See Disclaimers on Chapter 1.
Thank you, thank you to all who reviewed. tourn, Jstarz927, Aikan, Cyranothe2nd, Give_Me_your_Coffee, JB, frylock, Fez, Horserider, Nanci, ladyoftruths, luna, hannibalcannibal85, Hanniballover1181, Lexa, MK, ForgottenWonder, ScreamingLamb, Neptican, AineDictaPig37, Steel, and Saavik. All your comments are very much appreciated. Honestly, you people keep me going.
Mischa – I want your computer. You know I do... Urrrr. And for your info, you bloody perv, Ruiz is NOT going to grab her thigh. At least not in this story. (wicked laugh)
Sihaya – Whoo-hoo! SS/HG forever!
This chapter contains butchered quotes from Casablanca, Austin Powers, Genghis Khan and from conversations with my friend Irvin. I'm sorry for the monumental delay in the posting of this chapter. My pre-final exams were last week and I'm afraid they were of greater importance. But now, since all that hellish studying is over, on with the show!
**
Pontalba Apartments, Upper Jackson Square. 12:46 a.m. Day 5.
Clarice Starling was not a happy bunny.
If anything, she was a very pissed-off, rabidly unhappy bunny.
Of all the lampposts on all the streets on all the cities in the world, he has to lean against the one outside my . . . my . . . my I-don't-know-what's bedroom!
She let loose a grumbling litany composed of a rather impressive array of curses that would have put any full-blooded sailor to shame, as she set about gathering her clothing and hurriedly putting them on. Her suit trousers were hopelessly rumpled, her blazer and shirt nowhere to be found. Starling grabbed St. John's white shirt and hurriedly buttoned it. The garment hung nearly to her knees, but she had no time to nitpick over such little grievances. He on the other hand--like the typical male whose idea of post-coital activity usually involved rolling away from the object of his lustful affections and going straight to sleep--had dozed off blissfully unaware of her present predicament on one side of the massive California King, sheets pushed down the slender waist, exposing the smooth, broad expanse of bare back. Nice.
Ugh, get your thoughts out of that direction, Starling, she castigated herself mentally. You have a possible cannibal outside your bedroom window. His bedroom window. What-fucking-ever.
Draped across one of the brass bedposts was her beloved .45 in its leather holster, the latter a present from Lorelai Ruiz. Starling shrugged it on over the too loose shirt before taking the gun out and checking the exact number of bullets still left in the magazine. She slapped it back into the chamber and shucked it, ready for the unexpected.
And when it came to Hannibal Lecter, it meant the unexpected.
Trying to get herself a life outside of the monotonous confines of celibacy was akin to Sisyphus' efforts in rolling his accursed rock up the mountain. Just as she had nearly reached the apex of the incline, some monumental fuck-up would come traipsing her way and thus effectively ruin things for her. Maybe she was cursed. Jinxed. After all, this was New Orleans, land of voodoo and witch doctors. Spells and potions galore (for love, success, money or those devilishly tricky ones best classified as those otherwise used for their purchaser's own nefarious purposes) abounded in voluminous proportions at almost every street corner and back alleys of the Quarter and beyond.
Maybe Lecter was just predestined to keep on coming back at her like a bad joke. Like the boomerang her cousin Maddie's daddy sent them from one of his trips to Australia. She and her brothers had spent many hours thoroughly enjoying uncle Ned's gift, throwing it high, high in the sky and watching the way it was spinning gracefully as it rode the currents of air. Clarice had been completely enthralled and fascinated by it, until one day she just threw it too hard and the durn thing just plumb hit her smack in the centre of her forehead. She hadn't played with it since. And now, now her own personal living, breathing boomerang was back for more fun and games.
Life certainly can't get any bitchier than this.
From the bed, St. John rolled over onto his back, grunting a strangely adorable snort in his sleep, causing Starling to be hit with a pang of emotion she was far too busy to categorize, even if she wanted to. A final ruffle of that duck-fluff hair and a kiss onto his forehead, quick inhalation of the purely male scent emanating from that sleep-warmed skin and she was good to go.
With a final, wistful look, Clarice danger-is-my-middle-name Starling went a-charging locked and loaded into the depths of the night.
**
He was no longer at the post by the time she had run the single flight of stairs down the entry hall and out onto the steps of the stoop, nearly tripping over the sharp-edged cement in her hurry. She paused in the middle of the road, .45 raised and cocked, looking first to the left and then to the right for any sight of the dark figure that so rudely interrupted any further plans she might have had for their night by his mere act of leaning languidly against a lamppost. A movement out of the corner of her eye alerted her to the flapping of a trenchcoat as a man's leg disappeared behind one of the grand stucco arches of the Cabildo nearly all the way across Jackson Square.
