Chapter Two: Orientation and Disorientation
Theresa Regosa wandered through the halls of the casino', holding a paper map in her hands. After Ecklie's short introductory speech to the student body, they had dispersed for a while, left to explore the first floor of what was really a fanfiction university. "Well," she said to herself, "this might work out for the best. I'm sure there's some way to help Gil and Catherine see the blazing light brighter than the sun that is their undying love." As she walked, she plotted Grissom and Catherine's inevitable succumbing to their mutual love. She wondered if perhaps there were closets she could lock the two in. She passed by a few other milling students, all quietly talking amongst themselves.
Then, she spotted The Enemy. Another CGR fan had told Theresa the girl's name was Nina,and earlier she had heard the girl loudly proclaim that she was going to get Gil and Sara together. Not on my watch, Theresa thought, glaring at the heathen Grissom/Sara shipper.
Nina didn't look up, so she missed Theresa's fiery glare. Just as well.
Finally finished mentally turning the other girl to ash, Theresa continued on, in search of one of the other meeting halls. Supposedly there was going to be an orientation meeting where they would all learn more about the university. It was scheduled to begin shortly.
Suddenly, as if appearing from thin air, Theresa spotted Gil ahead of her as he walked his cute little bowlegged walk toward the next room. She didn't need an engraved invitation. She broke into a dead run to catch him.
Unfortunately, so had all the rest of the students. It was a full-on stampede.
Oblivious, Grissom continued walking to the meeting hall. He turned a corner.
When the students reached the corner, Gil Grissom was nowhere to be seen. The stampede stopped short, with most of the students (those who hadn't crashed into one another and fell) wondering the same thing: How did he do that?
Theresa sighed. She could always catch him later.
II
It didn't take long for the students to get themselves situated in the new meeting hall. The room was filled mostly with girls, but there were a few guys in attendance. At the front, a tall blonde woman stood, watching them, while Miss Cam, whom most of them had already met, sat at a desk full of papers, giving them all a thoughtful look.
Some girls near Theresa where whispering amongst themselves, but not so quietly that she couldn't hear them.
"My name is Kitty," one of the girls said to the other, who happened to be Theresa's arch-nemesis, even if the other didn't know it yet. "I hear you ship Grissom and Sara?"
"Yeah," the other said. "I'm Nina. Who do you ship?"
"Cath/Warrick and Grissom/Sara, naturally!"
The two shared a soft squee of delight at meeting one another, and Theresa scowled hard. Geeklovers. The bane of her GCR existence. And worse, she was sitting next to a Yo!Blinger. Maybe she could accidentally stick out a sharp elbow
Further thought on the subject of the One True Pairing and the evils of those who opposed it were driven out of her head (and the heads of most of the other students) when the soft voice of one of the sexiest men on television drifted over the room.
"Hello, my name is Gil Grissom and I'll be—"
A loud cry of, "GRISSOM!" followed by innumerable squees and fangirlish noises prevented him from finishing his sentence.
Grissom glanced over at Miss Cam, a weary look on his face. Yes, he wanted to educate these masses of misinformed, deluded purveyors of what barely qualified as fanfiction, but perhaps he didn't so much want to interact with them. Ecklie had thought this particular job beneath him and had dumped it on the less than willing Graveyard shift supervisor.
Miss Cam gave him a sympathetic shrug.
Sighing, Grissom turned back to the student body. "As I was saying," he continued, his voice carrying over numerous delighted sighs, "I will be conducting this short orientation. First, I would like to introduce Miss Cam and Miss Princess Artemis to you."
Miss Cam stood up and bowed elegantly to the gathering, while Miss Princess Artemis stepped forward and did the same.
"Miss Cam will be your Course Coordinator, and Miss Princess Artemis, who has told me that you may call her Miss PA for the sake of awkwardness, will be the Student/Faculty Liaison. Please take any questions you may have about class requirements to Miss Cam; she will be handing out your schedules and dorm assignments shortly. If you have any needs for student counseling or questions for the staff, please speak to Miss PA. Any questions?"
Grissom watched the students. Judging by the glazed expressions and the not inconsiderable amounts of drool gracing most of the girls in the audience, he thought they hadn't even heard him. Maybe he had bored them into catatonia?
Miss PA whispered something in his ear. "Oh," Grissom said, flushing slightly. It hadn't occurred to him that most of these girls would die happy listening to himrecite the phone book. He tapped the mic. "Students?"
