Title: Exposure (Part 3 of the New York series)
Author: Anna
Pairing: Warren/Andrew
Rating: R, to be safe.
Distribution: DWTS, if they want it, and my sites. Anyone else, please let me know.
Feedback: If you would be so good. Constructive criticism welcome.
Disclaimer: They're mine. Okay, ow, they're not.
Summary: Sequel to The Neutral Zone and Waking Up in New York.
Notes: Huge thank yous to And and Christie for the betas and encouragement. You guys rock. Thanks also to everyone who's fbed.


If you got to know him, years from now, and asked him why he came back that one time, he probably wouldn't be able to tell you. He would probably look at you strangely and change the subject, because it wasn't something he had ever talked about, not even when he came home that night and found Andrew waiting, eerily still, in the moonlit apartment.

It was remarkably quiet. Few tears, no raised voices. Warren left his suitcase down, carefully, and walked towards the bedroom, as if he had come back from shopping, and after a minute Andrew followed him, and then they collapsed together onto the floor by the bed, Warren's arms wrapped tightly around Andrew and his forehead contracted with a feeling he did not want to analyse.

Warren was never big on introspection and Andrew hated scenes of recrimination, so they never mentioned it again. They both knew Warren had come back. It was enough.

It was an ordinary day when he decided to leave. They had spent about an hour in a used bookstore a few blocks from their building, and then bought two cappuccinos on the way to Andrew's favourite comic store. They had been walking in comfortable silence for a few minutes when Warren realised that he was using his left hand to drink, and he was doing so because his right hand were entangled in Andrew's left. Palm to palm, with their fingers relaxed around each other, Andrew's hand tucked behind his. Andrew seemed entirely unfazed. Was this the first time they had held hands? He couldn't be sure. His head was still fuzzy, sometimes, and when it hurt his first instinct was still to reach for Andrew. But it wasn't hurting now. That wasn't the reason this time.

He knew he had begun to act oddly by the time they reached the comic store. He was nervous, jumpy. Andrew tried to surreptitiously glance his way now and again but Andrew wasn't very good at surreptitious. It made Warren even more jumpy. He flicked aimlessly through a few comics and put them back on the shelf. He looked with extreme disinterest at the posters. He sighed in annoyance, finishing his cold cappuccino.

"Hey, Andrew?" he said. He kept his voice quiet. He figured he sounded normal.

"Yeah?" Andrew was just picking up the new Spiderman.

"I'm going back to the apartment, okay? I'll see you there."

"Sure," said Andrew. Warren just nodded and, his right hand in his jeans pocket, headed to the door.

"Hey, Warren?" said Andrew behind him. He stopped and turned.

"Yeah?"

"You okay?" said Andrew. Warren knew he meant his head. He shrugged.

"Yeah," he said. He said it the way he always said it when he felt a headache creeping up from the base of his neck.

"I'll be home soon, okay?" said Andrew. Warren nodded. He realised he wanted to smile, so he stopped himself.

"I'll see you there." He turned and walked out the open doorway. The street was bright and hot after the gloom inside.



He walked quickly back to the apartment. It wasn't far, but he felt tired when he got there. Maybe he wasn't back to full strength. Maybe he always would have felt tired after walking fast for seven blocks. He couldn't remember. He remembered what panic felt like, and this was it. He pushed it down and began to take apart the computer. He put his neural net, part by delicate part, into a hard suitcase, padded with t-shirts and pants and enough cash to get him somewhere.

It was all he needed. He didn't stop to write a note. He didn't look back and say goodbye. He didn't think about Andrew.

He just hailed a cab and headed to the airport.

His fingers tapped some crazy rhythm on his knee when the cab got stuck in traffic. He wasn't sure why. He had no plane to be late for. He didn't know where he would go. One thing was certain, though. He would go there alone. He was best alone.

He didn't imagine Andrew coming home and finding the apartment empty. Finding the computer gone. Knowing, when he saw that, that Warren was gone. And he didn't imagine Andrew knowing why.

The airport was full of people. Evening in August was a busy time. He was knocked in the arm by some fat guy with a camera strung around his neck. Watch it, buddy, he thought. You don't know who you're dealing with. A rabbi cut in front of him trailing a line of children. The departures board was full of names, places, exotic sounding cities he'd love to go with his money. Bangkok, that could be fun. Buenos Aires. Or maybe Europe, somewhere in the old world. Prague or Rome. Or maybe Geneva. Or Athens.

He could go anywhere. It was exhilarating. It was complete freedom, something he'd always wanted.

So he thought maybe he'd just sit down, here by the board, to think for a while and make up his mind where to go. There were so many people. It was a big decision. He realised he had forgotten his painkillers.



Airports are cold at night, no matter the time of year. A bunch of Sikh baggage handlers walked by in a straggling group. Must be the end of the shift. He was hungry. He didn't feel like dragging his suitcase to the restaurant. It was dark outside and the big glass windows sucked away any heat left in the building. He wished he had thought to bring a jacket. The flickering green neon made him slightly ill.

He just still hadn't made up his mind where to go. That was the problem. Maybe he'd lie down for a little while. Not that he'd sleep in this cold. At least it was quieter now.



It must have been nearly six when some guy woke him up. Some old guy in a suit, holding a bunch of keys. Looked at him funny. Watch it, grandpa. The windows were the watery yellow of early sun.

