Chapter Text
There had been no answer when Cooper had called out and rattled the metal shutters to the bookstore within the mall he patrolled, but the faint sound of lofi and very soft human speech clearly indicated an occupant. When he called out once more, received no response once again, he reached for his ring of keys and went to work opening the aluminum gating. It was almost one in the morning, and even the cleaning crew had gone home. There should not have been a soul in the building save for the assigned security guard, and Cooper just happened to be the man tasked with that assignment.
After the concert in Pennsylvania, the confrontation, and his subsequent escape from the incompetent police department, the Butcher had gone on the run, inadvertently aided by the media's purposeful downplaying of his escape that would have shamed all law enforcement involved. Cowards, the way Cooper saw them, but convenient cowards. In the months that followed, he had moved around quite a bit, never settling anywhere for too long, utilizing a slew of motel rooms and stolen identities. When he finally felt like he'd reached a destination he could call permanent, he'd gone in search of work and found himself right at home in the convenience of mall security. The idea had seemed laughable at first as he'd scanned the wanted ads in a local paper, weeks after chopping up one of the previously employed night guards, but the more he'd contemplated it, the more perfect of a fit it seemed to be. That had been about a month ago, and now he found himself in one of the stores, hours after closing, not as alone as he should be.
Officially armed with a flash light and a baton, unofficially armed with a taser and chloroform, Cooper proceeded through the store, quiet and alert, glancing in all directions as he moved toward the back corner of the store, the source of the soft music, and the the faint glow of an electronic device. Expecting to find some stoned teens or a homeless person, Cooper instead stumbled upon a store employee, ambient synthwave streaming from the speakers of her laptop as she typed away. Apparently, she was so engrossed in her after-hours work that she failed to notice him until he switched on his flashlight and shone it against the wall in front of her, and all around her. She nearly fell out of the store chair that cradled her body when she finally took notice of him.
“Who the f-...oh, thank god, security,” she breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed his uniform, her vision not yet reaching the stern look across his face.
“Mall's closed,” he stated simply, switching off his flashlight and sliding it back into the assigned holster.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. I, uh...the other security guard just lets me hang after hours,” she explained, closing her computer and sliding it into her bag.
“That's probably why he got fired,” Cooper commented harshly in return. Well, fired in the literal since, as Cooper had burned his body to reduce the evidence. He was far less bold in his disposal of victims' remains, since his temporary capture. The bookstore worker paused at his statement. She hadn't seen the other guard in weeks, and had assumed he'd simply quit. If she were really the cause...she felt a twinge of guilt at the idea.
“I'm sorry, I hadn't heard that. I...I'll get my stuff. It won't happen again,” she assured, keeping her focus on her belongings she gathered, making sure to pick up her accumulated garbage from her food court-sourced dinner so she could dump it in the trash. Cooper nodded, but said nothing, as he watched her move about, and followed her as they trudged back out of the store, the door coming down in a noisy crash at the insistence of Cooper's harsh yank. It felt excessive to the bookstore employee, but she said nothing. If she'd already gotten someone fired for bending the rules, she certainly didn't want to end up on the bad side of his replacement. The store didn't exactly pay well, but she couldn't afford to lose the income.
“Um...sorry, again,” she mumbled as Cooper walked a few steps behind her, seeing that she got to an exit so he could re-lock the doors. The Butcher shifted his gaze from the empty corridor stretched out before him, to the young woman a few steps ahead of him. Already nearly a foot shorter than himself, she seemed even smaller with her shoulders hunched and her arms meeting at her clasped hands before her.
“It's...it's fine,” he finally uttered, and her head seemed to tilt briefly toward his voice, before focusing on her destination again. “I need this job. I can't afford write-ups, already.”
“Right...s-” she began to apologize again, but her words were cut short by the light contact of his fingertips upon her shoulder, and her feet slowed to a stop as she turned around to look back at him, confused at his odd touch.
“Stop apologizing. I get it. You're sorry,” his voice was firm, but less harsh than it had been in the bookstore. “Let's just...make it a habit of being out by midnight, alright?” he offered, his thick, dark brows raising as if to punctuate his request.
