#big bang 2024

[vartoids]

Art for @aftgbigbang 2024 - Based on Deals with Demons on Ao3 by @aquared46

(click for better quality)

[calfrxca]

[RBB24 - CRAWL OUT THROUGH THE FALLOUT]

AUGHHHHH, im so happy to finally be able to post this! i drew this in collaboration with my partner @sharkthing! who's fic can be found here! it's a lovely fic with a good twist at the end so be sure to check it out and all the other works posted by the other participants!

this lovely event was hosted by @tf-bigbang!

[freshofftheturniptruck]

No Better Version of Me

I have had so much fun with the @yyh-revival-big-bang Event this summer, especially getting to draw my favorite ship!

Thank you to my event partner @pancake-angst for your wonderful fic that gave me so much to work with! Everyone please check it out:

[doeinstinct]

i was thrilled to work with @titaniaunderthehill for the madatobi big bang! these three are so fun so go read about them all here!

@mdtb-bb

[rjbigbang]

ROY/JAMIE BIG BANG REVEALS: WEEK 3

Reveals Schedule | AO3 Collection | gif credit: @billy-crudup

Tuesday, September 10: Team #4

📝 Fic: Everybody Wants to Be on TV by ABubblingCandle (ao3) 58k words | gen, celebrity hunted AU, friendship, reality tv 🎨 Art: Everybody Wants to Be on TV by poshxtotty (tumblr) 3 illustrations + 2 edits | scenes from fic, also embedded in the fic

Thursday, September 12: Team #18

📝 Fic: the vastness between by SmileHoney (ao3) 48k words | post-canon, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, long-distance relationship 🎨 Art: edits (part 1 / part 2 / part 3) by kentstartt (tumblr) 9 in-universe docs | texts, social media, and a video chat edit

Saturday, September 14: Team #16

📝 Fic: Make my World by brainwashpapi (ao3) 25k words | omegaverse, university/college AU, omega!jamie, alpha!roy, mating bites, heats 🎨 Art: ART for Make my World by armadillo1976 (ao3) 3 illustrations | scenes from fic, shared alongside quotes

Sunday, September 15: Team #14

📝 Fic: old aches become new again by moonlight_litany (ao3) 14k words | hurt jamie tartt, major character injury, angst, hurt/comfort 🎨 Art: Embedded in fic by nashapixie (tumblr) 1 banner + 2 edits | collage of moments + motifs

[ripdragonbeans]

Big Bang 2024 Teaser

Do You Believe In Fate?

TW: blood, bodily harm, creampie, p in v, profanity

N/A - no sexual content in the snippet

Aegon snapped. “Let us see our brother!”  “Aegon!” cried Alicent. “Aegon, please, everything is going to be okay,” you tried to comfort him. The lady coughed. “As I said, you’re going to have to wait. He was taken in for emergency surgery.” Alicent’s face lost all color. “But, he’s alive, yes?” “He should be fine.” The lady’s eyes softened. “Take a seat, it might be a long wait.” “Thank you,” Alicent nodded her head. You grabbed Aegon’s hand and took him aside to some chairs in a corner. Once you got to them, Aegon yanked his hand out of yours. “Aegon, what’s going on?” “What’s going on? My brother is in a freaking surgery because I couldn’t keep the ball away from our side. That’s what’s going on.” “It isn’t your fault he got hurt. He’s a goalie, he knows the risks.” “That risk shouldn’t be losing an eye, you know that.” “It was Luke. You know it was. He shouldn’t have slide tackled like that. It’s illegal.” “Yeah, and look where that got him. Luke isn’t the one facing the consequences,” Aegon spat. “Instead, it’s my little brother!” You tackled Aegon in a hug and held him tight. His breathing, once rapid, slowed down. You felt his arms slowly circle around you, as though he was scared to do so. One deep breath. Aegon lowered his head to your shoulder and you felt his shudder. He was crying.

Coming to @hotd-bigbang in Autumn '24!

Lovely to be revealed artwork by @emilykaldwen

[rayrayor]

King of the South Side

The complete Shameless Big Bang Fiction is here. Holy moly, I loved writing this and @filorux your art is just perfection.

