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Benny's used to be the popular place to go late at night, back when it existed.
Eddie usually ended up there earlier in the day with Wayne when they decided to treat themselves. Benny was a friend of Wayne's after all, and often would slip Eddie something extra with his order.
But because it was the popular place to go, it was never where Eddie went. He didn't want that kind of stress in his life.
Instead he always ended up at the diner a little outside of town. It was fifties style and looked like a silver bullet, but he was pretty sure it was just some converted trailer that had been planted here and never left. It was close enough to the highway that he would see his fair share of truckers at all times of night when he wandered there. Best of all, Sheila would let him just get a coffee and occupy a table, and she never tried to kick him out as long as he kept to muttering ideas and songs to himself and not yelling.
Even with Benny's gone, it's still never become a popular place for people to go, at least not late at night when Eddie usually ends up there. So it's weird when a group of people start coming in, the door jingling only once.
It takes a minute for him to place her, before he recognizes the woman who is holding the door open as the lady who works at Melvald's, although she is not looking good. She's noticeably sweaty and dirty and looks exhausted, and she's using a finger to count the group that's come in with her like they're on a field trip and she's doing a headcount.
In first are a bunch of kids, so the counting makes sense, then teenagers that Eddie recognizes belatedly (and inhales his coffee wrong and has to cough for a minute as the now tepid liquid still burns his throat) as The King and Wheeler and Byers and some band girl whose name he's forgetting right now. The King is taking a lot of his attention because he is wearing a sailor uniform and also is beat all to hell. And then another adult who Eddie is pretty sure he's never seen before in his life, and last, the chief of police.
All of them are sweaty and dirty and Hopper does slant a glance his way, but visibly rolls his eyes and ignores him.
"Uh," Sheila says and the lady who works at Melvald's smiles a customer service smile at her.
"There are fourteen of us."
"The tables are fixed," Sheila says, gathering menus now, "the biggest booth seats seven."
"We can split up," Melvald's Lady says and the group seems to be able to do so without discussing.
Most of the tables can only fit four, but the chairs aren't fixed and they take three tables. Eddie does not understand why they don't go for the booths which are markedly more comfortable, but instead they gather around the tables, not verbally arguing about who is going to sit where, but grumbling softly and tugging on shirts and hands.
No one is paying attention to him so he doesn't fight the urge to stare. Because that's Steve 'The King' Harrington sitting there, in his sailor outfit, beat all to hell. Eddie had cackled to himself when he'd seen him working at a minimum wage at the mall — before getting irritated that he was taking away a job from someone who actually needed it, just to pad his college application or whatever. He'd also been initially amused by the fact that he had to wear some stupid outfit and then promptly veered into pissed off horniness that he could make the look work.
It's somehow still working, even with the blood and the beat all to hell.
Eddie raises his gaze and realizes that Harrington is peering back at him, blearily. "Am I still hallucinating or is Munson here?" he asks.
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," the band girl — also in a sailor uniform — says and then snickers to herself. She's tipped the container of jams out and seems to be trying to stack them as high as they'll go.
"Mute-what?" Harrington asks, and finally stops staring at Eddie as he turns towards her. Eddie puts his head down and starts to sketch. Normally he'd give him a piece of his mind, but Hopper is right there. And he's less likely than someone else to toss him around when he finds him dealing — in fact, so long as no one is watching he doesn't at all — but he does always take a 'fee' and is willing to be an ass at all times, so Eddie doesn't really want to piss him off.
"You could still be hallucinating and Munson could also be here," Wheeler says, voice hoarse.
No one looks as shitty as Harrington, but all of them look shitty.
Sheila doesn't seem to care though, and she bustles over to their table first, asking if they want anything. This leads to a lot of rustling of menus before Wheeler orders for the whole table. She seems to be leaning heavily towards burgers and coffee.
But then Harrington speaks up. "Oh! Erica gets ice cream!" and he and the band girl engage in a brief debate before ordering three milkshakes.
"Coffee?" Byers asks, softly, and Eddie can only hear it because he's closest to where Eddie is sitting, his back curved over the table but still leaning noticeably towards Wheeler. "You think it'll work to sober them up?"
Wheeler shrugs. "I'm not sure that works if it's not alcohol but, well, do you have any better ideas?"
"No, I guess not," he says.
Which is punctuated by Harrington and the band girl collapsing into each other in a fit of giggles. The packets of jam go scattering across the table, the tower they constructed unsteady.
The table of kids is next closest to him and they're loud, talking over each other. But cheerfully they drown out the far table where Hopper and Melvald's Lady and the random guy (who honestly looks like such a creeper) sit. Two of the kids are actually at that table as well, one he recognizes as Byers the younger, due to the posters that kept popping up about him a few years ago, and a girl he doesn't know. Little Byers is close to the woman and the girl is as close to Hopper as she can get while still staying on the side of the table she's sharing with the other kid.