For a moment, the female portion of the student body that had been rendered motionless by the delight of hearing Grissom talk to them in real life remained so. But slowly, awareness crept back upon them, many wiping the dribble from their mouths as discreetly as they could. Then they started squeeing and making fangirlish noises again.
Happy to have an aware audience, even if it was a squeeing one, Grissom continued. "This first semester you will have four introductory classes along with a number of seminars, all designed to teach you how to write CSI fanfiction that won't cause readers' brains to spontaneously combust. You all have maps of the university; feel free to explore and settle in. There is an on-site lab, a library complete with computers, and a Vegas-style buffet for your meals. There is also a student lounge and dormitories on the floors above us. You are free to move about the entire university; only the top floor, which is staff only, is off limits. Classes will begin in a few days. Tonight there will be a introductory mixer; you aren't required to attend. Once you graduate, you will all be issued OFUCSI approved licenses for writing fanfiction. Good luck; do your best, and I'm sure you will find this a profitable experience."
Silence reigned. Most of the class was catatonic again. Grissom bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He really didn't get people. He couldn't wait to get back up to the staff level, spend some time with the Komodo dragons, and maybe do a few crosswords. Or maybe he would decompress on OFUCSI's roller coaster. He sighed deeply. Nope, he just didn't get people.
II
Theresa stared in horror at the class list. Well, not so much the classes themselves, although Groping Google 101' sounded a tad frightening, but the book list...the book list...
It would take a forklift and a hundred years to deal with the books for Forensics 101. She had never needed to know anything about forensics before to write fanfic, why did she need to now? She wrote Gil/Catherine, not case files, for goodness sake! Her masterpiece had them, after much angsting, finally married and raising Lindsey, whom Grissom had discovered was actually his daughter, not that bastard Eddie's. Plus there were the triplets and all of the money Sam Braun had left them when he died, enabling them to both realise their true dream of raising bunnies.
Another student, whom Theresa recalled was named Sax Hall, looked over her class list and said, "I hope Warrick is teaching one of these classes...preferably without a shirt."
Theresa grinned. "I'd have no objections to that!" She wondered if there was a way to rig the air conditioning so the classrooms were just warm enough to necessitate some serious shirtless CSI action...
She looked back at her book list. "Just who the hell is this David Phillips? He's the author of Woo, not Woe: A Guide to Successful Love'?"
"I dunno."
Miss PA walked by and whapped both Theresa and Sax on the head.
"Hey, what was that for?" Theresa demanded, rubbing her whapped head.
Miss PA continued walking, but tossed over her shoulder, "He's the assistant coroner. Pay attention sometime."
Theresa, completely missing the tone of warning in the liaison's voice, watched as Miss PA entered an elevator that required a key card. She looked inside, and saw that Grissom was also in the lift...as well as the biggest damned lizard she had ever seen.
Gil scratched the green lizard on the head and cooed, "You're such a good Komodo, Robbings. I have some nice steaks for you, you'll like that, won't you?"
Robbings seemed happy, until he spotted Theresa peeking. Then he hissed, showing a row of needle-like teeth.
"It's okay, calm down, she can't get in here," Grissom said, and that's the last Theresa saw of them as the elevator doors closed.
A key card? Her mind was already taking that information in for several possible plots, all of them oh so delicious.
II
In the minds of many students, the dormitory assignments were both Evil and Wrong. Mainly, students had compatible roommates, but were in rooms directly across from others who shipped opposing ships. Exclusive slashers were set up uncomfortably near anti-slashers. Students who liked Sofia were trapped in rooms with others who hated her with every fiber of their beings. The Mary Sue writers were on the same floor, and that made everyone uneasy.
A large contingent of die-hard Grissom/Sara shippers were stuck right across the hall from several rabid Grissom/Catherine shippers, and just to spice things up, some Greg/Sara shippers were liberally sprinkled in with the Geeklovers, while Catherine/Warrick fans were mixed in with the GCRs.
It was as if the faculty had intentionally done this just to make everyone mad.
This was not terribly unlikely, given that Ecklie was the headmaster and almost universally reviled.
It was enough to put Theresa in a serious sulk as she sat on her bed. Her roommate, fortunately, shipped the same ship as she did, but she was stuck with Nina right across the hall. She wasn't sure she could handle living so close to her Evil Arch-Nemesis and Rival for a whole semester, not to mention several.
For her part, Nina was completely oblivious to the fact that she was an Evil Arch-Nemesis and Rival. She did harbor a healthy disgust at all the Grissom/Catherine shippers near her and counted them all Vile Enemies, however, so the two students were almost even.
