Too Human
"Well, isn't this... ironic?"
"Shut up, Crowley."
Sam shudders, breathing laboured and he can't help but think that these trials are going to kill him. In fact, he's suspected as much for quite some time now. Not that he'd ever tell Dean that; this is the only way Sam thinks he can ever even come close to atoning for the awful things that he's done.
"All I'm saying is that no one ever saw this coming." Crowley chuckles, trying to get a rise out of the one man that he's ever been actually afraid of. "Last time I checked you were drinking demon blood, Moose, not forcing yours upon us."
Sam inhales. Exhales. Inhales again. He can't lose his nerve now.
He shoves the syringe into his arm, the pain of it barely noticeable as it is drowned out by the agony of his thrumming head and aching chest. He has to do this. He can't let Dean down again. Slowly, watching the syringe fill with his own red life force, Sam extracts a full tube of blood. His blood.
As he turns around to face the self-proclaimed King of Hell he feels the world shift around him, blurring and rearranging itself like the too-bright beads in a child's kaleidoscope. When he regains his balance he sees Crowley smirking at him, his face dirty and his eyes still dancing with all of the menace a demon possesses. Apart from slightly different. Crowley has always been different in an... odd sort of way.
Crowley hisses as Sam's blood is injected into his neck. He wonders briefly what it would be like to suckle it straight from the human's wrist, just as Sam had done to Ruby. Crowley tells himself that he isn't turned-on immensely by the thought but then the thought mutates into Sam latching onto him for his blood and then it becomes undeniable; the idea of Sam Winchester being so at his mercy and desperate makes Crowley more than just a little bit hot.
"I don't think it's going to work, Moose." The demon mumbles, trying to sound cocky as he dispels all thoughts of attraction for his would-be un-demoniser. "How do you know that there isn't some demon blood still kicking around in your system? Wouldn't surprise me. You did use to chug the stuff down."
"Shut up, Crowley." Sam spits, asserting all of the authority that he knows he has right now. He's about to say something else but then a hacking cough rattles his lungs, making him double over in pain. "Oh, God."
Crowley knows what a dying human looks like and Sam fits the profile perfectly right now. Sam is dying. Sam Winchester, Moose, is dying. Crowley thinks it might the human part of him starting to shine through, but right now he can't even try to deny that he's slightly concerned about the tall human.
"You're dying." It's meant to sound nonchalant and it does, to a degree. Only Sam knows him well enough to know that the King of Hell is showing some honest-to-God care. "Do this and you die, Sam Winchester."
"I..." Sam could lie. He really could. The less Crowley knows about this process the better; he doesn't want to be the cartoon villain who gives his plan away and ends up failing because of it. "I know."
Both sets of eyes go wide. Sam's because he actually said it and Crowley's because, all of a sudden, he really doesn't want Sam to die.
"Then don't do it." Sam laughs and Crowley frowns. "What? Why are you bloody laughing?"
"You would say that, wouldn't you? To get me to stop." But then Sam sees the look on Crowley's face and he falters, unsure of what to make of the sincere care he finds there. "Wow, you must nearly be a damn human."
"Maybe."
A silence drenches the church in waves and Sam looks at the ground, wondering why on Earth he hasn't retreated away from the demon by now. Crowley is just looking at the sick human, in a similar sort of way that Castiel looked at Dean when he first raised the older Winchester brother from perdition. Like he can't quite believe it.
Sam looks up and their eyes meet, just for a split second. But in that split second two worlds collide and Crowley thinks that maybe, just maybe, being a human wouldn't be so bad. Or, it wouldn't be bad at all if only Sam didn't have to die for it to be so.
"You need to stop, Sam." The demon says, using a voice so full of caring that it makes Sam want to yield. "Darling, you're killing yourself."
"I'm fine."
"You look like you've just had some really, really rough sex." It would be funny if only Crowley didn't sound like he was pleading for the life of someone he truly cares about. Maybe Sam's blood is binding him to the human; it wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened. "And not in a remotely attractive way."
"Why do you care?"
Crowley bites his lower lip and cocks his head back slightly, gesturing for Sam to come closer. Warily, Sam obeys and keeps getting closer as Crowley demands it.
The demon leans forward as much as he can in his bindings and Sam leans down, both seemingly to have stopped breathing. Crowley brings his lips up to the side of Sam's face, kisses the skin of the man's neck and then makes his lips so that they rub against Sam's ear with every syllable spoken. Sam is frozen still from the heat of the man's lips.
"Because I do."