carvermerrill

[carvermerrill]

Some Carver x Merrill related in-game banter I cannot get over

Bonus: Carver flirting with Isabela so you can see he's actually a lot more calm and confident as time goes on

...and then Merrill still muddles him.

[carvermerrill]

Words: 600 | Rating: G

Merrill swaps out her outerwear for autumn, and Isabela notices Carver noticing.

Written for @flufftober 🧡

Kofi commissions are also open, check my profile ☕

[carvermerrill]

this playthrough, i'm playing as a mage for the first time, so i'm only getting to know carver, and oh my god why everyone flirts with him!!! he's my brother!!! i'm getting embarrassed here!!!

[carvermerrill]

Hawke: My brother just threw himself off the harbor???

[carvermerrill]

Back at it again. Gonna draw more banter from dragon age games

[carvermerrill]

Templar Carver cracks me up. Man is working for Cullen "mages cannot be our friends" Rutherford and Meredith "I protect you mages from your curse and your own stupidity" Stannard and when Merrill starts stressing about being caught he hits her with the softest most sincere,

"Don't you worry. It wasn't - and won't - be me. Have your fun :)"

HAVE YOUR FUN. Like she's knitting tea cozies in her free time?? Baby that's blood magic you are a TEMPLAR Carver you're so fucking funny. The man that you are

[carvermerrill]

For the fifth trick-or-treater, Carver & Merrill answered the door!

[carvermerrill]

A Chance Engagement by hollyand

Sir Carver marched towards her, with a look of haughty composure; but even so, Merrill could see his face seemed paler than usual; there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he had not slept. He was holding out a letter, which Merrill instinctively took. ‘I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you,’ Sir Carver said. ‘Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?’ And then, with a slight bow, without waiting for her response, he turned and walked away, and was soon out of sight.

If you're a fan of Pride and Prejudice and Dragon Age, please consider giving @hollyand-writes' magnificent AU a read!

[carvermerrill]

Happy DADWC day! Could I request some "maybe we could... see what happens." from the So... What if We Kissed prompts for Carver/Merrill?

so...what if we kissed? | @dadrunkwriting

Very brief discussions of sexual content, but nothing graphic or detailed.

A Rose Upon a Thorn

“There’s sweetness in an apple tree And profit in the corn; But lady of all beauty Is a rose upon a thorn.” – Christina Rosetti, The Rose

Rian cornered their brother in the hallway and said, “you have got to talk to Merrill.”

Carver had been on his way to bed. He doesn’t often sleep at home any longer, since enlisting with the Templars, but it was one of the rare nights he’d been able to escape the barracks, and he was more than a little angry at having his peace disturbed. “What gives you the right to…?”

“Listen!” Rian cut him off. “Anders and I have been meeting up with Isabela and Fenris.”

“You talk as if I didn’t overhear it the last time I slept here,” Carver snapped. There was not enough ale in all the world to make him forget Isabela practically screaming at his sibling to ‘please, Hawke, fuck me harder!’

“Oh, you didn’t overhear anything! We were beating on the wall to freak you out,” Rian said, dismissively, which was simultaneously comforting and even more enraging. “But that’s not the point! Merrill’s got it into her head that we didn’t invite her because we don’t like her. Which might be true of Fenris, but…”

“You didn’t invite her?” blurted Carver.

Rian scowled at him. “No, Carver, because I know you have feelings for her, and I’m not a complete arsehole!” Rian replied, with the air of someone explaining a very simple fact to a small child. “Only she doesn’t know that, because you still haven’t pulled your finger out and told her. You are ruining my friendship with her, Carver!”

