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Of all the ways Agatha Van Helsing had woken up in her life and since her death, she had never been roused from sleep with a mouth on her neck, nor a hand on her breast before. Arching into both touches Agatha sighed, blinking her eyes open in the dully lit room, and turning and smiling down at her unusual alarm clock.

"Good Morning." Agatha croaked, her voice still raspy from sleep.

Dracula merely grinned up at her, before returning to his task, dragging his mouth down her neck, and over the loose T-shirt he had leant her, until he could nuzzle his face into her breast.

"Ok…" Agatha whined. Reluctantly pushing his mouth away as it began to suck on her through the soft cotton. "Baby please I have to go to work."

Huffing as he reluctantly pulled away, Dracula couldn't contain his scowl. Last night he had let it go, his brain still scrambled from that, well from that incredible experience. Yet this was the second time Agatha had used that, well that diminutive pet name, and he was far from happy about it.

"Baby?" He scoffed, pulling away from her and doing his best to look stern, even as Agatha gazed up at him sleepily.

"Hmmm."

"Really baby is the best you could come up with?"

Blinking in confusion and then amusement, Agatha couldn't help but smile when she saw just how offended Dracula looked.

"A baby is an infant child, I am no baby." Dracula added, standing up to further emphasis his point. The loosely tied dressing gown exposing more than a strip of his chest, and Agatha couldn't help but follow the line of exposed skin down…to a rather annoyingly knotted tie that kept anything truly interesting from view.

"Ah you sure, because sometimes you sure do act like one." Agatha couldn't help it, perhaps it was because she was still half asleep, perhaps it was because she found his childish temper tantrum part adorable and part idiotic.

"You know just for that I am going to forbid you from leaving that bed all day." Dracula huffed. "And I am going to take back my t-shirt as well, you can lie there half naked all day." He added with a devilish grin.

"Yes, because that is not childish, or petty at all." Agatha deadpanned, raising an eyebrow when Dracula scowled and sank back to sit on the edge of the bed. "However, if you really hate the pet name, then I will try not to use it again."

"I do and thank you."

"I don't even know where it came from." Agatha admitted, shrugging her shoulders as she resettled herself up against the pillow. "So, do you have a preference for what I should call you?"

"Hmmm, I am anticipating hearing My God a lot from you." Dracula teased as he shifted to sit beside her.

"So not happening."

"You say that now…"

"Pick something else." Agatha suggested, her smile holding just a hint of fang.

"Give me some time to think about it?" Dracula suggested, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

"Ohhh no we do not have…" Agatha began only for her protest to be cut off by a very firm, very insistent pair of lips.

It was slow and deep and everything a good morning kiss should be…unhurried…and Agatha could feel her toes arching in pleasure when Dracula finally pulled away.

"Good Morning." Dracula smiled down at her, tucking her mussed up hair behind her ear.

"Good Morning again." Agatha repeated, unable to contain her own answering smile.

Last night had started well, gone through a rough patch of almost murder, and then had ended on a rather delicious note. Agatha had assumed Dracula would continue to push his luck once they had caught a cab back to his apartment. Yet he had behaved like the perfect gentleman he promised he was. Letting her change in the bathroom, lending her one of his t-shirts to wear to bed, and then merely kissing her and holding her as they fell asleep. It was almost too perfect to be true.

"So what does milady want to do today? I have some new books…or we could just stay in bed…"

"Milady has to go to go home, and get changed, and go to work." Agatha reminded him, after all not all of them were rich or an Elder. Some of them still had 27 years of conscripted service to see out.

"Well sorry, someone slept in, the sun is up, no escaping now." Dracula punctuated each statement with a kiss to her exposed skin. "I can call Mycroft, tell him you are helping me with some council paperwork."

Savouring the soft kisses, Agatha debated the idea of having Dracula call her in sick…but then it registered, and she froze in his arms.

"No."

"Agatha?"

Staring up at him, Agatha frowned as Dracula stared down at her, his concern growing as she continued to frown at him.

"What is the matter?"

"You don't know…"

"I don't know what?"

"Mycroft didn't tell you…"

"Agatha?"

"You still think you will burn…fuck…honestly they are such idiots. I am such an idiot." Agatha growled, pushing Dracula aside and rolling out of bed, treating Dracula to another flash of those black knickers he had grown rather fond of.

Of course, Mycroft wouldn't think to mention it. The fear of the sunlight was something, vampire society had overcome centuries ago. It was inbuilt in them, they were creatures of the night and the sun did sap their vitality and thusly their abilities. Yet they were no more vulnerable to the sun that humans were. They certainly wouldn't burn to ash like the old legends had suggested, only no one had thought to tell Dracula that.

