Little Wing, chapter 4
“How are you getting on there, Cas?”
“Ready.”
“Yeah?”
Cas had set one place with the big serving spoon and the other with the teaspoon and a fork. He’d put a glass of water in each place. One of them was only half full, the contents forming a pool on the table.
Dean absently picked up a cloth and blotted up the spillage. “Why does only one of us get a fork?”
“’Cos that spoon’s big but that one’s lickle, so the fork makes it fair. Yours is the big spoon, ’cos you’re big.”
Dean scratched the back of his neck. And shrugged. “That makes sense.” Cas grinned. And whenever Cas smiled or laughed or did the great big grin that was almost too big for his little face, Dean felt like he’d been given a gold star on a chart. Which made eating his dinner with the serving spoon worthwhile. And anyway, he didn’t mind the idea of shovelling huge quantities of lasagne into his mouth. In fact, why hadn't he thought of using a massive spoon before?
Maybe he had. A long time ago. When he wasn’t much bigger than Cas but it seemed like most of those jobs already rested on his small shoulders. It crossed Dean’s mind that maybe Dad had felt the same kind of star-on-a-chart reward when he got instant, unquestioning obedience from his sons as Dean did when he got a smile from Cas.
If four-year-old, doing-his-best Dean had set a serving spoon in Dad’s place he would have been told to put it away and lay the table properly. And spilled water would have earned a sharp word. At the least. But that was just Dad. And Dean was Dean.
