Title: Of Locks and Keys
Pairing: Derek x OFC
Summary: It never crossed his mind that one day he'd be standing in front of Leslie's apartment building trying to figure out the best way to break in.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the OFC and all mistakes are my own.
-x-
It never crossed his mind that one day he'd be standing in front of Leslie's apartment building trying to figure out the best way to break in. If it had been any other circumstance, he would just wait it out but he hadn't heard from her since she left for work the night before and it's 4PM and it's been the first afternoon in weeks that she hasn't shown up at their usual spot at the coffee shop. She's not picking up his calls or answering his texts and truth be told, his wolf was getting just a little bit agitated.
And so here he was, standing outside her building absently wondering why he'd never walked her straight to her door before and why they'd always parted on the sidewalk just outside her building. Without moving from his spot on the sidewalk, Derek shuts his eyes momentarily and opens his senses. This is where she lives so it makes sense to him when he finally separates that hazelnut and cherry blossom scent away from the barrage of other smells assaulting his nose. He doesn't smell blood so he lets himself breathe a little more. She's not hurt but there's something else, something that makes his brow furrow a little and his nose wrinkle. Distress? Tiredness? Something sour and sickly underneath the sweetness that usually accompanies her.
He doesn't need much more to convince him to walk around the side of the building and find the fire escape. He may not know which apartment is hers but it's easy enough to find that her scent is strongest on the fourth floor. Derek's scaling the fire escape like an old pro and it's by pure luck that the window his head almost passes is ajar and emanating everything she's ever brought with her- on her- to the coffee shop. To him.
Slowly, Derek pulls himself the rest of the way up and takes a second to crouch by the window. What if she just decided to stand him up because she's finally sick of him? What if she's with someone else? (Which isn't true because he doesn't smell anyone else). But then he takes in the sickly sour smell just under her sweetness again and before he knows it, he's pushing her window the rest of the way open and climbing straight into her living room.
He's not a complete creeper though so he makes sure to make some noise as he ducks in and calls out her name as his booted feet land on the floor. His eyes take in a pair of Nikes left sprawled right in the middle of the hallway like she'd slipped them off mid-step. There's a red sweater thrown over the couch and as he makes his way past the TV he sees a pair of shorts sitting in the middle of a doorway still half propped up like they'd been slipped off right there.
"Leslie?" He calls again, rounding the doorway and picking up the shorts on the way.
The room is dark other than the light from the adjoining bathroom and he takes a second to take in the black out curtains blocking the daylight from streaming through.
There's a bed in the centre of the room with a pile of blankets that lets out a muffled groan as it shifts a little before going still again. He feels his wolf settle back as it senses that Leslie's not in any mortal danger, and he will totally analyse that reaction later but for now he drops the shorts he's still holding into the laundry hamper by the door and slowly makes his way closer to the bed.
He takes in the dead cell phone on her bedside table and the foot with a star tattooed on it sticking out where a head would usually be.
"I could be anyone right now and you still haven't moved from under there," he murmurs teasingly.
There's another whine and a groan as the pile of blankets shifts again, followed by a muffled, "Burglars don't know my name."
Derek huffs in amusement and reaches for the edge of a blanket at the foot of the bed.
"No coffee today?" He ventures as he lifts it up to reveal the back of her head, dark hair messier than usual and face pressed into the mattress in the most depressing position he'd ever seen.
"I'm dying." She whines.
Derek takes in the sound of a blocked nose and watches the way she turns over onto her back almost lethargically so she can squint up at him with bleary eyes. He ignores the blue tank top that's scrunched up to reveal the cute piercing on her navel and leans forward instead to brush her forehead with his fingers.
"Sorry," she continues, "I totally slept through coffee."
"Well, I totally retaliated by breaking into your apartment," he returns, a twinge of apprehension lowering his tone.
She shifts a little more to face him, brows furrowing a little. "How did you get in? You've never even walked me up here before."
