Disclaimer: No own the newsies, nor own any of the Dashboard Confessional songs used (and they are all Dashboard Confessional songs, so we don't have to disclaim the lyrics as they're used). For OCs, only own Mayfly and Lute. All other OCs belong to respective owners. Now read the goddamn story, 'cause the disclaimer's of no interest to you.

Swiss Army Romance

"We're not twenty-one,
But the sooner we are,
The sooner the fun will begin,
So get out your fake eyelashes,
And fake I.D.'s,
And real disasters ensue,
It's cool to take these chances.
It's cool to fake romances
And grow up fast"

-----------------------------------

David came home from work to find Jack sleeping on the couch with the light still on. He rolled his eyes and took off his uniform shirt. Typical Jack.

"Hey, you," Dave threw his shirt over Jack's face, and the other boy grunted and rolled over. "Get up and get dressed. Aren't we going to the club tonight?"

Jack sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I dunno," he yawned. "Chris never called back about the I.D.'s."

"Heh," David chuckled, checking the phone. "Yes he did, but you slept through it."

"Shut up." Jack stood and stretched. "Call him back and I'll go get ready."

David watched Jack leave the room, and sighed. He'd come back in a red button-down shirt and too-tight blue jeans. Don't forget the Raybans and the black boots that clicked on the sidewalk. Ah, Jack. David adored him; eight months with each other, the longest relationship either of them had even been in. But the dark-eyed boy was obsessed with attention. He had to be the center focus of everything, and would do whatever it took to be such.

David sighed again. Such is life.

He was still on the phone when Jack returned, sat on the couch and started tugging his boots on. "What do you mean, the printer's not working? We need those I.D.'s, Chris!" Davey paused. "Yeah, eighteen's old enough to get in, but not to drink. We need... Shut up, Chris. We agreed... Okay, you know what, I'm putting Jack on. You listen to him."

Jack held his hand out and David slapped the phone into his palm. "Chris, 'sup? ...You what? ...Jesus fuck, man, don't shit me. It's College Night, everyone will be there, and I want to be one of the ones getting sloshed enough to sing Queen karaoke."

Davey rolled his eyes and left to his bedroom, ready to get dressed. A blue shirt to highlight his eyes, black slacks, and that new belt with the ornate silver buckle. Add a chain bracelet and the sapphire earring Jack had bought him for his birthday, and David would look just as fakely perfect as anyone else at Plastic Face. That was the main requirement to get in; hence the name of the club.

"Hey, Davey."

"What?"

Jack poked his head into David's room. "We gotta stop by Chris's before we go to the club, all right? I talked him through fixing the printer, so we're all set."

"Good." David grinned; it was good to date Mr. Fix-It 2004.

"Also, I can't find my jacket."

David rolled his eyes. Mr. Fix-It, Jack was. Mr. Organized, he wasn't.

"Hold on," Davey said, going across the hall to Jack's chaotic bedroom with it's naked bed and walls with hand-painted caricatures of Queen, the Fab Five, even Jack and Davey themselves just over Jack's sheet-less bed.

"Well," Davey sighed, "it's gotta be here somewhere." Jack stood in the doorway, rolling up his sleeves to show off the ornate Japanese dragon and flame designs beneath, the ones that went over his knuckles, wrists, arms and collarbone, and must have hurt like hell to get, although the overall effect was pretty smooth. "What color was it?"

"Gold." Jack grinned and unbuttoned the top and bottom three buttons on his shirt. "My favorite."

David rolled his eyes and kicked through the clothes on the floor, looking for a hint of gold. Shouldn't be hard, and... it wasn't. A gold sleeve poked out from under the bed, and David grabbed it. "Here we go."

"Sweet." Jack snatched it from David's fingers and slipped it on. Now fully dressed, he looked fully pimp and, in David's opinion, fully plastic. "Let's go."

"Hold up." David dashed to his room, pulled on his black Doc Martens and a simple black jacket. "All right, let's hit the road."

They went downstairs and got into Jack's Beemer before the chill could overtake them. Even the car, David noticed, added to Jack's fully fake effect; the kid had no money. His parents had bought him the car when he was sixteen, then disowned him when he came out on his seventeenth birthday. The money came mostly from David, who had a lawyer and an accountant for parents, and also made pretty good money as a waiter at an Olive Garden. Jack was the starving artist type, with all the talent in his hands.

Davey smiled. Such fine hands they were.

A quick stop at Chris's resulted in a pair of fake I.D.'s, one each for the boys, and then it was off to Plastic Face, where they stood in a ridiculous line full of painted people and pretend friends, and Jack was nice enough to let Davey cuddle in to him as they waited for their turn at the door to arrive.

David knew how it would work. Jack would be allowed to go in, David wouldn't, Jack would dramatically turn down the offer, therefore drawing attention to himself, and they would both walk to O'Shannon's down the street and use their fake I.D.'s to get too smashed to drive home, and would have to pay someone to drive them. That was how it always worked. Every week.

The bouncer at the door was a good-looking Hispanic boy with dark hair hanging in his face. He scrutinized them both, then, just as Davey had predicted, he said, "Blue-eyes, go home. You got no business here. You, though, are more than welcome."

But to David's surprise, Jack fished for his I.D. to prove he was old enough to get in, and started through the door.

"Jack!" David cried, surprised and hurt. "What are you...?"

Jack shrugged. "I'm going in. What does it look like?"

"But we... you and I... you're supposed to..."

Again, Jack shrugged. "Ah well. See you at home." And with that, he went inside.

David stared for a moment, then rolled his eyes and stuck his hands in his pockets. He shouldn't have been surprised. Jack's fake factor had been building up for a while now; it was only a question of when he would finally crack and leave the only real thing he had behind to live in his world of curvy rubber women and men with abs so perfect they were almost deformed.

David turned and started to walk back to the car. Jack would call when he was done, and David would go and get him. It saddened David to think about it, but the truth of the matter was that even though Jack had foregone the real feelings they had for each other, David never could, because David was fully real, a complete contradiction to Jack's fully fake.

David's fully real could never leave behind what he felt for Jack.

And so he walked alone in the starlight, wishing that he had the ability to be as plastic as Jack, so that he could at least retain his dignity.

But alas... such is not the case for those that are really real.

END