A/N: I wrote this as a challenge to myself. I don't like John. But, after season one (before we got details about "In My Time of Dying,") I tried to figure out how to make John sympathetic. So, this is an idea I came up with. Tomorrow, I'm going to post another start to a multi-chapter. Bear in mind... I have a couple of common threads and tropes to my stories.
Disclaimer: Still don't own them. Still wish I did. So, pretty much the standard disclaimer. Sorry I'm running out of funny ones.
Lament
John sat in the chair in shock. His brain, his entire body felt numb. This isn't happening! He thought. This is a nightmare that I'll wake up from. Everything will be alright.
This is not happening!
Yet, he knew in his heart that the doctor and the police officer were telling him the truth.
He looked at his son, sitting opposite of John, staring at his father with a hard, cold, shocked look in his eyes. John felt it was a mirror image to his own eyes. Quickly, that stare disappeared, drowned out by unshed tears.
Son, you became a man. I didn't know. I wasn't aware! I'm so sorry!
He thought of the all the missing years. If I could just turn back the clock, my family would be intact. Complete. I would be complete. Instead, I'm a fragment of a man. I look like a man; I talk like a man; I walk like a man. But, I'm no longer human. The things keeping me to my thin thread of humanity and sanity are gone.
Times missed that he would never get back. On those times when there was nothing to hunt, he loved hearing his sons' laughter as they played. Unfortunately, the laughter got very sporatic to the point where it virtually disappeared. He drilled that playfulness out of his sons. He tried to make them carbon copies of himself.
But, during the times he missed his sons grew to be men. He hadn't noticed. He was too wrapped up in his obsession to notice that his sons were victims of the demon, as much as Mary was.
Oh, my son! My child! It's all my fault!
He was born 7 weeks premature. He was so fragile at birth, struggling to breathe. John held him, afraid that he would break his newborn son. He promised his son happiness, peace, a long life. Promises that he was all to aware that he broke.
I failed you! There was no life. We all died in that fire.
He became less of a father and more of a drill sergeant to his sons as time passed from Mary's death. He wondered when exactly he stopped being a father. Was it when he gave Sammy his first gun at the age of 9? Was it the time when he left Dean and the Shtiga attacked Sammy? Was it the first time Dean saw him covered with blood and freaked out? Or was it earlier? Was it when he put Sammy in Dean's arms and ordered him to run from the house as fast as he could?
John had no idea.
He looked up to see his son's angry and shocked eyes again. Although his eyes were shining with tears, all light in those eyes had dimmed out.
I'm so sorry. You're going to be like me. Insane and alone because your last shred of humanity and sanity is gone.
It's all my fault. Everything. I've lost everything. It should have been me! Why wasn't it me? I was prepared for it to be me.
I can't do this. I love him so much. I never told him. Did he know? Did he even suspect how much I love him?
No parent should have to outlive their child. No parent should have to stand at their child's grave side and watch the casket be lowered into the ground.
"Mr. Winchester?" John looked up at the doctor. "I'm so sorry, but there are papers you need to fill out."
Paperwork? At a time like this? Can't it wait?
He took the clipboard and watched his son walk out of the waiting room. John could barely see the forms through the tears in his eyes. Last time he cried, it was the day after Mary's death. He hadn't cried since. For 23 years, he held everything in. Now, as if a damn had burst open, tears spilled down his cheeks, obscuring his vision.
He blinked the tears away and studied the forms. Time of death--0218. The exact same time he was born.
John was in the room when his son struggled to breathe in his first breath. He wasn't in the room when his son lost the battle.
Name--Dean Michael Winchester. DOB--January 24, 1979. His son, his eldest son, was only 27 years old. A man, but a man taken way too soon.
Cause of death--Organ failure due to massive blood loss.
And it's all my fault. I'm so sorry, Dean. My child. Is dead. And it's because of me.
He got up and wandered blindly to the room they had been working on Dean until a few minutes ago. Sam was alone in the room with Dean's body, holding his hand.
I'll do anything! Just give me back my son! He looked for any signs of life in Dean's body in vain.
My son is gone.
John walked back to the waiting room. He stopped in his tracks. There, in front of him, as if waiting for him to come back were Mary and Dean. Identical hazel eyes were smiling at him.
Sam burst into the room, and grabbed his jacket. He stopped at the sight.
"Dean?" He asked in a small voice.
John found his voice. "Mary. Dean. I'm so sorry. For everything."
Mary reached out and touched John's cheek. Dean said, "It's OK, Dad. Death is an end of the struggle."
John could see the tears that were threatening to spill out of Sam's eyes finally broke loose. "Dean!" He grabbed his brother and pulled him into a fierce bear hug.
"It's OK, Sammy. And, don't worry about this chick-flick moment. It's really OK." He pulled Sam's hands off of his neck. "I'll be around. And, I'll see you again."
Mary stepped back from John and turned to Dean. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah."
John blinked away his tears again. He and Sam were standing alone in the waiting room. And, judging by the return of the light in Sam's eyes, he thought they both felt better.
Author's Note: I was bored at work. Seems like a lot of my stories probably start with the phrase "I was bored at work." I read P.L. Wynter's awesome ending for her "When It's Over," which made me cry, so I was already in a maudlin' mood.
So, I made this challenge for myself: can I make a character I inherently dislike into someone sympathetic? And this seems to be the only way I can make John sympathetic.