The thought of Dean stumbling around drunk in the streets (or worse, driving home in that condition) makes me so sad. I mean the whole scenario does; he’s 40, so drunk he can’t get to the bed, found passed out with a bra wrapped around him and a whiskey bottle. I mean yeesh:-(
Yeah… we know the Clam Diver was “just outside” the town, which implies driving distance and not drunken stumbling distance. If Dean was so drunk that he couldn’t even make himself land on the bed and looked like he was lucky he managed to hit the floor… I mean, he got one shoe off and used it as a pillow.
If he was really that drunk, the bar wouldn’t have let him drive home. They would’ve called him a cab. Not to mention, aside from his tie headband and his shoe pillow, the rest of him looked relatively well put together (buttons buttoned neatly, coat on properly, etc.).
And did he really walk around the rest of the night wearing a pretty pink bra around his neck? Did he wear it to the liquor store where he bought that bottle? Did he wear it walking through the hotel? Because he was too drunk to care about his appearance in a town where he was pretending to be an FBI agent for a case where one boy was missing and another had been rendered mute by his experience?
And if Dean was really so drunk that he didn’t care about any of that, how did he end up in that spot on the floor without waking Sam up? Opening the door in the middle of the night, so drunk that he could barely stand up (and couldn’t even make it to the bed), and yet not so drunk that his stumbling and fumbling woke Sam up?
He was apparently messing with the TV remote as well? How? I mean… how did none of this apparent fumbling around the room not wake Sam up?
It’s like Dean was just tired of Sam pushing at him to just be “okay” again. Because Sam wasn’t really pushing Dean to be okay, he was pushing Dean to perform a specific version of Dean. Not because it would make Dean feel better, but because it would make Sam feel better about how Dean is coping.
Dean: I’m fine. Sam: Look, you’re not, Dean. You said you don’t believe in anything, and – and that’s not true, that’s not you. You do believe in things, you believe in people. That’s who you are, that’s what you do. I know you’re in a dark place and I just want to help. Dean: Okay. Look, I’ve been down this road before and I fought my way back, I will fight my way back again. Sam: How? Dean: Same way I always do: bullets, bacon, and booze. A lot of booze.
That’s what Sam needed Dean to be, to perform for him. To believe in something again, because yeah, Dean believes in people. He said it in 12.23:
DEAN: Yeah. You know, Cas has faith in this kid. SAM: Mm. DEAN: I hope he’s right. But me? I have faith in us. You, me, Mom, Cas. And Crowley. Sometimes.
But within an hour of that, 3/5 of the people Dean believed in were gone. And Sam’s now insisting that Dean just magically be okay with that, just let that go and just transfer all of that belief over to Jack, who Dean directly blames for the loss of the 3/5 people he believed in…
And now that giving Dean the “mission” to help teach Jack (with the hope that Jack might eventually be able to open the rift to fetch Mary again) has failed to help snap Dean out of his funk, Sam is desperate to at least get Dean performing the motions that used to signal his unhealthy coping skills.
Heartily pushing a beer on Dean at breakfast when he just wanted a sandwich, tolerating his music instead of complaining about it, ordering him food he’d normally complain about Dean eating, reading online reviews of a strip club to recommend it to Dean when he typically avoids strip clubs himself, buying Dean hair of the dog. It’s annoying to Dean, but after his display in the motel room, when Sam hands him that bottle, he forgives Sam.
What does he forgive him for? For pushing him to just be okay when he just wanted to be left to grieve in his own way.
Notice Sam doesn’t push him again after that.
Notice also that Dean never drank either breakfast beer.
Sam: You okay? Dean: No. Sam I’m not okay, I’m pretty far from okay. You know my whole life, I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost. Whether it was Dad or Bobby or… and I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas and I – I don’t know. I don’t know. Sam: So you don’t believe anymore. Dean: I just need a win. I just need a damn win.
Exactly the mental state Dean had diagnosed Cas with in 12.19. In the past, he’d still had Sam to believe in, the two of them against the world. Just fighting for Sam isn’t enough for him anymore. Something is different this time, and Dean doesn’t feel like he should have to perform the emotional labor to keep up a false front of coping for Sam anymore.
Like twig!Tasha told him in 12.20:
TASHA: Yeah. Family’s always complicated. Parents always see smart and strong and perfect. It’s only when you grow up that you realize that they’re just people.
Sam is finally seeing that Dean is just a person. Not that Sam had ever had illusions about Dean being perfect or whatever, but that act of always believing they could push through anything and come out the other side again isn’t the truth, and has never fully been the truth.
Heck, I’m watching 1.09 in the background while I write this up. And it wasn’t even the truth way back then… Dean kept up the “everything will be fine” act in front of Sam, essentially hid out behind a gas station and made his emotionally charged plea to John for help in the scene we’ve been paralleling to his prayer to God in 13.01.
In 2.04, Sam confronted Dean yet again on how badly he was handling John’s death, after the case they stumbled over while Sam visited Mary’s grave. I mean, THEEEEEMES. Dabb is pulling all of these themes from early seasons, and standing them all on their heads. Because in 2.05, after Dean had spent weeks putting up a front for Sam, the truth is forced out of him by psychic manipulation:
Dean: We hunt demons. Andy: What? Sam: Dean! Dean: Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn’t even touch. Sam here, he’s my brother… Sam: Dean, shut up! Dean: I’m trying. He’s psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you’re a murderer, and he’s afraid that he’s going to become one himself, ‘cause you’re all part of something that’s terrible. And, I hope to hell that he’s wrong, but I’m starting to get a little scared that he might be right.
Dean had buried all of this and kept it from Sam, much the same way Sam had buried some things that were pushed out in the open by another psychic manipulation (by a creepy ghost of a psychiatrist at an asylum, conveniently enough)… in 1.10:
Sam: That’s the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I’m not pathetic, like you. Dean: So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me? Sam: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We’re no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. Dean: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!! You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!
Sam did it. But just like Dean brushing off the confessions Andy pulled out of him after the fact because it had been coercion, Sam brushed off what he’d said in that asylum, too.
Now in s13, Sam is asking– nay, begging– Dean to just brush this off again, to fake it ‘til he makes it, and Dean is saying no.
It’s honestly the healthiest damn way they’ve ever reacted in a situation like this.
I have no idea how I turned this ask into actual meta, but here you go.
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