Kit Fawkes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fauxfawkes) wrote2021-01-27 05:16 pm
fauxfawkes) wrote2021-01-27 05:16 pm
Bonus 3: DVD Commentary
[DVD Commentary Edition]
Otherwise known as my ridiculously self-indulgent extended author's notes, thoughts, commentary on the process, hidden in-jokes, and so on. If that's the sort of thing that interests you, feel free to read on; if not, it won't hurt my feelings if you skip this. I like having it as a record for myself more than anything else, and so much went into writing this one that I'm going to be a little full of myself and go over it again, tooting my own horn all the way. Sob.
From here on out, my notes will be in red text!
It was only later, once Kit was safely installed in his familiar old canopy bed in the back room and had swallowed down a foul-tasting preparation that Kurama had insisted would clear his system of the drugs completely, that they all finally managed to piece the whole story together.
Crehador was the one with the expertise in the way DELILAH worked (which was hardly surprising, considering he'd once freelanced for them), and he was able to fill in some of the gaps surrounding the twelve dead girls. Apparently, in the final months of his grandfather's reign, the organization had discovered a way to create whole girls from just a few cells taken from an old skull, but they had always come with a flaw: either the bodies had fallen apart as soon as they came into the open air, or they had been born mindless and animalistic, a freak of nature without a true soul. Rapetti's research operation in Italy had almost certainly discovered a way to correct that flaw, he'd explained, which provided them with an easy source of girls to raise into poisoned dolls, so long as they had the cells from which to grow them. Ducelli, then, had probably acquired Rapetti's research at the same time as he'd stolen the sample of Kit's blood, and having witnessed the full destructive potential of his powers after the Italy operation had been razed to the ground, he'd become obsessed with the idea of creating a doll with Kit's abilities to further the end of the world.
His innate abilities, combined with the powers afforded by the deadly doll process. A horrifying, masterful combination.
The twelve dead girls, then, had been as Ducelli had suggested—the prototype experiments upon which to perfect the process; he'd probably only had a small sample of Kit's blood, after all, and thus only a few cells to utilize. He couldn't afford to waste them on an imperfect effort. So he'd raised the girls, one by one, according to Rapetti's research notes, and then killed them and summoned them back into their own bodies. There was no telling how much success he'd had with the first ones, but by the twelfth, he'd been able to perfect the process enough to risk trying it with Kit's own blood.
Thus came Eva, the blood of his blood, the woman formed from his own body. And there was magic in his blood, so it was there in hers, too—magic that only grew stronger after she was killed and resurrected back into it.
Kurama was able to support quite a few of those assumptions with his own bits of detail, reaching into his jacket pocket and producing a sheaf of notes and diagrams penned in a mixture of Italian and English. They'd taken him at gunpoint to a holding room on the other side of the manor after the confrontation in the crypt, he'd explained, where he'd made quick work of his guards and then slipped out to find and rescue Kit. Along the way, he'd come across the laboratory where they'd created the dolls and had taken the liberty of examining (and stealing) the research notes. Eva had never had a true soul, according to Ducelli's observations; none of the dead princesses had ever possessed more than a basic, rudimentary consciousness, just enough to complete the deadly doll process. That lack had left them all docile and obedient, even to the point of being precariously close to mechanical; upon rebirth, they were highly susceptible to whatever they were told, and they acted like the dolls they were—puppets to be moved, positioned, commanded.
The red hair, he'd added, was noted in a margin as a recurring mutation, a side-effect of the process. All the girls created had been born with red hair, regardless of the donor's own coloring.
Another nod to Kurama's thieving abilities and strategic modus operandi. I also really wanted to set up the contrast between Kit and Kurama's relationship and Cain and Riff's (and arguably, Ciel and Sebastian's)—Riff and Sebastian would've made a beeline for their lord as soon as they'd gotten free because he's their number-one priority. Kurama, on the other hand, is more of a free agent and doesn't have that inherent devotion to his "master". So it really is more of a standing partnership than a master-and-servant relationship.
