Things were blissfully normal, just the usual stress of being a college student, and on Wednesday Isaac walked down the hallway to Professor Hale's office with a spring in his steps.

In class the professor was strict and instead of telling people that they could not hand in their work late and that no, he would not do their work for them, he was giving them that look. The rim of his glasses emphasized his eyebrows and he would just look at the student acting like an idiot until they crumbled and slunk away. Some wept.

However, the professor was always fair and he did answer questions sincerely even if they seemed dumb. And on occasion when a discussion arose, he talked about the topic with a blinding smile.

Isaac had gotten to know another side of him not many students knew about. He'd seen the professor during his office hours a few times by now and Isaac had the feeling that Professor Hale was thrilled that somebody shared his passion with him.

So when Isaac knocked at his office door, he was looking forward to their conversation. Mainly he was here to assure the professor that nobody was stalking him online, they were just growing in numbers with what Isaac secretly called their astronomy club. By now Allison had an account on that website as well, she was interested in the pictures. And of course, she had sent out friend requests to all of them. However, she was the only one who had not included the professor.

Lydia hadn't talked to anybody about this yet but yesterday Isaac had gotten a friend request from her as well.

"Isaac." Professor Hale startled out of his thoughts when Isaac entered the office. Hale had his phone in hand but now he hurried to put it away. "What can I do for you?"

Isaac faltered in his steps, something was off.

"I have to apologize," Isaac said but that seemed to be the wrong thing to say. For a second Hale closed his eyes and a pained expression darkened his face.

"So Peter's right." He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Peter?" Isaac repeated, not following. "What has your uncle to do with this?"

"You know he's my uncle." It wasn't a question.

Isaac felt the blood draining out of his cheeks. That was something he was not supposed to know. He was trying to come up with an explanation of why he knew about Peter which did not out Allison or made himself look like some kind of freak. He came up with nothing. So he just stood there, stammering for something intelligent to say.

"Why are you here?" Hale put his glasses back on and now he was looking at Isaac. Not with that look. The way he was looking at him now was sad and maybe even hurt. As if Isaac had betrayed him.

"I'm here because you're probably wondering why you're getting so many friend requests on that website you showed me." The words tumbled out of Isaac's mouth and his voice rose with every word until it toppled over.

"I noticed," Hale said, watching him closely.

"We're not stalking you." Isaac tried to make it sound lighthearted and dared to sit down. "It's just that all my friends are suddenly interested in stargazing. Danny says that we should start a club."

Isaac started to ramble about their last night out when Erica had joined them and how he'd started to take pictures. That he needed better equipment for that. And more telescopes. At the moment they had one for three people and it looked as if they would be even more next time.

Isaac had the faint hope that he could distract the professor enough for him to forget that he knew that Peter was his uncle. And it seemed to work. Hale asked questions and he had some good advice on how to get better pictures. They talked for several minutes and Isaac dared to relax. For a while, it was just like the other times he'd come here.

"Isaac?" The professor asked when there was a lull in their conversation.

The tone alone told him that Professor Hale had not forgotten about him slipping up.

"How do you know my uncle?"

"I know about the fire." Isaac went for the least problematic route. It wasn't even a lie. And it was the most plausible way for him to know about Peter Hale, right?

Professor Hale accepted his answer with a nod as if he'd expected it.

"Have you told somebody?" Hale asked farther.

"No, no," Isaac hurried to say. "And I won't. I didn't even want to tell you."

Hale studied him for a moment longer as if he was searching for something.

"I don't want to cause trouble for you. I … I can leave. I can drop out of your class. You won't see me again." Isaac was halfway out of his chair but the professor raised his hand to stop him.

"Please, stay," he said. "You've been improving in class and it looks as if you've found a new hobby, you don't have to throw that away." He paused, thinking about his next words. "It's nice to see young people interested in astronomy. I like our conversations."

"That's why I didn't want to tell you." Slowly Isaac sank back into his seat. "I didn't want to make things awkward."

"It's okay, you're hardly the first who found it," Professor Hale said with resignation in his tone. "It's all over the internet."

"Yeah, I just had to type in Peter's name." Isaac let out an awkward laugh.

"Wait, you googled Peter?"

"Ehm," Isaac made. "I don't want to get anybody in trouble." Mainly Allison but by now he was so confused about how Professor Stilinski, Peter Hale, and Professor Hale correlated with each other, he didn't want to say something wrong here.

He was saved by somebody barging into the room.

"Derek, we have a problem," Professor Stilinski said before he'd even fully opened the door. "Isaac saw …" He spotted Isaac but his brain seemed to need a moment to comprehend what he was seeing because he finished the sentence. "… Peter and me at the Jungle." The professor blinked at him. "Who's here. And just heard me. Hi, Isaac." Stilinski waved at him. "Derek, I hope you didn't tell him about the other mess because he knows nothing about the other mess. Peter came to the wrong conclusion and then you're not answering your phone. Why aren't you answering your phone?"