They stormed off before he could offer any defence.

~~~

And so, the next morning, Carver asks around the city guard, and traces Merrill to the Viscount’s garden. He finds her tending to the great hedges of roses that section off the south-west corner, a basket and pruning shears resting on the soil behind her. It’s peaceful, here. The beautiful places in Kirkwall are few and far between, but it makes sense that Merrill would be the one to find them. She hears him approach, the soft clomping of his boots on the stepping stones, and turns to give him a smile that flips his stomach upside-down.

“Oh, hello, Carver!” she says, brightly. “What brings you here?”

“I could ask you the same,” he replies. “I thought this garden was private.”

“Oh, yes, Varric told me so, but the Viscount asked me to take a look at his roses. Apparently, they’ve been doing better since I visited.” She looks around, furtively, and then speaks as if she’s imparting a great secret. “I didn’t even get to the rose bushes when I was here the first time. I don’t know what he’s thinks I’ve done.”

Carver shrugs. “Maybe he just likes to see someone else enjoying them.”

“Oh. I suppose that makes more sense. I wonder why he wouldn’t just say that.”

Merrill cuts away a fading flower, inhales the smell, and then seems to startle a little. “I’m sorry. I’m being rude.” She rocks back, gracefully, onto the soles of her feet, and stands upright. After patting the dirt off of her knees, she looks up at him, apologetically. “You’ve always been so nice to me, and here I am ignoring you.”

“You weren’t ignoring me,” he says, hurriedly, “and you weren’t being rude. I mean, I don’t think it was rude.”

Merrill exhales a laugh. “It’s hard to know, sometimes,” she says, and then her expression grows sombre. “I think I’ve upset the others. Did you know they’ve been meeting up without me?”

“It might be my fault,” he says, eventually.

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

Carver swallows. “Rian didn’t invite you, because they know…” And it feels as if he’s run up against a stone wall. How is it that he fought for hours through a horde of darkspawn, and he doesn’t have the guts to tell her the truth?

“Know what?” she prompts him. Meredith’s weekly interrogations are like baby’s first tea party compared to this. “They already know about the blood magic, and Audacity. I can’t think of anything you could tell him that would be worse.”

“No, no, it’s not anything you did. It’s just…” It’s now or never, Carver Hawke. “They didn’t invite you, because they know how I feel about you.”

Merrill’s face falls. “Oh. Do you not like me?”

“No!” he blurts. “It’s the opposite! I do like you. I think you’re sweet and funny and…really beautiful.”

Maker’s breath, this might be the hardest he has ever blushed in his life. Merrill only stares at him, dumbfounded. Of course, he’d completely missed the mark.

“Forgive me,” he says. “I didn’t mean to…”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

Her tone is disbelieving, but curious. Hopeful. The colour of a blush stains her tawny skin. There’s a smile playing on her lips, and not for the first time, he wonders what they would feel like against his own.

“I think you might be the most beautiful woman in the world,” he admits. Which might be a little much. “The most beautiful woman in Kirkwall, at the very least.”

“Oh, you’re far too kind,” she says, averting her gaze. “Isabela’s much prettier than me, I think, and…did it get warmer out here, all of a sudden?”

“I don’t want to kiss Isabela,” Carver retorts, and immediately regrets it. That is definitely too forward. But no, Merrill only chuckles.

“You want to kiss me,” she says, blushing even deeper. She steps even closer – she’s at least a foot shorter than him, and yet he feels as if she could knock him flat with a touch of her finger. “I want to kiss you, too.”

“We could see what happens,” he offers, daring to hope himself.

She’s the one to close the space between them. She pulls him toward her with one hand on the back of his head. He fumbles the angle, because the situation was going far too well, and their noses bump together. He hopes that won’t be an omen of things to come. Merrill giggles, and finally presses her lips to his.

She pulls her head back, far too soon. Carver is a little alarmed to discover that she looks confused. “Wait, why would you having feelings for me mean that I couldn’t visit Rian?”

Carver has no idea if he should tell her. Maybe it would make her laugh, but it might just straight creep her out. Do the Dalish even do things like that?

“Well, Rian and the others are meeting up to…pass time.” Merrill gives him a blank look. She obviously isn’t familiar with the euphemism, so he adds, “in private. In their bed.”

That’s the phrase she needed. “No!” The word escapes her in a long, low gasp. “What, all four of them? At the same time?”

“I really don’t want to get into this,” he says.

“Oh, no, I suppose you don’t,” she replies. “But yes, that explains everything, doesn’t it?”

Carver laughs, and bends to kiss her again.

[carvermerrill]

Hello, happy DADWC! For a prompt, for Carver/Merrill, may I submit: "are you okay? you look very flustered."

do people go jogging shirtless in Thedas? they do now. for @dadrunkwriting

"Three years in the city and you still get lost," Merrill scolded herself as she backtracked from yet another dead end. She was trying to find her way back home but somehow ended up at the docks, which was swarming with workers busily loading or unloading cargo.

She spotted a familiar street corner with a shop she remembered and rushed forward -- only to collide into something large.

"Ow! Merrill, what are you doing?"

Her gaze was level with Carver's bare chest, and any coherent thought fled her mind. Normally, she might ask why he was running or where his shirt went, but at that moment, she couldn't even remember her own name. All she could think about was the broad expanse of Carver before her, with the sheen of sweat coating his skin and the delicious smell of him.

"Merrill? Hello?" He waved a hand before her face.

"Hello," she answered breathlessly.

"Are you alright?" He frowned at her unfocused gaze.

"Alright," she parroted, sounding dreamy and faraway.

"Merrill, what's gotten into you?" he demanded, gripping her shoulders.

"You," she parroted again, and then her brain finally caught up. "No! I mean, not yet." A horrified blush bloomed over her face. "N-n-not that I... I mean... You..."

A slow smile curved his lips. "Not yet," he agreed with a chuckle.

He scrambled to catch her as she fainted.

[carvermerrill]

I love them

[carvermerrill]

Also on AO3 at this link!

Happy Friday night :D what about "calloused hands in soft hands" for Carver/Merrill? <3

touches ask game | @dadrunkwriting

I can't see either of them having very soft hands, so you're getting bebe fic, my friend. CW for childbirth and mentions of yeurchy stuff related, nothing graphic or detailed.

