Ten

At first Dean was mostly silent and chewed on his lower lip in quiet contemplation while he walked through the underworld with Sam only a few steps in front. He was still thinking about everything he had just undergone and more importantly, how they were supposed to get out. They had been wandering for what seemed like an eternity, and Dean's legs were starting to ache; selfishly, he wished for his car.

They had started in the familiar, red desert environment before moving through more rocky caverns that led them to unrecognizable places. There were only stones and cliffs with no other forms of life. The only change through it all was the color and texture of the surfaces. With both brothers equally frustrated with their lack of progress, they were starting to become argumentative with each other. As the time passed, Sam's silence began to encourage loud yammering from Dean.

"You got any idea on how to get out of here?" Dean finally asked when they stopped for rest on top of a dark plateau that appeared to be made of black polished marble. He sat down, dangling his legs over the edge and looking down at the hills they had climbed over for the past countless hours. There was no moon or stars in the dusk above, and Dean wondered if he would ever see sunlight again. His body hurt, and his throat was dry from thirst.

"Yeah, I do, but I don't…" Sam's voice died on a hollow breeze, and he turned away from Dean with arms crossed.

"You don't what?"

"I don't know if it's going to work."

"Don't give me this shit," Dean snapped, sounding harsher than he meant, and he rose to his feet to stand behind Sam. "You don't know how to get out of here? Do you realize how much longer we could be down here? We could die down here at this rate!"

"It's not my idea, anyway. The gatekeeper showed me...I just don't like it." Sam sighed heavily, shoulders dropping in defeat, and he reluctantly told Dean what had been revealed to him.

"The gatekeeper? You mean that creepy old dude by the lake? He showed you this idea?" Dean's voice was an incredulous crescendo of anger and mockery.

"We don't have any other options!" Sam argued. "I don't like it any better than you do, but Dean, we've got nothing else."

"This isn't an idea, Sam, it's insanity You're talking about going against the god again. And, in case you've forgotten, he kicked our asses last time. Kicked our asses," Dean carefully annunciated to fully remind Sam. "I'm all up for a challenge, but Jesus…that's not a challenge, you're talking suicide. Do you remember just how badly he beat us down and that was with our best weapons on earth when we were healthy and kicking?"

Sam grimaced, eyes obscured by his shaggy brown hair. "I remember."

"I'm hungry. I'm tired, and I want to get out, but dammit, I'm not up for this kind of fight and neither are you. You're weaker than I am."

"I know."

"Then what makes you think we should go and visit him? He's the last person I want to see. Ever."

"He brought me here, he can take us out," Sam responded, glancing behind him at Dean. "Plain and simple. He's the only one with that kind of power around here. So far as we know, there's no other way out."

"Dammit all, I think I'd rather take my chances with fishzilla out in the lake than do this shit. Getting turned into fishy kibbles sounds like a much better way to die than by a pissed off psycho god."

Sam bit down hard enough on his jaw to cause a muscle to twitch in his cheek, and he felt the acidic blush of anger rising in him. For once however, Dean was not the source of his irritation. It was the clearly unfair situation they had been given, and now the only solution to removing themselves from such a problem was a path neither brother was willing to completely accept. He held out his hands in a welcoming gesture and turned back to Dean, who had crossed his arms and was staring off into the distance with pursed lips. "Are you coming or not?" Sam asked Dean, who was pouting like an angry child that has just been sent to the corner of the room for punishment.

Grumbling, Dean moved next to Sam. "Remind me to ask Mom and Dad something when we get back."

"What's that?"

"If they ever have another kid, it damn well better be a girl. I want a freakin' sister instead of an annoying brother from now on so that the biggest crisis I have to deal with is what clothes to pick out for Barbie."

Sam smiled, sensing that the worst of their confrontation had passed. If Dean was able to make wisecracks, then he truly was no longer as frustrated as before. Perhaps with the tension relieved, they would both be able to think clearer now.

"So, genius," Dean smarted, "we've got to find the god. And how do we do that?"

