you've seen the butcher: garner - cooper abbott x reader (ch 2)
He's not that much of a monster, you know. He would've told you that if you were awake, and you would’ve probably spat on him or laughed nervously or clawed at him with your blunt nails or maybe all three. As he covered you with some blanket he had in his trunk, he mindlessly rubbed the spots on his forearms where you tried to open his skin with your fingernails. They were red, but easing into a mild pink. You didn’t even try to scratch him, he realized. Just dig your cut short nails in and in and in, hurt him as much as he might've done when he slammed you into the ground to keep you from moving.
moodboard for the second chapter of my cooper fic i posted months ago........ twenty years later........... the party's ended and i'm still here
Pairings: Cooper Adams x f!Reader (Cooper Abbott x f!Reader)
Warnings: Kidnapping, abuse, attempted murder, blood, torture, mentions of potential cheating, mentions of periods. No betas.
Summary: Cooper is a perfect boyfriend, but you suspect he's been cheating. You decide to follow him one night to see if your suspicions are right.
Word Count: 2788
You weren’t used to all the attention. You’d dated guys before who had remembered things about you – that was pretty standard stuff to expect from someone you were in a relationship with. But Cooper was different. He didn’t just remember things. He remembered everything. The clothes you owned, the three rotating hairstyles you did, the colors you painted your nails, what bags you carried, and what you ordered whenever you went out.
Cooper knew everything about you. It would be creepy if he weren’t such an amazing boyfriend. He never misstepped. He never said the wrong thing or bought you the wrong gift or took you to the wrong restaurant. It was like he’d been made in the Perfect Boyfriend Factory, and you were ecstatic.
Of course, until, things started to deteriorate. He was happy to spend his days off with you, but he’d never stay later than 9 or 10 at night. He’d say he had errands to run or needed to sleep or just needed to get back home. You began to worry. Was he cheating on you? Or were you the one he was cheating with? You’d never been the other woman before and you weren’t going to be one now.
So you followed him.
After he excused himself one night from your couch after watching a movie (your favorite, of course, because Cooper always let you choose your favorite movie and your favorite snacks and your favorite drinks – did he have any favorites, now that you thought about it?), you helped him get his coat and wallet and waved him goodbye from your front door. Once his truck was gone, you jumped into your car and followed.
You’d sneaked a peek at his driver’s license when you’d grabbed his wallet and knew where his address was. You’d plugged it into your phone, in case you lost his car on the dark streets, since you’d never been there before, not even to drive by.
Up ahead, Cooper’s truck stopped at a light. Your GPS was telling you to turn right. Cooper was in the far right lane. Your hands were slick with nervous sweat. What if you drove past his house and saw him being greeted by another woman? Or kids? You didn’t mind kids, but you weren’t exactly mentally prepared to be a step-parent anytime soon. Besides, that was a big deal, and if Cooper hadn’t mentioned them yet in your relationship, you weren’t sure you could continue dating him. If he could lie by omission about something huge like having children, what else could he lie about?
The light turned green. Cooper didn’t turn right. He continued straight.
That wasn’t a big deal. A lot of people had their own way home, and sometimes GPS gave a funny route. Besides, you’d never been by his home, so you didn’t know if this street was closed farther down due to construction, or if Cooper needed to run errands before going home. You continued to follow him.
His truck wove through different streets, seemingly circling back the same way you’d just come from. For several tense moments, you thought maybe he knew you were behind him and he was just driving in circles to screw with you. But then he started down a long, dark street filled with old houses. There were no lights on in any of the homes, even the ones with cars in the driveway. His truck lights, broadcasting yellow light across the dark asphalt ahead of him, suddenly turned off. You could still see the red glow of his taillights, but that was it.
Nervous that he’d see your lights behind him, you slowed down, still keeping his taillights in view. He stopped at a stop sign, crossed a street, and pulled into the driveway of one of the dark houses. You pulled behind a car parked on the road just after the stop sign, parking and turning off the lights. In the darkness, you could see the ink-black silhouette of Cooper walking up the driveway and into the house.
You looked at your GPS. This wasn’t anywhere near the address on his license. Was this a second home? Or was this where his other girlfriend lived?
Tucking your phone into your pocket (making sure it was on silence first – you weren’t going to get caught spying on him because your phone started blasting a ringtone), you hurried down the dark sidewalk, past empty houses and empty driveways. Only a few cars were parked along the street. It looked mostly abandoned, though. Some of the houses even had plywood covering windows and doorways.
You reached the house and stared at Cooper’s truck. A shudder ran through you at the sight of it. Were you really about to do this? To spy on your loving, attentive, amazing boyfriend? All because he kept strict hours and was a little too loving, attentive, and amazing?
Yes. Yes, you were.
You hurried up the driveway to the front of the house. As you got closer, you noticed that the siding near the front door was dark, almost black, compared to the siding above the garage. When you leaned against it, palm flat, you felt the dry, crumbling texture of something burnt. You pulled your sooty hand to your nose and sniffed.
It was burned.
