Snippet Fourteen: Thanksgiving Dinner

The family headed toward the stairs, Dean still being carried across his father’s shoulders.  They entered the dining room where Mary had set the meal.  The young Winchester stared at everything in front of him.  His curiosity about the large thing on the platter was heightened by the knife and large fork that lay next to it. 

John took the knife and fork and began to cut the meat off the turkey, unaware of his son’s strong gaze.

  Dean reached out and touched the bird.  He look at his mother and softly whispered, “What?”

That is the turkey, Dean.  The young child’s eye grew wide and he swallowed hard.  His father set a slice of the meat on the small plate set aside for the young boy. 

Mary stared in surprise as her son shook his head ‘no’ in a violent gesture. 

“Dean, it’s all right.  It’s cooked like chicken.  You like chicken.”

“Chicken didn’t try to squash me.  No.”

John stopped cutting and stared at his son, “You will eat it, Dean.”

Dean jumped off the chair and screamed, “No!”  He ran out of the dining room and went upstairs to his bedroom and hid in his closet. 

Mary and John argued over Dean’s reaction.  John wanted to drag the boy back to the table and demand that he eat the bird.  Mary told him that the  past few days had been traumatic to Dean and she would not demand that he eat the turkey.

John Winchester snorted and told his wife, “If he does not eat it, he eats nothing.  Keep some turkey in the refrigerator.  When he’s hungry enough, he’ll eat anything.”

Castiel listened to the argument in the dining room as he sat outside of his charge’s closet. One simply did not starve a young child.  His righteous anger drove him to pace the floor.

“Father!  Why?”

“Dean will have many idiosyncrasies, my child.  It will drive his brother crazy.  Watch him when he is an adult.  This event, and what he does to provide for his brother will scar him and alter how he perceives food.”

“He’s a little boy.”

“Yes, my Son.  He is  He will still be a little boy when the cares of the world start to fall on his shoulders.”