Work Text:
"I want you to kill me," Gwen says. Her voice is hoarse, like it had to scratch its way out of her throat to get out. "Before I- change, I want you to kill me."
Morgana can't look at her. She can't see the steely determination in Gwen's face, the fear creeping in at the corners. She can't risk looking down and seeing the bloodied bandage wound around Gwen's arm.
"I can't," Morgana whispers. "Gwen, I can't."
Gwen lays a hand on her arm, gently, so gently. Morgana closes her eyes.
"Please," Gwen whispers, and her breath shivers on Morgana's neck. "I wouldn't ask, I'd do it myself if I could, but- but I can't- I'm so sorry, Morgana."
And Morgana just makes this noise, a kind of strangled cry that gets lost somewhere in her throat, and grips Gwen's shoulders and kisses her. Except her eyes are still closed and she misjudges the distance between them so she misses Gwen's mouth completely, gets the bump of her nose instead. Gwen takes her by the chin - gently, always fucking gently - and angles her face up so the next time Morgana leans in their lips meet instead.
"But, Arthur," Morgana starts, eyes opening, when Gwen pulls back.
"Arthur is dead," Gwen says fiercely, "and I'm not, not yet."
Morgana closes her eyes again. Arthur was bitten a few weeks ago; Gwen had to kill him, because Morgana couldn't and the others were long gone. The look on Gwen's face, afterwards, still haunts Morgana, in a way her half-brother's lifeless body sprawled bleeding on the pavement doesn't.
"You were supposed to get married," Morgana whispers, and she's rocking now, backwards and forwards, clutching her knees. Gwen's face, stoic and calm, is burnt onto the backs of her eyelids. "You were supposed to have two and a half children and be sickeningly happy together for the rest of your lives, none of this was supposed to happen."
"Morgana," Gwen says softly, then, louder, "Morgana," when she only shakes her head violently, laying a hand on Morgana's arm to stop her quivering, and when that doesn't work pressing her lips to Morgana's forehead, her cheek, and finally her mouth.
This time the noise Morgana makes is halfway between anguish and sheer unadulterated want, and she opens her mouth to let Gwen inside, her legs spreading automatically. Gwen settles between them like she belongs there, like this is where she was always meant to be, but Morgana has always thought that, wished for that. Even when Gwen was hopelessly straight and dating her brother, even when they announced the engagement and Morgana tried to kiss her and Gwen turned her head and didn't speak to her for a week, even when they lowered Arthur's body into the makeshift grave they dug for him and Gwen held Morgana as she cried, her own eyes dry as a bone. Morgana hoped.
(She knows, rationally, that nothing has changed, that Gwen loves her fiercely but not in the way Morgana loves her, that if Gwen weren't staring a death sentence in the face she wouldn't be letting Morgana have this. She knows, but the larger, irrational part of her doesn't care. She's wanted Gwen for so long she can't bring herself to.)
Gwen cries when she comes, awful hitching sobs which catch in her throat and Morgana would love, love to believe it's her fingers buried deep inside Gwen, twisting, which wrench the tears out of her, but she hears the bitten-off Arth- and can't.
Morgana cries, too, a garbled litany of curses and Gwen's name and something that might be love tangled among it all, and Gwen kisses the tears off Morgana's cheeks and whispers, "I know, it's okay, I know," even though Morgana isn't sure even she does.
They hold each other, afterwards, which isn't anything new; they always sleep curled together, ever since Arthur. Gwen clings more than usual, though, and Morgana strokes lines down her bandaged arm, wishing that would cure it, wishing there was anything she could do that would.
"I'll do it," she whispers, finally, and it's been so long since Gwen asked Morgana doesn't think she'll know what she means, but the sigh Gwen breathes is grateful and so, so tired.
"Thank you," Gwen murmurs, "thank you," and Morgana grips her tight and starts counting down the minutes.