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“It’s not much, but you can decorate it if you want to, not like Malia will care if she ever uses it,” Peter gestured to the interior of the room, decorated sparsely with a bed, chair, desk and dresser, looking straight out of a furniture showroom. “She tends to sleep on the couch on the rare occasion she stops by,” Peter stifled a laugh, “I guess it’s a coyote thing to prefer open beds.”
Eli set his duffel down and hopped on the bed, bouncing slightly, “cozy, not too firm, I like it,” he forced out a smile, “but I don’t know how much time I’ll have to decorate, Scott’ll be back in a few days.”
Peter suppressed a wince, “Right, of course. I’ll…leave you to get settled while I start on dinner.” He started to close the door when Eli caught it from the other side.
“Gruncle Peter? Is everything okay?” Eli’s eyebrows furrowed.
Peter let out a long, pained sigh, “Okay ground rule number one, the word ‘gruncle’ is banned from your vocabulary. Peter is fine. Uncle Peter. Even sir, if you’re feeling really deferential. But not gruncle. Got it?”
Eli nodded sarcastically, “So should I be taking notes? Or…”
“If you need them to remember, yes, you should,” Peter grumbled.
“Still haven’t answered my question by the way,” Eli rocked back and forth on his feet, “I mean I know it’s a scary, scary question but–”
“I’m fine, grephew,” Peter growled, “the only problem I currently have is all of a sudden regretting my decision to host a guest.” Peter turned and strode down the apartment hallway, Eli on his heels.
“Okay so maybe the gr-family names are a bit much,” Eli admitted, “I just figured you wouldn’t want to be reminded that you are old enough to be a grand-uncle. Or in a way, old enough to be a grandpa.”
“My regrets are piling up by the minute,” Peter mumbled under his breath, pulling out supplies for Talia’s chili recipe.
“But more importantly, you’ve got the standard issue Hale grumpy face going on,” Eli continued, hopping up onto the counter next to Peter and gesturing to his own face.
“The Hale what?” Peter retorted, pushing Eli off and digging into the spice cabinet behind where his nephew had just been sitting, “what, did you pick that expression up from Stiles? Or Scott?”
“No, actually, Dad described it to me once because he claims I have it too,” Eli admitted, a little quieter, “and he said that you could always tell when one of us was upset because we get…sour about it.”
Peter groaned, slamming down the cumin harder than he’d meant to and almost cracking the bottle. “Well now I know exactly how much time my nephew was spending with Stiles, too much.” As he pulled out the beef and began the initial mix, he looked to the side to find Eli still standing there. “Are you going to watch me through every step of the process?” Peter asked sarcastically.
“I’m at least going to watch until you tell me what’s wrong,” Eli shrugged.
“Well unfortunately for you, I have this little skill called patience. Something teenagers rarely possess. So good luck, but you’ll be waiting a while,” Peter replied dryly, “you might even learn something since you’ll likely be the one inheriting this recipe.”
“Why not Malia?” Eli tilted his head.
“For one, when was the last time you saw Malia cooking something?” Peter asked rhetorically as he stirred. “She’s willing to eat uncooked deer, so she doesn’t exactly have the…” Peter considered his words carefully, “well, patience, for a dish like chili. You might though, especially if you–” he cut himself off.
“You can say ‘take after my father,’ it’s not going to send me into a panic attack or anything,” Eli leaned against the counter, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Mentioning him less doesn’t make the grief go away.”
“Yeah well, you’ve got enough trouble trying to fill his shoes without me reminding you of exact traits,” Peter mumbled. An awkward silence settled until Eli broke it.
“You said ‘for one.’”
“What?”
“I heard one reason for why you would probably leave me grandma’s recipe instead of your actual daughter, but it sounded like there was more to it,” Eli leaned against the island, “care to elaborate?”
“Not if you’re going to be snide about it, but…Malia and I aren’t on the best of terms, generally speaking.”
“I thought you said she stays here sometimes? And you live in the same town and work at the same–”
“And yet somehow I can go a week or more without seeing her,” Peter murmured. “She goes out-of-town for long periods without so much as a heads-up, she’ll spend the night in a significant other’s house, or her dad’s house, or even in your old house, hell, sometimes she’ll probably sleep in the woods.”
“And by dad’s house you mean…”
“Her adoptive father, Henry, Mr. Tate, the guy whose name she still uses, whatever you want to call him,” Peter snapped.
“Do you–”
“Dislike him? No, that’s the problem, he’s a perfectly lovely man and I can’t fault Malia for feeling more attached to him given he raised her, especially after…”
“The ‘turning on everyone and attempting to murder Scott again’ plan that got you locked up?” Eli offered.
Peter sighed and rubbed his temple, “Who is telling you all these stories about me? That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
“You know, when you try to murder someone, they tend to remember that pretty vividly,” Eli said sarcastically, “so I’m not exactly surprised Scott mentioned it.”