"We don't."

"Oh?"

"He'll find us," Sam replied and braced himself for Dean's response as he climbed down the ledge.

Dean's answer, as expected, was a string of stunned expletives.

With both of their watches no longer functioning, the brothers quickly lost track of time, but it seemed like hours later when they rounded a corner with a sight that stole their breath. There was single door in the middle of nowhere, and both felt the fingers of terror sweep up their spines. When Sam viewed the door, he saw the door that led to the bedroom that Jessica and he shared and where she eventually died. He saw the flames of their room licking up the wooden frame as Dean dragged him out the room with Jess' blood still on his forehead. To Dean, the door was from the old house where their mother died so many years ago. He saw Sam, young and innocent, in his arms when he ran from the heat with his father's voice spurring him forward. Touching the door for both Sam and Dean was a frightening idea as the faces of their deceased loves flooded into their brains.

"I think," Sam said, swallowing the rising lump in his throat, "that's where we need to go."

Dean nodded and squeezed the gun tighter in his sweaty fist. His answer, a short "yup" proceeded by a pinched sigh, offered little encouragement to the panicked Sam.

"It's the door of death," Sam whispered.

"Oh how clichéd, Mr. Obvious. Let's just get this over with. The longer we stand here looking at it, the more I want to get the hell away from it."

"You want to open it?"

"Do you?" Dean asked.

"I asked you first."

"Well, I'm not going to have you open it and get separated again. That game's getting a bit old."

"Fine then, we'll do it together," Sam offered, searching for a compromise.

"How sweet," Dean snipped sarcastically, but Sam knew that he didn't mean the cynicism to be as bitter as it sounded. They were both equally terrified of opening the door and discovering what lay behind it.

As they placed their hands on the doorknob, Dean muttered under his breath, "And now we have to hold hands. Isn't this just the most cozy—"

Sam, ignoring the comment, whispered, "I guess this is it," and then they turned the handle together.

The door swung open with a pulse of blinding light, and Sam raised his hands to his eyes to shield them from the intensity of the rays. Without physically moving, they were thrown forward on their hands and knees into a long hallway by an invisible force. There were numerous doors on both sides of them, all appearing to be the same one carved out of the same dark black wood, only with different colored and shaped keyholes to distinguish them. The hallway itself was poorly lit, but there was a bright illumination from the end where it opened up into what appeared to be a large room.

"I say we start breaking down the doors," Dean suggested in an eager fashion. "One by one. You take this side, I take the other."

"We don't have time for that. Besides, I don't think these doors are what we want. If there's a door to transport us back to Earth, it's not going to be this simple." Sam shook his head. "We need something better."

"Fine, we'll try the big shiny room down there, but hey, if you're wrong, you owe me. Twenty bucks. Or you buy me a new pair of jeans after you chopped the hell out of these."

With the guns drawn, they walked down the hallway until they exited into the main room at the end. The room was exceedingly tall, and Dean couldn't see the ceiling as he peered upward where harsh white light filtered down. The room, octagonal shaped, had only one way out and that was through the hallway they just came. There was a platform that was a little more than waist high in the middle of the room, and the only object was a massive mirror that spanned the height of the entire wall it was mounted against.

"I think this is it," Sam said, pulling Dean with him as he moved swiftly to the glistening mirror. Just as he was within a few feet of the glassy frame, there came an unmistakable voice from behind him.

"I was wondering what would take you both so long."

The two brothers turned together as the god of the underworld appeared on the platform, towering above them. He was wearing long black robes, and his pale skin seemed to glow with an interior light. The hair that had been neatly trimmed on earth was now shoulder length and glistening under the light from above. Approaching Sam and Dean, he held out his hands in what could be assumed to be a welcoming manner for those ignorant to his ways.

"Sam. Dean," he said to the both of them with a smile. "So good to see you again." His eyes darted around the massive room. "Welcome to my world, and please," he continued in that same soothing tone, "make yourselves comfortable."