A lot of it was burned. And not just the siding. The concrete porch was scorched, and the windows around the front door had been boarded up with the same plywood as the other houses. The columns holding up the front porch covering had been burned away – you could see the charred remains of where the ends had been buried in the concrete – and now the covering was supported by huge, temporary beams. The front door looked brand new, though. Or almost new. It was plain and wooden with no windows, no decoration.
Why on earth would Cooper come here? Surely he nor someone he cared about lived here. With as much attention Cooper paid to you, there’s no way he would let a loved one live in a burned-out house. It wasn’t just dirty, it was a safety hazard!
This was stupid. You were stupid. You needed to walk back down the street, get into your car, and go home. Whatever Cooper was doing in this house (it could have been his old home, destroyed in a fire, and he was just coming back to work on it, and the address on his license was where he had moved to after the fire!), it was his business, not yours.
But something still felt wrong. The hairs on the back of your neck were standing on end, but it wasn’t just from nerves. It was like the time you had been driving on the freeway and you got this weird, off-center feeling in the pit of your stomach that told you to move over one lane. You did, and a split second later, a tire exploded off of a van ahead of you and shot through the air, passing right by where you had just been driving. It would have smashed into your car. It would have smashed into you.
But there were no cars and no exploding tires and no freeway lanes here. It was a burned-out house in a dark, dead neighborhood, and your boyfriend on the other side of a window-less door.
You swallowed, turned the doorknob, and stepped inside.
The house was nearly pitch black. It smelled of smoke and water damage. Perhaps mold had grown in the time since the fire had been extinguished. You moved forward on wood flooring, tiptoeing into silence. You closed the door gingerly behind you but didn’t lock it. Too many people locked doors behind them when that was their only means of escape. You were gonna make sure you could book it out of the house if Cooper caught you. If not from fear, then from pure embarrassment.
Most of the furniture had been removed from the house, damaged from either the fire or the attempts to quash it. You moved easily through the open spaces, peering into pitch-black rooms, holding your breath, listening for any noise.
You stopped at the bottom of the stairs, peered into the void, and moved on. If Cooper was up there, you weren’t gonna find him. Running through the dark and trying to go down stairs was a surefire way to get both of your ankles broken.
The kitchen was empty, as was the laundry room, the bathroom, and two bedrooms. Then you found a door that was cracked open. You only knew it was cracked open because light was coming out of the space. It was faint, feathered out across the tile floor of the kitchen and along the wall. You’d missed it on your first pass through the kitchen, because you’d been facing the wrong way. Now you could see it clearly.
You approached it cautiously, hands trembling. Was it time to leave? It felt like a good time to leave. Neither you nor Cooper had any business playing around in a dark house. Or in a basement.
And that’s what it was. When you pulled the door open slowly, you could see wooden stairs leading down into an extremely well-lit basement with concrete floors and exposed wood supports. Something clanged down there. Something rattled. Something shifted.
Your first thought was to grab a knife, but that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? Cooper was your boyfriend. He’d never hurt you. He’d never even said anything mean or backhanded. He got you flowers on the days your period started and he rubbed your foot after long days at work! There was no way he was going to hurt you!
Unless you surprised him. If you came up behind him and surprised him, he might accidentally hurt you. Out of surprise. Not out of malice.
Still, that off-center feeling came over you. The freeway, the van, the tire.
Move lanes. That’s what your mind was telling you. Move lanes before you get hurt.
In the kitchen, you found a knife. You tucked it into your hand and held it tight. Then you descended the stairs, silently, into the basement. You knew that he’d see you before you saw him, since there were no walls to shield the stairs. He’d see your legs, your torso, your face, before you could see anything. But that was fine. You had a knife. And the off-center feeling to tell you when to move lanes. And you were his girlfriend, and he’d never hurt you. You’d just come to make sure he was okay.
He was okay, wasn’t he?
Cooper might’ve been, but the person chained to a chair in the middle of the room certainly wasn’t. Their limbs were wrapped in heavy chains, which were secured to rings in the floor and the ceiling. Their head lolled forward against their chest. Their clothes were grubby and stained.
A noise escaped your mouth. A gasp? A sigh? It didn’t matter. The person lifted their head, eyes wide with terror. Dark bruises covered their face, scabs dotted their cheekbones and forehead. Freshly split skin spilled blood over their chin and down their neck.
A gag was put into his mouth – it was a he, you saw. A young man. Younger than you. With black hair and dark brown eyes and terror you’d never seen before in a human being’s face. He screamed around the gag, but the noise was muffled. He yanked against the chains. They rattled and clanged together, but did not move an inch to release him.
You held the knife tighter. “I’m not going to hurt you,” you said, because it felt like the right thing to say. It’s what you’d want to hear if you saw someone with a knife advance upon you in a basement, wasn’t it?
The man twisted in the chair, trying to yank his limbs free. It just looked like he was going to dislocate them instead.
You stepped forward, stopped, looked at the man. “I’m going to call the cops.”
Most people, you realized, in that situation always said things like, I’m going to find a way to get you out of here. I’m going to help you. And then they would spend precious time trying to undo the chains or release the gag. It was useless, doing that. All they had to do was to call the police, or run out of the house screaming for the neighbors to help. They had to get away first to help the person who was trapped.