And to all the wonderful folks I have connected with , thank you for always supporting everyone with love and making this fandom amazing

Thank you to Gallavich Fic Club for being a place of support.

@spacerockwriting and @sweetperversiongirl thank you for calming my panic writing this!

My beta @notherenewjersey, who turned me on to commas being good things, plus @grumble-fish who I cannot find your @ 🤬

@whaticameherefor You are a rockstar for keeping this going this year. I appreciate you so much💕💕💕

[jezmatronwrites]

SPOP Flex Big Bang 2024 - Letter of the Law

ART BY AMITYSRAGE - Discord In conjunction with Jezmatron for SPOP BIG BANG 2024 letter of the law: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55938145/chapters/142048963

Catra and Adora were meant to rule the world... metaphorically speaking. Same law school to get out of the sticks, same firm to qualify in to, same focus on getting up the ladder to Partner.

But Adora lost the dream and did the unthinkable. Now she's working for a small firm going up against a big hitter over a new development. And who is across the table?

Her former best friend.

How will things go as the once-friends find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom? And what will winning feel like?

What price to get the final word in?

With art by AmitysRage from discord!

[aomasade]

Art for Second Chance

SPN J2 Big Bang Challenge 2024

More pictures and informations in my artpost on AO3

Art for Second Chance

Summary: Six years ago Jared fell head over heels in love with the playboy Jensen, only for it to end in heartbreak. Just when his life seemed to look up, even if Jared wasn’t completely and totally in love with the man he agreed to marry he was content, that was until Jensen decides that he is not to sit back and allow his rival to marry his Jared. Using any means necessary, including threatening to take away the daughter he’s only learned he had. Jensen makes Jared an offer he can’t refuse - marry him or lose Rosalie. Now the two must figure out a way to become a family and see if love really is enough to soothe old wounds.

[n-odditty]

[Sonic Heroes: Star System]

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Within the Star System lies mysteries many have failed to comprehend, let alone acknowledge. Powers far more ancient than the wonders which have been prominent in all our lives. So, when leaders from four notable teams, Sonic, Shadow, Blaze, and Silver, are brought into the spotlight with the rest of their friends against four new threats to the peace of their worlds, reality as they know it will be anything but the same. Will these 12 heroes from different walks of life be able to meet eye to eye, work as one, and end the growing threats that ebb away the fundamentals in which helps make their lives go round? Teams Primary, Monochrome, Paramount, and Absolution will make the pieces fall back into their rightful places.

Within the great expanse of space lies many secrets that the worlds which reside in the mysterious void have so little grasp on. Mysteries that hold great importance on how all came to be and how all came to prevail. Some of those mysteries reside within those very planets, holding onto hope that one day, once more, the wonders will connect the great expanse of knowledge and power to those who are best fit to wield it and lead all into a better tomorrow...following the course it was always meant to follow The era for a better new, life that pours out wonder, power, hope, and order will once again rise and shine greater tomorrows. How long may it take to get there? Those in the great beyond wait patiently for the answer. So too do those who have always lurked within the dark.

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Aw yeah! This is happening! I finally can post this story that I have been very passionate about for months now! [And also worrying like crazy over! ;u;] But now, it's time for it to see the world and the world to see it! I do hope you guys enjoy!

But while I am still being anxious over my work, I know you all will absolutely adore the beautiful pieces of art 2 awesome artists made for me through the Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bang 2024 event! I was blessed to have such cool artist work with me and bring some life to my writing! Give it up for @itslawless77 [Their Twitter: @7aw7ess] and @momotarotea! [Their twitter goes by the same handle!] You both are so awesome! Both your pieces are great and it was an honor getting both of them for my silly fic ^^! Send them lots of love guys! And thank you @sthbigbang for organizing this event and making all these opportunities possible! Had lots of fun! [Despite my anxieties ;U;]. I hope to see another one of these events in the future! Please send the team lots of love guys!

Now without further ado, I introduce my fic! Please enjoy!

Sonic Heroes: Star System - Chapter 1 - MissOdditty - Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

[medusapelagia]

Hidden Treasure - Stranger Things Big Bang 2024

And... it... is... DONE!!!!

