For @twistedangelsays: AU where Wolfgang takes up his uncle’s criminal empire. Obviously, spoilers for the special episode of Sense8.
- So Wolfgang’s uncle was a fucking crime king. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He’s all ready to shoot the offer down and go on his merry way—who the fuck offers a quarter of Berlin to some safecracker just because he happened to off the old boss, anyway—and then… He imagines Sun, in prison because she wouldn’t throw her brother under the bus, and her dark eyes glittering in the harsh light of her cell. He imagines Nomi, constantly reaching out to visit them in order to not go stir-crazy in the hiding places the American government is forcing her into. He imagines Lito, barely treading water against the downward drag of prejudice, and Capheus, who has already swapped so much of his innocence for medicine. He imagines Will, already taking on the pale look of an addict to protect them all.
- Look, it’s simple. Wolfgang has always been good at looking out for number one, and now number one is an eighth of a whole. Looking out for number one, these days, means making sure that he looks out for all of his fractional selves, and they need money, and clout, and somewhere safe.
- He takes the offer. He’ll figure it out as he goes.
- It’s dark in Seoul when he visits Sun that night—he’s really gotten himself in over his head this time, and he needs her steady presence—and she gracefully flips herself down from where she’s doing a handstand against the wall. He’s sitting against the wall of her cell when he says, “I’ve got a fucking story to tell you.” Sun nods, folding herself into a cross-legged position, and he takes a moment to wonder how he’s supposed to explain.
- He can’t come up with anything particularly diplomatic, so he takes a deep breath and says bluntly, “My uncle was in charge of a quarter of Berlin, and it turns out I’m his fucking heir.”
- Sun stares at him like it’s the craziest thing she’s heard in weeks, which he finds unlikely. “What?”
- Wolfgang bares his teeth and says, “I got promoted.”
- It’s a fucking trip to explain it to the others. Kala is disappointed, which…he wishes he was surprised by that, but it’s not like he’s lied to her about who he is. Nomi probably rolls with it best, except for Capheus, because Capheus is just unconquerably happy whenever the cluster is together and no petty little criminal empire is going to change that. He hugs Riley and gets a kiss on the cheek from Lito and actually laughs like a kid when Wolfgang admits to the situation. Nomi starts making suggestions immediately, and under any other circumstances Wolfgang might be offended, but the truth is that he needs the help, so he nods and writes down what she says.
- Riley is the first one to bring up the obvious question, because for all that she’s quiet and shy even within their cluster, she’s ferociously loyal. “So,” she asks, a quiet murmur that nonetheless brings debate to a halt, “can you help get Sun out of prison?”
- Sun looks up in surprise from where Lito is teaching her a clapping game to keep her busy in her cell.
- Wolfgang grins. “Well, I didn’t take the offer for the fucking benefits.”
- It’s unfathomably weird, some month and a half later, to have a tiny Korean woman in a business-formal dress turn up at his door, really truly there and scowling at his bodyguard (he only has one, and only because he couldn’t make him leave). She’s been yelling in Korean for five minutes by the time someone gets Wolfgang, and her frown evaporates as she throws herself at him in a hug.
- “Look!” she shouts in Korean that he understands, dragging him outside into the perpetual Berlin rain—worse than usual today, plastering her hair to her face. He lets himself be dragged, because it would be bad for his reputation if he was beaten up by this tiny woman, and Sun-Capheus-Riley-Lito grabs his hands to spin in a circle. “I am free!”
- “Yeah,” Wolfgang laughs, feeling his fractional selves at his back. “Yeah, you are.”