Put your own oxygen mask on first, the flight attendants always said. It was the same thing in a survival situation. If you didn’t get out of the house first and get help, both of you would die. You just knew it.
You switched the knife to your other hand and grabbed your phone. The GPS was still up. You were, it gladly said, in the wrong house. Closing the GPS app, you opened your phone app. The number pad popped up.
The man screamed against his ball gag. The hairs on the back of your neck tightened with fear.
Move lanes.
“I’ll be back, I promise!” You turned and ran for the stairs, dialing as you went.
9. 1. 1.
Your finger went to smash the call button when your legs flew out from under you. You crashed against the stairs, your knees slamming against the hard wood. You felt a kneecap twist the wrong way. Your phone tumbled out of your hands and across the steps, falling to the concrete below.
The knife was snatched out of your other hand. The blade sliced through your palm quickly, leaving a spray of blood along your clothes and the dark wood of the stairs.
Gasping, you grabbed your wrist and rolled over, retreating from the pain, from the fear.
Cooper loomed over you, one hand wrapped around your ankle, the other hand planted against the step with your blood. He had tripped you. You’d been running up the stairs and he had grabbed your ankle and tripped you. And then he’d yanked your knife from your hand. He’d been in the basement all along, perhaps hiding in the stairs when he heard you come into the house, perhaps in another part you hadn’t seen. But he’d been there, watching you.
Cooper was shirtless. He still had his jeans on, but he’d – for some strange reason you couldn’t even begin to comprehend – had taken his shirt off. Sweat glistened over his bare chest and his face. His hair fell ungraciously over his forehead. His cheeks were red with exertion. Or perhaps excitement. He huffed against your face.
“Coming to check on me?”
It was stupid to answer since he didn’t want an answer. It also seemed silly to tell him the truth: that you thought he’d been cheating on you.
And maybe he was. Maybe that’s what all of this was. Some sado-masochistic sex dungeon game that he liked to play, and that allowed him to be the kind, patient boyfriend you knew.
Cooper hoisted himself up, still with a hand around your hand, and yanked you down the stairs. Your head hit every step on the way down. You landed on the concrete and he stood over you, breathless.
“I appreciate you coming to see me at work, honey,” he panted as he began dragging you across the floor to another part of the basement. “But it’s really against policy. I’m afraid you broke the rules.”
“But, I–”
Cooper yanked you hard to the side so your head slammed against one of the wooden support beams. Stars danced across your vision. Blood filled your mouth.
“No excuses, hon,” he said, pulling you through the basement. You couldn’t see where he was taking you, but it didn’t matter.
The off-center feeling hadn’t saved you this time. You hadn’t moved lanes fast enough. As you stared up at the illuminated silhouette of Cooper, you could see it. The freeway lane, the van, the tire. It’d exploded and crashed right through your car. You’d waited too long to move lanes. You’d collided right into an unstoppable object.
It was too late, you realized. Cooper knelt down, straddling you. His large hands descended over your throat, his fingers wrapping tight. He pressed. Your vision continued to swim, stars bursting at the corners.
“I just need you out for a bit, babe,” he said. “And I know you won’t eat or drink anything I give you right now. But when you wake up, I promise, you and I are going to have a lot of fun together.” He squeezed harder.
Warnings: Reader knows about Cooper and accepts it
Cooper’s side of the bed shifted as he sat down on the mattress. You heard him quietly remove his shoes and slide them under the bed, then strip off his jeans and shirt. He crawled under the covers in just his boxers, rolling over to drape an arm over your waist. His bare chest was hot, a welcome reprieve from the coldness outside. How he could manage to sleep in just his underwear during the fall was a mystery you’d never solve.
He pressed a kiss behind your ear and pulled himself closer behind you, breathing in the scent of your hair.
“I missed you,” he said softly.
“Missed you, too,” you murmured, acting as if you’d just woken up. In truth, you never slept until Cooper was back home. And these days, he was usually never home before midnight.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
You shrugged loosely, not bothering to answer. You had the feeling Cooper already knew that you didn’t sleep without him in the bed. If it bothered him, he never said so. Maybe he liked it — liked knowing that you tossed and turned and fretted over his safety while he was out in the world, doing whatever it was that Cooper Adams did in the middle of the night.
“I got you something nice,” he said between kisses to the side of your face. “Do you want it now or later?”
“Later.” You closed your eyes and savored the feeling of his lips against your skin. His hand lay flat against your stomach, keeping you pressed against the length of his body. You never felt safer than when you were in his arms.
“Nothing crazy happened while I was away, did it?”
“Nope. All quiet here at home. Did anything happen while you were away?”
Away. You never asked what happened while he was at work, because you knew that most of the time he wasn’t at work. It had been about two years since you grew suspicious of Cooper’s extracurricular activities, a year since you more or less figured out what he was doing, and about three months since you came to accept it. It’d broken your heart when you thought he was having an affair, but it was something entirely else when you realized he wasn’t.
He wasn’t prowling around in the night looking for sex. He was looking to kill. And it had frightened you. It had confused you. And then, gradually, it comforted you.
