Meaning to tell (Sense8 Fanfic)

Summary: I should have told them sooner, he thinks. But in the back of his head, he also remembers Wolfgang’s words to him from what feels like forever ago. Sometimes, you make a mistake. You’ve got two choices: you live with it, or you fix it. Even without Wolfgang there, Lito still feels his resolve.

(Missing scenes from 2x11.)

Rating: Teen Ships: Lito/Hernando/Dani, Will/Riley Warnings: canon mentions of blood, implied mentions of canon torture Author’s Note: These were scenes I really wanted to see, so I felt compelled to write them. Written for Lito Appreciation Day for the 9 Days of Sense8, and dedicated to the user flagdemoness on Tumblr.

Cover image from danseur_lion on LiveJournal.

--It takes him a few minutes, but Lito finally convinces his family not to call an ambulance. They’re not quite as easily swayed about going to London. With Hernando’s help, Lito stands up and walks over to the sink. Once he is up, the pain in his body starts to ease. With a pang, he realizes that Wolfgang has passed out. Lito starts washing his face, his movements no longer slowed by his cluster member’s agony.

“What is happening?” Daniela asks. “If you’re really okay, why do we have to go to London?”

“And why London at all?” Hernando added. “Lito, my love, you just landed this part. Do you think now is really the best time to leave?”

Lito doesn’t turn away from the sink, but he listens all the same. This is not how he wants to do this. He doesn’t want to tell his family about things this way. But after over a year of waiting for the right moment, Lito knows he’s run out of time to stall. It’s now or never. He drags a damp washcloth across his face and neck, trying to get as much off the blood as possible. “Family, there is…there is something I have been meaning to tell you.”

“Oh my god,” Hernando says, thinking back to Lito’s episodes of stomach pain the previous year. “You have cancer.”

If it were any other time, Lito would laugh. Right now, though, all he manages is a weak smile. It’s a shadow of its usual self. “No. I don’t have cancer. I’m not sick.” He turns around and dries his face off with a towel.

Daniela raises her eyebrow. “What was all that about, then?”

“Let’s at least leave the bathroom,” Lito says, looking around them. He doesn’t want to worry them by asking them to sit down, but he figures the option should be there for them should they need it. Daniela

and Hernando both look skeptical, but they follow him out of the bathroom and into the hotel room. Lito sat down on the bed, hoping that they would follow his lead. Luckily, they do. Hernando sits to his left, Daniela to his right, and they each wrap an arm around him.

“What do you need to tell us?” Hernando asks. His voice is thick with worry, and Lito feels guilt sweep through him.

I should have told them sooner, he thinks. But in the back of his head, he also remembers Wolfgang’s words to him from what feels like forever ago. Sometimes, you make a mistake. You’ve got two choices: you live with it, or you fix it. Even without Wolfgang there, Lito still feels his resolve. He has to do this now. “There are....there are other people in this world who I feel….” He trails off, trying to think of the right word. “I feel like they are part of me.” It’s not quite right, but it will have to do for now. “And one of them is in trouble. I need to help him.”

Daniela looks confused, and Hernando looks almost hurt. “Is there someone else?” he asks quietly.

“No!” Lito replies. It is instant, and he shakes his head fervently. “It’s not like that.” He leans toward Hernando, kissing him softly. “You are the love of my life.” He pulls Daniela closer to both of them. “You are my family.”

“Are these internet friends?” Daniela asks.

Lito shakes his head again. “I didn’t meet them online.” He pauses and thinks. “I haven’t really met them in person, either, though.” He really isn’t doing a great job of explaining this. Anxiety creeps through him, the instinct to lie so tempting. He doesn’t want to, but what will he do if Hernando and Daniela don’t understand?

Out of the corner of his eye, Lito sees Sun. She is standing behind Hernando. He looks up at her, and she gives him one of her small smiles. “Breathe,” she says. Lito nods, inhaling deeply and trying to ground himself. He draws on Sun’s strength, her calm. She gives it willingly, centering both of them as she waits in line at the airport in Seoul.

“What are you looking at?” Hernando asks, pulling away from Lito to try to see what has drawn his attention.

Sun nods one last time, then she is gone. Lito looks back at Hernando. Instead of directly answering, he says, “Do you remember last year, when I got into that car accident?”

“Yes. It wasn’t that bad. You were just having a rough day,” Hernando says gently.

Lito nods. “Yes. But do you remember what I said before the accident?”

“The stomach pain?” Hernando asks, concern crossing his eyes again.

“No. Well, sort of, but after that.”

Hernando’s brow furrows for a moment, but then he asks, “The crying Korean woman?”

Daniela almost laughs. “The what?”

Lito smiles. “Yes. The crying Korean woman. It was her stomach pain I was feeling.”

“You…what?” Hernando asks.

“Her name is Sun. She lives in Seoul. It was a very bad day for her, not just her stomach. She is…she’s another piece of me.” Lito takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He can do this. His cluster needs him to do this. His family needs him to do this. “There are eight of us. We live in different places, but we can feel and see and hear each other,” he says.

Now Daniela and Hernando look just as scared as when he was bleeding. “Lito, listen to what you are saying,” Hernando says. “How can this be possible?”

“I know it sounds crazy. I thought I was losing my mind at first. But these people are real. The others have been there, too. They’ve helped me.” Knowing where Wolfgang was now, the memories are bittersweet, but Lito knew they are the best examples he has. “Didn’t you wonder where I learned how to break into a security system?”

This gave both Hernando and Daniela pause. “You said it was for a part,” Daniela finally replies.

