Chapter Text
During the Ripper’s self-imposed months of absence, Hannibal’s love for fine art and anatomy had manifested itself in the form of a new hobby: sculpting. While he couldn’t often devote himself to projects, there was something cathartic about the wet weightiness in his hands; while clay was nowhere near as satisfying to transform as human flesh and bodies, it allowed him complete freedom to do as he pleased and restart whenever he wished. Being the perfectionist that he was, his works were often repurposed with just a handful of water and a thorough kneading.
After a few years of learning through trial and error, he couldn’t help but pride himself in his skill.
Pots and plates were simple things that could be formed and fired within a few weeks, schedule permitting, and dinner guests and acquaintances alike were always delighted to have a piece of his work presented as a gift.
“How thoughtful,” they’d croon, cupping a plate to their chests, the sparring Grecian youths or winding trees detailed beneath the lacquer hidden beneath frail wrists and arms. Hannibal gave away more of his works than he kept, and he knew they were becoming a commodity within Baltimore’s high-society crowd. An invitation to one of Hannibal Lecter’s dinner parties was no small accomplishment, but being entreated to one of his private pottery works? It may as well be a declaration of friendship. One-sided, of course, but he was content not to mention it.
Beyond basic pottery, Hannibal enjoyed bringing full figures to life. In his earlier years, they had been small, demure little things; faceless, lacking detail, able to be crushed in his palm should they not measure up to his expectations (and they often didn’t). Now, however, with his freezer full and bloodlust sated for the next few months, he had more time, more frustration with which to mold a boring medium into something beautiful. Early evenings in the week were reserved for dredging up sketches and maquettes of his designs, and he often thought to immortalize some of his more artistic killings in clay. After Miriam Lass, however, he knew better than to produce anything that might replicate his work as the Chesapeake Ripper. He stuck to original creations, and his muse often brought him to fantastical places, depicting mythical beasts or ancient fables in stark black-and-white charcoal and, later on, bent wire or wax.
His favorites were always the life-sized depictions of men and women.
Unassuming and natural in their beauty, Hannibal had a knack for capturing the charm nestled in their ordinariness. His hands lovingly shaped the ample swells of hips and breasts, damp fingers applying enough pressure to create the curve of ribs or the soft slope of an exposed hipbone. He worked tirelessly on hands and feet until his own shook with the strain, and even then, his devotion to their realism couldn’t begin to compare to the painstaking delicacy with which he detailed every face. He spent the most time here, calloused knuckles pressing in to provide the slight indentation of the temples and cheekbones, precision accomplished with a fettling knife and other tools. Even with expensive tools at his disposal, Hannibal did as much as he could with his fingers, preferring to watch the clay become while in his direct influence. He treated his creations with reverence, but none more so than his most recent sculpture.
The idea had come to mind over dinner, and Hannibal couldn’t help but latch on to it. Lips curved around a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, he chased the shifting details of the man through his mind, the slanting hallways in his mind palace stark white and stretching to hide his idea from him. It wasn’t a typical chase for him, no; this was leisurely, lacking the finality of a predator seeking prey. The man brought him to a stream, peering over his shoulder with a grin, and Hannibal waded into it without hesitating. Water kissed his cheeks and lapped at his ankles and soon he was drowning, sinking, and the man laughed and cupped his jaw and kissed him. Hannibal lay in his arms without fighting, then, and it was only when he became aware of the unpleasant sensation of something wet that he realized he’d dropped his wineglass in his lap, fingers twitching, clutching at something- rather, someone- that didn’t exist. Rich, red wine pooled on his plate and dribbled down into his lap, and he exhaled sharply through his nose before mopping himself up.
“Devastating boy,” he huffed, lips flexing to display a crooked smile.
His work on what he’d affectionately coined “Brangusis” began that evening, after he’d wrapped up his pants and waistcoat to be dry-cleaned.
There hadn’t been a life-sized sculpture yet that had passed muster in Hannibal’s eyes, and so Brangusis had much to live up to. It was no easy task, emulating the disembodied mischief and laughter of the vision that had dazzled Hannibal, and it only grew more difficult when his time was sapped away by things as trivial as maintaining his social life and his psychiatric practice. When he wasn’t considering the best way to convince Mrs. Montinaro that her dry marriage bed didn’t need to be described in such vivid detail, he plotted down the contours of Brangusis’ face, the leanness of his body. The strokes of the pencil on paper were made with adoration behind each one, layered until his boy’s youth blossomed from the canvas and seemed to spill into the sitting room. It was many weeks later that he finally sequestered enough time to melt his wax maquette, and even then, the process was agonizing. Not one to often trip up, Hannibal burned himself thrice when attempting to form the torso properly, carving out his delicate ribs and concave stomach with a scalpel. He worked until his eyes watered, and even after consigning himself to sleep and work the next day, his mind lingered on doing his vision justice. Brangusis was stunning, and Hannibal wouldn’t shame him by molding something half-assed.
All in all, it took over thirteen and a half months for Hannibal to finish him.
His face had proven difficult, as Hannibal had never gotten a clear look at it, but he’d done the best he could, drawing from his memory, imagination, and other works of art with which he was enamored.
