Title: Just Because You're Paranoid
Author: Anna
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Warren/Andrew, Jonathan/not-wife
Disclaimer: Originally they weren't mine, but then I stole them and didn't give them back.
Feedback: Yes please.
Notes: Thank you to emony who took a break in her spider solitaire to beta. ^_^
If season 6 wandered AU some time before Dead Things and then went forward a few years, this is where it might end up.


Warren felt bitter. That was a word for it. Or maybe resentful. Yeah, that was good, too. There were probably a few more, but he couldn't be bothered thinking about them any more.

"A garden." He turned to Jonathan. "I never thought a Ferengi like you would end up with a fucking garden, man, outside this cute little wooden house thing you've got going." He turned back and faced the veranda. "Very domestic."

Jonathan sighed. "Thank you," he said, wearily.

Warren eyed him carefully. He could hear Andrew talking to a short child thing in the garden. The kid was dangling from some sort of climbing frame that looked like it was adapted from a nightmarish army training course and painted cheery red to convince stupid kids that it really was fun to climb and fall. Way to train the soldiers of the future. Get them young. Warren never fell for it.

"So how did you do it, huh?" His hands were in his pockets and he slouched over, now, even more than he used to. Sometimes his back hurt. "How did you talk her into actually marrying you?"

"We're not married," said Jonathan. He stood taller now. Straighter. It was like he didn't care how short he really was anymore. "I told you."

"Oh yeah, that's right. You're modern kids." Warren nodded with a smile like plastic.

"Yeah," said Jonathan. He nodded gently towards Andrew. "Just like you."

Warren looked at Andrew, laughing up at the child creature hanging from the bars, its sweater up under its arms and its pants falling off so all you could see was midriff and stupid messy kid-hair with bunched up clothes either end.

"Oh." He said flatly. "Andrew. Whatever." He shrugged and turned away from the disturbing shrieks. He hated noise like that. It made his teeth hurt. "You have flowers."

"Yeah, she likes those," said Jonathan, smiling.

Warren shook his head. "This is what you want? You know you could still, you know, come hang out, right?" He felt earnest now and he hated it. Maybe he meant it. He couldn't tell.

Jonathan tilted his head and infuriated Warren further. Like the stupid kid-screaming wasn't enough to drive him insane.

"In your shack in the woods?" said Jonathan. He was squinting a little in the sunlight. "Thanks, Warren, but I'm doing okay here."

"Andrew keeps it nice." Warren kicked the ground. His pants were baggy, and he suddenly felt like his shirt was too big. Maybe he should eat more. It was just hard to remember to eat sometimes.

"I bet he does," said Jonathan, gently. Warren wanted to strangle him where he stood, but he didn't. Instead he looked around him some more, turning in a circle as he did. The wooden veranda with its flowerboxes, the kitchen window with the pretty blinds. The window into the den revealed a faded Babylon 5 poster on the wall. He knew that poster. It used to hang over Jonathan's bed in the lair. Warren used to catch him gazing lustfully at Ivanova. She was faded now in the daylight, and frayed at the edges.

The garden was small but green and well kept. The grass, as Warren had discovered too late, hid miniature monster trucks scattered there carelessly by the miniature human. Warren hated to see all those tiny springs and rudimentary mechanisms rusting out here in the grass. When he was a kid, he took them to pieces in his room and then rebuilt them with hardly a thought. Now here he was stepping on them with his battered Nikes and crushing them into the well-watered earth.

Jonathan's car was a sleek silver Chrysler, parked beside the house and recently waxed, by the look of it. Warren couldn't understand people who took care of their cars like that. His Toyota truck was dented and scratched from the woods and had hardly any paint left, but he took care of her insides and she purred. She was parked outside now. She probably looked a little shabby in this neighbourhood, but Warren didn't care.

"So what is it you do now?" he said. "I assume you have a job of some kind, fulfilling your function in society like a good little drone."

"You know what I do," replied Jonathan. "I run a chain of homeopathy stores."

Warren shook his head. "Man, that is so fucking gay." He turned and stepped gingerly on the grass, avoiding further encounters with hidden miniature monster trucks, and returned to the veranda. Jonathan followed him.

"I like it," said Jonathan, shrugging. "It's an expanding market. We've got stores in thirteen cities in the States now, and four in Canada. We're looking at Europe within five years."

Warren shook his head and laughed. He adjusted his baseball cap, the same one he'd worn that day years ago, the day they began their feud with the Slayer.

"Look at you," he said derisively. "Mister Corporation. I never thought I'd see the day, Jonathan."

"Warren, I don't need to hear it again, okay?" Jonathan stood beside Warren, leaning against the veranda railings. Wisteria wound its lazy way up trellises below him and sweetened the air. "Every time you come, you say this same junk."

