Modern day Morgwen AU, where they’re mid-twenties young adult disasters trying to figure out what they’re doing with their lives and slowly realizing they’re in love with each other. Gwen and Morgana have been friends since high school when they met as reenactors at a Renaissance Fair, something Morgana is still kinda into and Gwen is deeply embarrassed about. They now live in a cramped London flat with their even more disastrous friend Merlin, who they also met at a Ren Fair and who’s been trying to get them to play D&D with him ever since. Rounding out the friend group are Arthur, Gwen’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Morgana’s step-brother, and Merlin’s mega-crush; Gwaine, who joined them at a bar one night and hasn’t left since; Leon, the “dad” of the group; Elyan, Gwen’s twin brother and the one who always wants them to start a commune in the country together; Lancelot, Gwen’s lovelorn but respectful ex; and Percival, who just showed up one day—no one really knows where he came from or why, but he doesn’t say much and he has great arms, so they let him stay. They’re also sometimes joined by Morgause, Morgana’s older, long-lost half-sister, whom Morgana used to have crush on back before she knew they were related and who shows up to shake her head at the gang’s antics. It’s all very incestuous (but never literally!).

There’s no big event, no cosmic moment that changes everything; it happens gradually, and not at exactly the same time. It starts for Morgana first. How Gwen comes home from a shift at the overcrowded daycare where she works, exhausted but undefeated, eager to talk about the new milestones her kids have reached. How she talks about her dreams of going to law school and becoming a child advocate. How she takes care of everyone—tucking Merlin in when he falls asleep on the couch watching Star Trek, making Arthur chicken noodle soup and ginger tea when he’s sick, really listening when Morgana talks, making her feel important, like she matters. How she’s started taking care of herself too, reminding people she’s not their emotional dumping ground, that she has feelings too. Sometimes Morgana will catch herself staring at Gwen, studying the way the light from the window catches in her hair, ensconcing her in a halo-like glow. She’s always loved Gwen, but not like this, not in this prickly, dangerous way that has her staring at Gwen as she twirls spaghetti around her fork, imagining those fingers tracing the lines of her body, reaching inside her.

The first time Gwen catches Morgana staring at her, she writes it off. Morgana has always been prone to staring off into space; sometimes Gwen just happens to be in that space. The second time, she chastises herself. Gwen is familiar with the type of straight girl who assumes every lesbian fancies her, and she swore when Morgana came out never to be that girl. They’re just friends. Friends look at one another. The third time Gwen catches Morgana staring, she realizes she’s been staring as well. Staring at those blue green eyes—the strength behind them, as well as the vulnerability. There’s a certain lost quality to Morgana, a quiet searching that Gwen has never understood. When her eyes meet Morgana’s, she is fixed in place, made solid and real. How can the girl who makes her feel so at home be so unmoored herself? She begins reaching for Morgana’s hand in public, giving her an anchor amidst the crowd. Soon the handholding progresses to a holding of everything, an entwining of limbs as they watch bad horror movies on Sunday nights, a too-tight hold as they layer atop one another in Leon’s overstuffed car, filled to the brim with drunk, unseatbelted friends. And when they wake tangled up in each other on the couch, the good morning kiss they share just makes sense—even though it is eleven at night, even though they are friends and friends don’t do this. And when Gwen says, “I love you,” Morgana says it back, and they both know it means something different from what it did before.