What? @thatonezombiecosplayer - Tumblr Blog

The question is, do you have it in you to make it epic?

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA | OFFICIAL TRAILER #1

Continuation of the ghost!Max AU

So apparently we were kind of breaking things with the ridiculous length of the old post. So. New post. Go here to read the fic from the beginning.

Furiosa is interrupted from her work by a knock on the door and a cheerful “Furiosaaa! We brought your favorite!”

Furiosa looks over her shoulder and starts to haul herself off the couch, but Max is already at the door and opens it slowly for her friends, being careful not to accidentally slam it into the wall. He had nearly broken the glass on the sliding back door a while ago when he opened it to throw the ball for Sue one day.

“Thanks, Max,” Dag says cheerfully as she strides inside.

The one Max is pretty sure was introduced to him as Cheedo steps in a little more timidly, her eyes wide. “I swear, that’s so creepy.” Max lets her close the door herself, if him doing it freaks her out so much. He does click the lock shut when she forgets to, though, which may not have been the least creepy thing he could have done, but he’s not about to leave the door unlocked with people who want to kill Furiosa somewhere out there.

Max then floats through the wall to occupy himself elsewhere as Dag unveils three wrapped fast food hamburgers with more flourish than it probably requires. Dag doesn’t seem to mind him lurking around so much anymore, but he knows Cheedo still gets a little freaked out when either Dag or Furiosa talks to him, so he figures he’ll just not provide the opportunity this evening.

He waits until he hears the front door close and the voices are gone, then waits a little longer, until he hears Furiosa shuffle off to bed before he comes out of hiding.

As much as he’d rather have Furiosa in his house than some other trespasser who he’ll probably like less, he keeps finding his mind wandering back to ways he might be able to scare or threaten her out of this house, if only for her own good. He’s pretty short on ideas that would actually work, though. He’d done some pretty awful stuff (intentionally or not) when she had first moved in, and she had certainly not been deterred then, so why would she be any more deterred now that she knows him? He sighs and settles in for yet another long night of nothing but his own thoughts.

Max had never really thought it was lucky that he doesn’t sleep anymore - mostly it’s boring as all hell being awake constantly, and he misses being able to dream, even if the dreams he used to have were bad sometimes - but this night he considers himself lucky.

He’s staring lazily at Sue asleep on her dog bed, feet and nose twitching as she dreams, when a quiet click and rattling catches his attention. It can’t be the cat, he always sleeps in Furiosa’s room these days. Max floats through a wall and toward the noise. He stops in the living room and stares at the front door as the handle jiggles.

Quickly Max goes to the front window and peers out toward the door, trying to see who’s there. Male. White. Twenties. Might be bald, but he can’t tell for the black cap over the guy’s head. Regardless, he looks like the same sort that had tried to break in previously, and Max doesn’t doubt the same sort that tried to crush Furiosa’s car with a truck.

The man moves around to the back door and Max is momentarily frozen in indecision. The deadbolt on the front door is pretty solid; the back door, not so much. Should he go wake up Furiosa, or stay to make sure this guy doesn’t get in?

The guy pries a knife in the door frame, pushing at the measly little latch that keeps the sliding door locked. Max watches the little lever slowly lift, and quickly smashes it back down. The guy grumbles quietly, unaware that that had been anything other than a sticky lock, and tries again. Max flips it closed when he nearly gets it open again.

Truthfully, Max could do this all night, but he figures the man will eventually give up on the door and try to find another way to get in. Probably a more destructive way. He doesn’t know if he can keep stopping him, but he does know that if Furiosa’s awake she can have a good shot at defending herself. He flips the lock closed one more time and rushes through the kitchen wall and straight into Furiosa’s room. He shakes the bed violently for a moment, earning a yowl of surprise from Frank and a string of curses from Furiosa, and then he grabs her service weapon off the night stand, drops it on the bed next to her, and flies back through the walls toward the back door.

