Test Drive 01

[cognitivus]

ɢᴇᴛ ᴄʟᴜsᴛᴇʀᴇᴅ

A Sense8 AU Sandbox

IN THE BEGINNING

It doesn't happen all at once — the world does not reorient itself and thrust upon you seven other cluster mates. No, it happens in stages. Snatches at a time. Moments, sometimes individually, sometimes in sets of two or three. Maybe you're reading a book, and you notice someone sitting beside you on the couch. Maybe you're surfing, and suddenly there's a second person on the board. Maybe you see them in passing, or maybe you both stand there, face to face, equally confused, wondering how you can both speak the same language when one of you is from Middle Earth and the other is clearly in Tokyo.

There's time to talk. Time to figure it out.

Unless, of course, there isn't. It's entirely possible that your first meeting is not during a calm, cozy, collected moment. Maybe you call on one of your sensates during a time of need. A fight, a chase scene, a moment of public speaking in the spotlight. A time when you're truly out of your depth, and you need someone with a particular, complimentary set of skills that can step in on your behalf.

It's time.

warnings : violence, psychological horror

GETTING STARTED

WELCOME TO THE CLUSTER!


On this TDM, don't worry too much about your official cluster pairing. This is for either workshopping different combinations, or different characters. If, in the end, you find you really like a certain combination, simply be sure to ask to be in the same cluster as the folks you've threaded with! For now, worry instead about playing out first meetings. It could look a little something like this:

Tag in with your character name & canon.

Set a scene by providing a variety of moments other characters can witness and jump into.

If you're going to tag into the same prompt someone else has already tagged into, consider making it a group thread; the premise eof this sandbox revolves highly around multi-person interactions. Don't be shy! These are your cluster mates, after all.

Or, if you're feeling especially daring and dramatic (and let's face it, we all are):

Set up a scene from an impactful moment around your intended canonpoint.

AU it to your heart's content. Maybe things go exactly the same as they did in canon, or maybe with a sensate cluster influencing things, it begins the path that deviates things wildly from the canon we all know and love. It's entirely up to you!

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NETWORK USAGE

Communication via text is still very possible!

Through the magic of the powers of the human mind, that group text across universes still totally exists. Maybe it appears as an actual text chain to you, or maybe it's freshly dried ink on that magical scroll that keeps writing itself the more messages are exchanged.

Whatever the case, your mind retains the communications written down by your cluster, and all correspondences to one another are visible — unless otherwise stated to be private, of course. Create a prompt on your top level with some inbox action, and do a little lowkey texting!

Be sure to specify if a thread is private, otherwise you may have a handful of other folks chiming in with their opinion on your back-and-forth exchange at any time!

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ANYTHING ELSE

Check out the info page for details, or post to the enable me please meme with information about characters you're considering bringing in! If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask me below, or on plurk!

Comments

[cognitivus]

"I can't pretend to know how it works any better than you do," Will starts, hedging, slow and tentative — because he doesn't know. He has no concrete answers, but he has... ideas. Concepts. Things of the abstract tend to come more naturally to him than they do most people, things based in cognition, things rooted in the mind. In thought and in feeling. It's a familiar, oft-tread path. Maybe not this branch of it, though. "But I think... you're not here, just like I'm not there."

He speaks with his hands absently, a thoughtless gesture, gesticulating at nothing in particular.

"To put it another way... when asked to recount the events that unfolded at the Hobbs residence, nobody made mention of a man matching your description. Everything you did was attributed to me. And, I suspect, if I were to do this--"

They're in the store. He reaches out, picks a box of cereal from the shelf, and places it in the cart. It's there. It's visibly, physically there, in the cart.

"--the security camera footage would only show you, reaching out to take the box. Because we're not- separate. We aren't two separate people. I think we were, but... I don't think we are anymore. Not- distinctly. Not in the way we understand the concept of separation. Certainly not to the people around us."

Those doors in his mind... they don't look like intrusions. They don't look like things that were built there by some other hand. They don't look out of place. They look organic; they grew with the landscape. They were always there in another form, waiting to become what they are now.

He thinks. He thinks.
He knows how it sounds, it sounds completely insane. Absolutely unhinged, but also... right.

[brandingproblem]

"It's all happening but it's not happening right now. Except that it's happening."

Clint scrubs at his eyes. Will's eyes? Whose eyes is he watching from behind? It isn't that it feels wrong. Because it doesn't, not really. Strange, weird, a little distressing. But not wrong.

"Okay. I killed someone and saved his daughter. You didn't exactly have it under control. And you came and found me. And I'm...just existing. I'm gonna...finish my errand. Go home, unpack the groceries, and then, I don't know. Something. I'll do something. And we'll just wander in and out of each others lives."

Simple-complicated enough. Sure. That's fine. This is fine.

"How many dogs do you have?"

[cognitivus]

As it so happens, Will's eyes are tired, dry, sore — he's not entirely sure why. Allergies, maybe. Too much time swapping between glasses and no glasses? It doesn't matter, it's not important.

The way he looks at Clint feels an awful lot like commiseration. It's companionable, comfortable, the apologetic little smile he wears. Not that it's his fault, it's just... he understands the fatigue. He really, really understands.

His lips only quirk up a little higher at the question and, after a lengthy beat, he finally answers, "Seven." And then, "For now."

No guarantees it won't become eight one day; not that he's looking, not that he's searching it's just... if he should happen to come across another stray...

"...Would you like to meet them?"

