(no subject)
Sam didn't hold by therapy a whole lot, but he might have had to admit that gardening was kind of therapeutic. He had been working for a half hour, maybe, transferring the plants that had appeared in his hut at the end of January from their pots into the soil, and it felt... good. It was productive, it was natural, it was normal and it gave him this stupid, silly feeling like he was caring for something and doing something right. All of that shouldn't have been weird, except that he was a Winchester and they didn't have a history of things that were very natural or normal or caring at all. They could sure as hell be productive though, were there a rash of demons that needed to be sent back to Hell.
No demons here, of course. Or angels, aside from Castiel. Definitely no apocalypse, which left Sam feeling lost when he'd first arrived. Roughly the last year of his life had been dedicated to stopping this thing from happening, and when their struggles had proved futile and the inevitable had arrived, when the real fight that Sam felt as though he'd been waiting for his whole life had begun, when that started he'd been ripped from the front lines and deposited here. Where the sun shone every day and almost everybody he cared about was alive. Jarring didn't even cover it. Everywhere he turned, it was like a slap in the face. He'd worked so hard, pissed off his dad so much, trying to separate from the 'family business', to change his life for the normal and the better, and only when he'd given in completely and become the monster that he'd always feared did he show up in some makeshift version of paradise. Only when he wasn't worthy did he get what he'd wanted. It stung and left a bitter taste in his mouth, and that wasn't just the latent cravings for his sick addiction. It was hard just being himself, because he knew he had changed, for the darker, for the worse, and he knew that would disappoint. He'd disappointed everyone the minute he'd shown up. How was he supposed to be happy?
But he'd wasted so much time being angry at the very question that Sam had never considered if there were an answer. And then Ellen had disappeared, and Dad, and suddenly being angry didn't seem worth it. Sadly accustomed to losing people, Sam couldn't summon up a single curse at the island magic after that first day of separation. People died; that was the way the world worked. Sam wasn't happy about it, but he was more disappointed by time wasted than time lost. Disappointed in himself and not his father, for once. It all kept coming back to Sam and what he had done and failed to do. And he was done just being angry about it.
He'd gotten these herbs in a kind of pack, with pouches and stones and bits of metal. On their own they were innocent, but grouped together they were the makings of some potentially powerful hoodoo. Not that it mattered here, where Sam's only headaches were lacking in significance and he didn't feel weak so much as had all the power sapped out of him in one blow. Here they were just plants and pouches and stones and metal, and that was all they could be. No use getting angry over it. Only thing to do was make the best of it.
He had taken an unused section of garden to himself, aerating the soil and prepping it for the plants, and then started to make his own row of herbs. In hindsight, talking to whoever was in charge of the garden might have been a smart idea, but Sam could manage to come by every day and take care of his own additions and there was still plenty of room around to expand the garden. They were mostly useful contributions anyway. Bay laurel, ginseng, licorice. Sage and thyme. Chamomile and other stuff. He kept the poppies to himself and would make his own garden for that, because letting those out in the open was just asking for trouble, but after today he didn't think of that as a hassle.
He dug his hands into the earth again, scooping out a hole, and transferred the lavender plant to its new home.
No demons here, of course. Or angels, aside from Castiel. Definitely no apocalypse, which left Sam feeling lost when he'd first arrived. Roughly the last year of his life had been dedicated to stopping this thing from happening, and when their struggles had proved futile and the inevitable had arrived, when the real fight that Sam felt as though he'd been waiting for his whole life had begun, when that started he'd been ripped from the front lines and deposited here. Where the sun shone every day and almost everybody he cared about was alive. Jarring didn't even cover it. Everywhere he turned, it was like a slap in the face. He'd worked so hard, pissed off his dad so much, trying to separate from the 'family business', to change his life for the normal and the better, and only when he'd given in completely and become the monster that he'd always feared did he show up in some makeshift version of paradise. Only when he wasn't worthy did he get what he'd wanted. It stung and left a bitter taste in his mouth, and that wasn't just the latent cravings for his sick addiction. It was hard just being himself, because he knew he had changed, for the darker, for the worse, and he knew that would disappoint. He'd disappointed everyone the minute he'd shown up. How was he supposed to be happy?
But he'd wasted so much time being angry at the very question that Sam had never considered if there were an answer. And then Ellen had disappeared, and Dad, and suddenly being angry didn't seem worth it. Sadly accustomed to losing people, Sam couldn't summon up a single curse at the island magic after that first day of separation. People died; that was the way the world worked. Sam wasn't happy about it, but he was more disappointed by time wasted than time lost. Disappointed in himself and not his father, for once. It all kept coming back to Sam and what he had done and failed to do. And he was done just being angry about it.
He'd gotten these herbs in a kind of pack, with pouches and stones and bits of metal. On their own they were innocent, but grouped together they were the makings of some potentially powerful hoodoo. Not that it mattered here, where Sam's only headaches were lacking in significance and he didn't feel weak so much as had all the power sapped out of him in one blow. Here they were just plants and pouches and stones and metal, and that was all they could be. No use getting angry over it. Only thing to do was make the best of it.
He had taken an unused section of garden to himself, aerating the soil and prepping it for the plants, and then started to make his own row of herbs. In hindsight, talking to whoever was in charge of the garden might have been a smart idea, but Sam could manage to come by every day and take care of his own additions and there was still plenty of room around to expand the garden. They were mostly useful contributions anyway. Bay laurel, ginseng, licorice. Sage and thyme. Chamomile and other stuff. He kept the poppies to himself and would make his own garden for that, because letting those out in the open was just asking for trouble, but after today he didn't think of that as a hassle.
He dug his hands into the earth again, scooping out a hole, and transferred the lavender plant to its new home.