Warnings: Incest

Disclaimer: I�m neither a Warner Brother nor Eric Kripke, ergo Sam and Dean are not mine.

Author�s Notes: Written for the contrelamontre quote challenge, using the following quote from Winston Churchill. Written in 1 hour.

Dean made a disgusted �Eueahh� in the back of his throat and lifted one foot to see oozing black slime dripping from the sole. �Figures Hell would find a way to ruin a good pair of boots,� he muttered. Setting his foot back down, he kept walking, Sam right by his side. Both trained their weapons in front of them, watching for movement.

�I guess Satan�s thorough,� Sam said.

It was warm, but cooler than he would have thought. No hotter than Kansas in August at any rate, but Dean was glad to have removed a layer of hot leather from his shoulders before taking off on this trek. He was sweating, though; oh, boy, was he sweating. It slid down his temples and down his sides from under his arms. He was wet with it. Fitting that Hell would be muggy and sticky, rather than a tolerable Arizona dry heat. Dean wiped his hands on his jeans before gripping his shotgun tightly again. The sweat worked to unsteady his grasp.

�Who knew?� Sam said flatly. �Even in Hell, it�s not the heat, it�s the humidity.�

Dean snorted and they continued forward. The air around them was remarkably quiet. There were calls in the distance, howls of pain, but they were dull and dim, like the recording in a high school haunted house. Dean had to remind himself that they were real, and that he�d seen the school portraits of the kids who made them.

This room at least was empty. The whole place looked like a man-made cave, as if the Devil had just taken over Mammoth when the lease came up. Hidden lights illuminated stalactites and stalagmites, casting wicked forked shadows on the walls that met in the middle, like the sharp teeth of some massive beast. The lights made it remarkably bright, the path clear and open as far as they could see. Dean cast his eyes about for electrical cords, maybe even a sign that read �Satan�s Maw, one of the cave�s most unique formations. Discovered in 1892 by Jeff.� It all just seemed so plain, which was wholly unnerving.

Roaring fires of an unnatural red, people covered in blood and spinning on pits, fanged creatures leaping about on five legs � Dean had himself prepared for horrors, but walking into a cheap tourist attraction with an overactive heating unit freaked him out. It was as if what was down here was so bad, there wasn�t any need for big, showy productions at the front door. No need to dazzle and daze; this place had the goods and word of mouth would keep people coming. Or keep people terrified, depending on the goal.

He and Sam walked onward into the next cavern, which was rosier than the first. It was almost pink.

�Huh,� Dean said.

�Doesn�t this seem a little...�

�Girly?�

�Yeah.� Sam glanced about, gun no less ready for all the sweetness of the color.

�Well.� Dean stepped forward. The floor here was hard and uneven, like worn concrete pavement. �You think you know a guy and then you find a girly pink room in his lair. There�s just no trusting some demons.�

They walked on, eyes scanning, assessing, looking always for the little boy they�d come here to save, the dozen or so they hoped were still retrievable, but in room after cavernous room, they saw nothing. The tension in Dean�s body mounted steadily, the sweat of anxiety joining the sweat of heat.

There were families waiting on the other side, a sweet-faced young mother of twins who seemed like she�d be a real girl to know if she weren�t terrified and grieving. Dean didn�t want her to be terrified and grieving. He wanted to know what her smile looked like, even if he only saw it as they drove out of town. And there was a single father up there who was missing his son and Dean flat out hated shit like that. He wanted these kids back, and he sure as hell wanted something to fight. Hell was pissing him off.

�You ever read Dante�s Inferno?� Sam asked after they�d entered the fifteenth, maybe sixteenth room and those distant cries of pain had grown no nearer.

�What?� Dean said sharply. Irritation slicked his every breath, whether or not it carried words.

�Dante. This guy goes on a tour of the levels of Hell.�

�Sounds like a great vacation package.�

�Each level fits the sin. Like suicides are trapped in trees and plants, and can only speak if someone cuts off a twig or something and causes them pain.�

�What�s your point, Sam?�

�Maybe that�s sort of true. Maybe this is our Hell.�

Dean risks a glance over at his brother. �What do you mean?�

�We can hear the people we�re trying to get to, but we can�t save them.� Sam�s eyes had that bright, earnest glow to them that he got whenever he�d figured something out and wanted to convince everyone else. �We can�t find anyone and there�s no one to fight.�

Dean dropped his gun to his side in frustration. �Well, that�s just great! What are we supposed to do then? Just keep going and find jack squat?� And the truth was, that was lame in and of itself. Dean could imagine a lot worse hells.

