Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to our Lord and Master, Joss Whedon.
Time: At the start of S6, after Buffy's resurrection.
Summary: After he meets Warren, Andrew struggles to accept the truth about himself he's been desperate to cover up. Andrew's fascination with Warren has always interested me, so I decided to write a story about it.
Andrew fell over the first time he saw Warren.
Warren was speaking to Andrew's brother, Tucker. Andrew heard them mumbling in the basement and crept onto the stairs to have a look. The sight of Warren's aquiline profile – like Caesar, Andrew thought – made him stumble to the foot of the steps.
"Andrew!" Tucker yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I um…n-nothing. I just…wanted to get my pants out of the, um…dryer."
"The washer and dryer are on the second floor, doofus. They haven't been in the basement for five years."
"S-sorry." Andrew stood silent on the stairs, his gaze still fixed on Warren.
"Well? Are you going to get them or what?"
"Oh. Yeah…I'll get them." Andrew hesitated a moment before finally ascending the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Tucker gesturing toward him, silently relating to Warren the legendary proportions of dorkiness his brother possessed.
"Dammit!" Andrew scolded to himself as he slammed his bedroom door. He flopped onto the bed, stomach first, and cradled his head in his hands. He wept for several minutes before composing himself.
Andrew's room was a geek's haven: The wall was invisible beneath overlapping posters of Captain Picard, Seven of Nine, Chewbacca, Galadriel, and other movie characters. His bookcases were filled with offerings from Douglass Adams, H.P. Lovecraft, and the occasional Shatner title. He had a brand new computer, a television and a DVD player, for which he had hundreds of discs – the complete Monty Python and Star Trek film canons, movies based on Marvel comics, Gozdilla starring Matthew Broderick.
But beneath the Deanna Troi posters and stacks of graphic novels, behind the Mark Hamill movies and comic books sheathed in moisture-resistant plastic, Andrew's true identity lay hidden.
