hannibal lecter and clarice starling fanfic
The air smelled of freshly brewed, dark roasted coffee and crisp, steamy flesh sizzling on the stovetop. Clarice’s eyes slightly fluttered open as she breathed in the nostalgic aromas, it brought her back to childhood memories of waking up to the smell of bacon and eggs. It was a good scent, it meant her father had the day off and got to spend it with her. Her little feet would jump out of her comfortable bed and dart into the kitchen to find her dad, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a skillet in the other. “Morning' sweetie,” he’d say with a smile. She woke up out of her daze suddenly, her eyes opening in sync with the beat of her heart.
She glanced around, the edges of her vision blurred by morning weariness. She rubbed her eyes. As she gained awareness, her mind began to wake up with the rest of her body. She then quickly realized this time was distinctly different from her memories. 1) She was located far away from home in a four star hotel located on the east side of northern Lithuania. 2) The smell was most definitely not coming from bacon, she could recognize the signature scent of burnt skin in the middle of a barbecue, after having the misfortune of inhaling its nauseating aroma in the past. She remembered reading about it in a forensics textbook. Burning muscle tissue creates a smell similar to beef in a frying pan and the fat smells like fatty pork on the grill. You never quite get the scent of death out of your nostrils entirely, no matter how much time has passed.
She heard a creak coming from the kitchen floorboards and jolted awake now certainly knowing she was no longer alone. Attempting to not make a single sound, she reached for her pistol lying on the wooden bedside dresser to her right. Beside it she snatched a small hunting knife, she carried for good luck and slid it in her left sock. She took a step out of the bed, the floorboards groaned slightly and she quickly changed her footing, attempting to feel out the hollow areas that lay underneath to avoid making any noise. She found her fluffy bunny slippers tucked away beneath the metal bed frame and slid her toes into its cushioned soles, muffling the pattering of her steps. Clicking the gun’s safety off slowly, she crept through the doorway keeping her body close to the wall as she peered over into the kitchen. She brought her extended arms close to her chest, the pistol now few inches away from her chin, pointed at the ceiling. She couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her breathing and the occasional pops of oil from the frying pan on the stove.
“Good Morning Clarice,” an all too familiar voice rang within her ears, breaking the unsettling silence. “You can come out now.”
Clarice Starling emerged from the bedroom, her gun pointed directly in line with the back of Dr. Lecter. He was sitting in a chair at the mahogany dining table, his back to Clarice, he faced the opened doors to the balcony outside, his legs were crossed nonchalantly as he read the black and white newspaper in his hands. Clarice didn’t hesitate and pulled the trigger. Click. Click. Click.
“Tsk Tsk. Naughty girl,” Dr. Lecter teased without looking back. “Why don’t you have a seat? Don’t want your breakfast getting cold.”
She rushed to his seat, swinging the unloaded pistol at his skull. Lecter grasped her wrist tightly with his right and only hand, the pistol about an inch from smashing into his head. His eyes remained glued to the newspapers contents even as he snapped her clenched fist open and flung the gun onto the table. “You’re very predictable Starling. Do you intend on making this more difficult than it needs to be?”
Slowly she made her way to the empty seat across from him. A plate consisting of two sausages, an egg and buttered toast laid in front of her. Clarice kept her unwavering gaze steady with Lecter’s. “What do I owe the delight of your presence, Doctor Lecter? I haven’t heard from you since our previous encounter. No calls or even a letter, unusual for you.” “Writing was a luxury I unfortunately had to leave behind with my dominant hand. The right gets the job done, but the penmanship will never quite equate to the elegance before. I was sure you of all people wouldn’t need to be reminded of such details,” Lecter smiled as he lifted the black leather glove over his prosthetic to expose it’s plastic skin. Clarice remained silent, her eyes in a deadlock with his.
“I also couldn’t bear to give you the satisfaction of answering any questions I’m sure have been floating about in that charming head of yours. It wouldn’t do any justice to a more intimate confrontation. I was originally planning on leaving your mind to be in constant torment and wonder just for my personal pleasure, but when I overheard that you came all this way to pay me a visit I simply couldn’t resist your cries for my attention,” He paused, glancing down at the plate in front of her. “Please do eat, I assure you it is up to your standards.”
“Oh really?” Clarice started, gesturing over at the oven. “Then how do you explain that?”
“I cannot make the same promise regarding my meal,” Lecter eerily grinned.
Starling took a bite of her eggs, the yolk ran like spilled blood throughout her plate leaving a dark yellow pool around the crisp toast. Lecter watched her throat move up and back into place as she swallowed. He leaned back satisfied. “Remind you of the way daddy made them?” he chirped.