“S-...sure,” she managed, and no more words were exchanged between the two strangers the last hundred-ish feet to the exit nearest her automobile. She paused at the door, but said nothing, as Cooper unlocked it and held it open, watching her exit. She glanced back at him briefly, before heading for her car, Cooper's dark eyes focused on the lock as he re-secured the exit. His gaze rose to watch her walk alone, along the empty parking lot, until she reached a car he reckoned was hers, the guard not turning around to resume his patrol until her lights were on, and her vehicle set into motion.
* * *
A few evenings had passed since the incident at the bookstore, Cooper's night off falling the day after, a different shift the day after that, and he was back to night duty. He didn't mind it. He enjoyed the silence. During the day shifts, his gaze would wander, taking in the multitude of mall patrons, contemplating his next kill, but the evenings were peaceful. More time to think. More time to plan without distractions.
It had also been a few nights since he'd stopped by the bookstore, and though he'd avoided it for the bulk of regular operating hours, his feet did eventually guide him in the shop's direction, and he found himself standing against the wall across from it, staring in through the door-less entry. His eyes followed the movements and actions of a slightly familiar figure inside, Cooper watching as the young woman he'd escorted out a few nights before flitted around the store, assisting what few customers stepped inside, straightening books, re-homing the tomes that wound up in the wrong locations. Cooper had watched for a full fifteen minutes, almost unflinching, before she looked up from her work long enough to notice him, and she made no secret of it when she did.
“Hey!,” she waved him down, completely unnecessarily, as she crossed the short distance through the store and out into the corridor to greet the security guard. “Hi, I just wanted to apologize again for the other night, I don't usually-”
“Ah, no need,” Cooper raised a hand as if to put a barrier between the two of them. “It's these late nights, you know? I'm not used to the overnight shift and I was just...” he shrugged his shoulders, and put on a smile that didn't reach his eyes. “I was just...kinda grumpy” he suggested.
“I get that, but, um...I mean, I really don't usually hang around that long-”
“Really, it's fine,” he reiterated, the false smile still in place. “Hey, I'm Cooper. I didn't catch your name,” he offered his hand, and she hesitated only for a couple of seconds before accepting it, a half smile forming on her lips that was far more sincere than his.
“Delilah. It's, um...nice to meet you, Cooper,” she shook the hand he'd offered lightly before withdrawing her own again. “Hey, um...did I really get the other guard fired? I feel terrible-”
“Oh, no, he, uh...” Cooper began, his mind searching, quick as lightning, for a reasonable lie. “He didn't show up to work a couple of days in a row, and no one heard from him, so he got let go...apparently,” he quickly tossed in.
Delilah's brows knit together as she contemplated his words. “Well, I'm glad it wasn't me...I hope he's okay. I don't think he had much family,” she thought aloud.
Cooper considered her briefly before speaking again, “Did you know him?”
“I mean, not well, but...about as much as anyone around here who works the night shift, and...doesn't keep their face buried in their phones,” she shrugged.
“Well, I'm sure he'll turn out to be...just fine,” Cooper lied, his umber eyes fixed on her forest green ones.
“Yeah, I...I hope so,” she nodded, her gaze transfixed by the strange intensity of his stare, as if he were waiting to see if she believed him. “Well...I gotta get back before we lose another customer to Amazon. It was nice to meet you, again,” she explained as her eyes finally glanced back to the store, and the annoyed-looking customer inside. When she looked back again, just inside the entrance below the giant letters that spelled out PAGE TURNERS, he had vanished.
* * *
Days turned to weeks as Cooper acclimated to his position as the primary evening security officer, scoping out all the stores, and the dark hallways that led to back rooms, every inch of the oversized shopping destination. He was attentive to his duties, though less than invested on a personal level. His job was nothing but a cover, and a convenient location for his executions, in the basement levels that most were either unaware of, or considered abandoned. He'd stored away plenty of money over the years in a dozen locations in case he were ever discovered and had to run, and his home was far more comfortable than any normal security guard could truly hope for. Unfulfilling as his duties were, however, his employ did lend him opportunities to gain trust within the micro-community of this retail mega-facility, meeting various store employees, making nice with managers, cleaning crew...book sellers.
Nearly every evening that they shared a coinciding schedule, Cooper found an excuse to at least pass by the Page Turners book store on the top floor, a shop that he silently questioned the need for in the age of giant online sellers that an independent bookseller could not complete with the prices of. Business appeared fairly slow to him, but the main evening employee he'd began having brief, friendly interactions with, seemed to always find something to do. He usually had to clear his throat just to gain her attention when he'd enter the store, but she always seemed pleased to see him.