~~~

“A new baby is like the beginning of all things – wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.”

                      - Eda J. Le Shan

The Beginning of All Things

The babe came with as little trouble as any babe does. The pains began on the afternoon of the winter solstice, though they initially blended in with the aches and pangs that had been Merrill’s day-to-day for several months. It wasn’t until Carver arrived home that a healer was summoned, Merrill was examined, and both were told her labours were underway.

They lasted through the next day, and into the early hours of another. Finally, the midwife lay the newborn girl upon Merrill’s bare chest as they both cried, one in fear and the other in relief. Both in pain from the birth, no doubt. One of Merrill’s hands was still trapped by both of Carver’s – he had never left her side, despite the midwife’s protests – but she placed the other on her daughter’s back, holding her close. Andaran atish’an, da’len. She still isn’t sure if she said the words or just thought them. Carver kissed her forehead, and his tears mingled with her own.

The next few hours were a blur. The cord was cut, the afterbirth delivered, and both mother and child were gently bathed. Merrill is returned to a clean, dry bed, warm and safe and well. Carver stayed with the baby, at her insistence, and now sits on the bed beside her, the child resting safely in his arms. One of her hands clings tight to his forefinger.

“How do you feel?” he asks, eventually, and then cringes to himself. She isn’t sure why. It’s a fair question.

“Sore, and tired,” she answers, “but I’m so, so happy. Happier than I ever thought I could be.”

Carver smiles, his eyes brimming with tears, and she knows that he feels the same. He swallows hard, before he speaks. “We still have to name her.”

There’s only one name that comes to mind. Her dearest friend, lost in the Fade. “What about Marian?”

He half-laughs, and shakes his head. “Rian hated that name. They’d never forgive me.” The baby gives a little cry, as if she doesn’t like the name much either. “If you want to honour them, I think they’d rather we named her Bethany.”

Bethany. Merrill’s heart feels as though it may break, though not with sorrow. “That’s it,” she says, almost sobs. “That’s it. That’s her name.”

Carver looks up, almost alarmed. “Are you sure? You don’t have to…”

But looking at the babe’s face now, Merrill can’t think of her as anyone else. “I’d like to hold Bethany, please,” she says.

With the utmost care and gentleness, Carver shifts little Bethany in his hands, and places her in Merrill’s arms. It isn’t the first time she has held her daughter, but it overwhelms her just as much now as it did then. She never knew she could love anything so much. She is lost to it, and she is terrified by it, but still it seems as vital as air, and she gives herself over without a moment’s thought.

Bethany doesn’t seem to take note of it. She only clings on to Merrill’s finger – it takes her entire hand to circle it, over the callous from her staff. Her skin has no such imperfections.

“I hope her hands are always soft,” Merrill says, wistfully. And then, she thinks about it a little more. “Unless she wants to learn an instrument, or be trained to fight, or…”

Carver kisses her temple, and she falls quiet. “I know what you meant.”

“Of course you do,” Merrill whispers back. “You always do.”