Cooper could have just as easily killed you, if he wanted. But he didn’t want to. He treated you so gently and with so much love, you never feared that he would even think about hurting you. And if he did have those urges, that impulse, to harm you, he obviously took it out on other people.
In a perfect world, you wouldn’t be married to a prolific serial killer. But it wasn’t a perfect world. It was a world in which you somehow managed to meet, fall in love, and marry a man who felt at home in his own body when he was covered in someone else’s blood. And you’d grieved for his victims — past and future — but you’d also thanked them. It was because of them that you and Cooper could be together. Without their (admittedly, unwilling) sacrifice, you would be just as dead as the rest of them.
Cooper pressed his lips against your ear and stayed there for a while, not answering your question. Did he know that you knew? Surely he did. He was smart. He had to be smart so he didn’t get caught. And he must’ve noticed how you’d changed over the course of the last two years — at first needy, and then distant, and then back to your old self. Or maybe a better version of your old self. One that felt completely loved and completely safe. One that wasn’t looking for the “other woman” in the face of every person who passed by. One that didn’t flinch away from her husband’s touch when she thought of the pain he inflicted on others.
If he knew that you knew, you wondered if he’d eventually confide in you. You were curious, after all, how he got away with it. Murder was a messy business and so many people got it wrong. How did your husband manage to get it right?
You were still waiting for Cooper’s answer when you realized that he’d fallen asleep. His arm still draped over you, his face buried against your neck. Whatever he’d done, it wore him out. Maybe he’d talk about it tomorrow, after he’d gotten some rest. Or maybe not. You were okay with the ambiguity of this part of your relationship. Whether Cooper was having an affair or was killing people in cold blood, it was going to be okay, because he always came back to you, and he always would.
Hartnett Ficlet 1 of 13 (hopefully), a post-"AEIC Epilogue" side story. My gif.
AEIC MASTERLIST JOSH HARTNETT MASTERLIST
(( word count ~ 1,600 ))
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< I just passed state lines > Cooper texted from the driver seat of his Midnight Black SUV, pulled over on the shoulder of a mostly empty highway, the back of a 'Welcome to...' sign visible in the rear-view mirror. It was nearly two in the morning, and he knew he had a few more hours of drive time in front of him, but he liked to keep her updated when he was out of town. As usual, it was the disposal of his latest victim that had taken him away from her, Cooper seeking out burial sights with increasing distance from his home to avoid the bodies being tracked back to him. He finally had a life he cared about, awaiting him over a hundred miles away, and he had taken to putting as many miles as he reasonably could between himself and the corpses he left behind, in an effort to hinder suspicions from potential investigators. A few minutes of silence passed as he sat in his stationary vehicle, the motor running, before the screen of his phone displayed a new message.
< I'm at your place > he read, smiling faintly as he began to type a response.
< I know > he answered, and the young woman on the other end of the conversation glanced at the phone in her hand that she hadn't bothered to place back on the side table yet.
“I know you know,” Delilah mumbled to herself, fully aware of the tracking device he'd slipped between her phone and its case, months before, but a soft smile still pulled at her lips as she tapped out an answer.
< Drive safe > she responded simply, too sleepy to type much else, and with a yawn, and the bleary eyes that accompanied it, she placed her phone back on the table and drifted quickly back to sleep.
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The closing of the briefly opened front door stirred Delilah from her sleep upon the king size mattress in Cooper's bedroom, but she barely opened her drowsy eyes, listening to the house's owner as he moved around in the living room and kitchen, his burial kit already put away in his built-in hiding space in the garage. She was grateful that he didn't turn the overhead light on as he entered the bedroom, leaving the door open behind himself, and crossing to the bed his girlfriend lie naked upon, blankets up to her shoulder.
“I know you're awake,” he whispered as he squatted down, his face screwing up in mild discomfort from the
ache in his knees as he leaned against the edge of the bed.
“Mmm,” Delilah answered, wordlessly, sleepy eyes glancing his way, a faint smile on her lips as she observed him.
“Should I let you go back to sleep?” Cooper whispered, reaching out to brush sleep-mussed hair away from her features, and she shook her head slightly, closing her eyes when he leaned forward to press a soft kiss to her forehead, her smile still in place. “No?”
“I can stay up,” Delilah mumbled, her blinks slow as she observed him in the faint light spilling in from beyond the open bedroom door.
“You don't have to,” he answered, but the soft smile across his lips silently assured her that he appreciated the offer.
“Go get your shower...I'm not going anywhere,” she whispered, her eyes sliding closed again, lightly squeezing Cooper's hand when he reached for her own to grasp it gently, running his thumb over her knuckles.
“Okay,” he returned, flinching slightly when he rose back up to full height, leaving the door open as he departed.
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It was nearly five, just a few hours until sunrise, by the time Delilah felt the sheets and comforter shift, the weight of Cooper depressing the mattress as his freshly cleansed body slid in beside her, his large frame dwarfing her smaller body as his front met her back. Without the slightest hint of hesitation, she nestled closer to his body, more than content to be his 'little spoon' as he placed his arm around her waist, his fingers splayed against her stomach, and naturally drifting down her side, toward her hip, his fingertips meeting something that was neither fabric nor bare skin. It felt more...plastic-y.