Juliana, Theresa's roommate, asked, "Are you going to the mixer tonight?"
Still in a state of deep sulk, Theresa pouted, "I don't know. I don't want to be anywhere near those Dorklovers."
Juliana nodded in sympathy.
Just then, another student rushed into the room. "The staff is at the mixer! And they're all dressed up! Grissom in a tux! I almost died!" She may not have died, but she did finally faint.
"Gil in a tux! Then maybe Catherine's in a sexy dress that will catch his eye and they will finally realize their true love!" Theresa said excitedly.
Juliana grinned ear to ear. "Let's get dressed!"
II
Downstairs, in the elegant ballroom (this was a really nice casino, apparently), the entire staff was dressed to the nines. Some where standing around a buffet table, others sat in chairs, some danced, and a few were playing poker. Well, even if it was a university, it was also a casino...
Very few of the students actually got up the courage to mix with the faculty. In fact, quite a few of them were simply dumbstruck.
"Lord have mercy," one of the girls whispered when she spotted Warrick. She plopped down on the floor, legs wobbly.
Warrick in a tuxedo was quite a sight to behold. Worse, he was wearing a green and blue cummerbund, which had the deliriously giddy effect of making his eyes change from blue to green as he looked around.
Several students had to be taken to the on-site hospital to recover from their swoons after seeing that. At least, it was assumed they were taken there—no one had quite dared ask Miss Cam if there was also a body farm nearby
Nick, also resplendent in a tux, was standing next to Greg, who while honoring the conventions of formalwear, had added his own unique twist to it by wearing a tailed, deep burgundy suit with a patterned vest of indeterminate but eye-searing color. Nick stepped closer and motioned for Greg to lean his head down a bit. Greg complied, and Nick muttered, "Y'know, man, these students are beginning to scare me."
"See, I told you they were in love!"
"They're so cute together!"
Greg straightened up and blinked at the self-proclaimed authors who had shouted that. Worryingly, they all seemed to be taking notes. "I see what you mean."
In another section of the room, several girls had accosted Sara, who was wearing an elegant cream dress, and dragged her toward the buffet where Grissom was munching on some chocolate covered grasshoppers and talking to Doc Robbins. Sara struggled against the girls. "I was talking to Mia!" she hissed, but that didn't stop them.
Catherine, in a beautiful black dress, was in similar straits. She had been playing poker with Archie and Warrick. Some students had grabbed her and tried to force her in Grissom's direction, while others were pulling the first students off her and trying to get her to sit down next to Warrick again. "Really girls, do you mind? I was playing a game," Catherine stated, more politely than the girls deserved. It didn't deter them, though.
Shortly, a fist-fight broke out between the girls dragging Catherine in various directions. Some were clearly affiliated with CWR, while others were of a Gil/Catherine persuasion. As a (self-proclaimed) leading figure within the Grissom/Catherine Truth To The World movement, Theresa was of course participating. As were her sharp elbows.
Greg munched on a cracker, watching the altercation with amusement. "Actually, this could be fun."
Ecklie swooped in, standing menacingly over the fighting students. "Now, now, students. You don't want me assigning you hundred page essays on proper behavior toward your superiors, do you?"
The fighting instantly stopped, and Catherine slipped away, back to the game.
"No, Mister Ecklie," a few of the braver students ventured, looking at their toes.
"That's right," Ecklie said with a thin smile. "Now excuse me while I go rescue Miss Sidle from those crazed shippers. I'm not going to tolerate anyone playing matchmaker in my university." With that, he stalked off towards Sara and the small crowd of students still pulling her along.
When Ecklie was out of earshot, Theresa said, "We'll just have to be sneakier."
"As if," one of the CWR shippers said. "It wouldn't work anyway. Catherine is destined to be with Warrick."
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
From a safe distance, Nick told Greg, "Well, maybe. But I'd rather they keep their hands off my friends. You'd think they'd heard of decent behavior before."
Greg munched thoughtfully. "I guess decent is as decent ships and Is that girl drawing us?"
"Seems so."
"Then why are her eyes so glazed?"
"I think she's picturing us naked," Nick replied, squinting at her a little.
Greg thought this over. "Let's get her some more to drink, then show the drawing to Ecklie and tell him it's meant to be him and Grissom. I'm sure he'll love it"
"You're mean, man."
Greg grinned and raised his glass as if in toast. "No, I'm educating."