Chapter Text
The rain was persistent, always so persistent ever since that day...
He couldn't remember the last time it rained this much, he stopped counting how many weeks it has been since it started, it made driving fhr DeSoto much harder...
In another scenario he would be dedicating his time jumping and slamming himself on the puddles, much to his partner's dismay as he gave chase to stop him, followed by an affectionate yet violent fight against the shower in their small apartment just outside the office. A memory ran past his head as he was lost in the vision.
"Come on Max! I don't want to drop the next few cases just to take care of a sick and tired you, you are a completely different person when you aren't your usual hyperkinetic self!
"Unhand me! Ive gone through worse! This is fascism in full reign!"
"Come on you rascal! I need the shower too and we are wasting water!"
"What waste? There's plenty outside!"
"Not that kind of water you bonehead!"
A loud smack against the shower wall reverbed through Max back into reality, those same drops on his head that he hated feeling had followed him all the way back to the present, except when looking up, he wasn't met with the sight of his partner and the leaking moldy roof above, but rather grey... pure horizon stretching grey.
"Heheh..."
A soft chuckle as his hand let go of some wilted roses, he had gotten them hours ago for this exact moment but kept getting preoccupied, his feelings reeling back and snuffing them out with something to keep himself from feeling this weak, this heavy, this lost... he hadn't gone through worse but surely he would be tempered by it soon, hopefully without a doubt.
"I sure did crack you up Sam, didn't I?"
Max held the soft smile as he looked down, the greys above following down, his sight now met with stone instead of the grand skies above, as there he laid the one thing that made sense of all the messes they both had ever gotten into... his old partner Sam, resting peacefully down below unlike the final moments before he was gone.
Max was lost in thought for a moment before pulling on his tie to keep himself in check, a habit he had now developed as he had kept the one thing he could bear to carry everywhere in memorium of his partner, shaking his head as he tried his best to fix it, he was never any good with clothing of any kind as it was made with a crude knot, he would do so as he reached for the flowers below and arranged them in front of the headstone, standing back as he took all of it in.
"Just... wish I could've continued doing so... I hope I still do... somehow..."
Max was ever the resilient one as he still stood as he reflected on his life with Sam in the fraction of a second, his head going miles per hour but Sam slowed him down to inches, both then and now for completely different and unfortunate reasons. He pulled his tie again as he looked around, completely alone at this section of the cemetery, unsurprisingly for such rain, the droplets that fell on his face were cold, but the streaming that would ensue would rival it with heat as Max felt weak in his knees, instinctively reaching for something warm and fuzzy but only meeting cold wet stone as he weeped.
"I fucking hope so... Because it's all I'm doing it for at this point... Everything you did well I couldn't, and now I have to do both... And it's so damn hard! I'm not detective like you, I just knew when and how to punch, shoot and bite!"
The rain was persistent, the laugh he had that day as Max ran away from Sam in the rain as if they were playing tag, the laughs from both even if Sam was a little worried, Max's eyes closed as he ran, feeling the rain drops on his fur and the loud echoes of his own laugh, stifled in the present as they wilted into soft weeps, the rain sliding across his fur... his tie dangling, water running and dropping from it too.
...
A trail of damp water followed through the office, creating a stream directly into the open window as air and a few rogue drops fell in, or what little could make it past the shape of Max as he sat outside the window, his feet dangling off the ledge as he looked down, the streets were the same as ever, except with all the shenanigans of the Freelance Police, most had moved out as the rent kept being raised now that it was much more peaceful... He wasn't thinking of jumping as he wouldn't even feel a thing, he had fallen from much worse, and he really didn't want to go up those stairs again. Though if he could skip all of those troubles he would.
Instead, his body would go limp as he let himself fall backwards, his body thumping against the floor and looking up at the ceiling dejected, feeling the damp papers on his back as the entire office was littered with them.
Max has had a lot of work put on his back ever since that horrid day, he had taken on smaller cases most of the time to make ends meet, and while he couldn't handle the big cases quite as well on his own, he still tried every once in a while just out of habit to feel something, maybe even rekindle something that was once lost, but with every case he did, that "once" grew duller and duller, a statement as weak as the wet paper that easily ripped as Max moved to stand up with as much effort as he could currently muster.
He lifted a paw up to the desk, and propped himself up against it, his sight still looking down at the floor, stray looks of his catching a few words from all the cases he had to do solo, Max had never ever had the responsibility writing any of their cases, nevermind filing them (if such a concept existed for them), but with Sam gone it meant he had to learn all on his own by copying Sam's work, though sloppily as most cases would be lacking severely in description and Max dedicated most of the space to berate the perpetrators with lengthy vulgar explanations of how he pummeled them.
He dismissed them from his mind as he walked slowly towards nowhere in specific, maybe his desk to scratch it up some more? The file cabinet to get lost in his mind in a perfect world again? Retrieve something from the closet to reminisce with, again? Maybe check the hole in the wall, maybe to exit the office, maybe to retrieve loose darts, maybe to finally clean the damn place, maybe to-
"What the hell am I even doing...?"
Max would speak as he stood in the middle for the room, head hanging back heavily as his eyes looked nowhere towards the ceiling, feeling frustrated and so very tired in every possible aspect some would think impossible. His brow would furrow as he whipped his head down, his body running from a depressing cold to a frustrating heat in seconds as he clenched his fists.
"We were once ghosts Sam! We gave our past and future selves signs! Show me one! Just one! Anything... even if it's shooting me in the back of the head so I can JOIN YOU!"
