Fandom: Fringe, Sense8 fusion
Characters: Olivia Dunham, Nick Lane, Sally Clark, Simon Phillips, James Heath, Cameron James, Susan Pratt, Nancy Lewis, Peter Bishop
Summary: I am he as you are [s]he as you are me And we are all together
What are the Cortexikids but an artificially generated Cluster? A Fringe/Sense8 fusion, Fringe original timeline AU.
Notes: A small fraction of a hypothetical longer story; "proof of concept" is a kinder tag than "abandoned fic." Also, a nod to Kayim's fic! She first posted a take on this fusion, and we were writing in parallel.
The sensate phenomena was a closely guarded secret, but not unknown to those who delved into the esoteric mysteries of the human mind. Those intrigued by the sensates tried to study them...and occasionally attempted to reproduce the effect.
In 1982, Drs. William Bell and Walter Bishop succeeded in creating mental and emotional links between eight children through the use of a synthetic drug called Cortexiphan.
They achieved considerably more than that.
1984
Olive Dunham had only just turned six years old the first time she woke up in someone else's body.
She had to pee. Olive yawned and slid carefully out of bed, silently so her stepfather wouldn't hear her, and then realized she wasn't in her house.
Olive stood very still and looked around, grateful for the nightlight on the wall. The room was pink and frilly, more proof she wasn't home. There was a low shelf full of those dolls with the round baby faces. Olive couldn't have slept with those things staring at her.
She crept out into the hall, her footsteps silent on the thick blue carpet. Her carpet at home was thin, the dingy color of block housing. She saw a door on the hallway had been left partly open, with the faint glow of another nightlight spilling out. Olive peeked cautiously though the door and saw it was a bathroom, like she'd guessed. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her before turning to the mirror—
She was looking at Sally Clark's face.
Sally was one of the other kids at the daycare Olive went to. She was kind of bossy, and she could be very cranky when she didn't get what she wanted. But she also came up with good games, so Olive didn't mind too much. And all eight of them in the Special Class already knew they had to be nice to each other, even without Dr. Walter telling them to.
This wasn't the first time something weird had happened to Olive. The scariest had been the fire last year that wasn't her fault (except she knew it really was), but there were also interesting games, like trying to see what Dr. William called a "glimmer" around things. She saw it sometimes out of the corner of her eye, when she wasn't trying to. And like how sometimes Nicky could tell what she was feeling, even when he was in another room. He was her buddy, like Susan and Nancy only without being related, and she loved him very much.
If she was going to wake up in anyone else's body, why wasn't it his?
But it was late and she was tired, and maybe if she went back to sleep she would wake up at home. Olive used the bathroom (the towels were so much nicer than hers!) and then went back down the hall to the pink bedroom. She was about to crawl back into Sally's bed when she remembered. She went to the shelf and turned all the dolls around so they weren't looking at her.
It took a little while to fall asleep, mostly because the bed was a lot softer than she was used to, and because the house was too quiet without Rachel snoring on the other side of the room.
Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed of fire.
Sally had slept through the whole thing. She wasn't happy that Olive had touched her dolls, but in the years to come, all eight of them agreed that had been the earliest physical proof of the bond between them.
After that the incidents began to occur more frequently, until the eight of them—Olivia, Nick, Sally, Mark, James, Simon, Susan, and Nancy—knew each other as well as they knew their own names. (The adults all called Mark "Cameron" like his father, but the kids knew better.)
1985
Simon was panicking when he found Olive. "I saw something! In— in Dr. Walter's mind. It's bad."
Olive pulled him off to the side of the playground. The teacher was reading a book and not paying them any attention. "You didn't tell?"
Simon gave her that look he gave everyone when they were being stupid, which to him was most of the time. "'course not."
The eight of them already knew they had to keep secrets. Simon's ability to know what people were thinking wasn't the only one, but maybe it was the biggest. Dr. Walter said it was very important that the children told him everything, but they already knew he wasn't telling them everything. So when Simon blurted out that James had been thinking about a bike he wanted even though James' parents said he was too little, first James got really mad and wouldn't talk to anyone for a whole day. Then he admitted it was true, and after that Simon stopped telling them when he saw things in people's heads. Most of the time.
