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Good Cop hummed happily as he picked up a box of sugary cereal and dropped it into his basket. Bad Cop scowled a moment later and put it back.
“No,” he thought, grabbing a box of wheat flakes.
“We can’t indulge even a bit?” his other self asked, too innocently to be without an ulterior motive.
“Sugar frosted chocolate corn puffs with marshmallow pieces is more than indulging.”
“Well, at least let’s get fruit to put in the cereal.” Good Cop smiled and waltzed down to the produce section, slowing down by the wall of specialty food next to all the fresh fruit. He quickly grabbed a bag and dropped it into his basket before Bad Cop took over and picked it up again.
“Freeze-dried strawberries?” he asked, pulling a face. His eyes darted to the side to make sure no one was watching and then set the bag with the rest of his groceries. “I think this is everything.”
Grocery shopping would be a lot easier without the constant indecision when trying new things, but luckily he had been doing this long enough to have specific items he always got whenever he needed them, and very rarely did he decide to buy something new. As he scanned the strawberries over the self-checkout scanner, he rolled his eyes at the humming he heard from the back of his mind.
Then he heard humming that wasn’t from his own mind, yet familiar enough. He glanced over his shoulder to see a familiar man in a blue spacesuit floating up to one of the machines. He quickly turned away, and Good Cop grimaced at the ship wreck about to unfold.
“Welcome. Please scan your first item.”
“I’m trying!”
“Please scan your…” Beep, beep. “Please place item in bagging area.”
“No, no, it scanned twice! Cancel…” Beep.
“Please scan your first item.” Beep. “Please place item in bagging area.” Rustle. “Please place item in bagging area.”
“But I just did!”
“Please place item in bagging area.”
“It’s already in there! Look!” Rustle, rustle.
“Unexpected item in bagging area.”
“WHAT.”
“Please ask for assistance.”
“No- I- Whyyy?”
“Spaceman!” Bad Cop barked, stepping away from his unpaid items to go up to Benny.
Benny looked at him and grinned nervously. “Oh, hi! I- I wasn’t about to tear apart the stupid machine, no, you don’t need to arrest me or anything.”
Bad Cop rolled his eyes from behind his shades and tapped a few buttons on the screen. Without looking, he then grabbed the single item Benny intended to buy, followed by grabbing Benny by the elbow and pulling him like a balloon across the lane back to his self-serve checkout.
“I… I can do it myself,” Benny huffed up indignantly, reaching for his item.
Bad Cop frowned at him, effectively shutting Benny down and leaving the spaceman to pout. When Bad Cop scanned the item, he blinked down at it.
“Dental floss?” Good Cop asked as he handed the floss packet to Benny.
Benny stared at it, horrified, and then pointed wordlessly at the checkout he tried to use and then at the Cops’ bags of groceries and finally let out an undignified whimper. “Why didn’t it…?”
“It just takes some getting used to,” Good Cop assured, pulling out his wallet to pay before Benny threw a fit. “So, you’re taking my advice about flossing?”
“Uh... Yeah!” Benny gave a toothy grin and pointed proudly. “See? No cherry stems or anything.”
“I thought you couldn’t floss with your gloves on,” Bad Cop argued. He put his wallet away and grabbed his bags.
Shaking his head and chuckling, Benny beamed up at Bad Cop as he took some of the bags as well. “Don’t be silly. I take off my suit at home. I can’t wear it all the time.”
“Oh…” Bad Cop stared a moment, totally not trying to imagine what Benny looked like under that bulky suit.
“You’re imagining it,” his other self thought.
“Quiet!”
Good Cop smiled at Benny. “You don’t need to help carry my groceries if you don’t want to.”
“But I want to,” Benny assured. “Besides, you helped me out, so it’s only fair.”
“We better get going then. Some of these will spoil.” Good Cop led the way out, and Benny followed behind him diligently.
He blinked in surprise when he heard the automatic door close so soon and turned just in time to see Benny crash into it. Benny dropped to the ground, blinking in a daze, and waddled out as soon as the door opened again. He shook his head and smiled at Good Cop.
Benny knocked on his helmet. “Took most of the blow.”
Bad Cop frowned. “Right… Let’s just go.”
“Weight sensors, right?” Benny laughed. “They should get motion sensors. What if this were a weightless environment? Like in space! Then no one would be able to get through any doors ever.”
