Here it is, my OP Big Bang story!

First, some necessary thank-yous. So: thank you to Bea for organizing everything and just being an all-around awesome person. Thank you as well to Khaz, my artist partner for this fun adventure. And, finally, thank you to everyone who has supported my writing. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to updating my other stories, yeah? (Ha.)

This story focuses on modern-AU ASL with plenty of appearances or mentions of other OP characters. It gets a little graphic, but nothing too bad, so no need to worry about that.

Read, enjoy, and review!

Chapter 1

When he'd woken up on the couch, he'd expected…more. He couldn't say what, exactly, he'd been expecting, but the strange quiet of the room had had him on edge immediately. He tried to sit up, but agony exploded from his midsection and he stayed down, sweating and panting from the abrupt shattering of his pain threshold.

Where was he?

His eyes scanned the room, but it was largely bare and offered few hints of where he could be. There were a few paintings on the walls, two simple designs and one complicated one that he couldn't quite understand. A plant occupied one corner, and two armchairs took up the space opposite the couch. He could see a TV and several bookshelves on one of the walls, and a few stacks of miscellaneous documents precariously placed nearby.

There was a map spread out over the coffee table next to him, but he couldn't quite read it from his prone position.

He blew out a breath, annoyance surging up from within him. He couldn't say why, but the feeling of being immobile and vulnerable made him nervous, and he looked at everything in the room with distrust, half-expecting something or someone to jump out and attack him.

A sudden bang, followed closely by a string of curses, caused him to flinch and then grit his teeth at the pain. His eyes went to the side of the couch, which blocked his view of wherever those noises had come from.

He heard scraping, and then a muttered string of words that didn't quite add up in his head. He had no other option but to wait, and every second that passed was worse than the last.

Where was he? Who else was there? How had he gotten here?

More questions ran rampant in his mind and he was agonizingly aware of how weak he currently was; he could barely even twitch his toes without hissing in pain.

Footsteps snapped him out of his frustration and he quickly closed his eyes, wondering if this person - who sounded like a man - would believe that he'd just been sleeping. It didn't seem plausible, but he figured that it was worth a shot.

The person approached slowly, each footsteps sounding oddly deliberate, and the reason didn't become clear until he heard a bowl being set down on the table.

"Hothothot," a man muttered. "Stupid. Why grab the oven mitt when I can just burn my fingers like an idiot?" A pause, then: "God, I can already hear Koala lecturing me about this."

He heard the clatter of what he assumed was silverware. The intoxicating scent of food drifted over to him and he automatically began to salivate, his stomach loudly making it clear that he hadn't eaten enough - or at all.

"I don't suppose you're awake?" The man's voice sounded young, and the statement almost seemed like a question. He didn't respond, and the man sighed. "Figures. It's only been...two days? Three? Yeah." Another sigh. When he spoke again, the man's voice was much softer. "What happened to you? You looked like death warmed over when you crawled to my doorway, and now you won't even wake up for my cooking..."

There were more sounds of silverware, and then a bottle being opened. "Fuck, I don't know what I'm doing. Law, why did you have to be out of town this week?"

The man lapsed into a despondent silence.

Deciding that he'd waited long enough, he opened his eyes, tilting his head just enough to make eye contact with the man that had been speaking.

He took in blond hair, a scarred face, and a surprisingly youthful build before the man reacted.

"You were awake the whole time?! C'mon, say these things!"

He wasn't even sure if he could speak, but he felt that he should apologize. He tried, but his throat was scratchy and burned like fire when he attempted to force words out. Seeing his troubles, the blond-haired man gestured for him to stay silent.

"Sorry, sorry; you're probably hungry. And thirsty. Here, I made some broth."

The blond-haired man helped him to sit up, propping him against some cushions, and muttered a few apologies about the pain that he undoubtedly showed on his face at the shifting of his wounds.

Being spoon-fed felt almost degrading, but he swallowed his pride in favor of eating. The broth was heavenly, and he slurped down as much as he could before the man set the bowl aside. Water followed, and once more he had as much as he could.

"Th-thanks," he managed, his voice almost startling the other man, who then grinned.

"Not a problem. Now," the man said, his expression going from passively amused at the other's appetite to serious, "can you tell me your name, and how you wound up here? You're kind of a John Doe to me."

He opened his mouth to answer, a name on the tip of his tongue -

But it fled as soon as he tried to speak it, and he was left with nothing but the aftertaste, confusion knitting his brow and frustration burning in his eyes. Again he tried to say his name, knowing it was there, but it slipped from his grasp like so many grains of sand.

"I -" his voice faltered. Perhaps he could say where he was from, but when he tried the result was the same as before. Panic began to build within him, and he desperately groped for any information in his head, something that he knew that wasn't mundane, that was his and his alone -

There was nothing. He couldn't say the color of his eyes or the day he was born; he had no idea where he had come from or what he had been doing; he simply didn't know his own skin.

His breathing quickened and his stare was fixed on the far wall, almost burning a hole through it because what do I know what do I know I need to know something come on -

"Hey." He froze when the other man's hand rested on his shoulder, and his first instinct - to throw off the limb - met a painful end when his entire midsection erupted in fire the second he moved. "Careful! Those are only just healing, you know!"

