Title: Macabre Gift
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: Horror, mission_insane
Prompt: 7, Death
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders, unfortunately, just borrowing him for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Greg stared down at the black box that had been delivered to his hotel room door, a chill running through him. This wasn't something he'd expected; he had thought that his room was safe, that he was guarded at all times. But apparently, not well enough.

He didn't want to open the box. He didn't want to discover what was inside, but he didn't have much of a choice. The guards had already determined that it wasn't a bomb, though they had no idea how it had gotten there -- but he was still cautious about opening it.

He had on a mask, just to be sure that he wouldn't breathe in any toxic fumes if there was something in the box that could attack him in that way. Whatever it was, he would be protected from it. The police were here, and he had nothing to be afraid of.

But somehow, opening that box would just make all of this more .... real. When those other "gifts" had arrived, he had been able to brush them off, but now that there were people standing here watching him open this one, he couldn't discount the significance any more.

The box was black; that had to mean something. Greg gingerly reached for it; he really didn't want to open it, didn't want to see what was inside, didn't want to know what his "admirer" had decided to send him this time. He just wanted all of this to be over.

He lifted the lid, cautiously, carefully, breathing a sigh of relief when nothing jumped out at him. That sigh almost turned to a cry when he saw what was inside the box. It was horrible, macabre; it wasn't at all what he might have expected to see.

It was a skull. A human skull. Resting there in the box, grinning up at him as though it was privy to some macabre joke that Greg simply didn't understand. It taunted him with its empty eye sockets and grinning jaw, daring him to find out who had sent it.

Well, he would, Greg thought, anger rushing through him. If this was supposed to scare him, it didn't. It only made him angry, and more determined to find out who was behind this, who was stalking him and trying to make him feel threatened.

Okay, maybe it did scare him a little, he admitted to himself. Or even a lot. This person obviously wanted his death; they wouldn't send him a grinning skull and black roses if they weren't heading in that particular direction. But they wouldn't get what they wanted.

He wasn't some kid who could be scared by things like this. If they thought that he was going to fall apart, they had another think coming. He was going to stand strong, and he was going to get to the bottom of this and find out who was trying to frighten him.

"We'd better take this to the lab," he told the police, and they nodded. But when Greg made a move to leave the hotel room, they wouldn't let him leave. He looked around at them, a frown settling onto his features. He couldn't just be expected to sit around here, could he?

"Greg, you're not going anywhere." Jim Brass appeared at the door, shaking his head. "Whoever this guy is, he's gunning for you, and we're not going to risk him taking a shot at you, or managing to do something to the lab to get at you."

"So I'm just supposed to stay here and vegetate while you guys work the case?" He had never felt so utterly helpless in his life. This was his problem they were talking about; he was the one at the middle of this. He couldn't just twiddle his thumbs.

"I'm sorry, Greg, but this time, you don't have a choice," Jim said, sounding apologetic. "I know you don't like to be sidelined, especially when this is so personal. But we're not going to take a chance on losing you. This guy seems like he means business."

Greg sighed, reluctantly admitting that Brass was right. He didn't want to give this guy, whoever he might be, a chance to get rid of him; he'd already sent far too many threats to be casual about getting a skull in a box. The threat was obviously escalating, and quickly.

But he didn't want to just sit here and do nothing, letting his paranoia get the best of him and wondering if he really was safe in the hotel. If this box could be sitting at his hotel room door, and he hadn't ordered room service and no one had been seen, how had it gotten there?

That was something he could ponder while he sat here, he supposed. And he could also let it sink further into his consciousness that some mysterious someone apparently wanted him dead. And that he had no idea who that person could be.

He didn't have any enemies, as far as he knew. Well, he did, but they were all people who he'd helped to put in jail through his work at the crime lab. None of them were out to come after him. So they could cross a lot of people off the list there.

There were no people who he'd dated in the past who would want him dead. He'd managed to either stay friends with everyone he'd been out with, or they had simply faded from his life. He didn't think there was one single person who held a grudge in that arena.

So who did that leave? He didn't know. Whoever this person was, they probably hadn't been a major part of his life -- but they'd apparently developed a fixation on him until, in their eyes, he was a big part of their life. Enough for them to want to harm him.

They probably saw the fact that he wasn't with them, wasn't involved with them, as a sign of inattentiveness, as a confirmation of the fact that he was pulling away from them. Greg sighed, sitting down on the bed and burying his face in his hands.

He didn't even know this person. He had no idea who they were, or what they wanted from him. And yet, it seemed that they had built up some kind of relationship with him in their mind, until they wanted to dispatch him for not being what they wanted him to be.

He had never really thought about death seriously, not since he'd been nearly beaten to death by that gang a few years ago. that seemed like a lifetime behind him now; he could barely even remember how he'd felt when he had thought death was coming for him.

Now, he was looking at death in a different way. This was planned and deliberate; someone was actually looking to kill him. At least, that was what it seemed like. And it felt as though the walls were going to close in on him quickly and inexorably.

Greg shivered, not wanting to think about it any longer. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to get any of this out of his head, not until they caught the person responsible, and he could find out just why they wanted him dead, what kind of grudge they held against him.

How was he supposed to not think about this? He should be used to dealing with all kind of nutty people, all kinds of craziness, but he'd never had this kind of animosity directed at himself. It was hard to know just how to compartmentalize it.

And it was hard to know that he could do nothing about it, that all he was able to do was sit here in a hotel room and wait. He felt helpless and frustrated, more so than he ever had. He wanted to be at the crime lab, in the thick of things, working to find this person.

But right now, all he could do was wait. With another soft sigh, Greg lay down on the bed, keeping his gaze fixed on the door of the hotel room. If he received another "gift," he hoped the guards would tell him about it. And if he did, he hoped that it wouldn't as macabre as the last one.

***