#dbtss

[dilfonso]

down by the seaside is such a summer song

[bagog]

Well since you put it out there, Number 3: Ben Shepard in The Difference, favorite line in the whole damn fic probably. "It’s all I am. It’s all I have to give. I would fight every evil in the universe, Kaidan, if it made the galaxy worthy of the way you look at it when you look up at the stars. Do you believe that?" No need to continue this with anything, just wanted to remind you how much I loved it!

Gah! Thank you for liking this line! I get pretty paranoid about my prose, especially the big dramatic gestures, so it’s REALLy gratifying to hear things people like.

This is the only line in the entire story that I wrote out by hand. I was riding the bus, trying to think of just the right way to say this sentiment to REALLY drive home the whole sea/sky conceit, and I wrote that line out on the back of a receipt.

++

Honestly, Shepard had always thought Shaun was running off to use the bathroom, the minute his reading homework was done (and, to be fair, he was). But this time, Shepard noticed his son pad off to the back office after washing his hands in the bathroom.

Shepard pulled himself off the sofa, his hip protesting the movement. Probably, the kid was just going to use Kaidan’s terminal for as long as he could before his dad got home.

Still, when Shepard got to the office, he found the boy sitting on his workbench stool, the center drawer open and Shaun muttering to himself, staring at something in his hands.

“’Fff---aigh---tuh.’ ‘Fight.’“ Shaun gave the object in his hand a satisfying smirk. They had just been going over the phonics of ‘ai’ diphthongs, and at last Shaun was not frustrated in his attempts to sound out esoterically spelled English words.

“Whatchu doing, kiddo?” Shepard limped over to the desk, ruffled Shaun’s hair before looking at what his son was holding.

It was a small box, a rich, dark asari wood. A plenithaya puzzle box, where the eezo nodules in the wood could be manipulated by a skilled biotic, basically making the box impossible to open unless the biotic who sealed it reversed the polarity.

“It says ‘fight’!” Shaun beamed, holding up the box. “That’s how you spell ‘fight’?! Ew.”

“Amen,” Shepard chuckled, lifted the box out of his son’s hand. There were two sets of dogtags pinned in the box, Shepard’s above, Kaidan’s below. One of each set was badly charred.

“Still can’t read the rest of it, though,” Shaun frowned. Shepard realized he must have been running in here ever week, after his reading homework was done, trying to read the full inscription etched into the black velvet, curling around the two sets.

“You could’ve asked buddy,” Shepard had to swallow hard so his voice wouldn’t crack. He tucked this away a while back when they’d had company--it seemed too personal to leave out for strangers to gawk at--and must’ve left it in the drawer.

“No!” Shaun seemed appalled “You always tell me I should try my best to figure things out.”

“I also tell you you should get help when you can!”

“I know! But I wanted to figure it out on my own.”

“Okay,” Shepard said gently. He closed the box. Ran his thumb over the words “All I am. All I have to give.” inscribed on the lid. Then he opened it again to hand back to his son. “Well, when you figure it out, I’ll tell you what it means, okay?”

“Okay.”

“...But this word here’s ‘universe.’“

“Papa!”

[ageofthegriffon]

Robertson Davies: Fifth Business

Click here for part 1

Gift for the talented @bagog and his wonderful Ben Shepard from The Difference between the Sea and the Sky

[ageofthegriffon]

Robertson Davies: Fifth Business

Click here for part 2

Gift for the talented @bagog and his wonderful Ben Shepard from The Difference between the Sea and the Sky

[bagog]

“…you have gorgeous eyes, Ben.”

“Only in the right light,” Shepard grinned. He leaned in for a kiss.“ The Difference between The Sea and the Sky, Chapter 60

Art by @stonelions, Thank you!

++

I commissioned this in December 2014, I think? I finally get to post it! I’ve always loved @stonelions‘ WIPs and those pieces with really cursory colors and lines, so I REALLY wanted something like that for this story. The first piece is solid, lines firmly in place. This one is more fluid, perfect for the end of a story where the boys have an uncertain future they’re ready to face together.

[bagog]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Title: The Difference between the Sea and the Sky Chapter: 62/62 Beta: @gayscottryder and @nightmarestudio606, we’re done! Thank you!! Warning: None Summary: It’s over.

Author’s Note: Pretty difficult trying to end something like this. The last scene was written third of the whole story, and I hope it ends the story well for you. I’m so grateful to everyone who’s been reading.

[bagog]

DbtSS Week

Heyo everybody! If you somehow follow me for my original stuff, thanks, but stop reading now, cuz this is about my monstrously long fanfic The Difference between the Sea and the Sky!

I’m done! Like for real, done!

I’ll be posting the final four chapters this weekend!

And to celebrate being done with this 2-year labor, and to thank everyone who has written me and left comments to encourage me, I thought this week I’ll post some things about it! I don’t know what will be interesting to you all, so please let me know what (if anything) you would tolerate!

Art, commissioned and otherwise, for the story!

Gifs, videos, pics of Ben Shepard?

Process of writing?

The different experiments I used DbtSS to test out?

Inspirations?

Playlists?

Other!?!

Let me know what you’d like to see, if anything. And thank you so much for reading along with this dumb, big story

[bagog]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Title: The Difference between the Sea and the Sky Chapter: 59/60 Beta: @gayscottryder, transmogrified from a simple tomato. @nightmarestudio606, for whom ‘words’ are merely a distraction. Warning: None Summary: Kaidan returns.

Author’s Note: Soooo. This story is now 62 chapters, because having chapters that are 20k words is ill-advised. This is the shortest chapter in the whole fic, and I think that’s appropriate. It’s been since October that I updated this fic, thank you for your patience. Chapter 60 will be posted later today. Chapters 61 and 62 will be posted tomorrow. Then it will be done, and I will be grateful to you in perpetuity.