[Open] This mellifluous tongue

[myrddin_wyllt]

It's a fresh autumn afternoon and Merlin is taking a break from his winter preparations. He's found a hollow piece of wood, and he's played with it, crafted it into a rudimentary flute. He's sitting on a tree stub out in a clearing and playing it slowly, experimenting. It's sometimes good, sometimes terrible, sometimes soulful, sometimes playful.

Comments

[surfaceshine]

Dean isn't, it's true, what most would call a polite young man; hell, he's actively worked not to be for a good portion of his life. It's easier that way, and it's much easier to just do whatever the hell you want when people already expect you to do just that. But the truth of the matter is that John Winchester raised his sons with a code of ironbound morals that leaves very little room for interpretation, no matter how majestically hypocritical it made the King of Double Standards at any given time: one of these is never to leave a debt unpaid, and if you can't pay the debt, at least fucking say thank you like a proper person

[myrddin_wyllt]

The old wizard will be sitting on his stub somewhere along the way, and he'll be puffing of his old pipe, as Dean has seen him do before.

"Lo, lad," he calls, looking gruffly amused. "What's that then? Art moving the trees to greener pastures?"

[surfaceshine]

Dean has the axe balanced on one shoulder in a display of Sharp Edged Tool related stupidity that would earn him a twenty minute lecture if his dad were around to see it; he adjusts the branch in his other hand, and even once he spots Merlin, doesn't slow down until he's easily within conversational distance.

"Mornin', dude," replies Dean rather cheerfully. He glances over his shoulder at the branch, then back to Merlin with a supremely satisfied expression. "Firewood," he announces knowingly, as if this explains everything. "Of the extremely dangerous and hard to kill variety. But I fixed its goat."

[myrddin_wyllt]

Merlin stops his musical endeavor and looks at Dean. "I see," he says slowly. "Put that axe down, boy, before you chop your own head off and ruin all my hard work."

He's happy to see him walking, though - if gruffly.

[surfaceshine]

Dean is pretty stoked to be back to hiking around under his own steam, too, without having to stop every ten minutes and talk his leg into not falling the fuck off; it's put him in a considerably better mood than when last he and Merlin met, and he just grins lopsidedly at the admonition. He does take it off his shoulder, leveling it for a moment at the older man.

"If I had a dollar for every time someone's told me that?" The hunter easily drops the axe head to the ground, leans on it like Charlie Chaplin would a cane, and grins a tad wider and still extremely pleased with himself. "I would have exactly three dollars. Which I don't, but I do still have a head, much to the dismay of many, many, many people and beasts alike.

Dean notches his chin at the flute, because he's not normally someone who hesitates to invite himself into a conversation. "You got a waiver for that thing?"

[myrddin_wyllt]

"A waiver, boy?" Merlin is asking on the same tone he would use to ask What Are You On?

He's half-amused by the cockiness, half-annoyed, but he can see the gratefulness behind it, too, and he is appreciative of that as well.

[surfaceshine]

No one knows what Dean is on, Merlin. No one knows. He is, however, unfazed by the tone and merely continues to grin.

"Yeah, you know. A permit for a dangerous weapon. Looks like that could be deadly, in the wrong hands," Dean replies, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially. Holy crap he's full of joie de vivre today; imagine what it was like when this was a daily occurrence.

[myrddin_wyllt]

"In the wrong hands," Merlin replies in what could be a Riddick moment if he were bald and buff, "anything is a weapon."

A pause, and he chuckles. "Boy, if you keep this up, you might fart a pink cloud. Are you usually this cheerful?"

[surfaceshine]

Dean blinks, then snorts at the pink cloud comment. "Speaking of dangerous weapons..." But then the cocky half-grin is back, making a quick recovery.

"Nah, you just lucked out today. I mean, I'm always awesome, but it's a really nice day to be particularly awesome." Impish, again, the glint to hazel-green eyes, before he becomes a bit more serious. "And, actually, I just wanted to come out, say hi. Say thanks. Figured I'd better be more pleasant the second time around than the first."

[myrddin_wyllt]

Merlin's smile is sardonic. "A man isn't required to have good beside manners when he's been half torn to pieces," he says. "Though I will concede, you're quite the difficult patient, boy. Not patient at all, in fact."

[surfaceshine]

Dean snorts, but his good humor doesn't go anywhere. "Yeah, I know. You ain't the only one that's said so - but the up side is I never up and die on anyone. That gets me points, right?"

This is probably funnier to Dean than it is to anyone outside of his own head; he wrinkles his nose. "I mean it, though. Thanks."

[myrddin_wyllt]

Merlin waves it off, then waves at a stump across from his and lights his pipe.

"Well," he says after what probably seems to be a rather long pause, "did you find him?"

[surfaceshine]

Dean doesn't need told twice; he drags the branch a little further off the path, just in case anyone else happens along and doesn't want to climb through a mess of dry twigs and dead leaves, then drops it and leans the axe against the thickest part of it. He doesn't sit immediately, instead choosing to lean, because he rather likes standing now that he can do so.

"Hm? Oh." Realizing who Merlin means does put a bit of a dent in Dean's good mood, but not much of one, and he recovers quickly enough. "Yeah. And as I suspect you know, you were right - he was in good enough shape to pick a fight."

[myrddin_wyllt]

"Better that than dead, nay?" Merlin asks unhelpfully. "Ah, brothers. Ever picking at each other, like ravenous crows upon bare bones."

[surfaceshine]

Dean snorts, but there's a grin behind it. It's a little more brittle than it might have been a year ago, because that's dubious territory, but the hunter's good mood is still by far prevalent.

"Where Sam is concerned, the day he's not picking at everything in sight is the day he is dead." Okay, so, that's not a mental image Dean exactly needed, but he gets past it by raising an eyebrow at Merlin for it. "You sound like you know from experience."

[myrddin_wyllt]

"Lad," the Merlin says, "There are many a brother in the history of man, and yet more in the history of Camelot. Have you never read the Genesis, to start."

Though he's not Christian, the old geezer is well versed in that stuff. He had to be informed, after all.