He had honestly hoped the could mess with the man some more, keep him out just long enough for Furiosa to get out here and see him, maybe get an ID on him, but as Max comes through the kitchen wall, he sees the man already stepping inside and quietly closing the door behind him. The intruder moves straight toward the stove, where he cranks all four knobs, turning on the gas without letting the burners light, and Max’s eyes widen. Oh no. Nobody blows up his house, especially not with his friend and his dog inside.

He grabs the nearest object, a tea mug sitting next to the sink, and flings it at the intruder’s head. It misses by a few inches and smashes into the wall a good distance past the man, and Max goes for another. This one slams into the guy’s back a moment after he’s jumped and spun toward the sound of the previous mug smashing against the wall, and with a surprised grunt he spins around again to defend himself against his attacker, only to get a third mug right in the face. He stumbles back, dazed but not halted by the hit, and Max rushes forward, focusing only half his mind on making himself solid. He shoves the man back as he passes through him, gritting his teeth against the unpleasant sensation. Judging by the sound Moore’s lackey makes, it wasn’t any more pleasant for him, either.

The guy’s on the floor now at least, and Max goes for the nearest object again - the toaster, not that he’s particularly paying attention at the moment - and lifts it up into the air.

“Max, stop!”

Furiosa’s voice halts him instantly, toaster held high as he looks over to see her standing in the entrance to the kitchen, gun aimed at the man on the floor.

“What did I say about breaking my shit?”

v8roadworrier

the intruder- not any of joe’s goons that she knows, but it’s hard to be sure in the lightless kitchen- takes one look at the gun in her hand and cuts his losses, diving after the toaster slipping through the air to flee out of the newly-broken-open back door. furiosa fires anyway but the bullet lands out in the dark yard, missing by about a kilometer. apparently standing in lopsided discomfort has a way of messing with your aim, go figure.

“there more?” she asks the vague shadowy area that she thinks is max. the stove keeps hissing out gas until she twists the knobs back down with sharp flicks, glad that at least the shattered glass means the place will air out quickly enough. she doesn’t want to think about why it was turned on, about smothering and explosions, her luck in having the muzzle flash from her gun not spark anything off

max doesn’t respond, but the shadow’s bobbed its way out of the kitchen and she figures he’s going to check. she should check the rest of the house herself, she thinks, thumb resting on the safety to her gun but not flicking it back on just yet. she’d taken off the leg brace to sleep and hobbling her way down the short hallways is an ungraceful affair now that she doesn’t have the spike of pure adrenaline to fuel her. when she reaches the living room she stops and listens but can’t hear anything else in the house beyond the clinking of sue’s tags

“clear” max says from somewhere near the front door, voice no longer such a surprise to hear coming from thin air. not that it’s really thin air all the time these days, especially in the dark of night like it is now, where she could almost swear she actually does see the figure of a man standing in her living room as exactly as if he is really there

she waits a few beats to be sure, tense and straining for noise and movement, but agrees with his assessment, and flicks the safety before putting the gun down on the coffee table. she’s been healing, but the stress hasn’t done her any good and she leans herself against the back of the couch with a groan next, wishing she could just go back to bed

“did you break the kettle?” she asks max’s general direction, the image of her poor toaster flying through the glass door even after she’d told him to stop flashing through her mind again. she would wonder if he’d done it on purpose except that she’s pretty sure they’ve passed that particular stage of their relationship for good a while ago

in answer she catches a glimpse of shadowed movement, and then hears from the kitchen the plastic click of the kettle turning on. one piece of good news, then, and she starts levering herself up to get to her phone so she can deal with this before someone gets over-dramatic about hearing a gunshot in their quiet neighborhood

-

max watches the strangers with trepidation

they’re not local cops but part of the same agency-department-whatever furiosa works at, he’s pretty sure, and while they’re people she’s invited into the house they’re not people he’s invited in, not people he knows or likes or, considering how they allowed furiosa to be left alone with just him as backup, not people he particularly trusts

it’s probably for the best that none of them seem to take any notice of him, but their chatter doesn’t tell him anything useful as they go over entry points and footprints and whether they should bother asking the neighbors anything

