artoflove | (no subject)

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Lito dreams of Hernando.

His hands, his mouth, the way he looks at him. It is one of those dreams that leave him wanting, grasping at the sheets of the bed. It's the kind of dream that he knows he will need to apologize to Will for, because it's the sort that leaves him achingly hard in the morning. This morning, though, Lito wakes up wet. "Dios mio," he murmurs, sliding his fingers lower to find a distinct absence of something between his thighs that he wants very badly.

It's strange, because he doesn't feel completely wrong. He's shared everything with other women because of the cluster, but this is intimate and personal and him. He runs his fingers over the curves of this body, thinking of Daniela's. He's not aroused at all until he thinks of Hernando, which makes him bite his lip and twist in bed, his brain quickly latching onto reality.

He fumbles for a mirror, selecting his phone instead. The camera shows a beautiful woman and one that looks a good deal like his sisters (if his sisters had ever elected to become movie stars and put a great deal of time into their grooming regime).

He looks like a stranger.

He's a woman.

Suddenly, he wishes for Nomi to help him through this, but what he has is Will and probably a whole lot of explaining to do.

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There's no recurring nightmare for Will tonight. Instead, he dreams his new recurring dream; the one where he's looking up at Riley's face surrounded by blue sky and the light of the setting sun. It's the last memory he has from before coming to Darrow, the last memory he has of Riley, with her arms around him and her voice gently singing to him.

Only this time, the dream starts to change. They're no longer on the boat. Instead they're on a bed. Lito's bed. Not Lito's bed here but his one back in Mexico City. Riley's small, warm hand runs down Will's now bare chest. "Will," she whispers, her voice shaky with desire. With the effortlessness that dreams allow, he pulls her down on top of him, and they begin to kiss one another with desperation. Skin to skin and back again, they share every sensation, even if this time the connection is only in Will's imagination.

Then Will feels another pair of lips kissing along Riley's shoulder, and fingers which aren't isn't his own massaging her chest. He looks up to see... Hernando? The feeling is nice, but the situation is too bizarre and his mind too on the verge of consciousness for Will to allow it to go on for too much longer.

Upon waking, Will can feel how hard he is in his boxer shorts, and all he wants to do is spend a few minutes in bed thinking only of being with Riley. There's just one problem. He can hear Lito breathing next to him, can sense him the second they're no longer alone. It's not unusual for Lito to be there when he wakes up, and Will is usually grateful for it, but why did he have to be there this morning? He hopes Lito doesn't know that he just had a sex dream which sort of involved his ex-boyfriend. Although, Will realizes, Lito may very well be the reason he had the dream in the first place.

He blinks open his eyes and turns his head to say good morning to Lito and... there's a woman beside him. An almost-too-perfect-not-to-be-Photoshopped woman with long dark hair and bright brown eyes. Will sits bolt upright in surprise, but something stops him from reaching for his gun.

"Who are you?" Will knows who it is, but he's back to making the mistake of only paying attention to what's in front of him and not listening to what his heart is telling him.

This is not the usual morning routine Lito likes to indulge in when he's visiting Will. That typically involves curling up alongside him, half in sleep, and pressing his forehead to whatever warm part of his back that Will allows him to share. Now, though, he has Will demanding to know who he is and right now, Lito is struggling with that question, too. He shifts to his knees, boxers no longer tight (baggy in the one place that reminds him of the cock he's lost) and given that he's topless, there isn't very much modesty going on.

English is too much effort right now, so he's grateful Will can understand him. He wraps his arms around his bared chest before reaching for the blankets, giving Will a gracefully arched eyebrow lift. "Are you really saying you don't know it's me?" he wonders. Can this place sever their knowledge like that?

Will mumbles incoherently as he attempts to pick a direction to look in which isn't directly at the pair of bare breasts that are less than a few feet away from his face. He tries to avert his gaze down at his own lap, but only ends up having a moment of looking down at this unfamiliar body from Lito's point of view. As if that isn't enough for him to finally accept what's happening, when he looks back up at 'her' again, 'she's' arching 'her' eyebrow at him in a way that is so unmistakably Lito.

