#cooper trap

WARNINGS. murder, dead bodies and discussions of dead bodies, mention of skinning and non-specific mutilation, blood, toxic dynamic, age gap, surgery on both dead bodies and a living person (not graphic), talk of organs and storing them, throw up, crying/meltdown, manipulation, fingering (fem. receiving), p in v intercourse, plan b

You met Cooper Abbott for the first time in a hospital hallway. You needed hospital hours for your degree, but you didn’t know why he was there. You still didn’t, actually—you never thought to ask him. The hallway smelled like antiseptic and burnt coffee, and Cooper was standing in front of a vending machine that had just eaten his dollar. He was staring at it flatly, with this bed-of-razors look in his eyes, but that vanished the second he saw you standing there, replaced with his pleasant, affable, handsome face. Cooper could put those different faces on effortlessly. He was good like that. You clocked his hands first—big, careful, surgeon’s hands, even though he told you he’s not a doctor. You didn’t totally believe him, weirdly.

Your college graduation felt like some dress rehearsal for a life that you were all-too-quickly realizing you didn’t actually want. Your classmates were all buzzing, talking fellowships and residencies and cities with glittering skylines that they’d be able to look down on with neurologist money. Eggshell white dress clinging to you, making you feel claustrophobic, you sat in the flimsy white chair and thought about the process of splitting a sternum in half, and how easy it would be to do cleanly with the right tools.

When you met Cooper for the first time, he gave you this smile. Like he already knew all that stuff, before you said a word.

“What kind of doctor are you?” he’d asked.

“Not one yet,” you’d replied.

“You look close enough!” he’d said encouragingly.

There was something gentle about the way he watched you, like you were an animal with it’s leg stuck in a trap, and he was trying to decide whether to get you out, or snap your neck and put you out of your misery.

You started seeing him at night. Only at night. Diners that were open twenty-four hours and hosted people much, much more odd-looking than you two. Parking lots behind closed shopping malls. Motel rooms under fake names. You always took the bus to go meet him, he never took you home—said it was “safer” that way. Safer for who? But Cooper didn’t specify, and you didn’t ask. You’re really good at not asking. It’s something he loves about you.

When you sat across from him, or next to him, or in his lap, he told you stories. He talked about a woman who disappeared and showed up skinned and floating down the river a couple weeks later. He told you about that man that was found hollowed out a couple towns over. Cooper never said “I did it,” never, ever—but the stories landed between you two like a blade laid carefully on the table. With every word he examined you, analyzed you closely with those eyes you were desperate to be laid bare in front of. He searched for the moment you realized, and what you thought when you did.

Maybe you didn’t know at the time, but if there had been fear, or anger, or concern that so much as flickered in your eyes for a moment, you would’ve been dead and gutted in the dumpster behind the motel in a second, and that would’ve been that.

Luckily for you, there hadn’t been.

You had to give him something in return—you told him about your anatomy labs in college. About the first incision you’d ever made, how clean it was, how your hands didn’t shake at all, even when everyone else’s did. You told him how good it felt to do such a good job cutting something. Cooper gave you a look that felt like sex, like every word you were saying was foreplay. You squirmed in your seat, your body reacted like he was undressing you.

“Just need you to look at something, sweetheart. Make sure it’s clean.”

Clean. You were good at that.

The garage was cold, so cold, and so bright. The fluorescent lights hummed relentlessly overhead, it felt like they were watching you.

The body on the table was already gone in the ways that mattered—eyes glassy, mouth slack, skin wrecked by pallor mortis. You felt calm and centered. Cooper watched you put the gloves on, listened to the snap of the latex. His face was just so relaxed, so pleasant. You were jealous of him, he was always so calm. That was the first time in your life you felt you could reach that, too.

It all made perfect sense to you, clicking into place without thinking. Muscle. Fascia. Vessels you memorized for exams, blooming under your fingers like familiar constellations. Cooper’s breathing changed as he towered behind you, watching.