“oh geeze,” the woman of the pair says, jarring enough that max thinks it was unintentional. “furiosa, what’s all this?”

when he focuses his attention on her, the woman’s holding onto a thick stack of printed pages with a sour expression

furiosa shifts in place in a way max knows means she’s uncomfortable and defensive, and he leans in to get a look at what the papers are- just research for the case, he’s pretty sure

the woman sighs. “i know they haven’t replaced your laptop yet so what, you’re accessing classified reports on some civvie terminal? and printing them out? do i even have to say it?” she wags the papers in her hands pointedly and max has to resist the urge to slap them away from her on principle

“looking at paper saves me a headache,” furiosa says, which is probably a better lie than the truth, that she’s printing stuff out so he can read it without frying any delicate electronics

“you shouldn’t be looking at it at all!” she says. scraps of paper puff out of the stack when she slams it onto the kitchen table, and max surreptitiously nudges away what ones he can because he’s pretty sure this woman isn’t going to leave them here give the chance

“it’s my case,” furiosa nearly snarls, her tense body suddenly looming over the shorter woman as she steps in close

but the woman isn’t intimidated, and glares right back. “not anymore and you know it,” she says. “you’re on leave for a while yet and after tonight i’d be surprised if they don’t kick you off this for good”

furiosa takes a breath, and he watches her phantom hand twitch and contort before she deflates. when they’re alone again- assuming they get to be alone, that she isn’t assigned a guard who’ll notice her talking to the air and haul her off to a shrink- max almost thinks he might reach out to commiserate with her about being thrown off cases when it’s the last thing you want

awake and grumpy, sue finally decides she’s had enough of the commotion inside the house and makes for the back door, despite the area still being strewn with glass and ceramic shards. max can’t risk picking her up to carry her outside nor does he want to grab a broom and try to clean up right now, not with strangers wandering around still, so he instead crouches down and herds her away from the kitchen as best he can, eventually shutting her up in the bathroom so she doesn’t get out. when he returns the papers have been bundled up under the woman’s arm and she and her partner seem to be leaving, finally

when they’re gone furiosa lets out a long sigh, and max tries to grab for the broom so he can clear a path for sue. it slips off its hook obligingly enough but then falls down, and his hands seem to keep slipping through it so it clatters against the floor

“i get it,” she says irritably. “i need to clean up”

max grunts; he’s not trying to make her do things, he’s trying to be helpful. his fingers finally close around the handle of the broom correctly enough to hold on, and he makes a show of starting to sweep up the bits of glass that have been tracked this far into the kitchen

“oh,” she says in a softer tone, and then yawns. “i’m going back to bed, then”

he hums in reply, not that it matters whether she can hear or not, and focuses on his task while the sun rises

thatonezombiecosplayer

Furiosa has never been one to sleep in long, and now is not an exception to that rule, even with the lost sleep from last night’s events. She looks tired and grumpy when she finally limps out of her room that morning and into the kitchen. She starts the kettle for tea, and grabs two slices of bread and hobbles over to where the toaster normally sits before she remembers that the appliance is currently laying out in the back yard. She heaves a heavy sigh, and Max wonders if perhaps it would be best for him to go hide in the basement for a while.

He had finished cleaning up the glass shards in the house last night, and had even attempted to retrieve the toaster, wondering if the broken glass door might have somehow opened up a gap for him to get out. He could be of so much more help to Furiosa if he weren’t stuck in this house all the time.

It turned out that breaking the continuity of the house was not the loophole he had hoped it would be, and his hand met the same resistance it always did when he tried to leave. He couldn’t even retrieve the damn toaster he had inadvertently thrown, and in fact ended up losing the broom to the outside as well. In an effort to give Sue a fully clear path to go outside without cutting her paws, he had reached the broom outside as best he could and swept the glass out there aside, but in the process he had lost his grip on it, and it had fallen out of his reach. With a grumble he had given up and gone to let Sue out of the bathroom.

