A room at Mt. Sinai Hospital; New York City; Friday

[rocksthescarf]

Okay, well, he wasn't dead. Chuck hadn't exactly been expecting that. He also hadn't expected for the family to magically start talking to him again out of pity. The papers were even making him seem like more of a victim than a jerk who got what was coming, which was another surprise. If it hadn't been for the weird hospital smell, the fact that

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[scruffnfeathers]

Castiel had absolutely no concept of email, but he did know from prayer, and when Chuck had been lying in the alley, he had most definitely prayed.

Castiel rather felt he couldn't be blamed for having taken so long to get around to answering the prayer. He was busy. Raphael was plotting something and Balthazar kept trying to talk him into having orgies. It absolutely wasn't his fault, and anyway, he was here now, and clearly things had gone alright.

"Chuck," he said, appearing in the hospital room. "Why are you injured?"

[rocksthescarf]

Chuck stared at Castiel for a long moment, not exactly used to people just popping into rooms randomly after a year away from Fandom.

"...am I high or are you actually here?"

[scruffnfeathers]

"It's entirely possible that both are true." He'd spent enough time watching other people in hospitals to be aware of the affects medication could have on patients. "Why are you injured?"

[rocksthescarf]

"Some guys tried to mug me when I was drunk and I had to be difficult and fight back so they shot me." Just mentioning that made Chuck want to press the little morphine button again.

[scruffnfeathers]

"Ah." Humans were so fragile. Castiel found it rather incredible that they'd survived as long as they did. "But you survived."

He was rather impressed by that bit.

[rocksthescarf]

"Yeah, I guess I did." Chuck was pretty impressed with that as well. "How'd you know I was in the hospital?"

[scruffnfeathers]

"I didn't, until I arrived." Castiel tilted his head. "You prayed. It was . . . surprising."

[rocksthescarf]

Oh right, he had done that. Chuck was mildly embarrassed by that for some reason. "I didn't think praying actually did anything."

[scruffnfeathers]

"We hear all prayers," Castiel said. "For most, there is simply nothing to be done."

Chuck's would have counted as such, if Castiel hadn't known him personally.

[rocksthescarf]

"I guess I should be thankful for that. If you all had listened to that prayer I wouldn't be here right now," he said. "I didn't really mean that prayer, though. I didn't really want to die."

[scruffnfeathers]

"I'd rather you didn't, myself." Castiel needed a friend who wasn't an angel or a Winchester. "It must be difficult, to be so fragile." He vaguely remembered it being so for him, when he was weakened.

[rocksthescarf]

"I think the fact that I survived that is an indicator that I'm not fragile." Well. He wasn't as fragile as most people assumed, anyway.

[scruffnfeathers]

Chuck was talking to a being for whom getting shot was a minor irritant. "But you're in the hospital. They don't keep people here unless there is still something wrong with them."

[rocksthescarf]

"Well, okay, I can't exactly walk around yet, sure, but I'm not bleeding to death in an alleyway and there's no longer a bullet in me," Chuck said. The morphine was helping him remain positive. "But I won't be in here for long."

[scruffnfeathers]

"I see," Castiel said. "Though perhaps it would behoove you to avoid alleyways, in the future."

[rocksthescarf]

"If I recall correctly I met you in an alleyway," Chuck said, tilting his head to the side if he tried to remember if that was right or not. For some reason his head was providing an image of meeting in one of those bouncy castles. "I don't know if I should deprive myself of experiences like that."