Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Chicago Poems ❯ Dreams in the Dusk ( Chapter 1 )

***Chicago Dreams is RATED R and contains graphic violence, sexual content and adult subject matter! If you are underage or easily offended, please refrain from reading this story!***

Well...here it is, my second attempt at story telling. This is a RK AU that takes place during the roaring twenties in Chicago, Illinois. While certain events and locations are based on historical fact, this is a FICTIONAL story. (This means that Elliot Ness and Al Capone won't be making any guest appearances) This is my first attempt at an AU. My interpretation of the RK characters will be based primarily on the original manga and anime series and overlaid with the social mind set and speech patterns that existed in Prohibition era Chicago. My inspiration for this story comes from Carl Sandberg and his beautiful poetry about the Windy City. I hope you like it...and will welcome and respond to your thoughtful reviews.

Best Wishes, and Good Reading,

MightyMightyMunson

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Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders:

"Chicago" Written by Carl Sandberg

Chicago Poems

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Prologue: Dreams In the Dusk

Dreams in the Dusk,

Only Dreams closing the day...And with the day's close going back

To the gray things, the dark things

The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk...Only the remembered pictures

Of lost days when the day's loss....Wrote in tears the heart's loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams...May find your heart at dusk.

"Dreams in the Dusk" Written by Carl Sandberg

There were days that were made with a boy in mind. Enshi looked up at the clear blue

sky and smiled, his sharp eyes fixing on the purple speck that was his kite. (This is one of those days....) It was a warm, sunny day, Lincoln Park was in full bloom, and best of all....the steady spring wind coming off of Lake Michigan was custom made for kite flying. He sighed contentedly, drinking up every ounce of sunshine, savoring the sensation of freshly cut lawn grass between his toes...the scent of bright red tulips, the sugary sweet taste of pink strawberry ice cream on his lips...the sight of his sister's beautiful smile.

Naturally, she was here right beside him, exactly where a good sister should be. "Hey Tomoe!" He called out, eager to impress his older sibling. "Watch this!" Tugging hard on his taunt kite string, he made his creation dance and twist in the wind. "Whaddya think Sis, is this the best kite in the entire world or what?"

Tomoe laughed softly, her black eyes shining. "Of course it is." Gracefully, she rose from the picnic blanket, a vision in lavender and white. "After all...you made it." Lovingly, she reached over and tousled his hair. "You're such a bright boy, Nishi."

Enshi closed his eyes and inhaled the delicate scent of white plum perfume, a smell he'd long associated with his sister. To him, the fragrance was home personified, just as Tomoe was the walking embodiment of happiness. She was the calm, steady center of his little world.....a loving sister who spoiled him shamelessly...a surrogate mother that kept him safe and warm...a friend and confidant that he relied on. She was in a word, perfect....and she was his...and he was hers, brother and sister, mother and son. (Just as it should be...)

Sighing softly he nestled his face against her soft cotton skirt, oblivious that the truth that he'd never so much as tasted strawberry ice cream, that he'd never owned a kite, that instead of standing in a beautiful park with his sister, he was lying in an unheated apartment, shivering violently beneath a battered blanket, unaware that he was about to be abandoned but the one he loved best.

January 18, 1911

West Side of Chicago

615 South Hamilton Avenue

Apartment C-2

"Tomoe." Kenshin hissed softly, his hard, amber eyes narrowing with concern. "We need to leave now." Anxiously he peered out the cracked window, scanning each dark alley for any signs of movement. (We have only a few hours to get out of Chicago before all hell breaks loose....)

Tomoe closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. "I know." Taking care not to wake her sleeping brother, she gently covered Enshi with another blanket, praying that the thread bare fabric would shelter him from the bone cracking cold. (Oh Nishi...please try and understand...) Bending down, she brushed a feather light kiss on his forehead. (...I can't protect you...not this time....) She watched sadly as her brother stirred in his sleep, a gentle smile gracing his cold little mouth. (...not from the men who are hunting us...)