"I'm sorry. You'd think I'd be used to this sort of thing by now." Will pauses for a second to rub the sleep from his eyes. "Are you okay?" The question he always has to ask. It's not as though they both haven't already experienced having a female body before, but that has always come with an empathic connection to the person the body belongs to. Within their cluster, there has always been some shared sense of familiarity and custodianship over one another's bodies. This is different. This isn't a body even Lito is familiar with. Lito's real body is seemingly non-existent right now. Will isn't sure how he would react if this ever happened to him.

He's not. He is and he isn't. Of course he's upset to lose his body, but at the same time, he's an actor and so used to slipping into the skin of other people that this should just be like any of those other times, yes? And at the same time, he's panicking because he's dealt with women's issues before thanks to Sun and he really doesn't want to relive them. Then again, if he's like this, no one knows who he is and that allows him a modicum of privacy.

His mind whirling a thousand miles a minute, he fumbles on the bed for his t-shirt, yanking it on and dispelling his long hair into a mussy mess, staring down at his tits and saying the first thing that comes to mind. "I don't think these are real," is what he says. "Would I be the kind of woman to get surgery?"

If it were affecting his career, then yes, definitely, he would. He gives one a squeeze, but as he hasn't got much knowledge what real breasts should feel like, he's a little lost. Of all the things rattling around Lito's brain, this is apparently the one he's fixating on.

"I-I don't know," he answers lamely. He hadn't realized this sex swapping trick of the city's took plastic surgery into consideration.

They look and feel real to Will, but while he may have more experience to base that guess on than Lito has, it's not like he's ever asked a woman he's been with if she has breast implants or not. Regardless of whether they're natural or silicone, Lito giving one a squeeze really isn't helping certain parts of Will's body forget about that dream.

Reaching across the bed, he takes hold of Lito's free hand. It's smaller and even softer than Lito's real hands, but it's his heart and mind that Will knows best, and in that regard he remains unchanged. "I'm gonna make us some coffee and breakfast, get dressed, and then we'll sit down and talk about this, alright? We'll figure out how to handle this." Will's still pretty freaked out himself, but he pushes his own thoughts and feelings aside to make sure that his friend feels safe and calm.

This is the sort of thing that he knows he should be more concerned about, but there are so many panicking things in his head that are his and some that he recognizes as Will's, that he's sort of drowning in them, pressing a hand to his chest as he tries to keep calm. He feels immensely like he's drowning in his clothes and he makes it to his feet, balance completely off.

"What does it feel when you're here with me?" he asks, getting used to the new tones. His accent has always been different from Daniela's because of his time spent in Spain, so hearing his words in such a womanly voice is also odd. "When you visit, is it different?"

Will pushes his sheets aside and stands up, feeling sturdier than he knows Lito does. He makes his way over to his kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee, but his eyes never stray from Lito for more than a few seconds, watching him with concern. "It feels the same. I mean, looking at you, it's like I'm meeting you for the first time, but I still know it's you. I can still feel what you're feeling right now. Why? Is it different for you?"

"Yes, of course it feels different," Lito says, a touch concerned with his balance and his too-big clothes. He follows after Will, feeling a little like a lost bird and wants to stay close to the familiar. "But it doesn't. It's like being in someone else's head, but mine. It's like I'm with Sun or Kala, but I'm not. I'm me," he says, sliding his hands over his figure.

This means one thing, too. "I need to go shopping." He hasn't got the clothes for this and his hair product is all wrong. This, he knows.

Leaning his hands on the kitchen countertop and stretching his strong arms out straight, Will takes in a deep breath, breathing in the ritualistic scent of the brewing coffee. He stands close to Lito's side, feeling drawn there both by Lito's need to have him close and his own protective instinct. Subconsciously, his sense of protectiveness over Lito is even stronger when he's in this smaller body (maybe not as small as Sun, but Lito doesn't have her skills in self-defense).

"You are you. I know how strange this is for you," he pauses for a brief moment, a little distracted by how nice the feminine curves feel under Lito's hands, "for both of us. I still can't quite believe that this is happening. But our connection hasn't changed. I haven't changed. I'm still here, the same as ever, and you know me, so try to focus on that." He knows that his advice won't fix this, but he hopes that it might provide some comfort.

"Do you have anywhere you need to be today? I might be able to use my lunch break to run to a store and buy you something to wear." Will isn't even sure if he should still go in to work. Would this count as a 'family emergency'? Clank might understand, but would the Captain? And Will's not going to shirk work responsibilities unless it's absolutely necessary. "Could you maybe borrow something from a neighbor?"