Furiosa is staring tiredly out the door and into the yard at the toaster and broom. Max takes the two discarded pieces of bread and puts them back in the bread bag. He’s betting he fried the toaster in the process of using it as a weapon, which means there would be no toast for Furiosa today. He considers making it up to her by making scrambled eggs (he remembers he used to be pretty good at it), but decides against it in the end. It would probably just result in raw egg everywhere, and he figures he’s done enough damage already.

Instead, he settles for preparing her usual tea as she makes her way outside to retrieve the broom and toaster. She tosses the broom just inside the door before she picks up the toaster and comes back in, inspecting it with a grim expression. Max grabs the broom and hangs it back on its hook, then offers her the mug of tea.

“Sorry,” he grunts quietly.

“It’s replaceable,” she answers tiredly, and follows it up with a quiet “thanks,” as she puts the toaster down and reaches for the mug. Her living hand brushes his incorporeal one as she does, and they both jerk back in surprise. He’s gotten better at not causing unpleasant sensations when he intentionally touches Furiosa or when Sue touches her nose to him, but apparently that still takes conscious effort.

Tea sloshes out of the cup and onto the floor, thankfully splashing through Max’s legs and feet rather than onto Furiosa’s, and Max mumbles another “sorry,” before putting the mug down and going for some paper towels to clean up the mess. The paper towel roll slips off of its holder and tumbles onto the floor, unrolling far more paper towel than he needed, and Max grunts in frustration.

“It’s okay,” she says. “You’ve helped a lot already. I can get that later.” She picks up the tea mug he had set down and moves over to the table. Max quietly focuses his attention on finishing what he started anyway, tearing off the unrolled length of paper towel and wadding it up to mop up the spill. When he’s done, he floats past her toward the other side of the kitchen, but stops when he notices her eyes following him. He backs up a bit. Her eyes follow him backward, and then she glances away suddenly and focuses on her tea, as if being caught staring at a ghost is a social faux pas.

She’s gotten better lately at figuring out where he is and he thinks sometimes that she can at least sense his movement, but he’s never noticed any signs before that she can actually see him. He takes an unnecessary breath to ask, wondering if she’s actually seeing him now or just following whatever keys her off to his movement, but she opens her mouth at the same time.

“Sometimes you’re an asshole, but… I’m glad you’re here.” She glances toward him again briefly as he stands silently, unable to think of a response. “He could have killed me,” she continues. “But… I feel safe here.”

Max doesn’t think too hard about the fact that he’s the reason she feels safe. He doesn’t think either about the glow of warmth he thinks he’s feeling somewhere around where his chest should be. Both of those lead to far more attachment than he thinks a dead man warrants, and instead he simply grunts quietly and continues his trip across the kitchen. There’s still a broken piece of tea mug sitting against the far wall that he had missed cleaning up.

He glances at her again on his way back to the trash can with the mug shard, and he can tell that she’s actively smothering a tired smile.

—

The brunt of that day’s events involve men coming over to replace the broken back door and Capable bringing over the new toaster that Furiosa had asked her to pick up, and then Furiosa settles into a doldrum of boredom and agitation. He doesn’t know if she’s been officially kicked off her case or not, but the papers she had printed out are gone, and she makes no move to replace them. She has the TV running in the background, the volume low, and they both sit idly by, only half paying attention to it as the day drags on. Ironically, the present show is some cop drama, the details of which Max isn’t really following.

“I told them about that lead,” Furiosa says suddenly. “Don’t know if they’ll do anything about it, but it’s not like I can.” She sighs. “If they can find anything sketchy about those warehouses, maybe they can get somewhere.”

“You got a good ID on the intruder,” Max supplies.

“With me stuck here, that only does any good if they catch him again for something.”

Max grunts. “Still. Could help.”

They settle into a silence, and Max fidgets a little. “Got kicked off a case once,” he finally admits, and he suddenly has Furiosa’s full attention. “Got too involved. The suspects had it out for me too.” He knows that if Dag were here he would immediately be asked if that was how he died, but he’s glad Furiosa doesn’t push like that.

