Locked Out of Heaven

Summary: One of the many occasions in which Dracula cannot sit still.

Characters/Warnings: Dracula and Martha Dracula.

He could not sit still. No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not do it.

Dracula fidgeted in his seat and felt the uncomfortably close sensation of giddiness as it welled up within his chest. The tickling in his stomach would not go away, not as long as he watched the woman only a few feet away from him. Martha, beautiful in this life or the next, sat in the armchair parallel to her husband with one hand holding onto a book and the other draped over where a bump of considerable size had taken form. She caressed her midsection where, to her and her husband's utter joy, a life was growing inside.

Looking at the sight before him was the cause of his restlessness, Dracula was sure of it. Yet how could he tear his eyes away?

"Drac..." Martha's voice suddenly cut through the silence and Dracula flinched. He watched with gratuitous intensity as his wife finished reading one last sentence before looking up at him. She smiled, as she always did whenever she looked at her husband, but for some reason the gesture only made him feel guiltier.

"What?" Dracula tried to laugh his troubles away, "I wasn't staring." This did not stop him from cursing inside his mind however as he hoped against hope that he looked the picture of innocence. It was certainly not an easy feat, for a Dracula anyway. "Don't be—don't be absurd Martha."

Beside him, Martha smirked. "I didn't say you were staring."

Embarrassment clawed at him, snatching all dignity away. "Ah-hah, I know that."

There was a pause as Martha Dracula leaned forward, book seemingly forgotten.

"Is something wrong dear?" Her hand had stilled against the slope of her stomach and although her eyes were crinkled with humor, there was a faint glint of concern dwelling within them.

"No! What could possibly be wrong?" That much was true. Nevertheless, Dracula pouted. He was unable to articulate what he felt when Martha's attention caused him to choke.

They remained as they were until, shaking her head, Martha set her book down and walked to the Count. She supported her weight with the grace and poise of any given noblewoman as she made her way to hover above her counterpart. The urge to laugh at his startled expression appeared only as a teasing grin that splayed across her cheeks before she fell into her husband's lap, with as much caution as possible of course.

Martha settled down into his lap, cuddling in close without sparing a thought toward her weight and the weight of the baby combined. Her husband had always had an enormous amount of strength, even given his nature.

"What is it My Love?" She mumbled against his temple.

Dracula shut his eyes and was subdued. He wrapped his arms around his wife and nuzzled the pale flesh of her neck, indulging in the giggles he drew from his darling wife. He did not believe that there was such a thing as peace until that moment, years of internal loneliness and superstitious villagers having thwarted his discovery. The thought of those days caused Dracula to tighten his hold, hoping that Martha would become all the more solid and real to him with the movement.

"It's just that, I've been thinking about the sun."

"…The sun?" Martha raised an eyebrow. She cocked her head to the side in an effort to look at her husband.

Dracula smiled into his wife's shoulder, "Yes. I did not think that I would ever be able to see it. For years I'd heard the villagers' talk of the sun like it were a miracle sent from the Heavens, and in that time I imagined that I would be barred from Heaven's light forever. Yet now, I have experienced the sunrise as no one else can."

If Martha could've blushed, she would have. Her husband's grandiose implications were not lost on her and it was difficult not to give into her instinctual desire to smother her husband in kisses as well as give him a light smack upside the head.

She compromised by ensnaring his lips with one long and ardent kiss, the kind of kiss that triggered a state of unwavering bliss in her husband as well as a jolting to his joints.

This time, when Dracula could not sit still, Martha welcomed it.

Fun Fact: The book that Martha was reading is called Sorrows of Satan, by Marie Corelli. Take the hint.

You think that if Dracula's metaphor could be condensed, it would make a great pick-up line to use at costume parties? It's corny enough, right?

Oh yeah, sorry about that the way. You know the corniness? I've never really written romance in terms of the main subject matter.