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who: Undertaker, Ciel, whoever!
what: Memory swaps!
when: Oct 9 - 23
where: Undertaker and Ciel’s apartment, various locations around the city as needed
warnings: Sadness and possible gore and Undertaker being an adorable idjit

For Ciel

Dreams these days are random for him, born out of the weirdness that goes on in his head and in his daily doings in the city and often combining to make something too far out of reality to confuse him into thinking that he might be awake and doing something out of the ordinary, as some dreams are wont to do. But sometimes, they’re quite the opposite. Sometimes, they’re terrible and fill him with the kind of horror that his customers - living or dead - might have experienced shortly before they found their way into his funeral parlor back home.

This one is much like that, for wholly different reasons. For instance, the face looking back at him as he stares into the mirror, adjusting a tie over a suit that he hasn’t worn nor seen in decades, is one he recognizes and does not. Clear of the scars he now carries, eyes visible and a startling blue, hair shorter and decidedly more blonde than gray, it’s a face he hasn’t seen in well over a century.

Somewhere behind the scene, watching it from his current body in resigned unhappiness, he goes tense as a familiar voice calls to him in the memory.

”Ah, there you are, Cedric! We’re waiting for you!”

The view turns as the man in the mirror looks away from his reflection. From an open doorway, another man stands, smiling, clearly excited. This man is younger, with dark eyes and hair of the same yellow cropped close to his head in an almost military cut. He wears a darker suit and looks quite sharp as he shakes his head. Then a look of shy nervousness briefly darkens his features.

”I was starting to think you’d changed your mind.”

The laugh that comes from the man in the memory is not Undertaker’s own, and it is all at the same time. He approaches the younger and puts a hand on his shoulder. The nails are flesh colored and short and the scar on his pinky finger absent like the rest.

”Oh, Thomas, you know I wouldn’t do that to you. I’ll be out in a moment. I just want to…”

Undertaker turns away, unable to watch anything more, and it’s then that he realizes he isn’t alone in this. Away and to the side stands Ciel.

It isn’t the first time that he finds himself glad for the hair hiding his eyes, but now it’s for a whole new reason.

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He stood not too far behind the man, grinning his amusement behind a hand as he tried not to burst out laughing at the memory. That was one he could recall well enough, though after his first unwilling dream-memory-whatever reveal it seemed quite tame. To him, at least. Even though he could only see it half as well through his poor vision.

"A bit of both, I suppose, though it's my eyes you see it through." Finally, he permitted himself a giggle and shook his head. "You make it sound as though you've done this before."

Jason reached up rubbing his eyes, even if he knew it was a dream and it wouldn't help any. "Your voice tells me it's yours as you can hear me, Undertaker. God, is your vision always like this?" He asked, not as rude as he might to most, for the most part he liked his two new Victorian friends so he didn't want to be a jerk but the blurriness hurt. "Dude, you need glasses or contacts."

He spoke closing his eyes for his own sake.

"The past few night's I've managed to end up in people's dreams, some in my own. It's weird though, I don't usually sleep this much. So, did he find the children?"

He came around to Jason's side, leaving space between them still, and watched the memory even as the other man shut it out of his vision. One hand held the other behind his back as he did, really rather enjoying this. "Has been for nearly a century, but I'm quite used to it by now. I'm not familiar with contacts, but glasses are more trouble than they're worth, to be truthful. I assume contacts are an invention beyond my time, yes?"

It was easier to rely on his other senses now more than he did his own vision, and easier to keep his eyes hidden behind his hair, as he had needed to do in his own world, without them. "It's been happening all over, then." He shook his head, thinking back on the memory he had shared against his will with his roommate. What a night that had been. "Couldn't say. All I know is I never saw any of them in my parlor, but there was a rather unusual house fire shortly after he visited me on this occasion. They say it destroyed everything but the stone in the walls."

Jason stayed with his eyes closed listening to both the scene play out, and the Undertaker, unlike his brother's he didn't have as easy of a time at it, but he was more interested in the conversation than the blurry scene. "How old are you...?" Immortals were nothing new to him, not after the All-Caste and Ra's Al Ghul, but the Undertaker was an enigma. "Yes. Thin plastic you place inside your eyes. But basically glasses you don't have to move. I have a pair that has cameras's built in." He stole them from Tim ages ago. They didn't work here but he had them.

"It would take some very hot fire to burn that hot back in your time. I wonder if it was to hide a crime scene." He spoke peaking one of his blue eyes open again before giving up and turning to focus on the man himself. Hoping as he opened his eyes that the Undertaker wasn't blurry.