"Sorry," he muttered, surprised at his own sincerity. "I just - I d-don't - there's n-nothing there!" The depths of his frustration must have shown clearly, because the other man gave him a reassuring half-smile.

"Relax, it'll be fine. Maybe you're still in shock from whatever gave you those injuries. Here, I'll give you my name, and then we can figure out what's going on, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Great!" The man stood to his full height - which was rather impressive - and bowed with a flourish, the motion so smooth and professional that he must have used it all the time. "The name is Sabo, just Sabo. I'm twenty, and you're currently in my apartment." He straightened and grinned encouragingly. "Now you try."

He did. He really did. But the words wouldn't come, and he was about to give Sabo a helpless look when a strange feeling flooded his limbs, making them feel all heavy, and his eyelids were drifting down, closing, and -

When he next woke up, he was still in the apartment, though it had taken him a minute to recognize his surroundings. His body felt numb, and when he looked down at it, he saw newer bandages than the ones he'd seen the last time. Swallowing, he looked around, wondering where Sabo was. The man seemed nice enough, and he was grateful that Sabo had taken care of him. If the pain his injuries generated was at all indicative of the severity of said wounds, he would have died without help.

His throat was dry again, and he cast his gaze around until it landed on the water bottle right in front of him. Feeling a little silly, he reached out and grabbed the bottle off the coffee table, easing himself into a sitting position before twisting the cap open and taking a quick drink. Only after he'd quenched his thirst and laid back down did the realization that he'd just moved on his own without crippling pain sink in, and by then he was too tired to care.

His eyes slid shut again, and he let his mind drift into unconsciousness.

"Hey, you awake?"

He blinked and squinted against the light that threatened to blind him. As his eyes adjusted, he looked at the man who had spoken, quickly identifying him as Sabo once he was able to see him clearly again. "Y-yeah." He noticed the expression on Sabo's face. "Is something wrong?"

Sabo sighed, his expression clearing. "No. Just...did you wake up a few days ago?"

He frowned, slowly sitting up, wincing in expectation of the pain only to become surprised when almost no pain came. After pondering that for a second, he returned his attention to Sabo. A few days? How long had he been unconscious for? "Maybe, w-why?"

"I just want to make sure that no one else was here," Sabo said placatingly, that genial grin of his back on his face. "After all, the whole theft thing would be rather awkward for me, you know?"

He didn't know, but decided that that wasn't important. "I th-think I did. Not sure wh-when." He suppressed a wince at the stutter. His brain kept needing a second to catch up to his mouth, and he was starting to get annoyed by it.

Sabo raised one eyebrow and then realization dawned. "Right! You probably don't - right. You've been unconscious for a little over five days, minus the four times you've been coherent."

He frowned, searching his memory. "I can only r-remember two."

"Partially coherent," Sabo amended. The man then took a seat in one of the armchairs, sprawling across it in such a way that the position looked enviably comfortable. "So, you remember anything?"

Once more, the information was on the tip of his tongue, and once more, it slid just out of his reach. Releasing a frustrated sigh, he shook his head. Sabo's expression dropped a little in disappointment, but it brightened again soon enough.

"Hey, that's fine. We'll just have to think of something." He snapped his fingers. "Oh! John. We'll call you John."

He didn't even have to blink. "No."

"What? Why not? It's a perfectly fine name."

"You're de-definitely thinking 'John Doe'. I'm an amnesiac, n-not an idiot."

Sabo pouted. "Fine. Then you think of something."

"How the hell a-am I supposed to think of a name off the t-top of my head?"

"You're so needy."

"Am not!"

The blond man snapped his fingers again, expression changing so fast it was as though a light bulb had gone on over his head. "I know!"

Two seconds later Sabo was at his side, gently pulling on his left arm.

"What are you d-doing?" He asked, watching as Sabo poked around the bandages winding around his bicep.

"Good, seems like this arm is mostly healed. You had a lot of scrapes and mild lacerations, like you were dragging it along the ground. Don't do that again, by the way."

As Sabo began unwinding those bandages, he asked the question again, never taking his eyes off the blond man's deft fingers. "Seriously, what a-are you doing?"

"Patience. I'm almost done."

His expression became almost petulant, but cleared when Sabo took off the last of the bandages with a triumphant, "Ha!"

"What?"

"You've got a tattoo on your arm here," Sabo said, lifting his arm so he could see.

"A-S-C-E?" He read. "Why's the 'S' crossed out?"

"Maybe you messed up the tattoo. But we can just call you this! It'll make it easy to remember, at least."

"Asce isn't a n-name, Sabo."

"But 'Ace' is," Sabo countered, stepping back again. "So, we'll call you Ace. Unless you want to be called 'As', or 'Acey'."

"I'll pass on that. 'Ace' is fine."

Ace blinked. That name...sounded right. Like -

"I think that is my n-name," he said slowly, trying it out a few times. It felt natural on his tongue, like it had been there before and now he could say it without it slipping away. "Yeah, it is. I think."

"You think?" Sabo repeated, one eyebrow arching. "Well, if that's the case, it should be easier to find out who you actually are. We'll just look for anyone named 'Ace'."

"Yeah," Ace agreed absently, still looking at his tattoo.

Why was the 'S' crossed out? He should know, he knew he should know, but the information hovered just out of his grasp. It was something important, something -

Something he couldn't remember. Still, he traced the letters, growing familiar with them all over again.

Please review.