Freeport 10's Involvements

[The_Godslayer]

Freeport 10

"Angels are frightening to ward off evil. Demons are beautiful to deceive man."

---

Millicent Dixie Vickers, the tragic beauty of Freeport 10. Kidnapped often, orphaned, and starved and beaten within an inch of her life when refugees from the Outcast slave revolt crash-landed on Freeport 10 and supplies became scarce. Mostly all according to plan. However, instead of sparking a civil war that would drive slave refugees off the station, a single man had shown up, sporting battle-scarred armor, draped in a poncho of some animal fur littered with jade ornaments, with a hefty hand-cannon in hand. The slaughter that proceeded was better than she could have ever wished. And at the end of it, he had the audacity to simply claim he was just passing through, and that he would be on his way again soon.

What a liar. Milly was the cute, innocent, adorable belle of the Freeport, and Max didn't even give her a second glance. It was strange. It caught her interest. As time went on, Max expanded into some sort of guardian of the station's peace, bringing the order of law, though whose law was never really clear. Like a sheriff from those ancient Liberty movies that one could find in the museums, except constantly depressed and paranoid. Max kept himself distanced from everyone but the bartender, even Milly. He barely saw her, let alone seeing her as someone special. Milly's interest grew into obsession. She had to have him. It was easy to play it off to the residents of the Freeport, "the rescued maiden developed a crush on her hero" was cute and easy to accept. For Max, though, he was too absorbed with whatever was crushing him inside to even notice until it was spelled out to him by others. But that was fine. Milly was a very, very patient girl.

The extended rooms of the bar had been closed for nearly an hour. This is where he hides when he spirals into depressive memories. Milly had nearly a year of tracking his habits, tendencies, and nuances. Sure enough, daintily leaning around the corner, she spotted her prey, an empty bottle of whiskey lying on the table and a nearly empty one in his left hand. In the corner farthest from the door, with his back to the corner so he could see the entire room. Milly knew her smile was subtle and natural, her stride was graceful and delicate, and her sundress was billowing just right as she approached.

"Somethin' on your mind?"

His voice thoroughly masked whatever he was feeling. Her response tested the waters. "Someone told me there was a cute boy back here."

Max made a show of looking around the barroom, as if anyone could slip past his constant vigilance, before responding "Should go and punch "someone" in the mouth for lying to you."

"Really?" Milly took a moment to consider just how aggressive she should be this time. Sidling up on Max's right side, she wrapped herself around his free arm. "I think I found exactly what I was looking for."

It wasn't that Max was too drunk to resist. He could easily pick her up and do whatever he liked, Milly's petite frame offered her neither the strength nor the weight to resist. No, instead, he had just gotten used to her advances. The poor boy had made peace with evil, and now she was going to eat him alive. It was only really a matter of time now.

His silence heralded the return of the far-away look in his eyes. Whatever he was seeing wasn't here, and that was starting to get on her nerves. She was right there in front of him, how could he possibly have the audacity to ignore her in favor of some guilt or regret that only he knows? Well, she wasn't exactly in front of him, but one intrusive thought later, she was straddling him on the bench, holding his face and staring directly into his eyes. "If you don't stop ignoring me, I'm going to baby-bird all the rest of that whiskey to you."

"Don't--don't do..." Max startled a little bit, sitting forward to make sure his bottle was still in his hand. "Don't say that. Don't do that either."

Coming to his senses significantly more, Max finally really started paying attention to the situation he was in. It was a pretty bad situation: not a soul in sight, Milly sitting on his lap, empty bottles of alcohol. And her face was really close to his. If someone walked in, Max guessed that he had a fairly high chance of being lynched for harassing the station's poster girl. Max liked his personal space. Milly also liked Max's personal space. This was a fairly well-known phenomenon. Milly had ensured that the mindset of the people allowed her to do whatever she wanted with Max. No doubt a part of his guilt was somehow feeling that Milly's affection was proof that, in some subtle and subconscious way, Max had been manipulating her, which was fine by her. It made him easier to push around to where she needed him.

Her mind wandered as Max struggled to mentally navigate this situation and find the words to say. She'd seen men drown their sorrows at the bar before, but they're never as silent as Max. She'd never seen a single tear out of him, but whatever his problems were, they were so bad that Ken the bartender wouldn't tell her about them. What she would give to see him break. A single tear. She might lick it right off of his face. The thought of it put warm tingles in her stomach.

"And what does that face mean?"

Whoops, her fantasies had let a smile unbefitting of the cute girl that everyone loved creep across her face. She played it off, lying as naturally as she breathed. "Well, I was thinking about what to name our kids, buuuut I got distracted thinking about making our kids."

"Woah, woah!"
"You know, you're pretty big compared to me. Like a foot and a half taller. I mean, I can probably make it fi-"
"Stop. I'm also twice your age, I don't think we should be making kids."
"I was already sold, you didn't need to convince me."
"You need to rein in your fetishes a little bit."
"You know, despite how much I've been kidnapped, I'm still a vir-"

Max stood up, causing her to fall backwards onto the table, and he pinned her there too, clamping a hand over her mouth. The whisky bottles rattled together a tiny bit. "Please stop talking, I am begging you."

The position had become infinitely more compromising. Milly had translated her straddle into a leg-lock, Max had pinned her to the table. He had to admit, her figure was alluring.

Milly began licking his hand until he was uncomfortable enough to remove it. "We can make them right now if you want." She put on her best timid babydoll eyes.

Max finally managed to break his mind free from being caught in the moment. He grabbed Milly by the waist, pulling her off of him and standing her on the floor. He gave her a stern look, to which she responded by sticking her tongue out. Her high-energy, cheerful persona was back. "Mission complete! Max has been cheered up!" She skipped down to the entrance of the bar extension before waving to him. "Come on, your Not-Administrator work won't do itself!"

Max shrugged and sighed, but started walking, moving the bottles to the bar counter. Milly smiled to herself. Nearly a year's worth of work, but she finally had Max wrapped around her finger, if only just barely.

---

I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"