A/N: Final chapter! A massive thank you to everyone who reviewed, I've had some really nice comments on this fic :)

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

Part 12

Not-Eleanor wants to talk about something she calls ‘dependency issues’. I’m not really paying proper attention because I’m trying to work out what to wear later on for my date with Howard.

It seems a bit funny, really, us going on dates, cos we already pretty much know each other inside and out. Literally. Not-Eleanor thinks it is a good idea, that it will give us a chance to ‘reconnect’ with each other. I wasn’t going to mention it to her but Howard said we should. I don’t like her much. She makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy. I’m thinking again about getting that outfit…

“Vince?” Oh shit, she’s asked me a question and I haven’t been listening.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“What?”

“All this stuff about dependency. It’s basically just needing someone, right? So…what’s wrong with that?”

It’s Howard that answers.

“What’s wrong with it, Vince, is that you nearly got yourself killed by vampires!”

“Not on purpose!” I reply.

“Because of me,” he continues. “I pushed you around and you let me.”

“But you’re not going to do that anymore so it doesn’t matter, does it? If we need each other…what’s so wrong with needing each other? We always have, ever since…well, ever. We just never owned up to it. Maybe that’s what’s caused all the mess, us trying to pretend that we didn’t need each other and hurting each other instead.” He reaches over and gives my hand a squeeze and I know it’s not just me, he needs me just as much. And it may not be healthy, but it’s us.

*

For our second date we go to a French restaurant. It’s funny watching Howard pretend he knows how to speak French when he clearly hasn’t got a clue. I don’t know what he thinks he’s ordered, but he looks a little green when a plate comes out with a couple of snails on it.

“That’ll teach you to show off. You should have just ordered chips.”

“I thought I did order chips. What are you having?”

“Sorbet. It’s brilliant. It’s like eating snow.” I look at my dish and frown. “I hope it’s not yellow for the same reason snow is yellow…”

“It’s not real food, though, is it?” Howard says. “I worry about you sometimes, Vince, you don’t eat properly.”

“If that’s eating properly, I’d rather not, cheers,” I say nodding at the snails on his plate. I swear one of them is twitching.

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not going to get on the cover of NME if I’m fat, am I?”

“You’re not going to get on the cover of NME by working in a shop,” Howard retorts. I choose to ignore this.

“I read about this great new diet the other day. Apparently, you can eat whatever you like, and then you just make yourself sick and that way you don’t put any weight on. Imagine that!”

“Yeah, that’s not really a diet, is it, Vince, it’s more of an eating disorder.”

We get chips on the way home because Howard’s hungry and too scared to try ordering anything else. Of course, I can speak fluent French because we had a lot of French marmosets at the zoo and they taught me, but I don’t want to show Howard up. I eat some just to prove I’m not apoplexic or anything. I wonder if he might hold my hand or something but he keeps his hands in his jacket pockets. We get home too soon, and I don’t want to go in just yet because I know he’ll go back to avoiding me and being all awkward again once we’re back in the flat. I lean against the wall outside the shop, watching my breath frost up in the night air. He comes over and leans next to me.

“Howard?”

“Yes Vince?”

“I had a nice time tonight.” And it was nice, just hanging out, a bit of bickering, not talking about anything too heavy. Just like old times.

“Me too. Vince?” He’s scuffing is shoes on the ground, hands still in his pockets.

“Yeah?” He turns towards me.

“Can I kiss you?” As if I haven’t been dying for him to kiss me again for the last however many weeks.

“Go on then.” I say, feigning nonchalance. He smiles, and something about the way his eyes crinkle up reminds me of how he used to be, back at the zoo, and as he leans in to kiss me I imagine that we’re not these damaged people we’ve become, that he asked me out back when I started at the zoo, and I didn’t laugh at him and we’re kissing for the first time and we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. It seems weird that it’s taken us so much time to get together, and that it’s all been so messed up. As his lips meet mine I can’t imagine us ever being apart and as his tongue gently teases my lower lip I don’t ever want this to stop, ever. I reach up to pull him closer and deepen the kiss, pulling him against me, my heart beating faster and faster.

