He'd been putting it off way too long, and he knew it. The truth was, he was being a bloody coward (again): he already had plenty of guilt dragging him down, and didn't especially want to shoulder any more, however well-deserved it was--especially from someone who might or might not ever remember what had happened (or even that they had ever been friends.) He also felt like he was in hot water with Crowley on a couple of counts now over Loki-related incidents; the demon had been uncharacteristically tolerant about the whole thing, but John knew his patience had limits, and he preferred not to test them.

But he'd talked Loki into letting himself be magicked, or had helped anyway, and he had probably been at least partly to blame for things going pear-shaped, and he knew only too well how profoundly amnesia could fuck with a person. Plus Loki still wasn't out of the woods yet, even if he'd been de-cursed.

When it came down to it though, what finally led John back to the hospital wing in defiance of his worse-if-wiser self was that friend thing: neither one of them had many to spare. Walking away really wasn't an option, no matter how much simpler it might have made his life. It'd still be a life with an uncomfortably Loki-shaped hole in it.

He knocked tentatively on the god's door, not sure what kind of welcome to expect.