“What the hell?” he mumbled as he reached back up toward the top edge of the blankets, and dragged them down both of their bodies until only their lower legs were covered, his fingers wandering back up her thigh. “Baby, what did you...” he mumbled, Delilah continuing to face away from him even as he flopped onto his back to reach for his phone on the side table furthest from them both, and activate the flashlight function. He'd expected an opaque bandage, but was instead met with a layer of transparent, adhesive film. “When did this happen?” Cooper questioned calmly as he traced the edge of the clear substance, avoiding the inked art in the middle.
“A couple hours after you left town,” she answered in a faint, relaxed tone, finally glancing down at the inch-wide permanent art decorating her skin that held his attention. There was a bit of displaced ink from the very fresh tattoo trapped in place beneath the film, but Cooper could still make out the tiny piece of art, etched onto her outer thigh : a tiny butcher's knife. “I wanted it to be a surprise,” Delilah whispered as she shifted her gaze to Cooper's umber eyes that continued to stare at the tiny, black outline.
“I'm...surprised,” he admitted, lifting up to a sitting position so he could hold his phone and touch the surrounding barrier at the same time, Delilah's green eyes trained on his features. “Who, uh...who did it?” he questioned, his tone casual, his query not so much.
“A female artist,” she answered, and he glanced back up to her eyes, and her quirked brow, and he nodded, his gaze as strangely distant as it had been in the moments before he had ended his newest victim's life, days before.
“Is that your subtle way of calling me insecure?” he questioned, and she immediately shook her head.
“No, it's me acknowledging your jealous streak,” she clarified, shifting from her side to her back as she considered him.
“...That's very distracting,” he mumbled as his view shifted from the patch on her outer thigh to the unobscured nudity beyond it.
“So...do you like it?” she finally asked as his callous-roughened fingers began to explore the bareness of her flesh, wandering over her thighs, the concave dip of her stomach, along the length of her arm, purposely avoiding anything too stimulating. He knew full well that he'd end up forgetting himself and hurting her already tender skin in his lustful explorations if he allowed himself to take real comfort in her. “Cooper?”
“Hmm?” he acknowledged, wordlessly, and she smiled faintly as she watched him trace invisible lines over her skin.
“Do you like it?” she repeated, and he glanced back up to her eyes.
“I do,” he admitted, a genuine smile tugging at his mouth as he leaned over her to press a soft kiss against her softer lips. “Maybe I should get a little book inked on me,” he mused aloud, and she let out a sigh.
“You think I'm gonna work in a failing mall book store forever?” she mumbled as she reached up to run her fingers through his silky chestnut hair.
“Probably not,” he conceded as he tilted his head to receive more of her careful touch. “How about a...little white tee shirt,” he proposed instead, and she groaned in answer when he started to hum off-key the familiar song of her unintentional namesake that occasionally haunted her.
“Please, no...anything but that,” she huffed as she reached for his pillow to playfully smack him with it, her wrist immediately captured in his large hand as he pressed it gently to the bed, leaning over her again to steal another kiss.
“I'll just have to come up with something else, then,” he confirmed, briefly parting from her to put his phone away, and pressing his weight into his elbow as he leaned in to seek out her lips, once again.
“Cooper?” she whispered when he was barely an inch away, gazing at her features through eyes quickly adjusting to the dim light that shown through the crack of the slightly opened bedroom door.
“Yes, baby?” he returned as his hand rose to brush stray strands of auburn away from her face.
“Tell me something true,” Delilah mumbled, her own eyes adjusted enough to see the quirk in Cooper's brow as he stared down at her in mild confusion.
After a few moments of consideration, he answered honestly, in a soft but decisive tone, “I missed you.”
Delilah nodded slightly in acceptance of the admission as she lifted a hand to guide his damp hair back, away from his eyes, watching her boyfriend studiously as he lie back down, more flush to the fitted sheet, and the mattress beneath. “I missed you, too,” she confessed as she adjusted her body onto her unmarked side, Cooper's larger frame drawing her back flush to his chest as he settled against the bed. “Cooper?” she asked again, and his answer was a sleepy sigh as he nuzzled in closer, his arm draping over her waist, careful to avoid her painful patch of fresh ink. “Lie to me.”
The Butcher was quiet for a few seconds as he contemplated her request, pursing his lips as he drew her even closer, felt the minute space that separated their bodies disappear, and hoped that the genuine care he felt for her was enough to satisfy her. “I love you.”
you've seen the butcher: covet - cooper abbott x reader
A sprained ankle matches the swollen tendons in your wrist from falling after trying to run, like a rug being swept from under your feet. You did fight when he caught you, muscles trembling under the exertion, but it was slow and slurred to him. He anticipated it, the fight. Grabbed your wrists with one big, heavy hand and squeezed them together till it hurt.