“They’re lacking on the pepper and he never used rosemary.”
“My mistake.” He rose from the chair and attended to the sizzling flesh on the frying pan.
Clarice scanned the room looking for any objects that could be used as a weapon, despite the other half of her brain telling her it’s useless and he’ll simply see it coming. For the meantime she deemed it to be best to go along with his game. “Why are you here Doctor?”
“I could ask you the same Clarice.”
“Doing my job, hunting you down,” she shot back, her eyes flared like hot charcoal on a grill.
“I’m flattered, but spare the theatrics because we both know this hardly has anything to do with work,” he flipped the long chunks of fat to their opposing side with a spatula.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because you are here. Because you are not a part of the Lithuanian law enforcement. Because the bureau would never send their agents overseas to investigate a criminal who's been off the radar for over three years without concrete proof of my whereabouts, which I know for a fact that I have not provided.”
“People you have had personal connections to throughout your childhood, in your hometown suddenly show up murdered, matching your profile exactly, I would say that’s a dead give away Doctor.”
“You’ve been doing your research I see.”
“Of course, how else would I have found you?”
“Tell me Clarice, are you here for business or pleasure?” His tongue flicked against the backs of his teeth.
“For justice.” “Who sent you? And do not insult my intelligence with anything shroud of the truth because I will know.” Using the metal spatula he set the meat down on his plate next to his two poached eggs. He impaled the fattiest piece with his fork, bringing it to his nose, inhaled then took a slight nibble and savored the flavor in his tongue.
Starling took a heavy breath, her eyes dropped from his gaze. “No one sent me,” she half-muttered. “Stop me if I’m wrong Clarice but I have a feeling I haven’t left your mind since the night of our last dinner together. I know your biggest question may be; why? Why would a monster such as myself sacrifice a part of my body for you? That question ate at you inside, festering like an aged wound and grew until it consumed you, you told yourself you needed to put an end to my antics for good, and knowing just how personal it had become you made it your mission to hunt me down and lock me back in a cage. But we both know the truth don’t we? No it was never about justice...it was about not being able to deal with your reciprocated emotions. It was creating an excuse to see me once again.” Clarice kept her head facing the ground, her face was stone and expressionless, but Hannibal did not stop. Leaving the kitchen’s marble island he began to approach Starling slowly.
“You knew I would never come back, that I would leave you alone for the remainder of your life.” He was looming over her now, his shadow darkening her features. “You knew that if we were ever to have another encounter that you would have to seek me out this time.” In that moment Clairce felt a true sense of inferiority, a feeling she was not accustomed to. His body was inches from hers, her head at level with his upper waist. She breathed in his presence, it was a pure, primal masculine aroma. He digressed and sat down at the table, his demeanor changing from sensually intimidating and virile to a common mortal in a split second.
“Maybe you never realized these feelings until you truly began your research into my past. When you learned I suffered the same pain you felt at a young age. I assume you discovered the details regarding the death of my family?” “Yes. They were killed in a bombing.”
“Yes, everyone died except my sister Mischa and myself. We were held captive in a lodge by Nazi forces when a group of Lithuanian Hilfwillige stormed and looted the lodge. They searched the premises for food but found nothing.” He took a sip from his cup of coffee and moved his gaze to the balcony looking off into the dark clouded skies and continued.
“The blistering chill of winter combined with an empty stomach, it does something to men, brings out the savage within. Mischa and I became the menu options. I put up a fight, but Mischa...she was weak, starving herself, ill from the cold, she was an easy kill. They sodomized her corpse first before slicing her body in bite sized portions and roasting it above a fire pit.”
Clarice watched his eyes as he recalled the events. She could almost swear she saw the reflection of his memory playing like a film in the glare of his pupils. Despite no tears being shed, she felt the immacable amount of pain in the slight trembles of his voice.
At a loss for words to speak, “I’m sorry,” was all she could let out.
“You see Clarice, monsters like myself are not born into this world with faulty wiring, we are made through suffering.” He turned back towards her, circling the metal spoon inside the coffee cup, hitting it’s ceramic edges with every rotation.
“Is that how you justify your actions Dr. Lecter?”
“I admit there are some sins I have committed I cannot truly justify; however, most of the unspeakable acts I commit I can assure you are in fact poetic justice at it’s finest.”
Clarice dropped her eyes to her socks, where the pocket knife rubbed against her perspire, she considered her course of action, but only for a second, until she was interrupted by the rattle of the wooden chair she was sitting in. Dr. Lecter gripped the chair’s arms like he expected it to run from his grasp, and leaned close to Starling’s ear.
