Down Underworld [Ani]

Sam opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, he was relatively refreshed from the previous night’s sleep. He turned his head to the side of him to look at his recently engaged fiancée, she had her left hand by her head as she tried to sleep as comfortable as possible, the sun gleamed off of the ring that she recently accepted from him and shined into one of his eyes, he squinted as he noticed she still seemed to be asleep and he did not wish to wake her. To make things easier for him, he decided to poof out of bed and into the bathroom not too far from him, he slowly pushed the door closed and turned to the sink, he reached down and turned on the cold water tap and listened to it shoot against the porcelain below, after studying the tattoo’s all across his body and noticing that more and more seem to appear each week, he cupped some of the cold water and tossed it across his face to wake himself up as quickly as possible.

Luckily for him, the majority of his clothes were just by the bathroom door, this gave him the opportunity to grab some clothes without waking Zoe and put them on in the bathroom, after he had completed that task, he poofed to just outside his bedroom door and made his way towards the kitchen. He entered the room to see Darcy and Amber lounging on each other on the sofa, when they both realized that there was a human in the room, they immediately learned the error of their ways and leaped off, Darcy left through the back door and Amber hung around Sam’s feet as he began making some coffee. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he slinked down into a seated position on the floor and allowed Amber to walk all over him like a playground, he stroked her as she continued moving left to right and after a short time, he even began to talk to her, “Sorry for leaving you sweetie” he said, this was probably the last thing Amber wanted to talk about as it was all in the past now, but Sam just wanted to make sure that she knows how he feels about it all, “I left for your own safety, I hope you know that, it wasn’t because I didn’t like you anymore, if that was true I wouldn’t have come back would I?” he asked rhetorically as he scratched her under the chin. Sam scuffled on the ground as he was about to get back to his feet, Amber quickly hopped up and balanced perilously on his shoulder as he stood up and continued making himself a drink, he even put all of the ingredients for another one in a different mug, but allowed Zoe to pour the water in at her own time so it was not cold for her. Sam slowly took a seat by the table and Amber hopped down and lied down beside him, he leaned across the length of the table and pulled over the newspaper so he could have something to read before his other half awoke, there was something that he wanted to ask her.

Zoe was curled up on her pillow, her left hand between her and Sam. Her dark red hair splayed across the pillow and her skin, pale and freckly; she and Sam had stayed up late talking and she had let her old form fade in. A few minutes after Sam had gotten up, Zoe did as well. Stretching, she sighed wondering how on earth he could get up so early in the morning. Rolling over she grabbed her bathrobe off the floor and pulled it on. Then she got out of bed, running her fingers through her hair and walked to the bathroom.

Pulling her hair back into a pony tail and running a toothbrush quickly over her teeth, Zoe exsited the bathroom. Just in time to see Sam call Amber ‘sweetie’, chuckling softly she snuck up behind him and tickled the back of his neck.

“Hey, I thought the baby pet names where for me?” She teased him. “Not for the cat.”
Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck and rested her cheek against the top of his head. “Sleep well?”

Sam was sneak attacked by someone directly behind him, he felt a hand tickle his neck and he flinched as he turned his head around to see who it was, Zoe had awoken and reached the kitchen without him realizing, she teased him before giving him a morning hug and asking how he had slept, “Whatever you say muffin” he said as he shrugged lightly towards the cat, letting her know that there is nothing that he can do to change her mind, he then answered Zoe’s question “Slept just as well as I usually do, I made you some coffee over there, but I thought I would let you pour in the water so it wouldn’t be cold” Sam pointed towards the mug in question on the counter just to the side, Zoe released him from her grasp and inspected the mug.

Sam could feel something tickling his ankles, he leaned under the table to see Amber slinking between his feet, rubbing her fur across his leg and causing him to scratch at it to get rid of the strange sensation. “How did you sleep wifey?” he asked in return as he rose to regular head level, she wanted the pet names to be just for her, so Sam thought he would come up with a few more, “wifey” being one of them, it had been a few days since Zoe had accepted his engagement proposal and he was still getting used to calling her his fiancée or wife, he would get slightly giddy whenever he would say it.

Stifling a snort of laughter, Zoe asked “Wifey? We aren’t even married yet silly, you can’t call me that.”

It was better than most of the names she had received from her late husbands (most of them had married her cause of her job. She only ever cared about one… soon to be two). Such as names like Kitten, Holy Flower, and demon fangs, the list went on and on. Aiden had favored the name Kit-Kat which happened to be his favorite snack. Bad joke there.