"What you doin' lyin' here, boy?" Warren could see sick, rheumy eyes behind thick glasses. "Maybe you inna wrong place, huh? You been here all night."

Please.

"You wanna go inna gate? Where you goin'?"

Leave me here.

Warren felt the tension in his neck. He pushed himself up and rolled his head. Never helped.

"You got any Tylenol?" he mumbled, rubbing an eye.

"Eh." The old guy shook his head and sighed. Warren didn't know if he'd heard or not. Didn't matter. Tylenol were never any use anyway. The man walked away, keys jangling and trailing the smell of old nicotine, looking back once with a vague air of disapproval. Warren stared at him, daring him to look back again, till he turned a corner out of sight.



He dragged the suitcase to some fast food place on the restaurant level. It was heavy. The floor smelled of disinfectant. He ordered coffee, which came in a paper cup. Airport coffee always sucked. And the stupid plastic things for stirring, he hated those. Warren sat at a formica-topped table beside a smaller departures board and poured in three sugars. He rubbed his neck. Make it four.

London, maybe. At least they spoke English there. But then he imagined grey rain and decided against. Maybe Australia? No. Singapore? Now that had potential. He mentally shortlisted it. Tokyo? No. Not with the Japanese economy the way it was.

He had to find somewhere he could build his computer again. He hadn't been able to get it to work in New York. He thought he put her back together perfectly, but there must have been some mistakes. Maybe in the rush to leave Sunnydale, he forgot something. Maybe something was knocked out of place. The problem was that he hadn't had time to work on it, not really. He'd started to tinker a bit once he was strong enough to get up and sit around in the living room for any kind of extended period, but he'd never given it the time and attention it needed. Not with Andrew serving up long, lazy breakfasts in bed, and then taking him out to the bookstore and Pottery Barn. Not with taking Andrew to the movies to see whatever sci-fi flick he wanted to see, and then a late dinner with red wine discussing the flaws and inconsistencies, and then always ending up hot and tangled together in bed. No one could concentrate on an extremely complex neural net with all that distraction.

So he had to get away, it was that simple. Maybe Paris? Paris could be nice. Put that on the shortlist, too.



The restaurant got crowded at lunchtime. He had to move his suitcase out of the way of some Italian children running around the tables, high on artificial additives. Have fun going long haul with hyperactive kids, he thought. That rules out Rome, then. Madrid or Barcelona? He didn't really like the thought of Spain. Berlin? Ugh, Germany, no thank you. Full of Germans. And too cold. Somewhere like Tripoli, though obviously not Tripoli. Tunis? Tunis could be nice. Sand, sea. Near the real Tatouine, too. They could visit the Skywalker place.

He drained his fourth cup of cold, venomous coffee.

Forget fucking Tunis. Forget all of north Africa. Forget all of fucking Europe, too.

He stood up. He had to find the toilets. Too much coffee. He wished those kids would shut up.



In the bookshop he flicked through travel guides. They were full of little maps and historical facts he found entirely boring. After a while he stopped reading and just looked at the pictures. He made a deal in his head. A couple more hours thinking and looking through the books, and he'd go to the place that he liked best. Simple.

He kept flicking.



The automatic doors opened with the sound of a turbo lift and he hated that he thought that, so he walked out quickly and found a cab.

"Hot enough for ya?" said the cab driver. The sun was setting the other side of the airport but the concrete still baked the air and it smelled of tar.

Get a line, he thought. He didn't say it, just gave an address. He said it without thinking. Now was not the time for introspection. And the cab got stuck in traffic, and he thought, of course we're stuck in traffic, because that's what happens to cabs outside every airport in the world, so it makes no fucking difference at all.

That I'm still in New York.



The elevator was still broken so he climbed the stairs and tried not to make too much noise with his suitcase. When he got to the door he thought for a moment that he had forgotten his keys in his rush yesterday afternoon – was it only yesterday afternoon? – but there they were in his pocket, hidden under some candy wrappers and a plastic thing for stirring coffee.

And he saw Andrew sitting at the table in the dark, and he dropped his suitcase and passed by, through the living room and into the bedroom and waited there, holding his head and walking erratically to and fro, and he knew Andrew would follow. Then it was so good to have his arms filled with Andrew again, even a half-spitting, half-sobbing Andrew, an Andrew who buried his head in the hollow under Warren's jaw trying not to show how lonely he had been and how hurt, and failing, because Warren knew anyway. Warren couldn't remember saying sorry but he must have, in all those nothings he whispered over and over into Andrew's ear, he must have because he heard it in his head. And finally, when Andrew stopped sobbing, Warren held his face and kissed him and he had never felt such deliquescence. He had never melted before.

Nor had the bed been so expansive and, after a while, their haste made way for lazy lovemaking, their mouths finding each other again in the darkness, relearning planes and curves of skin. Too soon, the morning began to seep through the blinds and they found themselves curled up in each other, wrapped in sheets and trapped heat. Warren's eyes were black and Andrew's uncannily knowing and Warren almost hid under his liquid blue stare, but then remembered that he had just tried that, and it didn't work out.

Maybe, he thought, maybe sometimes it was worth risking exposure. Maybe just this once.

He was still debating it in his head when he fell asleep.