Stiles stayed the night. Peter called it a win.
"We should do this again," Stiles said when he got dressed in the morning.
"We should," Peter agreed and did not comment on how raspy Stiles' voice sounded. Or how stiffly he shuffled into his pants. He couldn't help the proud smile at that sight, though.
"You're cocky bastard, you know that, right?" Stiles said when he caught Peter's expression.
"Just admiring my handiwork," Peter said, wondering if he could interest him in some morning sex.
"Don't even think about it." Stiles glared at him. "I'm sore on both ends, you're not going to put your dick anywhere near me for a few days."
His voice gave in at the end but Peter got what he was trying to say.
"Fair enough." Yesterday Stiles had enjoyed a good burn but today he was just sore. Peter might be a bastard, a cocky one according to Stiles, but he did care about his partners in bed.
"Dinner on Tuesday?" Stiles asked when he was ready to leave.
"Sure," Peter agreed easily. It was still kind of strange that he just had an awesome night with Stiles and then got invited to dinner with his husband who happened to be his nephew. The strangest thing, however, was the fact that he could get used to it.
They said their goodbyes and promised to text to hash out their next date and then Stiles left.
He would get breakfast for himself and Derek on the way home. Derek had been out stargazing last night, wherever that had been New York had been cloudy all day, while Stiles had wild sex with Peter and now they would have breakfast together like every other couple on a Sunday morning. Peter didn't know how but it did seem to work for them.
Peter ordered breakfast for himself and while he waited for it to get delivered to his room, he took a long shower.
He spent the rest of the morning still in his bathrobe on his laptop but around noon he got restless. One of the people who'd said that they had something he might be interested in actually had something he was interested in so Peter shot him a message if he was free today.
The man's name was not Coach but everybody called him Coach. Even Coach called himself Coach and rumor had it that at one point in his life he'd actually been the coach of a High School team, lacrosse or something fancy like that. He might have gotten caught doing some shady business and had to leave that job in a hurry. There might still be an open warrant for him out there and that was the reason Coach kept his real name a secret. Peter didn't know and frankly, he didn't care.
When Peter entered the pawn shop, Coach stood behind the counter with his back to the entrance but his face lit up when he turned around to see who'd just entered his shop.
"Peter Hale." He came around the counter to shake his hand. "About time you come by to say hello."
"Arrived only a few days ago," Peter defended himself. It was a bit of a stretch but Coach didn't need to know that. "Aside from Deucalion you're the first I meet in person," Peter added stroke his ego.
"You better," Coach muttered and gestured for him to follow him into the back room behind the counter. It was just after noon on a Sunday, the pawn shop was empty.
While Peter followed the other man deeper into the store, he had a look around. He might find something interesting. Not the kind of interesting Coach was about to show him, though.
Out of the corner of his eye, he did catch something but he was already behind the counter by the time his brain registered what he'd spotted in the corner.
"Is that a telescope?" Peter asked and took a step back to have a real look at the object in question. It was stuffed in the corner with other things that looked as if they had been gathering dust for years.
"That old thing?" Coach followed his gaze. "Don't tell me you're suddenly interested in stuff like that."
Peter didn't ask what he meant with stuff like that but he went over to have a closer look.
"Doubt it still works." Coach followed him but when he noticed that Peter was looking at it with interest, he hurried to add: "Makes some good decoration, though."
"It needs a polish." Peter ran a finger over it, leaving a clear trail in the dust. Dark wood with bronze ornaments, Coach was right, it would make a good decoration. If one was interested in old telescopes.
"If you buy it you can polish it all you want," Coach said with a sharp hint in his voice.
Peter wiggled it a bit to test the legs. The telescope was sturdy, the legs didn't give and the telescope itself didn't just come loose like that either.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Coach batted his hand away.
Peter ignored him, however, when he reached for it again, it was more gentle. All the movable parts were still movable, not as smoothly as they should but not stuck forever by time and dust. Peter doubted that the lenses were any good but otherwise, he didn't see anything some cleaning and a good polish couldn't fix.
"How much?" Peter asked. For the last minute, he'd ignored Coach but now he looked over his shoulder to where he was impatiently tapping his foot, waiting for Peter to stop playing around.
"I'm not sure if this is a tactic to haggle the price or if you're actually interested in this old thing." Coach glared at him, trying to figure him out.
"How much?" Peter repeated, meeting his gaze with a raised eyebrow.
"Tell you what." Coach waved his hand at him. "You clean out my backroom and you can have it. I might even polish it for you."