63k of omegaverse metal sandwich pirate AU are cooking!!! Now I have to edit it (thanks also to my wonderful betas!) and we'll be ready to post in July.

And to celebrate I'm posting under the cut a NSFW snippet of omegaverse threesome. How does it sound? ;)

“Ok. Ok. You know what? Eddie and I are going to take good care of you. And when you’ll feel better we will decide if you want me to bite you or not.” “Bite. Bite.” Steve begs, but Billy tries his best to remain calm. “Later. Now let us take care of you. Why don’t you lie against Eddie? He will hug you tight and kiss you until you’ll feel your brain go all mushy, will you, not Eddie?” The beta nods eagerly, stripping off his shirt and his jacket and using them to make a sort of nest for Steve. Billy quickly adds his red jacket and his shirt, “Isn’t this better, baby?” Billy asks, “You should strip too. I guess these wet clothes aren’t very comfy.” Steve nods, and the two men help him out of his clothes, letting him lie completely naked on the sad little nest they just made. “I promise you, next time I’ll give you the best nest you have ever had. Fluffy and comforting. Full of trinkets and familiar scents,” Billy says, holding Steve’s chin and looking at him in the eyes, “I’ll give you the fucking world, Steve. I swear.” He kisses the red wound on Steve’s cheek and then he lowers himself between the spread omega’s legs while Eddie sits behind Steve, holding him to his chest. “I want to make him come at least one time before knotting him. Two if I can. Do you think you can keep it in your pants?” Billy asks Eddie, staring at him in the eyes.  “Fuck you, Hargrove. I’m not the alpha that’s a step from becoming feral.” Eddie hisses, but he must admit that he’s surprised by Billy’s self-control.  He never saw him like that, usually when he gets his rut the only thing he can’t think about is filling the first hole he can put his knot in, but today he seems incredibly lucid. Something in their precarious situation must have triggered the need to protect his omega and his hindbrain is doing its best to keep him lucid, ready to act if needed. Billy nods, then he spits in his hand and starts to gently stroke Steve’s cocklette. The boy’s stomach twitches under Billy’s touch while his cocklette starts to pour white beads of precum. “Look how beautiful you are, look how well you’re responding to your alpha.” Eddie praises Steve, looking between the omega’s legs, where Billy is getting comfy, licking his lips like a cat who eats cream, “Our Captain has a devil mouth, and your little cocklette is just a little appetizer for him.” Steve blushes so sweetly, turning his head toward Eddie to avoid looking at Billy.

[crack-fic-casey]

[greenninjagal-blog]

Smoke and Mirrors

Hi :D Who's ready for this monster? Welcome to my Big Bang for this year! Special thank you to @tss_storytime for putting this together and giving me the opportunity and @dragonsarecats for being my amazing fantastic artist partner who created this cover art!

Summary: Roman and Remus don't have and never have had reflections. Logan has been betrayed by someone, but he’s not sure who. Patton's been dead for sixteen years and counting.

Somehow, all of these things are related.

Words: 3637

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Master List

“I’m just saying—” Remus says, almost sounding excited at this new revelation of his, “—the next step would definitely be an apartment building! Think about it, Roman!”

“I am thinking about it,” Roman says, tiredly. “I don’t want to be thinking about it, but I am.”

“So many people live there, you know? There’s, what, sixty units in your building, right? At least twenty of them have got to be families with little brats, then old people with their pets, other college students with friends over. On a Friday like today there’s got to be, like, over two hundred people. And then you have the narrow staircases, which Grandma and Grandpop can’t get down in a timely manner, and I bet with all the mold in the walls—”

“Remus,” Roman says, tilting his phone so that the microphone clearly picks up on how incredibly not-amused he is with the conversation.

“...the elevator is basically already on its last legs. Remember how it shook when I jumped in it last time?”

Roman remembers it really well actually, probably better than Remus, since Roman actually has a healthy dose of self preservation. Remus had just been finishing laughing his nasally, crackling chortle when the elevator doors opened again finally on Roman’s floor, and the sight of the bruising on Roman’s face when he saw him again was enough to set him off periodically throughout the rest of his three hour stay. 