moodboard for the first chapter of my cooper trap fic !!! which i posted months ago BUT idc it's so fun to make moodboards....... also gives me a healthy excuse to spend a lot of time pinning josh hartnett's pics on my boards yayyyy
The New Normal ( Part 3 ) - Sabotage : Cooper Adams/Abbott x Fem Reader *NSFW*
I consider this the finale of this story. I know barely anyone is reading for Cooper anymore, but I wanted to finish all my multi-chapter WIPs for him, and Josh Hartnett, and although I was too burned out to make this chapter as expansive at I initially intended, I'm still happy with it. (my gif)
This is NSFW, and contains consensual sexual content ( NO Daddy Kink, NO Breeding Kink, and NO Degradation Kink )
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 JOSH HARTNETT MASTERLIST
(( word count ~ 3,100 ))
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She should have seen it coming. Cooper was so damn particular about the linens, and how they should be placed – just as he was about so many other things around the home – that when he suggested she make the bed, red flags should have shot up immediately. Hunched down toward the mattress, digging for the clips that held the fitted sheet in place at the corner, she'd felt the memory foam surface below her shift only seconds before he was on top of her, his chest against her back through the shirts they wore, hands at her wrists.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered against her throat as his large fingers weaved between her slimmer digits, his body spooning hers from above. Her mumbled 'yes' was barely audible as she nodded her head slightly, felt his fingers at her wrists again, and up the length of her arms, sitting up to carefully straddle her as he found the edge of her shirt, and pushed the material up her back. She lie still, her cheek against the sheet below her, as his large hands unfastened her bra, and guided it with her shirt off of her torso, down her arms until he reached her wrists again. Chest naked and smooshed against the linens below her, she watched Cooper's hands as they managed to turn her shirt and bra into makeshift restraints, securing her wrists to the freshly installed headboard of his bed, only just delivered to his new house that morning. Seconds later, she heard a soft whump as his own shirt hit the floor, and she felt the warmth of his equally naked body against her back, enjoying the warmth of his skin against her own.
Shifting his weight to his forearm that he pressed into the mattress, Cooper's free hand reached for her wrists, testing her bindings with a light tug. His fingers began to trace along her skin, back up her arm and to her shoulder, sliding around to grasp gently at her breasts when she pressed her back more flush to his chest. “Maybe I should've splurged on the four-poster,” he murmured as he leaned over her, his chestnut hair tickling her skin as he hovered, his hand splaying across her stomach as his fingers traveled further down her body. “Wrists and ankles tied down...free to do as I please,” he continued, and she arched against him as his fingers unbuttoned her jeans and tugged the zipper down, and his hand cupped her through the panties she wore.
“You can-mmph...,” she began, and pushed out a sigh instead as he grasped the stretchy material in his hand, dragged the scrunched up fabric along and between her folds.
“I can what?” he breathed as her hips shuddered below him, ghosting his fingertips along her exposed flesh.
“ You can do...whatever you want,” she mumbled as his hand cupped her again, fingers meeting skin and cloth.
“Whatever I want,” he repeated, pushing the fabric aside to slide an inquisitive finger along the slick, parted folds, her hips rocking slowly, back and forth, guiding him from her clit, and reversing so his fingertip slipped just an inch or so inside, and back again. “And what if I just wanna tease you?”
“I think we both kn-nnph...” she began, but her words quickly devolved into incoherent noises again as he finally eased two fingers inside her, stroking at her walls from the inside as she ground her ass against his crotch through the layers of denim that separated them. “You're not...mmm, you're a...a lot of things,” she sighed out as his fingers worked her insides, “but you're not a tease.”
“No?” he answered as he withdrew his fingers, and pressed himself up from the bed to grip the waist of her jeans and panties with both hands, and tug them over her rear, down her legs, and onto the floor. “You don't think I'd just...tie you up, and...watch you squirm,” he suggested as he leaned over her again, pressing her hips back against the mattress with his own, the entirety of her body naked and exposed beneath him, his warm breath on the nape of her neck as he pushed her hair to one side. To his question, she shook her head as best she could, her nose brushing against the sheets as she lay her cheek against the soft surface below.
“Unn-uh,” she mumbled in disagreement as his lips brushed the sensitive hollow behind her earlobe, and along the side of her throat. “Honestly, I...,” she began, and let out another sigh as he began a damp line of kisses along her shoulder blade and toward her spine, inching down the length of her back.
“Honestly you what, sweetheart,” he whispered against her skin as he grasped her hips, got on his knees as he guided her up on her own knees, her upper body still flush to the bed.
“I think you...you take a little too much pride in...in getting me off,” her words were staggered as Cooper denied her the ability to articulate her thoughts, dragging wordless noises from her as he settled behind her raised lower half, placing more kisses along the backs of her thighs.
“You think I take too much pride in pleasing you?” he queried, even as he distracted her with the scruff of his cheek against her bare flesh.
“Too much to let me lay here, unfulfilled,” she explained, and he let out a soft grunt as he gripped her hips and brushed his whiskers at the junction of her thighs, her rear lifting more in the air, her legs parting wider in needy submission.
She wasn't wrong. He did take pride in the effect he had on her. Her shudders, her whimpers and sighs, the way she melted for him, and how he never had to wonder if he'd successfully made her cum. With the monster inside bent on causing dread, it made Cooper feel a little more human, the way he was able to cause her to willingly surrender to him, and be rewarded with ecstasy instead of agony.