“As for sleepy I slept great, you are quite cuddly.” Zoe let go of Sam and picked up her mug and dumped whatever in so she could drink it. Not to mention she added sugar. Zoe had a massive sweet tooth, even when chocolate generally wasn’t in her diet. “Unless you try rolling over and then you steal blankets.”

Winking at him she turned to Darcy who had been bouncing around. “Hey cutie!”
Placing her cup on the counter she sat down and Darcy crawled into her lap, giving Sam a triumphant look. Zoe chuckled, scratching her dog behind the ears.

Sam smirked at the dog before looking to Zoe, "Hey, I thought the baby pet names were for me, not the dog" he said as he tried to hold in his laughter, he was clearly mimicking Zoe with what he had said moments ago, but the opportunity was so perfect that he couldn't resist making the joke. His mind then drew back to when she called him quite cuddly, "I guess all of those cuddly exercises I've been doing have paid off then, boxing with teddy bears, lifting soft pillow weights, you don't get that cuddly without having to work for it" Sam took a sip of his coffee and peered over to the newspaper that was sat in front of him, the main headline was a news story on a murder somewhere in Los Angeles, if Sam was like his old self, he probably would have been there to stop that from happening, but he wasn't that man anymore, ever since he had become a Titan he was different, and now he had a fiancée, a dog and a cat to take care of, not to mention that his fiancée is a demon bounty hunter... speaking of which.

"Honey, remember that briefcase mission that I assisted you on when he was poisoned by someone? Did you ever think that if I went there to help you instead of standing on that building, you would never have been poisoned? I could have helped you do whatever you needed to do with no hassle instead of waiting on a rooftop" he took another sip of coffee whilst waiting for an answer from Zoe, he figured she probably knew what he was trying to get at, they had talked about it before, but not in very great length, perhaps now was the perfect time to discuss it.

Rolling her eyes, Zoe laughed at Sam and his snuggly levels. “Oh yes because lifting pillows makes you cuddlier.”

Darcy twisted around and licked Zoe’s arms with his large pink tongue while she listened to Sam speak and say his piece. He was still frustrated about the poisoning, which had been Zoe’s fault to begin with. She hadn’t been watching her toxicity levels. It would have happened eventually.

“Or you could have gotten the poison knife to the back; it was going to happen eventually. I wasn’t keeping up with my Arae form of life and I forget that I’m not human. Precautions and stuff you need to take. Like biting, in my culture, Arae’s bite each other to show affection; potentially dangerous if you’re a half breed. So if your ever in the Arae part of town, you can see what male or female gets around most by the biting scars on their shoulders or necks. Fun fact.”
Zoe reached up and grabbed her drink, sipping it carefully. Darcy sniffed the mug but paid it no attention as he settled back down.

Sam laughed nervously and rubbed his neck as Zoe explain how Arae's bite each other to show affection, he hoped that one day she wouldn't forget that he was human and inject him with a lethal dose of poison that he wouldn't be able to stand. Sam ran his index finger along the rim of his mug, "What I'm trying to say is, if we worked together on contracts, we would have less of a chance of getting hurt and we would do the job far more efficiently than doing it alone, so if you was willing, I would be more than happy to help you with your jobs, we'd be a perfect pair" Sam watched Darcy give in to curiosity and see for himself what was in the mug that Zoe was holding.

Sam lifted his mug off of the table and stood beside where Zoe and Darcy were seated on the floor, he then carefully slide down the counter until he was sat next to her without spilling a drop of coffee, Sam ruffled Darcy's head before taking another sip of his coffee. "I don't have anything to do now that I'm back, and I certainly don't want to be sitting in here day in and day out wondering whether you are still alive or not, use me, let me help you" he asked as he placed his hand on her leg, letting her know that he is there for her.

“The whole reason why I had you watch the first time was so you could get a feel of how I did things. The poisoning was completely unintentional. Not planned and I was very lucky you where there. I won’t deny that,” She felt Sam’s hand on her bare leg, the warmth from the pressure spreading and she leaned her head on his shoulder. Zoe was still slightly tired but the feeling was ebbing away, slowly if anything.

“So, what do you want to do today?” She murmured, tracing patterns on his bicep with her free hand. That was when her phone rang; groaning Zoe pulled away from Sam and stood to grab her cell phone.

