First
A/N: Protective Geralt! Akela's 15.
Summary: Akela smiles at a boy, and Geralt starts to worry.
It started with a smile.
Didn't it always start with a smile?
The boy smiled, and Akela smiled back, and an uncommon worry immediately pierced his heart. That worry obviously chose to display itself as anger though, as the moment her lips curled upwards, he'd turned around in his chair so quickly he'd knocked the jug of ale off the table and spilled it all over himself.
"Fuck," he cursed, quickly standing to his feet as he felt the cold liquid seep into his trousers.
Akela had been walking towards the table he was sat at, a little late as she'd been in the stable with Roach, when she'd heard the jug smash. It'd stopped her, the sound causing her to snap her head around after smiling for a moment at a boy seated at his own table with some others.
She grimaced the moment she noticed it'd been Geralt's jug, and picked up her pace, rushing over to him and grabbing a rag from a woman carrying plates of food as she passed. He was looking a bit stumped, standing with his legs apart and ale dripping on the floor. Really, it was a difficulty to keep herself from laughing as she reached him and thrust the rag into his hands, but the pissed off expression on his face kept her amusement at bay.
"You know, you're supposed to drink it, not spill it," she told him, trying to lighten the mood, but he simply glared at her. She rolled her eyes and shoved past him to sit down.
"If you hadn't smiled at that fucking boy—" he started, before apparently thinking against it and returning his focus to drying the wet patch on his trousers. He slumped down on the seat again, rubbing aggressively, and Akela rose a curious eyebrow.
"You… knocked the jug because you saw me smile at a boy?"
He didn't reply, instead quickening his pace as he mopped at himself, and her smile grew wider.
"It was just a smile, Geralt."
He growled out something incoherent, growing irritated with the rag as he threw it on the table a second later and sat back against the seat.
"First a smile," he said, his tone surprisingly expressionless, "then another. And another. Until something more… springs from it."
"Nothing's going to spring from it," she told him, turning to him. "It was just a smile. I've smiled at tons of people."
Geralt huffed in clear amusement. "Hmm."
Akela sighed, grabbing the rag and pressing it against his leg. "I'm fifteen, Geralt. I'm not going anywhere. If you want, I can go over there and punch him in the face for making me smile and then making you knock the jug off the table and then making the jug spill ale all over you." Her eyebrow was raised, and Geralt mirrored it, causing her to break, a smile threatening to split her face in half. She shuffled over and leaned heavily against him, hearing him hum again beside her.
"If you say so," he said gruffly.
"The only man I need in my life is you, you big… baby."
"Don't call me a baby."
