"Why am I the one who has to come with you?" Danny complained but followed Isaac deeper into the park nevertheless.

"Everybody else found an excuse quicker than you," Isaac said absently. They were walking under trees right now but there were wide areas of grass as well. It wasn't ideal, there were way too many lamps illuminating the paths even at this hour but it had to do.

"You could have come here alone," Danny said.

"You would never forgive yourself if they found my dead body under a bush in the morning," Isaac reminded him. "This thing's expensive." He held up the telescope he was carrying in his arms like a baby.

"Not that you have to have something expensive on you to get mugged around here," he added with a look around. There was nobody in sight but one never knew. There were most likely homeless people sleeping on benches or under bushes. There was a reason he hadn't wanted to come here alone.

"You could have used the roof of our dorm," Danny pointed out but hurried to catch up with him.

"There's even more light pollution than out here," Isaac told him. He'd spent the last two days thinking about a good spot to watch the stars. When he wasn't thinking about Professor Stilinski. He'd told his friends about his encounter with Professor Stilinski in Hale's office but they had been more interested in why Isaac had come out of that office with a telescope.

It could have been innocent. The professors were colleagues and maybe Stilinski had just given the Reeses he couldn't eat himself to somebody he knew would enjoy them. Lydia had been way too reasonable with her interpretation.

However, the others hadn't seen the look on Professor Stilinski's face. That had not been an innocent look. Isaac didn't know if Professor Hale had caught on, probably not, but the way Stilinski had looked at him had not been innocent at all. What Isaac had witnessed at the club overlapped with that, creating some disturbing images in his mind.

Isaac shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and had a look around.

"Over there." He pointed to where the trees opened into a wide area of grass. Over the day people came here to enjoy the sun, maybe have a picnic, or play games but at night it was just an empty area.

"You do know that we will step into dog shit, right?" Danny complained but followed him. "If we're lucky. Worst case, we cut ourselves on a broken beer bottle. Or step into a used needle."

"Don't be so pessimistic." Isaac had been looking up at the sky, there were no clouds tonight and no moon either, but now he did look at the ground. Not that he was able to see more than general darkness around his feet. His sneakers stood in stark contrast to the ground but otherwise, he didn't see shit. Literally.

Hoping for the best he pointed at a spot roughly in the middle of the area.

"Put the blanket there."

While Danny put down the blanket, Isaac set up the telescope. They had brought coffee and snacks so while Isaac was fiddling with the telescope, Danny poured himself a coffee.

"What are we doing out here anyway?" He asked over the rim of the cup.

"It's for an assignment," Isaac said but if he was honest, he didn't know what he was doing here either. Professor Hale had told him to go and watch the stars so that was what he came here to do. He could have just written some pages about what fascinated him about the stars, wouldn't have been the first time he pulled something out of his ass, but since he had the telescope why not use it? So here he was, ready to watch the stars.

It had been a while since he'd done this so he took a moment to orientate himself. Just looking up at the stars brought back memories. He'd enjoyed this. He'd spent hours out in the night with just the stars for company. Sometimes he'd just watched whatever caught his eye, sometimes he'd been trying to catch a specific event. He'd filled notebook after notebook with his observations.

Suddenly he wanted to get his hands on those books again, just to read through them, but he hadn't taken them with him when he'd moved out and now they were gone with the house and everything else his father had left behind.

Overwhelmed with emotions, Isaac cleared his throat and fiddled a bit more with the telescope. He was suddenly very aware of Danny who was sitting behind him and most likely watching every move he made.

"Okay," Danny spoke up as if he'd been reading his mind. "Show me. If I have to sit out here in the middle of the night I want at least to get some basics. To me, these are just dots in the sky." He gestured at the sky in general.

Since Isaac hadn't come here with something specific in mind, he jumped at the opportunity to give Danny some pointers.

"You see those four stars that form a rectangle?" Isaac asked. "That's the Big Dipper."

From there he guided Danny to Polaris.

"It's the brightest star and it's always in the north," Isaac explained. "If you ever get lost in the wilderness, look out for it."

"The only wilderness I'm going to get lost in is New York, I doubt that's going to help me." Danny snorted into his coffee but after a second he did look up at the sky again. "What else is out there?"

Isaac showed him the constellations visible at the moment and he had to admit that it was fun. Danny knew nothing about the night sky but he was interested and willing to learn.

"So what do you need that thing for, then?" Danny asked when their conversation came to a lull.

"The constellations are just the first layer." Isaac adjusted the telescope and showed him Jupiter.

