Author's note (14 Aug): ENTIRELY NEW CHAPTER. I wanted to show a little more of Blaise and Talon's friendship, and to show the fallout from Hector being spotted in the neighbourhood by fans!

‘How did the date go?’ Blaise asks.

Talon grunts, not looking up from the tonkatsu ramen he is slurping down. They are having lunch at the ramen shop two streets down for a break from the nosy parkers ringing up or poking their heads into the shop.

Ironworks Ink has indeed gone viral, the shop’s name clearly seen in the street shots of Hector. Hector Westbrook gets INKED in a SECRET SPOT—GUESS WHERE? Is this to commemorate his new RELATIONSHIP? What does FRENCH HOTTIE BRIGITTE think about it?

The Gigantomakhia fandom has abruptly seen an inspired outpouring of tattoo-related headcanons and artwork. Just imagine—Achilles getting a tramp stamp and poor innocent little Patroclus unable to deal with his FEELINGS about seeing a rose above his boy’s cute little tush! Bless Hector Westbrook for this. Blaise blushed, hastily closing the Tumblr app, because bloody hell, it is something else to see the Internet thirst over a friend, albeit indirectly—or maybe he is making it weird, because he sees Achilles as Hector.

Ironworks’ Instagram and email inboxes are flooded with a deluge of queries from the press, from those who claim to want a tattoo. Most of them are bound to be time-wasters, but there should be a few genuine inquiries. For every hundred tweets speculating over Hector’s tattoo, one or two would enthuse over Talon and Blaise’s art: holy shit have you seen their stuff? Bloody wicked.

The only upside to the whole situation, which he clung to as the morning whirled past in a flurry of attending to his paying customers, answering inane calls—Talon nearly smashed the shop’s mobile switching it off for the day, the clients can fucking email us. If I hear it ring one more fucking time—and shooing busybodies out of the shop. Thankfully, most people’s curiosity quail in the face of two burly blokes covered in ink; it helps too, when their customers are nearly as heavily tattooed.

He has only been able to remember Talon and Cas’s date in the middle of lunch.

He continues looking at his friend expectantly. Talon sighs, and mumbles: ‘Not a date.’

‘It didn’t go well then. Mate, at this point, you just need to tell him. Cas literally doesn’t think you like him that way.’

Talon shoots him a mulish glare.

‘Sorry,’ he says with only a little sympathy.

They have been watching Talon pine after Cas for two bloody years, and Cas never getting the hint, even though Talon drops all plans in a heartbeat should Cas come calling; looks at him with that soft, sappy look he saves only for him; and cooks his favourite meals and brings him thoughtful little presents—a new pen, socks to replace the ones that wore out yesterday.

Like how a proper gentleman alpha would court in the ‘50s, Iris sneered. It’s in all the manuals from back then. But Cas is beta: he would not be reading the omega manual, would he? He would not know what it means to be courted by an alpha.

‘I’m not—’ Talon cuts himself off, rubbing his hand over his face. ‘I don’t want to date him, not in the way you think. It’s not about dating. I know he wouldn’t look at me like that. I want to be his friend, that is good enough for me. It has never been about dating him.’

Blaise narrows his eyes, taking in Talon’s slumped shoulders, his downcast eyes, the ruddiness on his dusky skin: for such a large man, he is succeeding in making himself look small more so than convincing Blaise of his lack of romantic interest in his brother. This cannot go on. He would need to speak to Cas himself: if Talon will not do anything about it because of his stupid alpha ego, Cas certainly would.

‘Fine,’ he says airily.

Talon’s head jerks up, his brows furrowed. ‘Blaise, don’t—’ he began warily.

‘I said, fine,’ Blaise repeats, picking up his chopsticks again. ‘Anyway, I want to ask you something. How do you control your scent? Do alphas, betas and omegas all do it the same way?’

Talon’s frown deepens. ‘Westbrook did something again? Cas said you were with him last night. He sent you home.’

‘No, he didn’t do anything. He’s invited us over for dinner by the way, next week, you’re coming with us. Do you remember I told you a few weeks ago? How I could smell him? But Thalia and Iris said they couldn’t, remember? You’ll see for yourself when you meet him, I reckon. Hector said I’m the only one who told him he stinks, and now he tells me he could smell me too.

‘But I don’t have a scent. Have you ever smelled anything from me in the past years we’ve known each other?’

‘No … not even when I was doing your spine or face tats.’ It is inevitable that some anguish leaks out when the needle gets to the more sensitive spots. ‘Don’t you have a health condition?’

Blaise nods. ‘Precisely! But … it seems like he’s telling the truth. I still don’t know why, should book an appointment with the doctor maybe, but I want to learn how to control my scent. It’s bloody embarrassing.’

Talon hums, still looking puzzled. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, mate. It’s like … it’s like holding in a fart or a burp. You can sort of feel it coming, and you make the choice to hold it in? Something like that. It’s not really something you learn. You just … know how to do it?’

‘Well, that’s helpful when I do not even know what I smell like,’ Blaise says, taking a big bite of noodles. ‘Maybe he was just bluffing …’

They eat in silence for a few moments. Blaise looks up to ask something, but the question flees at the sight of the peculiar expression on Talon’s face, torn between excitement and disbelief.

‘What is it?’ he asks immediately.

But Talon shakes his head, and refuses to tell him.

‘You’ve thought of something! What is it? Come on, mate, you have to tell me, I’m basically your brother-in-law.’

Rolling his eyes, his friend tells him to shut up and finish his ramen, because they need to get back to work, and no matter how much Blaise wheedles, the prat would not budge, and as younger siblings do, he pouts and gives him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day.