Also, another opportunity to work in a redhead reference. Particularly since red hair is a mutation, genetically speaking. And it's my anachronistic Victorian science, I can mess with genes if I want to.
(Ducelli was probably hoping his dolls would get Kit's heart racing with their skintight genes. Ba-dum-pssh.)
He'd arrived on the scene in the ornate room fairly early on, but had chosen to wait rather than act for a twofold reason: the first was that he hadn't known the full scope of Eva's powers, and was unwilling to gamble on the chance that he could stop her before she'd have the opportunity to kill Kit in retaliation. The second was that like Kit, he'd recognized Ducelli's penchant for self-aggrandizing and had thought it more profitable to let the man talk as much as he pleased, to garner as much information from him as they could before stepping in to neutralize his threat.
The itch Ducelli had scratched on his neck, Kurama elaborated, was the sting left behind by the seed he'd planted in the man's flesh. He called it shimaneki (another word Kit assumed was of demonic origin, like youko), and explained that he would've set it off much sooner, except that Ducelli had shown an unfortunate tendency of leaning over Kit in his attempts to menace him, and he'd been concerned that his young charge might have been caught up in the backlash. Shimaneki plants were hardly choosy about who they fed on, he'd remarked with one of his vague smiles. And they were indeed a very unpleasant way to die.
The last thing Kurama told him was that he'd made sure there were no survivors. Kit was well aware of what he meant; after all, there was only one person with the potential to survive a building falling on her. And he'd had a sickly suspicion in retrospect that even after it had all come down, she might very well not have been dead, after all.
In a way, he was somewhat relieved at the thought that he wasn't really the one who killed her. Blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh...Ducelli had called her his twin sister. It was only a coincidence, the topic of twins; the man couldn't possibly have known about his mother and uncle. And yet the thought had struck a nerve.
He half wondered if he'd subconsciously, deliberately caused things so that she wouldn't die from it. He'd tricked her into using all the power from his stolen wand, yes, but he of all people knew exactly how far her capabilities extended. There was still magic in her blood. There was still enough for her to save herself.
He wondered if he'd loved her, in that brief, fleeting time he'd known her. She was an abomination, there was no doubt of that, but she had no mother, no father, no family...not even a soul to call her own.
But then it was his turn to explain his part of it, how he'd remembered that the operatives in Italy had seen Skippy deliver him his cane in the moments before he'd destroyed the building, and how he'd suspected someone might've guessed it as the source of his power—and so he'd created a spare wand, siphoning out half the power from the one in his cane and storing it in the other, which he kept secreted inside his boot in case of an emergency. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to that, but it always paid to have an ace up one's sleeve. Particularly when dealing with a cardmaster's leftovers.
He was going to have to rest for a long, long time, Crehador had mandated, which made Kit hide a smile as he sensed the concern lurking beneath the annoyance in his tone. As much as the medium might give the impression of finding everything he did and all the escapades he got into to be completely stupid, it was still obvious he cared, deep down beneath it all. Which was nice. Crehador wasn't exactly family, but he was still fun, like an uncle who wasn't actually related to you but still let you stay out late at parties and sneak draughts of cognac from the bottle and occasionally summon demons in the kitchen.
And walks around barefoot and shirtless, and brings home call girls to sleep with, and hides absinthe in his bookshelf...
Kurama didn't leave his side the whole time. He was back to his usual red hair—it looked like a fox tail, he realized, and no wonder he'd been so prickled with subconscious recognition every time he'd tried to figure out why it seemed so familiar—and stunning green eyes, and he quietly busied himself with tending to the thriving plants scattered about the room as Kit gradually recuperated, day by day.
It wasn't until the third day of bed rest, when Crehador had gone out in his best leopard-trimmed coat and hat to preside over a seance and Kit was itching to sneak out of bed and actually do something for a change, that Kurama finally said, "Are you feeling well enough to answer one of my questions?"