They didn't intend to but they spent half the night out in the park. On their way home, they were kind of planning a weekend trip somewhere where they would have a clear view of the sky with no artificial lights around for miles. Isaac knew that this was more daydreaming than anything else, he doubted that they would ever go on that trip but it was fun to indulge in the idea for a little while.

The next day Isaac wrote his essay. It was personal and full of emotions, nothing like anything he'd writing for a class ever but the words just poured out of him.

He didn't get a chance to take the telescope out for another night of stargazing, his other classes were demanding too, but Isaac kept it next to his desk and every time he looked at it, he couldn't help the grin spreading over his face.

Even Scott caught up with that and called him sappy.

Isaac did not skip astrophysics again and even if it was still a difficult topic, and he most likely would have to bite the bullet and ask Lydia to help him, he did enjoy the class. At one point Professor Hale looked straight at him and Isaac hurried to duck his head but not before he caught the little smile playing on the professor's lips. Whatever he was seeing in Isaac, he seemed to be pleased. Not that that helped with the feeling of embarrassment. Isaac liked to be just a face in the audience. If he was honest, he'd been surprised that the professor even knew who he was.

There was another class Isaac kind of dreaded but for completely different reasons. He did sit his way through it, this class was actually important for his degree, but the whole time he kind of feared that Professor Stilinski would look straight at him as well. Twice Isaac had caught him in compromising situations but lucky him, the professor didn't seem to know. It did not help with the images burned into his mind, though. Even with some distance, he only had to close his eyes to see Stilinski with that other man in the restroom.

The others had kept their word and hadn't told anybody about it, they didn't want to cause the professor any trouble, and by now other things had come up and nobody talked about it any longer. Isaac tried to keep the images out of his mind and most of the time he could focus on the class without picturing the professor molesting that guy or even worse Professor Hale but he couldn't shake it off.

Wednesday he was back at Professor Hale's office. He had submitted his essay a few days prior so most likely the professor had already read it. Isaac wasn't sure if he'd stayed on topic, he'd kind of gotten carried away but hadn't that been the point of the assignment?

For a long moment, Isaac just stood in the hallway, fiddling with the telescope. If it hadn't been for that, he would just have said fuck it and left. He didn't need this class and right now he had no idea why he even bothered with it.

In the end, he took a deep breath and knocked at the door. He had to give back the telescope.

"Thank you for letting me have this," Isaac hurried to say before he awkwardly fumbled with the telescope until it was sitting in its usual spot in the corner again. He breathed easier after that, he'd been convinced that he would drop it.

"I read your essay." The professor glossed over it and offered him a seat. "I take that you made good use of the telescope?"

"Yes, sir." For a second he slipped back into old habits. "I went out to a park with a friend. He didn't have a clue about the night sky but on the way home we were kind of planning a stargazing weekend somewhere out in the middle of nowhere."

Isaac didn't even have a telescope but he was tempted to get one. Maybe he could get a used one online. He didn't have the money to spare for things like that but one could dream.

"I used to do that as a teenager," Professor Hale said, his expression dreamy for a second. "Alone most of the time but I had somebody who came along from time to time as well. I had to show him Polaris every single time." A fond smile played on his lips at that memory.

"Same with my friend," Isaac said. Danny had been into it and he would come along again but Isaac wasn't sure how much he remembered of what Isaac had shown him.

Without really noticing Isaac spent almost half an hour with the professor. They talked about watching the stars and Isaac got the feeling that the professor had used it as an escape when he'd been younger as well. He'd stopped for a while when he'd been around Isaac's age, for similar reasons Isaac guessed, but he'd picked it up later again. Nowadays he went out regularly. Isaac envied him for that.

"Come back next Wednesday, I want to show you something," the professor said when Isaac had to leave to get to his next class.

Still wondering what the professor had in mind, Isaac hurried down the hallway. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings and almost ran into somebody heading the other way.

"Whoa, careful there," that somebody said while they were both trying to keep their balance.

"I'm sorry, Professor." Isaac hoisted his backpack up his shoulder and used that as an excuse to not look directly at Professor Stilinski.

"Are we going to run into each other every Wednesday now?" The professor joked.

"I hope not," Isaac said with the appropriate little laugh.

Waving him off the professor started walking again and Isaac should get going as well but curiosity won. He lingered around to see where the professor was heading.

Probably not Hale's office, Isaac thought but a second later the professor stopped right at that door. He knocked and this time he did wait a second before he entered the office.

"None of my business," Isaac said under his breath. Before he took the corner, though, he did glance back over his shoulder but the door stayed closed, Stilinski was not just there to drop something off.

Isaac barely made it in time to his next class.