If anyone knows how to enter a break without a / I would love to know. Thanks and enjoy :3

/

The prince turned twenty-one on the twenty-first anniversary of his mother's death. Even two decades later, grief hung heavy on the crowd that had gathered to celebrate his birth. Hidden behind their smiles and congratulations were tears and regrets. Syracuse had loved his mother, and he knew they considered him a poor substitute.

A hand on his shoulder broke Proteus from his musing. He turned, words of thanks already half-formed on his lips. After years of birthday parties, he knew the script. The half-formed words dropped away when he saw Sinbad.

He had had to survive hours of the party already without his best friend, and his late arrival was already the best gift he had ever received. Sinbad's generally messy hair was combed into obedience, and his shirt was surprisingly clean of what Proteus had always expected to be mud and blood.

"Happy birthday?" Sinbad offered with a weak smile and a shrug of his broad shoulders.

He heaved a sigh, letting the tension out from his muscles. "Do you mind reminding everyone else?" He asked dryly. "I think they forgot the happy part."

Sinbad's brows furrowed, his hand coming to rest on Proteus shoulder. It was surprisingly warm against the chill of the night, and Proteus was glad for it. "That bad, huh?"

Scanning the crowd for anyone who seemed to be coming in their direction, Proteus sagged back against a pillar. Everyone seemed to be engaged in their own conversations for now. He turned his attention back to Sinbad and blinked in surprise. To keep his hand on his shoulder, Sinbad had stepped forward, and was now much closer than he had been. For a moment, he had to fight to remember what he was trying to answer. He shook his head. "Yeah. Yeah, bad."

"I get you after the party, right?" Sinbad asked, his lips quirking into a promising smile.

Proteus' lips parted as he watched that smile. How many years had he seen that smile, gotten it flashed in his direction day in and day out, for year upon year. And yet, had it ever made the pulse in his veins pick up before this year? Made his chest ache the way it did now?

"Proteus?"

"What?" He shook his head, dragging his focus back to Sinbad. "Sorry, um, yeah. I'm yours..."

Sinbad's smile returned, and he leaned onto Proteus' pillar, watching the crowd. Delegates from The Twelve Cities roamed the room amongst Syracuse's nobles, while King Dymas was animatedly talking to the delegate from Carthage.

Proteus watched his friend from the corner of his eye. He could feel Sinbad's heat radiating against his side. For a moment, he let himself wonder what it would be like to lean into his friend, and shut his eyes and let the world fall away. Just for a minute. Just one minute – a full sixty seconds to help him combat the rest of the night. A night of mourning for the women he didn't know and never could, and a night of regret for the son she had birthed.

"Great. I've got ideas that will make up for this disaster." Sinbad turned to look at him, his dark eyes sparkling.

Suddenly embarrassed to have been caught staring at his friend with such longing, Proteus dropped his gaze to the floor. "It must be something pretty special to make up for this." He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

Sinbad's voice was suddenly soft. "It is. Just a few more hours." Before Proteus could answer – though he wasn't sure how to answer it – Sinbad's gaze snapped back to the crowd. "Carthage's delegate is on her way."

Thankful for the warning, Proteus swallowed down the lump in his throat and turned to greet her. A plain women in her late fifties, she was whip smart, and had already informed Carthage of more than either Proteus or his father had wished.

She greeted him with a bow as she arrived. He nodded, then steadied her as she wobbled. "Forgive me, prince Proteus." She said, straightening. "I may have allowed your father to persuade me to drink more than I should have."

His father would drink until dawn lit the sky, as he did for every birthday that Proteus could remember. And as he did, he would talk without thought. Mostly of his late wife, but sometimes, he revealed information that he shouldn't have.

Sinbad pushed himself off the pillar. "I think I fancy a drink myself." He was grinning as he said it, but to Proteus, his voice was flat.

He mouthed his thanks at him as he took the Carthaginian delegate's arm. No matter how drunk Dymas got, Sinbad always managed to ease the old man back into stories of the past, not of deals made in shadowy corners and the faults of the Council.

Perhaps, Lady Jemima. you would recover faster with some fresh air. Shall we retreat to the balcony?" Proteus offered, dreading the thought of stepping into the stiff, cold wind outside. It would tear through him like a hurricane, and leave him frozen and alone.

"That does sound better." Lady Jemima agreed, leaning against him. "I don't normally drink this much." She said, sounding guilty.