“You always manage to look busy,” Cooper commented from just beyond the threshold between the store interior and the walkway, and he watched her shoulders jump slightly in surprise, before she turned in the direction of his voice from where she crouched beside a bookcase on the floor.
“And you always manage to make me jump,” she answered, though nothing else about her demeanor suggested that his presence bothered her. “I'll have you know that I've had a whopping...three? No, four groups of customers, tonight,” she declared, rising up to full height, nearly a foot shorter than the security guard, and dusting her polyester slacks off.
“That many?” Cooper asked, his eyes following her form as she abandoned the half-stocked box of tween novellas to circle around to the employee side of the register desk. “I guess it's only Tuesday, though.” Delilah shrugged as she slid her phone into a compartment out of sight, the need for distraction lessened by Cooper's companionship. “Do you ever manage to get a night off?” he asked suddenly, and her eyes that had already been trained on his features lit up with surprise at the inquiry.
“Um...well, yeah, of course. I just, uh...I'm the only non-manager who actually volunteers for the night shift, so my schedule is pretty predictable,” she explained, and he nodded, leaning his weight into his hands that gripped at the side of the register table opposite her.
“Night owl?” he suggested, and she shrugged, her expression unaltered, though her gaze diverted from his, as it often did when his proximity to her increased.
“I guess...it's more like, most of the other employees are teenagers, and they don't want to waste their summer vacation working the night shift,” she concluded. Honestly, they didn't do much of anything while they were there to begin with, but someone had to mind the store.
“Yeah, I've noticed it's mostly teenagers. I guess they probably make for the best customers, too,” he continued, adjusting his weight so it fell against his crossed arms on the recently wiped-down surface. “How old are you, anyway? I mean, if it's okay to ask,” he questioned suddenly, and she finally looked back up at him again, surprised.
“Um...thirty one,” she answered, brows furrowing as she watched him curiously.
Cooper's face displayed a look of surprise, as he pushed off, raising back to his full, towering height. “Really? I wouldn't have guess that.”
“What would you have guessed?” Delilah asked, her arms crossing in subconscious defense.
“I don't know. Maybe...twenty six? Twenty seven?” His answer was honest, and her demeanor seemed to visibly soften. “How's that possible?”
“I, uh...well, I don't drink, or smoke, or use drugs, or...spend much time in the sun,” she explained, waving a hand in the direction of the hall way, and the enormous overhead skylights that naturally brightened the walkways during the day.
“I imagine you must burn pretty easy,” he mentioned, his body maneuvering around the corner of the register table, reaching out to fondle a few strands of her auburn hair that fell past her shoulders, his vision trained on her, even as passersby glanced in to perceive the two of them.
“Yeah, I, uh...I try not to put myself in that position, anymore,” she mumbled, her gaze focused on his large hand as it abandoned her as quickly as it had reached out. “I don't wanna get burned.”
Cooper nodded but remained silent for several seconds, watching the confusion and anxiousness present itself on her features. Eventually, when it seemed she might excuse herself, he finally spoke up again. “So, how old do I look?”
“I...it must be a really slow night for you, too,” she commented, glancing briefly to the corridor for possible customers, the mall mostly dead, typical for a weeknight.
“Come on,” he encouraged, dark eyes ever watchful, clocking the mild discomfort across her features and ignoring it. “You're not gonna hurt my feelings.”
“Um...” she paused in her tiny steps backward, Cooper standing quite still, and finally took the opportunity to really look him over, something she'd done many times, but never so closely and obviously. “I'm really bad at this,” she mumbled, but he shook his head, a non-deranged smile in place. “Maybe...forty...four?” she hedged, and his expression told her that she at least had not insulted him.
“Forty six,” he corrected, and Delilah nodded, and shrugged. She wasn't quite sure why he cared about either of their ages, figured he must be desperate to run down the clock before his next round of surveillance was scheduled. “Pretty close. Maybe I need to start taking better care of my skin,” he thought aloud, rubbing absently at the short whiskers that cast a dark shadow over his chin. “Not so long ago, I was getting mistaken for...thirties,” he threw out the words in a casual tone, but the look Delilah immediately gave him – brows quirked, and a strange smile that seemed to silently say 'Yeah, right!' - gave him a tiny moment of pause, followed by a simple, “Ouch!”
