(I'm not sure what this is. Just. It's definitely not like most of my other fics, so... There will be absolutely no non-con, blood kink or abuse, despite the fact that Alastair is Picasso with a Razor. I choose, instead, to write about how he is studying Sam and grooming Sam to become the worst choice for Lucifer's vessel so that he can keep him as his own until he eventually dies. All characters participating in sexual acts are 18+)
"Pick one," Azazel says. He raises a hand to point. "I don't want you anymore. I have my boy king."
"Why don't you just kill him, then?"
"Well I've become rather fond of him, you see."
"I am willing to take the boy... If he'll have me." Slow and hot like lava.
Sam looks between the row of demons, wide-eyed. He's heard the reputation of this one—he can't go with a master of torture like that, he just can't—
"Just don't kill him." Azazel's voice fades.
Everything goes black and Sam loses consciousness.
He can't breathe, he can't see, he can't—
The hood is lifted from his face and tossed to the side. Breathing remains difficult.
"Well, well, well." That voice again, like glass being polished with thick, clouded honey. "Aren't you a pretty little thing? Azazel's boy, and now you're all mine."
He closes his eyes. If he could whimper, he would, but his training has been much too thorough. And he thinks, I'm not Azazel's boy; I'm not Lucifer's boy; I'm not your boy. He breathes in noisily through his nose—the closest he has been able to get to making a sound in the past five years.
"Well? Say something."
Sam shakes his head.
He gets a sharp slap to the face, and when he flinches and drops to his knees in subservience he remains silent. Stares at the carpet-covered concrete for a moment, then looks up at the tall, gangly man with deep-set eyes staring down at him as if at an experiment he is particularly invested in.
He twists his mouth into the shape of a snarl, nose wrinkling, but there is not growl to accompany it.
Alastair crouches and tugs Sam up by the collar. "This is not right..." He shoves Sam's bangs out of his eyes and looks into his eyes as if searching for something, and Sam shudders. He doesn't like those eyes. But the voice is worse... "Have they silenced you, Sam Winchester?"
Sam closes his eyes, and Alastair takes that as confirmation. He hauls Sam to his feet as if he weighs less than a bag of rice. Steadies him on his feet and turns his head this way and that, long-fingered hand hot on Sam's cheek, a burning moth. Sam breathes shallowly through his nose.
"Mute, hm?"
"What did they do, train you?"
"They did, didn't they?"
"Would have been preferable to know that beforehand."
The scrape of Alastair's shoe against the gritty, thin carpeting fills the dark air and he steps away—he leads Sam without actually instructing him to move. His hand on Sam's cheek burns and he smiles to himself when the boy instinctively steps where he's meant. The benefits of not just biokinesis and other powers, but the ability to influence another body in even the slightest amounts.
Sam sits on a white plastic chair. One of those bucket-shaped chairs they use, presumably, to torture students and bruise their tailbones. It's not really white, though, not anymore. It's black and brown and rust-colored with little hints of red where still-damp blood adorns its pocked surface. A little bit seeps into the seat of Sam's jeans. He squirms. It doesn't help, and he focuses on the middle buttons of Alastair's blue dress shirt.
"What did they do to you?" Alastair seems to flicker, and suddenly there is a steel stool—of the taupe-painted variety you find in science classrooms, with a plywood seat—under his hand. He settles on this, and looks down at Sam. "Stuffed a gag in your throat and called it good?" He smiles, lazily. "They trained you, through... what?" He leans closer and hooks a finger under Sam's chin. Closer and closer until his nose brushes Sam's cheekbone, and he pulls in a long breath. Scenting. Hand to the face again, on the opposite cheek, and Alastair draws back a fraction of a millimeter. "Torture?"
A draft sneaks along the floor and wraps around Sam's ankles to chill him—Alastair raises his free hand in a careless motion, and the open door at the end of the classroom slams shut. The breeze ceases.
"You can't very well inform me of Azazel's secrets if you are unable to speak, now, can you?" A low, purring hum. It seems as if Alastair is joking, but Sam can't be sure. Alastair taps Sam's cheek with the tip of his middle finger and it's like a brand. The heat of Hell, concentrated into that small space. "You have been trained, I presume, so that the more pain you are in, the quieter you become?"
Sam nods. Shaking.
"Of course." A gusty sigh, and it smells like burnt wood and pewter.
"I don't want that. I want the noise."
"Oh, well."
He leans back and the stool creaks under his weight.
"How old are you, boy?"
Sam shakes his head.
"Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?" Alastair knows each guess is incorrect, but he enjoys pretending to guess nonetheless. It's evident in the gleam of his shadowed eyes.
"You are seventeen years old and two months old. Raised by John Winchester, found in a stained motel room by Azazel at age ten, raised by him from then on." His expression grows thoughtful.
"Raised and trained by demons, and yet... You remain astonishingly human."
His face clears.
"Ah."
He strokes the skin to the side of Sam's mouth, down along his jaw. Taps under his chin. "He waited and grew too dissatisfied to make you his boy king." Settles both hands on his thighs and seems to be aware of every molecule of the universe, though all he does is sit. "No demon blood for precious Sam until he reaches the right age, isn't that right?"
Sam keeps still.
"No wonder."
"Well," Alastair stands. His shape shudders and for a split second it seems as if he's not there anymore, and then he is but his stool is gone. He reaches his hand out for Sam to take, and Sam feels compelled. As if he couldn't resist even if he tried. Sam's hand feels small in Alastair's, though the demon is only slightly taller than him. Alastair pulls him close—tucks him against his chest, with one spidery hand on the back of the boy's head, and one curled at his waist. "I think I shall like to make you my prince, in that case." The room warps around them. The air grows colder, and so Alastair's touch grows hotter in comparison. For a moment, there is no ground beneath Sam's feet. Only high-reaching flames, and Sam is terrified that he'll fall into a lake of fire and burn away.
But concrete pushes up against his feet. He stumbles, but Alastair's grip keeps him upright.
Silence, down here. A basement, it seems like. Something creaks, as Alastair shifts, but Sam can't see what it is with his face pressed against the demon's shirt. A bang, and he jumps, and metal groans.
He looks over his shoulder.
A big boiler, spitting out heat, presumably with a belly full of fire.
When Sam looks up at Alastair again, Alastair chuckles deep in his throat like an old oiled engine.