A/N: A tribute to CaideSin's marvelously twisted, cruelly brilliant, completely amazing "Cities of the Future" arc. This is a prelude to it, of sorts, because of course what she has is probably nothing close to mine and a lot better, but I do try. Inspired by "The Cop Song" and "Run, Freedom, Run!" from the Urinetown soundtrack, along with the lovely CaideSin herself. Do enjoy, and reviews are lovely, especially when they contain constructive criticism.
Freedom Run Away
Roxas and Sora, they live on the outskirts because inside the city of the future, inside Futuretown there are dangerous things little children like them shouldn't know about. Sora, he listens, he stays out of the city like a good little boy and still stays darker than his twin, still stays darker than Roxas. But Roxas, he doesn't listen, he goes inside the city like a bad little boy.
One day he finds a breathing corpse. He's seen lots of corpses that don't breathe, so he almost passes by this one while he's trying to scavenge up something for lunch. She's a fragile thing, too doll-like and emaciated to be real. He pokes her ribs, and she squeaks. It's an odd sound, like she's more mouse than girl, and when he asks for her name she says in a quiet voice that her mother, her dead mother called her Naminé.
"Sora, Sora," Roxas calls quietly to his twin, on the other side of the locked door when he brings Naminé back. "I brought someone, look. Look at her. She's dead."
Sora looks at her, at this weak pretty little girl called Naminé who Roxas says is dead. Sora's older by a few minutes so he starts acting serious and says she needs someplace to stay and isn't she pretty, isn't she? She looks kind of like you, right, Roxas? It's the eyes, but it's not.
Roxas' eyes are bright, blissfully bright blue, and Naminé's are empty, so empty everyone thinks she's dead.
Only Roxas seems to recognize this, and he doesn't want to look like someone who's dead. He's alive, and he wants Sora to remember that. He turns on his heel after not even smiling at her. But Naminé, with her pretty pink mouth, she only says, "Run, freedom, run. Freedom, run away."
---
She likes it in the rundown house with them, the place with paper walls and glass windows.
They don't keep her in a cage the way they used to at the research facility, the one she ran away from, freedom run away. Sora's very nice and pleasant to her because he doesn't see dark things, or if he does he pretends they don't, and he goes to sleep without thinking about Bliss or Ice or the Nobodies or the Machine, or the way he'll have to run, run, run to the cities of the future one day. He brings her back pretty silver-white-pearl things and says her name nicely and even holds her hand when they cross the empty streets. And he lets her have her own room.
But Roxas isn't very nice or very pleasant. He just stares at her askance with his blissfully bright blue eyes, striped sweatshirt shrugging off his shoulders, bright green shorts low on his hips and his boots loose against his pale legs. And he stares, and stares, waiting for her to make a mistake, to commit a sin so large he'll have to send her away.
Sora belongs to Roxas, only to Roxas, they are twins and thus they are exclusive; Naminé can't be in the picture at all. She has to erase herself out, and if she doesn't do that—
Roxas will take care of it for her.
---
She doesn't remember things; she draws things she guesses she should remember. The cage; the Machine. The go-go dance party to the stars in the cities of the future and how she's missing it, because it's down the path that only leads you one place; it's horrible to retrace. But then it all lapses into one long line, one long chopping block line, of people she's killed, people like Marlene Wallace, who went to snort some Hearts behind a tree, who thought that no one could ever see her there.
But Naminé, Naminé who was high on Hearts herself, Naminé who was a prisoner and an experiment, Naminé killed Marlene Wallace and left her hanging on the far side of forever, and Marlene Wallace was there with cold dead eyes just waiting for her blood to dry. It's one long chopping block line of everyone she's killed over Hearts, but above all the rest, she remembers Marlene Wallace, will always remember Marlene Wallace because Marlene Wallace was first, it was Marlene Wallace's blood on her hands, and that's how she's always remembered in singsong voices, Mar-lene Wa-ll-ace, Mar-lene Wa-ll-ace, don't be like her, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, don't be like her, Naminé, don't be like her, don't be like her, don't be like her.
---
Naminé is cold, cold like death, and Roxas doesn't want her anymore.
He tells Sora they can't bring her with them because she doesn't do anything useful. She won't be able to stop people with just her presence, won't hold her own in a fight. She's just one more thing to be broken, one more thing to be shoved aside on the way to the drugs, on the way to the cities of the future.
She stays inside and draws instead. She has an affinity for white, tries to shake off the muck of silver-white-pearl things she scavenges from who knows where. And she stays clean, unnaturally immaculately clean, and Sora thinks it's really weird and asks where she's hiding the soap. Roxas just hates her for it.
---
She wanders off on her own to get the Hearts, knows Roxas won't really miss her and Sora will just sleep, he was probably born by sleep to start with. And when she gets the Hearts she's so high, high, high above them. The drugs kick in and oh, she's just fine.