“It got solved anyway,” he says with a shrug he knows she probably can’t see. “It was frustrating, but things were bad then too. They probably would have got me if I had kept at it.” He’s struck by how silly it feels to talk about his life being saved when he’s dead now anyway, but at least he had gotten a little more time to live.

He doesn’t know if that was any kind of reassuring, but when he looks over at Furiosa, she has a sympathetic look on her face.

“You’re right,” she says with a sigh, then a little smile creeps across her face. “At least here I have a bodyguard to help me keep an eye out.”

Max huffs a little, but he’s smiling too. “If you died, I’d have to put up with someone even more annoying moving into my house.”

“Asshole.”

Max grins.

v8roadworrier

capable, cheedo, and dag visit the day after the break-in, bearing junk food and some cheesy movie that they insist will make her feel better

furiosa relents and lets them put it on, though she smugly takes over the entire couch to ensure her braced leg is propped up comfortably

max is a dark shimmer of air in the corner of the room, like a shadow that doesn’t quite belong. if she looks out of the corner of her eye, she can sometimes see the actual shape of him, the details of his clothes and expressions. once this would have been startling, would have made her go on alert, but now she finds his presence comforting. he doesn’t sleep, he’s said, and so she knows there’s always someone looking out for her and the animals

frank curls up on her lap and stubbornly refuses to purr, but his warm weight is another form of comfort

midway through the movie, her phone rings, discordant against the quiet chatter as the girls talk about something inconsequential. furiosa sighs, and starts to lever herself up to fetch it- max can’t touch it without frying it, after all

“i’ll get it,” cheedo says, and furiosa feels a hint of embarrassment. she’d forgotten that just because max couldn’t touch her electronics, didn’t mean that no one else could

the phone’s stopped ringing by the time cheedo returns with it, giving the corner max is lurking in a wide berth. furiosa thanks her and brings up the call log, stomach tightening into a knot when she sees it’s the office

“i should call them back,” she says, and capable nods, pausing the movie as if she’s actually paying any attention to it

toast picks up after the second ring. “furiosa, good,” she says. “how are you feeling?”

“fine,” furiosa replies, knowing that toast wouldn’t call her during office hours for something as unimportant as a check-up. “what’s going on?”

“we have some new information,” toast says, “long and short of it is, we need to put you up in a hotel for a few days”

furiosa’s eyebrows raise in surprise, her eyes flickering around the living room on instinct. nothing looks amiss, not that she expected differently. “why?”

“i can’t give details, of course,” toast says, and there’s the sound of a keyboard clacking, “but we have reason to suspect that moore’s goons are going to try and get to you again”

“they’re putting too much effort into this,” furiosa says with a harsh exhale. sure, she’s the one who broke open the case, but it’s out of her hands now. what do they gain from keeping to try and kill her?

“maybe,” toast says, “or maybe we don’t have all the facts yet. we’ve got a pretty good tip-off, though, so you’re being placed in protective custody for a few days while we get this sorted”

“what about my animals?” furiosa says, left arm stroking down frank’s furry spine. the girls are watching her with interest, but they’re not interrupting with questions

toast sighs. “we can get a pet-friendly hotel, i guess,” she says. “get to packing, we’re sending a car by in an hour”

there’s a lot furiosa would like to ask, but she knows that toast won’t be able to give her answers. now that she’s had her case access revoked she’s in the dark completely until things are settled, and it’s hard to swallow

“okay,” she says. toast says her goodbyes and hangs up, leaving furiosa to stare at the phone before lifting her eyes to the other occupants in the room

“sorry,” she says, “we’re going to have to finish this another time”

“what? why?” capable asks

“i can’t say,” furiosa says, “but i’ll be gone for a few days”

the shadow that is her resident ghost wavers in the air, but he doesn’t speak. not until after the girls are gone, anyway, and furiosa is starting to hobble her way to her bedroom to pack up

“what’s going on?” he asks, voice materializing out of the air at the threshold of her door

furiosa flicks her eyes towards him, but the shadow of his presence is gone. “they want me in protective custody for a few days,” she says. “they’re worried something’s gonna happen”

max hums. “sue and frank?”