His throat was scratched with that last statement as he drew rapid breaths as he walked desperate around the room. It was happening again, he was about to lose it again, he kept tugging at Sam's tie hanging from his neck again and again to try and recenter himself but he couldn't as he shouted in his mind in frustration, teeth clenched tight enough to cut right through kevlar, he needed to keep his mind away from those thoughts, away from the pain, away from what he had lost, away from the 1000 things he could've done to save him, they had both kept each other safe for so long and he went on to ruin it...
...he ruined it...
...HE ruined it...
...HE ruined everything, he ruined everyTHING, it was his fault, he was so self absorbed, he was way too careless, he was way too chaotic, he was way too stupid, too distracted, too kinetic, too violent, too... Everything! It was his fault, his fault, HIS FAULT HIS FAULT HIS FAULT HIS FAU-
"Hah...!"
A gasp as he snapped out of his own head, his heart beating in his chest ten fold as he stood there, his body was shaking, his breaths were fast and shallow, his head went blank as he could only think of his face, his Sam...
his... his lover... his crush... his partner... his friend... All the things Sam did he missed so dearly...
His damned soft smile he would always had when meeting his eyes...
His soft laugh when he would crack his jokes...
His mischievous grin when he got back to Max on a prank...
His angry look when someone threatened to hurt his little buddy...
His nervousness on Max's confession...
His blush on his first kiss...
His gasp... when Max wanted to marry and make it official...
...
"I did ruin it, didn't I...?"
Max looked down as his hand was already holding the Luger, he always had the instinct of pulling his gun out when he wanted to shoot something, gripping it tight already ready to fire before the sights were on something...
...but there was nothing in front of him, not a single thing that was worth destroying in this office, it all held deep value to him... except for one thing... one thing that kept on breaking and breaking, growing more dishevelled as time went on, fur matted, overgrown in some parts, permanent eye bags, and a poorly fixed tie...
"I'm... I'm sorry Sam I..."
His paw would move to grab his face as tears began falling.
"I just can't do it without you, it's impossible... it's been three years! but it's been so hard... Im sure if... if I had died... you would've done better... you always did things better..."
Max's hands shook as the Luger reached up, pointing to his head as he could feel the cold steel poking through his fur and feeling the bare skin of his head, letting a shaky exhale as he drew another breath, slowly.
"I... it's a lame way to go away but... the express line is always the quickest, right...? even if it's a lot more fun to kick and shove your way past the others..."
Max let out a soft chuckle at that one as he looked up towards the ceiling, blocking his view from the sky, opting to close them as he would then pull the trigger.
"I need to see yo-"
BANG!
...
...
...
The sound was defeaning, not out of place for the office, but beyond horrific for the circumstances if whoever on earshot was aware. The loud thunder of the Luger was followed by a soft thud to the floor as Max's body fell on it's side, his body going limp, laying there...
...
...
...
...for a few moments at least, as his arm would move up to feel his ear, a hard painful deep ringing was on it that would take a while to fade away completely if he hadn't completely ruined his ear... but most importantly... His hand reached beside his head and... it felt... dry... he moved his paw to being within his view and noticed not a tinge of red on it...
...
...did...
...did he really...?
"Did I... did I fucking miss...?"
Max stood up fast as he looked at his Luger, smoking, he looked to the floor, smoking casing, he looked to the walls and counted the bullet holes rapidly, the same amount as before, he looked to... nowhere? He was confused as he looked around to where the bullet had gone to, maybe out the window? He couldn't be that bad of a shot, right? He hadn't taken proper practice, but the experience on his job of reckless shooting surely was for something...
"Why... just... just... aaaaAAAHHH!"
He felt frustrated again by the sheer act of divine intervention that this was as he began throwing a tantrum, whipping his body and kicking at the junk and papers on the floor before throwing his Luger away in a rage, followed by his foot getting caught on the support of his desk as he fell flat on his face against the floor. As quick as it came, so did his attitude went away as a good thud to the head seemed to set him back in line. Max propped himself up as he turned around and quickly lifted himself back up.
"I can't do anything right! I don't care what divine intervention needs me on this planet! I want my Sam back!"
Max shouted as he rushed to look for the Luger all around the room, but not finding it to his dismay, his feet rushing and dragging and hopping all over the place to try and find it, but just like the bullet, there was no trace of it, not a one, he began wondering if he even heard it thud against the floor. He clenched his teeth, blood already boiling again as his one appropriate instrument of destruction was gone, ripped from him like everything that he needed in his life before... but before he could even yell obscenities like a sailor, his eyes caught something interesting ahead, in the middle of the office.
"Eh...?"
His eyes stared at seemingly nothing, but coming into focus he noticed a thin white crack floating in space, right in the spot where he had shot himself. Max stood still like a deer in headlights, his eyes were wide open and his mouth completely shut as he slowly approached it, he had seen his fair share of weird reality altering events in his time, but this was one he hadnt documented in that very short memory of his...
Despite all of the shortcomings, Max was still the same overconfident curious little fella that he always has been as his hand began reaching towards it... so many questions floating through his head, but currently he was only worried about the whereabouts of his beloved Luger, and maybe whatever this was had the answer to it... and while he thought for a short second, the crack acted for even a shorter amount of time as Max's entire hand was pulled inside it!
"Gah! L-Let me go! I just want my gun!"
His feet planted hard and his knees buckled as he pulled so very tight he might pull his shoulder, but the crack didn't budge as the rest of Max's arm was pulled.
"Ahh! N-No No NO!"
And with a last shout, as quick as it came was snuffed out as Max's entire body was pulled fast into the crack, dissapearing behind with Max... the office grew unusually quiet soon afterwards...