"Is it one of the ones I owe you?" Kit answered without missing a beat, half-turning onto his side as he fluffed his pillows and propped them against the headboard so he could sit up more comfortably.
"Yes," Kurama replied, which made him look up in surprise. There was a strange intensity in his demon's gaze, a sort of razor precision that made a lump gather in his throat.
"Okay," he said, settling back against his pillows and hoping he looked more confident than he felt. "What is it?"
Kurama was quiet a moment, then fixed Kit with a steady look as a hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips. "You've known since the beginning of this how to send me back to my own time, haven't you?" he asked, in a tone of voice that made it clear he knew they both already knew the answer.
Instinctively, Kit averted his gaze, which meant losing their impromptu staring contest but made it a little easier to get the words out, now that he was staring at his bedcovers instead of the impossible green of his demon's eyes. "I do a lot of reckless things, but I'm not stupid enough to cast a spell I don't already know how to undo," he admitted quietly. "I memorized the banishing spell long before I ever tried the summoning one."
When I wrote this reveal, I was kind of wondering if anyone would've caught on that summoning a demon without knowing how to banish it again seems vaguely out-of-character for a magician as highly trained as Kit. I mean, there's reckless, and then there's just plain stupid. I wouldn't say Kurama knew it outright at the point when he made his bargain with Kit, but I imagine he had a fairly good suspicion—one that got solidified fairly early on, once he had the opportunity to see what Kit was like.
"And you lied to Crehador about not knowing how."
"He's a medium. His specialty is dead people. And I can do some of it, too, but I'm a lot more proficient in the arcane stuff than in the spiritual." He shrugged a little. "It helps that I've trained under a wizard, so I've got a lot of background that Crehador doesn't."
Also, Crehador was kind of busy drinking himself into a stupor and writing angry correspondence to Kit's father, so he didn't stop to consider it himself.
"Your wizard taught you well," Kurama answered, sounding vaguely approving. "And I imagine you've already guessed what my next question will be."
"Then why didn't I just banish you when I had the chance, and be done with it?" Kit replied, earning an affirmative nod from his demon in the process. He sighed. "Because Crehador walked in and ruined my plans before you had the opportunity to offer me a contract."
Kurama's eyebrows went up. "I recall your insistence on being offered one, yes." He paused. "Were you expecting to encounter a demon that would ask you to trade your soul?"
Kit stared at the comforter, his shoulders slumping slightly. "You've seen and heard enough of my family to know we've got a legacy of being led into temptation," he said softly. "And I just thought...there's really no way of knowing if you'll be able to resist it until you've faced it firsthand, is there? It's easy to say if something ever happens, you'll do this or that, but then when it really comes down to doing it..."
So basically, Kit intended to go to all the trouble of summoning up one of the unholy denizens of hell just so he could test his ability to say no. Daventry logic at its finest.
He closed his eyes. "Like Eva. I know I didn't kill her. I should've. I had every reason to, I had the power to. But when the moment came, I still pulled back. I couldn't do it."
"That doesn't make you weak," Kurama said, and the bed shifted slightly as he took a seat on the edge, the mattress dipping under the new weight. "After what he told you, anyone would've hesitated. If anything, it only proves you're human—which was something she would've never been able to claim."
"You made sure she was dead?" Kit asked, a bit dismayed at how his voice wobbled as he forced the words out.
"There are harsh punishments that await a demon who kills a human for any reason," Kurama murmured. "Of course, at this point in history, I'm still a wanted criminal anyway, so it's just one more offense to add to an already long list of crimes. Yes, they're all dead, on my word and honor both. And your friend Crehador helped me set fire to the last of it, as well, so there's no evidence left behind for any other splinter factions of DELILAH to utilize."
"Good. That's good. I'm glad."
Kurama reached to pat his hand. "You did enough, Kit. It's settled. This much, at least, is over."
He shook his head. "No, it's not," he answered dully. "I still haven't sent you back. The rest of it is done, but the part that started it all..."
There was a note of silence.
