Alek woke up with the sun, as well as with a headache the size of Tokyo. He groaned and looked around for a moment, wondering how his bed had ended up on the other side of the room. Then he remembered he wasn't in his room, but in Dylan's. The other boy was still sleeping, obviously undisturbed by the glaring sunlight filtering in through the window. Alek sneered at him jealously, wishing he could be sleeping right now, while he started to pull the shades down. But something made him stop.

He pushed himself closer to Dylan, examining the way his hair shown in the sunlight. It was a different color than before, almost a golden bronze. He recalled Dylan admitting that he had bathed the previous night. It was true that Dylan's hair usually looked a dirty dish water color, and kind of greasy, but he had never imagined that it was such a brilliant color when it was clean. Even his skin looked better. It was a creamy peach that complemented his hair and his cheeks had a lovely rose to them. Alek gawked for a moment longer, realizing that he had never seen so much of Dylan before. The other boy had fallen asleep in the jacket Alek had given to him, but throughout the night, it had slipped down and was now revealing most of his shoulders and neck. The middie always had a shirt on all the way up to his chin, until now.

It had never occurred to him before, but Dylan sure was a pretty boy. It was like the classic Greek and Italian paintings from the Renaissance, with the youthful men delicately modeling the beauty of the human body.

Alek snorted, thinking of Dylan posing for a painting was an absurd idea. An image of Dylan in a toga, posing for Michelangelo while spitting and cursing swam into his head. It was hilarious, but Alek didn't find himself laughing. Instead he was suddenly brushing his fingers through Dylan's hair and down his cheek, amazed at the softness of his skin.

"MMfgff." Dylan muttered. He stirred from his sleep and gave Alek an angry look. Quickly, Alek pulled his hand away.

"I'm…I'm sorry, there was something in your hair." Alek lied. Dylan rose on eyebrow, confused. He yawned, mumbled something along the lines of a curse, turned over and went back to sleep.

Alek continued to stare for a few more moments. Then shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the odd tingly feeling he had as well as the splitting headache. He decided he should get up and have a glass of water, but as soon as he lifted his legs over the side of the bed, a wave of nausea hit him.

Bad idea. He thought, then lay back down. Maybe it would be best if he went back to sleep; after all, it was still pretty early. But as soon as his head hit the pillow, he felt someone standing over him.

"It seems that someone had quite a rambunctious night." Alek opened his eyes to see Volger staring down at him. "I hope you are feeling alright, your highness."

"Ummm, Count Volger…..what are you doing here?" He sputtered.

"Wake up your bed fellow, I wish to talk to you," the count replied, "both." Alek wasted no time and gave Dylan a nervous shake of the shoulder.

"Barking spiders, what now!" Dylan started to groan. When he realized that Volger was there, he shut right up.

"Good morning Mr. Sharp. I may still call you that, may I? There haven't been any…changes over the night that I should know about?" Volger crossed his arms, and stood as tall as he possibly could. He then gave Dylan a sharp, dirty glare.

"Uhh, no sir." Dylan answered, his voice suddenly much softer. "No…changes."

Alek looked between the two, completely bewildered as to what they were going on about.

"I would hope that you have had enough sleep by now. It has been since yesterday afternoon since you have been up, has it not?" Volger continued on with Dylan.

"Uhh, yes sir."

"Very well then. I have to say, given the circumstances, I am much happier that Alek stumbled into your bed instead of Lady Elsie's."

"Okay, hold on a minute." Alek interrupted. "What are you two talking about? You're not suggesting that I would…with her?" Alek tried to picture the situation and shuddered.

This time it was Dylan's turn to look confused.

"WHICH HER? I mean.. . who?" He looked absolutely terrified. Volger took a moment to clear his throat.

"You can't be that transparent, can you Aleksander? Well, I guess you could, seeing as that you almost did fall for her trickery. It seems that your cousin had means to intoxicate you so that you would sleep with her."

"WHAT!" Dylan stammered. His eyes were now the size of dinner plates.

"Elsie would never…." Alek began, but after he thought for a moment, it did make some sort of sick sense. "No.." He slammed his face into his hands.

"WHY?" Dylan mouthed.

"I'm afraid you don't know the Lady Elsie very well Mr. Sharp. She's a tricky, nasty little Jew, much like her parents."

"Volger…that….that has nothing to do with anything!" Alek raised his voice. "Besides, her grandfather was Jewish, not her parents."

Volger snorted. "That is precisely the point Alek. Her blood is tainted with their ungodliness and you wouldn't even be able to tell because her grandfather married into a normal family, the bastard, then corrupted the whole lot of them." He sighed. "Listen Alek, Elsie's father the ambassador is completely broke. He's lost everything to the Japanese government. They truly hate him here and have him arrested in Tokyo for the time being. Now, tell me if you think it's strange that she would start on you now? With her father out of the picture the greedy little witch wants to get you in bed with her so she can force a marriage on you without him knowing. She played at your heartstrings last night, convincing you to drink more than you should in hope that you might make some poor decisions on your part. If you were to have done as she had planned, then you would be stuck giving her your title and your inheritance!" He looked at Alek then with a sad, painful expression. He could tell that Volger desperately didn't want this to be true. He was almost pitying Alek, like he wished that he could solve all his problems for him.