“coming with me,” she says. “i’d leave them with you, but if they do something to the house…”

“no,” he says, “makes sense”

there’s silence as she stuffs a few changes of clothes into her worn duffle, and then he clears his throat and says, “are you coming back?”

that makes her pause, and she straightens back up so she can look directly at where she’s pretty sure he’s standing. floating. whatever. “yes,” she says simply, with conviction. this place is hers now, or maybe theirs, and either way she isn’t going to be driven out by some cut-rate thugs

there’s a gust of air like a sigh, then max says, “i’ll do what i can”

it shouldn’t be comforting, to hear that a ghost is going to be keeping an eye on the place while she’s gone. but max isn’t just some nebulous idea of a horror movie ghost anymore- he’s a person, a friend. even if he’s still an asshole on occasion.

“thanks,” furiosa says

thatonezombiecosplayer

For years Max had dreamed of having the house to himself. And it used to be he enjoyed the times between tenants, after he had scared one out and before they managed to sell the house to another.

But now? Now he finds that being alone is actually… not what he wants.

He had gotten so used to Furiosa’s company, had even started really adjusting to the fact that she had no intention of leaving despite him being there, and that was actually not horrible.

It surprises him, to be honest. He had spent so long resenting the living for coming into his space, that the idea of wanting one here feels strange, despite his willingness to admit it to himself.

He keeps himself occupied for a little while thinking about this, about what things could be like if Furiosa stays long-term, and what that means for him. It kind of feels like he could have a chance to almost, almost live again. At least he could pretend, as much as he can. Having someone around who can usually hear him, sometimes sort of see him, and yet doesn’t treat him like that’s all horrible and he shouldn’t be here does remind him of what it was like to be alive. His body may never feel alive again, but with Furiosa’s help, maybe his mind can.

With nobody around, there’s no need to hide in the basement, or up in the rafters of the attic like he usually does when he wants to give Furiosa and her friends some privacy, or just wants to think to himself without distraction. He figures he should stay on the main floor of the house anyway, and keep an eye out for anybody who might come and mess with it.

He roams about, checking windows, making sure things are secure. He floats by the front window and watches carefully for anything suspicious.

He kind of wishes Furiosa had left the TV on for him, but figures maybe it’s better that she didn’t. He might not be able to hear someone trying to break in over the noise of it.

By the second day, he takes to cleaning up the house. In lieu of taking care of Sue, he figures he might as well do something helpful while he waits.

By the third day, he has straightened and tidied just about everything he can find that he figures Furiosa won’t mind that he touches.

By the fourth day, he’s really starting to wonder how he used to do it. How did he spend hours and even days completely alone? How did the silence and the emptiness not drive him crazy?

By the fifth day, he’s getting truly antsy. He’s been keeping an eye outside, waiting for somebody to come and try something, but he hasn’t seen a single soul approach the house, other than postal workers. He wonders if he should have been watching more carefully instead of cleaning up the last few days. Maybe he missed something. Maybe they did something when he wasn’t paying attention.

He flicks a few lights on and off again to check that the electricity is still working. He briefly turns on one of the burners on the stove to make sure the gas line hasn’t been tampered with. And after that, there’s not a lot he can think of to test to make sure the house is safe before Furiosa comes back. He wishes he could go outside to check the perimeter. Instead, he settles by the front window again, and watches cars and people go by, none of them even stopping to look his way.

—

Furiosa’s stay in the hotel is nice enough, if a little boring. Frank is agitated at being in a new place. Sue, as usual, is pretty chill in general, though even after they’ve settled in, she spends some time occasionally wandering around the small area, as if looking for something.