"That temptation you've been testing," Kurama said at last, then stopped and left it alone a few moments before gently continuing, "Is it true, what Crehador said about you and redheads?"
Again, I was wondering if anyone had picked up on the fact that I made such a big deal about everyone assuming Kit would have a thing for these redheaded deadly dolls...and then there's Kurama, a redhead, right in his midst the whole time. And a girly-looking redhead at that.
Kit ducked his head, feeling his face already beginning to go hot as he quickly turned it away. "I guess that's another thing that runs in the family," he awkwardly replied.
"I see," Kurama mused, sitting perfectly still a moment—which was nervewracking, to say the least, because it was hard enough to gauge what his demon was thinking at any normal moment, but here he had absolutely no idea what might be going through the redhead's mind, or what he might do or say in response.
But what he did, ultimately, was lean over and straighten Kit's covers, smoothing them back into place with the tenderness of a mother. "Get some sleep," he gently instructed. "The more you rest today, the easier time I'll have of convincing Crehador to let you out of bed tomorrow."
Slightly bemused, Kit did as he was told, sinking back down into the blankets and resting his head on the mountain of pillows behind him as his demon made his way toward the door.
"Kurama?" he called plaintively, just before the redhead was out of earshot.
A moment later, Kurama's head poked back into the room. "Yes?"
Kit swallowed hard. "How long have you known?"
That familiar, enigmatic smile crossed Kurama's lips. "Yours isn't the best of poker faces," he answered simply, and a moment later the door fell closed with a soft click.
I'm picturing a lot of really fake, pathetic-sounding coughing and thinly-veiled bids for Kurama's sympathy, none of which he ultimately goes for. Kurama also probably starts checking Kit's garden just to make sure he doesn't eat one of the mildly toxic plants to fake sickness longer, to which Kit is again like "Damn, foiled again".
"Remember to keep the white baneberries out of direct sunlight," Kurama reminded him as they gathered in the kitchen, waiting for the sigils painted on the floor (out of a mixture of chicken blood and ink) to dry, "And rotate the larkspur a quarter-turn every day, so it grows evenly."
More fun with Kit's poisonous garden! White baneberries are apparently incredibly toxic, and larkspur is a plant that grows fairly tall, hence the necessity to turn it to keep it from leaning.
"Of all the demons in the world to summon, he gets the one that's both a fox and a gardener," Crehador muttered under his breath.
"And keep an eye on the strychnine tree to make sure it's taking to its new pot," Kit repeated obediently. "Right, I know. My garden's never looked better since you've been here, Kurama."
A nod to the Strychnos nux-vomica that Kurama transplanted for him earlier. The strychnine tree isn't one that's native to England, either, which is why Kit was having some trouble with it. Until Kurama fixed it for him, that is.
"Oh, that reminds me," Kurama said pleasantly, holding up one finger as he headed for the door. As Crehador and Kit watched, eyebrows raised, he stepped into the hall and returned a minute later with a briefcase in one hand and a flowerpot in the other. "Since you've both been such charming hosts, I took the liberty of getting you each a parting gift. Consider it a thank-you for an undeniably entertaining adventure."
Kit caught himself blushing and quickly faked a cough, hoping to cover the redness in his cheeks. "You didn't have to do that..."
"I think you'll enjoy them," Kurama answered, deflecting the issue with ease. "Don't open them until after I'm gone, will you?"
Forcing himself to ignore the fact that his stomach rather felt as though it was going to drop out, Kit nodded and bent to test the consistency of the sigil he'd drawn on the floor. To his dismay, it was at the perfect balance between tacky and dry to suffice. "It's ready," he said, determined to keep his voice level and the emotion out of his tone. Bad enough to get sentimental over his demon's departure; worse still to do it in front of Crehador. "Are you?"
Kurama nodded, stepping carefully over the lines to extend his hand to Crehador; to Kit's surprise, the medium shook it without protest. "There were far worse creatures he could've called up than you," Crehador said, actually looking faintly amused. "Have a good trip."
