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He opened his eyes to the new day, glaring at the blurry ceiling, scowling at the tweeting birds outside and the heavy weight of his arm on his chest. Still broken, still in the cast for another week, still the broadside of annoying. He reached over for his sunglasses and slipped them on, the dim room turning darker as his eyes landed behind shades. He sat up and waited a moment before rolling his eyes.
"WAKE UP!"
His other side switched into existence, blinking and bleary and groggy as he swiped helplessly for his glasses. As soon as he made contact, he managed to put them on easily, and he stared at the alarm clock, trying to process the time. "Coffee and croissants?" he asked.
"Shower, teeth brushing, then breakfast," his other self corrected, stepping out of bed.
"You ought to start brushing after eating," Good Cop yawned, setting his glasses on the bathroom counter. "Your breath smells when you brush first."
"Shut up," Bad Cop ordered setting his glasses down next to Good Cop's and beginning to strip.
Sometime later, Bad Cop sat at the kitchen table as he read through the day's newspaper and sipped his coffee. Good Cop ate his croissant and skimmed through the comics, humming.
"Cops!" Benny's voice rang out from the front door.
Bad Cop groaned and shook his head. "How does he even get in? We never gave him a key…" Good Cop shrugged and turned towards the door. "In here, Benny!"
Benny floated in and lowered himself at the table smiling at him. "Morning, Cops! One week until you finally get that stupid cast removed, huh? Ooh, is that the puzzles page?"
Good Cop nodded and handed the page to Benny who reached over for a pen. Bad Cop frowned and let out a breath. "So I guess after that we'll actually start that whole space training thing whatever, right?"
"Yep," Benny chimed, going over the Sudoku. "Whenever you're feeling up to start. We'll be up in space in no time!"
"Hmm…" Bad Cop craned his neck to see the numbers Benny wrote down. "Who taught you how to play Sudoku?"
"Emmet showed me," Benny answered. "And then I showed him some of my 80s video games and he beat my high score in like half of them, I mean, dude, not cool!"
"So then…?" Good Cop prompted.
"So then I figured out how to do these perfectly in pen and I filled them in Emmet's newspaper before he brought it in each day for like a week," Benny mumbled.
"Spaceman!" Bad Cop scolded. "You can't do that kind of thing!"
"Well it's not like I still do it," Benny chuckled nervously. He smiled apologetically and shrugged. "Uh… That's not the kind of thing you'd arrest me over, is it? I mean, come on, it was just a prank or something."
Bad Cop dropped his face into his palm but chose not to say anything else.
Benny shrugged and moved onto the crossword, filling in a few words before stopping on one. "A ten letter word for a cross between a cell and a PDA…?"
"A smartphone?" Good Cop offered.
"A what?" Benny asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion.
"A…" Good Cop hesitated and shrugged. Bad Cop frowned and tapped his fingers against the table. "Benny, you never upgraded your cell phone from the 80s, did you?"
"Oh, one of those weird touch pad cellular phone things that people seem to use now?" Benny frowned. "Well I, uh… Never really had anyone I needed to call, so I never even needed one… Besides, do you know how expensive they were in the 80s?"
"Not even now?" Good Cop asked. "What about your Master Builder friends?"
"I could always just go to their houses if I want to see them," Benny shrugged.
Bad Cop frowned. "Do you walk into their houses uninvited too?"
Benny blinked and then gasped, dropping his face into his hands to groan before looking up at Bad Cop again. "Sorry, sorry! That's why you don't like it! I keep forgetting that people don't do that nowadays."
"Oh, no, no," Good Cop reassured him quickly. "You come over whenever you want. You're always welcome here, don't worry."
"Well, okay..." Benny shrugged, brow still furrowed. "If you say so."
"But you seriously don't have a cell phone?" Bad Cop asked. "What if you get into an emergency and need to call the police or an ambulance or something?"
"I never really thought about it…?" Benny answered, shrugging again. "It's not a big deal, is it?"
Blowing air through his teeth, Bad Cop shook his head. "No, I guess not… But still…"
Good Cop stood up just then. "Benny, wait here for a moment." He walked through the kitchen door into the garage and began to rummage through old storage bins.