Still, Roman knows that Remus has a point. Not that he’s going to admit it before he’s actually in a casket, because Remus would never let him live it down.

Roman side steps out of the way of a cyclist who seems to think the whole sidewalk belongs to them, and readjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder that is currently cutting off the circulation to his fingertips. The city isn’t entirely busy, nor the weather too terrible, but Roman is regretting choosing to do the hike back to his apartment building. His knockoff vans are hella cute today, but they were not made for long distance walking, and there’s a rock in his left one that he hasn’t managed to get out no matter how many times he’s stopped to take it off and shake.

“I’m just saying,” Remus repeats, “If I were—” 

“I hate to be the voice of reason here,” Roman says, “but you are not a serial arsonist, Remus!” 

“I could be. You don’t know everything I do in my free time.”

“You don’t have time to be an arsonist. Between all your comic deadlines and the various licenses you have accrued, you don’t spend enough time on this plane of Earth in order to have set fire to anything other than your toaster,” Roman rolls his eyes. “And that’s only when you remember to eat, Rem.” 

Remus blows a raspberry back at him directly into the receiver so that Roman can hear exactly how wet it is and cringe away from it. 

Remus had a talent for getting himself into trouble and trying new things that skirted the edge of legality, but he’d given up fires back when they were tweens. Whoever or whatever was doing it now seemed to be doing it with much more intention: a rental car in a half full parking garage, an abandoned warehouse in the industrial area already set to be demolished, a newly built, still for-sale two-story house in the suburbs (casualty: one, injured six). The most recent event had been two days ago when a department store nearly exploded right as it was closing, killing two employees, three customers, and a firefighter and injuring far more. The fires were slowly getting bigger and gaining more traction, as if gearing up for a grand finale and the news hadn’t been taking it easy.

The police and the FBI were apparently hot-on-the-case and the tip number line was almost engraved into Roman’s retinas from how it was plastered all over the place, begging for Cyra City civilians to stay aware, keep a close eye on things, and report anything that seemed suspicious.

So far no actual details about the whole thing had been made public (on the very valid worry of copycats), but the lack of information had left people far more options to gossip about it. So far Roman’s physical chemistry class was split between it being a handful of rowdy teenagers “rebelling” and it being a serial murderer winding up for an enmasse attack that would go down in history along with the “greats”. Most of the stores had started selling mini fire extinguishers in the checkout lines and Roman’s mom had called last week to see if he had already bought himself one, and Roman wasn’t embarrassed until he answered yes.

But Remus already knows all that, and had texted him a string of mocking emojis until Roman had asked if he should sell it. 

It’s currently sitting in his apartment next to his bed, in easy access if he spontaneously catches fire while sleeping. ((His last hook up had called him prepared, and well… Roman had been eager to show the guy just how prepared he was.))

Luckily, his beloved apartment building is around the corner and he can feel his second wind coming at even the thought of taking his shoes off and collapsing face first into his bed. He starts patting through his pockets for his keys, stalling his walk behind two older women in jogging outfits, and switches his phone to his other hand so he can check through his bag frustratedly. He’s found at least three chapsticks he thought he lost months ago, and his extra hairbrush, and about twenty seven receipts (one of which has the number of the cute barista and he makes a mental note to put that in his phone later). There’s a crumpled flier for some niche religious group that that Roman accepted partially because the guy handing them out looked a bit desperate for interaction, but mostly because they were outside of the boutique Roman likes, blocking the entrance. He tosses that one in the nearby trash can as he walks by.

Roman pins his phone between his cheek and his shoulder, using both hands to sift through his bag. His brain tumbles through the previous conversation trying to remember what they were talking about. 

“Did you eat today?”

“Huh?” Remus says, which is a Remusian for ���What day is it?’ “Hey, how many people do you think I could murder and get away with?”

“Remus.”

“Probably like fifteen right? At least to start. Once I figured out how to do it. Gasoline and a lighter and I could probably get a full apartment building—”

“Honestly, going from no murder, to a few murders, to about a hundred is an insane jump. Even for you.”

“Well it wouldn’t be a full hundred. At least a few people would get out, right? Unless I barricaded the front doors, or like… chain-and-padlock-ed it closed.”