Cooper never touched you while you worked. That came later. After. Once the organs were packed away with a reverent care. Once you’d scrubbed your hands raw, and he wrapped a warm towel around your shoulders like a little lamb that needed tending.

You threw up in the alleyway behind the garage, and Cooper held your hair back, rubbing your back and murmuring to you. “Good girl. Brave girl.” You clung to those words desperately. He rubbed your clit to take the edge off, massive hand down the front of your blood-spattered gray pleated skirt, circling your nerves in a way that makes your body writhe. His hand dwarfed you, covered half your face in his attempts to muffle the moans and sinful pleas that fell from your lips, held you flush against him from behind until you were shaking and releasing on his fingers in that dark, sickly lit alleyway.

After that, it became routine.

Cooper brought requests, and you fulfilled them every time.

The two of you were like-minded in your obsessive precision. Both people that needed a plan, that needed order and cleanliness. Rushed work gets sloppy, sloppy gets you caught. He liked your steady hands and your confident slices.

Your apartment fell to the wayside, you spent so much time in his carefully organized spaces—garages and basements of vacant houses, usually, that he had perfectly prepared for you. Your textbooks gathered dust in your apartment. Your diploma remained in it’s tube. Cooper called you his angel when he was in a good mood, his sweetheart, his smart, brave good girl. When he was in a bad mood, he ignored you completely. It was almost impressive, how convincingly he acted like you truly weren’t there.

You were so immersed in your work, in the delicate surgeries and the care of organ-keeping—which was harder than it sounds—you didn’t realize how much you’d lost to him. Not the work, him. You didn’t realize until you smelled his wife’s floral perfume on him.

It was a small thing, barely there, but so wrong to you. Your hands started shaking before your brain caught up.

“Where have you been?” you demanded. Your voice didn’t sound like your own.

“Home,” he was so placid, so casual.

“With… your wife?”

He laughed a little bit, like it was a silly question. It was. He was at his family home, where his family is. Of course he was with his wife.

You started crying in the most mortifying way. Loud, open mouth, spit forming a heavy string in your mouth and tears flowing past your lips and wetting your tongue with salt. Words tumbled out. You reminded him of everything you’d done for him, what you’d seen. What you’d done to those people. You were the only person who could do what you’d done for him, you thought you were special.

Cooper’s face closed like a door. He put that other face on. The one that was him but not him. The one that you never saw, unless he didn’t know you were looking.

“Don’t do that,” he said firmly. “Don’t make it ugly.”

Ugly. You slid down the wall until your butt hit the floor, knees tucked to your chest, breath coming in fragmented bursts. You told him that you can’t do this without him, that you need him, that he promised—

But he didn’t promise anything. Of course he didn’t, he never does. You both knew that.

Cooper let you tire yourself out sobbing and hyperventilating on the kitchen floor, begging him through choked cries not to sever the delicate strand that connects you. He waited until you were exhausted, covered in snot and spit and dried tears, to kneel down in front of you. He tilted your chin up with two fingers carefully, baring your puffy beet-red face to him.

“You’re spiraling,” he said it gently, his voice lulling you. “We can’t have that. Not right now.”

We.

Cooper held your face in one hand, squishing your cheeks together unflatteringly, and you sniffled wetly. He kissed you on your puffy, spit-slick lips. Firmly, a reminder of where you fit. A grounding action. You complied automatically, and later hated yourself for how totally relieved you felt in that moment, like everything had been fixed.

“There’s another job coming up, okay? It’s bigger,” he said, and your eyes were the size of saucers as you looked up at him. “I need you steady. Can you do that—for me?”

Lip still quivering, you nodded empathically. You could. Of course you could.

The next surgery took place in a basement that reeked of damp concrete and bleach. The victim was still alive when you started, but you weren’t expected to keep it that way. Cooper watched your face closely, monitoring you from his place near the basement stairs, tree-trunk thick arms crossed over his chest. You dissociated easily, immediately. It was just physiology, everything you learned in all your years of schooling. It was just practice. It was love, twisted into the shape of what you’re best at.