He breathes a little sigh at the pure curiosity in her tone. There's no accusation, no anger. Like she's completely okay with him finding his way to her. He repeats the reply from that first time they sat at the coffee shop and he'd impulsively grabbed the socked feet she'd slipped in his lap.
"Sixth sense or something. And you should try not to leave your windows open too often, huh?"
She smirks at him. "You climbed up the fire escape?"
"I've done crazier things," Derek answers.
She looks like she's about to say something else when her face scrunches up and she's interrupted by a powerful sneeze and for once Derek is glad he's got a werewolf's immune system.
She groans and grabs the corner of the blanket still in his fist and throws it over her head.
"So as you can see, I'm not really dying." She grumbles miserably. "Get out of here, I'll call you when this disease goes away."
He's never had to look after anyone before, mainly because before the fire everyone around him had the same immune system and never got sick or healed almost instantaneously after they got hurt. And then after, well. Just, no-one's ever needed him like this before.
The pile of blankets shifts again and lets out another few sneezes and Derek finds himself letting out a sympathetic sigh before turning towards the kitchen.
"Have you eaten at all today? I can make soup."
Leslie doesn't protest and before he knows it, he's cataloguing a kid's tumbler mug by the sink with an image of Disney's Beauty and the Beast dancing on it. He takes a second to shake it and watches the glitter float up like flumes of dust. He smiles at the mix match of cutlery and crockery and the box of Fruit Loops by the microwave.
It doesn't escape his mind that he doesn't feel uncomfortable here. He doesn't feel like this is his first time in Leslie's apartment, and he knows it's because it's hers.
-x-
It's a few weeks later and they're slumped shoulder to shoulder against the back of the couch in their usual spot at the coffee house, both just content to lazily let the afternoon tick by.
"Have I ever told you the story about my keys?" She asks him.
"What about them?" Derek asks, watching as she wriggles a little, arm squirming underneath her as she lifts her ass up a little to get to her back pocket.
Her keys jingle lightly as she holds them up between them.
"Oh you know, like, how this one is for the window by the fire escape. And this one is for my bedroom, which I hardly ever use, by the way. And this one is for my mailbox and this is for the apartment building door, which is never locked anyway because of Marv, the weird but okay landlord who lives downstairs." She flips each key up as she talks and he tries not to smirk at the orange pompom holding the whole jingling mess together.
Leslie swings her keys around one more time and holds a chunky silver one up in front of both of them as she continues, "this is for my front door." She wriggles a little bit more, this time stretching her right leg out in front of her so she can jam her hand into the front pocket of her shorts, feeling for something small.
Derek raises an eyebrow in amusement as she finds what she's looking for. She faces him with a matter-of-fact look on her face, crossing her legs in front of her so her left knee nudges at his ribs and holds the thing in her hand up and in front of his face.
"And this? This is yours. For my front door. 407, just in case you've forgotten." His eyes almost cross from the strain of focussing at something so close to his nose, but it doesn't take him long to make out the exact duplicate of the chunky, silver key she'd held up before.
"Because we can sort of, be like that now." She murmurs softly. He knows it's not a question because just in the past week alone Derek's had to break into her apartment at least twice for some reason or another.
"Dude, I'm at work and I totally left the stove on. You need to get in there!" "Seriously, I must be the only dumbass who forgets to have spare keys made to her apartment. I can't believe I left them in there, I totally haven't done that for at least a year!"
"Did you just make that story up off the top of your head?" He asks teasingly as he straightens up slightly and brings his fist with her hand and the key inside it up to his lips.
Leslie blushes prettily and watches him open his fist to plant a kiss on her closed hand.
Her mouth parts to form a slight O before she whispers just a little breathlessly, "Maybe. Did you like it?"
He smiles into her eyes and takes the key out of her hand. "It was perfect." He replies.
-x-
A/N: The title was totally off the top of my head but I figured it doesn't matter that much as I'm adding it into That Coffee Fix (dare I call it)…'verse, LOL.
As always, any feedback would be wonderful! Feel free to leave any prompts you'd like to see with these two in the comments as well. I am paying attention to them, I promise!
Thank you for reading!