You may notice that all of them are pretty much always drinking. They don't show it as much on the show, since on the show they're usually actively hunting, but they reference the fact that when not actively on the hunt they're pretty much always tipsy.
Dean shoved past Chuck, who appeared to be eagerly waiting by the stairs.
"Did I do something?" Chuck asked, looking after him. Chuck didn't miss the way that Sam and Bobby eyed him warily, and that Castiel was downright staring.
"You said some stuff, it'll take some getting used to," Sam supplied, the least rattled of them all. "Just ignore him."
Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Do I get to know this stuff I said?"
Bobby frowned and shook his head. "No. You didn't want us to tell… you," he finished lamely.
Chuck laughed a little. "Not gonna lie, that's a relief. So will I ever find out?"
"You gave no indication as to when you would become aware of your true nature," Castiel offered.
He raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure this guy was me? Because that doesn't sound like me."
When Sam cracked up, Chuck didn't even bother asking why.
"What's your deal?" Dean accused Castiel. "I thought you hated God, the guy wouldn't show when you went looking for him."
"Chuck is…" Castiel nodded his head. "Honestly, Chuck is sort of pathetic. Was pathetic. It is as Sam said; if this is the life God chose for himself, there's probably something we don't know."
Dean frowned. "You seem awfully forgiving."
Castiel frowned. "I am not a human, Dean. I know little of what it means to be one. But…" he looked to the sunset. "It seems full of suffering and struggle. My fear was that our father had abandoned us all for a better existence. But, he is actually struggling and suffering with us. I'm not going to pretend to understand, but I recognize that that isn't abandonment."
"But - " Dean huffed, crossing his arms. "It's just fucking wallowing. It's not actually fixing anything, is it? It's just him crying and wallowing. It's the same old shitty wallowing Chuck, just on a way bigger scale than we pictured."
"You need to see this from a different perspective," Castiel said. "Your life is not the entirety of life. Your lives are brief, just eighty years, and then you live out eternity elsewhere. Yet, you are all so concerned with the quality of your life, and not the quality of your afterlife. Perhaps there is something you don't know."
"Heaven sucks," Dean says. "You're completely isolated from people you love. There is no happy afterlife."
"God didn't choose the apocalypse. Maybe there are other things he didn't choose."
"Why are you giving the man a chance?!" Dean exclaimed. "You keep fucking defending him!"
"What are my other options, Dean?" Castiel pressed. "Watch him suffer, and believe that he has given up on us?"
"I've had a father give up on me, you get over it," Dean spat.
Castiel was gone in an instant.
In the next, Dean rubbed his face, guilt uncomfortable in his chest.
"So do I get to go home?" Chuck asked, more than a little curious. It wasn't that he wanted to go home, per se. He hadn't even thought about going home in the last few weeks. It's just that being hypnotized was supposed to be 'the big reveal,' and nothing happened.
"We're demoting you, research duty," Bobby huffed. "It's a damn shame because you're a crack shot, but if you're gonna get all weird and go amnesia on us, you're too unstable for the field. But…
Chuck smiled wanly. "If you'll have me, I'd like to stay here. Plus," he waved his arm around, "all the cool books are here."
Bobby's beady eye turned on the man. It would be good to keep an eye on amnesiac-God.
And Bobby wouldn't admit this before, definitely wouldn't now, but he was enjoying having Chuck for company.
"Fine," he huffed.
Chuck smiled, seeing straight through Bobby. "I'll put the house up for sale."
Castiel flew him back to his house, for-sale sign in tow. It wasn't lost on Chuck, the way Castiel was very eager to spend time with him now. It's not like Castiel avoided him before, but he didn't know the man - angel, all that well. He spent most of his time during the apocalypse with the Winchesters, and most of his time since in heaven.
The state of the house, frankly, embarrasses Chuck. How did he not notice before, the rank smell of alcoholism and depression that permeated his old home?
"This is nasty," Chuck said as he walked through the door.
"They are rather poor conditions," Castiel agreed. "But most prophets live in worse."
Chuck rolled his eyes. "You're all being tight-lipped, but I'm not a moron. I'm no prophet."
Castiel looked at him, looked back at the dank house, and sighed. "You are not."
Chuck looked around, at all his old furniture, the couch he'd had since his first apartment, the shitty tube tv in the corner, and that awful sad desktop computer he still used. He hadn't missed any of it; every keepsake or knickknack he treasured, he'd taken with him when they picked him up.
"I'll just donate all this shit, make it easy," Chuck waved his hand. "The Goodwill can sort through all of it themselves."
Castiel nodded. He turned his head and in an instant, every rag or item too dirty to donate was gone.
Chuck started. "What? What did you do?"
"They are now at the curb. It is my understanding that is where humans in this society put their discarded items," Castiel supplied.
Chuck walked over to the door, and sure enough, everything was in a loose, random pile at the curb. The trash guys hated it when you put loose items out.
Well, screw the trash guys.