“Is that what you want, sweetheart? You want me to fulfill you?” Cooper whispered as he drew even closer, pressing kisses against the backs of her thighs as her hips shifted to get his mouth where she craved it most. Her answer was an inarticulate sigh, hips adjusting more, impatient. And even more impatient when a cell phone on the dresser sounded with a notification, the furious pounding of a frustrated knock on the house's front door.
“Nooo,” Cooper's girlfriend whined out as he gave her rear a squeeze and crept off the bed, picking up the electronic device and tapping the screen, his shoulders falling as he saw a pair of faces. “Who is it?” she questioned with a sigh as she stared, tied up, at her partner.
A deeper sigh pushed out of Cooper as he stepped around the bed to the side where her wrists were fastened, and began to work at her makeshift bindings, “Riley and Rachel.”
“I thought you had her last weekend,” his girlfriend posited, and he nodded as he freed her hands from the bra straps, enough to loose her restraints.
“ I did,” he sighed, and deciding she could manage to take care of straightening up herself and the bed, he snatched up his shirt to pull it back on, and locked the room from the inside and departed it. As she tried to straighten out her bra to slip it on, she heard his booming voice at the other end of the hallway, welcoming Riley and acknowledging Rachel. It was clear that they were speeding toward a full-on fight by the time the young woman slipped out of the room, Cooper's hoodie wrapped around her arms and torso.
As she approached the trio, she noticed Riley's troubled gaze shift to her, and away again, Cooper's back to her where he argued with Rachel.
“I'll just get out-,” she started, immediately cut off by Cooper, as he stared his ex-wife in the eyes.
“No you won't , you'll stay...Rachel obviously didn't have a problem bringing Riley hear with your car in the driveway. She obviously doesn't mind you being around our daughter,” Cooper thought aloud, watching the annoyance rise on Rachel's face.
Stepping slightly closer and placing her hand on Cooper's shoulder, whispering as quietly as she could, “If you make a scene in front of Riley, it's just going to make things worse.”
Cooper was quiet for a few moments as he considered her, and asked Riley instead if she'd like to stay over with his girlfriend there. To everyone's surprise, Riley – after a few moments of considerate thought, made clear that she would.
* * *
“I wondered where you disappeared to,” Cooper mumbled as he entered his bedroom, having helped Riley get settled in, Logan already at a friend's house for a sleepover, the Butcher finally noticing his girlfriend not in sight.
“Yeah, sorry, I just, uh...I had a lot of breathing to do...like really deep breathing,” she explained, sitting on the floor and holding his hoodie in her arms, having taken the time to put back on her shirt that was too tied up to pull on before her first venture out. “I think I had a little bit of a panic attack,” she added.
“Baby, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dragged you into that...I'm just so tired of her pulling this-”
“Cooper, it's okay, I'm....I'm okay...I just needed a minute,” she sighed out between still-recovering breaths, accepting the Butcher's hand when he offered it to her, letting him pull her back up to her feet.
“I didn't...I didn't mean to upset you so much,” he lamented, running his fingers through the ponytail that she'd worked her hair into after its messiness from the bed.
“No, it wasn't you. I'm don't even think it was Rachel, but I just...I know you try to put on a good show for your kids, and be the best dad you can with half the hours you used to,” she explained, her temple against his shoulder as he held her secure in his embrace. “I don't wanna mess up your progress, or end up driving a bigger wedge...”
Cooper's umber gaze took in her flushed face, and her untidy presentation, and her fingers that gripped his shirt, and he gently raised a hand to her jaw and drew her nearer. Her sounds of appreciation were fainter than usual with the extra company in the house, and Cooper ghosted his digits up and down her bare arms. “I don't think there's anything you could do to make it worse if you tried,” the divorcee acknowledged. “She already thinks we cheated-”
“But we didn't,” she spoke up suddenly, and he let out a sigh as he pushed his own hair out of his face.
“Of course we didn't, but...I don't think there's anything that'll convince her that she assumed wrong,” he admitted, and both glanced back at the door to the bedroom at the sound of a faint thump against one of the walls. “Come on, let's just...make the most of it. Maybe Riley can...actually get to know you, without Rachel over her shoulder, and in her ear.”
“It's a start,” the young woman sighed as her hands brushed his chest through his shirt, trying to press away the wrinkles. “Why don't you go out there, and, uh...introduce yourself, properly,” Cooper encouraged, shifting uncomfortably his hips.
“I guess you ended up teasing me, after all,” she acknowledged in a soft voice, glancing down at Cooper's jeans and the faint bulge, his cock briefly encouraged back to life from their embrace.
“I'll make it up to you,” he assured, his gaze following her movements as she opened the door and stepped out of the room. When she saw a wavy mop of blonde hair she paused in her steps for a few seconds, finally pressing the door closed after her without speaking a word to alert Cooper to his daughter's presumable eavesdropping.