Without thinking twice, she bolted at top speed in the stranger's direction, dimly registering the click-clack of her high-heeled loafers on the concrete, echoing off the walls of the buildings that lined the upper and lower sides of the Square. She raced past the shadows that crossed her path every few metres or so.
Starling rounded the curb and ran across Chartres. She did not see the black Camaro until it was two feet from her left hip. As she rolled onto the hood and down the hood, she thought of the empty oil barrels they kept rainwater in during her childhood, when Daddy was still around. She heard the hollow thumps the barrels made as she and her friends pushed them down the hill and chased after them with sticks. The sound her slender body made as it impacted the hood was like the sound of rolling barrels.
The sun was bright, so very bright, slicing through the inky blackness of her surrounding vision but it was already night. Her back was against something hard and rough. Have I bitten through my tongue, she wondered sluggishly. Cos otherwise, why the hell can't I move it?
There was a shadow above her, soft, cool hands taking her away from the rough pavement. Smooth fingertips brushed the hair away from her face. And that soft, hypnotic voice whispering one word into her ear as her rescuer picked her up and cradled her within his strong arms. His shoulder was solid beneath the soft wool of his coat, she noticed absently. Mmm, the subtle male scent of him, warm lips at her temple sending shivers up her spine.
"Clarice."
Lecter.
Then Starling was falling, falling into blackness so absolute it was like the cosmos before the big bang and whether time began or ended when the stars were created didn't matter as long as the black kept on spreading outwards, reaching velvet tentacles around the last flickering cones of her retina.
Oblivion was a wonderful thing.
**
Somewhere in the city. 9:58 a.m. Day 5.
She drifted to the surface feeling like somebody had had a majorly groovy mambo party inside her skull and left her to deal with the cleanup. Her temples throbbed unbearably and she was stuck with the proverbial feeling of cottonmouth. How much did I have to drink last night anyway?
Oh, my head.
St. John—ohhhh. She winced at the slight burning feeling near her ribs. Wow. What on earth were we doing last night? Must have been one helluva kinky manoeuvre. Her right cheek rubbed gently against smooth silk, a distinctly different texture to what she remembered of St. John's cotton sheets. Progressively, at its own sluggish pace, reality came crashing back down on her.
Lecter.
Eurgh. This is not good.
She struggled to sit up but was immediately prohibited from doing so by the strong grip of a hand on her shoulder. And there was that soft, silky voice again, dredged up from within the farthest recesses of her subconscious. A ghost of the past coming back to haunt her again like some endless chain letter that only seems to keep on ricocheting on its sender.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said the voice, the pressure at her shoulder increasing infinitesimally, just enough for the faint pulsations of ache to extend to her elbow and almost to her forearm. She opened her eyes, only to shut them immediately at the stab of pain that came with the golden sunlight streaming in from the windows. By the temperature of the sunbeams, she guessed it was somewhere around mid-morning. "Too bright?" the voice inquired politely. "Let me try and see if I can make you more comfortable."
And then the infernal blazing light was gone and the air felt much cooler. He's pulled down the shades. Starling cracked open an eye for confirmation and was met by the dark whirlpools of his as his face hovered mere inches from hers. She jumped back towards the pillows, hitting the base of her skull hard on the oaken headboard.
"Doctor Lecter," she croaked unsteadily, mouth suddenly dry. There was something different about this encounter from their last. Ah, her hands weren't bound. Lecter followed her nervously darting eyes as she unconsciously rubbed at her free wrists.
"No silk scarves today, Clarice. I didn't think you would appreciate it this time around."
Startled, Starling jerked her head up to look into his eyes. Eyes the colour of dried blood on a blade.
Nice to see some things don't change.
"What do you want from me, Doctor?" She eyed him suspiciously. Lecter made a big production out of sighing and settled back into the high backed chair beside her bed, steepling the tips of his fingers underneath his chin, elbows resting on his knees. Lecter's hair was longer than she remembered, cut unevenly and just about covering the upper quarter of his ears and spilling over his collar. All in all, he looked more relaxed than he had the last time she had seen him.
And damn, he looked good. Fuck. Where did that come from? Clarice shook her head slightly to clear her thoughts before she realised he was in the process of answering her question." . . . That said, nothing is for free, Ex-Special Agent Starling. We of the medical profession as a rule exact a standard fee as payment for services rendered. Quid Pro Quo."
Fee?"And pray, what form of payment would you exact for your…services," she enquired cautiously; pitching his very own words back at him. Lecter smiled wolfishly, displaying immaculate white teeth. She tried not to shudder at the thought of what those teeth could and have done.
