Chapter Text
Conner didn’t see the bus coming, with it being dark out and all, just heard the pigeons scattering like they knew something he didn’t. Then there was blinding light, and pain. Getting hit by a bus traveling at high speeds through the quiet roads of New Brunswick, unsurprisingly, hurt.
In a moment of clarity, Conner realized he was going to die, and then the world tilted dizzyingly to the left and went black.
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A beam of light across his eyes caused Conner to wake up, dragging him from the bliss of death's embrace. While being pulled into consciousness, he clenched his fists, feeling them slide against the silky fabric beneath him. A frown made its way across his face as the light refused to go away, despite Conner's wishful thinking.
Owww , he thought, trying to roll away from the light. Wait light, where am I?
Oh fuck.
Having sat up, Conner could see exactly where he was, a plain, open coffin, in a dingy one-to-one recreation of the undertaker's parlor from Black Butler, being loomed over by the man himself.
“How peculiar, a guest should start breathing again, tea dear?” That last part was directed at Conner, who could only stare in horror at the tall, lean figure above him, who had managed to get the voice scarily accurate and was holding what looked to be a scalpel and other unpleasantly sharp objects.
“Yes, thank you,” Conner heard himself reply, voice hoarse and mind racing, the best thing to do was delay this freak cosplayer from killing him a second time until he could figure out where this fever-dream-esque nightmare was taking place. The last thing he remembered was the impact of the bus. An unexpected addition to his journey back to his car while in town for a shopping trip.
Subconsciously amused at the way the man seemed to prance away, Conner pushed a handful of auburn curls back, away from his face and contemplated his surroundings. There was a window behind him, judging from the daylight pouring in from that direction. Hopefully, that would provide more answers about where exactly here was. Twisting around to the window, knowing that the room was too good of a replica to be of any use, Conner’s hope for a future fell flat. Outside the window was what seemed to be a continuation of the set. Because that's what this was, right? One large, unfunny prank.
A beaker of tea in his hands, and long black nails poking at his forehead broke Conner from his rapidly spiraling daze.
“Hey! Watch it with the nails, you’re stabbing me!” Exclaimed Conner before he could stop himself. Maybe complaining to his potential killer wasn’t the smartest idea, but then again, Conner had never claimed to be the smartest man.
The man whom Conner had, in his head, taken to calling Undertaker, stilled for a moment. Fingernail hovering and hair pooling just a little bit too close for comfort. And I’m dead, this man is going to kill me. He thought. It was a good run while it lasted. Before Undertaker broke into the most ear-shattering, earth-quaking laughter Conner had ever been unfortunate enough to witness.
By the time the obnoxious laughter finally slowed, Conner was even more confused. How had this actor gotten the voice so perfect? All while not breaking character?
“Hey man, it’s cool what you’re doing with the set here and all, but do you mind if I leave?” This inquiry is what put a pause to the laughter. Gently setting the steaming beaker down beside him, Conner stared questioningly at Undertaker's eyes, or at least where they would be if the hair wasn’t in the way.
“Of course–”
“Conner”
“You may go wherever you please.”
“Whenever?”
“Yes, but perhaps you would stay for a moment, you are a rather unusual guest after all.” The request to stay and talk was anything but subtle, and every alarm bell in Conner's head was ringing violently. With the desire to get out of this weird, Black Butler themed roleplay only mounting, he shook his head.
“It was nice meeting you.” It was anything but, “And I would love to stay and chat,” Conner continued, pleading to every god he could think of to help him escape this situation, “But I really have to be going now, plans and all that.”
The Undertaker looked dubious but agreed easily enough. “Come back anytime, dearie, you are ever so interesting.”
Stupid, weird, potentially killer, cosplaying actors and their rules about not breaking character, can’t stop for one second?” With that, Conner scampered out of the procured door like the brave man he was, onto the dirty London road. This is when, with a sinking pit in his stomach, Conner realized that the set extended as far as he could see in every direction. Judging by where the sun is, it’s about midday, that’s one comfort at least, plenty of time until the night. I guess I’ll just pick a direction and stick to it? This has to end somewhere.
It didn't.
Several hours later, as the sun was starting to set, cold, hunger, and bone-deep exhaustion became the mantra of every step. Conner gave up. He was, after all, so completely, utterly lost, and slumping in the corner of a grimy alleyway should never have looked so appealing. With every perfectly Victorian building he had passed by, and every person who bathed just barely not enough, he felt more and more convinced that this was real. Then, he was concerned that he’d gone crazy.
I just want to be home. Is that too much to ask? The home that Conner was referring to was his grandmother's house, deep in the trees of New Brunswick, Canada. Despite raising me for the last twenty-four years, if Nana doesn't have me around for a week, will she remember me? Nana, as Conner affectionately called her, was his able-bodied and dementia ridden Grandmother. I have to get back, not for myself but so that she's not alone. He thought to himself, determinedly.
Despite how far Conner allowed himself to fall in the world of standards, he looked around himself to make sure there wasn’t anything too dangerous. Pleased with the lack of plague-infested rats, he gingerly lifted what looked to be a newspaper.
It was dated 1886. Fuck. Even the most high-budget sets wouldn’t go this far. Or maybe the cold and hunger were getting to him. Maybe this was all a dream, Conner wished it was, but it felt too real. I should go back to the undertakers, if, and heavy on the if, I’m actually here, I’m fucked. Oh, wait, I’m lost, and can’t go back even if I wanted to. Fucking fantastic. That’s really great, just what I needed.