"I wish I could have realized it sooner. I would have stopped her if I had known. It didn't occur to me until this morning when the servants were going on about what a fool you had been last night. I am so sorry Alek." Alek felt that he may need to clean his ears out. Was the Wildcount apologizing to him? That was a first.

"It's alright sir." Alek replied. "It is partially my fault too. I did have a little too much to drink and…"

"Don't think for a moment that I am not blaming you, Alek. I am still furious with your behavior. You were a total imbecile to have drunk so much and to let yourself lose control like that. I am utterly ashamed with you. Your father would have been deeply disappointed." Volger's face changed immediately back to a scowl. Alek felt his heart droop in embarrassment.

"I never drink! She tricked me, you just said!"

"She may have Alek, but I would think that after all these years I would have got some amount of knowledge into that thick skull of yours!"

"Now hang on a squick!" Dylan barked. "It was his birthday, and he was barking upset." Alek had forgotten for a moment that Dylan had been listening. When he looked over, the other boy's face had turned pink with anger. "All he wanted was for his ma to make him some streussomething, and she can't cuz she ain't here. And neither's his da, in case you haven't realized. Now I can't say much for tricky Lady princesses, but I know that when my da died I drank myself silly several times!" He gave the count a cold, hard, mean look.

"And for the record, Alek is not sleeping with his cousin, cuz that's just bleeding disgusting, and he was smart enough to come up here instead!" Dylan's voice had raised nearly an octave, and his jaw was chattering. Meanwhile, Volger looked like he had swallowed Tazza. Surprisingly though, he gave a bit of a smile.

"You're right Dylan. It is good that Alek is here instead, and it seems that I have reason to thank you. It's nice that Alek has a friend he can come to when he needs someone to talk to. I'm thankful that it is you instead of Elsie."

Dylan opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish.

"Now if you please Mr. Sharp, would you be willing to go downstairs and get Alek something to eat. With his demeanor last night, I don't think it likely that he will be able to leave the bedroom for a while. And since I had forgotten that it was his birthday, maybe you could find a way to get some Streuselkuchen?"

The look Dylan gave the count could have curdled milk.

"You forgot his birthday." It wasn't a question.

Volger at least had the shame to look a tad embarrassed. But it quickly vanished.

"I do need to speak with Alek privately, so if you could make yourself useful…"

"What is it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Streus cooken? What is that?"

"Ah, it's an apple crumb cake, very simple and quite dull if you ask me, but Alek has always been quite fond of it. I'm sure the cooks will know what it is and…."

"I'll make it." Dylan cut him off.

"But Dylan," Alek interrupted, "you don't even know what it is."

"I'll figure it out." He started to get out of the bed.

"How very…domestic of you Mr. Sharp. To think that you can cook, that really is quite amusing." Volger suddenly looked very pleased with himself.

"Shut it, count. I'm quite through with you."

"Yes, but before you leave, you may want to put your jacket back on. We wouldn't want you wandering about the house half dressed, now would we?"

Dylan quickly snatched up the jacket that had fallen beneath the covers and shrugged it over his arms before buttoning it all the way up to his chin. Once again, Dylan's neck and shoulders were completely covered.

"Dylan, you really don't have to.."

"Don't worry about it!" He grinned. "I'm not that bad of a cook. Ma used to force me and my brothers to help so she didn't have to do all the work. Besides, you're going to have to clean the carpet." He pointed to the bathroom where Alek saw the familiar rug soaking in the tub. His stomach gave an awful twist when he remembered how it had looked the night before. Dylan gave another grin and with a bounce he jumped off the bed and padded out of the room barefoot, not giving the count another look.

"Well then," Volger said, switching to German as soon as Dylan was gone. "I wanted to discuss some things with you. It appears that the marriage contract between you and Elsie is completely unnecessary, what with her behavior and her father's refusal in the first place. I have to say, I am quite glad that that finally went sour."

"You seemed okay with it yesterday in the carriage." Alek answered blankly.

"That's only because I was disagreeing with that preposterous young doctor and her insults to your family lineage." Alek rolled his eyes, but the Count either didn't notice or refused to respond. " Now, about the doctor. She has told me that we will be meeting with the Emperor tomorrow."

"The WHAT?"

"Emperor Taisho, the emperor of Japan. Surely you remember hearing about him. The German ambassador Derek Eberhardt will obviously not be attending, but the ambassadors from Britain and France, will be. From what I hear they have direct orders from Winston Churchill to discuss what should be done with you. Right now you are a prisoner of war under the command of the British Empire, but things could easily change. Emperor Taisho is a sickly man, and will probably do whatever his advisers suggest. So we must be careful about what we say and do. If we do not please the Japanese assembly and the Darwinist Ambassadors, we may end up in worse shape than we are now."

Alek sighed. So much for a peaceful birthday.

"Now, I would suggest you be in tip top shape tomorrow. Get plenty of rest today, and do get over your drinking spell soon. I wouldn't want the assembly to think you're a drunkard." He gave Alek a reassuring pat on the shoulder, if Count Volger could be reassuring. "By the way, I'm sorry that your birthday was not what you are used to, but we are in a war right now, and I'm afraid things are never the same during war time. And for once I'm glad you have Dylan. He will be a true friend to you Alek."

"I know." Alek said. Then he smiled for the first time that morning.

Don't worry, I'm Jewish myself. I'm not trying to insult anyone with this. Just being historically correct