“Tell me, do I excite you Clarice? Do you find me in your dreams late in the evening? I imagine I used to appear as a grotesque monster but now perhaps a lover? And when you wake up do you find yourself horrified with yourself for these thoughts you simply cannot control?” She could feel the slight prickle of his facial air as his lips grazed against her earlobe.
“I never believed you to be a monster Doctor,” she softly spoke.
“Is that all you have to refute?” She lifted her head and let herself drift for a moment in his pale blue eyes.“I used to wonder if you were capable of love. That night, when you spared me from pain, I found out you were. But may I ask, why me? Was it just because I was one of the first women you had spoken to in years? Because I shared some personal information no one else would dare give to you?” She positioned her left hand further to the edge of her seat and brought her corresponding foot closer in reach. “Is that really what you think of me? So desperate for the touch of a woman I fall for the first to give me any attention in years? I see goodness in you Starling. When I look at you I see the same glimmer of loss within your eyes that I see in mine. You are an unfaltering flame, always burning with a righteous desire. Your character never fails to intrigue me, the way your mind ticks, your witty remarks, your composure in the face of death. No I’ve never quite found one like you.” His thumb fell from the top of her cheekbones to the very underlying rosy purse of her bottom lip. Her breathing was fluttered, rapidly picking up in pace with every passing second, for a second she felt as though she may lose consciousness altogether.
Overcome with emotion, she pulled out the blade from her sock and held it against his throat, knocking the chair down with the commotion.
“Do it. I won’t stop you.”
“You have to understand how crazy this is. I can’t give up my life for one of FBI’s most wanted. I’d be throwing away everything I worked so hard to achieve. This needs to end. There is nothing between us.” “Then this should make things much easier for you. Don’t hesitate Clarice.”
“I don’t want to kill you.” “I won’t be put behind bars again, you either kill me now or I disappear from the world for good.”
Clarice let a tear roll down her cheek, pushing Hannibal against the wall behind them. The cold steel pressed Lecter’s adams apple higher up into his esophagus. He never dropped his gaze with her even as tiny beads of blood began to break through the barriers of his skin’s surface.
She stared into his eyes, his pupils seeming to pulsate as they stared back into her.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“And why is that?”
“The same reason you can’t kill me.”
“And what may that reason be Clarice?” “Don’t make me say it.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, feeling the dips of her collar bones and the rhythmic thumping of her heart. He slowly moved his caress up to her neck and locked his hands around her throat.
“I want you to tell me Clarice. I want to hear the words come out of your mouth.”
She remained silent, nervous trembles running through her body.
He began to squeeze. “Say it,” he hissed.
She gagged for air while shaking her head no.
“Say it!” his scream echoed throughout the floor of the hotel.
With a rasped voice and tears streaming down her cheeks she whimpered, “I love you.”
With his hands still firmly gripped around her neck, he whipped her around. The walls rattled as her back slammed against them. In a midst of desire he aggressively pressed his lips against hers, his hands still squeezing tightly as she returned his embrace. The warmth of his breath was hot like smoke. He released his grasp as she began to gasp for oxygen. Black fuzziness clouded her vision as she slid down the wall to the floor.
In that moment it all clicked in her head. A fleeting memory pushed through the adrenaline coursing through her veins and in an instant the dots regarding Lecter were somehow aligned.
“What was your mother like?” she managed to make out in between heavy breaths.
Puzzled by the randomness of her inquiry, Lecter responded hesitantly with a curious smile, “I feel as though she truly loved her children but was simply a very emotionally detached person.”
Clarice’s eyes narrowed, “Did she nurse you as a child Dr. Lecter?”
“Yes.”
Clarice lowered the thin straps of her black satin nighty, her clavicle further exposed, glistening with faint beads of sweat. She took a breath in through her nose and exhaled slowly.
“Did you ever compete with Mischa for the breast?”
“I don’t remember Clarice…,” Lecter began not quite sure where she was going with the question. “If there was a competition I would’ve given it up willingly.” He found the enigma of her quivering lip excessively compelling.
She raised herself to his eye level, her glare burning like firey embers, she leaned her back against the floral wallpaper, “You will not have to compete for mine.”
Her nighty swiftly slid off her shoulders and fell to her ankles as if she manifested it to reality. Lecter’s eyes moved up and down her curves absorbing the image into the most precious capsules of his mind. Pulling him close to her chest, he bent down, inhaling the warmth resonating off her skin, his hands caressing the small of her back while his tongue followed the thin trail of swelter to her breast.
