Title: Read About It

Author: Leevee

Rating: Teen, just to be safe.

Genre: Crossover (NCIS/CSI), Casefile

Disclaimer: I own not CSI or anything affiliated therewith. Same with NCIS, when such elements show up. I also took the title for this from a song by The Living End, so I don't own that, either.

You and I, we read about it
We idolize the criminal mind
Is there a method in our madness?
And we fantasize of committing crimes
And so we remain

- The Living End, "Read About It"

Issue 01

Loud pop music blared from a set of giant speakers, the lyrics and beat familiar to anyone who had been to the teen movies of the last few years (well, had been to them and not been making out, one of the main functions of teen movies). The speakers themselves were surrounded by adults in bright yellow shirts reading 'SECURITY' in an attempt to scare off would-be speaker divers, most of who wound up crowd surfing as they got pushed off the stage. Pop music wasn't generally a speaker diving event, but it was Friday and the usual teenage crowd couldn't be counted on to act as tradition dictated. Not that they ever could, but especially not on Fridays.

To the far left of the stage was a group who didn't seem to be paying attention to the music, hollering to make themselves heard to each other over the music. The ringleader, a girl with a mess of shoulder length gold-red hair held back by a tattered red bandanna, was gesticulating wildly, her mouth snapping open and shut at a worryingly rapid pace as she yelled at the boy directly opposite her in the loose circle. She punctuated the end of her tirade with a finger jabbed into his chest before rocking back on her heels and readjusting her black framed glasses.

The boy, a blond with a few inches and a few tons of muscle on her, shook his head at her statement and started his own rant, his full of facts where hers had been full of reasoning and calling on the sensibilities of the bystanders. The bystanders, for their part, looked entirely bored with the whole thing and one in particular looked very close to punching one or both of the debaters.

She didn't have to go that far, though, because right in the middle of the boy's argument there was a loud snapping sound and then something large and heavy fell from the catwalk above the group.

They all stared at the corpse as the music stopped and voices from the crowd rung out in confusion, only to be stilled as word got back to them. In the shrill silence, the girl voice rang out with everyone's thought.

"Well, damn."

Vartan sighed. Why did it have to be teenagers? He'd prefer toddlers over teenagers, he really would. "Look, miss," he tried again to break the brunette's terrified shivering. She wasn't quite huddled into a ball rocking back and forth, but she was pretty damn close.

Her boyfriend, a blond named Scott who had been in the papers a few months back for winning a state high school wrestling title, glowered at the detective as he wrapped an arm around the girl. "Can't you just take her name and number? She's just had a very traumatic experience."

There was a snort from the redhead with the bandanna who kept trying to look at the body. "Not nearly as traumatic an experience as Mister Dead Guy here's had." She craned her neck to get a better look. "I mean, just look at all that blood. That's enough for half a Red Cross blood drive."

This elicited a sob from the other girl and Scott turned his glower to the redhead. "Leo, why don't you just shut up? You're not helping anyone."

The girl, evidentially named Leo, shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't exactly trying to, Scooter." He just glared, so she rolled her eyes and dragged herself over to where they were standing. "Hey, detective, you haven't talked to me yet," she said in a bored voice that advertised that she was volunteering entirely for the benefit of the couple, and not of free will.

Vartan glanced at the brunette once more before sighing and taking the name and number that the boyfriend provided and sending them off. Not exactly by-the-book, but it wasn't like he was going to get anything more than a few babbling repetitions of everyone else's statements anyway.

He waved the remaining teenager over, wondering what was taking the crime lab so long to send someone over (and hoping he wasn't going to have to grab Ecklie again, guy pissed him off). He'd been on the scene for nearly two hours, and he wasn't the first officer to respond. "And you're Leo, right?" he asked her, mimicking her bored tone.

She winced a smirk at him. "Laura Elizabeth Orson, actually. You need my rank and serial number, too?" she asked sarcastically.

He smirked humorlessly back at her. "A regular telephone one would be fine." As she rattled off her digits, he caught the door opening from the corner of his eye and shifted a bit to check who was entering the club. Greeeeat. He might not have to deal with Ecklie, but he got the baby CSI and Sidle instead. He should have been more specific with his prayers.

"Where were you when the body fell?" he asked the girl, who was now munching on a sandwich she had managed to con one of the rookie officers into getting her earlier. She swallowed and squinted her eyes, rotating on her heel to look at the taped-off area.

"Hm… About halfway between the tables and the stage, I think. Scott and I had been talking politics when we heard this loud crack, so I flattened myself against the wall." He opened his mouth to ask the next question, but she beat him to it. "No, I didn't touch the body. Didn't see anyone else touch it either. Didn't have to move it to see that it was Abruzzo, he landed face-up." She paused. "Can I go now? I've got a game –"she checked her watch "– in about four hours. I'd like to at least pretend to get some sleep."

He nodded and watched her leave (with a pause to harass the rookies guarding the perimeter) before heading over to where the two CSIs were crouched over the body. He ignored their mutterings to each other and started in. "The boy's a local teenager, Thomas Abruzzo, graduated last year and joined the Marines. IDed by pretty much everyone at the scene. By all accounts, a good kid, no enemies at all, everyone loved him and his family, et cetera, et cetera. Because God forbid this would be easy." The last part was muttered under his breath.

His cell took that moment to ring and he suppressed a groan as he answered it. He listened for a moment and then flipped it shut, not bothering to respond to the person on the other end.

"And now we've got feds on their way to take our crime scene," he finished, annoyed. "I hate Fridays."