Junk of the Heart

chapter four - the book

author's note: i just want to thank everyone following this story for doing so - this is my first story that has made it on the board of its genre, which is new and exciting to me~ i'm having a lot of fun writing it, so i'm glad there are so many people who enjoy reading it <3

Brodie could sleep anywhere. It was downright amazing. C.S. checked the watch about his wrist, marking ten minutes since his friend had slumped especially low in his seat and dozed off behind his sunglasses. The sale had hit a lull, he had finished off the comic he was reading, and decided that apparently C.S.’s company wasn’t enough to stay bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. After making hopeless eye contact with a few passer-bys, C.S. buckled under boredom… He was out of iced tea and sick of picking through rusty change. Carefully standing up - as to not awaken the giant sleeping baby at his side - he treaded over to the sale items. There was a wrinkled paperback he had spotted earlier, and figured he could do some light reading while the King of the Yard did some light napping.

“Touch not, lest ye be touched…” Just as C.S. leaned down to join Rene’s book club, the wilted Brodie blossomed once more and dropped him a warning.

Frustrated, C.S. groaned. “Oh, you’re awake now?”

Brodie took his sweet time stretching, reaching high and digging low with his lanky limbs. “My Spidey senses were tingling,” he explained, straightening the shades on the bridge of his nose. “Lo and behold, here you are, mucking up my merchandise.”

“I wasn’t ‘mucking up’ your merchandise… I just wanted something to do while you got your beauty sleep.”

“And beautiful I am because of it.” Brodie pointed sternly at the empty lawn chair, ordering C.S. to sit. “Now heel, boy. We both know you have a proclivity for destroying valuable things.”

C.S. rolled his eyes, but sheepishly trudged back to his seat… Brodie was, of course, referring to the one singular instance that he had lent out a comic. “We were in eighth grade,” growled C.S., in a weak defense. He had accidentally spilled soda all over Brodie’s Nightwing #118 and still suffered the guilt.

“We sure were. And poor Dick Grayson was battling his renegade descendant. Or didn’t you get that far before you had yourself an ice cold Pepsi?”

C.S. shrunk in his place. “It was a Mountain Dew,” he corrected meekly.

“Aww, look at you…” Brodie cooed in condescension, reaching over to ruffle C.S.’s hair. “Don’t you worry your pretty golden locks about it anymore, it’s in the past,” he responded, but the both of them knew it was a discussion that would span the ages. “That reminds me…” he added, pulling his hand back and examining his fingers skeptically. “Get a haircut, you hippie.”

Finger-combing his hair back in place, C.S shot him a look. Nearly dropping a snarky response about how Brodie, with his eternal scruff, had no business dealing out criticisms, he was cut off - as was typical - by another of his friend’s musings.

“So being that I’m new to this whole single neighborhood, and being that you seem to have a permanent address here…”

C.S. scoffed; by sophomore year of high school he had learned there was never anything to do but scoff. “One day,” he sighed. “You’re going to run out of one-liners.”

“And until that day,” answered Brodie, with his charismatic snap. “I’ll write fortune cookies… But really C.S., I need some advice.”

Leaning on his armrest, C.S. sat hesitant. Brodie’s level of sincerity was always hard to read. “Alright…” he answered slowly.