"Hmm." That was going to make him think. He'd long stopped caring about his age; it didn't mean much to him anymore, but he had an idea. "Around 630 years old, I should think. But I stopped counting, so that may not be accurate." He gave a careless shrug and looked over at Jason, surprised at his suggestion.

"Plastic in my eyes? Have you seen my fingers lately?" He lifted a hand and curled his fingers with their long, dark nails, wiggling them at the man. "I trust myself, but not so far as to shove something in my face like that. I do need these for some small manner of purpose, even if you look like that to me." He pointed one finger to the fog playing out his memory in front of them. The people in the scene still moved, still spoke, but their edges were distorted, everything out of focus. And still Undertaker in the memory moved about as if he could see as well as any of them.

Then his grin widened. "An interesting thought. One could use a fire like that to hide a crime scene. Any of the bodies that might be within would be unrecognizable, if they could be found at all." Has he seen something like that before? Maybe.

Jason let the age jingle around in his mind. He doubted it was a Lazurus Pit keeping the strange man alive, granted, he was mad as a hatter at least if this memory was anything to judge off of. Granted, there was a certain level of madness Jason would happily overlook, since himself was listed as insane by Arkham Asylum. "The things you must have seen in your time..." Was all Jason could really think to say. How did he keep managing to find immortals with white hair dressed in black? He didn't think for a moment that The Undertaker and Essence were related, he knew his ex's family, but they looked a little alike.

Jason looked to the Undertaker's nails, well, yeah those would be bad. "Okay, no contacts for you. Shit." What else could he say? They looked like something a goth would wear, but well... yeah. Jason's eyes tracked the Undertaker more than anything else, he was more clear to Jason less of a wave of motion sickness waiting to happen. "Your other senses pick up for you where your vision failed hasn't it? That's why you move as well as you do." Simple science, something he would have learned in his first few months in Bat-Training...as well as sometime in school.

"It happens all the time." He'd burned bodies before as well. "Even if it doesn't fully take the body, it will ruin enough to make it harder to solve. At least in your time, ours we can figure out if a fire is arson, or if a person was dead before the fire started... a lot of thing." he rubbed at the back of his neck. "So, curiously, if your eye-sight is this bad, how are you certain you didn't bury any of those kids? Could you see the photos?"

His only response to that was a grin. The things he had seen, indeed. The books he could write, the stories he could tell. But no, he kept it now all locked only in his memory, to be revealed when he thought the time was right or when certain individuals needed the knowledge. He moved his hand around behind himself again and held it within his other, turned away from the memory and began a leisurely walk around the room that they were in. He'd hardly had a chance to really explore it the last time he had been in a place like this.

"That's right. Turns out, I'm not unique in that. If one goes deaf, the other senses make up for the lack. If one goes blind, it's all the same. But I'm not fully blind, only nearsighted. For instance, I could see those photos the Earl gave me well enough. I knew enough of their faces and ages to know about what size they should be when they came in through my door."

He tilted his head and ended his circle of the room. Really, there was nothing to it, was there? Just walls, no decor, light with no real source, no door, and of course the fog of the memory playing before them. "I did have one child who came to me in that time, but she was but a babe, far too young. Died in her sleep, you see. A terrible thing for the parents. Poor mother couldn't even come to the funeral, she was so distraught."

Even in Jason's short years, he felt old as could be from everything he had seen. He couldn't picture being that old, but, madness was a theme so, maybe that was the price of endless life. Jason's eyes still tracked the Undertaker, his interest on the memory was lost in favor of learning this strange man who was friends with the young earl.

"It's pretty common, in both humans and animals." He offered, while listening just the same. He wished Roy was in this world, if anyone could think of something the Undertaker could wear that wouldn't get in his way it was his former partner, the rockabilly genius. The young man stayed quiet as he listened to the older speak. There was much to be learned from just listening.

"I'm inclined to agree." He spoke, something in his tone almost sounded like he understood, but more his tone was because now he was wondering if Bruce had actually thrown him a funeral when he died, or did he have him buried and forgotten in favor of a suit in a glass case.

He hummed and looked back at the memory again, briefly. The next events were already known to him, the surprise spoiled, and it held no interest for him now. There, they had a problem. Jason wasn't watching the memory either, unable to bear the terrible viewpoint, and the dream they were trapped within seemed content to keep them there for the time being.

"I'll admit to a bit of curiosity about all of this. I've had it happen to me before this instance, but with the Earl. We were in close proximity at the time, in our sleeping selves, and we've come to an understanding. We're both from the same world. Yet here I am, with you now, and we share none of those things. What could have made this happen, if not some random choice we haven't seen?"

The viewpoint was worse than a tequila sunrise for him. He was good to let it go, having picked up most of what he could from the memory, there for leaving his attentions to the one non-blurry thing in the room.

