Cas gratefully sat in the chair with a sweet smile, laughing softly when Tolly pulled away. “Yeah, sorry about that. I thought I shook it all out outside. Guess some still stuck on. Someone had an accident in magic chemistry, the whole class got cover in this. I didn’t have time to stop by my dorm and take a shower.” He explained, tilting his head up to look at Tolly, stiffling another laugh. “Love, come here. Some still is stuck.”
Boop
(Sorry, had to deal with some family junk!)
Tolly rubbed at his lips a little harder, setting down napkins and plates with his free hand. Eventually he gave in and wandered back to Cas' side, a small frown on his face as he crouched down beside his boyfriend. "You're taking a shower after dinner, I'm gonna die if I have to deal with this junk all over my house." He was pouting a little, slowly starting to let Cas support his weight. "I mean… I'm already never gonna be clean again."
(It’s totally ok! Just bopping!)
Cas smiled softly and started to wipe off the rest of the glitter. “Alright, I will.” He replied, petting his hair as he continues to get all the sparkles and glitter off of Tolly’s lips. “Mind if I shower here?” He asked, pressing a kiss to his head and then his lips. “You’ll be fine love, don’t worry.”
Tolly hummed happily as Cas started to pet him, eyes falling shut as he settled his head on his boyfriend's lap. "I don't mind, lovey. Just as long as you don't use up all my soap." He smiled into the kiss and scooted a little closer, eager for more attention. "Think you can stay the night?"
He laughed and nodded “I swear I won’t..” Cas pressed their heads together and kissed Tolly’s nose. “Sure, mind if I go back to my dorm to grab some pjs after dinner?” He asked, glancing up to make sure the food wasn’t burning. “Speaking of which, is it ready yet? I’m starving!”
Tolly grinned and returned the kiss as best he could. He popped up on his feet once Cas reminded him of dinner, gasping quietly and hurrying over to the stove. Once dinner was safely on the table, he returned with a sheepish smile and plopped down into the chair in front of Cas. "Shit, sorry! It's all good, might be a little hot but you can definitely eat it."
“Can’t wait!” Cas said happily, finding a fork to begin eating. He dug into the dish in front of him, eyes widening at how amazingly delicious it tasted.
“I think you could rival mom’s cooking, love. This is great!” He told Tolly, a happy little smile on his face as kept on eating dinner “so what’s for dessert? Or do I have to wait?”
Tolly laughed quietly, waving away the compliment with a bright smile and a soft flush. "It's really nothing special, just a couple things I tossed together since you said you'd be coming over." He was downplaying it, just a tad. "And yeah, I figured I may as well make you something sweet since you've been having such a long day. Chocolate cake's good, right?"
Cas shook his head no. “Love, don’t undermine your ability to cook. I’m sure you cook like this even if I wasn’t coming over.” He stood up and pressed a kiss to Tolly’s cheek. “Yes, chocolate cake is great.” He hugged Tolly and pressed one last kiss to his head before taking the empty plates to the sink
Tolly laughed quietly, leaning into the kiss with a bashful smile. "You flatter me, Cas. I'm sure I wouldn't whip up anything half as good is I didn't have you to motivate me." He sat back in his chair, eyes scanning appreciatively over Cas as he wandered into the kitchen. "Cake's in the oven, if you wanna grab it. Should be cool enough to touch."
“Well then it’s a good thing I came over isn’t it.” He said over his shoulder. He hovered his hand over the cake, making sure it was cool enough before finding some plates and serving up two slices. He set the plate down in front of Tolly before taking away the rest of the empty plates and bringing them to the sink. He settled back in his chair and nodded to the papers. “Want to start the corrections now or wait until we finish?”
It had more than cooled down. The cake was a pretty little thing, frosting done up in small swoops, chocolate curls set among the peaks of frosting. Tolly smiled as he started to dig into it, letting out a pleased sound. Not as good as his brother would make, but still pretty darn good. "Oh! My bag's on the couch, I'll go grab it!" He hopped up and soon he was back with the papers, some red pens, and a handful of pencils. "Here! You ready to get going?"
Cas are the cake happily, loving the mix of indulgent chocolate with the fluffy peaks of frosting. He curled up in the chair and pulled one of the pages towards him, looking over the ones Tolly had gotten wrong. He pointed to one of them, already seeing his mistake. “Look this one over love. This one’s kinda tricky with the wording.” He said, scooting closer to Tolly and shounf him Thebes equation. The proof had technically been done correctly but one of the He terms was used wrong, throwing off Tolly’s explanation
Tolly sighed quietly and looked the paper over, giving the words an unhappy squint and then turning on Cas with puppy dog eyes when he still couldn't quite manage to figure out what was wrong. "I don't know darling, that's why I asked you to help." He always had trouble with these things, separating his small mistakes from the larger proof when everything seemed to add up correctly. "Just show me how to fix it, please."
Cas shook his head and leaned forwards, setting the plate down beside him as he explained the proof to Tolly.