“The point still stands that— and I can’t believe you’re making me argue this— you didn’t set those fires and you aren’t going to set them in the future!”

Remus makes a disagreeable tone and Roman smiles graciously at the women nearby who probably just overheard that whole conversation and might call the police on him for it later. Lovely. He turns away quickly leaning into his phone.

“In fact, right now I bet I can guess exactly what you are doing!” Roman continues. “Sitting in your drawing chair, with both your computer monitors on. The left one has the sketches for the next page of your comic, half lined, and the right one has the character sheets for Anton and Pryce and the Dragon Witch. Your drawing pad is in front of you, and you’re spinning your pen in your hand aimlessly while we talk, and everything is the same way it was this morning.”

“You forgot the part where there’s a super hot stripper giving me a blowjob right now,” Remus says with the tell-tale clack of him putting down his digital art pen, which is as good as him admitting to it all. Roman pauses just enough to roll his eyes so hard he’s certain that Remus gets the vibe from his own apartment.

“Damnit,” he huffs, checking his pockets again. “Why can’t I find anything today?”

“Are you still looking for that compact mirror?” 

“Keys, now,” Roman says. “But I swear I had that mirror this morning when I left the apartment. I was late because I was cleaning it!”

Or well. Because he was trying to put on makeup via guesswork, but he didn’t need Remus knowing that was the real reason. 

“You know you could have made the jump with the right angle at the windows in your fancy science school, right? No one would even have noticed. All too busy being boring lame losers with no life, just like you.”

“I don’t like traveling without another mirror.”

“Um, hello? Phone screen!”

“I’m not going to leave my phone behin— found it!” 

“The mirror?”

“My keys,” Roman twists his keychain around his hand, and waves at the other college students loitering at the corner before he heads towards the entrance to his apartment building. “Look, Remus—”

“Yeah, yeah, homework, physics, blah blah blah, you’re not getting laid, blah blah—”

“Between the two of us, who walked in on the other in the middle of—”

“Between the two of us who forgot to return my copy of 2005′s Just Like Heaven and made me come get it myself?”

"You didn’t even like it!"

"I don’t like you either," Remus says. "And jeez for someone who looks exactly like me there are some startling fucking differences. Like length—”

“Tony didn’t have a problem with it.”

“I thought his name was Kyle?”

Roman frowns, pulling his key out of the door and catching it with his knee, thinking that night over. “No. He was definitely a Tony. His hair was… you know, Tony hair!”

“The fact that you had to rely on his hair is sad,” Remus states. “You get how that’s sad, right?”

“I’m hanging up—”

“Wait, wait! Just… you’re sure that…you’re not going to, like… burnaliveinafire?”

Roman blinks, and swallows back the ridiculous amount of softness that appeared out of nowhere, and hits like a sucker punch right through his ribcage in a way that is so very Remus.

“I’m not going to burn alive in a fire,” Roman says.

“… promise to jump over the second anything looks sketchy."

"There's, like, nine other apartment buildings and two hotels within walking distance! And like ten others around this district in the city!" Roman says, just short of whining because inside the building there are people who recognize him and he does not need them thinking all he does is whine and complain. At least the air conditioning in the lobby is running, offering relief from the horrible ten minute walk he was forced to endure. He does not get how normal people do this, all the time, every day!

"Fourteen, actually. I looked it up this morning and I don’t need your fancy math degree to know that’s a one in twenty-five chance. That’s a non-zero percentage," Remus counters, with that mocking tone that borders on awe because even after all this time he can’t imagine how Roman had gone from center stage to knee deep in calculus problems, willingly. He’d only made the mistake of asking Roman once, and since then both of them pretend that Roman had always dreamed of solving differentials. 

“It will take hours to find something that’s close to your apartment,” Roman says instead.

“At least you’ll be alive,” Remus says.

“Fine, fine….are you still wearing those dog tags?”

Remus makes an affirmative noise and Roman sighs. They had been polished relics of their childhood: something their parents had insisted that they have at all times for emergencies and that Roman and Remus had complained about endlessly. They hadn’t been allowed phones until they were nearly twelve years old because every argument of “we need it for emergencies” was countered by “you have necklaces that allow you to travel miles in a handful of inches”.