"I assume random choice, although, I have at least met every person whose memories I have seen since this began, so maybe there is a connection there. Considering I was at a hotel tonight I know my body is no where near your or the Earls. Wherever you both may be." He just didn't see the Earl in the area where his favorite dive bar was. Though the amount he had drank would explain why he hadn't woke yet, he only slept long when he was drunk or to exhausted to care about the terrors.

He nodded, moving one arm to cross over his chest and the other to rest against it, one finger poking at the scar across his nose. "It does make sense. I've noticed the same thing myself. Not proximity, then, but simply familiarity, regardless of the depth of that familiarity. But what to be gained by looking at random memories like this? That's puzzling as well. I've far juicier stories to tell than this. This is just an every day occurrence."

He lifted his head again, eying Jason with a grin. "What about you, then? Were yours just as easy to pass over, or were they more personal?"

Jason mirrored the move without thinking about it. It was one of his ticks, sometimes he mirrored peoples movements. The only difference was he ran a hand through his dark hair first before he crossed his arms. "It feels like something set into motion. Like whatever governs this place designed these things for us all to have. I have no answers for that, in the course of a few minutes someone I care about was forced to witness my mother's death, and then the rescue of my former partner. The two memories are very different. Which is to say, highly personal. There are some things a man doesn't care to share." Saving Roy's ass had been funny above all else. Catherine's death was far from he didn't want people seeing him tiny sobbing over his dead mother.

"Surely, then. Ah, well, whatever it is, I'm sure we'll find what's going on one way or another. I wouldn't know where to begin myself." He looked back to the screen again, just for the sake of seeing it one more time. The memory came to a close and, oddly enough, looped back to the beginning to run through again, like one of those movies this world was so fond of.

"Looks almost like your curious technology. I've never seen that in a dream."

"Yeah, we usually do. I've kind of gotten used to the odd happenings since I arrived, but Im from Gotham, something weird is always happening there to. Its second nature to shrug things off." At least after intense research.

"Yeah it does." He blinked some, his eyes going right back to the Undertake. "Like it's set on repeat. It's strange."

For now, his attention is on the... screen? Sure. A fog screen. He can go with that. For now, at least. "I can't say I've heard of such a place. Is it in England or somewhere else? It almost sounds English, just by the name of it."

It was less headache worthy to watch the Undertaker than anything else. "Gotham is a city in New Jersey, it's probably not much yet in you and Ciel's time, it's in America. Trust me when I say your better off not knowing that cesspool I once called him. It is pretty much the crime capital of the world."

One hand came up to tap at his chin, something he often did when in thought. "Ah, yes, America. I've been to many places in my time, but not there. Not yet. But if I remember much of this place when I go back home, I'll heed that warning." Where there was crime, there was almost inevitably death. Death brought grim reapers, and he wanted to avoid the other reapers as much as he could. He wasn't exactly on the best terms with them.

Jason managed a slight smile at that, it reminded him of someone. Everything did at some point but the Undertaker seemed like an old soul and that called to him. "Good, if you can, avoid it. Its not a good place." God only knows why he keeps going back.

As if his mind knew the Undertaker was one for a laugh, the sound of water falling could be heard. It was a steamy shower, luckily the shower hid any bit's that no one needs to see. Jason was washing his hair, humming to himself as a voice came from the other side of the shower.

"Yo, Jason! Got a second?"

The sector beside the Undertaker groaned. "Of course you get to see this."

In the dream Jason starts to speak before sniffing something in the air. "Really? This couldn't wait until I'm... Roy, this is crazy but do you smell napalm?"

The curtain is ripped back and a red head is holding a weapon blasting fire in on Jason, who doesn't burn but does panic before running as they yelled back and forth at each other.

[ A and B ]

Well well. That sure was an interesting scene. What even was that that just happened here in front of them? He might have been a bit concerned had he not heard the words passing between the two, one he knew and the other he didn't, almost like this was just a joke or some odd trick.

He couldn't help a chuckle at it. "My. Your ideas of fun in this world are quite different than what I've come to know. Do you and this man do this often?"

Jason had moved his hand to cover his face looking a little exasperated. "No, no, this was just how he was. No one else is quite that, eccentric might be to nice for Roy." He grumbled some. "and sadly yes, we lived together for almost a year, this happened a lot." he sounded a bit more fond by the time he finished speaking. "You might like Roy if he ever shows up here. He's got a sense of humor."

The grin on him never left, never wavered. "What an interesting person. We may get along, we may." They might have to do something about those arsonist tendencies though. He did like to wear long and flowing robes and if that caught flame, it wouldn't be pretty. "I'm covered in scars, alright, but I'd hate to add to that collection."

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