Whoo! We turned to leave. Melissa wanted to skip. So she took off at top-skipping speed and we tried to deny that we knew her in any way. There were some kiosk-like displays near by so we wandered over and browsed.

"Oh my gosh!" I was wiggling. "Looky, there they are!"

"What? What?"

"The trolls! Aren't they cute? Wearing those little Egyptian clothes with that hair!" I started to laugh.

"Please don't touch so much." the kiosk-keeper said. Totally intimidated, we moved on.

"Hey, let's get going."

Back at the hotel, we found Daniel and Sarah returned from there golfing adventure. They were camped out on the couch in our living room thing watching "Adventures in Babysitting." Since it's such a funny movie, most us camped out with them to wait for Aubree and Kelly. I'm not sure why, but we did.

Five hours later, Aubree and Kelly were still MIA, and I'd had it with TV. So I had pulled out my super nifty laptop and made icons. Beautiful 100x100 bits of CSI-a-licious art. And then I ran out of ideas. Crap. So I went to LiveJournal to post some. I love wireless internet. It rocks. After sticking up the new ones in my LJ, I put some in CSI Icons, and then cruised around some of the other commies I hung around in.

"OH MY FREAKING GOSH!" I hollered at no one in particular.

The phone rang. Dang it, ruined my moment. Heaving an overly dramatic sigh I answered. "Hello?"

"This is the concierge. I have a Nick Stokes here to see you?" He said it like a question.

"Whoo, send 'im up!" I tossed the phone down. "Christie! Some one here for you!"

Soon there was a knock on the door. I fell off the couch in my haste to get to the door first. Then I was up and running. Crashing almost head first into the door, I opened it. "Hi there. Come on in. OH MY GOSH!" There was someone with Nick… Someone with a great nose and spiky hair. And the idiot grin made its entrance.

Nick motioned to the hotness standing next to him. "This is-"

"Greg Sanders. I know."

The two CSI's looked a bit confused. "O-kay…" They sounded confused, too. Hey, Brass was there too. He looked confused and left out. I smiled at him.

Walking in, Nick commented in that I'm-interrogating-you-but-you-aren't-supposed-to-know-it kinda voice. "I heard a couple of crashes. It sounded like some one hit the door."

I blushed. "Uh, yeah. That was just me falling off couch. And crashing into the door… Yeah."

"So, we have the warrant to get Christie B.'s fingerprints. And to search your entire suite."

"Holy cow. Our entire suite? Wow." I was surprised. But then, we were the prime suspects for now. 'Till the evidence said 'Hey, none of these guys were ever within ten feet of this almost dead guy.' Which it would. 'Cuz the evidence never lies.

"Ethiop-" Melissa started. Five people silenced her with a look.

Nick went to take Christie's fingerprints and I had an idea.

"Hey, you wanna search Bjork, too?" I offered.

"A-who-ma?" Greg spoke for the first time.

"Bjork. Our MAV-wannabe." I clarified. They still had no idea what I was talking about. "Our van. It's big and red. And we named it Mervyn Bjork."

"What's an MAV?" Now Greg was attempting the I'm-interrogating-but-not voice.

"Oh, it's a 'Mormon Assault Vehicle.' They drive them around town, 'cept theirs are always white and empty. Which is why ours is a wannabe. It's red and full. And none of us are Mormon."

"Right." He glanced at Nick, who gave a subtle nod. "Yes, we want to search that, as well. Do we have your permission, or do we need another warrant?"

"No, go right ahead. Want me to call the valet for you?"

"No, we'll wait until we're done here."

Nick walked over and said "I'll take the left room, you go right." They split up and I grinned. Soon, Greg's voice carried in to us. "Alright! Girl's room!" Christie and I snickered. Then we stood around for fifteen minutes.

"Oh my gosh! Aubree and Kelly are still gone!" Nikki randomly said.

"Hola," Dante randomly supplied.

"Hey, your right. Weren't they due back four and a half hours ago? Give or take fifteen minutes?" I said. "I wonder where they are…"

Brass joined the conversation. "What this?"

"Our friends, Kelly and Aubree. They went to the spa today, and were supposed to meet us here four and a half hours ago, give or take fifteen minutes. Then we were gonna go watch the pirates outside Treasure Island."

Brass was thinking. "Do they have cell phones?"

"Oh my gosh, yes!" I whipped out my own and quickly speeded Aubree. No answer. Kelly next. No answer. Now I was getting stressed. I looked up at Brass. "Nothing."

"Maybe they've been kidnapped!" Sarah said.

"By the lady who ran out of the almost dead guy's room!" Melissa added.

"To keep us quiet!" Emily joined in.

"Because we aren't going to tell anyone when two of our friends randomly don't come back!" Daniel said in a high pitched voice.

"Hey…" Melissa started.

"No, they've got a point." Brass cut in. "Maybe it was the lady, in the spa, with the towel."