"Oh, speaking of which," Kurama answered, glancing between the two of them, "Considering the amount of power I put at your disposal in the events of the past few weeks, it's entirely possible that an emissary from my superiors—future superiors, technically speaking—will be visiting you shortly, having tracked my energy to this place. I'm afraid your great-grandchildren might not be the only ones coming under sudden scrutiny, Kit."
Also, Kit keeps magically blowing up buildings. Honestly, I'm surprised Spirit World hasn't tracked him down already.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Kit answered, perfectly deadpan. "There were never any demons here, sir."
"I see you've been working on your poker face," Kurama said approvingly. "But still, be careful. I doubt they'll give you any trouble, but you are an extraordinarily powerful individual, and if you somehow hadn't attracted their notice before, I can guarantee that you certainly have now."
"I'll be careful," Kit said, unexpectedly pleased at the implied praise of his talents. "And you too, okay?"
"I'll be fine," Kurama assured him, stepping over to shake his hand as well.
As soon as he was within earshot, hands tightly grasped together, Kit cast a flustered glance at Crehador and mumbled, "I don't suppose there's any way you can get him out of the room for about thirty seconds?"
"So you can give me a more traditional goodbye?" Kurama murmured back, his eyes dancing. "I suspect he'd catch on if I tried. I wasn't the only one who figured you out, you know."
Crehador knows the signs, man. Dude's got skillz. I think Kurama recognizes, though, that Kit's thing for him is really more of a schoolboy infatuation than anything else. Kurama's this sort of perfect match for him in just about every way—he's a fox, he's intelligent, he's cunning, he's entertaining, he's devoted, he's attractive—and so Kit's mistaking that "we are perfect together and you should never leave me" attachment for an "I am in love with you" one. (Of course, if you want to ship it, there's more than enough subtext to do it. Much like, coincidentally, the relationship between Cain and Riff. YES, I ACTUALLY PLANNED THIS ONE. Boo yeah.)
Kit barely managed to suppress a highly undignified noise. Fortunately, Kurama saved him again by continuing smoothly, "But I can tell you he keeps the absinthe behind Descartes's Passions of the Soul on the west bookshelf. I hope that'll do as a consolation."
Kit really should've caught on to that one sooner. Like Crehador reads Descartes. Pfft.
Then, with a light pat to the shoulder, he released Kit's hand and stepped into the middle of the sigil, nodding at both of them in turn before letting his gaze fall to Kit. "I'm ready when you are," he said pleasantly.
Kit swallowed, flexing his fingers as he thought, just for one fleeting moment, of botching the spell and keeping Kurama here forever. Or at least longer. Or at least—
He waved his hand, uttered a word, and in a flash, his demon was gone.
And so Kit Hargreaves faces a temptation a demon (indirectly) presents and successfully says no. Full circle, baby.
They stood in silence a moment, just he and Crehador, like mourners at a gravesite as they watched the smoke drifting up from where the sigil had flared to life just seconds earlier. Then, slowly, Kit turned his attention to the gifts Kurama had left behind, more because he was at a loss for what to do than because he was really curious to see what was inside them.
The flowerpot was meant for him, he mused after a quick glance at the tags, and he slit the card open with his thumbnail to read the message inside. And there, in Kurama's neat hand, it read:
It seems your father's family is a rather renowned one around London; last night I paid a visit to the estates while you and your friend Crehador were asleep. It's a beautiful place. I hope someday you'll be able to see it firsthand.
The plant in this pot is a geranium borrowed from your mother's private garden, the one by the house tucked away at the far end of the yard that you described to me so fondly in the days I kept you company while you were recuperating. In the language of flowers, the geranium symbolizes gentility, meetings, folly, and true friendship; I thought you'd find that appropriate. Please take good care of it.
In return, I've borrowed a few cuttings from your foxgloves as a remembrance of my own. I thought you wouldn't begrudge me that, either.
It's been a pleasure to be your partner, little fox.