Lito sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to explain it. But that…that wasn’t me. That was someone else.”

“Who was it?” Hernando asks incredulously.

Lito swallows. “His name is Wolfgang. He’s also…he’s the one who saved us from Joaquin.”

Daniela looks almost upset for a moment, but then nods solemnly. “That’s why you let him hit you so much before you – or this other guy – stopped him?” she asks, but the look in her eyes says she already knows.

He nods in return. “I didn’t – we didn’t – really understand how it worked yet. We didn’t know what was happening. But Wolfgang felt that I was in trouble, and he came to help.” Lito smiles sadly. “Fighting is what he does.”

Hernando looks between Lito and Daniela. “Wait. What?” (He’s wracking his mind, trying to think of more logical explanations. Dissociative Identity Disorder? He wonders, but strikes it soon after. Another personality could have more confidence, but wouldn’t make him physically stronger. Drugs? But Hernando would have noticed. Lito may be a good liar, but Hernando knows him. And the longer Hernando thinks about it, the more he remembers that it was the original stories that had felt like lies. Even as he had heard the Lito tell him he had learned to break into buildings for a role, Hernando had faltered, unable to recall any such part Lito had played.) “But how?”

“It’s complicated. I’m really not the best person to explain it, and we don’t have a lot of time right now.” Lito knows this is a lot of his family to swallow, but he still feels the sense of urgency thrumming through the members of his cluster who aren’t on blockers yet (or unconscious).

“Right. London,” Hernando says.

“Why London?” Daniela asks. “Not to stereotype, but Sun and Wolfgang don’t sound like they’re from England.”

Lito shakes his head. He doesn’t want to scare them, but he knows he’s going to have to tell them what kind of danger Wolfgang is in. That they’re all in. “They’re not. None of them are from there, really.” (He thinks of Riley, she and Will already on blockers and holed up waiting for them in one of her old squats.) “But there are people who….” Lito takes another deep breath. “There are people who want to hurt people like me. Us. Because of our connection. They found Wolfgang.” He can’t bring himself to go into more detail. The implications of that hang heavy between the three of them, Lito’s blood still drying on a washcloth all the evidence they need that this is not something good.

There is a pause, then Daniela asks, “If they can take someone who can fight Joaquin like it’s nothing, what are you guys going to do?”

It could almost have been taken as an insult, but Lito hears the fear in her voice. He smiles a bit, thinking of Sun’s calming effect on him earlier. He thinks of Will, putting himself through hell and back, only to protect them. “Wolfgang is not our only fighter,” he answers. He thinks of the rest of his cluster – Kala with her chemistry, Nomi and her computers, Capheus’ endless courage, Riley’s resilience. And him. Their liar. “We’re all fighters, in our own way. We have a plan.”

--When they leave LA to fly to London, Lito knows Hernando and Daniela are still not sure whether or not they believe him. He knows if there were more time, if he had his other selves with him, it would be so much easier to explain. But after everything, his family trusts him enough to know that this is important. (If nothing else, he has the encrypted email from Nomi with the time he should meet Will and Riley at the airport to prove that something is going on. Hernando had never seen someone go to such elaborate steps just to hide a timestamp.)

To their credit, Daniela and Hernando are handling this remarkably well. Despite the numerous questions they still had, they accepted that this was not something that they could talk about in public. Lito thanked them profusely as they waited for the plane, but the actual fight over was relatively uneventful. (Mostly, they slept. Lito checked in with the other traveling members of the cluster before dozing off himself.)

Now, though, they’re landing. The plane is luckily on time. When they’ve come to a full stop, Lito checks his phone. One new encrypted email.

We’re at international arrivals. –R

Despite the nerves that have been plaguing them, Lito can’t help feeling a bit of excitement. Circumstances aside, he is finally going to meet them. The other parts of him he hadn’t known he needed. They may be missing a member, but his family is one step closer to becoming complete.

Neither Hernando nor Daniela know exactly what to expect. The only details they had managed to get from Lito about who was going to be picking them up from the airport were vague, but he emphasized that he trusted these people with his life.

Their arrival is nothing like when they went to São Paulo. There are no fans, but Lito is visibly more comfortable now than he was then. Daniela and Hernando have to hustle to keep up with Lito, who is weaving and bobbing through the other passengers in order to exit the gate as quickly as possible. Hernando pushes through first, just in time to see his boyfriend make a beeline for a woman with white-blonde hair. The woman is smiling, but there is something achingly sad about her face all the same. He then notices a man next to her. His hair is light brown and cropped short, and although he is out of uniform, his posture almost screams police. (Hernando briefly wonders if this is a trap, if the man is going to do something. But then he sees the man’s eyes soften.)

Daniela catches up a moment later, not at all having worn shoes suited for running. She arrives just in time for the man and woman to pull Lito into a tight hug, the three of them together looking for all the world like they were meeting with people they had known their whole lives. Daniela and Hernando look on, confused but relieved. The man pulls back first, but the woman holds on for another few moments. Lito grips her tightly. The comfort they take in each other is obvious. Eventually, though, the woman also steps back. When she turns, Daniela and Hernando can see a streak of electric-blue in her hair.

Hernando looks at the love between these people. If he didn’t know any better, he would think he was witnessing a family reunion. He watches Lito relax into this, the way he only usually relaxes at home when he can shut out the rest of the world. As he observes, he thinks that maybe the world is a bit weirder than he had imagined. But if it makes Lito this happy, then Hernando finds he’s surprisingly okay with it.