A/N: I usually try not to write notes, but I feel the need to explain this fic. I know it goes without saying that writing an AU doesn't necessarily mean that I'm dissatisfied with canon, but I'm going to say it anyway. I really like what's happened so far in Season 2. As much as I love John Winchester (and the actor who portrays him) I think his death was necessary for the growth of his sons and for the growth of the show. So. This AU isn't a protest or anything. Just an idea I had that wouldn't go away until I wrote it down.

Also, the title won't make sense unless I write more. I hope I'll write more, but just in case I don't (which often happens) just ignore the title and pretend it's a oneshot. Er. Twoshot. Whatever.

Black Dog

Hey. Take care of that car. Or I swear, I'll haunt your ass.
-"Faith"

Chapter 1: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

There's no such thing as an honorable death.
-Dean Winchester

"And you're about to become one. The same thing you hunt."

Dean stared at the reaper and tried to find the words to deny her. They didn't come. It was creepy enough being temporarily stuck outside of his body; if it became a permanent condition he probably would go insane. Become what he hunted. Shit.

"You don't know that," he answered finally. "Besides. Sam would never let that happen."

He turned from the reaper's deceptively pretty face so violently that he stopped following flesh-and-blood rules for a second. He moved without thinking, without crossing the space between where he'd been and where he wanted to be. The experience took his nonexistent breath away, and he realized that he was already leaving behind the conventions of mortality. How long would it take him to forget what it had been like to be human?

He could practically feel the reaper's smirk against his substanceless shoulders.

"Shut up," he snapped without turning around.

"I didn't say anything," came the placid reply.

"You were thinkin' it."

"I'm only telling you the truth, Dean. I'm only telling you what you already know."

"Yeah, like I'm going to take advice from you. Hell, you probably work on commission. If there is a way out of this, you're sure as fuck not gonna tell me."

"I'm not going to tell you because there is no way out. You have to accept-"

"I don't have to accept shit," he replied angrily.

"What are you going to do, Dean?"

He turned back to the beautiful lie of a spirit, stared her in the made-up face. He cast about desperately for some way out, for something he could use to forge a third option out of the two crappy ones he had been offered. He had no idea what he was going to say until he said it.

"I'm gonna haunt my freakin' car is what I'm going to do."

Once the decision was made, there was no going back. The reaper disappeared and the hospital dissolved into a single thought. Violent emotion poured through him, the maelstrom of fear and grief and anger and love and hate that gives rise to spirits. He'd spent a lifetime controlling his rage when it counted, channeling it into a protective barrier between his family and the world. Now he unleashed every violent thought, every unhesitating, cold, deliberate emotion.

His transitional spirit-body was gone, replaced by a vague but far-reaching consciousness. He couldn't exactly see his brother, but he knew Sam was sitting by his bedside when his heart stopped. He knew Sam was calling his name and he wanted to reassure him, but there was something else that demanded his attention. Something going down in the basement of the hospital.

He didn't have to move. He simply thought and he was there, staring at the dark design chalked on the concrete floor, watching in horror as his father tried to trade his own life for his son's.

"So we have a deal?"

"No, John. Not yet. You still have to sweeten the pot."

NO.

When Dean's dying soul screamed, John Winchester heard it - and so did the demon. The Colt rose in John's hands of its own accord until the long barrel was lined up with the forehead of the poor jerk the demon had possessed. John's finger slid inexorably towards the trigger, despite his struggle to control his own movements.

"Looks like you're too late," the demon said. Yellow eyes flashed once with what might have been amusement or frustration, and then it was gone, leaving behind only a frightened janitor.

John's arms, under his control once again, fell weakly to his sides. His right protested painfully, but he barely felt it through his horror.

"Dean..."

His son's name left his lips in a strangled whisper, a plea, a protest. The silence, the emptiness in the boiler room was oppressive, and pregnant with unpleasant implications. Ignoring the wide-eyed stare of the man the demon had possessed, John began walking slowly out of the basement, knowing what he would find in the hospital above and dreading it more than death itself.