[brandingproblem]

Clint, for all he'd been laser focused and deadly serious in the Hobbs home, for all he'd been sullen and demure in the store, slowly but steadily perks up at the offer. It feels...almost forbidden.

And in a way, it is, isn't it? If he's somewhere else. Somewhere nobody can find him (kind of, sort of, because he's still in New York physically), and Will isn't about to pull the rug out from under him. He knows this. In his core. The same as he knows that Frank will never hit him, will never ever lie to him. Will does not look at him and see collar.

Hell, Will clearly has barely any concept of what a collar is, which is--thrilling, actually. Exciting in a lot of ways, strange and foreign and kind of funny in a way.

"Yeah." He'd love to meet a pack of seven dogs! Please.

[cognitivus]

That smile grows, blooming into something pleased and sincere — and then he turns his attention outward toward the field. One sharp whistle carries through, and on comes the stampede. An absolute herd of dogs all bounding up to him at once, sniffing curiously, darting around him, circling, tails wagging as if they're meeting some new fun stranger even though it's just Will — they know that it isn't. They know there is someone else here, somehow, in that instinctive way only dogs know things.

"Everybody, this is Clint. Clint, this is Max, Buster, Jack, Zoe, Harley, Ellie, and Winston," he says, pointing to each of them in turn. "Don't worry, there's a quiz later."

He's kidding. He doesn't expect anyone that isn't himself to keep track of all the names. It's fine. The dogs don't mind either, they're just ecstatic to meet the guy that smells identical to Will but is not Will.

[brandingproblem]

And what a contrast it must be. From the sure and steady man that raised a gun and smoothly put one bullet right where it needed to be.

And what a contrast this is, from the shaking, gasping man seeing visions of the dead.

Clint might not actually get quizzed on this later, but rest assured, he's memorizing each dog and their name. For later. It's not going to be the most useful information, but he'll remember it anyway. It'll be useful to him. He's ecstatic to be greeted by so many wiggly waggily faces and excited tongues lapping at him. "Hi, guys! Hello!" Is this heaven? Is this a slice of heaven?

Why would he ever want to leave?

Oh. He knows exactly why. But if he can stay here just a little bit longer...

"I've got one at--" He stops just short of saying 'at home'. "You'd like him. Maybe later you can meet him."

[cognitivus]

He doesn't miss it; I've got one at... He'll ask later. Some things can wait. They're only just starting to get used to the concept of the other existing, not everything needs to be pulled out and spilled all over the table right away. They need to be able to breathe. They need to be able to think. They need to be able to just... sit, and pet some dogs. Therapy for the soul.

"I'd like that," he says softly, and means it.

The moment doesn't last; it can't. Back at the grocery store, somebody shoulder-checks Clint on their way past, muttering, "Watch it," like Clint wasn't standing perfectly still and they weren't the ones responsible. It strikes Will then, just how utterly invisible that thing around Clint's throat makes him.

Is it wrong of him to feel a little jealous?
It is, he knows it is. Still, the concept of fading into the background is more appealing than it has any right to be, to a man like Will. He'll keep that thought firmly to himself; common sense is all it takes to know that there are far worse things associated with a collar than invisibility.

[brandingproblem]

Clint gets yanked back to reality--his reality--with a quietly mumbled "Sorry, sir", and decides to take this moment to breathe. And figure this out. He's in the middle of something. Okay. He cannot, in fact, just stop here and decide to stay in a dog-filled world for as long as he wants.

His hands flex on the cart handle. Dares to look, for just a moment, for Will. "I should finish here," he informs softly. Once he's back where they're staying at, once he's back inside and with Frank...hell, once he's packed the groceries up in the van and is behind the wheel, that's when he can be more himself again.

He can't do that here. Can't do that now. And...it's strange. How he doesn't know this guy, but he suddenly can't imagine being without this shadow. Like something's slotted into place that he never knew was missing. So is it weird to feel kind of ashamed, like he doesn't want Will to see him in this technically rightful place? Has he gotten so used to being allowed more freedoms with Frank that sometimes realizing that's special treatment is gutting?

Can't allow himself more dog time until he's done being public-facing, at the very least.

[cognitivus]

It's not an uncommon thing, for Will to understand things he'd rather not understand. For him to see things the way other people see them — he's reluctant to say that he sees them as they are, because such a statement implies a level of objectivity that simply isn't fair or accurate. The way he views Clint is not the same as the way the man who shoulder checked him views Clint, which is not the way Clint views himself, and none of them are wrong just as none of them are right. The truth lies somewhere in a more complicated gray area. The truth is in the eye of the beholder. The truth is... he can't stand around in this grocery store all day.

The truth is, he feels ashamed and self-conscious, and lesser. The truth is, he needs something bolstering, and he's not getting that. Humans call things self-confidence and self-worth like they're entirely internal concepts. Like the world and the people around them don't feed into those things. It's simply not true.

He reaches over and, very gently, wraps a hand around Clint's wrist. Light. Reassuring. Just to gently squeeze something comforting into the skin there — and it's incredible what the human mind can do, the way it can convince itself it feels something. For all Clint's perceived reality knows, he really has just been touched. The right signals in his brain fire, the right nerve endings light up. It feels real.

"For what it's worth... I think you're handling this better than most people could," And then, just as lightly, he lets go and steps back. "I'll be- you know. Around."

That last bit is a little wry — you know where to find me.

And then he's gone from the store, gone from Clint's vision. But never very far away.