* * *
“So, is there anything you wanna ask me,” the young woman questioned her boyfriend's middle school-aged daughter. It had been clear from Riley's expression when her dad's girlfriend had left his bedroom, that she had heard something significant, though she had almost immediately faked a need to use the nearby bathroom instead of saying a word, and both of them were out of sight by the time Cooper exited his room.
Riley looked up at the near-stranger who she had heard only second-hand knowledge of, knowledge that she questioned inside the span of her two minutes outside her dad's bedroom. “Did...did you and my dad, really...do what my mom says you did?” she finally managed, and the young woman did her best to not dodge her gaze like all her instincts insisted.
“Your mom...I know she thinks your dad cheated on her with me, and she has a right to be angry about that, and I know she doesn't know it's not true, but...she's wrong. I know it all looks bad, but the truth is...,” she took a deeper breath, closed her eyes, tried not to think about the short hyperventilating session she'd had in the last hour in Cooper's bedroom.
“Yeah, the truth,” Riley implored as she and the young woman made up her bed atop the brand new mattress that had come in with Cooper's new headboard.
“The truth is...I did like your dad when he and your mom were still together, but...nothing happened until after your parents divorced. Honestly, he barely even knew I existed until after he got an apartment.
“So...why did they break up...if he didn't cheat?” Riley questioned, and the young woman pursed her lips. Obviously saying 'Cooper accepted a divorce to throw her off the trail of his butchery' would not achieve any kind of positive reaction. She had even planned on talking to Cooper precisely about his cover story for the end of his marriage, but she'd put it off too long.
“Riley, I...I don't know, but...whatever made Rach-...your mom think he was cheating, there probably wasn't any hope of convincing her otherwise. Once the trust is gone, I guess...everything else goes, too,” she tried to explain, wondering how foolish she looked in her attempt to lie to a twelve-year-old.
“Are your mom and dad still together?” Riley asked suddenly, and the young woman paused a moment, before placing the newly cased pillow in its proper place.
“No, uh...I never met my dad,” she admitted with a shake of her head. “He bounced before I was born, and he never tried to be in my life, or even contact me...”
Riley was silent for a moment before she spoke again, the mildly accusatory tone that had presented in her voice, virtually gone. “I'm sorry, I didn't-” she began, but the young woman was quick to dismiss.
“No, it's fine, actually. I, uh...I don't really think about it, or him, at all. But...not all dads are like that. And honestly, your dad, he...he really loves you guys, you and your brother...even though he doesn't get to see you two as much, he...you're basically his world,” the young woman explained, as the two of them went to work, dragging the duvet cover over Riley's new comforter, the Butcher in the hallway just out of sight, listening to all that was said between the most important girls in his life, supper in the form of a frozen pizza in the oven, cooking away for dinner.
* * *
To Cooper and his girlfriend's relief, and likely to Rachel's future annoyance, the evening played out far more civil than either had expected, basically ending with the three of them on the sofas in the living room, watching something that Cooper learned was called a “DCOM”, both ladies drifting to sleep long before the credits rolled.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Cooper whispered as he leaned over the plush furniture to his paramour, “Let's get to bed.” He was answered with only unintelligible noise, and he leaned closer to brush his scruff over her clavicle and cheek.
“Too sleepy,” she mumbled as he crouched down to his knees, knowing his joints would cause him flinch-worthy pain when he stood up straight again. “Can't move,” the young woman murmured.
“Come on, baby, the bed's more comfortable,” he encouraged, but she shook her head slightly in dissent.
“If we're alone behind closed doors,” she gently reminded, eyes still closed, “we might not be able to keep it PG...and your daughter's had a rough enough day.”
Cooper was silent as he studied her features, a faint smile on his lips as he stroked her cheek and temple, watched as her eyes finally fluttered open. “I know you were nervous, but...I'm proud of you,” he whispered, finally resorting to sitting, cross-legged on the floor.
“Proud,” the young woman repeated, her forehead mildly wrinkling in confusion.
“You handled everything really well, even...even doing everything you could to not call Rachel a liar-”
“So you were eavesdropping,” she accused, even as she kept her eyes closed, content to lie next to Cooper as he gently praised her.
“The point,” Cooper deflected, brushing hair away from her closed eyes, “is that it meant a lot to me...and you mean a lot to me too.”
The whisper of something akin to Thank you met Cooper's ears as he began to succumbed to his own drowsiness, undressing enough to be presentable at a breakfast table, but comfortable enough to sleep, and he finally joined his girlfriend on the couch, where she immediately melded to the shape of his embrace.
“Sweetheart,” Cooper whispered as his own body relaxed against the extra-wide sofa below them, spooning her from behind as they both lay with their backs toward the wall.
“Hmm?” was all the groggy answer he received.
“I hope you know you're more to me than just the physical stuff,” he assured, and she nodded faintly against him where he practically cradled her.
“And you know I love you?” he rasped, tucking his face in her mussed hair.
“I know,” she breathed, stroking his fingers where their hands met. “I think that's the first time you've even actually said that to me,” she continued, Cooper's physical hold on her tightening almost imperceptibly, “But, I know.”
“And?” Cooper asked after she ceased to say anything more, scraping at the back of her ear with his whiskers.
“And it's nice to hear you say it...'cause I love you too.”