Thick, wild curls crowned the man’s slight head, his jaw smooth enough to indicate juvenescence. Hannibal had provided a sturdy neck and shoulders to support him, but even then, he was the embodiment of boyish energy, captured in a position meant to replicate his running away- something he did without fail when Hannibal imagined him. He looked slightly over his left shoulder, spine twisted, muscles visible beneath smooth skin; the clay had dried near perfectly, although his stomach had split nearly in two above the navel, giving the appearance of a nasty scar or wound. Hannibal could have cried at the imperfection. The forehead had similarly cracked, although not as severely as the stomach had, but he still felt the sting of failure for it. Thick, arched eyebrows added depth to widened doe-eyes, and soft, slightly-bowed lips gave the impression of innocence to an otherwise-mischievous creature. When he stepped back, Hannibal noted that the nose was slightly crooked, but he felt it added to the novelty. Brangusis was near-perfect, but even he could not accomplish what Hannibal craved. Dimples were carved into his cheeks with a gentle press from the side of Hannibal’s thumb, and subsequent dimples were pushed more firmly on either side of his spine, resting above where his pelvis would be. Hannibal left him bare, though not out of perversion; his nudity was natural, chaste, showcasing the boy’s purity. His legs, similarly uncovered, were sleek and sinewy with muscle, flexed to show action. His hands and feet were painstaking in their own right; whereas he’d never put much thought into them before, he was almost indisposed with anxiety trying to make appropriate pairs for his boy. Sculpting the genitalia proved to be the most aggravating part of the process, however, as looking up a reference only provided him with a flood of frankly disgusting Google Images.
Even after he’d finished actively working on Brangusis, Hannibal wished to be near him. Something about the boy’s lips, quirked in a knowing smile, soothed the man, and he found himself in the repurposed study many a night with a drink in hand. For the first few days he studied how the clay was drying and made minor fixes where they were needed, but other than that, he simply lingered in the darkened studio, shifting foot-to-foot like a shy child at a family function. Once the days bled into weeks, he slowly introduced life into the study, dragging an accent chair in from his living area and producing his record player. He listened to the music peacefully, allowed Brangusis to listen to it, and then retired to bed once they’d gone through a decent stack of records.
He didn’t start talking to the statue until the third month.
It had started off innocently enough; Hannibal had been occupied with the paper in his hands and walked right into the stationary man. Some unknown feeling throttled him then, seeing the wobble to the boy’s pedestal, and he’d all but thrown his arms around the sculpture, stilling it.
“Forgive me,” he’d breathed, and then he laughed- begging forgiveness from a statue? How quaint. The habit stuck, however, and so whenever Hannibal visited his dear boy after that evening, it was always punctuated with greetings, sometimes cheerful, other times sullen, and still some other times hardly discernible. He described what (or who) he’d prepared for dinner, talked at length about the record that was playing in the background, or detailed what petty issues his patients had conjured up that day. Brangusis, ever-faithful, lent his ear to Hannibal, and the man felt all-the-more fond of his creation with each night he spent rambling at his feet. When conversation grew dry, Hannibal resorted to books, and it was within the mesh of the stories that he felt his darling boy come to life. Fiction, field guides, histories, medical encyclopaedias; he read them all to his creation, and found that he enjoyed the passive companionship far more than he’d originally believed he would.
He couldn’t consistently sit with his newfound inamorato, work be damned, and it was even more unfortunate when he was called out of state for business-related ventures. His most recent trip had him driving out to Philadelphia for some psychiatric convention of sorts, and although the drive wasn’t long, he’d be housed at the convention center there for the weekend.
He wouldn’t get to see his Brangusis for four days.
It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, really, as four days was nothing when compared to the months they hadn’t been able to sit together and talk while the boy was only halfway completed. Still, four days was enough to stir something tight in his chest, and Hannibal didn’t want to acknowledge it. He left for Pennsylvania after reading from a manual on floral arrangements, pressing a kiss between the boy’s eyebrows and leaving the book open on the chair, ready to be continued upon his return home.
The convention was pretty standard; the speakers, while informative, were largely uninspiring, and Hannibal witnessed one too many drunken trysts to maintain a positive opinion on the outing. The drive back to Baltimore was just as uneventful as the entire weekend had been, and he was growing restless, wanting to check on the condition of his sculpture. Some of the areas close to the abdominal gash had begun to crumble and flake, and the last thing he wanted to return home to was his darling bisected at the middle, having collapsed during his leave.
Unlocking the front door, Hannibal drew in a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to release his tight grip on his composure. His shoulders sagged as he removed his coat, and he slipped his shoes off, leaving them in a messy pile by the door. There were far more important things to address, but he needed to see his dear.
His smile, slight as it was, faded the closer he moved to the studio.
The scent of wet clay and sweat flooded his senses, and he seamlessly fetched a scalpel from one of the drawers of his bedroom nightstand before slinking further down the hall to confront whoever it was that had desecrated his statue. When he reached the door, he held his breath a moment, eyes roving dangerously over the handle, before cracking it open and concealing the scalpel behind his back, ready to tack an extra figure on to his most recent sounder of three.