"And don’t use the elevators at all,” Remus adds. “I’m serious about this. They’re deathtraps in a fire. I’ll come over there and hide all your mascara.”

"Yeah, yeah," Roman stifles a yawn. "And if something happens, meet at that ugly gas station at the state border between us, don’t tell anyone where we are going, and don’t accept any rides from strangers."

"Don’t make me sound like Mom."

"Nag me a little less."

"Bitch."

"Dick."

"Dork."

"Geek."

"Loser."

"Dumbass," Roman says, far more affectionately than he meant it to come out as, and so he clears his throat quickly and he heads towards the elevator. “I’m hanging up now. Remember to eat something and I’ll see you in two days.”

“Two days? What’s.... ah, fuck me,” Remus says. There’s a loud creak of leather and Roman imagines Remus throwing all his weight back in his chair and staring at the ceiling as if he’s personally challenging fate itself. He breathes out heavily in a way that ironically mirrors how Roman’s own bones feel at the realization.

“Another year,” he says.

((He does not ask if Roman ever thinks it will get easier to bear. Roman does not answer him that no it probably won’t ever. It doesn’t make either of them feel better.))

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Roman says, forcibly shoving away the deary aura that descended on them as easily as he could. If he takes a breath and swallows away the lump in his throat he could pretend that they were talking about visiting each other for a birthday celebration.

He might not ever get to be an actor, but he’d always had a passion for acting. Is it any wonder? When he’s playing a part, he can shed the skin of a no-named nobody from somewhere so remote no one thinks it's a real place, and he can be someone with a name standing on center stage.

Roman breathes out so heavily that he almost misses Remus’s quick response.

“I already attempted to swan dive off the roof into a spoon today,” his twin says, flippantly. “Bruised my eye and split my lip and probably broke my collar bone.”

“Wait, what—” 

“Later, Prince Charmless.”

“Remus, you did what?!”

But by then he’s talking to the end call screen on his phone, staring into the picture of the flaming dumpster that he used as a profile picture for his idiot brother, with his heart racing. Logically, he knows that Remus is joking.

Probably.

Uh, maybe? 

Roman suddenly remembers a lot of leaping off the backyard shed until Dad came out screaming at them red in the face with worry, followed by tag games that ended with a leap through a window wrong and three hours worth of sitting still to get the glass shards pulled out of his arms, and then racing through the upstairs hall to jump the stair railing into the strategically placed hand mirror to make it to school on time.

In all honesty, Roman bets that Remus did try it, as part of a morning routine that their parents hadn’t been able to beg out of him. One would think the first time the jagged edges of a break had shredded his skin, Remus would have learned to be more careful, but somehow it seemed that Remus had fallen in love with webbed cracks in his mirror.

Roman sighs, placing his phone into his pocket. And then he presses the elevator button and leans against the wall next to the panel to take off his shoe and look for that stupid rock again. 

His keys jangle in his other hand, annoyingly loud in the otherwise still entrance alcove. It’s times like these that he can appreciate that most of his neighbors dislike the other people in the building and therefore make extra effort to not be caught outside.

The only person Roman really ever has to worry about is the guy on the third floor who he thinks might be a weed dealer and is constantly hinting at giving Roman a first time discount. Great guy, really! He just always manages to catch Roman right next to a reflective surface. It’s pure coincidence that he hasn’t noticed yet.

The elevator dings and the doors roll open with a gentle rumble that does not betray any of the unreliability of its innerworkings. Every other week it’s out of order and Roman’s pretty sure at least 80% of the building has complained to the owners about it, but the solutions never last more than another few days.

Roman doesn’t even usually take the elevator! But the walk was long, and he lives on the top floor, and serial arsonists aren’t going to set fire to his apartment building in the two minutes it will take to get to his floor. 

It’s fine.

Roman slides on his shoe and hobbles into the elevator, breathing in the musty stench that smells like it’s coming from the corpses that might be buried under the building. Part of Roman entertains the idea that ghosts haunt only the elevator, sadly floating around and gaining their small enjoyments from watching people get stuck in between floors when it inevitably breaks.

