Choir of one

Sam played the violin as a child. He didn’t do it because of it’s beauty as an instrument. He needed something that moved, that became alive with him, like a piano, but was transportable, like a flute. He needed it because he had a music in him that wanted to get out. He was not skilled like a composer, but alive, the shriek as much a part of his song as the hum. His music was visceral, never serene, never at peace, it was ebony and omniscient, or it was meant to be. Even when it was slow, it was dark, the cry of the earth, reaching out into the void for something unnamed, not knowing what it was that played itself out through his small body. He was blind to the tempest that consumed him. If John had known, he would have hated it, would have stopped it. But he was too often out, either hunting or drinking, and Dean would leave if it got too strong for him, too much, two brothers locked together at arms length. Other than that, Sam practiced as often as he could manage, without sheet music to guide him or a soft hand to steady his work. He was alone, trapped inbetween the bowstrings, playing for the silence he chased away. Gabriel would listen, would watch, let the music draw him up and pull him apart. It was a discomfort to human ears, but Sam was deaf to it as much as blind, had always focused inwards for that spark that bled out of him. The music was not human, was not meant to play upon human voices or human instruments, but it wanted to be played, and it used to Sam for that purpose. Lucifer echoed along the insides of Sam’s soul, his grace trying to sing again. But the angels of heaven had long ago stopped singing, and Gabriel listen with half an ache and half a hatred, he craved something it only half satisfied within him, a longing for the family Lucifer had torn apart. Eventually it became too bittersweet in his ears, on his tongue, and he decided to take it away from Sam, some part of him malevolent, malicious, because Sam had been stringing himself out and all it did was hurt Gabriel, Gabriel the ghost, the phantom no one knew, Gabriel the shadow to the Winchesters’ light, the trinity before it would tear itself apart. So he used John to come back to the motel early one night, and John to yell, breath of spit and alcohol setting flame to words, and John to pull the smooth wood from Sam’s small fingers. But it was Gabriel who cracked it’s little spindly frame, and Gabriel who watched Sam crumple, the bowstrings his puppet strings, his own bones broken. Gabriel who hated himself as much as Sam. Gabriel who couldn’t forgive it or regret it.

Sam didn’t play the violin again. And Gabriel didn’t see him until he was leaning on a mop to stare up at Sam, eyes that were quiet now, no longer blinded. But there was nothing left to see. Sam didn’t have any music in him anymore.