“You did everything perfectly. Your terminology is off. Instead of stating that the angles were parallel to each other, you said that they were perpendicular.” He said, gesturing with his arms parallel and perpendicular after pointing to the paper
Tolly groaned quietly, scribbling out his mistake with a heaving sigh. Lately correcting proofs was less a of learning opportunity and more of a frustration because he was always so close. It was these tiny little mistakes with his terminology that always tripped him up. "Oh damn, I could've sworn they were the opposite. Is there anything else I got mixed up?"
Cas leaned his head against Tolly’s arm and looked over the rear again, pointing out a few more term mistakes.
“The rest of the two are mathematically error.” He stood and found a calculator from his bag. “Show me what you did.” He instructed, leaning back against him
"Alright, um…" He read through the work he'd done with a soft sigh and then started to write it back out on a blank piece of paper, doing his best to get even the smallest pieces of work down so Cas could follow his thought process. At some point he must've diverged, because he ended up with a completely different answer than he'd gotten on the test. "… oh. I guess I did it wrong, huh?"
He glanced over and quickly read over the work Tolly had done on the separate piece of paper, checking it over with his calculator. He pointed the the separate sheet and smiled “that’s the right answer. I think on the test you calculated something wrong out and it messed your answer a bit by a few numbers. But you did right this time!” He found a red pen and circled the answer. “You do really well when relaxed. I think when you’re initially doing the test, you get nervous. Next time try relaxing or think of it as a studying time like now and not as a test. The teacher cares about the work, now how fast you finish.” He pressed Alissa to his cheek and nodded to the next question. “You got this, try redoing the next one.”
Tolly sighed quietly but the kiss seemed to have soothed him because he went right to work. It was slower than he'd gone on the test, but that probably accounted for his newfound success because he came up with another right answer. "You know," he mumbled, halfway through the proofs, "I think you're right about the 'whole messing up when I get nervous' thing. I do just fine on assignments." Just fine, of course, meant low 90s. He felt like he'd never gotten an 100 in his life. "It's the tests that tank my grades, I can never seem to keep everything straight in my head."
“Then don’t think of it as a test, think of it a normal assignment, one that just costs a few more points.” He said, watching Tolly as he went through the questions. He tried each one out on the calculator, making sure each one was right now. He smiled proudly at Tolly, glad that at least now he was doing alright. “Maybe ask if you can play music with headphones in as you take the test. I know some teachers allow that too.”
Tolly sighed quietly, resting his head on Cas' shoulder with a small pout. "You say that like it's so easy," he mumbled, a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought of it before. Cas made everything sound so sensible. "All we ever get graded on are tests, all the assignments he gives us are just for practice. And… I dunno, I think the music thing might make it hard to concentrate. I already do bad, I don't wanna make things even worse."
“It takes time to develop a test taking strategic love, you’ll figure yours out soon. You know what you’re doing, even if you don’t get the right answers sometimes. You know the process. You just need to refine a few things, that’s all.” He stood to put the empty plates in the sink, pressing a kiss to Tolly’s head when he got back. He curled up comfortably next to him and watched as he continued to work on the test corrections, smiling proudly when Tolly seemed to catch on to the mistake she He had done, fixing them easily on husband own now
Tolly sighed quietly, perking up a little at the kiss but otherwise seeming pretty bummed out. The rest of the corrections went smoothly, though he still seemed embarrassed every time he managed to correct something easy that he really should've recognized while he was actually taking the test. "How'd you get so smart, huh?" He finished up with a soft sigh and slumped up against Cas' side. "Take some kind of fancy study skills course? Or are you just some kind of genius?"
He laughed softly and combed through Tolly’s hair with his fingers. “I’m not sure, guess it comes more naturally to me? That it my classes don’t really have written tests.” He glanced at Tolly and nudged his head affectionately. “You’re incredibly smart, just because you don’t get the highest grade doesn’t mean you’re bad at math or taking tests. You did better than what you thought initially, even by a few points it’s still an improvement.”
Tolly let out a happy sound as Cas started to card through his hair, leaning into the touch as best he could while he finished up the last of the problems. "Ugh, lucky. I feel like all I have are written tests, except the ones in magic theory 'n stuff where exams are casting spells." He was rubbing himself up against Cas' side, nuzzling his cheek, making himself small beneath his arm. "And I'm really not all that smart. I just… I dunno, I'm average. It's fine, I make up for it in other ways."
“I’m defiantly taking magic theory next year.” He said with a smile, continuing to run his hand through Tolly’s hair as nudged up against him. “And hey, I wouldn’t call myself lucky. You know how hard it’s is to remember all the combinations of basic alchemy? Not to mention the different incantations and spells for herbs and magical plant theory! I’d love to switch with you even Igbo it’s just one day, I actually think I’m missing traditional tests at this point!”
Tolly laughed quietly and kept making these happy little sounds as he was petted, pushing his face into Cas' hand when he was finally finished and didn't have to pay attention to his work. It was nice to be doted on, especially with all the stress he'd been dealing with lately. "Mm, you'll regret that once you get back into pen and paper classes. I'd rather de-root a mandrake than answer thirty four questions about how we figured out healing spells."
He gazed down at Tolly adoringly and happily kept stroking his hair. “You’re probably right, but it’s be a nice change. Though significantly less fun.” He looked over the last few problems, smiling proudly when he saw that they were all correct. Cas kisses him gently and nudged him up. “I think you’re all set to hand these in.”