When it was over, Cooper leaned down and pressed his forehead to yours (covered in a thin sheen of sweat, shivering slightly)—and told you he was proud. You glowed under his words, even as something inside you calcified.

Later, alone in the bathroom, you scrubbed your hands until they were raw and red, and stared at your reflection. You looked hollowed out in a way that was reminiscent of the bodies you worked on. Dead just like them. Cooper knocked once before coming in.

He gave you what you’d been hoping for, pleading for, dreaming about the entire time you’d known him—split you open on the floor of that vacant house, your back pressed into the hardwood and knees to either side of your head. It was exactly how you’d imagined it every night since you’d met him. Precise, measured, hitting the exact spot you needed him in every thrust, making you babble and whine and scream. Somehow still punishing you, still taking something out on you, tears welling at the corners of your eyes and spilling down freely. He wiped them away and licked them from his fingers.

He was quiet, just strained breathing as his weight crushed you into the floor beneath and his hands held you where he wanted you, fingers leaving red and purple blooms behind that you’d admire for weeks and cry at the fading of. You tried to hold onto him, but he batted your hands away roughly and you didn’t try again—instead opting to dig your fingers into the ground, nails leaving little scratches behind in the wood.

You came long before he did, curling into him with a drawn-out scream, and then took what he was giving you with whimpers and drool and eyes rolled back into your head. You went limp long before he finally finished, your folded limbs putty in his grasp by the time he let out a final, ragged groan and came inside of you. The least careful thing he’d ever done.

You watched him with hungry eyes as he dressed again, bidding a bitter farewell to the bulk of his abs and his chest as he buttoned his shirt over them. You sat curled on the floor, back against the wall, your butt cushioned by your previously discarded pile of clothes that you’d scooted over to sit on. You stayed there, naked and curled up and staring at the wall, while he left to get you a Plan B. Alone in that dark, vacant house in the middle of the night, no one to hear you scream out his name or to hear the screams of his victims below. You were incandescently happy, blissed out, eyes glazed over.

Your fingers tighten slightly around the steering wheel as you slow anyway.

Because despite the storm, despite the empty stretch of road somewhere outside Philadelphia, despite the unease crawling slowly up your spine—

You can’t quite make yourself keep driving.

The man turns toward your headlights.

Tall.

Broad-shouldered.

Dark curls soaked through with rain.

There’s blood on his sleeve.

Not a lot.

Enough.

And then there are his eyes.

Steady.

Focused.

Too calm.

The kind of calm that makes your stomach twist.

You stop ten feet ahead of him before your better judgment can win.

For a second, nothing happens.

Then he walks toward your car.

Slowly.

No panic. No rush.

Like he already knows you won’t drive away.

The passenger-side door opens.

He slides inside without asking.

The smell of rain and cold air floods the car.

Then him.

Something sharp beneath the damp—metal, sweat, cedar soap.

You stare straight ahead.

“…You could’ve asked.”

The man shuts the door carefully behind him.

“Would you have said yes?”

His voice is even. Controlled.

You swallow.

“…Probably not.”

“Then askin’ seemed unnecessary.”

A chill runs down your arms.

Not fear exactly.

Not entirely.

Something stranger.

Something electric.

You pull back onto the road.

“Where are you going?” you ask quietly.

“Need somewhere to lay low.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re gettin’ right now.”

You glance sideways.

He’s watching the road ahead, one hand pressed loosely over the blood staining his sleeve.

Not tense.

Not frantic.

Just… alert.

Like a wolf sitting in your passenger seat.

The realization hits slowly.

Not all at once.

It comes in pieces.

The police sirens screaming past in the opposite direction ten minutes later.

The emergency broadcast buzzing through your radio.

The words: ongoing manhunt.

And then—

The name.

The Butcher.

Your hands nearly slip on the wheel.

You turn the volume up instinctively.

Authorities continue searching for suspected serial killer Cooper Adams, known publicly as “The Butcher”—

Your passenger calmly reaches forward and switches the radio off.