He murmured some assurance to her, though he couldn't have told anyone what it was. With the drunken women on his arm, he started towards the balcony, leaving his friend and the only source of warmth in the room.

/

The alcohol burned down his throat as he swallowed the last of the bottle. Even with its heat, he still couldn't warm up. Worming farther back into chair, he watched Sinbad with slightly blurry vision. Sinbad laid on his bed, a cup of wine in one hand. Proteus was tempted to push him over and crawl underneath the covers. Maybe there, wrapped in blankets and Sinbad's arms, he could find warmth.

Except that was wrong. Sinbad was his friend. He shouldn't have thoughts that involved Sinbad wrapping his tanned arms around him, pressing his warm body against his side, and the low laugh he knew he made when he shared his bed with a woman.

This was all wrong, even if his entire body seemed to ache at the idea of Sinbad directing this half-lidded bedroom eyes at him, at the idea of Sinbad's low voice whispering his name as he pressed kisses to his bedmate's temple.

Wrong. All wrong.

"Do you remember your fifteenth birthday?" Sinbad asked suddenly, breaking Proteus from his thoughts. There was laughter injected into his voice, and it was shocking to hear after the depressed murmurs of the party.

"The one you nearly got arrested for kidnapping a crown prince, right?" He asked, grateful to have something to keep his mind away from the curve of Sinbad's lower lip and the warmth of his body. He needed to destroy this images before they destroyed him.

Sinbad shot him a disgusted look. "No. That was your sixteenth. You'd think your best friend getting arrested for kidnapping would stand out in your memory."

Hiding a yawn, Proteus looked around for another bottle of mead. He knew Sinbad saw it as an almost fun occasion, the only night in the year where he could convince his uptight friend to drink bottle after bottle with him, but for Proteus it was different. The alcohol numbed him to the night, to the cold. It let him forget.

"I think Father would have you arrested every day if he could. Is there more?"

Sinbad sat up on his elbows. The movement pulled his shirt tight against his chest. "More? And your father loves me."

Proteus held up the empty bottle. "He only appreciates you when he's drunk."

Standing, Sinbad gave a knowing smirk. "Well, lucky me, the same isn't true for his son." He disappeared into Proteus' sitting room, where they had started drinking after the party, before they had retreated to his bedroom.

"That's not guaranteed." Proteus shouted after him, his speech slurred.

As he returned with another bottle, Sinbad plucked a pear from the bowl of fruit on Proteus' shaving stand. Overripe, the fruit bruised beneath his fingertips. "Last one we have." He said, holding up the bottle.

"The great thief Sinbad could procu... pro..." The word felt wrong in his mouth, all angles that caught at his tongue and refused to come out. "Get more?" He asked in mock disapproval. "What kind of thief are you?"

Grinning, Sinbad handed Proteus the wine, and settled down on the arm of Proteus' chair, grasping at the back to keep from falling. Instinctively, Proteus caught his arm. Once he was certain that Sinbad wasn't going down, he took his hand back. His fingers burned where they had touched his bare skin. Quickly, he wrapped them around the cold bottle.

"What was my fifteenth?" He asked, studying the pattern of his Persian rug. He couldn't remember anytime, even when he been offered his choice of several as a gift, that he had studied it so intently. There was a stain in the corner by the bed where three years ago his companion for the night had spilled her wine, another stain from a bottle of wine he had thrown after a fight with his father. They almost blended in with the dark pattern. A burn was hidden under this very chair from Sinbad attempting a trick in their young teens.

Sinbad looked at him, his cheeks full of pear. He swallowed, then grinned. "First time I convinced you to get drunk."

After a moment, Proteus grinned as the memory came back. "And the servants sent for the guards, because we were both passed out on the floor. They thought we'd been murdered." His grin grew at the memory. They had been so young then, and so naïve.

As he thought back on the night, his grin faded away. The only reason he had allowed Sinbad to get him so drunk was because his father had tried to throw himself off the balcony hours earlier. Sinbad hadn't known that – neither court nor council knew of the suicide attempt.

Still grinning, Sinbad took another bite of his pair. Nectar ran down his lower lip and onto his chin. He dropped the fruit on the floor. Another stain for another memory. Watching Proteus sidelong, their eyes locked on each others, Sinbad licked the peach nectar from first his index finger, then his middle.

Proteus felt a familiar stirring in the pit of his stomach. His hand clenched around the neck of the wine bottle. "You're a tease, you know that?"

