He runs his fingers over the aged wall, not feeling it but feeling it. It's been painted since then, oh naturally, of course, the place was covered, simply covered in blood, and no one would buy it if it's freshest coat of paint was one of young innocent blood.

The wall holds a lot of memories for him, and his dark Italian eyes are misty with tears as his fingers soak up the nostalgia of after-dark kisses, stroking embraces, Snitch's delight when he realized he'd get his own bed at last. He smiles sadly at this memory. Snitch. How long as it been since he's thought of that little thief? Probably in Alcatraz by now. Come to it, how long has it been since he's thought of any of his fellow newsboys from 1899?

"Only every day," He whispers under his breath, thinking of the one newsboy that changed his life...

And oh god the blood...

He loses strength in his legs and collapses to the floor, leaning against the wall that, fifteen years ago, had been coated with young, fresh, warm blood.

Tears well up in his eyes again. Why? It hadn't been Itey's fault, so why, dammit, why?

He'd lost all that week at the tracks, lost so bad, lost not only a day's earnings, not a week's earnings, but four weeks worth. His temper was raging, boiling, writhing. He'd stormed into the Lodging House -this place, this heaven, this hell- and the others had known better than to bother him.

Except for Itey.

Itey who loved him.

Itey who tried to comfort him, tried to hold him, and couldn't succeed. All he did was put up more heat under his lover's already burning fuse. Soon, his lover would explode.

And explode he did.

The others watched, horrified, as he snapped and pulled his knife from his sleeve. Cries of fear and shock filled the room as he turned and grabbed the nearest person, Jake, cut Jake, left Jake with a gaping mouth in his throat instead of his head. The blood coated the floor like a scarlet liquid carpet, it welled up under his boots as he turned to Itey, seeing but not seeing the one love of his life. Itey backed to the wall, forehead sweating, mouth sobbing, chest hitching.

And because he couldn't see, he cut Itey too.

The flow of blood seemed endless, it stained the floor, the stairs, the wall, his clothes and hands...Jake and Kid Blink had managed to get him under control before more blood was spilled, but when he saw the blood, Jake, Itey...he collapsed into hysterics, sobs wracking his entire body.

And now he does the same, leaning against the wall, stroking it, digging his fingernails into the new white paint, revealing the blood-stained brown underneath, not caring that possible buyers are staring, only caring that it was here, here that Jake had died, here that Itey had left this Earth for the afterlife and dear god why did he have to outlive his lover by so much?

He stopped sobbing abruptly. Yes. Why did he?

He gets up and goes to the bunkroom he'd slept in fifteen years ago, before Kloppman's son had inherited it and put it up for sale. And there, her prepares to see Itey again, with a knife up his sleeve and the rope in his pocket.

He is found hours later, hours too late, by a pair of young men doing what he had been doing. One of the young men is tall with large teeth and the other is dark and moody-eyed. After the initial shock of finding a dead man still swinging in what was once their bunkroom, their mouths open again.

"My God," they say, "that's Race."

And they start to sob, holding each other in a different way than they had done the previous night. Snitch Riccio and Skittery Tatum, comforting each other under the violet-lipped body of Racetrack Higgins, who has repented for his sins with his blood, which still drips endlessly from his wrists to the floor, and with his life, which floats upwards to heaven, where only true lovers can go.

***AUTHOR'S NOTE***

I was just looking for something to write...a strange pairing and something violent...and this is what came from it. I liked it. It's a little strange, and the fact that I didn't say Race's name until the end probably made it a little difficult to understand, but I liked it anyhow. ^^;