“Hi,” She said, listening to the speaker on the other end. Almost instantly a frown developed and she glowered. “No, I am not going to go so he can parade a Vampire Seductress on his arm. No! I don’t even dance and no I will not be your date! I can bring my own. Bye.”

Zoe sighed and ran a hand over her face and her pony tail, wishing her hair was down so she could pull it out by the roots with frusteration.

Sam heard Zoe whisper to him, asking him what he wanted to do today, now that Sam had a lot of free time, he could pretty much do whatever he wanted all day, with or without Zoe. He was about to answer her when she had to rise to her feet in order to slip her phone out of her pocket, the vibrating stopped as she accepted the call, again having only one side of the conversation made it quite tough for Sam to understand what she and her friend were talking about, from what he could gather there was some kind of party happening with Vampire’s involved, whoever was on the phone also seemed to ask her if she wanted to go with him, Darcy walked next to Sam and he began stroking his back, “That must be Ethan” he whispered to the dog, loud enough for Zoe to hear but not loud enough so that it would come through on the other side of the call.

Zoe hung up the phone and seemed to look quite distressed about whatever it was that she was needed to do, Sam rose to his feet and placed his mug on the counter to the side before comforting Zoe, slowly moving his hands up and down her arms to try and calm her, “What’s the problem hun? Anything that I can help you with?” he asked as he rested his head on her left shoulder, Sam would be happy to do anything that involved Zoe and her job, even if it meant just going to some party instead of killing some people, he hadn’t been to a party since… Well he has actually never been to one ever which caused Sam to feel slightly sad inside, there was just never an opportunity for him to go to one, and the fact that he ages at an extremely slow rate now means he will be having his 80th birthday and still look around 30 years old, this would cause all kinds of problems if he invited over family and friends, he did have a very important date in the future though, his wedding day, however Zoe and him haven’t spoken about that at all, so who knows when it would all be planned.

“The Annual Council Ball and no it wasn’t Ethan. It was Nathanial. A fellow Arae and a council member, apparently I am supposed to go to it and I don’t want to. Much rather stay here and snuggle Darcy… or you. I’d prefer you as you don’t have dog breath.” Zoe grinned crookedly, resting her cheek on the top of his head. After several moments she just sighed and flopped down into his lap. Dethroning Darcy who grumbled and went to find Amber, Zoe smiled at the dog slightly before looking up at Sam; the bare hollow of her throat was exposed.

“What’s on your mind?” She asked, clearly Sam was thinking. Her blue eyes stared up at him and strands of dark red hair were draped over his leg. Her arms rested on her stomach.

“The Annual Council Ball…” Sam repeated quietly to himself just because it sounded fun to say, he was surprised at the fact that this was a whole new person on the phone to her though, clearly these people that called her on her phone were friends or colleagues, which Sam was slightly disappointed about because he has never met these people and Zoe doesn’t even talk about them to him. Before he knew it, he had an Arae in his lap where a dog used to be, Darcy looked slightly sad that he was not receiving anymore affection before trotting off somewhere else to find something else to do, Sam held his arms around her, feeling the both of them get warmer and he could feel Zoe’s heart rate, which made him shiver slightly.

“What’s on my mind?... I was just thinking that I’ve never been to a party before – let me rephrase that, a ball before” he corrected himself and used a slightly smarter accent as he felt he needed to, to meet with the formal choice of name. “Never had a birthday party when I was growing up, never was too fussed about growing up in all honesty, it just felt like another year passing, no big deal… and now I just can’t have any birthday parties due to my slow aging, and if I was to have one it would be me, you and the two pets celebrating, where is the fun in that?... What I am saying is, I’ll put on that suit that I have never had the chance to wear, you put on a beautiful dress and make yourself look amazing, we can both go to this party of yours and try to enjoy ourselves, after all I have put you through, I think you deserve a little bit of fun with me.” Sam knew that this wasn’t going to be any ordinary ball, it would be filled with various monsters of the underworld including the already mention Vampire. Being a Titan, Sam would either be greeted nicely or be hated by everyone, depending on what their stance on Titan’s are, although Sam was not like the rest of the Titans, he just had to live with the risky reputation they had created for themselves.

Zoe arched an eyebrow, “Seriously, you want to go to that? It’s boring filled with thousands of year old Arae’s going, ‘when I was yur age I ate a cougar with three heads!’” Zoe used her old man impersonation voice before rolling her eyes. “If you want to, I suppose we can. Just remind the leaches to keep their fangs to themselves.”

