Blaise shuts his laptop with a grunt of disgust. He has been trawling Google for hours—searching for the name Hector on talent databases, checking their photos, falling into the Wikipedia rabbit hole of their movies—but none of the Hectors he uncovered has the arms of a Greek god.

There is Hector Westbrook, of course, but he does not pause to consider him: the actor propelled to superstardom after he debuted as Achilles in the Gigantomakhia movies. His glorious face—and his co-star who plays Patroclus—gave the fandom rich fodder for their art and fics, when before the movies were made, all they had were fancasts. Blaise himself had not been as prolific in his fanarts until he saw a photo of Hector Westbrook.

But the people at the party are nowhere close to Westbrook’s league of stardom. Matter of time for Thalia, of course, but he will not be kind to that bint now, when she and Cas are still laughing at him.

He runs a hand over his bristly, shaved head. Hector said nothing much, a few movies, and he was worried thinking Blaise knew who he is. This would not have been such a mystery, if he had simply given Hector his number, but he panicked. Stay away from alphas is an instinct he does not ignore, no matter how sloshed he was.

Anyway, it is not about pulling a fit alpha. He only needs to solve the mystery of his identity, brandish it in Thalia and Cas’s ugly mugs, hah! I found it! What’s so funny about this, you bloody arseholes? He still suspects Hector is in porn—maybe research to be done at night …

The back door slams, and Talon strides in from the alley in a fug of cigarette smoke.

‘No luck?’ he asks upon sight of Blaise’s scowl. ‘Who do I have in the afternoon?’

‘If you tell me who he is, I’ll check for you,’ Blaise offers.

Talon merely raises a thick dark brow, pierced with a ring, and Blaise opens the lid of his laptop with a groan, bringing up the shop’s shared Google calendar.

His friend does not care whether he knows or not, but he would not do anything to spoil Cas’s fun—and to think Blaise is the one who brought them together. Does anyone remember that when they band together to nag him into submission, Talon said you skipped lunch again today, I’m making you a nutritious lunch to bring to work tomorrow, and you better fucking eat it, you pillock? No, of course not.

Talon leans over him to take a look at the screen, and Blaise catches a faint whiff of his familiar pine-needle scent. With his rugby player’s broad shoulders and hard muscles, his light tawny skin covered in bold, richly coloured tattoos, Talon is very much the typical, brutally attractive alpha.

But his is the scent of brother and protector and family—nothing like Hector’s sweet, smoky musk of crisp autumn apples and crackling fires. He makes a face. The stranger’s need to layer his scent everywhere last night only stinks of his insecurity.

‘Won’t you give me a clue?’ he asks Talon in a whine. ‘It’s killing me, mate, and Cas and Thalia are so fucking smug.’

‘Would have thought you would know straightaway,’ the other man replies, raising his eyebrows. ‘It’s obvious, innit?’

‘How could I have known? He was wearing a bloody mask! He was rather careless with his scent, but I could hardly sniff him out.’

Talon straightens with a puzzled frown. ‘He was pissing all over you?’

‘Not intentionally, I reckon, because I could smell his emotions too. No one means to do that.’

‘Hm. Someone like him ought to be careful, shouldn’t they?’

‘Well, I suppose an actor ought to have better control …’

‘Could be scandalous, innit? Ruin a bloke’s career.’

‘What—’ Blaise stares. ‘Are you giving me a hint? Bloody hell, no need to be so cryptic. Just tell me, mate!’

But Talon, smirking, is already moving away to prepare his station for a client coming in fifteen minutes. Blaise scowls after him. It is like farting on a crowded bus, when one gives away more than he intends with his scent; it happens sometimes, and usually an accident, but scandalous, ruinous—why? It’s just embarrassing, innit? To be as shameless as Hector.

Sighing, Blaise shuts his laptop again, stuffing his phone into his pocket, tugging on his jacket. ‘I’m off!’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘See you at dinner! Thalia and I are getting Nando’s.’

It takes him a little over half an hour by the Underground to get to the café near the office building Thalia is cooped up for the day. He orders an overpriced matcha latte and commandeers a table by the entrance.

im here, he texts Thalia.

youre early. i said 5 30, didnt i?

you might want to sit down for this but the trains were on time today

youre bluffing

Blaise snorts, and opens up the Tumblr app, scrolling through his feed and sipping his drink. The woman at the next table is staring. All she can see now is his facial tattoos; imagine if she could see the tattoos on his chest, back, arms, legs. Might start whipping out the holy water at the sight of the horns on his chest.

His thumb pauses on a post: an artwork of Achilles and Patroclus entwined in a passionate embrace on silken sheets. The image is cropped at their waists, lovingly rendered in warm yellows, reds and browns. Achilles’s face is soft, gentle, submissive, gazing up at his lover with half-lidded eyes. Patroclus braces himself on his forearms above Achilles, biceps bulging, a hand thrust into Achilles’s golden curls. View the NSFW version on AO3 reads the caption below.

He gives the post a like, bookmarking it for later.

Gigantomakhia is the first fandom he took part in. The way the books—and the movies—ended was simply unacceptable, and he found a community online that agrees that of course Achilles and Patroclus are meant to be together! I mean, just look at this line: Achilles is a god above all gods, and Patroclus exists to worship at his feet. They are going to have their happy ending, damn it!

That is the thing about fiction: it is all made up anyway. Who gives a fig about canon?

‘He’s out!’ a voice exclaims, as chairs scrape against the floor.

Blaise looks up to see a few people armed with cameras dash out of the café. There are already one or two photographers across the street, milling around the entrance of the office building.

‘Who is it?’ a girl at the next table wonders.

‘Oh my God, Hector Westbrook!’ her companion squeals. ‘It’s Hector Westbrook!’

People are coming up to the window to see, crowding behind Blaise, murmuring excitedly. He’s so bloody fit! Wow, those muscles are real? Oh my God, Hector Westbrook! Here’s your free pass, mate, you said you would love to have his knot, didn’t you?

Blaise stares in amazement.

Flanked by large burly men, the actor emerges from the building, smiling at the paparazzi and gathering crowd. Dressed in a green sweater and jeans, his brown hair burnished copper in the watery sunlight, a friendly smile on his classically handsome, square-jawed face, he is actually more than mere pixels on the screen.

Blaise’s phone buzzes in his hand. He looks down to see Thalia’s message flash across the top of the screen: done! coming out. The banner disappears, and he is looking at the Patrochilles drawing again. He snorts, suppressing the burble of hilarity. Imagine if Westbrook sees this drawing, with his face and his co-star’s used in distinctly NSFW scenes.

Sniggering, he looks up.

From across the street, Westbrook is staring straight at him.