I wanna weigh in on this one! Because I have strong feelings about Plucky Pennywhistle and I do think it made Dean seem like a dick, but that isn't OOC. It seemed so much in character for Dean to dump Sam at these places, and I was glad the writers acknowledged what their relationship was probably actually like, because no way it was totally this glowing, 24/7 protective-older-brother scenario, especially with the kind of pressure John put on Dean about Sam. What I had a problem with was Dean's present-day dickish insensitivity to Sam's clown terror, throwing a clown at him after Sam so nicely finally gets him his fucking slinky ... but this fic (http://brightly-lit.livejournal.com/16745.html) was my attempt at a fix-it for that, and nothing got fixed, because as I tried to write it, I couldn't find an in-character way for Dean to act any different. He just really is that much of a dick, I guess. :->