“Hmm.” Bad Cop stopped at a car and juggled with his keys to unlock and open the trunk.
“Wait, wait, this is your car?” Benny asked squinting at it.
“Yeah?” Bad Cop asked, taking Benny’s bags.
“But it’s not a cop car!” Benny began jumping around the car to inspect it. “It doesn’t have sirens or flashy red and blue lights. It’s not even black and white like you wear!”
“I can’t just use a cop car to go to a grocery store,” Bad Cop grunted. He pulled Benny off of the roof of the car and set him down beside him.
“But you’re a cop!” Benny argued. “A cop without a cop car is like Batman without a Bat-everything or… Or me without a spaceship!”
“I have a cop car; I just don’t use it to go to a stupid grocery store.” Bad Cop slammed the trunk door down and then turned to face Benny again. “Wait, you’re not saying you took a spaceship to the store, are you?”
“Nooo…?” Benny glanced around too innocently not to be lying. “Well, not after last time. Parking lots are smaller than I thought.”
“Then how did you get here?” Good Cop asked.
“From down the street,” Benny shrugged. “Just a mile or two.”
“A mile?” Bad Cop pulled a face. “You walked a mile? In that suit?” He realized that Benny was taller than when he had just set him down and noticed the spaceman’s feet hovering a few inches above the ground. “Oh, right, that must make it easier.”
“What does?” Benny pulled his own face, contorting it into confusion.
“Nothing.” Bad Cop opened the passenger door and motioned into it. “Get in. I’m giving you a ride home.”
Benny shook his head. “No, it’s fine, I can walk home on my own. But I…”
“Shut up and get in the car,” Bad Cop interrupted, pointing into the vehicle.
Benny shrugged and floated in, pulling the door shut behind him. Bad Cop got into the driver’s side and then leaned over Benny to make sure he had his seat belt on.
“I know how to put seat belts on,” Benny told him, rolling his eyes. “You don’t think we have safety regulations about this kind of thing going into space?”
“Do safety regulations include something about cracked helmets without visors?” Bad Cop retorted, pulling on his own seat belt. He started the car and pulled out of his space. “Left or right?” he asked.
After a moment of silence, Bad Cop glanced at Benny only to see him frowning pensively. “Benny. Spaceman. Left or right?”
Benny blinked back to reality and grinned, as if nothing was wrong. “Oh, uh… Left and go straight. It’ll be that house on the hill.”
Bad Cop drove silently for the next few minutes and only glanced at Benny again at the next stop light. The pensive look was gone, but the spaceman seemed nonetheless focused on something. “What are you thinking about?”
“What?” Benny looked up at Bad Cop, blinking. “I’m not thinking about anything.”
“You’re lying.”
Shrugging, Benny looked out straight ahead again. “Well, not anything important, anyway.”
“You should ask him,” Bad Cop told his other self. “You might get something out of him.”
“He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“Then make him talk about it.”
“You know the light’s been green for about half a minute?” Benny asked.
“Darn it!” Bad Cop hit the gas pedal and they quickly accelerated.
Benny just laughed, and Bad Cop rolled his eyes at him.
“You said it’s the house on a hill, right?” Bad Cop asked.
“Yeah?”
“The closest one is four miles away. You walked four miles to the store.”
“Oh?” Benny grinned. “I didn’t even notice. Guess that means I’m fit!”
Bad Cop refused to look at Benny while he was flexing his arms right next to him. He just tightened his grip on the wheel and kept straight on the road until the hill and Benny’s home came into sight. “Wait… That’s your house?”
“Yeah?” Benny asked. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“That’s not a home,” Bad Cop argued. “That’s a moon base!”
Benny smirked and nodded. “What other kind of home do you think I’d build? It’s blue too! My favorite color.”
“Right… Uh…” He just wouldn’t comment on it. What else could he say? He pulled up in front and stopped the car. “Alright, get out.”
“Well,” Benny unbuckled and opened the door. “Okay, but…”
“No buts!” Bad Cop ordered. “Just get out!” Good Cop smiled at Benny and nodded. “We have to get our perishables home. Bye, Benny.”
“Bye…?” Benny waved from his place outside the car, though he looked unsure.
Bad Cop unbuckled to pull the door shut and then rolled down the window. “By the way. Next time you need to go that far somewhere, get a ride.”
