You Make Me Smile

A/N: This one was widely requested on my tumblr! Akela's about 15.


Summary: The one thing you should never do is start a tickle fight with a witcher.


Geralt, believe it or not, didn't often wind up in bad moods. Of course, his frequent grumpy demeanour and tendency to shout and punch and, well, kill quite diminished those thoughts to whoever may have them, but it was true. That was just him. And, for the most part, he had Akela to thank for that.

Because, as he'd found out over his years with her, if a man like him ever felt that occasional twinge of unhappiness built up over long years of war and hardship, he only had to look at the one who'd made that twinge occasional, and not constant, and it would fade.

But currently, not even the sight of her could break him out of this one. He was, well and truly, crabby.

Akela had told him countless times since he'd returned from his recent hunt that witchers are allowed to mess up. There was nobody really who would dare say they couldn't. Not that he'd even really messed up. But apparently finishing a hunt thirty minutes later than normal and getting injured in the process of killing the monster—a werewolf this time—meant he messed up. She hadn't really known what to say to that.

"Please just… smile… or something?" she tried for perhaps the tenth time, watching with a hopeful glint in her eye as she stood cautiously behind the witcher. He was bent over a rabbit on a spit above a fire, and when he turned, she grimaced at the completely cold look on his face.

He held her nervous gaze for three seconds before turning back and aggressively poking a stick at the fire. "Clean the bowls out," he ordered, and Akela didn't even have the willpower to say no.

With a roll of her eyes, she grabbed the two bowls and the water skin, washing them and dropping them back in the place she'd gotten them—almost as aggressively as his stick-poking, which was entirely purposeful.

He noticed it, too, which was why he lifted his head the smallest bit and rose an eyebrow, but apart from that he said nothing on the matter and simply turned back to the rabbit.

Akela stood behind him and crossed her arms. Geralt continued poking. She continued staring.

"You know," she started after a short while, "that werewolf is dead."

"Is it? I don't remember ripping it apart." Sarcasm dripped from his words like the dead, burnt skin flaking off the rabbit.

"Then stop moping!" she practically begged. "It's dead! It's over! Who cares how long it took to do it?"

Geralt remained quiet, throwing his stick onto the dying embers of the fire and watching as the flames rose higher with the added kindling. Really, if he had given an answer, it would have been somewhere along the lines of "because every extra moment it's alive gives it an extra moment to get to you". But his lips stayed shut.

Akela crossed her arms over her chest and took a stance Lambert would class as adorably witcher-like. Her eyes were fixed on his back, and as her face twisted into one of contemplation, a thought came to her. Granted, it was a stupid thought, but she didn't really have anything else available to her, so it was worth a try.

It really hadn't been worth a try.

Uncrossing her arms, she slowly took a step forward. And another step. Then, she stretched her arms out in front of her and took another.

She paused as Geralt turned his head ever so slightly, amber eyes not looking at her but still holding that intensifying glare. "What are you doing?"

She bit her lip. "Uh. Nothing?"

He turned the rest of the way around, hands resting on his knees and one dark brow arched. "Really?"

"Yes?"

He stared at her for a moment longer, gaze unwavering while she nervously attempted to hold it. A moment later, he turned back around and threw some more sticks onto the fire. "Try and tickle me," he said casually, "and you know I'll get you back."

Damn.

Really, that should have stopped her right in her tracks. But, somehow, it only increased her drive.

And yet, as Geralt made it one of his many jobs to make clear, he knew her far better than he knew anyone—including himself—and, therefore, as she moved to take another step forward, he swung around, grabbed her outstretched arms, and practically yanked her in front of him.

A loud noise of surprise escaped her lips as her back collided with the ground between the fire and Geralt, but all of that became lost to her as soon as a large hand found its way under her tunic and dug into the skin of her stomach.

Giggles poured from her mouth immediately, and she grabbed at his hand, attempting to roll over. "Geralt!"

"I did warn you," was the witcher's curt reply. He took the time, as he always did when he had Akela in a position such as this, to truly look at how small she was. Of course, she'd always been little to him, but when she was rolling about on the floor beneath him, child-like giggles spilling from her lips like breaths, desperately attempting to wrench his giant hand off her yet not able to lift it even an inch, it became all the more clear. In a perfectly good way.

The corners of his lips, finally, turned upwards, and yet Akela was too distracted to notice her victory.

"Fuhuck you!" she laughed, slapping at his hand. He often wondered if she'd get better at fighting him off, considering how good she was in hand-to-hand combat, but it seemed as though this was one thing that rendered her completely immobile. "I dihidn't touch youhu!"

Geralt shrugged, digging in a little harder and suppressing his own laugh as she squealed manically. "You were about to," he told her, "and that's enough for me."

"I juhust—I-AH! I JUST WANTED YOU TO SMILE!"

At her scream when he moved his fingers to her ribs, he couldn't keep his amusement at bay much longer, and a wide grin spread across his lips. He leaned down quickly, moved her tunic up and blew a raspberry right above her navel, grimacing and squeezing his eyes shut at the piercing screech she made not a second later. That was exactly why he left those to Lambert.

"Alright, alright." He held both hands up in surrender. Akela made to roll away, but he quickly reacted and grabbed her when she got too close to the fire.

"No!" she giggled, hugging herself as he dragged her closer to him, and he shook his head in amusement.

"I've stopped, silly girl, relax. Just didn't want you scalding yourself on the damn fire, believe it or not."

He moved his hand to her head and smoothed back her dishevelled hair. The scent of burning filled his nostrils and he glanced up, immediately groaning. "Look what you made me do," he said. "Dinner's burnt."

Akela laughed. "At least it made you smile!"

With a hum, Geralt leant back, his hand still at her head on his lap.

Of course it had made him smile.

The way to do so had always been for her to do it first.