OK, this one pretty much wrote itself. Dedicated to the wonderful nothingwithorange, who kindly let me use the idea after I read her excellent and incredibly funny story earlier. Go read it! So, enjoy!

"Shopping?" Ben sounded mistrustful. "I thought you went shopping yesterday with Jess. Well, you were supposed to have done, but you clearly had better things to do." He smirked.

"Different type of shopping, Ben," Becker sighed, deciding to ignore the teasing. "This is food shopping. I want you there so that you can choose what you like. Plus, I can possibly buy you a phone as well. You'll need one if you work here."

"Fine, but only for food," Ben sighed theatrically. "I don't think I could survive on takeaways for much longer."

"Can you cook?" Becker asked as they headed for the car.

"Of course," Ben snorted. "My father's an ace cook and he taught me from the age of ten. I can cook more-or-less anything you want."

"Great," Becker said. "Because I'm a crap cook and if you don't cook then we really will be on takeaways forever."

"Let's get to the supermarket," Ben said hurriedly, speeding up and making Becker laugh.

"Slow down, you can't drive!"

"Please scan item."

Becker pushed the item across the scanner, muttering something under his breath when it didn't work.

"Please scan item."

Ben leant against the machine, smirking as Becker tried again.

"Please scan item."

"I bloody have!" Becker hissed angrily, glaring at it.

"Calm down, Becker, it's only a machine," Ben said soothingly, but it had no effect.

"Please scan item."

"Fuck you!"

"Please scan item."

"I just did!"

"Please scan item."

"For God's sake! Finally!" Becker cried in relief as the bar of chocolate finally scanned.

"If only Jess knew how much trouble she causes," Ben said dramatically, grinning in response to Becker's glare.

"Please place item in bagging area."

Becker carefully placed the bar down, much more carefully than he had the rest of the shopping, Ben noted, which had just got thrown down there in fury.

"Please place item in bagging area."

"Not again!"

"Please place item in bagging area."

"If you don't work in thirty seconds, I'll shoot you!" Becker growled, half-drawing his EMD.

"Oi, Becks, real bad idea." Becker raised an eyebrow and pointed at the gun. "Actually, on second thoughts, I think I'll stick to calling you Becker," Ben said hurriedly. "Grandad's too weird, you're too close to my age. Still, bad idea to shoot that, especially with an EMD. It'd get you locked up, at any rate, and you know how much Connor would laugh at that. Do you really need to give him any more ammunition against him?"

"No," Becker sighed, shoving the gun back away.

"Please place item in bagging area."

"Shut up!" he yelled, completely pissed off with the stupid machine.

"It's easy," Ben commented, slipping past him and lifting the chocolate before setting it down again.

"Please scan item."

Collecting the rest of the shopping, Ben quickly scanned them all (each one working first time) and packed them away. "See, easy." Sighing, Becker leant backwards.

"Unexpected item in bagging area."

"Shit!" Becker swore as Ben burst out laughing. He really hated those things, almost as much as they hated him.

If you are one of the few people who doesn't hate self-service checkouts, please let me know then I can die in shock. I mean, they're almost nice to me but I still hate them for the times when they are awkward little sods! Please review, it means a lot and will cheer me up when I arrive home after working at a wedding fayre for four hours tomorrow :( So probably no updates on anything tomorrow, unless it's really quiet and I get all my homework done there. Rx