(AN: My first Silence of the Lambs fic. Ha. Seeing that first sentence of my little note makes me want to cut it out and glue it to a baby album, right next to "My First Parking Ticket". It's movie-based, because I am reading Red Dragon first, as Mr.Harris intended, and have not quite finished it. I imagine this set in the brief five seconds between Agent Starling checking her credentials in Tennessee and then entering the room where Dr.Lecter is kept.)
Reflections on a Killer
"I'll look to like, if looking liking move."
This line, a Shakesperian moment from an unknown play, echoed in Clarice Starling's head, given what might have been an entirely new meaning, depending on the original context which she could not remember. Why was she here? She should have sent someone to do this for her. And why had she brought His drawings? It wasn't as if He would accept petty little things such as wall hangings, accept them as if they'd make prison more convenient, bearable. Wall hangings had no such power.
Perhaps if she didn't look Him in the eye this time...but no, she must. It was establishing herself as a person on the same level as the Good Doctor. And the eyes were what brought her back, brought her back after the first time. As painful and psychotic and immoral as the man was, every word from his mouth, every glance he shot her, every moment they spent together, even separated by a think wall of plastic...it was continually renewing itself as the most enthralling experience she'd ever had. He was a creature of animalistic grace, in the sense that he moved with the smoothness of some Non-human deity, whereas she was a fly, darting from place to place, an annoyance in the deity's ear. She knew this because she has always been this, but in the presence of Dr.Lecter...She became more than the buzzing insect. She became, perhaps, a person. Still mortal, but a hell of a lot more majestic. She sounded like her father now.
She sincerely hoped that the Doctor wouldn't speak of her father again. She liked to keep him as a distant memory, and always a happy one. And yet she loved the attention that He gave her, full, without any distractions. And, knowing His history, it was not in His nature to pay attention to something boring. By simple equation, this made her wonderful, did it not? Unbrilliant, average Clarice Starling turned magnificent by a killer's eyes upon her own. She could see the news now. "By the sole power of two piercing eyes, the Dr.Lecter has made a plain woman beautiful." Those eyes could do anything. Clarice was sure of it. She loved those eyes. She loved Him.
But did she? She was, in fact, bringing His pictures to Him. But that was courtesy. Courtesy in the face of a man who ate nine people. Ha. Well, he was helping the Bureau with this case, it was the least she could do, after all he's helped her with.
Right?