Kenshin closed his eyes, unwilling to bear the sight of Tomoe in such pain, knowing with bitter certainty that upon his narrow shoulders, the blame had to fall. (I should have simply killed her that night....she would have been spared this nightmare....) He knew that he was a damned man..that his soul would burn in purgatory for the countless sins he'd committed. What he couldn't bear to consider was the fact that the slender woman kneeling before him might get dragged down with him. (If I'd only done what I was supposed to...she'd be up in heaven where she belongs...and I'd not be running like hell with a bounty on my head...) It had been such a simple assignment, the black telegram one of many that he'd received in his short and violent life. (We were sent to Bridgeport to snuff out Grazziano and his thugs)

Kenshin gingerly touched a long scar on the side of his face, a scar he'd recieved during the resultant gun fight, a battle so fierce that men on both sides of the tracks still talked about the carnage in muted whispers. (Twelve men ended up dead...one of them was her fiance....) He glanced over at Tomoe and shook his head sadly. (The dumb son of a bitch brought her along, thought she'd get a kick outta seeing what he did....) It had been Kenshin who had found the sobbing, injured woman, curled up behind a distillery, shaking like a leaf. (She looked up at me and knew what was going to happen...I could see the fear in her eyes, hear the resignation in her voice...) It had been the heartbroken tone of her voice that had given Kenshin pause...the dead, despondent smile that had stayed his lethal hands. (She told me that I made it rain blood....)

Something was wrong...terribly wrong. Enishi tried to control his kite as snow eddies swirled about him, his half frozen fingers fumbling with the kite string. "Sis?" He turned towards his sister, knowing that she would protect him....provide him with an explanation...make things right. "Tomoe what's happening?" The sunlight was a mere memory, the warm spring breezes had been replaced with bitterly cold blasts of wind that forced him to his knees and took his breath away. He cried out when a particularly vicious gust caused his kite string to snap, hurtling his kite out of reach...far up into the churning black snow clouds. "Tomoe! Help me! My kite!"

To his horror, his sister simply smiled at him, then leaned down and placed a tender kiss on his frost nipped cheek. "I'm sorry Nishi." Her voice was hollow and sad, her black eyes shimmering with tears. "Please forgive me...please try to understand..."

Enishi was frightened. "Understand what?" He reached out, clutching desperately at his sister's snow encrusted skirt. To his dismay, she pushed him away from her, sending him sprawling into an icy snowdrift. "Tomoe, please! What's wrong?" His childish voice was lost in the windstorm, his tear filled pleas ignored.

"I love you Nishi...never forget that." Tomoe whispered, her face dissolving into a million indistinct snowflakes. "I'll always love you...no matter what happens...." She smiled at him one last time..then was gone, her final words no more than an icy whisper. "Good bye....please...try and be good."

(She's leaving me...) The thought alone was enough to incite hysterics. "No!" He

screamed, fighting tooth and nail to run after his sister, to stay by her side. "Tomoe!" His eyes were wild with grief, his furious screams punctuated by heartrending sobs. "Tomoe! Please don't go! Don't leave me!!!"

With loud whimper he awoke, his nightmare still a threat in the pre-dawn darkness. (It was only a dream...) Still shaking with the remembered loss of his sister, he awkwardly dried his eyes. (Of course it was a dream....) Enishi shuddered with relief as he held up Tomoe's own tattered blanket, inhaling her familiar scent. (See...she covered me up...didn't want me to be cold...)

"Dammit boy, what in the hell are you doing up at this godforsaken hour?" His father growled angrily.

"Sorry Papa." Enshi bit out the phrase between tightly clenched teeth. "I didn't mean to wake you." Unwilling to give his old man an excuse to tan his butt, he quickly laid back down on the flea bitten mattress that served as his bed and held very still.

"Miserable little cuss." Too drunk to notice the hate in his youngest child's eyes, he too

flopped back down on his bed, praying that the foreman at the Union Stockyards wouldn't notice that he was nursing a massive hangover. (The uptight bastard is out to get me fired....) "Tomoe!" He bellowed, wincing at the sound of his own voice. "Get your lazy ass outta bed and find me some aspirin !" Several seconds passed by. "Tomoe?"

Cursing angrily, he sat back up in bed, his volcanic temper ignited by this unusual display of daughterly disobedience. "By damn you'd better get in here now or there will be Hell to pay!" He staggered to his feet, then fell backwards, landing hard on the floor, still too inebriated to walk. "That little tramp." He belched loudly, then blinked stupidly, trying to see through the alcohol tinged mist. "Knowing my rotten luck, she's run off with that red headed bastard from the north side of town."

