One Dog Hurts; The Other Can't Help
A ninety-eight-percent Ylesack cotton v-neck, gentle gold; fourteen-percent polyester tapered sweatpants, heather gray; a thick leather bracelet, lapis, to complement his own black on white pattern; and everything underneath.
All of which are items Glastinus has seen specific approval in from the woman he's going to marry.
He lifts a hand to his ears and smooths slighter strands of fur to their perkiest, then runs his hand over the rest and flashes his dimples, posing a special little something at the mirror. Clearly, Glastinus knows what he's doing. He looks good. That's not all he needs, but it's what he's got.
He's confident this will work.
So he squares himself up and sets his hairbrushes back in the bathroom cabinet, fixing his ears only once more before he gives up the mirror and pulls open the door to his and Tettus's bedroom.
Glastinus pauses at the threshold. He slides one hand up the frame and grins something definitely between sexy and mysterious as his body naturally flexes. He leans his groin just an inch forward in the motion, presenting it not as cheesily as he's been accused of before, but negotiably.
Tettus doesn't see it. Any of it. Anything. She's curled up the other direction in their bed.
Glastinus strums his fingers and softens his voice as low as she's liked it previously. He whispers, "Hey, gorgeous."
Tettus doesn't hear it.
"I brought you something," Glastinus says.
A voice higher than he suspects is honest crawls back out from her.
"That's okay."
"It's my penis," Glastinus says. "I dressed it up for you."
Tettus lies still. She mutters, "I don't think I can."
Glastinus keeps up his smile.
"If you give me a chance, I think I can change your mind," he says. "Yeah?"
Tettus rolls a thin, blurried gaze to him, and Glastinus takes his chance. He prods a thumb under the elastic of his pants and slopes them down inch by inch until his hem hides only the obvious.
"Tell me when to stop," he says. "Unless... you don't want me to."
Tettus slips back over her pillow.
"Sorry," she mumbles.
Shitty line. Noted. Tettus usually likes them that bad. But she usually knows the reason for feeling like she does, too.
She usually lets her boyfriend in on it.
So he nudges his pants up and pulls his phone out from his pocket instead. The bed squeaks as Glastinus sits down beside Tettus and swipes through the hub menu for his next idea. He taps open his playlist application and says, "How about we try an experiment?"
Tettus doesn't answer that one, but Glastinus scrolls a little farther and presses play. He sets his phone down and pushes off from the bed just as a thick bass thrums the sheets.
Glastinus nods along to the ungodly noise as drums pick up, filling the beat with a barbaric electronic rhythm that he knows is Tettus's favorite kind of music. An artist foreign to him starts singing about blowing up banks and how much sex he'll have afterward and Glastinus shimmies to the death of real music, swaying his hips to and fro anyway as he just keeps smiling.
"I want to see how long it takes until you get up and dance to this dirty beat," he says, snapping his fingers like so. "You should watch me. I'm shaking some moves here."
Tettus tightens her arms around her knees. Her voice cracks against the pressure not to let it.
"I don't think I can..."
Glastinus slips back toward his phone and taps the bass to a halt. Tettus whimpers plainly without noise to cover her, but even before the music stops, she's bundling the blanket against her face in vain.
Glastinus watches her struggle alone in front of him.
He sits down again on the edge of the bed, smile now dangling between hands clutched over his knees, catching the feeling that once again, he's failed to do the most natural thing that Tettus nails every time she tries.
He lays only a hand over her leg.
"I'm sorry I made you feel worse."
Tettus's leg shakes under his hand, and she cries in her smallest voice muffled further through the blanket.
"No, Glas, you're... you're trying to--you're tryin'a make me feel better and I'm f-fucking it up again."
"You're not fucking anything up," Glastinus says. "I don't remember you ever fucking anything up."
He glances back to her. "Except maybe with your pussy."
The words fall off his tongue just as he wonders if she doesn't want any of that kind of talk right now.
But he mumbles, too, "In the good way."
Tettus cries in sharp gasps away from Glastinus, and he looks forward again. It's the part of her he knows she doesn't want him to see, the part he can probably help in only one way, and yet he wants to be able to do more than just go away.
"I'm sorry, Glas," Tettus cries. "You shouldn't h-have to deal with me like this..."
Glastinus turns back to her. He shores up his pants and swings himself up onto the bed, shifting and rolling around until he's the big spoon, staying his hand on Tettus's shoulder.
He says, "I don't have to."
Tettus gasps a louder sob, sucks it in, and spills it out again. Glastinus hopes to their goddess that it's the happy kind, like in the movies.
But we should go dancing sometime, he could amuse her with. Turns out I'm really good.
But he doesn't want to risk failing again, either, as he rubs Tettus's fur as gently as he can.
So he doesn't.
"I'm sorry, Glas..."
So he pulls closer and kisses her nape, drawing away just as quick. Too quiet for her to notice, he mutters, "Love you, too, beautiful."