John Winchester is a walking contradiction; slays evil with one hand and nurtures depravity with the other. Like a fucking flower garden, he's watched them grow, shooting up and twining together. They blossom into something terrible and twisted; black where there should be red or yellow. Thorns everywhere.
He thinks of circus tigers; isolated and mean and fiercely loyal. It's cruel to keep them, watch them pacing in their cages. But even crueler to set them free. They would die on their own, wouldn't know what to do, how to survive. God, help him, he has crippled his sons. They are black, black, and broken. Sins and secrets and what is a father to do, when he learns that his boys have transgressed against nature and God.
He doesn't blame them; can't blame them. He only has himself for that, can see the three digits turned right back into his own face when he points his finger in blame. His hands shake as he lifts the bottle to his lips, tries to drink away a realization he wishes he'd never had.
He finds solitude in his truck; slumps against the steering wheel and prays. Oh Mary, forgive me, I have ruined them. God, have mercy. Make this right. And the tears come, unbidden, unwelcome, and he cries for his tattered sons, souls stained and marred and unfixable. His own has been sitting in the gutter for years, and he's dragged them down, down. He's created monsters that hide behind closed doors, between sheets.
John thinks of Sammy, so enamored by his older brother, who has been his entire world for far too many years. Of Dean, who could rival a mother bear, so ferociously protective he is of Sam. How could anyone else even begin to get close? It shouldn't be a surprise. Deep down, it isn't, really.
God hasn't listened to John for a very long time.