They arrive late to the Embassy Club, but that doesn't matter. After all, Edward is the Prince. No party is truly a party until he's here, and all the other guests are merely early.

He's pleasantly tipsy instead of roiling drunk, which bodes well for the evening. Arm slung casually around Bon's bony shoulders, he is talking with his hands, as usual, describing some new row he's had with his parents. From the way he talks about it, it had the comedy chops of a Gilbert and Sullivan play, not the tragedy of Shakespeare.

"Perhaps I should've been on the stage instead," he thinks to himself, "I can make anything funny."

For once this is true, rather than just the blatant narcissism of a spoiled eldest child. Edward really is very funny. He has his friends in stitches by the time they collapse into their usual table at the back of the dance floor, slightly elevated so they can make their usual snide comments on the other guests.

Immediately there is a crowd. "Like a swarm of locusts," Edward thinks, eyes heavy lidded and sleepy as he leans back in the leather booth. "Ready to pick me clean. It'll be easier when I'm dead, folks. Then you can get right to the bone."

This sort of dreary cynicism isn't the sort of thing that makes a party, however, so he keeps it to himself. The waiters are pouring the bottles of Moët, the band has picked up again (they had been strumming some off-tune sarcastic version of God Save the King when Edward arrived; he tips them for the disrespect), and by the time he sees you, arm looped through your brother's, he already has one of the so-called waitresses on his knee.

Edward discards the poor girl without so much as a by your leave, springing to his feet with a grace that belies the amount of champagne he's consumed. Then again, he has practice. Bon is there to catch the girl - lucky Bon - and then Edward is out of the booth and striding over, scattering guests to and fro.

"There you are," he exclaims, almost lifting you off your feet in his enthusiasm as he embraces you. He kisses you thoroughly, on both cheeks, then once on the mouth. "The taste of forbidden fruit, delicious - what, don't look at me like that, you're a sister to me, it's allowed - no, I know I don't have a sister, Hal, that's why I'm kissing her like that, it's an innuendo, she's not actually my sister, keep up -"

And all the time he's rattling along, his hand finds yours and tightens, a silent plea for you to stay by his side, for five minutes, ten, an hour, a lifetime.