Enishi blanched, his hands fisting into the blanket. "Don't call her that." He whispered furiously, unable to keep his thoughts to himself where his sister's honor was concerned. "She a good person...and she'd never run off." Taking care to keep out of the reach of his father, he stood. (At least she'd never run off without taking me with her...) "Tomoe?" He called out softly, his boyish treble tight with worry. "Hey Sis? Where are ya?" Ignoring his father's furious shouts and threats, he tiptoed into the kitchen, praying that he'd find Tomoe sleeping peacefully beside the pot belly stove. She wasn't in the kitchen, nor could he find her in the tiny closet that his sister and he would hide in to avoid being beaten. "Tomoe?" Fear began to creep up through the floorboards, filling him with dread. "Sis?" Enishi croaked, his turquoise eyes filling with tears. (Oh no...) Folding his trembling arms against his heaving chest, he looked around wildly, praying that he was wrong...knowing with a dreadful sense of clarity that his sister was gone.

Two Weeks Later

South Side of Chicago

1123 South State Street

Room 14

The hotel had no name. None of them did in this part of town. None of them needed to. Every man, priest and mother in Chicago knew about what went on with the rat infested buildings, the type of women that carved out a nightmarish existence within the filthy rooms, the moral reprobates that visited them. This was the part of town that you made damn sure you were out of by nightfall...and if you were smart...you made sure that you never stepped foot on the south side of state street. Period. In summer, this strip of sin was a sweltering den of iniquity. In winter, it was nothing short of a ice blasted nightmare, devoid of warmth and comfort, a treacherous wasteland of broken whiskey bottles, frozen vagrants and festering despair.

And yet, in one of these run down hotels, in a small room where the striped green wallpaper was peeling and the floorboards were rotten, in an ancient bed with a water stained, worn out excuse for a mattress...a woman slept peacefully. Her pale white skin was mottled with bruises and cuts. Her long hair was tangled, the midnight tresses in dire need of a good combing. Hands that had once been soft and refined, were cracked...sore...covered with scratches and dirt. Her lavender blouse was filthy, spattered with blood and stained with tears. She was filthy, half starved and in serious need of a bath.

In a word....she was...beautiful.

Beautiful, at least to the man lying beside her. His severe, calculating expression softened, became tender...his lethal amber iris transforming into soft lavender orbs as he ran the pads of his calloused fingertips over her back...up her arm...over her full, pale mouth. (So beautiful....) His gaze lingered on her mouth for a moment, then traveled upwards...up over a badly bruised cheek, settling at last on her tightly shut eyes, eyes that at one time had sparkled like precious obsidian..but now were red rimmed from exhaustion, her black lashes stiff with frozen tears. (....so sad....) It was her sorrow that cut him to the quick, rending his heart with the brutality of an exploding shot gun shell.

(I'm going to lose her...) He was far too old to find comfort in hopeless dreams and padded self delusion, an eighty year old cynic in the body of a 16 year old boy. (...lose her before I have a chance to make things right...) An icy tremor ran through his slender frame, prompting him to pull his lover close, to hold the night at bay...if even for a moment.(...before I can help her understand...) There were so many things he wanted to tell her...so many things that she needed to hear. (I never meant to hurt her...to kill the man she adored....) Bending his head, he softly kissed her, his long red hair falling over them both like a crimson curtain. (...never meant to make her cry....) His eyes began to burn...his throat became uncomfortably tight. (...never meant to fall in love...)

And love her he did. Despite his best intentions, despite what he'd done...and would surely do before his violent life was taken from him, he loved this woman. (And somehow...) He smiled against the cook of her slender neck as he felt her stir beneath him, the soft curves of her slender body igniting deep fires within him. (...for some reason...) His hands wandered down, skimming over her collarbone, grazing the hollow of her throat, caressing and cupping her small, white breasts. She sighed softly and opened her eyes, gracing him with a rare, real smile. (...she loves me back...)

