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Sam did a lot of things that Max didn't understand sometimes, like attempting to sing when God knows his voice was never built for that. Or wearing a full-ass suit when he could just as easily let his nethers fly like Max did and people would probably care about just as much as they did about Max being nude. Or why he insisted on trying to be polite to people when both of them knew he wasn't really one for small talk or idle pleasantries.
But the thing that really baffled Max about his best friend was how often the guy tended to mumble to himself. He used to think that Sam was just narrating his own memoirs to himself, but overhearing their future counterparts on that spaceship made him realize that the detective didn't even notice he was doing it half the time! Figures that Sam would be so aware of everything else going on around him, but so oblivious to whatever he was doing.
It would've been fine if Sam mumbled to himself a lot if it had some kind of comedic purpose to it, but he would just state the obvious to himself like, "It's the door to Sybil's closet," or "It's Stinky's zombie hand repellent spray." Who did Sam think he was? Max? He's the only one allowed to make incoherent ramblings in this duo, thank you very much! But the lagomorph had grown used to Sam's mumblings just like he had gotten used to the mind-numbing lull between cases sometimes. Which brought them to today.
Max was at his desk, scribbling away another beautiful masterpiece detailing the gory and bloody massacre of some two-bit crooks they'd taken out about an hour prior. Of course, he was exaggerating the actual amount of bloodshed as artistic interpretation. Sam, not too far away from him at his own desk, was writing up another Noir-esque report for the commissioner on his ol' reliable typewriter he preferred to use over a computer, caveman that he was.
Max was starting to get to drawing the second corpse's figure when his long ears picked up on Sam h'mming to himself.
"The typewriter's almost out of ink, but I'm feeling too lazy to look for another ribbon in my desk drawers right now," He mumbled. This led to Max's pondering - 'pondering?' God, Sam was rubbing off on him again - about his partner's unique habit.
When had he even first noticed Sam doing it? Had it been on one of their earlier cases, back in the 80s when they'd first taken up the Freelance Police name? Or maybe Sam had been doing it since they were kids. He'd always been a quiet doormat of a child, needing Max to look out for him because the poor fool was so nerdy. Nevermind that he was almost just as nerdy as Sam was at times, at least he knew how to bite the bullies back then.
Sam grumbled, breaking Max out of his quickly derailing thoughts like a train flying off the broken tracks leading straight off a cliff to the passengers' doom, "Darn. Well that lasted a little longer than I thought it would."
He looked over to Sam's desk to see his friend opening and closing drawers annoyedly. Max went back to his drawing with his trusty red crayon, which was looking a bit on the shorter side as of late. "Max, have you seen any of my ink ribbons lately?"
"Unless you mean in the typewriter just now or in a dark and stormy, Germanic castle a few years ago, then nope, can't say I have." He was carefully painting the printer paper canvas with his fountain of blood coming from the corpse's stomach from an expertly placed shot from Sam's revolver. The real Sam sighed and got up from his chair.
As Max kept drawing, he heard mumbles and grumbles of "nope" and "nuh-uh" coming from various locations in the office, in case Sam had somehow misplaced the ink on their old coat rack. Eventually, he spotted that old familiar suit out of the corner of his eye. The lagomorph looked up to see that 6-foot-tall dog man clasping his hands together in front of his stomach, like he did sometimes.
Sam glanced at the markers and crayons strewn about Max's desk with a thoughtful expression. "Seems Max needs some new crayons too. It's a shame they don't carry singular red ones that much."
The desk's owner grinned sharply back up, "Well, of course I need extra reds. How else am I supposed to depict our wonderfully hair-raising and death-defying cases in such an accurately gruesome fashion!"
"I thought I told you to stop reading those dictionaries." Sam furrowed his brows for a second and then softly smiled back down at Max. "Guess it looks like we're due for another trip to the office supply store then, little buddy."
As Max jumped out of his seat and over the children's desk, Sam grabbed their car keys from his pocket and started twirling them around his finger. "Do you think they still got those packs with the raspberry and blueberry flavors, Sam?"
The larger of the two swung the door open. They filed out their office and down the flight of stairs to the front door. "Possibly. You do realize that they don't actually taste like the fruits they're named after, right Max?"
Sam took his long strides and his small, furry companion hopped down the steps 2 at a time until they got to the sidewalk. "Well duh! Chewing on them helps me concentrate on thinking up new ways to maim perps so I can draw it later in full detail!"
The detective barked out a laugh as he hopped into their old Desoto Adventurer, his partner following suit on the other side. "You crack me up, little buddy!"
Max's thoughts on Sam's weird habits could wait for another day or two.