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“Careful,” Eddie says as Steve sweeps a horde of tiny demons off the desk. “They're delicate.”
“Oh, yeah?” Steve gripes. His arms are sore from carrying boxes and his head hurts. “How about you pack them yourself?”
“I’d love to,” Eddie grins obnoxiously. It tugs on the bandage covering his jaw, where the bats almost tore out his throat. “But alas, I’m under strict orders to rest.”
He settles against the headboard of his bed and winces as the movement pulls on his stitches.
“So you’d rather watch me work my ass off?”
“Exactly, big boy.” Eddie winks at him, and Steve feels himself flush for reasons he’s been refusing to examine ever since the spring break from hell. “Now go. If you can’t handle them with the appropriate care, I’ll get Henderson to do it. Carry those out to the van.”
He gestures at another pile of boxes, like a king giving orders, and returns to his comic book.
While he lugs the first box outside, Steve silently marvels at how much stuff the Munsons have in their tiny trailer. At least the new one is a little bigger, so hopefully it’ll look marginally less cluttered.
He's on the porch steps when the box tears. Books and random trinkets scatter in the grass. Steve swears and drops to his knees.
A shoebox is in the dirt, lid half open. It's labeled PRIVATE in big, black letters.
Maybe, Steve thinks later, he should've looked away. But he's tired and annoyed, and he figures one look at Eddie's stash of titty magazines won't kill either of them.
There's no titties in the box. What greets him instead is his own face, eyes closed, features limp. A polaroid of him, asleep by Eddie’s hospital bed. One of the kids must've taken it, given it to Eddie after he woke up.
There's more.
Wrappers from the candy he snuck in when Eddie wouldn't stop whining about the hospital food.
The card and little stuffed bear Dustin insisted he buy from the gift shop, because everyone was supposed to get Eddie something. The bear is wearing a tiny shirt. It says Get well beary soon. Steve frowns. Why would Eddie keep a secret box full of worthless junk he gave him, like some schoolgirl with a-
…
Oh.
“Stevie?” Eddie hollers from inside. “Are you still alive? Do you need me-?”
“No!” Steve yelps. He drops the bear as if singed, then crams everything back into the shoebox, slamming the lid shut so hard the cardboard dents. “I mean … stay where you are, you're supposed to be resting.”
“I'd rest a lot easier if you weren't smashing my stuff left and right,” Eddie grumbles. “But whatever you say.”
Steve's head feels light and tingly as he carries the shoebox over to the van.
Looks like he'll need to have a talk with Eddie soon. Beary soon, preferably.