Sam had wrapped his arms around Zoe; pressed up against her back she could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat. A strange drum like feeling she could feel through the thin fabric of her bath robe. “I am warning you however that these people are snobbish and like drinking games.” She pointed this out as she began tracing patterns on his bicep again with the pads of her fingers. The Demon was perfectly comfortable in this position, curled up against Sam like a small cat.

Sam giggled at Zoe’s impersonation of an old man before replying, “Sure I’m happy with going, it’ll be fun to see and talk to the people you know and see what the underworld looks like.” Zoe never did explain to him what the underworld looked like, but from the different movies and tv shows that he has watched over the years, he assumed it was all red and black and surrounded by fire, to put it simply it wasn’t a very attractive place to be, however he was happy to be proved wrong.

Sam scoffed when Zoe explained what the people he would be meeting were like, “Please Zoe, I come from England, the origin country of snobbish people, and if we’re talking drinking games including alcohol, I don’t drink as you already know, if you are talking about drinking games with other liquids like… blood for instance, I think I would prefer not to get involved with that” he gagged slightly before saying the word blood, he had no issue with spilling it, but the last thing he wanted to do was drink it. Sam was very comfortable for someone sitting on a tiled floor with a woman on his lap, he was fine with staying like this for a while, but the fact that he also wanted to be more involved in Zoe’s work life gave him the push he needed to want to get up and go to this ball. “Alright come on, time to get ready” he said as he pushed Zoe upwards to a standing position, “I’ll give you a head start” he said with a smile and a small push to her leg. A few minutes later, Sam finished his coffee and placed the mug into the sink so it can be washed up at a later time, he stepped over the pair of pets playing and headed to the spare room where some of his clothes were placed. He pulled open the wardrobe and pushed every piece of clothing he had hanging in there to the left hand side, revealing the never before worn suit that Sam had talked about earlier, he tugged it out of the wardrobe and set it down onto the spare bed in-front of him, a black suit jacket, white shirt, black suit trousers and a pair of shoes that were still around at the bottom of the wardrobe. After placing all of these pieces of clothing on, Sam stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself, he looked quite dapper and it felt very strange, he was so used to wearing casual clothes that felt comfortable to him and he had never looked this smart before. After a light dusting down, he moved back to the kitchen to wait for Zoe who could take any amount of time to get ready.

Zoe ran a brush through her hair, closing her eyes as she thought. On a whim, Zoe’s skin darkened as well as her hair. Her eyes however stayed that unnatural shade of blue. Picking up a twin set of sleek and silvery chopsticks, Zoe twisted her hair into an elegant knot. Pulling her clothing off she stepped into her deep purple dress and pulled it up. She zipped it up all the way before grabbing her sliver necklace and fastening it around her neck. The ensemble was completed with dark red lipstick and coal eyeliner. Walking back into her room, she picked up a pair of strappy black heals and walked into the kitchen.

Sam was leaning against the counter with his jacket on slightly crooked. Sighing, Zoe slipped her shoes on and walked over him. “Your jacket is crooked. Are you going to wear a tie?”
Staring up at him with her wide blue eyes, she grabbed the front of his jacket and smoothed it out. “There, all fixed.”

Sam watched cars pass by on the road outside of the kitchen window; it did not seem as busy as it used to be. The sound of footsteps caused him to turn around in time to see Zoe emerge from the corridor and into the kitchen, his eyes opened widely in surprise as he has never seen Zoe look as good as she did now. “Wow…” he gasped as she came closer to him to fix his jacket, he followed her hands with his eyes as they grabbed his clothing and fixed them up, she asked him a question whilst doing it, but he was too distracted to answer it immediately. “Err… I don’t have a serious tie, they either have cats or boats on them, this looks good anyway” he said whilst staring into her big blue eyes, for the moment he had forgotten what it was that they were supposed to be doing, it felt like just the pair of them and nothing else was important.

“Thanks” he said as Zoe fixed him up, Sam couldn’t help but steal a quick kiss from her before moving to the table and lifting his pendant off of it, he slipped it over his head and tucked it under his collar. “So how are we supposed to get to this ball of yours? Taxi? Walk? Inter-dimensional Portal?” he asked, he was genuinely interested, he assumed it would be some kind of strange portal, he would find it hard to believe that creatures from the underworld would be able to hold a ball in broad daylight.