�Maybe there really are levels.� Sam shrugged.

Exhaling an irritated sigh, Dean looked down at the arid ground beneath them, the mud caked and dry like a parched field. He and Sam shared a weighted glance, then both raised the butts of their shotguns into the air. They slammed them down against the floor at the same time and the floor cracked. A few more good strikes and they had a hole large enough for them to slip through, but below it was pitch black. Even the beam of Sam�s small flashlight couldn�t illuminate the gloom.

�What�re we thinking here, Sammy?� Dean looked up at his brother over the gaping abyss. �Deeper into Hell?�

�What are our choices?�

�Well, we can�t see a floor, so falling forever is a possibility.�

Sam had nothing to say to that and he and Dean just held each other�s stares a long moment. Dean supposed this is was the sort of thing that made them heroes, made them different than other people, because the idea of facing whatever was in that black hole was a lot less horrible a thought than facing that sad-eyed mother who�d lost both her little girls and explaining to her that the big brave demon hunters had just been too scared to go on.

�Lower me down.� Dean gripped his gun between his legs and extended his hands to his brother. Sitting on the lip of the hole, Dean�s feet dangled in nothingness. �And hope there�s something to lower me onto.�

�No.� Sam released Dean�s hands and positioned himself across from him, similarly balanced on the edge, shotgun in his grip. �Same time.�

Dean nodded and palmed his shotgun. If Sam had elected to go first, he wouldn�t have gone for it either. It was one thing to be the one to die. It was something else to be the one to live on alone, with the chance of retreat. Better to go in together, and come out not at all, than come out one less.

�On three?� Dean asked.

�Let�s do it.�

In unison they said, �One � two � three� and jumped.

Blackness swallowed his vision and Dean felt panic rise in his throat. He tried to prepare his body to duck and roll if he hit the ground, but the longer they fell � well, there were heights no human could duck and roll through and survive.

�Ow!�

Dean would have laughed at Sam�s yip if his own shins weren�t radiating with the pain of impact. As quickly as he could, he pounced into a squatting position with his gun at the ready, looking over to see Sam had done the same. And they could see clear as day. Peering up, they could see the ceiling just fine and up into the room they�d been in. No blackness, no abyss in between.

This cavern, though, wasn�t empty. It was filled with men.

�Did we land in a Turkish Bathhouse?� Sam said, with an uncomfortable laugh. �What kind of hell is this?�

It was a hell Dean found a lot more unsettling than the emptiness of before. His mouth felt dry. �I dunno.� To his own ears, it sounded like a lie.

The men around them were of all ages, fit and strong, uniformly toned and handsome in a classical way, like they were all the souls of Ancient Romans and Greeks. Dark hair and aquiline noses. They traveled in pairs. Some merely held hands, but one quick survey and Dean noticed some couples kissing, some doing more than that. And Dean noticed with a swallow that they were paired off rather specifically. Each pair, even the ones kissing, touching, stroking resembled one another.

�Oh, God,� Sam breathed. Dean supposed he�d just seen it too. �This is � They�re � �

�Family. Yeah.� Dean didn�t dare meet Sam�s eyes and Sam didn�t try to meet his.

Dean didn�t ask why they were here � didn�t think he could get the question out without sounding utterly fake � and he realized with a twinge that Sam didn�t ask either. He didn�t let himself think about what that meant, but he knew, if they survived, this level of Hell would be a place he�d never, ever talk about.

�So what do we do?� Sam asked. And at that, his eyes did flicker to Dean�s for only a heartbeat. The uncertainty and the blush he saw in the expression made Dean�s chest ache in a strange, frightening, exhilarating way.

Dean shrugged with a nonchalance he didn�t feel. �We keep going.�

With a nod, Sam and Dean both raised their guns and started walking.