"What are you doing?" Bad Cop asked.
"Don't you remember that old phone we had ten years ago?" Good Cop answered. "It'll be outdated for us, but it's a great starting point for Benny."
"He'd only be able to make calls from it," Bad Cop retorted, taking over and moving to the next bin over.
"What else would he need to do?" Good Cop asked.
Bad Cop hummed, conceding to the point as he pulled out the old flip phone and charging cable. He walked back into the kitchen and shoved the two things into Benny's hands. "Here. Your first cell phone. Congratulations."
"It's so…" Benny flipped it open and grinned. "Compact! Cool! How do you use it?"
"It needs to be charged first," Bad Cop said. "Plug it in here and then plug it into the outlet. We'll have to get special phone service for it to work, but it'll be enough for you to make calls if you have to."
"Special phone service?" Benny asked, waggling his eyebrows.
"Shut up," Bad Cop scowled. Good Cop laughed. "We'll ask President Business about putting you on the Octan service plan. Don't worry, we'll cover it."
"Thanks!" Benny laughed. "That's nice of you. Let me get you ice cream to repay you."
"Ice cream?" Bad Cop asked, flattening his brow.
Benny nodded and got up. "Yeah, that's actually why I came over. I was going to get you ice cream to celebrate one more week until you get that cast off."
"Sure," Good Cop smiled. "I love ice cream."
"Great!" Benny grabbed Good Cop's hand and led him to the front door. "I know this great place just down the street. We'll get there in like five minutes."
Thirty minutes later, they finally stopped, and Bad Cop frowned at Benny.
"Spaceman, you do realize that wasn't five minutes, right?" he demanded.
"You're exaggerating," Benny replied. "It was totally five minutes."
"It was half an hour," Bad Cop insisted. "Are you really that bad with time?"
"Uh…" Benny held the door open for Bad Cop who just rolled his eyes and walked in.
Bad Cop stopped short at the collection of space merchandise, face contorting in disbelief before Good Cop glanced over at Benny. "Um… Benny… I thought you said we were getting ice cream…"
"Yeah, of course," Benny answered, pulling down some packages from the wall. "Neapolitan or Mint Chocolate Chip or Chocolate Chocolate Chip or Ice Cream Sandwich?"
"You made me walk for thirty minutes for freeze-dried ice cream?" Bad Cop ground out.
"But space ice cream is the best!" Benny argued.
Bad Cop dropped his shoulders and sighed. "I should have expected that…" Good Cop shook his head and held out his hand. "Neapolitan, please."
Benny smiled and handed him the package and took Chocolate Chocolate Chip for himself, putting the other two packages back on the wall. He paid and then took Good Cop's hand again, leading him towards the stairs. "C'mon, this way."
"Where are we going?" Bad Cop asked.
"You'll see," Benny answered. A door sat at the top of the stairs, blocked off by dark curtains that Benny slipped behind, pulling Bad Cop with him.
Bad Cop squinted his eyes at the points of light displayed in an otherwise dark room. Good Cop looked around and smiled. "Oh! A star projector!"
"Yep!" Benny led Good Cop to the best corner of the room to view the lights. "Pretty accurate star maps too. Look, see that one there?"
Good Cop followed Benny's motion to one of the stars. "Yes?"
"That one's near the area the Space Police patrol," Benny answered. "You would like them. They're cops in space! And that one there, nearby it? That's one's closer to home. That's where my last space mission was before I had to stop being an official astronaut."
"Because you retired?" Good Cop asked.
Benny didn't answer for a moment, and when he did his voice was quiet, almost a squeak. "Something like that…" He perked up after and smiled at Good Cop. "But after your arm is better, we can actually start training, and I will get to take you into space and you can see it in person instead of as a model made from light and plastic. You'll love it. It's impossible not to love it once you see it firsthand."
Good Cop smiled, ignoring the cringe he sensed Bad Cop giving in the back of his mind. "Want to go back to my place, now? We can eat our ice cream on the way."
"Sure," Benny answered.