Title: Psycho Killer
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: Horror, mission_insane
Prompt: 5, Psycho
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my 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 slammed the door of his car, making sure that it was locked. The last thing he wanted was to have the psycho who was stalking him get into his car and leave any more nasty surprises. He'd already been freaked out enough by the "gifts" he'd received.

At least there were plainclothes cops in an unmarked car watching his apartment while he was at work, he thought, glancing at the dark blue sedan that was moving slowly down the street. It made him feel a lot better to know that Jim Brass had people looking out for him.

If anyone had tried to get into his apartment, he would know about it, Greg told himself. There was an alarm that would go off if anyone managed to get into the front door, or through a window. His home was safe enough, even without cops on the lookout.

Then why did he feel so uneasy, as though he was being followed every moment of every day? That was what his stalker wanted -- to throw him off balance, to make him feel vulnerable and helpless. And he wasn't going to give the psycho that kind of satisfaction.

Sighing, Greg inserted the key into the front door and opened it, moving to turn off the alarm as he went into the living room. He frowned, realizing that there was no telltale beep that told him the device had been deactivated; that was strange.

He was immediately on guard, looking around him with narrowed eyes. There was something wrong; he could sense it in the air, feel it all around him. He didn't feel like anyone was here in his apartment, but he couldn't suppress an icy shiver that made its way down his spine.

There was no way that his psychotic stalker could have gotten into his apartment, Greg reassured himself. But still, he was going to have a look around and make sure that nothing had been disturbed, just for his own peace of mind, if nothing else.

Taking a deep breath, he headed into the kitchen, pausing just outside the doorway and reaching inside to flip on the light switch. It only took him a moment to see that no one was there; now it only remained to check the bathroom and the bedroom down the hall.

Greg held his breath as he flipped on the bathroom light, then moved forward to pull the shower curtain aside. But there was no one hiding behind it; the bathroom was empty, save for his own reflection in the mirror and the sound of his labored breathing.

Now for the bedroom. He swallowed hard, then took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. Just as he was reaching for the light switch, he realized that he didn't have anything in his hands to ward off an intruder with; he was weaponless and defenseless if there was anyone here.

The overhead light flooded the bedroom with brightness; Greg stood there, blinking and looking around. The door of his closet was halfway open; there was no way that anyone could hide in there without being seen from the angle he was standing at. The room was empty, uninhabited.

He frowned as he moved forward, looking down at the bed. He was sure that he'd pulled the top sheet and the blankets back up yesterday when he'd gotten out of bed; he rarely ever left it unmade, unless he was in a hurry and running late. And that hadn't been the case last night.

Someone had been here. The realization made Greg's eyes open wide, a startled gasp coming from his throat. Someone had been in his bedroom, sitting on his bed -- or maybe even lying down in it. He could no longer feel that his home was safe and inviolate.

The thought made his knees go weak; he sat down on the bed, knowing that if he didn't, he could very well collapse. The thought of someone being here in his home, when there had been cops watching to make sure that just such a thing didn't happen, was utterly terrifying.

He couldn't blame the two cops who'd been watching the place -- after all, they'd been in their car, and they couldn't have seen if anyone broke in from the kitchen or bedroom windows. He himself had no idea how his stalker had gotten in; it didn't seem possible.

He'd have to call the cops, Greg realized with a sinking feeling. And he might even have to go into some kind of protective custody until this person was caught. There was no other way to be sure he'd stay safe. This was escalating out of control.

Greg wanted to sink down on his bed and bury his face in his hands, but he knew that he couldn't. If this person had actually been in his bed, there might be some traces of DNA that could lead them to identify who it was -- and catch this creep before he escalated further.

As he turned to go out of the bedroom and back into the living room, something on the bedside table caught his eye. Moving cautiously, he bent to pick up the small piece of paper that hadn't been there when he'd left for work the night before.

He scanned the few lines of writing, his mouth dry and his throat tight with fear.

I'm getting closer, Greg. So much closer.

Do you really think you can escape me? I have ways into your life that you could never imagine.

I'm coming for you, Greg. Soon we'll be face to face, dancing in the sheets.

Greg wanted to throw the note away, to forget that he'd ever seen it, to push those words far away from him. But he knew that he had to keep it, to show it to the cops and to all of the CSIs. Again, there could be fingerprints, or some DNA. They had to grab for any clue.

He didn't want to think about what the note meant; he knew all too well that it was a threat. Greg had no doubt of what "dancing in the sheets" could mean -- that this person had some kind of sexuao obsession with him, and that they intended to follow through on those feelings.

The person who was stalking him was a sexual obsessive -- and a psycho killer, Greg was sure. He had no doubt that if this person managed to catch him unawares, he would be dead. And there seemed to be no safe place where he could hide.

He had never felt so helpless, or so vulnerable. It was as though all of the protections that he hid behind were being stripped away systematically, one by one, until he was exposed to the gaze of this person who was relentlessly coming for him, one step closer every day.

How was he going to protect himself from this person when they always seemed to be one step ahead of him? There was nowhere he could hide, no place that he could go where this psycho couldn't seem to follow him. For just a moment, Greg wanted to give in to unreasoning panic.

Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, carefully replacing the note on the bedside table and going down the hall to the living room. He was going to call the cops, get Jim Brass over here, and hopefully find some way to track his stalker and bring them to justice.

That wouldn't be easy to do, but somehow, the crime lab would manage it, Greg told himself firmly. It was just more than a little scary to be on this side of the case, rather than being able to look from the outside in and keep himself detached.

It was impossible to stand back and view what was happening objectively. He couldn't do that when he was in the center of things, caught in the eye of the hurricane. There was a psycho killer coming after him, and he was trapped in the spotlight, unsure of where to turn.

There was a sense of walls closing in on him, a dark shadow looming over him, ready to envelop him and snatch him up into its grasp. If he wasn't careful, and if they didn't find this person soon, he didn't want to think of all the possible things that could happen.

Greg shivered as he picked up the phone to call Jim Brass, turning in a full circle to look around again before he dialed the number and waited for the other man to answer. He was feeling more and more vulnerable with each passing day, and he didn't think that feeling was going to dissipate any time soon.

***