"Lunch, Officer Starling, lunch. Next Sunday, if you please. Meet me at Galatoire's, twelve o'clock noon. Be on time. I have never found myself to be capable of tolerating tardiness, which is not that radical departure from rudeness. I'm sure I do not need to jog your memory on how insufferably rude I find unpunctuality to be. What say you, Clarice?"
"Lunch?" she echoed incredulously. "That's all you want from me. Lunch?"
"I apologise. Would that be an inconvenient time for you? I could make other arrangements," he offered, standing up and lifting the nearby phone off its cradle. Odd that she hadn't noticed that it was there before. Too much terror probably.
"Not at all," she assured him hastily. "Lunch is perfectly fine. It's just that I was rather taken by surprise at your request."
Not to mention shocked out of my bajeesus. You askin' me for a date, doc?
Lecter chuckled indulgently, setting the receiver back down. "What did you expect me to ask of you, then, Clarice? Monetary compensation? Your eternal soul, perchance? Not much of a market for that sort of thing, these days. As my finances are far from being strapped, the former isn't much of an option. But your body . . . that might bear some discussion into . . . " he trailed off, inwardly laughing gleefully at the sudden panicked expression that crossed her face. But beneath that amusement, there was just the tiniest pang of something he didn't care to identify at the moment. Poor girl. He really should do something to alleviate her alarm. Pity he was feeling rather mischievous today.
"No! No way, José. There isn't the slightest chance in hell that you are going to get that out of me, I'd rather--"
"Burn in hell? Burst into flames? Jump into a pit with a dozen half-starved lions? Even perhaps suffer another stint at the Eff-Bee-Iii?" he taunted her. Starling narrowed her eyes, and without explanation burst into sudden laughter.
"Oh, Doctor Lecter," she said to him when she had sufficiently recovered from her abrupt attack of mirth. "Why were you never this funny before?" He shot her an odd look.
"It was not my intent to make you laugh, Clarice. Although perhaps it seems to have done you a whole lot better as opposed to angering you. Really, threats can get so tedious after a while, don't you agree, Clarice?"
"Especially since they never seem to work on me."
"Yes, there is that. Returning to the matter of you body--"
"Oh no you don't. Don't even think about it, Doctor."
"It seems that at the present, thinking is the only thing I can do about it. After all, you have given me the impression that it is, in fact, currently being promised to someone else. Would you deny it, just to mislead me?"
"You leave him out of this, Doctor Lecter."
"I would not want you coming to me reluctantly, Clarice. Either you are mine out of your own volition or you are not mine at all."
"You wouldn't happen to want that in blood, would you?" She retorted wryly, rubbing at the slight bump now forming underneath the skin of her head.
"Ah, now there's a thought."
"Funny."
"I don't suppose now would be a good time to ask why you are not currently warped in fits of laughter if you find this situation to be so humorous."
"It's just—it's just everything is so damn surreal. I mean, here I am, alone in a room with Hannibal Lecter. It should feel like Chesapeake all over again, but somehow it just . . . doesn't."
"I believe it has been said that time washes away all wounds."
"Apparently, time causes you to spout worn cliché's as well," Starling grinned indolently. "Bottom line is—surreal," she shook her head, surveying her surroundings. She found that instead of looking for a means in which to attempt to extricate herself from this situation, she was instead merely giving the 'scene' a once-over so to speak, checking out his 'digs'.
They were in a relatively small bedroom, simply but sumptuously appointed with the understated sort of elegance found in dark oak furnishing. Faded wallpaper in an autumn leaf pattern graced the walls, its design obscured by years of dust and damp, patches of it blurred by a yelow ochre outline where the water had seeped through cracks in the plaster.
"Should you decide to continue your noticeable perusal of your current location Clarice, you would find it a waste as I have checked us into a quaint little hotel quite near your unfortunate accident with the Camaro. Not quite up to my usual standards of preference, but adequate enough to serve my purposes as of last night. If you wish to open the window, you would be able to see Officer St. John's apartments from this vantage point."
She watched him sullenly as he stood up from the chair he had pulled to the right side of her bed where he must have kept vigil over her last night. He pulled on the dark trenchcoat whose flapping had initially alerted her to his whereabouts and plopped on a dark fedora, tilting it rakishly to one side and smiling down at her.
"The sheets are mine, of course. Feel free to do with them, as you will. I shall be expecting you this Sunday, Clarice." Hannibal Lecter gave a mock two-finger salute on the brow of his hat, audaciously winking at her.
And with that, he walked out the door.
Clarice couldn't help but ask herself exactly why she wasn't really that much bothered by the fact that he hadn't walked out of her life as well.
**
Hallo. I've decided the third chapter was too long for me to post in its entirety, not to mention the second half needed some cleaning and proof-reading. It should be up sometime this week. Hopefully. Once again, thank you for reading!!