Wouldn't it be funny if Roxas could see her now, could see the Bliss in her eyes and the Hearts in her blood, looking more alive than anything?
Wouldn't it be funny if Sora could see her now, this white dress gone red with blood while she picks and chooses who would be fun to kill, the way they almost did to her at the research facility, where the Machine kept her in line?
Wouldn't that be funny, she thinks, funny, funny, funny, her bloody hands all over her bloody lips, and she giggles, all to herself.
---
She needs the Hearts, still needs it even if it destroyed who she used to be. It helps her forget things, helps her forget how she handed over the research facility she lived at to Kingdom Come. The anonymous drawings, the hastily written directions: Naminé was the one who betrayed the facility, who brought it on its downward spiral. And the supervisors, they knew, they all knew.
At Kingdom Come they told her she was a brave little girl, and that they'd try to keep her safe. But promises are made to be broken, and when Kingdom Come broke down the facility doors, she had no one to protect her and they wanted her blood, her Hearts-laced blood on the floor.
The only thing she could do was run, run away from the cage and make sure she would always be free, free enough so she could see that freedom sun shining someday.
Run, freedom, run, run for freedom, run. Freedom, run away.
---
One day she says, aloud when it is only them and Sora is asleep: "I still believe that freedom sun will shine someday."
"Will it?" Roxas replies, who isn't overly fond of the sun. "You sound so sure."
"You should be sure, too," she insists, looking more at her pad than him. "Someone's coming to save us."
"And if they don't?" Roxas asks, sourly, to tell her he sees through the lie.
"Then you have to run, run, run away," Naminé says with an unnatural, lacquered, fixed smile.
"Away? Where's that?" Roxas knows all too well that away can be a lot of places.
"It's a path that only leads you one place…you know it, Roxas. All of us. We all do."
"I know where it leads. I won't go."
"Will you stay here, here with Sora? With me? Forever?" she asks, breathless, in a hopeful whisper.
"As you wish," he spits. He hates her for it.
She smiles, and tries to remove the damned spots on her hands, resumes trying to get Mar-lene Wa-lla-ce's blood off her hands.
---
Roxas was never good at keeping promises.
People went to Sora for that kind of thing.
He feels sort of sorry for her, the way he sort of wishes he didn't hate her, but hate is hate and he notices the Machine. He isn't breaking any laws at the time, and tells it that he knows where a fugitive of justice is hiding.
The Machine follows Roxas' steps, follows, eager to destroy, to rip and tear and thrash and ruin something, make it into the nothing it really is.
---
The Machine isn't going to change on you—or this one won't; they've customized it as far as they could. It doesn't matter who you hide with or who you pretend to be. It will hunt you down and rip you apart and it will drag what used to be you all across the floor, lovely, isn't it, darling? It will make you scream and make you hurt and make you die. It will make you a bloody puppet and you'll wish you died a long, long time ago. It will twist you and tear you and crush you to a pulp on the paper floor and against the paper walls, all the while the blissfully bright blue-eyed boy watches and smiles and blinks when your blood brushes his eyelashes and how tragic, you don't even have a mouth anymore to say You too, Roxas?
It won't hunt anyone but you, and you should have listened to them when they told you this, Naminé.
Too bad, Roxas says as you drown, says to you with a smile, so sad.
--
Sora and Roxas run away, run for freedom, run, run, run to the cities of the future. They are on the one path that leads them only one place, horrible to retrace, a crumble down. It's a tumble of a tourney, worthy of a gurney, a jumble of a journey to Futuretown.
---
It is only later when Sora is asleep and Roxas stands guard over his twin that Roxas is allowed to breathe. He filters air in and out, watching the stars, knowing that the entire world and the entire city feels like a sleepless dream. It is only later when Sora is asleep that Roxas remembers Naminé, the Machine that dragged her away and broke her up and spilled her all over the floor while he only smiled and looked at her pleasantly.
It is only later that Roxas realizes her blood is on his lips. He licks it, reluctantly, because he doesn't want stains on his shirt he can't explain to Sora.
And her blood, her blood's good.
Oh, it's so good.
It's cold, so cold but it's sweeter, it's greater, it's better than anything he's ever had before. He stretches his tongue out, far, to feed his new addiction, licks the sides of his lips and his cheeks. His hands are slick with it, slick with his spit and her blood, as he leaves all thoughts of her behind, as he licks the last traces of Naminé away.
---
From the shadows a demon watches the boy gorging himself on a dead girl's blood, from the shadows a demon bares its teeth and purrs.
You'll be mine, you will, you will, you're my sweet, my wonderful, mine.
You're my Roxas.
Once he's done run, run, running to the cities of the future, when he's trying to take what he can and bring it back home—
Oh, he'll make a fine host, a fine host for Rudra.
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