Title: Waking Up in New York
Author: Anna
Pairing: Warren/Andrew
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I think by now they can belong to me, right? (Kidding.)
Summary: Sequel to The Neutral Zone. Warren and Andrew have reached New York.
Notes: I was going for happy. I'm in a happy Wandrew place. ^_^
Feedback: If you would be so good. Thank you.


He slept a lot in New York, when they got there. Andrew had paid in cash for a nice place in the Village and had dragged him up the stairs, slowly and laboriously, all Warren's weight on his narrow frame, and had put him in a bed. It was large and comfortable with green cotton sheets and he had been there for some time now. He liked waking up and finding himself there. It still sometimes came as a surprise.

He could hear Andrew humming and cooking something in the kitchen. He must have slept all day again. He found it hard to eat, but Andrew cooked anyway. The light on the pale ceiling was soothing, throwing the shadows of the sash windows in skewed trapezoids into the corner and along the wall. There wasn't much noise from the streets below, just the occasional hum of New York traffic and now and then some mother shouting to her sons in a language Warren couldn't always recognise.

His computer remained in pieces on the floor in the living room. When the bedroom door was open he could see some of the parts piled carefully against the wall. He would build her again when he had the strength. It was strange, he thought, that he still used the feminine pronoun for all those bits of circuitry and wiring. Maybe it was left over from his April days. Those times seemed so far away. Sunnydale seemed so far away. It was with relief that he thought of that suffocating town the other side of the country, the other side of a vast landmass. Those days were over and he was far away.

He still felt pain in his head but it was lessening every day. His nose hadn't bled since that one time in Virginia, and even that was an anomaly. Before that it was New Mexico. He had no idea how long ago that was. The whole trip was a blur.

Sometimes he still woke up feeling homicidal, a sharp crack of pain dancing like electricity in his skull, and he would open his eyes in the dark reaching for Andrew to share the agony. Maybe, he thought, he could transfer it into another body and it would go away. But then, as his fingers slid over soft skin, he would find himself calming somewhat, and he pulled Andrew towards him for another reason. Andrew fitted into the curve of his body so neatly. It would be a shame to break him.

Sometimes they talked in the early morning before Andrew made breakfast.

"I wonder where Tucker is?" Andrew would shift restlessly in his arms.

"Probably at school," Warren would say, his eyes still closed and his head resting against Andrew's shoulder blade.

"Maybe some day it would be safe to go see him." Andrew would wriggle around at this point, turning to face Warren, so their foreheads rested together.

"Maybe some day," Warren would mumble, pulling Andrew closer. Andrew's hips were bony but Warren didn't mind.

"And I wonder where Jonathan is?" He was always fidgety when he mentioned Jonathan, and Warren would rub soothing fingers over his back.

"Probably hoping he can hang out with the slayer now," Warren would reply. Then he'd sigh, glad that saying that word, slayer, no longer meant he had to kick his tired brain into action.

"Do you think he does? I mean, do you think he, like, hangs at her house?" Andrew's voice always became a touch petulant at this point.

"I don't know, Andrew," Warren would say, his eyes opening at last. Running his hand through Andrew's hair always stopped the fidgeting, like a programmed response to Warren's fingertips.

"Because that's kind of like the Green Goblin hanging out with Spiderman." Andrew's hands would rest curled up against Warren's chest.

"No, it really isn't, Andrew." Warren would smile then. And sometimes, at this point, he'd lean closer and kiss Andrew softly, because his naivety was too much to take, and sometimes he wouldn't, he'd just close his eyes again and Andrew would stop talking and they'd fall back asleep. Either way, the questions eventually ran out and Andrew would stop worrying for another day.

Warren's mind was still fuzzy, but sometimes he realised how much he meant to this other human being and the responsibility he felt was almost too much, almost enough to make him get up and leave Andrew here alone, because Warren had never looked out for anyone but Warren.

Now Andrew was looking out for Warren, too, and it felt out of joint to be so dependant and yet depended upon. He could not figure it out. He found it frustrating.

He might leave. But not yet. Not till he got his strength back.

The sun shone straight into the bedroom in the evening. A gap in the buildings opposite meant that every day, after five o'clock this time of year, the late sunlight filled the room with gentle yellow, and tiny flaws in the glass of the windows refracted spectra of light onto the walls in miniature rainbows. Warren counted the colours in each one. Today the smell of cooking made him hungry and that was new. Maybe he was getting better.

Maybe he could rebuild her soon, his neural net waiting to make him all that money on the Stock Exchange. Or maybe he'd leave when Andrew was out shopping, taking his baby with him, and he'd run away from everything. Then there would be nothing of Sunnydale left, nothing of the past year.

Maybe.

He slowly pushed himself up in bed, sitting back against the green pillows, and waited for Andrew to call him into the kitchen to eat. It was good to get out of bed sometimes. He pulled on his t-shirt. Star Trek was on at six.