“Some people are so good at holding grudges,” Peter rolled his eyes. “But anyways, yes, that, Malia forgave me, eventually, but I don’t think I’ll ever have the same bond she has with Henry. And…I’m fine with that,” he swallowed. “Besides, she’s an adult and can make her own choices.”
“Well, have you actually asked her?” Eli swung his legs back and forth, “to spend more time with you, I mean? You’re an adult with choices too.”
“Oh believe me, I’ve tried,” Peter grumbled, mixing in the spices and setting the chili to simmer, “but she’s busy, she has a life, and my role in it is…limited.” He fought the hint of sadness from creeping into his voice, “I don’t regret the choices I’ve made, and if it pushes people away…I can’t control that.”
Eli thought for a second, then clicked his fingers, “Oh, I get it now, you want me to stay!”
“What?” Peter spun around, narrowly avoiding knocking the pot off the stove, “where did you pull that from?”
“Oh come on, for someone so skilled at lying most of the time–”
“Allegedly,” Peter interjected.
Eli continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “you could barely hide your disappointment when I mentioned Scott coming back soon and now here you are talking about being lonely and isolated. What am I supposed to see, a strong independent Unc who doesn’t need friends or family to be happy?”
“You don’t have to see anything, Eli, it’s not your job to psychoanalyze me! I’ve had plenty of that in my life already!” Peter snapped, his eyes flashing for a moment uncontrollably before he steadied his breathing.
“You didn’t have to yell,” Eli said quietly, shifting in his seat. “I just figured…maybe you’d want me to stay with you. The family’s kind of getting smaller every day,” Eli let out a forced chuckle at his own morbid joke.
“But that’s just it, I don’t know if you’re safe here, or if I’ll just end up–” Peter trailed off, before finishing in a murmur, “losing you too.”
“Why would you–”
“Because people keep dying around me, and no matter how much I try to close the circle and care as little as possible, it keeps happening. First my sister, then my niece, then my other niece, Cora, disappeared on us and no one’s heard from her in years…for all we know she might be dead…and now my nephew, your father…” his claws dug into the palm of his hand, “I try to protect this family, and keep us out of danger, and do what I can but you’re all just so damn selfless it’s infuriating!” Peter had to resist the urge to slap the chili pot off the stove just to have something, anything to hit. “And I’ve been so sure it’s something to do with the rest of this imbecilic family that I’ve never wanted to think maybe it was me. But maybe it is! Maybe I’m a magnet for catastrophe and misery and you’d be better off with Scott. How am I supposed to know when my own sister robbed me of the chance to be a father!”
Eli stood up and slowly, hesitantly, approached Peter, “Gr–Uncle Peter, I–I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, Eli,” Peter said simply, “you can’t control death, or your parents’ choices or…anything. You’re just a kid. And here I am an ‘old’ man complaining about the woes of the world. How original of me.”
Eli cracked the slightest of smiles, “I really do see the resemblance when you talk like that. Especially since it’s not always obvious in…other areas,” he shrugged.
“What, like the fact that I’m blindingly more handsome?” Peter snipped, “or because I have some semblance of self-preservation?”
“All of the above?” Eli offered, evoking a quiet laugh from both of them. Peter wasn’t even sure why he was laughing. It wasn’t funny, but part of him just…wanted to. As Peter distributed the chili into bowls and Eli snatched his from the counter before Peter could even hand it to him, Eli spoke up again, “I can call Scott as soon as we’re done eating.”
“To what, come pick you up? You haven’t even tried the food yet, how do you know if it’s bad?”
“To tell him that I want to stay even after he gets back from France and talk about a handoff of the rest of my stuff that I left at his place,” Eli shoveled a large spoonful into his mouth and a grin spread across his face, “oh that is good! Anyway, I packed enough outfits for five-six days, assuming we don’t do anything that needs more than one per day, but I can always do laundry–”
“Hold on, pause,” Peter set his own spoon down. “When did we decide you were staying?”
“Well I guess right now we’re making it official but I made the choice a few minutes ago,” Eli shrugged and kept eating.
“Look, just so we’re clear here, I was not crying out for help wanting you to come live with me to save me from a miserable life,” Peter said, “and in case it wasn’t clear, I did not have any ulterior motive telling you anything tonight, you get that, right? This wasn’t all a 3-D chess game to trick you into moving into my guest room.”
“I know,” Eli replied, not even looking up from his bowl, “but are you okay with me staying here?”
“Of course I am–”
“And would you like it if I stayed here?”
“Probably? Almost definitely, but–”
“Then it’s settled, isn’t it?” Eli looked up innocently, swallowing a large bite and getting up for seconds. Peter snatched the bowl out of his hand, refilled it for him, then reached around Eli to set it back on the table. “I can do it mysel–” Eli’s protest was muffled as Peter pulled him into a tight hug. “I thought you weren’t a hugger,” Eli said, garbled by speaking into Peter’s shirt.
“I’m not. So we better make this one count,” Peter grumbled quietly, standing there and holding his grandnephew in his arms a little while longer.