But this sounded important. "What did you—"
Simon looked like he was about to cry. "It was about his son. Peter."
Olive nodded solemnly. Peter was very sick. None of them had ever met him and Dr. Walter never talked about him, but they all knew. Dr. Walter kept leaving to see him, and last week he'd been gone nearly the whole time. Miss Ashley had tried to pretend everything was okay, but she'd been very sad.
Simon took a deep, gulping breath. "He. He died. But then... then there was another one? I didn't really understand."
Olive didn't either. Adults could be weird, but Dr. Walter wasn't acting like his son had died. "Maybe, uh, he almost died but—"
"No! I saw it. Everyone was sad and his mother was crying. But then there was a, a hole, and Dr. Walter went through and came back with the other Peter but the water was cold and they both almost drowned and—"
Olive pulled Simon into a hug, closer to the side of the building so the teacher wouldn't see. On the other side of the playground Nick was worried, but Olive sent the little mind push to tell him not to come over. "The other Peter? You mean...like from the Other Side?"
Simon went still and he lifted his head to stare at her, his eyes full of tears. "The place with the blimps? But...that..."
Olive could see him putting it together. Simon was probably the smartest of them all. "He took the Other Peter," Simon whispered, and the horror in his voice echoed the fear in Olivia's mind. "And now everyone's pretending—"
"That he's the real one," she whispered back, although that wasn't exactly what she meant. The new Peter, he didn't belong here. "Simon, we can't tell anyone!"
"I know," he said, sniffling against his shirt sleeve. "I just wish I didn't have to see all the bad things!"
She hugged him again, thinking hard. This was bad, so much worse than the other thoughts Simon had picked up. They would all have to keep this secret from everyone else and that would be hard, really hard. But no one could tell, even by accident, because then Simon would really be in trouble or worse, they might send him away—
Olivia shuddered. That couldn't happen, she wouldn't let it happen. No matter what.
Six Months Later
She didn't run away because she thought she'd hurt Nick. She ran away because—
Because—
Because they knew Dr. Walter was serious about what he wanted them to do. They didn't know he would be mean about it.
And the fire, that was his fault. She knew Dr. Walter had been trying to get her to cross over, and he thought scaring her would do it. And even worse, scaring her by making it look like Nick was hurt. But she knew right off he wasn't, she could feel Nick giggling inside at what he thought was a joke. And then she got so mad...
Olivia sniffled as she ran but refused to let the tears fall. Crying wouldn't do any good. And now that she knew what set off the fire, she wouldn't let that happen again either. Fire was Sally's special ability, anyway. Crossing over was Olivia's, she knew it, if only she could figure out how to do it when her stepfather wasn't being scary.
The other seven knew about her stepfather and the bruises, even the ones that didn't show. Sally had wanted her to tell Dr. Walter or Miss Ashley or somebody, but Olivia didn't trust any of the adults she knew. "You could tell a policeman," Sally had tried, but Mark shook his head.
"They won't help."
Mark knew, too. When cops showed up at his door, like they showed up at Olivia's once, the adults told them what they wanted to hear and they went away. No one believed little kids. Even Sally's parents, who gave her everything she wanted, didn't really listen to her.
It was all mixed up, the Other Side and her stepfather and her ability and the, the connection she had with the others, and finally she slowed and sat down where she was. There were flowers all around, and some of them shriveled up with the heat she was still putting off.
And then she heard a voice say, "Hi."
It was Peter, the Other Peter, of course it had to be him.
She eyed him carefully. He looked like a regular boy, but she could see— yeah. Right around the edges, that "glimmer" that things from the Other Side sometimes had. Now she knew that meant people, too. She cleared her throat and tried to pretend everything was okay. "Hi. How'd you find me?"