Oh god. Had he just said that? Had those words really left his mouth and produced sound into the suddenly silent room? Heat flared in his cheeks.

The coy look on Sinbad's face smoothed into something warmer. Perched on the arm of the chair, he loomed over Proteus. Leaning over, he grasped at Proteus' far forearm where it rested on the arm of the chair. Even if Proteus had wanted to stand, Sinbad had him trapped now. He lowered his head, till there was inches between their faces.

There was no way that Sinbad couldn't hear his rabbit-like heartbeat. Letting his breath out in a puff, Proteus couldn't help but gape up at him. He didn't know if he was glad he had drunk so much or not. He wasn't sure if he wanted to remember the feel of Sinbad's breath on his cheek, and his fingers caressing his arm, and the delicious heat of him.

"Do you remember Sara?" Sinbad asked, his voice surprisingly hoarse.

Proteus blinked. "What?" Sara had been Sinbad's lover many months ago, but as far as Proteus knew, that had ended. It didn't seem the kind of thing you brought up when you pinned your best friend to a chair, and caused his heart to race faster than the Navy's prize ship.

"Sara..." Sinbad pressed closer, his weight slipping off the chair arm and onto Proteus' lap. They both grunted in surprise, and Sinbad took a long moment before he continued. "I broke it off with Sara seven months ago, because I realized that the feelings I had for someone else weren't going away."

"Really?" Proteus swallowed hard, hating the vulnerability in his voice. He had no idea what to think now. "Who is..."

The hand that wasn't holding his arm came to rest on his neck. Proteus could feel his pulse jump under Sinbad's touch. Sinbad's eyes were half-lidded as he leaned closer. "Proteus..."

Fingers digging hard into the arm of the chair, Proteus shut his eyes slowly. Every nerve in his body was alive, torn between fleeing and falling.

"You deserve so much better." Sinbad whispered, before his lips met Proteus'.

In times alone, or when the Council droned on, Proteus had allowed him self to wonder what it would be like to kiss his best friend. Would it be like kissing a women with facial hair? The thought had amused him. He didn't understand then that it would be like no kiss he had had before. It would be the culmination of years of longing, and months of need. It would scorch the cold and the sorrow from his bones.

Sinbad's lips were hesitant until Proteus wrapped his free arm around him and pulled him closer. Sinbad made a sound of surprise and then deepened the kiss. Sinbad's lips were chapped against his, but moved with a playful grace befitting a god. Proteus trailed his fingers down his spine, while Sinbad's hand tangled in his hair, tilting his head up. Sinbad's lips tasted of wine and pear nectar and something entirely Sinbad. Something sinfully wicked and beautiful dangerous.

Pulling away, Sinbad touched his lips. "I wasn't planning that."

Morning glow lit the side of his face. Panting, Proteus lifted his hand and ran his fingers over Sinbad's skin. "It's morning." Sinbad's skin was flushed and hot beneath his touch.

Blinking, Sinbad glanced at the window. He had shut it the instant they had entered the room, knowing Proteus' dislike of cold. Through the glass, the sun was rising. Golds and reds slowly defeating the dark of the night. Every year they stayed up till the sun rose, to show that they could survive the anniversary of the kingdom's greatest loss.

Drawing Sinbad's face back to his, Proteus kissed him again. He had survived his birthday. For another year, he could pretend not to see the sorrow and grief in others' faces when they looked at him.

Parting with a gasp from both of them, Sinbad smiled. "Happy Birthday Proteus."

/

The Realm of Chaos drifted like a dream. One day, it was the desert, the next the sky, and the next the bottom of the ocean. Shadows spun together out of moonbeams crawled through it to be torn apart by the tide of sands, while the constellations gossiped and carried out affairs in the sky.

The Goddess of Chaos ruled her realm – her prison – with an iron fist. But now, she left the creatures of her realm to their own means. There was more important things then what roamed her creation.

The eyeball of the Fates was wet in her hand, though it hadn't entered one of the Fate's empty sockets since she had been sealed in her realm. She tossed the eye into the air, half wondering if the Fates still saw through it now. It hovered in mid-air, the blue light growing until she could see the vision it held.

Two men, one in red, and one in blue kissed as the sun rose behind them. Watching the prince and his best friend, Eris, Goddess of Chaos, allowed herself a rare grin.

"That's my boy."