Work Text:
He cut the thread and tied it off, gently running the tip of his finger over the fresh stitches. They crisscrossed neatly over her pale skin, cinching the shredded, inflamed edges together. Her freckles stood out in the moonlight, flecks of caramel sprinkled across the waxpaper white of her shoulders, blue veins spiderwebbing underneath. His finger strayed from the rough line of thread to the clear skin of her shoulder, tracing a meandering line up the nearly transparent skin of her neck, stroking along the contour of her jawline. The feel of her was intoxicating. He trailed down her arm, folding their fingers together when he reached her hand. Everything about her seemed so small and frail and fragile when she was unconscious; in life she was in constant motion, nearly vibrating with a vital energy. Her vibrant determination seemed to expand her stature, enlarge her presence, but incapacitated as she was now, her entire self seemed constricted to the capacity of a powerless child. Dr. Lecter loved the Clarice who had dedicated her life to hunting down people like him, hunting down him specifically. Paradoxical as it might be, Lecter did have a deep appreciation for poetic justice, and he recognized with wry amusement the creully fitting punishment Clarice had inflicted upon him. She had unwittingly pulled him into her orbit. He had fallen deeply, inexplicably in love with the woman who, he suspected, despised him more than most if not every other woman on the planet. He had fallen for one of the few members of the miniscule subset of Earth’s population who he would never lower himself to take, in any way, by force.
He sighed, a hint of a chuckle hiding behind the dismal recognition of a desire that could never be honorably fulfilled. He knew that it would be the easiest thing in the world to take whatever he wanted, right that moment. She was unconscious, incapacitated, unaware, powerless. Even when she woke up, he could easily drug her into compliance. With the help of a pinch of angel dust he had talked someone into cutting off their own face with a shard of broken mirror while they willingly twirled on the end of his rope. It seemed likely that, even if he waited till she was conscious, he could exercise his powers of persuasion to obtain whatever gratification he was interested in.
That process, however, felt slimy and abhorrent when applied to Clarice. He felt an overwhelming respect for her. Taking her by force would be like trying to quickly chew a piece of rock candy rather than savoring its flavor; it might still be sweet, but it would be gone in a matter of seconds and leave him with nothing but an unsatisfied craving and broken teeth.
No, he mused, he couldn’t do that to her. And yet, though he made up his mind to let her sleep and wake undisturbed, he let himself imagine for a brief moment what it would be like to change her into that sleek, attractive black dress that hung over the back of her desk chair. He wondered absently why it was there...some fancy dinner she had been planning on attending perhaps, a work function or a wedding or something of the kind.
How easy it would be to slip off her torn shirt and ripped jeans, let his hands skim over that perfectly white skin, enjoy the aspect of the moonlight gently illuminating every curve of her body. How simple to slip the soft folds of that dress around her, to arrange the garment to accentuate the pleasing contrast between pale and dark. How easy, and yet how wrong. If she did not find him utterly disgusting now, as he presumed she rightfully did, she certainly would if she found he had undressed her in her morphine-induced sleep.
Her body began to tremble even in sleep. Her hand clawed at the fresh stitches, her fingernails starting to dislodge the thread, taking out a substantial chunk of flesh with it. He quickly pulled her hand away, clasping it tightly in his own. He dabbed a cool damp washcloth over her wound, enjoying the sigh of relief that escaped her lips as he did so.
Hannibal Lecter was a man who could appreciate beauty in nearly any setting; he quickly picked out the pleasing nature of fine music, art, landscape, theatre, and poetry. Beauty in a human creature, however, was something that he did not consider. Human beauty was beside the point in every situation he found himself in. But at that moment, he recognized with exquisite poignancy that Clarice Starling was a beautiful woman, and that he wanted her more than anything else in the world.
His thoughts quickly circled back through their past loop, weighing the pros and cons. He came to the same conclusion even more quickly. She was not an object, and he refused to let himself treat her like one.
She fidgeted in half-unconsciousness, her features twisted with hazy pain. Carefully he sat down in the bed, and, taking care not to disrupt her injury, gathered her into his arms. He slipped the tie out of her hair and combed his fingers gently through it, letting his touch stray across her face. That was all he would allow himself.
For one brief moment, he imagined a reality in which he was an average law-abiding citizen, maintaining a legal and ethical medical practice, married to a beautiful FBI agent. But that was not his reality, and nothing could make it so. He realized, with a twinge of psychopathy-defying remorse, that that chance was lost. He had lost it a long time ago. He had lost her a long time ago.