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Bad Cop opened the trunk of his car, grunting as he slid out the wide, flat, and gosh darn bulky box, tilting it to lower it onto the floor below. "I can't believe we had to get a new table," he muttered, ensuring the box was stable before going to get the dolly.
"Maybe if you didn't throw that chair into it," Good Cop remarked, sounding slightly annoyed for once.
"At least the chair's alright," Bad Cop muttered in return. He slid the dolly under the box and balanced it back with a firm hold.
"Yes, we don't want your precious chair to break with how much you beat it up."
"Don't be sarcastic with me!" Bad Cop slammed the trunk shut, perhaps louder than he should of.
"Wowww, you okay?"
Good Cop turned to see Benny coming up his driveway, and he smiled at him. "Oh, I'm fine, don't worry."
"Okay," Benny nodded, raising his brow. "What about the other guy?"
Bad Cop frowned at him. "Don't you have a meeting with your Master Builder friends today?"
"There was kind of an incident with crate of tomatoes, five bottles of syrup, and a fire." After a beat, he added, "Mostly the fire. So it was cancelled today."
Shaking his head, Bad Cop began to wheel the dolly inside, glancing back to make sure Benny was following him. "I do not want to know what you get up to in those meetings..."
"Are you sure?" Benny teased, laughing. "They're really a lot of fun. I bet you could be a Master Builder too if you really tried hard."
"I'd rather follow the instructions," Bad Cop grunted, stopping in the living room. "Makes it easier to build things like…"
"Tables?" Benny offered, glancing over to the broken coffee table in the corner. "Yikes, what did the poor thing do? Hold a family of chairs hostage?"
Bad Cop frowned at him, narrowing his eyes behind his glasses. Good Cop laughed, patting Benny's shoulder fondly. "Why don't you help me build the new table?" he asked, carefully lowering the box to the floor.
"What are you doing?" his other self asked. "You can't ask a Master Builder to help build a table!"
"I think it'll be fine. You worry too much."
"When we end up with a table that doubles as a spaceship, don't complain to me."
"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Benny answered, smiling nervously. "You know I hate following instructions… I don't want to make you upset."
"It's just a table," Good Cop insisted, sending him a confused look. Sensing Bad Cop making an "I told you so" expression in the back of his mind, Good Cop shook his head and opened the box. "You don't have to actually build it," he told Benny. "Just hand me the parts I need."
Benny nodded and hovered the parts. "Dark gray, huh?" he asked, pulling out the instructions.
"Yes," Bad Cop snapped at him, snatching the paper away.
Benny wrinkled his nose at him. "You're in a bad mood today. If you really don't want me here, just say so."
"No," Good Cop quickly answered. "You'll have to forgive Bad Cop. He's being touchy since he's the one who broke the old table." Bad Cop scowled and roughly unfolded the instructions. "I'm not being 'touchy'," he mumbled.
Benny shrugged and began taking out the pieces from the box, though each one began the float as soon as he let go of them. "This is a pretty simple table," he commented. "Just one 44041 and four 3245s. And, you know, screws and one of those elbow screw driver things. I probably could put this together without the instructions if you…"
"We're following the instructions," Bad Cop interjected.
"I know that," Benny huffed up. "I meant I probably already know exactly what the instructions are going to say."
Bad Cop opened to his mouth to argue, but slowly closed it, pursing his lips. "Sorry," he mumbled, just before Good Cop took over. Good Cop frowned in concern, but then sighed and shook his head. "Well, okay… Hand me the large flat piece?"
"44041," Benny corrected, passing it over. "Careful, it'll get really heavy as soon as I…"
Good Cop nearly tipped forward as the sudden weight, but Benny caught him in time. Good Cop lowered the piece to the ground, top side down, and chuckled nervously. "Thank you, Benny..."
"Should have warned you sooner," Benny apologized.
"Alright, hand me one of the legs."
"What was that about?" Bad Cop asked as Good Cop began to attach the leg to the table.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Good Cop replied. He began to hum and held out his hand for the next piece, which Benny happily supplied.
"The top of the table wasn't nearly that heavy," Bad Cop answered. "You fell on purpose."