"Because I'm with a student?" Derek gave the other professor that look. It did work. Professor Stilinski shut up, closed the door, and then he took the second seat in front of Professor Hale's desk.

"He does know about the other mess," Derek said. "And he was just about to tell me why he googled Peter and not me. How did you even know his name?"

Isaac squirmed in his seat while both men waited for him to say something.

"Yeah, I saw you and Peter at the club," Isaac confessed. "You were too busy with … you know, but Peter noticed me in the restroom. He looked right at me."

"He said something like that."

"Okay, that's something we have to address in a second here," Hale said. "But that doesn't explain how you knew who he is. He didn't know his name at that point." He pointed at Professor Stilinski.

"Yeah, it did look like a random hook-up to me." Isaac rubbed the back of his head and didn't know where to look.

"It was." Stilinski beamed at him but then he sobered up. "I'm sorry that you had to see that. That's nothing I wanted a student to see. Ever."

"I bet." Isaac nodded. If this came out, Stilinski could lose his job. "That day I told my friends but we all agreed that it's none of our business what somebody does in his free time. The others don't even think about it any longer, they have other things on their mind."

"But you do," Hale concluded while at the same time Stilinski said: "You saw me at the coffee shop the other day."

"I constantly run into you or Peter. Or you and him." He nodded over to Professor Hale. "Look, I'm just a student here. I just want to get my degree. I don't care if you're cheating on your husband with his uncle or if you want to seduce Professor Hale as well for a freaky threesome or whatever. Can we just pretend that I never saw or heard anything? I just walk out of this office and we'll never talk about this ever again? Please?"

Isaac squirmed in his seat, he just wanted to disappear. How was he supposed to be in class with either of them ever again? Maybe he should just pack his things and leave. He could get his degree elsewhere. Or just drop out, that sounded good as well.

"Okay, that is even worse than the truth." Professor Stilinski was the first who found his voice again. "Let me get this straight …"

"There's nothing straight about all this." Isaac barked out a laugh, this whole situation started to feel surreal.

"You think that I'm cheating on my husband with his uncle." Stilinski ignored Isaac's comment but he did point at Professor Hale to illustrate who he was talking about. "Okay, fair enough, I get where that's coming from, at least the cheating part. But did you hear that? He thinks that I'm trying to seduce you."

He beamed at Professor Hale who gave him a pained look in return.

"You did," Hale replied dryly.

"Yeah, ten years ago," Stilinski said still with that grin on his face. "But I'm flattered that it still shows how much in love I am with you."

Isaac looked from one to the other, now completely lost but for the moment both seemed to have forgotten about him. Maybe he should use the moment to sneak out but then Professor Hale did remember that they weren't alone.

"I'm his husband," he said. "Some days I don't know why, though."

"Wait … what?" That was the last thing Isaac had expected to hear. Hale was wearing a ring, he'd noticed that before and he had been pondering about his orientation but he'd been more inclined to picture him with a wife and maybe one or two kids. For sure not married to Professor Stilinski.

"You're cheating on him?" Isaac turned to Professor Stilinski. "With his uncle?"

"That does sound kind of worse," Stilinski admitted.

"To make it short," Professor Hale said, "Professor Stilinski and I are married, have been for four years now."

"Together for ten," Stilinski piped up.

"I'm asexual," Hale continued with a close eye on Isaac. "He's pretty much not."

"Okay?" Isaac tried to wrap his head around the new information. He had many queer friends, one or two were ace, but they were all in the same age group. Hearing that his professors not only had been a gay couple for ten years but that one of them was ace … they were old.

"Don't give me that look," Stilinski said. "You didn't invent this stuff. You might have invented all the fancy labels but people have not been straight since the dawn of time."

"Yeah, of course I know that." Isaac ran a nervous hand through his hair. "It's just …"

"This is nothing I usually discuss with students and I would prefer if this doesn't leave this room," Professor Hale said sternly. "But since you saw him and Peter together, we owe you an explanation."

"I go out to that club to get the sex I don't have with him," Professor Stilinski said and when Hale glared at him for those blunt words, he just shrugged. "That's how I met Peter. I didn't know that they are related. Imagine his face when he came over to meet Derek's husband over dinner." Stilinski chuckled.

Isaac just nodded along.

"Anyway, we talked about it like adults and came to an arrangement," Stilinski continued. "Nobody is cheating on anybody and it's all between consenting adults, that's all you need to know."

"I really don't want to know the details," Isaac hurried to say. What he'd witnessed so far was enough to scar him for life, he didn't need more. "You don't need to worry, I can keep a secret. I'm not going to tell anybody about this or … the other thing." He glanced over to Professor Hale.

"Speaking of that, how did you know Peter's name?" Of course, Hale had not forgotten about that little detail.

Isaac shrank into his chair.