Soon he was driving away, and he looked in the rear view mirror to see Benny just shrug and head inside his home.
Later that evening, Bad Cop crunched another bite of his cereal as he watched the cop drama play out on the TV in front of him. The milk hadn’t yet softened the cereal pieces, and so his chewing echoed in his ears, drowning out whatever conversation the attractive cop and his attractive partner were having, but the first few minutes of “Throw the Brick at Him” always had something irrelevant to the plot in the beginning before the crime of the week revealed itself.
The curtains drawn and the lights out, the glow of the television illuminated the calm evening, and Bad Cop set his spoon into his bowl, and Good Cop quickly took over to drink the leftover milk. He reached for the remote to pause the episode and then stood up to go into the kitchen. On the way, he slowed, noticing a light seeping out from under the door. Bad Cop frowned, knowing how he didn’t waste electricity like that, and he slowly approached the kitchen door and then threw it open with his free hand, holding the bowl and spoon out, ready to use them as a weapon if need be.
“Oh, hi!” Benny chimed from his place at the kitchen table, rustling through the grocery bags from earlier.
Bad Cop silently stared, his face contorted in disgust, but he quickly recovered his indignation. “What the HECK are you DOING here?”
“I dropped my floss into one of your bags,” Benny explained, moving to go through the next one before Bad Cop went over and waved his hands away. “You didn’t let me explain before you drove off, so I figured I’d wait until you put away the things that would spoil before coming down here to get it. But you were busy watching TV so I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You need to stop that,” Bad Cop grunted. “You can’t keep showing up in my house unannounced.”
“Oh…” Benny frowned for a moment but grinned soon after. “So if I let you know I came in, would it be fine?”
“I… Ugh, forget it.” Bad Cop found the offending floss and shoved it into Benny’s hands. “There. Is that all you wanted?”
“Well, sure, I… OMIGOSH.” Benny smile took up half his face and he stared at Bad Cop in what seemed liked adoration. “You got the freeze-dried strawberries!”
Bad Cop whipped his head towards the strawberries on the counter and struggled on how to answer. Good Cop recovered for him with a smile and put the bowl and spoon into the sink before grabbing the strawberries and holding them out. “Would you like some?” he asked. “You can sit and watch the television with us. It’s already late, so you might as well spend the night instead of walking all the way home.”
“Oh, come on, I know for sure this is actually a mile away this time,” Benny replied, jutting out his tongue cheekily. All the same, he took the strawberries and beamed at Good Cop before following him back out to the television room.
“What do you think you’re doing?” his other self asked.
“He came all this way because you didn’t let him get his floss. We might as well be a good host.”
“You’re planning something. I know it. I don’t like it when you do things behind my back. I’m supposed to be the bad one.”
“You better not spoil the episode for me this time,” Bad Cop mumbled as he dropped onto the couch. Benny floated into place next to him, and he groaned and pulled the spaceman down.
“I haven’t seen any episodes besides the one last time,” Benny chuckled. “I don’t actually watch this show after all.”
“Yeah, well. You’re watching it now, so stay quiet and don’t float around.” Bad Cop hit the play button again, and the episode resumed a few minutes after its beginning, when they revealed the new crime of the week.
“The valuable Xenon X-Craft spaceship has been stolen, and its pilot has gone missing.”
“Spaceship?!” Benny jolted up quickly and alarmed, spilling out some of the strawberries which began to float in place.
Bad Cop buried his face, glasses and all, into his hands. “This is your fault.”
“At least this means he’ll enjoy the episode.”
“Enjoy it my plastic covered tush! If I have to hear him shout out ‘spaceship’ every time one shows up…”
“I can try not to, if you want,” Benny told him, frowning when Bad Cop looked up in worry. “You muttered something about me shouting out spaceships. I’ll try not to. I don’t want to ruin the show for you.”
“Well… Good. Keep it that way.” After a pause, Bad Cop added to his order. “And you’re floating again. Get down.”
Benny sank back down and plucked the floating strawberries from the air to eat them. A few more minutes into the episode, after Benny finished all the floating strawberries, Benny closed the bag and put the rest of the strawberries on the coffee table. He glanced up at the screen and gasped, but quickly swallowed his shout and instead vibrated excitedly, trying to keep it in.