"Why would I do a thing like that?" Good Cop asked, starting on the next leg of the table.
"Look," Bad Cop asserted. "I don't want to see you two macking on each other. At all. Could you stop flirting?"
"What about you, Mr. I'm Going To Put My Arm Over His Shoulder?"
"That was to stop him from floating!"
"Uhhh, Good Cop?" Benny poked him in the shoulder. "Are you okay? You've been staring at the finished table for over a minute. You haven't even put it right side up yet."
"I'm fine!" Good Cop chimed, quickly setting the table upright. "Sorry, I was just… Talking about something with Bad Cop."
"I bet it's nice never being alone," Benny sighed.
"More like annoying," Bad Cop mumbled.
"It does have its downsides sometimes…" Good Cop shrugged and smiled. "But I wouldn't change it."
Benny grinned at him. "But still, it's nice not to be alone. That's why I like hanging out with you guys so much. You're great company."
"What makes you say that?" Bad Cop asked, furrowing his brow. "You have all those Master Builder friends. Why spend time with me instead of them?"
"It's not like I only spend time with you," Benny assured him. "But with you, we get to do fun normal things instead of setting fire to crates of syrup-covered tomatoes and stuff like that."
"How do you even manage to do that?" Good Cop asked in awe.
Laughing, Benny floated up and patted his shoulder. He then frowned at him, giving an almost wide-eyed look of horror. "You don't want to know." He grinned again shrugged. "But crazy things happen all the time when trying to rebuild Cloud Cuckoo Land."
Bad Cop winced. "Right… How's the unicorn-cat thing dealing with that?"
"Uni-Kitty? Don't worry, she's forgiven you." Benny paused for a moment and then sighed. "Well, maybe you shouldn't try going to Cloud Cuckoo Land after we finish rebuilding it, but besides that, she's forgiven you."
"Building a table must be child's play compared to rebuilding a magical land of fantasy," Good Cop commented.
"Actually it's the opposite…"
"Oh, I bet," Bad Cop answered. "But seriously. Is this going to be a thing of yours, showing up at my house?"
"Why?" Benny asked, lifting his brow. "Do you want to come to my house instead?"
"Well," Bad Cop started. "Sure!" Good Cop answered. "This Saturday, maybe? 10 AM?"
"Okay!" Glancing around, Benny found a notepad and a pen and wrote down a number. "Here, this is the key code to get through the airlock…"
"Why do you have an airlock?" Bad Cop asked, taking the things back from Benny. "We're already on Earth."
Benny lowered himself to the ground and frowned at Bad Cop. "Well, you know… Just in case."
"In case of what?"
"Dude, just forget it. It's not important." Benny looked down at the table. His face lit up and he bounced on his heels until he ended up floating again. "Oh, that reminds me! I need to get supplies to build training equipment! Oh, oh! You can use it too, in case we ever go into space together!"
"Into space?" Bad Cop frowned. "Really? The two of us?"
"Sure! It'll be fun!"
"Would any of your Master Builder friends be there too?"
"Well…" Benny frowned. "I don't know… I think Batman actually has been to space a few times, but most of the others… I don't know if they're actually…" He held out his hands, squinting as he thought of what to say. "You know... Fit enough to go into space. Lucy might be, but I don't want to take just her and not Emmet."
"And you think I'm fit enough?" Good Cop asked.
Nodding, Benny gave him a huge grin. "Sure! You should be fine!" Benny grabbed Good Cop's shoulder, and used him to propel himself towards the door. He waved back at him. "I have to get the stuff to make the training equipment, and we can start you off any time you want, and then you can go to space with me and it'll be totally awesome! Omigosh, this'll be fun, see you on Saturday, don't cop out, okay? Bye!"
Good Cop waved as Benny left. He paused for a moment, and Bad Cop quickly switched in. "Did that guy just make a pun?" Good Cop laughed. "He really is adorable. Or should I say..." Bad Cop shook his head. "Don't you dare…" Good Cop grinned. "Out of this world?
The was a long bout of silence before Good Cop's smile finally faded and Bad Cop switched in. "You're both dorks," he said. "C'mon, let's take care of the broken table now…"