Disclaimer: Kripke owns Supernatural. And my soul.

A/N: Oh, yeah. Here we go. IMTOD.

Summary: Sam and John were more alike than anyone but the Yellow-Eyed Demon knew.

FIRE AND BLOOD

"You know the truth, right? About Sammy? And the other children?"

"Yeah. I've known for awhile."

Rituals.

They have power, in and of themselves, beyond the belief infused in them by those who perform them – be they human or demon or something else entirely.

He remembers the soft patter of blood against the back of his hand. Can see it in full color and bright sound when he chooses to recall that night. And when he first learned what it meant, nausea bit sharply at the back of his throat and lingered there for days, whiskey be damned.

Blood.

So powerful, so sacred, whether shared or spilled or given freely.

John found out, early on, that women's blood held more power than men's, and it made sense when he stopped and thought about it. There was a power in the cycle that gave life, and it too shed blood.

Of course, that disparity in power was negated by a willing offering, but such a sacrifice trumped everything else. The man on the cross proved it.

And the demon was unlikely to get a volunteer.

So it settled for using a woman's blood to complete its ritual, baptizing the babe in its mother's gore after feeding the child a piece of hell made flesh. Further compounded the dark rite by the choice of woman; love was a powerful thing, driving humans to great feats and great despair.

So of course Azazel tapped that as well.

And then the fire.

The wealth of symbolism, of ritual potency imbued in the fire meant that John really had no idea why this ritual was consecrated - desecrated - in flame. Hellfire, rebirth, destruction, purification – any of those or a dozen more reasons would easily explain Mary's miserable death.

The essence of the ritual was a soul-deep tainting – one that John had interrupted, delayed, but had ultimately been unable to prevent.

Jessica. Sam's girlfriend.

She hadn't died because Sam loved her. She'd died because she loved Sam. And John would take that secret beyond the grave into hell itself rather than let such knowledge hang heavy on his youngest.

But now, he closed his fist over the open cut on his hand, and masked his thoughts in order to parlay with his wife's murderer. To save his oldest. Just another skirmish in the battle, but he could see the end.

"You care a hell of a lot more about this gun than you do about Dean."

"Don't be so sure. He killed some people very special to me. But still, you're right, he isn't much of a threat. And neither is your other son."

Hearing those words sparked an emotion deep inside that the demon read as anger, smiling as it riled him. John buried the joy down, layering it under the adrenaline-thump of his heart. The demon wasn't the only player at this chessboard, not the only one planning moves far ahead of the game.

Dean's soul wasn't spattered with the blood of a woman who loved him, the way John's was. The way Sam's was. Dean's soul was clean.

And there was a power in that, too.

Fin