“Sorry! I just...I mean, I don't know why you would want to confused for thirties,” she shrugged, suddenly a bit more at ease from the renewed levity of his company. “Like, have you met men in their thirties? They're barely men. They act like they're in their twenties, and guys in their twenties act like they're still in high school...”
“So...you're saying that forties is better?” Cooper prodded, and before he could take a step closer, the chatter of mall patrons suddenly reached their ears, and said patrons' feet led them into the bookstore before Cooper could take their conversation any further.
“Don't you have something to secure,” Delilah mumbled, a grin she couldn't defy pulling at her lips as Cooper maneuvered behind her.
“I'm just gonna go do some 'older guy' stuff,” he whispered in return, his large hand passing over the small of her back as he slipped by.
“Go secure something,” she called back as he disappeared out the door, her face flushed, smile still firmly in place. He'd never exactly struck her as insecure in their correspondence so far. As far as she was concerned, it didn't matter how old he actually was when he looked like that.
* * *
“So...movie theater...other movie theater...call center, office job...bookseller at a dying mall?” Cooper rattled off the jobs she'd detailed, counting them on his fingers, watching her nod along as she dusted the countless shelves of books. “How does that happen?”
“Well,” she began, pulling out an incorrectly placed book and sliding it toward the direction of its proper location. “The theaters paid awful wages, but I still lived with my mother, so I didn't need much. Quit the first one, got fired from the second one.”
“How do-”
“Nepotism. I pointed out some nepotism to the wrong co-worker, and it turned out they had a bigger mouth than I thought. And after that...a year at a call center that made me never want to talk on the phone again...and nine soul-sucking years at the office.”
“And then you ended up here,” Cooper concluded aloud, and she nodded, moving on to the next set of shelves. “Was it worth it?” he asked, and she shifted to look back over to the security guard whose body leaned against the sturdy register desk. “I mean, I can't imagine the pay is any better than where you were at.”
“It's not,” she admitted, her voice a little softer. She didn't like being reminded of her financial problems, wondering about the choices she'd made in her life to lead her here. “It's less money, for sure, but...a different company bought us out, and our jobs got more difficult, and our work loads doubled...and the raises turned into a joke. I hated it. I made enough to live on my own, but only barely, and...” Delilah's words dropped away, her fingers stilling over the spines of the books she had been correcting the placement of. Cooper simply stood in silence, taking in every ounce of information she spilled. “And what about you?” she suddenly questioned, an attempt to deflect some attention.
“Me?” Cooper asked, his brows raising. “Well, there's not much to tell,” he answered. It wasn't wise to give away too much, even his own trained lies. His resume had been full of falsehoods, but the hiring manager had been so desperate to bring someone on with the sudden disappearance of the guard Cooper had annihilated, that he hadn't even checked up on his references. A clean background check and some forged documents of training had been enough to secure the position Cooper now found himself in. “I've mostly worked...I guess you'd call them positions of authority.” Hadn't that been what the FBI profile had said? Surely, that was vague enough.
“And you never, um...” Cooper observed as the bookseller tapped her empty ring finger on her left hand.
“I, uh...I'm divorced,” he lied, though in fairness, he was certain Rachel would have divorced him, had the authorities actually managed to keep him in custody beyond the Prisoner Transport vehicle. “I don't really like talking about that part of my life.”
“You don't really like talking about yourself at all,” she observed, and Cooper couldn't exactly argue. Obviously, there was very little of his life he could safely share, as his interactions with the FBI and Philadelphia police had been far too close for comfort.
“Maybe I just find you fascinating,” he hedged, and received a sigh and an eye roll, but she ceased her questions, all the same.
* * *
It was another late night, later than usual for Cooper to find Delilah's dented-up car in the mall parking lot, so late that he cut his outside patrol short to re-enter the enormous structure. Ever since their first meeting, when he had acted so harshly toward her, before he had selected her as the subject of his strange experiment, she had actually made efforts to be out of the mall before midnight. Though there were nights that she didn't quite make their agreed-upon curfew, he had never witnessed her in the building so late that it almost classified as early. By the time he'd completed the trek to the metal gates outside of Page Turners' store front, it was just after 3am.
Cooper called out her name, called again louder, but received no answer. He didn't even hear the typical wave of soft music that usually emanated from the store when she stuck around after-hours. Giving the metal barrier a loud shake and still hearing nothing beyond it that indicated life, he reached to his large ring of keys and let himself inside.