—Kurama
In one of the very early drafts of the story, Kit and Kurama's bargain was that Kit was never allowed to lie to Kurama, and the way Kit would uphold his half of the bargain was by wearing a specially-grown geranium of Kurama's in his buttonhole, which would change color if he ever lied. I ended up scrapping the idea because Kurama's got some pretty hax plants, but that's just kind of pushing the suspension of disbelief a little too far, and it'd be too complicated to explain why it only worked for Kurama's questions and not everyone else's and what excuse they'd give the nobility for why Kit was wearing a color-changing plant in the first place.
The language of flowers thing, though, was at the height of popularity in Victorian times, so Kit probably would've known the meanings of the geranium even if Kurama hadn't listed them. I originally picked it just for the part about gentility; the meetings, folly, and friendship were just a happy coincidence. So between the fact that it's a geranium and that it comes from Rosella's garden (near the Scandalous Rendezvous House!) on Cain's estates, Kurama's veiled message is basically, "You'll always be an earl to me".
Also, he's giving flowers to his not-boyfriend. Cuuuuute.
He swallowed hard, glancing toward the flower blooming merrily in the pot. It was a geranium, yes, with blossoms the lush red of his demon's hair, and he reached out to trace his finger along the delicate petals. It would be the first plant in his garden that wasn't cultivated to be deadly, he mused. But Kurama couldn't have picked a more perfect memory. And he wouldn't just take good care of this one; no, this one he would treasure, as a parting gift from one fox to another.
A yell of exclamation from Crehador made him glance up from his reverie, and he had to do a double-take at the sight of the opened briefcase Crehador had propped on the counter—and the neat rows of banknotes packed within.
"Dear Crehador, my apologies again for all the upset I caused you during my brief stay in your charming residence. I took the liberty of borrowing this from Kit's father's safe when I visited his estates last night; please consider it an advance, on his behalf and mine, to accompany Kit into whatever peril he may get up to next," Crehador read aloud, sputtering.
I love this mental image. Kit gets a flower with significance, Crehador gets a briefcase of money. So Kit finally does get his demonstration of Kurama's thieving abilities after all, and to be really really technical, it's Kit's money anyway because he rightfully ought to be the earl of Hargreaves Manor.
For the record, most of the money Kit bribes Crehador with comes from his mother's neverending Chest of Gold back in Daventry. So I figured it was only fitting that Cain foot the bill for once.
Kit managed to restrain himself all of two seconds before he doubled over with mirth, his sudden burst of laughter ringing out through the kitchen. "He really thinks of everything, doesn't he?"
"He robbed your father," Crehador pointed out, without even a hint of malice.
Kit shrugged. "It's a good investment," he retorted, still chuckling as he retrieved his geranium. "You're never going to be free of my stupidity, Crehador."
And then, with a vaguely hollow feeling in his chest but a strangely light heart to compensate, Kit Hargreaves headed for his little room in the back of the residence to put his newest plant securely away.
"And no more demon summonings!" Crehador irritably called after him.
EPILOGUE:
Anthony J. Crowley frowned slightly, surveying both the quaint Victorian kitchen and the occult sigil beneath his feet with a hint of bemusement from behind his very dark sunglasses. "This is decidedly not the Ritz," he remarked aloud.
A moment later, he noticed the dark-haired youth in his midst, the one looking at him with wide and apparently innocent blue eyes. Deceptively innocent, too, he noted with sudden interest. Whoever he was, he was powerful. And theoretically corruptible.
"Do you know anything about gardening?" the kid asked, holding out a wilting potted plant.
Crowley suppressed a smile.
I couldn't resist a Good Omens nod here, after making jokes about demon gardeners the whole time. Though Crowley's perspective on gardening is slightly different from Kurama's. Under his tutelage, though, Kit will have the nicest plants in all of London. Also the most terrified.
Plus, we already had Adam and Eve. Might as well throw in the snake for good measure!
Thus concludes Alex's Kickass DVD Commentary of Kit Hargreaves: Demon Summoner. Hope you enjoyed it! I know I sure did (I'm a dork like that). :D
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