#harper my least favorite s/i but she is sooooo fun to write

[lookingupatthesamemoon]

selfshiptober day 8: swim + terror

pairing: Harper + Cooper Adams/Abbott

summary: Harper encounters Cooper yet again, taking a late night dip in her campus' pool.

word count: 2.3k

cw: canon-typical violence, serial killer implications, s/i does not care that Cooper is The Butcher

divider by @/strangergraphics :)

Harper had always thought of herself as a lucky girl. She had the gift of getting away with all sorts of things, big and small – which, of course, included what she was getting up to now. The campus fitness center had closed for the night about two hours ago, but here she was, enjoying a late night swim in their heated pool. Her roommate worked there most mornings, sitting at the front desk, reminding people to check in before beginning their workout routines. It was mindless, Harper always thought, but at least the girl was getting paid to do it. Of course, she couldn’t complain too much when she knew exactly where her roommate kept her keycard and her set of keys, essentially allowing her access to the building whenever she wanted – well, assuming her roommate didn’t catch on. 

Harper had taken pride in her impish ways for as long as she could remember. She understood that she was a little different, a little off-kilter, but that self-awareness only allowed her to hide it better. She was conniving, and felt that it was in her best interest to use that to her advantage as if it was some sort of special skill. To her, it was. Her latest scheme involved raising her GPA… If it weren’t for that statistics class, she’d surely have a 4.0 instead of the 3.8 she was currently resting at. Her professor was a bit of a hardass, but she could tell there was a softer chump underneath it all. She could tell, just by the way he held himself, that he was a desperate, degenerate man… His classroom was likely the only place he could exercise any control. She was great at reading people, she thought.

As she pondered possible methods of seduction, hopefully in exchange for raising her grade, she was suddenly pulled out of her own head by a loud slam coming from the direction of the men’s locker room. She could’ve sworn she heard footsteps on their way to the main pool room, causing her to panic. Depending on who those footsteps belonged to, and even moreso, what their intentions were, she wasn’t sure this was a situation she could talk her way out of. Harper was frozen in place debating her next move. Making quite literally any movement could give her away, as the water would make too much noise in the otherwise silent building. If she simply dunked herself under the surface where she was, whoever it was might miss her in the dim light, but she had to assume she would be even less detectable if she waded over to one of the pool’s corners. She began to do so, taking extremely slow steps in order to make the least noise possible. 

Unbeknownst to her, The Butcher had been traipsing around the campus, on the hunt for his next victim. The college kids were always too easy. He had only ever kidnapped two from this campus… Too many more, and it would look far too suspicious. The FBI was already onto him, and he knew it, which only encouraged him to randomize his targets as much as he could, as well as slow himself down. But it had always been hard for Cooper to fight the urge, and sometimes, he had to satiate it in the easiest way he knew how. He was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for, and when he had noticed the singular light on inside the fitness center, he was sure he had found the perfect mark. He tried to keep quiet as he slipped into the building, not wanting to give whoever was in there too many opportunities to escape. While he did like the idea of the chase, he hated to risk them getting away, especially when they could potentially identify him. Besides, staying quiet made it easier for him to track down his prey. As he journeyed through the men’s locker room, he couldn’t help but notice the sounds of whoever else was in the building were beginning to get louder. He could hear the distinct sound of arms swishing through water – and based on the pitch of the sound, he was assuming those arms were small, suggesting that whoever it was would stand no chance against his tall, muscular build. He slinked through the shadows, until finally, he could put his eyes on his target, finally slamming a locker shut to make his presence known.

From afar, he couldn’t really tell too many specifics about the person – all he could tell was that they seemed to be a woman. That worked. Cooper was unlike some of his contemporaries in that he didn’t discriminate  when it came to his killings – well, aside from children. He never killed children. But other than them, everyone was “up for grabs,” so to speak: men, women, and everyone in between alike. His last victim was a young man… Why not make things even. He rolled his neck a bit, then headed for the pool.

As soon as Harper saw the figure headed toward the pool, she dove under the water’s surface, praying to a God that she didn’t even believe in that whoever was lurking in the shadows hadn’t heard, and that they would stomp right on past her. Of course, she knew better, and in a matter of moments, her prayers were left unanswered as she felt a sharp pain at the back of her head – her hair was being pulled at, forcing her head above the water. She screamed, splashing at the assailant in hopes it would deter them long enough for her to get the fuck out of dodge, but to no avail. It wasn’t until she looked up, seeing the perpetrator’s face, that she calmed down.

“Cooper?” She shrieked. 

“Harper,” he replied, a huff escaped his nose. He put on that fake smile he had gotten so good at, slowly letting her hair go, but keeping just enough laced through his fingers to keep her from running too far. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight. I didn’t mean to scare you…”

“Cooper… Let go of my hair.”

She met his eyes, trying to assert some semblance of dominance – it wasn’t exactly working. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust her. He was realizing in real time that he was fucked with this girl. He had two options: he could kill her, ending their perverse game of cat-and-mouse once and for all, or he could let her go yet again. This was now their fourth meeting – though, this might’ve been the first one that Harper hadn’t forcibly orchestrated. He wouldn’t put it past her, of course, based on one of their last encounters… But her performance here, her fear, seemed far too legitimate to him to have been planned. 