It’s over far too quickly. I make a wordless sound of disappointment and frustration. He’s breathing hard and looking down at the floor, like it was a physical effort to tear himself away from me.

“Howard, I’m tired of playing games, can’t we just…”

“Not yet,” he says firmly.

I know why. I understand, I do. We need to be sure we can be together, as friends, as partners, not just allow ourselves to fall into bed again without fixing the broken parts of our relationship. It’s just hard to sleep knowing he’s lying there only a few feet away. I lie awake, wondering whether he’s thinking of me.

I look up at the photos I have pinned up on the wall. My eyes seek out one with me and Howard together. There’s one of us back at the zoo, where Howard’s smiling, his eyes crinkled in that way I remember. I miss how we were. I miss my hair, too, I wonder if I should get those highlights again. We both look so young and beautiful, so full of possibility. I wonder now how we weren’t shagging each other senseless all those nights we had to sleep on the floor of the hut, like most people thought we were.

If he’d tried anything, then, what would I have done, I wonder? I’d have laughed at him, just like I laughed when he told me he loved me that time we were tied up in the Arctic. And if I had tried anything…? I remember, now. He was always telling me not to touch him. Always so superior, brushing me off. He probably would have knocked me back. Looking back, it doesn’t seem so strange, how he went wrong, acting all like he did pushing me about. He used to push me about a bit back then and all.

But we were inseparable, back then, all the same. Like I said earlier, it isn’t needing someone that’s the problem. The problem for us always has been pretending we don’t need each other. And now that we’re finally being honest with ourselves…well, there’s no end to the possibilities.

*

Not-Eleanor is frowning at us as we walk in. This may be because I’m wearing a t-shirt with ‘Co-dependent and proud of it’ written on it in pink letters. I got one made up for Howard as well but surprise, surprise, he refused to wear it, even though I got his done in beige lettering instead.

I bring up the stuff about Howard being all superior and shutting me out for all those years. It’s starting to make sense to me, now. I suppose that was why I started being so horrible to him. Not that it’s an excuse.

So now he’s saying sorry to me, and I’m saying sorry to him and then we both just burst out laughing. Not-Eleanor’s frown deepens which only causes us to dissolve into helpless giggles. I look up at Howard and grin, and he grins back and I know that we’re at least half way fixed again.

“Come on, Howard, let’s get out of here,” I say.

“Yes sir,” he replies, and we leg it. Howard tips his hat at Not-Eleanor as we leave and I give her the finger and we run, holding hands, all the way home.

*

“Where are you taking me, then?”

“Nowhere if you don’t get a move on.” Howard calls from outside the door.

“Well give me some kind of clue, otherwise I don’t know what I’m dressing for and it’ll just take longer.”

“Well, there’s a talk at the museum about ancient Byzantine artefacts that were discovered…”

“I can tell you right now I don’t have any suitable clothes for that.”

“Since when do you wear suitable clothes for anything?”

“Shut up, I have an outfit for every occasion. More than one.”

“Are you having to go through them alphabetically, is that what’s taking all this time?” The door opens.

“You can’t come in, I’m not ready!” I’m only wearing my jeans. No shirt, no socks, even. Howard’s staring at me like I’m some kind of freak. “You see.”

“You look…you look gorgeous,” he says. I stop what I’m doing, which is looking for a pair of socks, and look at him. He’s leaning against the doorframe, watching me. The hairs on my arms stand up.

“Howard…” I say. It’s nothing more than a whisper. Somehow he still has the power to make me breathless with just a look. He comes over, kicking the door shut behind him. He has to go back and shut it properly because it doesn’t work the first time, but then he’s here, in front of me.

“Change of plan,” he says hoarsely.

“Oh yeah?” I’m breathing so hard I can see my chest rising and falling. “What will I need to wear now?” He reaches out and puts one trembling hand on my chest, just over my wildly hammering heart. He runs his fingers over my skin like it’s some kind of exciting new fabric.

“This…um, this should do just fine.” He swallows hard before leaning in as if he’s going to kiss me. I should be happy with this, but I put out a hand to stop him. I have to know that this time, we both want the same thing.