As a child, Tomoe had learned of heaven and paradise...of a peaceable kingdom inhabited by loving saints and wise disciples. In her youth she had lit milky white candles, sung hymns of joy and supplication, dreamt of being a good girl...the type of girl that ended up in a pretty house...with children to dote upon, a husband to serve and be protected by. (I thought that if I did my best...tried my hardest...that everything would work out...) She shuddered, partially from the icy cold...partially from pleasure. (...that I would have a happy life....) In her childish innocence, she had never considered the possibility that her mother would die in childbirth, leaving her to raise a little brother, that her father would lose himself in liquor, becoming a violent shell of a man, that her childhood sweetheart would grow up to be a gangster...that she would end up falling in love with his killer.

She closed her eyes, banishing the lingering regrets, trying desperately to focus on the here...on the now...on the slender man in whose arms she lay. (Oh...Kenshin...) Arching upwards, she gasped with delight as his warm mouth found purchase atop her breast, covering her areola. A good girl would have been ashamed of being in such a place...in such a bed....with such a man. ( Oh, Love...) A nice girl would have never faltered, never erred....and certainly never committed the sins she had. (Oh...God...) Parting her legs, she pulled him closer, desperate to feel him moving inside her.

He was death incarnate...the manslayer from the North Side...a ruthless killer who people feared, a wanted criminal who defied being captured. (He's also honest and brave....and unbelievably kind...) Wrapping her legs around his narrow waist, Tomoe held Kenshin close, memorizing every facet of his being...each ragged scar...the smell of his skin...the taste of his tongue as it moved against hers. (So capable of such goodness...) Her eyes welled up as she recalled the tenderness of his first shy kiss, how fiercely he defended her non-existent honor, the love and warmth she was starting to hear in his soft voice. (I know...that if given the time...he would find himself...become the good man he was born to be...)

But time was running out. The trains were being watched, no ferry could offer them safe passage, the roads were impassable gauntlets...the police force impossibly corrupt. (We have nowhere to run....no one to turn to...) She could feel his desperation as he kissed her, could see the despair creeping into his beautiful eyes.

"We're not going to make it, are we?"

Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, unwilling to admit what they both already knew. (No....We're not.....) Still deep inside her, he continued to move urgently, losing himself in her warmth, knowing with a certainty that he'd never have another chance to love her this way. "I'm sorry." He whispered brokenly, torn between despair and desire. "So damn sorry."

"I know." Tomoe's eyes filled with tears. "Me too." She threw her arms around her second love, covering his face and neck with frantic kisses, smothering his gruff apologies with her trembling mouth.

"I love you." She pressed her face against the crook of his neck and began to sobbing raggedly, unable to separate the white hot pleasure that was flooding through her body and the icy dread that was wrapping itself around her heart.

Her admission was his undoing. "I...love...." With a heartbroken groan, Kenshin gripped her hips tightly, his thrusts taking on a desperate note. "I love you too." Clenching his teeth, trying not to cry, he kissed her over and over again, desperately trying to be soft and tender, to pretend, just this once, that he was the type of man she deserved, that they weren't making love for the last time on a filthy bed in a run down brothel....that they still had time to heal...to learn to laugh again...to live.

Outside, eight men crept towards the darkened whore house, their guns loaded and their instructions clear. For the two occupants in room 14, time had just run out.

To Be Continued.....

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***Rurouni Kenshin is the exclusive property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and associated parties. The characters are used as an expression of fan appreciation for the non-profit purpose of entertainment only and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of the above listed entities. Original portions of this story as well as any and all original characters are the copyright of the author. While certain locations and events are based on actual history, this is a fictional story and any similarity with person(s) living or dead is entirely coincidental. ***

____________________________________________________________________ __________ Author's notes:

1.) Lincoln Park is located on the north side of Chicago. It is located south of Lake Shore Drive and home to the Lincoln Zoo. It was here, that the elite of Chicago would stroll...the rolling lawns and lush gardens a veritable paradise.

2.) Bridgeport is an industrial area west of Chinatown. The area is the center of Chicago's famous meat packing history and is home to the Nation's largest and most infamous slaughterhouse, the Union Stockyards. (Recommended reading: Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle")

3.) North of the University of Chicago and south of Downtown was the Red Light District, located along a ten block stretch of State Street. It was bursting at the seams with brothels, peep shows, adult bookstores and filthy hotels that rented rooms by the hour.