"I'll just call those donation pick-up people and leave the house open," he said for his own benefit. He picked up the sign and walked out to the yard, and stuck it into the ground.
He looked around; none of his neighbor acquaintances were out. He supposed it was a good thing; he was off to a new life, and they weren't coming along.
The house must have cleaned up well, because it was sold within the month. Not for a ton of money, only $60,000, but it was a shitty house in an okay neighborhood, and that was a good price for the area.
"I don't want to just put this in a bank," admitted Chuck. "We'll just piss it away."
"Invest it," Bobby suggested. "Nothing fancy, I've got some money in a 401k. Just in case I do manage to make it past an age where I can work on cars. Plus, houses in the boonies are cheap and you have access to angel-air."
"However, I am not handy to fly him to the grocery store whenever he needs," Castiel intoned, almost grumbling. "And is this not moot?"
"Why?" Chuck asked, looking at the computer screen revealing his bank account. $60,000.
"It's, uh, something you said while you were under," Sam admitted. "Sort of implied that you wouldn't make it to retirement with your ignorance intact."
"Yeah, I sort of had that feeling," Chuck replied, still staring at that gigantic sum of money. "What with all the shit going on."
"The 'shit' is actually coming to an end," Castiel interrupted. "The battles with Raphael are coming to their close, I sense the end of the conflict drawing near."
Chuck laughed - "What are the odds I'm going to do something and amazing and forget what it was?" he quipped. His tone turned sour. "Oh wait, one hundred percent."
Sam just gave him half a smile that said, I'm sorry.
"So you're just gonna leave it to me to figure it all out?" He asked, a little bitter.
Bobby looked up at him. "You're the one who said back off. If you ask, we'll answer."
Chuck opened his mouth to ask, but as he formed the words - Who Am I? - They stuck in his throat.
"Yeah, I thought so," Dean mumbled sourly.
"We must eliminate the threat of Raphael," Castiel insisted, "And Crowley has yet to return my summons, which I take to mean that he has no way to help. There is, however, one other option," he continued uncertainly. "He can be confined to the jail cells of heaven. They are more secure than the bowels of the pit, but not than the cage, for that was made by God himself. They have held many angels for thousands of years -"
"- But you don't know if they can hold an archangel," Bobby interrupted, seeing the problem.
Castiel nodded. "It would be more secure to kill him."
"We can't kill him," Chuck insisted, oddly vehement. Of course, the rest of the group knew why. "He's the last archangel. Michael is probably like Lucifer by now. Wouldn't it be a shame to kill him?"
"Raphael is corrupted, just as Michael and Lucifer are," Castiel insisted. "They all believe as Lucifer does now. There is no difference."
Chuck pursed his lips. "You're right, you're right. It just seems a little sad, you know? That all the archangels are either evil or dead."
There was a pause.
"It saddens me greatly," Castiel admitted, "but that doesn't change the situation any."
"So, killing Raphael, what do we do?" Dean asked, moving the conversation along. "Archangels can only be killed by the archangel's blade, correct? Where do we get one of those?"
"I know not where Gabriel's blade ended up after his death," Castiel intoned. "There are other weapons that can kill an archangel, but they are lost."
"Seems like the sort of thing Balthazaar would have stolen, yeah?" Sam said with irritation. "It just keeps coming around to that guy."
"We searched, and we can't find anything that would summon an angel, or compel them to show up," Bobby added.
"If such a thing exists, angels would surely want to destroy all knowledge of it," Castiel replied dryly.
"All these rituals, summonings, this and that," Chuck said. "Why would God even make them, unless he knew there might be a situation where they were needed? Because God himself wouldn't need them, right? He would just" Chuck snapped his fingers, "make it happen."
Bobby shrugged. "Makes sense," he said, eyeing the brothers significantly. "You'd better hope so, too, or else we're up shit creek."
Chuck huffed, opening his laptop to work. They all stared at him silently. "I'm new, am I gonna get any help?" Chuck joked.
Sam rolled his eyes, and pulled a book from the shelf.
"Chuck can take my spot, I'm not doing this shit," Dean complained. "I'll be in the yard."
"We don't need the money anymore, Dean," came Bobby's smartass reply.
Dean yelled back from the backyard. "Yeah, but it's a hell of a lot better than research!"
A couple more weeks of research, and Dean was going stir crazy. Nothing exciting happened with Chuck, nothing exciting happened with Raphael, and every broken car in the yard was fixed by now.
"Okay, look, this hunt is thirty seconds away," whined Dean, pointing to a newspaper clipping. "Can Sam and I go hunt?" They'd been there for two months now, and Dean couldn't remember a time they'd stayed in one place longer than that since they were children.
"Go, git," Bobby grumbled when he brought his whining to him. "Chuck and I can handle book duty." It had been weeks, and nothing turned up about a summoning ritual. They'd tried looking for signs of the angel, but angels didn't have omens the same way major hitter demons did.
Sam and Dean left, drove off to somewhere in the country to go fight a monster, so it was that Bobby and Chuck were alone in his living room, pouring over books that gave no answers.