Conner continued thinking in this fashion until the sun had long set, and all hope of leaving this hellhole had almost entirely diminished. Shit, it's dark, I can’t see anything. Guess I’m just gonna get murdered then, leaving my elderly grandmother all alone in her last years. He felt himself falling down a rabbit hole of guilt and tried to put the thought out of his mind. You know what, 19th-century London isn’t that bad at night.
It was just then that he heard a blood-curdling scream from somewhere behind him. The voice was feminine and almost certainly that poor woman's final breath. Conner froze.
“Young Master! You must not look. You have made quite the mess of things, Jack the Ripper, or should I say, Grelle Sutcliff.”
The words were faint, but still easily understood. Conner jerked forward and tried to walk as lightly as possible. Cautious of being discovered, because what then? I would only be a passerby who witnessed too much. Far too much to let live. A straight line onward was all he could manage. Being so totally consumed with fear and doubt about everything he believed to be true could do that to a man.
A shock of pain from his foot through his shin yanked Conner from his panic. A brick? Not a brick, but the stone steps to a building. In his mindlessness, Conner had veered off to the right and narrowly avoided hitting the building's wall instead.
A glance upward at the sign, half hanging onto the roof, revealed the shop to be just the one Conner had left his safe alleyway for in the first place. What luck.
At the top of the Undertaker's parlor steps, doorknob in hand, Conner contemplated his decision. Should all this be real, is the morally questionable Undertaker really the safest person to turn to?
Who am I kidding, fuck whatever I was thinking about this guy before. When all of this goes to shit, I'm going to be nice and safe away from it all, with a dilf to protect me.
Conner, of course, preferred not to notice just how much that line of thought made him feel queasy. The door creaked open, ominous in a way that felt purposeful. Of course, because every fan knows how Undertaker loves his drama.
“Hello? Undertaker? I decided to come back.” When he got no response, Conner thought, It is the middle of the night, I guess. I thought Reapers didn’t need sleep, though?
“He he he, now what do we have here?” By this point, Conner had walked to the back of the front room and was thoroughly freaked out.
He decided to be brave and say what he was thinking. It had worked well enough last time, hadn’t it? “Don’t try to jump scare me, Undertaker, I know your tricks,” Conner said accusingly, with a tinge of doubt in his low voice as the man in question slid out from one of the many coffins along the wall.
“A guest already knowing my tricks, well, we can’t have that now, can we?” Undertaker giggled, seemingly thrilled to have someone call him out on his theatrics. “ What brings you back so soon, Dearie? You were ever so eager to leave earlier.”
“Well…” started Conner slowly, trying to make himself seem as sane as possible in this ridiculous situation. “That's a bit of a long story. Though it does relate to wondering if you were potentially hiring?”
“Hiring… perhaps. We could even call that long story an interview of sorts.”
Of course, he won’t let go of a story so interesting. “Fine, but don’t interrupt me until I’m done talking.”
The Undertaker just smiled widely, enjoying every moment of his midnight entertainment.
“So basically,” he started, mustering up every bit of basic white girl storytelling skills he could find. “Yesterday, or this morning, I guess? Anyway, I was walking through town, right, just doing my shopping when all of a sudden I was hit by a massive bus!”
Undertaker looked at him curiously but didn’t interrupt, so Conner continued. “That’s when I woke up here, in the shop that I thought was fictional-
“Fictional?”
“A hundred and some years in the past.” Finished Conner with false bravado. Why is he looking at me like that? I know my story is unbelievable, but I don’t think I’ve quite surpassed his level yet.
The Undertaker was, of course, grinning wildly at Conner. Inclined to believe the tale due to Conner’s unusual clothing and honest way of speaking, while doubting that such a thing could happen.
“After such an amusing tale, true or not, I believe you deserve a reward. I’ll hire you.”
Conner blinked in shock. That was surprisingly… easy? “Slay,” he responded on pure muscle memory. “What will you have me do then?”
Undertaker raised an eyebrow, then thought for a moment, clearly for the first time. “I don’t suppose you would enjoy stitching people back together?”
“...No…”
“Perhaps you would just stick to cleaning, dear. There is a rather lot to be done in this old place.”
Conner looked around properly, dread pooling in his gut at the sight of a true 19th-century mortician's shop. Complete with the ever-present cobwebs, dust, and questionable tools. “Lovely. When do I start?”
“Whenever you would like, preferably morning,” he added as Conner moved to grab a rag sitting on a nearby coffin.
“And where will I live?” Rationality had once again started to come back to him.
“Here, I suppose. If you truly have no home as you claim, then you may choose a coffin and take it to a spare room.”
That's a mighty suspicious nonchalant tone he has. What, is he trying to get me to back out of this!? “That’s a wonderful offer, thank you so much! May I choose that one?” Conner asked, pointing at the coffin he had woken up in.
“Of course, dearie, that’s a lovely choice.”
It really was. All creamy white silks on the inside, and a light oak exterior. He put on his best honey-sweet voice, “Now would you be a dear and give me some directions to this spare room, it’s rather late, and I hope to have an early start tomorrow.”
The Undertaker just smiled mischievously and turned around. Leading the way down the hallway, leaving Conner to haul the coffin alone while trying not to lag behind on the short trek through the shop.