Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Have you ever considered giving yourself your own name?”

The question had been floating around her head for a short while, and probably it had been a subconscious speculation since she met him that fateful night which only surfaced once they truly began delving into each other, but the physical reaction or lack thereof she doesn’t feel in his body pressed against hers underneath the covers intrigues her. Her back had been pressed snug against his chest but she turns over to face him in an effort to convey the proper importance of her inquiry. 

She’d like to think that she’s grown capable of reading the language of his expressions, but this time he has her stumped. 

“Yes,” Bog says, voice low. In the streaks of moonlight streaming in through the window he is pale and beautiful.

She looks his features over again, hoping to pull any sort of enlightenment from his naturally sharp but presently gentle features. But, nothing. “Why haven’t you?”

“Don’t I deserve the name my charges have given me?”

There it is. A flicker of melancholy in his voice and eyes, in the slightest, most minuscule movement of his brow. It’s subtle but it cuts Marianne to the core. There’s so much resignation in his words, such a lack of self worth. And it kills her. 

“That’s not my point. You deserve to be comfortable with, to love the name you’re given. It’s something you live with. ‘Bog King’ is a title. It’s not a name. You deserve something more than a formality.”

There’s a risk that her words will be taken the wrong way and it’ll cause more hurt than she intends, but she hopes he’ll know that she isn’t invalidating him even more. 

“I…” Now he seems to be at a loss of words, and his expression loosens to convey that. Something like pain crosses his face as he looks into her eyes. “No one’s ever told me that.”

A fissure drives through Marianne’s heart. Inexplicably, her mind conjures up an image of a young Bog reduced to such shallow formalities that didn’t reflect him, with no one to explore anything closer than that with. She can only imagine what that would do to someone. 

“I hope that hasn’t led you to decide your worth.”

He shifts in the bed and takes a hesitant breath. “I’ve never been close enough to anyone to warrant anything more personal than my title, I suppose.”

She shakes her head and briefly wonders what that means about her. “That’s not your fault.”

He pauses, the painful conflict evident in his face, but it soon yields to a crumpled copy of a smile. It appears he’s exhausted his growing tolerance to emotional vulnerability, ready to put the conversation away for another time. 

“I—I’m getting tired, love. I think I should turn in for the night.”

Marianne wonders if she should pursue the subject, but decides that pushing it would only push him away, and that’s the last thing she wants to do. The conversation can wait. “Okay. Of course. I love you.”

“And I love you,” he says softly. They don’t go to move. His eyes don’t close and neither do hers.

After a moment of comfortable silence in the space between them, she is content to lay like this forever, relishing in the presence of her beloved like the night could go on forever, because with each passing second the swirling blossom of love in her chest for him grows. 

 “Did you know—” he tests his voice, clearing it when it comes out weak—“Lysander means freedom?”

A warm wave rolls through her. Maybe he realizes his worth after all. A smile crosses her face. “No, I didn’t. Do you like that?”

“It’s foreign, but… I think perhaps I do.”

She leans forward, presses her lips to his forehead, then his lips. His eyes close at the intimacy of the touch. “You mean the stars to me, my darling.”

When his eyes open, they’re shining. “And you mean the world to me.”

They lie together tangled in each other’s embrace for a while, and though he may be asleep, her lips part to whisper a hushed praise: “I love you, Lysander.”

She’s willing to unravel all the months and years worth of self-hatred and doubt guarding his heart like barbed wire grown into the bark of a tree. It could take just as many years if not more, and she doesn’t expect any less, because she knows he’s just as real and sensitive as anyone else. She’ll do it, though, even if he may fight her sometimes. He’s worth it.