"I guess tulips don't normally grow around here." He pulled the drawings she'd made out of his pocket.
She looked at them, frowning. "But...how'd you know I'd come here?"
He shrugged. "Because it's the only drawing that looked happy." There was a pause. "My name's Peter."
She wanted to tell him what she knew but he probably wouldn't believe her. "Mine's Olivia." He started to move closer and she held up a hand. The ground around her was still hot. "Don't— be careful."
"I'm not scared." He looked at her, really looked at her, and she saw him notice her eye. "What happened?"
She was too tired to lie. "My stepdad did it."
He winced and looked away, but not like he didn't believe her; more like he knew exactly what she meant. Taking her word for it like no one else did, except her seven special friends. After a minute he said, "So...everyone's looking for you."
She didn't want to cry, especially not in front of this boy, so she sniffed back the tears. "I messed up...and now he's gonna send me home." They'd find her, and that meant going back. She didn't know which was worse, Dr. Walter or her stepfather. At least her stepfather didn't pretend to like her.
"Who?"
She sighed. "Dr. Walter."
Peter looked very serious. "Did you tell him? Walter, I mean, about your stepdad hitting you?
A week ago she might've. Olivia knew better now. "I don't think it'd do anything."
"My mo—" he started, and his voice broke, and Olivia knew why. After a second he finished, "My mom was telling me you got to imagine how you want things to be. And then you can try and change them."
That was what Dr. Walter was always talking about, using her imagination to make things happen. She couldn't trust what he wanted her to do, and she couldn't wish her stepfather away. But she could feel Nick and the others in her head, and she'd always have them, no matter what. She wouldn't change that for anything.
Peter, though...he really didn't have anyone. She was pretty sure she shouldn't say anything, but she would want to know. And it wasn't his fault he was in the wrong place. "I've seen it," she said. "Where you're really from."
Peter's mouth dropped open, but that was when they heard the voices of the search party and both of them had to remember how to pretend to be normal kids again. But the piercing looks Peter sent her meant that he wasn't going to let it go. Mistake or not, she was glad she'd told him.
Underneath the fuss of the cops and the teachers, Olivia felt her friends crowding around inside her head. "He lied," Olivia whispered silently, and they all understood what she didn't say.
She felt them all, some more (Nick), some less (Susan and Nancy), but every one wanting things to be better. They could do it, she knew. Figure out how they wanted things to be, like Peter said, and use their abilities all together to make it happen.
If they were careful, if they trusted each other, they could do anything.
Not long after Dr. Walter announced he was shutting down the daycare, thank you children, have good lives.
They were upset at first, but soon realized it didn't matter. They didn't have to be in the same room, the same city even, to be together. And as time passed and parents moved away and kids changed schools, the bonds between them only grew stronger.
None of them would ever be alone again.
Too many notes:
From a comment to Sprocket on 6/26/2015:
"[Sense8 is] ripe for fusions, too; what are the Cortexikids but an artificially generated Cluster?"
- so clearly I was doomed to write it. Fiddled around with it some, got excited when Fusion Fest 2016 was announced, and promptly lost the thread again. This has not been a good writing year, so I'm calling it a draw with this one.
Obviously there would be a lot to follow up on, including:
* Peter having confirmation that he's not crazy, and seeking out Olivia again for more information;
* Carla Warren having been familiar with Clusters-perhaps having a family member who was a sensate-and her reaching out to the eight to help them with their questions;/
* A lot more exploration of the good and bad of the Sense8 connection, like the part where twins Susan and Nancy can't tell each other apart anymore, and when years later Sally and Nick start having sex and everyone feels it, and how Olivia is far more aware of fringe phenomena than Broyles knows at the start;
* And how the connection of the Cluster keeps Nick's empathy, Susan and Nancy's pyrokinesis, and Simon's telepathy under control, and how they all feed James's ability to keep his cancer from devouring him and the rest of them. In short: David Robert Jones doesn't have a chance of recruiting any of them. But that connection has its vulnerabilities, too...