You see, Harper was not the type of person Cooper ever anticipated dealing with. Outside of… Well, this, he was a relatively common man. He had everything the American dream could advertise: a nuclear family, complete with both a son and a daughter, a white picket fence, steady work as a firefighter. He took pride in his job, sure, but he was far from a celebrity, even if his page in the firehouse calendar was everyone’s favorite. It was a delicate dance, keeping that normal life entirely separate from his… Hobby. He put great effort into covering his tracks, outside of his trademark of scattering limbs at all of his crime scenes – they were really the only pattern the FBI had to go off of in their attempts to track him down. This part of him was almost completely unknown – just how he liked it. What he failed to consider, however, was that his news reports and his police profiles might garner a little fanclub of their own, resulting in freakish little groupies like Harper. She was the only one that had found him, of course, but he knew there had to be others out there like her. 

“Cooper,” Harper started again, “be a good boy and let go of my hair.”

Cooper’s eyes glinted briefly as he grimaced, finally releasing her completely. She took two steps back in the water, keeping her eyes on him as he remained crouching next to the pool’s edge, his shirt damp from the water she had doused him with earlier. “I know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work.”

“What am I doing, Cooper?”

“You’re doing that thing, that thing that they all do, where you talk like my mother to try to disarm me. It’s not going to work.”

Harper smirked. “You know, it would do you good to listen to me, Cooper. I know who you are. And I’ve already told you, I’m no threat to you. I’m not taking this to the cops or the FBI or anyone else. I just think, you know… we might make a good team.”

“And I’ve already told you… I work alone. I don’t need some little girl fucking up my plans and procedures.”

“Oh, Cooper… You don’t mean that,” Harper pouted.

“Don’t,” Cooper growled, watching as her hands slowly reached up behind her neck, toying with the strings of her bathing suit.

“What? You gonna kill me?” She teased, pausing and bringing her arms back down. “That would be the stupidest move you would ever make in your life, killing me. There’s no one else on this entire planet that knows this part of you and likes it. I’m telling you, Cooper… I could be your greatest asset. All I’m asking is that you let me.”

His upper lip curled. He hated how much that point made sense. He hated her. He hated how much she knew about him just from her relentless research. He hated the way she had tried over and over to insert herself into his life, even going as far as tying him up for the sake of a dinner date. And yet, he couldn’t deny that while looking at her, half naked and sopping wet, he saw something angelic. If nothing else, maybe she was right. Maybe she was a tool that he could use, and whenever he was finished, he could toss her out of his life like a bad batch of egg salad, in the way that he did with every other victim he had the pleasure of doing business with.

Harper watched, still keeping her distance, as Cooper’s face contorted, his brain clearly working its way through her repeated proposition. She swore she could see him soften, his shoulders dropping ever so slightly as he relaxed. She smiled, choosing to wade closer to him, perhaps against her best judgment.

“What’s in it for you?” Cooper finally thought to ask. “I mean, really… How does becoming my little minion help you in any way?”

“Easy,” Harper scoffed. “I get to live out my twisted little fantasies.”

“And you’re willing to put all of this – school, your job, your family – in jeopardy for this? I mean… You’ve gotta recognize how dangerous this is for you. I could snap your fucking neck right now if I wanted to-”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I could. Don’t interrupt me.”

Harper stuck her tongue out playfully, stifling a giggle. He thought he was so tough… And he was, she supposed, but she could handle him. Despite only knowing him personally for a matter of weeks, she knew plenty about what made The Butcher tick.

“You’re nothing like the others,” Cooper mused after a few moments. “You’re not afraid of me. Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“Because I know you.”

Harper inched even closer, her own fingers curling over the pool’s edge, mere centimeters away from Cooper’s. She took a shaky breath, sticking her chin up like a giraffe reaching after a tall tree, pausing once her face was close enough to his that she could feel his breath on her skin. Cooper sighed, glancing down to meet her eyes. “You’re not gonna give this up, are you?”

“Not a chance,” Harper replied, a devilish grin spreading across her cheeks. “Why would I ever let The Butcher, my favorite muse, out of my sight, hm? I’m your biggest fan.”

Cooper said nothing in response. Instead, he finally rose up from his crouching position, his six-foot stature now towering over her and the pool. He hastily removed his shirt, discarding it on the pool deck. His jeans soon followed, the metal of his belt buckle clanging against the stone as they fell. Slowly, he waded into the pool in his underwear, meeting Harper where she stood..

In one swift movement, his left hand was cupping the side of Harper’s face. His palm was almost as big as the side of her head. A yelp escaped her lips as he pushed her head against the closest edge of the pool, followed by a slight giggle. Anyone else in their right mind would be terrified, but Harper… Well, she was feeling something else entirely. She side-eyed him, taking in the look of madness in his eyes, admiring how twinkly they seemed to get when he was angry.

Angry. Cooper found his grip lessening ever so slightly as he realized what he was feeling. He wasn’t faking this. This frustration was real, realer than it ever was with his actual victims. He could still feel.

“You’re not going to the cops?” He asked her, still pressing her head against the coping. 

“Never. I promise.”

He took his hand away, allowing her to slowly lift her head back up. She rubbed the right side of her face, stars in her eyes as she realized there would surely be bruising there in the morning.

“You know where the house is, the one you found me in. Come find me there tomorrow.”