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Laura doesn’t usually lock her window, but she’s probably doing it to piss Derek off. “Stop climbing in through the fire escape, act like a human being, date someone who isn’t homicidal, blah blah blah,” Derek mutters to himself in a mocking tone, words slurring in his mouth, thick and heavy as he pops a claw to undo the lock.
The layout of her living room seems a bit different, Laura must have shuffled some of her furniture around, and Derek stumbles over something he doesn’t remember being there. He finally flops down on what feels like a couch and falls asleep.
The morning light hits his face way too early for his comfort, and there’s a monstrous pounding inside of his head. Derek groans. He’s never going to do any homemade wolfsbane-laced whiskey, ever, ever again, no thank you Boyd.
Derek opens his eyes gingerly and then promptly realizes this isn’t Laura’s apartment at all, given the stack of videogames and controllers by the television, the haphazard and colorful decorating, and most prominently, the cute guy wearing a only pair of Spiderman boxers and holding a baseball bat warily.
Derek startles, mouth falling open when the guy raises the bat slightly. “Alright, dude,” he says, “It doesn’t really look like you broke in here to steal anything, so if you tell me this was all a huge mistake I will let you go without pressing charges."
"I am so sorry, my sister lives in this building,” Derek says awkwardly, “I was really drunk last night and I usually just let myself in.”
“Via fire escape,” the guy says, biting his lip. He sets the baseball bat down, eyeing Derek. They’re nice lips, pink and plump, and Derek’s eyes trail down his bare chest, his brain coming back online finally with a realization. He knows who this is— this is the guy—oh no—this is the guy Derek spent a week watching through Laura’s window last time he was apartment-sitting for her because he danced naked. All the time. And if he’s here, in the apartment across from Laura’s—
“Yeah,” Derek says, turning around to look through the window at the small courtyard that makes up the U shape of the apartment building. How was it possible to fuck up this badly, he didn’t even know. He didn’t even make it to the correct wing of the building. “Okay, I’m just going to go,” he says. “Um, thanks for not calling the cops."
"No problem,” the guy says, smiling now that he’s established Derek isn’t a burglar or serial killer or anything, just terribly, terribly inept. He seems totally unabashed that he’s only wearing a pair of boxers, and Derek is the one embarrassed, even though he’s fully dressed. He doesn’t really know how to say hey I’m a huge fan of the way you shake your naked ass? so he just idles towards the door, gives the guy a weird little nod and dashes down the hallway.
It isn’t until Derek is sitting red-faced with a cup of coffee at Laura’s actual apartment as she laughs uproariously at him that he realizes he should have at least introduced himself. Ugh. He just— he can’t win at anything today.
Laura’s poking him sharply in the shoulder while Derek is morosely deep in thought about his failures at life. “What?” he finally snaps.
“I think that’s for you,” she says, raising her eyebrow.
Derek looks out the window. Across the courtyard, the guy is standing in front of his own window, grinning holding up a sign. “HOT FIRE ESCAPE GUY—YOU CAN USE THE DOOR NEXT TIME. XOXO—STILES” the sign reads, with a phone number written neatly under the block print.
Okay, maybe he doesn’t fail at everything.