Bad Cop groaned and rolled his eyes. “Okay, what is it this time?”
“This is filmed at the actual astronaut training center,” Benny giggled. “I remember all the equipment, man it’s been years since I got to use any of that stuff there. I wonder if I could build my own.”
“Not right now, I would hope,” Good Cop told him. “You should really just relax.”
“But all this space stuff!” Benny flailed his arms and Bad Cop ducked out of the way and then grabbed an arm to still it. “I feel like I’m going to explode! Look, look, they’re going out to the spaceship yard! I recognize all those ships! I even flew some before building my own!”
“Would you calm down?” Bad Cop snapped at him. “You ruined the show the last time you were here, and I don’t want you doing it again. And stop. Floating.”
Benny took a deep breath and chuckled nervously. “Well, sorry, uh… Maybe if you hold me down like last time I won’t float as much?”
Bad Cop rolled his eyes and pulled Benny down again before slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Only to keep you down. Don’t get any ideas about this.”
Blinking dumbly, Benny gave him a look of confusion. “What ideas could I get…? Oh, look, it’s a model of the Xenon X-Craft!”
“This is the model of the Xenon X-Craft,” the woman on the screen explained. “The Xenon X-Craft was first produced in 1985, and the design isn’t used for missions today, however, a few of our astronauts own Xenon X-Crafts for personal use. The first one built, however, is the most valuable and was going to be flown to the Astronaut Museum. However, today the spaceship disappeared unexpectedly and the pilot scheduled to fly it is nowhere to be seen.”
“That lady looks really familiar,” Benny muttered under his breath.
Good Cop shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve seen that actress before.”
“And what’s your name?” the attractive cop’s attractive partner asked.
“Jennifer Fellow. I’m the original pilot of the Xenon X-Craft.”
“Oh, Jenny!” Benny laughed and clapped. “I thought I knew her! We trained together years ago before we were sent on different missions. She must be a guest appearance.”
“Did she really fly a Xenon X-Craft?” Bad Cop asked.
Nodding, Benny grinned at the TV screen, giving an almost dreamy sigh. “Yep! She called it a Lunar Patrol Craft, though. She said that Lunar Patrol Craft was the official name, but everyone called it a Xenon X-Craft because that sounds cooler.”
“Well…” Bad Cop hummed a bit. “It does sound cooler.”
“Yeah…” Benny sighed again.
After that, Benny quieted down, save for occasional squeals of joy when some new space-themed object appeared on the screen. Bad Cop frowned each time, but luckily Benny chose not to bounce all over the place in excitement. With only ten minutes left in the episode, the two fictional cops found the pilot, turned thief, but the pilot refused to say where the Xenon X-Craft was hidden.
Benny yawned just as the commercials started and rubbed his eye. “Wow, how late is it?”
“Did you want to go to bed now?” Good Cop asked. “It’s almost midnight.” Bad Cop frowned. “But you’ll miss the ending if you sleep now.”
“Oh, I already can guess how it ends,” Benny yawned again, stretching his arms. “I mean, remember that scene with the custom ships on the private spaceship yard?”
“Yeah?” Bad Cop asked.
“The thief’s private ship was built using Xenon X-Craft pieces. And when they passed over the registry for it, the name the thief gave the ship was LPC. I’m guessing for Lunar Patrol Craft.”
“That was only on screen for like 10 seconds,” Bad Cop answered. “How could you possibly have seen that?”
“It’s spaceships,” Benny chuckled. “And I’m a Master Builder, so I can see the different pieces. I learned how to build spaceships by…” He pulled a face. “By following the instructions… For the ones used in the space program.” He smiled again and laughed. “And then once I knew the basics, I could start building them without instructions!”
“And you could tell that the ‘LPC’ was the missing Xenon X-Craft?” Bad Cop huffed up. “Well, if you know that do you know how they’re going to find it?”
“Well, nooo, I haven’t seen the episode, so…” Benny furrowed his brow in thought. After a moment, he took a deep breath and then began to speak quickly. “Maybe the pilot-thief-person escapes and goes to the private spaceship yard in order to reassemble the Xenon X-Craft, and the two cop people follow and they catch the guy, and they manage to get the motive out of him, and it’s that he wants to own the Xenon X-Craft himself since he never got to fly own like he wanted while they were still in use, and then they arrest him and Jenny flies the X-Craft one last time to take it to the Astronaut Museum, the end.”