"Fuck."

"Dearest perhaps rather than curse and pace you might try explaining?" A bemused Dracula suggested as he sat on the bed and watched her.

Pausing in her pacing Agatha wondered how to approach this, before deciding that her usual approach would be best; blunt was honest, blunt he could trust.

"Do you trust me?" Agatha asked offering Dracula her hand.

Tilting his head, Dracula considered the question from all angles. At first, he thought she was joking, yet watching Agatha he quickly realised she was serious. "Yes, I do."

"Then trust me now…I need to show you something." Agatha added, reaching out and pulling him up from the bed and leading him down the stairs into the great room, with its large windows, large windows that were currently covered by curtains.

"Agatha can you please explain…" Dracula began only for his protests to be cut off when she leant up and kissed him softly, before pushing him back into the recessed area.

"It will be easier to just show you…just trust me ok." Agatha insisted as she stepped backwards towards the window, and before Dracula to cry out for her to stop, she yanked the curtain aside and flooded the room with light.

His scream of protest and horror died in his throat. Dracula was safely ensconced in the shadows, whilst Agatha was bathed in the light of the sun. Only she wasn't writhing in agony, her body wasn't disintegrating into ash; she was serene, her eyes closed, her face at peace and her arms raised.

"It's a nice day." Agatha sighed, feeling the warmth of a cloudless sky on her back and bare legs.

"I…I don't understand." Dracula stuttered, clinging to the shadows, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him.

"What is there to understand its 93 million miles away, it's really not going to hurt you." Agatha insisted as she padded across the floor towards him. Offering him her hand to prove that it was intact, unharmed.

"The legends were just that, just legends." Agatha cajoled, drawing their joined hands back into the light, and holding firm when Dracula hissed out of instinct.

"It's quite logical really." She added doing her best to distract him with science. "The impossible things we can do, are things best done in the dark, we can climb walls, control the minds of animals, and can survive injuries that would kill a mortal. The night makes us feel safe, protected. Daylight exposes us for what we are, too pale, too cold, there is nowhere to hide. So, was it any wonder that over time we began to avoid the light? Then avoidance became habit, and habit became fear and fear can do sorts of things. Your hand isn't really burning Count, it's just that your mind is convinced that sunlight burns, and so it manufactures that response to try and save you…Like a fight or flight response."

His hand wasn't burning. His eyes could tell him that much and yet he could still feel it burning.

"It will take time. You will have centuries of false memories to overcome. Instincts to be unlearnt. Mycroft should have told you, or I should have remembered to tell him to tell you." Agatha was disappointed that she could have forgotten something so important. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Dracula repeated, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Why on earth should you be sorry? Agatha you have given me back the daylight."

"No, I have merely told you the truth. Only you can give yourself back the daylight." Agatha replied, her eyes hesitant. For some of the oldest vampires unlearning those instincts was impossible, they knew the sun would not harm them and yet they still could not bare to look upon it. They had learnt to love the darkness, and in the darkness, they would remain.

Yet she should have known that Dracula would not be like them, he would never back down from a challenge.

Dracula's eyes drifted shut for a moment as he girded his courage, then he took a step forward and then another and then another; until his whole body was bathed in the light. He held himself there, every inch of his body screaming with pain, he could feel it burning, his skin peeling, and his bones exposed…only his skin wasn't really burning, and he was standing as strong and tall as ever.

"That's it, just a little longer." Agatha's voice was low and encouraging, and Dracula tightened his grip on her hand, a lifeline that he couldn't bring himself to throw away…it was a weakness and yet it was Agatha, and so perhaps she was the only weakness he could allow himself to have.

The pain was numbing now, like an overloaded nerve ending, and Dracula forced himself to open his eyes. The light was so bright it hurt, he was blinded by it, after so long in the dark.

"Agatha." He groped for her blindly, eyes falling shut again as he tried to blink the shadow spots away.

"Shush I'm here baby." Agatha whispered as she pressed herself into his arms, and Dracula gratefully wrapped himself up in her, and her in him. Pressing his face into the curve of her neck and savouring the blessed coolness of her skin against his burning cheek.

Chuckling Dracula pressed a kiss to her neck. "I thought you promised not to call me that."

"When you pick something else I won't." Agatha bantered back, turning and pressing a kiss to his head, stroking his mussed hair in what she hoped was a soothing manner.

"Well alright then…" Dracula muttered, lifting his head from her shoulder and forcing his eyes open once more. Even though the light burned, he needed to see her face for this, his Agatha bathed in sunlight, was there anything in the world more beautiful. "How about you call me husband instead?"

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