It's weird. The whole thing is weird.
Their food gets delivered and the smell of it is actually appealing — Eddie considers if he should get something or just finish his coffee and leave.
While he's still mentally debating, pencil tapping against his notebook, the band girl suddenly points at him. "Hey! You better not be planning to get up on the tables! You stay away from my burger!"
Harrington peers at him and says, "Stepping on sandwiches isn't cool man," like he's trying to be some kind of PSA.
Eddie scowls, "Fuck off!"
And then gets a hissed "language" from Wheeler for it. The little kid sitting at the table with them, with her abundance of milkshakes, seems delighted.
Hopper stands up, which is Eddie's cue to get out of there, and he drops some change on his table for his coffee — and a tip — and offers one last piece of advice before he goes: "Coffee doesn't really sober people up you know, your highness," and then he's gone.
"So is this like a thing?" Eddie mumbles into his milkshake. He'll admit, it's doing a better job getting the taste of Upside Down out of his mouth than the water did. He was reluctant to get one because, well, it sounded awful. But it's nice.
The burger that Nancy ordered for him, unfortunately, is making him think about how he was almost a bat-burger and how much like raw meat he feels. It's rough, because he's hungry, but the smell of meat is making his stomach roil. He's finished all of his french fries already and is wondering if he can order some onion rings or if that would be weird when he hasn't touched his burger.
"What do you mean?" Steve asks. He is having no trouble with his burger and it is taking all of his focus. Which is probably good. There have been a few times during all of this when all of Steve's focus was on him and, well, best to leave that for when the world is ending. He doesn't want to start to expect that sort of thing. Might give a man ideas.
This whole thing has already been so goddamn weird he doesn't need feelings getting involved.
"The whole coming to the diner after not dying thing?" he clarifies.
Steve and Robin both stare at him like he's grown a second head. He really hopes that's not something he has to worry about — what if the bats carried Upside Down rabies or something and extra heads is something he has to worry about? Ugh. This is the worst.
"You were both very high last time," Nancy says. She's also avoiding her burger even though she's the one who ordered. Instead she's demolishing her fries like they owe her money. "But we did come to the diner after the mall."
Robin and Steve look at each other and their faces don't even really move but he can tell that they're having an entire conversation in the space between blinks. It's still weird as hell.
"We should make it a tradition," Robin says, finally, "except that I hope we never have to do this again. Twice was two times too many for me, you know."
Max from the next table over raises her cup of soda. Eddie thinks all the kids deserve a strong drink, but the diner doesn't serve any and they turned all the alcohol into Molotov cocktails.
Sheila comes by and refills waters and coffees without saying anything.
Without asking, Steve takes Eddie's plate, and the burger there, pushing his plate with its onion rings closer to Eddie.
These he can eat.
"Do you think Sheila is an immortal?" Eddie asks Steve across the diner table.
It feels weird to be there, just the two of them. Especially since it's not post Upside Down nonsense.
There hasn't been any Upside Down nonsense for a while — and Eddie isn't one for praying but he'd offer up some thanks to just about anyone for that — and they haven't been back in Hawkins just as long.
But Joyce and Hopper are finally getting married and so everyone is back in town and — it's weird. And Eddie hasn't been able to sleep in the hotel room, and of course Steve can't sleep if Eddie's not sleeping and —
Midnight trip to the diner it is.
Steve takes a moment to watch Sheila wipe down a nearby table before shaking his head. "I think it's just makeup, man."
Eddie wrinkles his nose. "Nah, definitely something supernatural."
"If her face splits open because you've like jinxed us I'm going to be pissed," Steve says and meets Eddie's eyes. They can't communicate as well as Robin and Steve can — Eddie is convinced that they actually got super powers from the Russian drugs and no one will ever be able to convince him otherwise. But they can communicate a little. And in this glance Eddie can read that he will be sleeping on the couch for at least a week if Sheila turns out to be a demogorgon. Or, well, what the kids call a demogorgon, which is really not that close to the monster manual, but is catchy as hell, damn them.
"I was thinking more like wizard," he says, as a peace offering.
"More coffee?" Sheila asks, practically materializing at their table with a steaming carafe.
"Thank you, ma'am," Steve, the suck up says and pushes his coffee cup forward.
Sheila tops him off and Eddie soundlessly pushes his over as well. The look she gives him is not nearly as warm as the approving look that Steve got — which is just rude! He was in here almost every night and he always tipped at least a little!
"She likes me more than you," Steve says as soon as she's left.
"I hate you," Eddie says back.
Steve catches his eyes again and he can feel himself start to go sappy, so he looks away and takes a too big sip of his boiling coffee instead. Steve laughs at him as he swears about it.