Roman hasn’t done anything to annoy the spirits recently, at least to his knowledge, so he should be okay. 

He leans back against the railing just in case though.

It takes another long moment for the elevators to start closing again; definitely long enough that Roman gets the impression that he shouldn’t have gotten on at all. The longer it stays open the more likely it is for someone else to suddenly show up and want to get on as well. There are only about three things Roman can think of that are worse than being in an enclosed space, with a stranger, while his compact mirror is MIA. 

Last time something like that happened, the other person got agitated enough that Roman had seriously thought they were going to attack him. Roman knows he’s unsettling to be around; it’s not simple to catch what is off about him at first, but most human brains can pick up that something is distinctly wrong. Knowing something’s wrong with a situation, but not being sure what and being trapped in a small compartment without a sure way to defend yourself? Yeah that’s a recipe for disaster. 

Across the alcove, the door to the stairwell opens just in time for Roman’s heart to leap right into his throat: his brain screaming that oh hey! People to join you inside your small box that Remus just told you not to get into! Even when it wouldn’t make any sense to go down the stairs just to take the elevator back up.

There’s three of them, all dressed in the very uniform pest control jumpsuits that make Roman’s insides shrivel slightly. He’d been meticulous about keeping his apartment clean and if he saw a single cockroach, Roman would be turning into the next arsonist, no other incitations required.

They’re all carrying various equipment items: a thick duffle back with the pest control logo (an ant ironically burning under a magnifying glass), a bulky backpack that nearly doesn’t fit through the doorway, and a thick leather briefcase that seems out of place. The first guy is saying something in a language Roman doesn’t recognize, with a smile on his face that is very charming, despite him being at least a decade older than Roman, as he holds the door open for the others. The second rolls her eyes, tugging the brim of her hat lower over her head.

The third has a scar from running from the middle of his left cheek all the way down his face to his neck in a way that barely seems more than a few months healed. When he makes direct eye contact with Roman, the man’s thin lips twisting into a grin, like he knows how fast Roman’s heart is beating at the sight of him. He waves and Roman catches sight of a cheap industrial bike lock in his other hand.

Please please please, don’t suddenly realize that needs to go back upstairs, please don’t get in here, pleasedonotcomecloser—

But in the end the doors close fitfully, locking out that man and his smile and his friends, and Roman sags against the railing. He presses a hand to his chest trying to regulate his panicked heartbeast back to something manageable and sustainable. 

Say what you will about Remus, but he knows best how to make Roman paranoid for the rest of the day.

The gears shudder, and the mechanical whirl of the elevator fills the whole area as it begins its ascent. Roman pulls out his phone again, swiping through the notifications that he accrued during the walk. A few responses to his Snap Chats streaks, three emails (two junk and one from a classmate asking about studying together for the test, which would be great, if Roman hadn’t already turned her down twice), a reminder to play one of his mindless phone games, and something must have happened in the group chat he has on instagram with a few other Math majors. Roman double taps the notification and swipes in his passcode (it’s an R, it’s always been an R. Remus has been able to hack into his phone since they were eleven, but Roman is horribly, secretly afraid that if he changes it now, he’ll forget it by tomorrow). 

The elevator shudders. 

And somewhere, distantly, Roman thinks he smells smoke.

[Next Chapter? Find it on Ao3 now!]

[lynxrt013]

Assassin AU

All For The Game Big Bang 2024

Pt. 1

[acewithapaintbrush]

This is my life for the next month, what did I do to myself 😅😅😅

[rjbigbang]

The first-ever Roy/Jamie Big Bang has been a work in progress since December 2023. Our participants signed up in February, teamed up in June, and now it's finally time to share their works!!! Participants contributed 19 fics (over 675k words!) and 50+ companion artworks (including podfic, digital art, traditional art, videos, and more) for this challenge 🤩

Beginning August 27, works will be revealed 4x each week. By the end of September, all fics will be in the official AO3 Collection, and companion art will be either embedded in the work or linked in the note. We'll post a weekly round-up of works, but view the full schedule here: tinyurl.com/RJBBReveals.