[carvermerrill]

Happy Friday! From the "I'm weak for you" prompts, how about “Fiiiiine. I’ll do it. For you. Just for you.” for Carver/Merrill?

my first crack at writing these two! a drabble for @dadrunkwriting

"Carver, do you ever get to go to any of the fancy events since you're the brother of the Champion?" Merrill hopped from one large stone to the next along the beach of the Wounded Coast. Carver walked alongside her, opting to remain on the sand. "No," came his flat reply. "Because I'm her brother and not her. I don't have people falling over themselves to meet me." "Ooh, but wouldn't it be so lovely?" She jumped lightly from the last stone and spun around to look at him, walking backwards across the sand. "I've never been to a ball! Dancing and fancy dresses and--" His disgusted snort cut her off. "No thanks. The last thing I want to do is dance like a circus bear for the entertainment of girls who'll just laugh at me." She stared up at him with her wide, earnest eyes. "But no one could laugh at you, Carver! You're so strong and handsome and--" Her face reddened and she turned back around. "Sorry, I'm rambling." "Why would you want to go to something like that, anyway?" He couldn't help but ask -- because he liked when she rambled. "It's so romantic, isn't it? Dancing!" Merrill threw her arms out and spun in circles with a wistful smile. "No one wanted to dance with me in my clan." "I would dance with you." The words were out before he could stop them or think better of them -- but they were true. For her, he would. "You would? Oh, Carver!" She grinned broadly, but then her face fell. "I don't think I'll ever get invited, though. I'm nobody." "Sod them all. I'll dance with you here." They paused and gazed at each other, all alone save for the sand and the sea. Merrill's face was alight with joy as she said, "Ooh, yes! Let's dance!" Carver didn't know the first thing about dancing, or the proper way to hold a lady, or any of that. But for Merrill? He would try.

[carvermerrill]

Happy Pride Month from these proud and raging bisexuals!

[carvermerrill]

happy friday!! for the pairing of your choice, ' GOTCHA ]: the sender, noticing the receiver has unknowingly walked into the path of a source of danger, grabs them by the shoulder and hoists them back to safety. '

Absolutely! Here's some Carver x Merrill for @dadrunkwriting!

He would not call her unobservant. It couldn't be further from the truth. Merrill was one of the most observant people Carver ever met, and that included his mother (who seemed to have eyes on the back of her head), Bethany (who had always known what he was thinking, often before he thought of it), and (to his eternal frustration) Varric, who was nosy and got into everyone's business for his own amusement. The point was this: Merrill was observant. She saw things no one else seemed to, caught the smallest details of everything she got her hands on, and noted the slightest changes in the atmosphere on a regular basis. She was no fool, and she wasn't lost in her own daydreams (no matter what the others thought).

The problem seemed to be that she didn't give a fuck.

"Damn it!" Carver exclaimed, and he reached out and yanked Merrill by the shoulder out of the street before a horse and cart raced by with a speed that ought to have set the Guard on the driver. Ought to, Carver thought sourly, but it wouldn't. Too many problems and not enough people who gave a shit about fixing them, that was the trouble. And he wasn't much good at fixing anything, either.

"Oh my. They seemed in a hurry," Merrill observed, craning her neck as she watched the cart turn a corner. "That poor horse, though. Did you see how patchy her coat was?" Typical Merrill. She hadn't noticed the danger to herself, not one bit, but she instead extended all her care and concern to the damn horse that nearly ran her over!

"Went too fast for me to see it," Carver said. "Sorry about that. Didn't hurt you, did I?" How he wished he had Marian's wit, or Isabela's natural warmth, or even Fenris' dignified aloofness. Instead he felt like some hulking brute, rough and gruff without a trace of charm to him. But Merrill reached up, patted his shoulder, and smiled so brightly it put the sun to shame.

"I'm perfectly well, thank you! And thank you for escorting me to the markets today. I would have been lost ten times over without you!" With that Merrill set off again, and she only laughed when Carver pointed out that she was heading in the opposite direction. But when she slipped her hand in his and squeezed it, Carver wondered what, exactly, he had gotten right.

[carvermerrill]

the kirkwall crew!!  finally got around to finishing this, whew

they’re comin back from sundermount, everyone’s ready for a drink at the hanged man 

[carvermerrill]

Love this banter