"Yeah, well, I like to forget all this crap between visits." Warren stared straight ahead. The noise from the child thing was still screechy and it pulled at every hair on his skin. He wished Andrew would stop pushing the swing so goddamned high.

"Must be easy, forgetting this in your shack. What are you still doing there?" Jonathan turned to look at him. "If it wasn't for Andrew you'd have died of starvation and hypothermia by now."

Warren laughed edgily, just the sound of air through tight lips. "You know, that's such bullshit. He always says that. He doesn't even live there any more. He only stays, like, maybe a couple times a week or something." Warren looked again at Andrew. "And not at all in the fucking winter, you know, so that's just bullshit. I like it out there."

"He doesn't live there because it's inhuman, Warren." Jonathan shook his head. All these old words. They should have been shiny from use but instead they were dull and lonely and hard. Harder every time.

"It's fine, okay? It's better than this children's book crap you got here. I'd hate this."

"Andrew likes it. Did you know that? He comes over now every week for dinner, at least once. And have you seen his apartment?" Jonathan's eyes were hard, now, hard as the words. Warren didn't like it.

"No," he said. "He comes over to my place. I don't have time to visit his apartment."

"He's been there for two years, Warren."

"Look, just because you got nothing better to do at the weekends than water your petunias doesn't mean the rest of the world lives nine to five, five days a week, okay?" Warren was angry again, but it tasted different. "There's so much to do."

"What? What is it that you're doing?" Jonathan's voice had changed so goddamned much. A few years ago he would have whined that sentence.

"I told you before," he said, angrily. "I don't tell anyone what I'm doing, okay? Not even Andrew."

"I know that, and he's worried about you. Did you know that?" Jonathan put a hand on Warren's arm, but Warren shook it off. "Do you have any idea how worried he is about you?"

Warren sighed. His hands were buried deep in his pockets.

"Sometimes," he began, "sometimes, things are dangerous. And sometimes there might be people who don't want you to do what you're doing, so you have to keep it secret. I don't know who's listening, Jonathan. Anyone could be listening. So I gotta be careful, and not tell anyone, not you, not even Andrew." He was still watching Andrew playing with the ugly kid in the sun. "That way," he said, then stopped. "Look, Jonathan. That way, he's safe. Okay? If he doesn't know anything, he's safe. That's all."

Warren finally turned to look at Jonathan. He felt strange, like he had been watching Andrew in slow motion or soft focus or something. Jonathan didn't say anything for a minute, looking from Warren to Andrew and back again.

"You know you're paranoid, right?" he said eventually.

Warren shrugged. "Just because you're paranoid…" he began, and trailed off, his eyes drifting again, finding another half-hidden truck in the grass. He really disliked that kid.

"Look, Warren," said Jonathan, scratching his head. "Do you want to stay for something to eat? Andrew would probably like to, and we'd like you to stay, too."

Warren laughed.

"Yeah, you know what, Short Round? Somehow I don't see the little not-wife being happy with me hanging around for some Levinson home-cooked. Okay? But thanks anyway."

"Come on, she won't mind. Really."

"You sound like you almost believe that yourself," said Warren.

"What are you going home to? Baked beans and paraffin? Tinned soup and copper? Come on, Warren." Jonathan sighed. "Stay this once."

Warren didn't reply. Andrew was kneeling on the grass now. The child thing had apparently hurt itself, and Andrew was kissing its thumb better.

Warren missed Andrew staying with him as often as he used. It was colder without him. Andrew was good at remembering food and firewood and kerosene for the space heater. Warren was good at keeping the car and the generator going. It was right that way. Maybe that was why he felt so bitter looking around this wooden fairytale house with all its flowers and crap. Andrew made things like this. Andrew was like this in his head.

"I don't know, Jonathan," he said. He said it quietly. His voice surprised even him. "I'm tired, you know? I'm tired."

"I know, Warren." Jonathan put his fingertips on Warren's arm again. Warren found he didn't have the strength to shrug him away. "I know. Stay."

The child's thumb seemed to have healed. Andrew stood up and watched it run away towards some other distraction device, and then turned his head towards Warren in the shade of the veranda. Warren watched him smile.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. If it means that much to you, you know. But I can't stay long, I have to get back."

Jonathan smiled. "Okay. Stay as short as you like. Dinner won't be too long."

"When the little not-wife gets home?"

"Yeah, it'll be ready then."

"I hope she gets back soon. I'm hungry." Warren turned around and pushed open the door into the kitchen. "Where is she anyway?" he said. "The sun's still up. It's a bit early for slaying."

Jonathan smiled and followed Warren into the cool kitchen.

"She'll be home soon," was all he said. "Buffy's never late."