Silence crashes into the car.

You stare at him.

He stares ahead.

“…Cooper Adams,” you whisper.

“Mm.”

“That’s you.”

“Yes.”

No denial.

No excuse.

Just truth.

And somehow—

That’s worse.

You should stop the car.

You know that.

Pull over. Run. Scream. Something.

Instead, your pulse kicks harder.

Because he doesn’t look panicked.

Doesn’t look like a monster.

He looks… normal.

That’s the terrifying part.

“You gonna crash this thing?” he asks mildly after a moment.

You realize your grip is white-knuckled.

“No.”

“Good.”

“You killed people.”

“Yes.”

Your breath catches at how casually he says it.

“How many?”

Cooper finally turns his head slightly toward you.

Rainwater drips slowly from his curls onto his collar.

“A dangerous question.”

“Why?”

“Because now I’m curious why you still haven’t stopped the car.”

You don’t have an answer.

Not one you want to examine too closely.

The motel is your idea.

A rotting little roadside place with flickering lights and a bored clerk too distracted by his phone to care.

Cooper lets you do the talking.

Lets you hand over cash.

Lets you lead him upstairs.

You don’t understand why.

You especially don’t understand why he follows you into the room without a single hint of concern that you might betray him.

Until the door shuts.

And he locks it.

Then turns toward you fully for the first time.

The atmosphere changes instantly.

Not louder.

Not more violent.

Sharper.

Like stepping too close to the edge of something.

“You nervous?” he asks.

You force yourself not to step backward.

“Yes.”

His gaze drags over your face slowly.

“Good.”

Your stomach flips.

God.

There’s something deeply wrong with that reaction.

He notices.

Of course he notices.

“You scare easy?” he asks.

“No.”

“But I scare you.”

“Yes.”

A pause.

Then the corner of his mouth twitches slightly.

“Smart girl.”

You hate how much that affects you.

The wound in his arm turns out to be deeper than you thought.

Gunshot graze.

Not fatal, but ugly enough that blood keeps seeping through his sleeve.

You stare at it while he sits calmly in the motel chair like this is an ordinary evening.

“You need stitches.”

“I need sleep.”

“You need medical attention.”

“I need people to stop trying to arrest me.”

“That too.”

Another almost-smile.

Brief.

Gone quickly.

“You always this talkative?” he asks.

“Only when there’s a serial killer bleeding on my motel towels.”

“That sounds dramatic when you say it out loud.”

You laugh once before you can stop yourself.

And that—

That changes something.

Because Cooper looks at you differently afterward.

More interested.

More attentive.

Like he’s trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with you.

You clean the wound anyway.

At first, you expect him to flinch.

To react.

He doesn’t.

Just watches you quietly while you disinfect the cut.

“You’re very calm,” you murmur.

“So are you.”

You meet his eyes briefly.

“That should probably concern both of us.”

“Yes,” he says softly. “Probably.”

Over the next three days, you should leave.

Instead, you stay.

And somehow—

So does he.

You learn things accidentally.

Cooper likes black coffee with too much sugar.

Sleeps lightly.

Always positions himself between you and the door.

Keeps his emotions folded so tightly beneath the surface they barely exist at all—

Until they do.

And then they flash sharp enough to cut.

“You don’t ask many questions,” he says one night.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the second motel bed while he cleans blood from beneath his fingernails in the bathroom sink.

“I know enough already.”

“Most people would want details.”

“Most people wouldn’t still be here.”

Silence.

Then:

“No,” he agrees quietly. “They wouldn’t.”

You start moving every few days.

New motels.

New towns.

Different roads.

The FBI gets closer more than once.

Every time, Cooper stays unnervingly composed.

Even when helicopters thunder overhead.

Even when police checkpoints force detours through isolated backroads.

Nothing rattles him.

Except you.

You notice it slowly.

The way his eyes find you first whenever he enters a room.

The way he listens when you speak, even when he pretends not to.

The strange gentleness hidden beneath all that control.

Not softness.