Furiosa keeps the privacy tag outside her door. Part of protective custody means having someone with her if she wants to go anywhere, and that’s annoying more than anything else, so she opts for just staying in, only going as far as the lawn outside when Sue needs to go out.

She watches TV, scrolls through pages on her computer, and tries to give Sue some attention now and then to distract her from just wandering around.

It’s not too different from what she was doing when she was stuck at home, but it feels lonelier. She hadn’t really realized how much she had gotten used to having another person around, always having someone to talk to if she wanted to. Or at least having someone around when he wasn’t busy moping somewhere out of sight.

Moving into a house that had a ghost had never even been something she would have considered as a possibility before, but now that she has, she’s become kind of fond of her dead companion. The last few days have solidified that. The quiet and the loneliness have only made it more clear that really, she does like having him around.

It’s a comforting bonus that he’s willing to keep her - their - house safe, and at least she can relax a bit while she’s here knowing it’s all in good hands. She likes that house and decided a while ago that she didn’t want to move, but she realizes now that Max is as much a part of that decision, if not more, than the house itself.

She doesn’t hear a word from anyone about the case, which she has come to expect, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. She doesn’t hear anything about if anybody’s made an attempt on her home, either, and she just tries to take that to mean that everything on that front is fine.

It has been nearly a week and she thinks she’s going to go crazy with boredom, when her phone rings. She glances at the caller ID, and she snatches the phone up.

“Toast,” she says quickly in greeting, and then immediately tries to tone it down and not sound as desperate for news as she is. “What’s going on?”

“Case is closed,” Toast says simply. “You can go home now. I’ll send someone to pick you up within an hour.”

“Don’t suppose you can tell me how it went,” Furiosa cuts in before Toast gets a chance to end the call.

Toast hesitates, and Furiosa expects she’s going to stand her ground on Furiosa still being off the case, even though it’s done and closed. She hears a small sigh before Toast finally decides to speak. “The same source that tipped us off to another threat coming your way came through with another tip. That combined with the warehouses you suggested was the key. We have Moore in custody, along with a number of his people.”

Furiosa lets out her breath. It’s not as much as she’d like to know, but it’s more than she was actually expecting to get, so she’ll take it.

“Pack your stuff, we’ll send someone soon.” With that, Toast hangs up.

thatonezombiecosplayer

She can’t help but do a quick visual scan of her house as she approaches it. Toast said that Moore and some of his people are in custody, but she’s still just suspicious enough that she’s not going to trust that there’s not still someone out there with a grudge.

The house looks exactly as she left it. No damage that she can see, nothing out of place, no sign of a break-in.

The officer who had picked her up from the hotel, a relative newbie who she hadn’t really worked with much before her injury, seems relaxed enough about the situation. He helps her carry Frank’s carrier from the car and leaves it on the porch as she limps toward the house with her duffel in one hand and Sue’s leash in the other. He asks if she needs anything else, and she tells him no because she can tell the question was more an obligation than any real interest in helping further. He probably has better things he thinks he could be doing than driving her around.

Furiosa glances over her shoulder as he gets back in his patrol car and pulls away from the curb, and then she goes digging for her keys. Sue whines hopefully, tail wagging and nose in the corner of the door. If Frank cares that they’re home, she can’t tell.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Furiosa says to Sue as she gets the key in the door and unlocks it. Sue noses her way in as Furiosa pushes the door open, and Furiosa follows behind her, tossing her duffel carelessly on the floor inside and dropping Sue’s leash rather than dragging the dog back to take it off. She glances around the room, happy to be back home again and taking in the tidiness of the space. But then her eyes catch something that is definitely not supposed to be here, and she freezes for a brief second.

There’s someone standing in her kitchen, his back to her, and Furiosa reaches for her service weapon where she still has it strapped to her leg brace. She clicks the safety off and levels it at the intruder in one quick motion.

“What are you doing in my house?” She says dangerously.

The man also freezes for a moment, then turns toward her, a look of surprise on his own face. He looks at the gun, glances behind him as if to make sure there’s not somebody else in the room she could be aiming at, and then looks slowly back at her.