“Howard, I thought…” He presses his forehead to mine.

“I know, I know, we’re supposed to be taking things slowly and rebuilding our relationship and addressing our co-dependency issues and it’s all supposed to take time and effort but…maybe we could just…”

“Forget it?” I suggest.

“Yeah. Yes. If you…” His fingers are running up and down my bare arms in a way that’s making it increasingly difficult to think straight. But I don’t need to think, because I know what I want.

“Yes. Yes, Howard, yes…” I’m still whispering ‘yes’ into his skin as he kisses me, starting with the side of my head, covering my face with kisses, kissing my hair, my eyelids, my ears before finally finding my mouth. It’s a sweet kiss and as he pulls away I realise we’re both trembling a bit, after all, we’re about to make love and that’s not something either of us has ever done before. He leads me to the bed and pushes me down, but not hard. He wants to take this slowly, I can tell. He kisses my chest, tongue flicking lightly over my bare skin and I get goosebumps. He moves further down, past the line of hair on my belly until he reaches my waistband. I wonder briefly whether it’s still called a waistband if you’re wearing the kind of jeans that sit around your hips but then he slides my jeans and underwear off and I find it hard to concentrate on fashion related thoughts anymore.

He hesitates. I try really hard not to wonder whether he’s ever done this before. It’s not something I want to think about after everything he told me in therapy. He’s never done it to me before, though, and I want him to so very badly. God, what if he’s only doing it because he thinks he needs to make up for that time in his flat…

“Howard, you don’t have to…”

“I want to,” he says, right away and his voice, low and sexy sends shivers down my spine. “I just…I was just looking at you. You’re so beautiful, Vince.”

Stupidly, I feel a tear well up in my eye at this. He kisses a trail of kisses up the inside of my thigh and I moan involuntarily.

“Howard…Howard, please!” He does it so slowly that I think I might combust at any time. I grip the sheets, his hair, anything, thrusting helplessly into his mouth as he sucks me lazily, looking up at me every now and then with a smile in his eyes that suggests he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. I’m sweating and breathless, my head flung back against the pillows, flushed and panting until I can’t take it any more. It’s all I can manage to cry out his name as I come. “F-fuck, How…Howard!”

I lie back, dizzy with happiness. He crawls up the bed to join me and wraps his arms around me, kisses my forehead.

“You’re amazing. I love you.”

He’s still fully clothed. This isn’t right. I need to feel his skin against mine, need it with a desperation that takes me by surprise, and him too from the look on his face as I rip the buttons off his hideous shirt. Our limbs tangle together, hands roaming over each others’ bodies, taking the time to do all the things we never waited for all those times before when he just threw me over the counter or on the floor and fucked me. And it’s nice. Better than nice. Perfect. I tell him ‘I love you’ a hundred times, a thousand and he tells me the same. But it’s not the words, it’s the look in those eyes that still burns right through me although now they’re not hurt and angry and confused and lustful they’re full of love and certainty and awe and…well ok, still lustful. I shiver and moan when he finally flips me over and slides into me. I push back against him and he groans, tightening his grip on me. I don’t think I will ever be able to get enough of him, ever. My name on his lips as he shudders on top of me, his name on my lips and this is how we were always meant to be.

Together.

*

So, there you have it. Everything’s perfect. Well, ok, not perfect, there’s always ups and downs. Like when he gets mad at me for trying to liven up his beige corduroy jacket with some badges, or when I leave my straighteners plugged in and burn a hole in his collector’s edition of Trumpet Cleaning Utensil monthly. Or when he embarrasses me by deciding halfway through a gig at an Indian restaurant that we’d be better taking our band in the direction of stand up comedy and we get pelted with popadums.

But it’s pretty close to perfect. I don’t humiliate him in public anymore (cos he can do a good enough job of that by himself) and he doesn’t knock me about or anything. He does tie me to the bed and ravish me on pretty much a weekly basis, but that’s not exactly a bad thing. Speaking of which, it’s Tuesday night now, so I’d better go and get my outfit on…

The End