Title: Man Who Knew Too Much Coda
Summary: As the title suggests, this is a coda for the S6 season finale. Obviously, spoilers for that!

"Bow before your new God!" Cas said, like some kind of megalomaniac.

"Are you kidding?" Dean asked.

Castiel held out a hand and a beam of bright light flashed from it to burn a huge gaping hole through several walls.

Slowly, Bobby and Sam knelt on the floor.

"Dean." Bobby warned.

Dean shook his head incredulously.

"Cas look at yourself. Just LOOK at what you've become...this isn't you - you know it isn't. Just...let it go. You went through so much to save the world - and now what, you're just going to destroy it? "

Cas spoke slowly, patronisingly. "Don't you understand? I'm not here to destroy the world. I'm here to protect it, here to be the new God! Why do you refuse to have faith Dean? Why do you refuse to be loyal?"

At that moment Sam, still kneeling, clutched at his head in pain as images flashed through his mind of his time in Hell. Dean ran to him.

"Sammy!" He grabbed his shoulders. "Sam! Look at me!" Sam didn't respond, caught up in a whirlwind of pain and images controlling his mind.

"I can fix him Dean. With a mere thought all of Sam's memories of Hell can be gone." Dean turned to him. "So what are you waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for you to swear your loyalty."

Dean glared at him with total and undisguised loathing and repulsion. As though any remaining, tenuous string of loyalty or friendship he'd felt had just snapped. But he knelt.

"I'll do whatever you want me to, Cas. If you help Sam. You keep Sam safe, and you get to play around with me however you want."

"Dean for christ's sake boy! Don't you ever learn nothin?" Bobby yelled, furious.

Cas stared at him a moment, then waved his hand vaguely at Sam, who suddenly stopped his repressed cries of pain. Sam looked up at Cas, then at Dean.

"Don't..." Sam tried to recatch his breath and Cas turned to him. "Don't you dare touch my brother." he finished.

"Dean. I only want you to follow me, willingly, not because you must."

"What if I can't do that?"

"Then I'll send you back to Hell."

Dean shrugged. "You're gonna have to. Because what you're asking is impossible. I can't be on the side of the bad guy. And right now, Cas, you're the bad guy."

Angrily Cas waved an arm at Dean who disappeared.

"NO! What the hell have you done? What have you done with my brother?" Sam stood up, angry and helpless.

"Those who turn against God belong in Hell." Cas turned dangerous eyes to Sam.

"Dean doesn't belong in Hell Cas - you know that, you're the one who got him out! You're not God, you're an angel gone nuclear. Just- bring him back!"

"Or what? I am the lord your God, Sam Winchester. You will show me some respect, or you'll be joining him."

"I'd rather follow Dean to Hell than you to Heaven."

Cas sighed in frustration, then shook his head in despair. "You Winchesters are infuriatating. You don't understand. You and your brother are too alike - you both fail to see the bigger picture." Frustrated, Cas turned his back on them, and Sam and Bobby glanced at each other. Cas spoke, more calmly. "But you will understand. When you see the world with me as God, you will understand that this is a good thing, and you will place your love and trust and faith in me. You will come to love me absolutely as your God."

"Maybe we will." Bobby spoke up. "Hell I'm willing to give it a shot see how it goes only...not without Dean."

Cas turned his head bitterly to one side. Then he disappeared. Between them appeared Dean, kneeling on the floor as though in utter exhaustion, as though he could barely find the energy to lift his head. Sam ran to him.

"Dean!" Sam said somewhere between distress and relief.

"I'm ok Sammy." he said. "I'm good." he gave a half smile which was absurdly inappropriate, Sam felt, but was meant to be reassuring and on some level was.

Sam did a quick calculation and decided Dean had been in Hell for about 2 hours. He was wearing the exact same expression he always wore when he woke up from a nightmare, though Sam didn't have a name for it, could barely describe it.

Dean looked at the space in which Castiel had been with despair and sorrow. Then he met Sam's concerned eyes. "How's your head?" Dean asked him, choosing caution over hope, as Bobby and Sam helped him up.

"It's fine. I... think I'm fine." Sam felt as though Hell had never happened. He could remember nothing of it, though he knew he'd been down there. "How's yours?" he asked, a little drily. Dean scoffed. His expression darkened for a fraction of a second, and Sam would have given a lot to know what his brother was thinking just then.

"In need of a drink. Let's get outta here." Dean's voice was hoarse. Sam kept his hand on Dean's upper arm, as though he could hold on to him and stop him going back to Hell.

Sam straightened up, and glanced at Bobby awkwardly. "Bobby would you mind...giving us a minute?"

Bobby nodded, looking at them in curiosity, but left.

As soon as he was out the door, Sam grabbed Dean and shoved him roughly against a wall.

"What the-"

"Don't EVER do that again Dean." Sam shouted at his brother.

"Sam-"

"No - I've had enough. I can't do this anymore. I can't watch you protect me and throw yourself away - you have to protect both of us, or neither of us."

Dean was shocked into silence and just stared questioningly at his brother. Sam took a deep breath.

"Cas isn't on our side anymore. We've got Bobby, but even before I tried to kill him, he always liked you best. Dean, you're all I have. The only person in the world I can rely on, can trust, the only thing I still have faith in. You're my brother, and I need you here."

"You think I want to go to Hell?" Dean asked rhetorically.

"Hell, Heaven, live, die - I don't think you even care any more, Dean, but I care. Do you get that? *I* care."

Dean swallowed, almost nervously, as though he'd unexpectedly been caught out by his brother. Sam had a sinking feeling that he was more right than he'd wanted to be.

"I get it Sammy."

Sam loosened his grip on his brother, and felt a little guilt when he had to quickly reapply his support to help keep his brother upright. He sighed.

"Come on man, let's go home."

Invisible, Castiel watched them leave, a flicker of hesitation casting over his face for a brief second, before being replaced by a determination that was almost manic. He turned away from them and disappeared.

A/N ok I think that started off fairly reasonably and turned a bit self-indulgent _ _ but it is what it is... hope you don't think it's too off the wall though. I've never done a coda before.