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„Papa, how did you and Dad meet?“
Geralt puts down the book he is currently reading and looks at the small girl standing before him, blonde curly hair put into two small pigtails on either side of her head, dressed in green dungarees and a soft yellow sweater.
“Why do you want to know, love?” he asks her as he reaches down to pull her into his lap, giving her a small kiss on the cheek and tickling her with his stubble, resulting in a small squeal.
“Mrs. Vennerberg asked us today in school and all the other children knew but me!” She puts her lips into an angry pout, crossing her arms before her little body, a frown on her face.
‘Absolutely adorable,’ Geralt thinks to himself, before he answers: “Well, Ciri, you never asked!” a slight tease in his voice.
Ciri buries her head in the nook between Geralt’s ear and shoulder and mumbles something that is most likely supposed to mean: “I am now.”
Gently, he retrieves her from where she’s more or less successfully tried to hide and puts a hand under her chin, gently forcing her to look at him.
“Were you embarrassed that you were the only one who didn’t know?”
That question seems to hit the nail on the head as Ciri once more smushes her face into Geralt, her pigtails tickling his nose.
As cute as she looks, buried into his chest, Geralt knows that an embarrassed Ciri can very quickly turn into an angry, crying one, and so he comes up with a plan.
“How about,” he says as he pulls her into his arms, getting up from the sofa, “I make us some hot chocolate and I will tell you how your dad and I met.” His question is answered with sparkling blue eyes and a toothy grin, and so they make their way to the kitchen, Geralt gently putting her down to sit on the counter.
“Don’t tell your father I let you do this!” he warns her, lifting a warning finger, but Ciri only sticks out her tongue at him and dangles her legs off the edge.
He turns to pull two mugs out of the cupboard behind him – one in the shape of a blue dinosaur, his neck functioning as the handle, the other a plain white one with only the word “D.I.L.F.” written on it (Geralt thanks the Gods that Ciri still hasn’t learned to read every time he uses it) – before retrieving the box of cocoa powder from a drawer next to him, putting two spoonfuls of it in each mug, as well as a sugar cube.
Ciri watches him put a small saucepan on the stove and filling it with milk, adding a dash of cinnamon and flicking on the gas.
“So,” Geralt begins as he’s stirring the pot to make sure the milk heats evenly, “your Dad and I met around 10 years ago.”
He has barely finished this sentence when he’s interrupted by Ciri asking: “10 years? I wasn’t even born yet, that was ages ago!”
‘Way to make me feel old, kid,’ Geralt thinks, but he knows that Ciri means no harm, still too young to really grasp the meaning of time.
He doesn’t further acknowledge her comment and instead continues the story: “So as I said, we met 10 years ago. I had just moved here and didn’t know anybody and was overall just feeling a bit lonely.”
The milk is starting to bubble, and Geralt turns off the stove keep it from boiling all over the place, pouring it equally into the two mugs perched on the counter. He gives the mixture a good stir, making sure that there were no lumps left, and, when he feels satisfied with how it looks, hands Ciri her dinosaur-mug.
“Thanks, dad!” she says, blowing raspberries to cool down her hot chocolate, making Geralt laugh in the process.
“You have to leave your lips slightly open for that to work, love,” he advises her before he sits down next to her on the counter, his feet dangling alongside Ciri’s.
“Anyway, one day I was grocery shopping because I wanted to make pancakes and had run out of flour. So I grabbed the flour package and wanted to put it in my basket, but some idiot had apparently decided to open it and just put it back into the shelve afterwards, which led to me dumbing all of it over me and the person who happened to walk past behind me.”
Ciri gasps, a small moustache of cocoa on her upper lip, seemingly listening with all the attention she can muster.
“I turn around to apologize to that poor bastard, and well…” he trails off, waiting for Ciri to work out the rest on her own.
“That was dad?” she squeals, her voice shrill and full of childish glee. She looks so proud of herself for figuring it out, Geralt feels like he is about to melt.
He wishes that she would always stay this small, even though he knows that it’s pointless, the past 6 years with Ciri in their lives having already flown by in the blink of an eye.
“That was dad, yes. You know how he loves to wear expensive clothes, right?” Ciri nods in response, taking another sip from her mug.
“Well, he was wearing his favourite pair of very expensive jeans that day, and he made sure to tell me that.” He laughs at the memory of that, still seeing Jaskier standing there in the grocery store aisle, his pants covered in flour from top to bottom. He can see it like it was yesterday, although the Jaskier who wakes up next to him every day now has a few more wrinkles around his eyes, and even though his face is a bit rounder and his stomach a bit softer, to Geralt he still looks as stunning as he did back then.
“And so to make up for it, I said that I would pay for the drycleaner and invited him over for pancakes, because that was the reason I was even buying flour in the first place.”
“Did you tell him you love him then?” Ciri looks at him with such an innocent look in her face as she asks him that, head cocked slightly to the side, clearly not yet understanding the weight of such a confession.
Geralt takes a mouthful of hot cocoa and smiles.
“No, that actually took quite a long time because your dad and I were stupid.”
‘Can’t believe everyone else knew we were dating before we did,’ he thinks back, remembering all the dinners and movie nights they had before a friend had pointed out that maybe, maybe there be a bit more than friendship going on between them. Looking back, the constant flirting and touching (a hug here, an evening spent on the couch cuddling there) may have been an indicator.
“Hm.”
Ciri, having finished her hot chocolate, hands Geralt her mug and jumps off the counter, landing on the floor with a soft thud and nearly falling over in the process.
Geralt is curios what she’s thinking, and he asks: “So, are you satisfied with my answer?”
Seemingly content, his daughter looks at him and says: “Yes”
Feeling relieved, Geralt scoops her up into his arms once more, giving her a peck on the forehead.
“Wanna have pancakes for dinner?”