"What do we do when there are no leads, Bobby?" Chuck asked tiredly. "We've read every single book in your library, there isn't anything."
"The great thing is, kid, once you find info, you don't ever have to find it again," Bobby huffed. "As for what we do when there are no leads… those fool boys go hunt until they find one."
Chuck hummed, and was silent a little more. "And until then, we cast around in the dark," he grumbled.
A little while later, "Should I be scared, Bobby?" came Chuck's voice.
Bobby was startled from his thoughts. "What?"
"I mean, ever since you guys hypnotized me, or whatever, you've been acting really weird," he explained. "I mean, you were being weird before, which is fine. I was being weird." Chuck took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "But ever since then, sometimes you guys tiptoe around me or act like I'm gonna snap at any moment."
Bobby looked up at Chuck from under his eyebrows. "Well, we don't want to jog your memory. Those aren't happy things, the things you don't remember."
Chuck put down the thing he was reading, and sighed. "Should I be worried about what it is?"
Bobby shook his head. "Nah. No use in being worried. 'Sides, it'll come when it does."
"It's hard for me to take that attitude," said Chuck, a little recalcitrant. "This is the first time I've had anything resembling a family, and for less than six months, and I'm being asked to give it all up again?"
"There's nothing saying remembering will mean giving up this up, boy," Bobby admonished. "Don't go assuming things, that always got Sam and Dean into trouble."
Chuck put his hands on the table. "I mean, I had Becky," he continued, "But she was never that close a girlfriend, you know? She only was into me because she loved the books. She was too good for me anyways," Chuck mumbled.
"Typically when a girl is too good for you you don't let her go," came Bobby's questioning tone. And from what little Sam had told him about superfan #1, she was not a catch.
"No, I mean, she was too innocent," he explained. "She had such hope for the world. We always got in little stupid fights because I was too jaded for her." Chuck snorted. "She was also annoying as shit sometimes."
Bobby shrugged. "Most of the civvies are like that. That's why hunters don't settle down."
"I never really cared, anyways," admitted Chuck. "Never really was that interested. I know you had a wife, Bobby, I saw the rising of the witnesses. What's your story?"
Bobby shook his head. "If you know the rising of the witnesses, you know the story. Was married young… she was perfect. But a demon possessed her, and…" he sighed. "She didn't make it."
Bobby looked up to see Chuck's pitying eyes, and was repulsed.
"Oh stop it with that crybaby shit," Bobby grumbled. "That's my story, not yours."
"No, I mean," Chuck insisted, looking away. "It's horrible, really."
"I'm aware," Bobby growled.
"This is what I hate about humanity," came his suddenly irritated reply. "That these things have to happen."
Bobby wondered how much of his opinion was Chuck's, and how much was God's. Bobby also wondered if there was any meaningful distinction.
"I've had one too many angsty conversations about all the evil in the world for my lifetime," is what Bobby decided to say. "So if we could just not, that would be great, thanks."
Chuck put his glasses back on. "I know, but sometimes I just can't suppress the urge, you know?"
Yeah, Bobby did know the feeling. He leaned back down into the books, and the conversation was over.
Sam and Dean stayed gone for a while, one hunt leading on to the next in the way that these things do. They called Bobby every week or so, asked how Chuck was doing, asked how the research was going.
Occasionally, Chuck had an exciting new spell to share with them or a couple of questions to ask about angels, but mostly he just alternated his time reading up about angels, writing about angels in the compendium he was working on, or doing chores around Bobby's house.
Hunters would drop in, or phone, and Bobby always introduced him as 'Chuck, a new hunter.' They'd ask Bobby to research things, Bobby would turn to Chuck, and Chuck would give some sort of put upon sigh as he wrote down what they wanted to know.
On this day, Chuck was doing the dishes. "Bobby, are you ever going to tell me to get my own place?" he asked curiously.
To his surprise, Bobby shrugged. "I was gonna," he rumbled, "Lived alone for fifteen years, wasn't gonna stop anytime soon. What's worse is you're a young man, and young men annoy the shit out of me," a chuckle escaped his lips. "You've seen those two. But you're surprisingly good company. You always do the chores I hate, you'll drink with me if I want, and you fuck off when I want." He shrugged.
Bobby calculated his next statement. "Most of the time, you act more like a sorry old man than you do someone in his mid-twenties." Bobby had taken to speaking to Chuck the way he would speak to Rufus or another cranky old hunter, not like someone his age.
He didn't expect the laughter that erupted from Chuck. "You have no idea how many people have told me that," he joked, tone just a tad heavy. "When you're a kid, they say 'he carries the weight on his shoulders,' all sad and soft, but when you're an adult they just snap and say 'lighten up,' like Dean does."
"Well, that doesn't change," he smiled grimly. "That kid's such an asshole. But no, Chuck, I'm not going to tell you to get out anytime soon."
Chuck smiled, knowing, and kept right on doing the dishes.