#sensate

CHARACTER: Wolfgang Bogdanow

PLAYED BY: Max Riemelt

SHOW: Sense8 (2015-2018)

This safecracking criminal from Berlin grew up around violence and crime, yet he still turned out to be a good person. Wolfgang is a sensate and is not only beautiful to look at, he is tough and a little pragmatic but he is incredibly loyal and vulnerable. He doesn't really have much too say (especially in group situations), but when he does speak it's worth listening too.

Played by gorgeous German actor Max Riemelt, Wolfgang was a favourite of mine from the get go.

Happy Birthday to the cluster that changed our lives and the world. I know I miss you everyday and I hope you are continuing to thrive wherever you are

It was getting unbearable.

Lito swore he could taste it in the air whenever Wolfgang and Will ended up in the same space—like static on the back of his tongue, like the stretch before lightning strikes. Nomi described it as “porn Wi-Fi with no parental controls.” Kala, polite as ever, called it “a vibration of possibility,” though she couldn’t say it without flushing.

Everyone knew it. Everyone felt it. And still, the two most stubborn men in the cluster—one German hitman with a smirk and one Chicago cop with puppy-dog nobility—refused to do anything about it.

They’d kissed before, sure. They’d touched before—sort of. But only in the heat of those cluster-orgies where boundaries blurred, where consent was spoken with eyes and gasps, where bodies tangled without hesitation. They’d never been alone. Never dared.

So the rest of them decided to fix it.

---

“Can someone grab more wine?” Wolfgang’s voice cut across the table, gravel-rough, bored.

“I’ll get it,” Will offered immediately, because of course he did. He stood, brushing past Wolfgang in that too-tight t-shirt, their shoulders brushing like a dare.

Everyone else shared a look.

And then, casually, as if it wasn’t staged at all, they all found reasons to drift away. Sun went to take a phone call that didn’t exist. Capheus remembered he’d left the stove on (he hadn’t). Nomi and Amanita disappeared hand-in-hand with a very unsubtle wink. Lito excused himself to “rehearse,” and Kala muttered something about prayers.

When Will came back, bottle in hand, it was just him and Wolfgang.

---

“You notice how they keep doing that?” Will asked, eyes narrowing.

Wolfgang’s smirk spread slow. “What? Abandoning us?”

“Yeah. Like they’re…” He hesitated, staring into Wolfgang’s pale eyes, “…trying to set us up.”

“Smart of them,” Wolfgang said simply.

The air thickened. Will tried to laugh, but it came out cracked. “You don’t hold back much, do you?”

“Not my style.” Wolfgang leaned back in his chair, legs spread wide, the very picture of lazy confidence. His gaze dragged over Will, slow, deliberate, unashamed. “You going to keep pretending you don’t want this?”

Will swallowed. Hard. The cluster could feel the way his pulse jumped, the way his stomach flipped.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, but it didn’t sound like a denial.

“Gladly,” Wolfgang replied, almost purring.

---

When Will kissed him, it was less kiss and more collision. Teeth, heat, the scrape of stubble, a low growl swallowed into Wolfgang’s mouth.

The rush went through the cluster like a shockwave. Sun gasped mid-shadowboxing. Lito dropped his script entirely and groaned, dramatic. Kala pressed her hands to her mouth like she could stop herself from moaning. Capheus laughed, delighted, muttering, “Finally!” while Nomi and Amanita broke into cheers.

By the time the others flowed back in—because of course they did—Will had Wolfgang pressed against the table, one hand in his hair, the other sliding beneath his shirt.

“Don’t stop on our account,” Lito said, fanning himself.

Will pulled back just enough to glare, flushed and panting. “You planned this.”

“Obviously,” Nomi said. “You two were driving the rest of us insane.”

Wolfgang, lips bruised and wet, just grinned. “Guess it worked.”

---

And then, as these things always went with them, the heat spilled.

Kala reached first, fingertips on Wolfgang’s arm, then brushing Will’s cheek, tugging both men toward her with a shy-bold smile. Sun appeared at Wolfgang’s other side, silent but steady, her hand sliding under his shirt like she’d been waiting forever. Lito’s laugh rang out as he pressed against Will from behind, kissing along the cop’s jaw.

It was less a decision and more inevitability. Clothes came off. Bodies collided. The room filled with gasps and groans, hands everywhere, every bond in the cluster humming with release.

At the center of it, Wolfgang and Will finally gave in, finally let go, finally tore through the tension that had been choking them all for months.

When Will arched under him, when Wolfgang sank his teeth into Will’s shoulder, the chorus of shared sensation tipped over into something raw and endless.

The cluster was loud that night, tangled in sweat and want, finally, finally free of the ache that had haunted them.

---

By the time dawn broke, none of them could tell where one ended and the other began.

Otherwise, please answer a question I have been contemplating for years.