An hour later Peter left the pawnshop with a freshly polished telescope under his arm. It even came in the original leather case which had gotten some attention with grease as well.
In his car, Peter got his phone out.
"Coach is sending over some stuff." Peter didn't bother with greetings. "See what you can do with it."
He gave her a summary of what to expect but Coach's back room had been a chaotic mess, Peter wasn't entirely sure what he'd bought here. But he had seen a few pieces which were worth the hassle and he was confident that there were more treasures hidden in the mess.
"Are you coming by too?" Braeden asked.
"No, I'm going to stay in New York for a while." Peter doubted that he would settle down in New York, he was too restless for that, but at the moment it looked as if he would stay for a few weeks maybe a month or two. Thinking back, the longest he'd stayed anywhere since he'd left Beacon Hills had been half a year, he doubted that he would top that.
As good as his arrangement with Stiles and Derek looked, he couldn't see it working out in the long run. He probably should leave before he ruined his nephew's marriage.
Instead of doing the smart thing, Peter stood at Derek's door with the telescope case under his arm on Tuesday.
"What's this?" Derek asked when Peter handed him the leather case.
"Just something I saw in a pawn shop," Peter answered truthfully and gestured for Derek to open it. "Thought you might like it."
The look on Derek's face when he opened the case struck Peter right to the core.
It was a look of wonder and pure joy. Derek's eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. Peter had missed this. Derek was the only family he'd left and he'd missed him. The Hales had always been a big family, Peter had grown up in a house full of people, always loud and hectic. At times he'd hated it and had wished to be alone for just an hour but looking back now, he missed it.
But Derek was here. And maybe he'd been longing for his family as well.
"This is way too expensive." Derek tried to give it back to him. "I can't accept it. You're insane."
"It's yours," Peter assured him and crossed his arms in front of his chest to prevent Derek from shoving it into his hands.
"You can't be serious."
"I am."
Derek shook his head but accepting his fate, he put the case on the table and carefully took the telescope out.
"How old is it?" Stiles had a closer look as well.
"I don't know," Peter had to admit. If he had to guess he'd say that the year it had been manufactured started with an eighteen but that was only a guess.
"It still has the manufacturer's plaque." Derek showed them the plaque in question. "I can research it."
"Of course, Professor Hale." Peter couldn't help a smile. From one second to the next Derek had changed from a child on Christmas morning to a serious scientist who had something to figure out.
Derek fiddled with the telescope for a few minutes longer but then he put it back in the case and set it aside. He had dinner on the stove. While he was checking on things in the kitchen, Stiles took over entertaining their guest.
Peter had been worried that once they were alone, they would awkwardly shuffle around each other. They had wild sex the other day and were planning to do it again soon, could there be a bigger elephant in the room?
To his surprise that was not the case. Stiles seemed to be able to flip a switch in his head. Not as if the other thing had never happened but this was neither the time nor the place for it.
When Derek announced that dinner would be ready in five, Stiles was in the middle of telling him about a student who never showed up to class and never handed in his work and couldn't understand why he was failing the class.
"Did you let him fail?" Peter asked.
"What do you think?" Stiles huffed in annoyance. "There's no amount of work he could have turned in at the end of the semester to make up for what he'd missed. Besides, he had no clue what the class was even about. I doubt he would have passed elementary school with his understanding of math."
"Are you ranting about the jocks again?" Derek brought in the first plate with steaming goodness.
"That guy was the star football player," Derek told Peter.
"Derek played basketball in High School," Peter remembered. "He was quite good." He directed the last line at Stiles with a toothy smile.
"He's also quite good at math," Stiles countered loud enough for Derek to hear who was on his way back to the kitchen to get the rest of their food.
"Maybe," Derek answered over his shoulder. "I still don't understand the problem you were talking about the other day."
"You said you got it." Stiles gasped and clutched his chest dramatically but it was lost on Derek who was by now in the kitchen.
"You wouldn't go to sleep until I got it," Derek yelled and seconds later he came back with the rest of their food. "I wanted at least a few hours of sleep."
"Don't tell me math problems are your pillow talk." Peter looked from one to the other. He knew that they didn't have sex but math problems?
While Derek started to fill their plates, Stiles picked up that math problem again. Peter had no idea what he was talking about, he wasn't even sure if he was still talking in English but Derek just calmly nodded along.
"Ignore him and he might shut up in a minute." Derek handed Peter his plate.
Stiles did seem to remember that they had a guest who was not interested in math so he did shut up eventually. The conversation turned to different topics and Peter had to admit that he liked it.