Bad Cop scrunched up his face, feeling his head spinning and not in the way it normally did. “Wait, what makes you say that’s his motive and not just selling it?”
“Oh, well…” Benny shrugged. “If he wanted to make a lot of money stealing stuff and selling it, he’d be less likely noticed if he sold valuable parts instead of old ships. Some of the things used to build spaceships are really expensive, after all. Also, he called it the LPC, and only people who actually fly one professionally call it the Lunar Patrol Craft since the other name is cooler, but he’s too young to have flown it when it was still in use.”
“And what about that thing about your colleague flying it at the end?”
Benny clasped his hands together and sighed again. “Because it’s Jenny and she’s amazing.”
Bad Cop pursed his lips together, staring for a long moment until Benny glanced up at him and lowered his hands to twiddle his thumbs. Finally, Bad Cop asked, “So, what, do you have a crush on her or something?”
“What?” Benny wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “No, of course not. Well, I really liked her a long time ago, but I haven’t seen her in years. I just think she’s awesome; she got to do a lot of space missions and fly a lot of spaceships.”
“Right, okay.” Bad Cop faced front again, watching as the next commercial began to play. “But, you know, it’d be okay if you had a crush on her.”
“But I…” Benny hesitated. “I don’t…”
“That’s fine too,” Good Cop replied, nodding.
“Besides, I don’t think I’d do anything if I had a crush,” Benny continued. He yawned and curled up into Good Cop’s side. “Dating is weird. I don’t want to have to kiss her or anything.”
Good Cop looked down at Benny in surprise. Bad Cop’s shades slipped down as he stared, but then pulled Benny back up into a sitting position. “The show only has ten more minutes. You can sleep after.”
“Okay,” Benny mumbled, forcing his eyes open to watch the screen.
The thief escaped to go to the private spaceship yard in order to reassemble the Xenon X-Craft. The two cops followed to catch him, and in the resulting stand-off they managed to get his motive.
“I just wanted to have my own Lunar Patrol Craft!” he shouted. “They stopped using them by the time I became an astronaut, and I never got to fly one!”
The cop and his partner managed to arrest him and returned the X-Craft to Jenny, but asked her why the thief had called it a Lunar Patrol Craft.
“The other name sounds cooler,” Jenny explained. “But those who actually fly it professionally call it the Lunar Patrol Craft.”
“Miss Fellow,” a person called over as they walked up to her. “We don’t have another person who can take the X-Craft to the museum on time. Could you fly it one last time?”
Jenny grinned and put on a yellow helmet and spacesuit, similar in design to Benny’s. “Gladly.”
“Another crime solved,” the attractive male cop proclaimed.
“Want to get croissants?” the attractive female cop asked.
“Always!”
The ending card and the credits began to roll across the screen and Bad Cop stared at the television, slack-jawed and aghast.
“What the HECK?” he shouted, causing Benny to jolt awake. “I thought you said you didn’t see the episode!”
“I didn’t!” Benny shouted back. “Why, did I guess right? I wasn’t paying attention.”
“You guessed perfectly,” Good Cop congratulated, smiling. Bad Cop scowled at him. “Too perfectly. You had to have seen the episode, liar.”
“No, I didn’t, I promise!” Benny crossed his arms and pouted.
Bad Cop frowned and switched on a lamp before shutting off the TV. He could feel his other self just mentally giving him an admonishing look, and he scowled. “Okay, fine, maybe you’re just a really good guesser.”
Benny glanced up at Bad Cop, still pouting and refusing to talk.
Bad Cop sighed and scowled as he struggled with the word. “S… Sorry. Sorry, okay? You’re not a liar.”
Benny perked up and hugged Bad Cop. “That was fun though. We should do it again sometime.”
“We should get some sleep for now,” Good Cop told him, hugging him back before standing up. “I’ll take you to the guest room, and then get some extra blankets for you.”
“Okay,” Benny chimed, following after Good Cop.
Good Cop left Benny in the guest room and then went to the linen closet to get some extra blankets. He walked back into Benny’s room and stopped short, staring at the sleeping lump of blue floating above the bed.
The next morning, Benny opened his eyes to the sunshine of a new day and to blankets tethering him down to the bed.