He wasn't sure what it was that drove him. It felt like something almost comparable to concern, but he was certain that wasn't it. She was just an experiment, a little toy to manipulate and eventually play with. Replaceable. So why was he relieved when he found her at the back of the store that he trudged through, not ignoring him at all, not consciously anyway?
“Delilah,” Cooper spoke just above a whisper after he carefully tugged the headphones she wore away from her ears, watching her stir, barely aware of his presence. He received a tiny 'Hmm?' in response, but nothing else, her eyes still closed. Crouching down next to the well-worn bean bag chair she snoozed in, he pushed some stray strands of hair away from her ear, and leaned in closer, his voice a bit louder as he spoke her name again.
“It's too early,” she mumbled, closed eyes scrunching tight with annoyance as she shifted in the nearly-shapeless seat.
“Or too late,” Cooper answered, and finally recognizing his voice, Delilah managed to open her eyes long enough to look over her shoulder, toward him.
“Cooper?” she asked, her tone and the expression on her face full of confusion. “What are you...what time is it?”
“Way past midnight,” he answered, dragging out his phone when she failed to locate her own, showing her the time, watching her eyes widen with realization.
“Oh my g-...shit!” she exclaimed, scrambling out of the so-called chair and unsteadily to her feet. “I am so sorry. I can't believe I actually fell asleep,” she continued, searching for her belongings to gather in her messenger bag.
“I can,” Cooper responded, and she gave him a confused look before returning her attention to her bag to make sure she had everything. “I can believe that you fell asleep, I mean,” he clarified. “Delilah...is there a reason you don't want to go home?”
“What?” she asked, finally standing up to full height again, grasping her purse, and the bag big enough to hold her laptop.
“That's why you stay so late, isn't it? You stay at the store for hours after it closes, after you've clocked out. You volunteer to work these late shifts, when most people are off work, and at home. No one likes the night shift that much,” Cooper concluded, his dark eyes focused on the young woman before him, who had noticeably stopped fidgeting. “Boyfriend?”
That single word prompted a look akin to the one she'd given him the night he'd suggested he could pass for a man in his thirties. “Do you really think I'd spend so much time around you if I...no, there's no boyfriend. It's, uh...it's my roommate...and her boyfriend, usually.”
Cooper registered all of her words, but chose not to comment on the first half. He'd tuck that away for later. “Continue,” he invited, simply, not too firmly.
“She just...I kinda hate her,” Delilah admitted, letting out a sigh of defeat. She did her best to not mix her time around Cooper in with her home life, but he was frustratingly perceptive. She watched as the security guard lowered himself to the vacuumed floor and reached his hand out in her direction, encouraging her to join him. She plopped down far less gracefully. “We didn't even really know each other when I moved in. She was looking for a roommate to split the bills with, and I was month-to-month at my apartment, and running out of what passed for my savings from my old job, and...it seemed like a good match at the time.”
“So, what changed?” he questioned, hesitating for a few moments, before reaching out his hand again and taking hers carefully in his grasp. She stared at it for a noticeable length of time before her words resumed.
“Well...she ended up getting this boyfriend, and at first it was nice, because they were almost always at his place. Then, they started fighting, like...all the time. And when they weren't fighting, they were fucking so loud, the neighbors would bang on the walls, and...”
“And that's when you started staying here so late?” he offered, and she shrugged.
“Yeah...I started looking for freelance stuff online to make more money so I could move out on my own again, but...everything just keeps getting so much more expensive. I just...I feel so stuck. And up here,” her words paused for a moment, and she indicated with her free hand her general surroundings, “it's about the only peace I get that doesn't involve earplugs.” She gave a faint smile that didn't reach her eyes, focused on an invisible spot on the floor. When silence overtook the room, it became harder to ignore his large hand that still encompassed hers, and she finally took in a deep breath, letting it out in a slightly dramatic sigh. “So...now that you know my sob story...any words of wisdom?”
Her gaze finally lifted to Cooper's umber eyes that had not left her own green ones since she'd began to speak, but she found his expression unreadable. “Well?” she asked again.
“I'm not sure I have much wisdom to impart,” Cooper admitted, “and it's probably selfish, but...I kind of like having you up here, alone...all to myself.”