Lito may not be the same man that he was before, but he's still the same person. The idea that he could just borrow someone's ill-fitting, borrowed clothes is borderline offensive and he gives a disgusted huff of noise. "I'm not wearing anything you buy over lunch and I'm not going to wear a neighbour's clothes," he protests. "I'm going to go out and buy proper fitting things and dresses and perfume. I may not be myself, but there's always an image to maintain."

He gives one last little huff, settling down on a chair as he lets Will's protective spirit wash over him, tide him over, and he feels grateful for it. "I've worked very, very hard to get my body as a man. If that transferred over, I am going to show it off."

"I should go out," he realizes. "I should go out to a bar, we should go out, Will."

Laughing softly, Will throws his hands up in mock defeat, feeling another wave of tension roll off his shoulders. "Alright, then. I'll let you take care of the clothes."

He continues to smile and shake his head fondly as he finishes making his coffee (black with one sugar) and takes a seat beside Lito.

"Sure, we can go out. Tonight, or do you want to wait until the weekend?"

Lito beams and thinks of how long he'll need to get proper clothes. "Safer to say the weekend," he says, evaluating how long he'll really need to get himself dressed and put together and fancy. He feels relaxed in Will's company and ends up leaning his cheek on Will's shoulder both for the proximity and the warmth.

"I feel strange," he confesses. "Free. Not like I want to be like this, but that when I'm like this, no one would ever know it's me when I do things like stare at men."

As Lito rests a soft cheek on Will's bare shoulder, he lifts his arm and brings it around Lito's back, gently gripping his upper arm. Even with their incredible psychic connection, it's taken Will a little by surprise how comfortable they've become with each other in such a short amount of time. It's not a bad thing, but he sometimes wonders if being alone in Darrow, without anyone else from the cluster or any of their own friends and family, has brought them closer in a way they wouldn't be otherwise.

"I'm sorry you don't feel free to do that all of the time." Will pauses to take a sip of his coffee, but it's still too hot, slightly scalding his tongue. "Sorry," he says, knowing that Lito likely felt it, too.

"Is that why you want to go out?" he asks with a smile, getting back to the conversation and trying to keep the mood light, "Am I gonna be the third wheel while every other guy flirts with you?"

He winces at the hot coffee on his tongue, though the spark of caffeine is a welcome thing, the temperature isn't and Lito sticks his tongue out momentarily before he settles, easing off Will's shoulder and giving him an amused look. "I need a wingman," he points out. "I haven't had to go out and attract men, not ever in my life. I don't know what you expect of a woman."

Things with Hernando had been so secretive, but so easy once they started. "And I'm not free to be myself, not if I want my career. It's why I lost everything," he says, swallowing back the grief.

Will almost laughs trying to imagine it. "Lito, trust me, you walk into a bar looking like that, you'll have no trouble getting a man's attention." It's a strange thing to admit, but Will can't see the point in trying to deny the obvious.

As Lito talks of losing Hernando, Will can feel the lump of heartbreak in his throat. But he's not entirely sure that Lito didn't somehow works things out with his lover in the time that Lito doesn't remember. The last time Will had seen him, mixed in with the fear they all felt for Riley, he had been sure Lito had felt relieved about something; overjoyed, even. But without knowing anything for certain, Will doesn't know what he can say to ease his grief.

But there is something he's been wanting to say: "It's not so different in my line of work, you know. Better than in my dad's day, that's for sure, but I knew of a few men and women on the force back in Chicago who kept it kind of quiet about having a same-sex partner. I'm not trying to say that I know from personal experience what it's like. I've only really felt for myself what I feel from you. I don't know much about the world of movie stars and celebrity gossip, but I do know what it's like to feel pressure to be a certain kind of man, to not seem weird or weak to those around you."

Lito cannot help primping just a little when Will compliments him so thoroughly, pushing up his voluminous hair and offering a wink (just a little one) in order to throw Will a little off his game. He can sense that Will isn't telling him something, but he isn't sure he wants to know, so he leaves it alone, leaves Will with his secrets.

"If I wanted to keep getting roles in action and romance, especially in Mexico, I had to keep up the facade," he explains. "Maybe it would've been easier as a woman. But a gay man? No," he says, shaking his finger sternly, "no, I would've been seen as weak."

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