And then, even more surprising than the fact that he’s simply standing in her kitchen, he sort of… fades. The sharp outline of him blurs for a second, his form darkens, and the counter behind him becomes visible through him. It happens a couple times in a few seconds, and then he’s back to being as solid as a person normally should be. Furiosa immediately lowers the gun.

“...Max?”

She’d seen the vaguely human-shaped shadow of him before, but was never really able to make out much in the way of features, at least not while looking directly at him. He sometimes seemed more visible out of the corner of her eye, but always faded away when she looked toward him. But now he looks real and solid enough that she had mistaken him for a living person.

His appearance isn’t a complete surprise to her, having caught sort-of glimpses of him before, but being able to see him this clearly is still surprising. And a little odd, she realizes, to be only now seeing the face of someone she’s gotten so familiar with. Dag’s past assessment of him as both cute and scruffy flits through Furiosa’s head, and she can’t disagree.

He still looks surprised, and takes a slow step toward her. “Can you… see me?”

The familiar voice coming from the man’s mouth confirms it for Furiosa. That’s definitely Max.

“Yeah,” she answers. “You look… alive.”

Max looks down at his hands. She doesn’t know what they normally look like to him, or if he looks any different to himself now than he usually does, and the crumple of his brow when he looks back up at her doesn’t actually answer any questions. “Pretty sure ‘m still dead,” he answers.

Furiosa doesn’t want to look away, as if he’ll disappear again if she does, but standing here staring at him seems to be making him a little uncomfortable. She glances down long enough to reholster the gun still in her hand, and is relieved to find him still there when she looks back up. He sounds real, he looks real, and she knows he can feel real too, and part of her just wants to confirm to herself that he really is there. She steps toward him as her right hand moves to deftly unstrap her prosthetic arm. She deposits it on the couch on her way past, and reaches carefully toward him with her left arm as she steps up in front of him.

Her hand feels tight with the phantom cramps that seem to always want to take it over these days, but not so tight that she can’t make it open, and she brings it up but stops with her fingers several inches from his face. “Can I…?”

Max barely moves, but his eyes dart over to where her hand would be as she holds it motionless in front of him. His expression is hard to read, but he gives a faint nod. She slowly reaches the rest of the way to him, unable to see her own arm, but she can definitely feel when her fingertips meet his cheek. It’s the same as when he massaged the tension out of her phantom arm: warm and real and alive. Max takes an audible breath, and she can feel muscles move beneath her hand, can feel the prickle of days-old stubble, and the faint vibration that comes with the little sound he makes as she slides her palm against his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch, his entire body language relaxing, and Furiosa has to wonder when was the last time he felt anything like this. But she won’t ask. It’s not for her to know. Right now she knows that she can see him and feel him, and it doen’t matter if he’s alive or dead, because he’s here.

“It’s good to see you, Max.”

#happy halloween have end of the ghost fic finally #mad max fury road #furiosa #max rockatansy #ghost!max #fic #my fic #long post

pressure-machine

Mad Max: Fury Road // Back From The Dead Halestorm

thatonezombiecosplayer

Yaaaas

#speaking of back from the dead #hi #I just needed to reblog this #mad max fury road #Furiosa

war-rig-ace

Happy Mad Maxiversary

Ride eternal, shiny and chrome, fellow wastelanders.

war-rig-ace

Mad Max: Fury Road was released in US theaters 4 years ago today.

#mad max fury road #4 years!!!

angrymagazinejellyfish

And Slit, just loungin’.

#mad max fury road #slit #dragon

keybladesoras

A CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE!

#venom #venom 2018 #eddie brock #anne weying #dan lewis

ankle-beez

holy shit they did it

#venom #venom 2018 #eddie brock #anne weying #trailer

batwynn

Trash pandas, the both of them.

#venom #venom 2018 #eddie brock

andvasart

Tired™️

inspired by this post, i had to

#venom #venom 2018 #eddie brock

codepami

!?

#venom #venom 2018