Never softness.

But restraint.

Deliberate restraint.

One night, somewhere in Ohio, you finally ask the question sitting between you for weeks.

“Why haven’t you killed me?”

Cooper looks up from where he’s seated at the tiny motel table.

The lamp casts half his face in shadow.

“Do you think I want to?”

“I think you could.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Your pulse skips.

“No,” you admit quietly. “I don’t think you want to.”

His gaze sharpens slightly.

“Why?”

Because if he wanted to hurt you—

He already would have.

Because every single terrifying instinct inside him seems aimed away from you instead of toward you.

Because you’ve started recognizing the difference between dangerous and cruel.

And Cooper Adams is only one of those things.

“You look at me like you’re trying to solve something,” he says eventually.

“Maybe I am.”

“And?”

You hesitate.

Then tell the truth.

“I think you’re lonely.”

The silence afterward feels enormous.

Heavy.

His expression doesn’t change.

But something behind it does.

A crack.

Tiny.

Human.

“You shouldn’t see things like that in people,” he says softly.

“Why not?”

“Because eventually it gets you hurt.”

But he never hurts you.

Not once.

The first time he touches you deliberately, it’s almost nothing.

A hand at the back of your neck while guiding you out of sight as police officers sweep through a gas station parking lot.

But his palm is warm.

Steady.

Protective.

Your entire body reacts instantly.

And he notices that too.

Of course he does.

Later that night, tension hangs thick between you in the motel room.

You can feel him watching you from across the room.

“You should sleep,” you murmur.

“You should stop lookin’ at me like that.”

Your breath catches.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re curious.”

Maybe you are.

Maybe that’s the worst part.

“You terrify me,” you whisper.

Cooper studies you for a long moment.

Then rises slowly from his chair.

Every instinct screams at you to move.

You don’t.

He stops directly in front of you.

Close enough that you can feel his warmth.

“Still here, though.”

His voice is low.

Controlled.

But there’s something burning beneath it now.

Something you’ve both been pretending not to notice.

Your heart pounds painfully hard.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

You look up at him.

At the man everyone is hunting.

The man who should send you running.

Instead, your pulse spikes for an entirely different reason.

“Because you’ve never looked at me like prey.”

Something dark and conflicted flashes across his face.

Then his hand lifts slowly—

Giving you every chance to pull away—

Before his fingers brush lightly against your jaw.

The touch is devastatingly careful.

Like he’s handling something fragile.

“You should be smarter than this,” he murmurs.

“Probably.”

“And yet.”

“And yet,” you echo softly.

When he kisses you, it feels inevitable.

Not soft.

Not rushed.

Careful in the way dangerous things sometimes are.

Like he’s restraining far more than he’s giving in to.

Your fingers catch in the front of his shirt instinctively.

His hand settles against your waist.

Firm.

Grounding.

Possessive enough to make heat curl low in your stomach.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests briefly against yours.

And for the first time since meeting him—

Cooper Adams looks uncertain.

“You make this complicated,” he says quietly.

You can barely breathe.

“You kidnapped me.”

A low huff of laughter leaves him.

“I did.”

“You’re also a serial killer.”

“Allegedly.”

You stare at him.

He stares back.

Then, somehow, you both start laughing.

Quiet.

Breathless.

A little unhinged.

The FBI nearly catches him two weeks later.

You barely escape through the back exit of a diner while agents flood the front.

Your hand is locked tightly in Cooper’s the entire time.

He doesn’t let go once.

Not while sprinting through alleys.

Not while stealing a car.

Not even after.

“You could leave,” he says hours later, voice rough with exhaustion.

You’re parked deep in the woods, hidden beneath heavy trees.

“You say that like you want me to.”

Silence.

Then:

“I don’t.”

The honesty of it wrecks you a little.

So you stay.

Not because you’re trapped.

Not because you’re afraid.

But because somewhere between the terror and fascination and sleepless motel nights—

You fell in love with the monster.

And somehow—

Against all logic—

click into each for better quality <3