Disclaimer: I do not own "Newsies" or any of the genius associated to them. Disney owns them, no infringement intended. I am not making money from this in any way, I claim no rights to the characters mentioned from the movie, but I do claim the plot and the ideas surrounding this story. Don't steal, don't sue, and I'm sure we will all be grand friends.

A/N: It's morning, morning, morning! For some reason I felt the need to proclaim that three times as my author's note. Thank you for indulging me.

Warning: PG-13 (adult situations)

Chapter 9

ix.)
they're fighting to breathe (and losing)
choked by irony & illusions
they'll never be all she wants
(he's missed her for years)
& that's only the beginning
he can't imagine how wrong he's been

She's spoon feeding him all of the words she wants him to say, but none of them taste right. He hasn't been able to eat them for days. Maybe it is the drugs or just the hangover from an accumulation of too many overwrought emotions. Whatever it is - her words do nothing but make him sick to his stomach. Girl Explicit smoothes back his ever changing coif as he vomits violently – ridding his palate of all of her I'll never fade's and I love you no matter what's. He's never had a high tolerance for sweets (he can't tollerate her love - no matter how dilluted). With a ball of moist paper towels she hands to him, the fibers falling apart in a soggy mess, he wipes away all residue of remorse which made a ring around his mouth. He won't feel badly for not being able to stomach her romantic notions (she's cancer to his promiscuous lifestyle).

When he is done he lets Girl Explicit cradle his head against her breast (he feels so familiar in her arms) as long as she promises to keep all of her nasty words to herself. He can't allow himself the luxary of believing them. He also knows that her holding him always leads to much more interesting things & this time will not be an exception(pointless justification). She never has been able to say "no".

He has tried to burn off his fingerprints with too hot coffee, but she feels their ridges now and knows that they will be bruised into her hips in the morning. He can erase his fingerprints as easily as he can erase who is really is under all of his mess (not at all) and he hates it(himself). He wants to share his mess, infect her with all of his corruption and chaos, until she is as lost and confused as he is (he's closer to his goal than he can imagine). For too long his skin has been branded by black ink, scar tissue, & make-out sessions. I guess you could say that he's grown tired of the clutter, but it all he has to hide behind. He covets the flawless skin of his more pious counterparts.

"Don't leave a mark." He whispers as her lips trace patterns on his neck (he wants the best of both worlds: a flawless beauty & and faithless bed).

"You've made scars inside of me that have ruined my life." This hiss in her voice, like water on hot steel, lets him know that she's serious. "Don't tell me not to leave a mark." There's a catch in her words but she doesn't cry. She's past tears.

It is only fair after all. He's been leaving marks on her ever since their first encounter on the bathroom floor. She feels the need to brand him in attempts to remove the stains left on him by others before her. She hates the pollution of the others on his body (she feels it creep onto her skin when she touches him).

It's rare and growing rarer that he holds her after it is all said and done. Blame it on his Dorothy red shoes and that he knows that she is fading (the idea doesn't bring him the joy he expected). Somehow he knows that this is the last time he will touch her. So, he clings to her tonight like a child does his mother (he's already suckled her teat) while babbling nonsensical words overlapping with ragged breathing into her hair. There is so much he could say to her, but none of the words taste right on his tongue and she barely hears him anymore. Occasionally she picks up a few words, but nothing that makes her take interest in his discourse. She drifting to sleep in his hollow embrace (expecting him to be gone when she wakes up and not knowing it would be reversed) until he rolls her over to look straight into his sea-salt eyes.

"Icarus flew too high for his wings to hold him." There is a frantic pitch to his whisper - he can't do this anymore. "Some fade too quickly - some without even knowing." He often speaks in riddles but this time he is giving her the answer.

It's urgent. He's begging her to understand everything he's tried to tell and show her for months. She hasn't picked up on his hints before (she hasn't wanted to), but the look in her eyes lets him know that she finally understands what he's known all along: they're not going to last, because in his world nothing does, so why drag it out any longer? He needs her to leave tonight (he doesn't realize that if she leaves she will vicariously take him with her). She's already ruined his life.

She may have ruined his life, but he has ruined her entirely. Even with all of her good intentions and stubborn self-righteousness she was unable to stop the inevitable which he had predicted for so long. She may have promised not to fade, but she did, and he feels it (he's been helping her along because he can't stand the idea of being happy with anyone). Girl Explicit has now learned what he's been trying to teach her since the beginning. The idea of him wasn't enough to hold them together the way she needed them to be, but it was enough to tear them apart (he doesn't know how to love her the way Hollywood tells her that he should).

One rivulet of water trickles down the contour of his cheek (its his way of purging her from his system) and she captures in her kiss. The flavor of his tear radiates in her mouth, but it isn't the sweetness she needs or recalls. It leaves a sour residue on her tongue (all of the digust he's felt towards her and how his predictions are coming true are in that tear) and the bitterness of his kiss catches in the back of her throat. Now it is her turn to be nauseous and she pulls back.

She doesn't leave right away. She turns over so that her back is facing him and he cradles her body against his. Again the warmth from her form seeps out through her skin into his. Her head is spinning so fast with the truth that she is dizzy from lack of focus. This is the end. Girl Explicit waits for the breathing of Boy Anachronism to enter that slumberous state before she slips out of his arms. She doesn't look at Boy Anachronism as she dresses hurriedly and grabs only what is important to her (her wallet, keys, fragments of a life before him which she barely remembers - but she doesn't take him). Five minutes is all she gives herself or else she'll lose her courage.

Her love (was that what it was?) didn't fade (though it would have been much easier for everyone if it had since love is so hard after which to clean), but she did. She was sucked so deeply into the endless depth of his ocean eyes and cobwebbed confusion that she'd lost all sight of anything that she was. He'd done a wicked deed by absorbing her into himself only to be happy to spit her back up with her venom-like I love yous. She'd drowned in him and now lay wasted and broken on the shore.

She is tired.

As she walks out the door for the last time – Girl Explicit grabs a pen and wrote on the wall:

LA TRISTESSE DURERA TOUJOURS

The pen clattering on the floor is the last Boy Anachronism would hear from Girl Explicit. Like Icarus before her – she flew high for awhile but ended up scattered across the ocean floor (she'd drowned in his Atlanic eyes). Vincent van Gogh shot himself in the chest in a field of flowers then died two days later - and nothing really mattered after that.

LA TRISTESSE DURERA TOUJOURS

(the sadness will last forever)

A/N: Thanks to -'0'EmeraldEyes'0'-, Purple Rhapsody, stress, and Tatsiana for reviewing!

One more chapter to go. Does that kind of make you sad? It really kind of makes me sad. Maybe I'll just never post the last chapter and that way the story would never be over! Wouldn't that just make me the most popular girl ever?