Had the idea of there being kind of a hive thing with cocoons attached to it somewhere in the Upside Down. Like, Steve finding it, seeing something move around it one of the cocoons. Out drops Kas/Vampire!Eddie. They fight and maybe Steve ties Eddie up with a jacket and throws him over his shoulder. Eddie is still flopping around, and Steve comes back to the group. He's kind of dirty and beaten from the fight, with little splashes of blood on his white shirt, the thigh of his jeans, his hands, possibly some in his hair, and his cheeks.
Another scenario could be that there is an opening in the hive. Steve goes in it, leaving the rest outside with Nancy, and finds Eddie sitting on a rock and twiddling his thumbs. Steve sits by him, but Eddie doesn't seem to remember him or himself. Eddie then kisses him after mumbling something like "pretty." And then, it all comes back to him. He's really confused. I haven't thought this was out entirely.
Idk just give me a hive kind of like the tunnels in s2.
Like, let's say that someone in the group gets a bad feeling. Paranoia, maybe, or maybe they're growing more sensitive to the things of the Upside Down. Hop isn't healthy enough to investigate, so Steve takes up that mantle. They find the tunnels just like they did in s2, but instead of demodogs, there's these.... Pods, everywhere. It's nasty as hell and Steve immediately herds the kids who refused to listen to him out of the tunnels.
But the kids are magnets for trouble and physically incapable of letting well enough alone, so Steve decides to run damage control before one of them inevitably gets hurt. He goes down into the tunnels alone like an idiot, armed with a flashlight and his walkie. A few hours of exploring brings him to what he thinks is a hub of some sort. It is, as I said, nasty as hell, and Steve is ready to go home, but one of the pods is glowing, something inside shifting like it's fighting to get out, and whatever it is could be dangerous, so Steve decides to hatch it himself, pop that thing open and just fight whatever comes out.
Only what pops out is almost definitely Eddie Munson. A weird, pointy-eared, fanged Eddie Munson, but that's definitely Eddie, and for a moment Steve is so shocked and relieved to see him alive that he forgets Eddie just popped out of something that belongs in a sci-fi. Eddie gets the drop on him, so there's ... An embarrassing amount of shrieking as Steve fends off the attack, followed by an awkward amount of time soothing the half-feral creature he'd tied up with his sweater. Actually, that hadn't been a bad idea- Monster Eddie seems to calm faster, shoving his nose into the fabric and making weird noises that sound like he's trying to speak to him. Steve decides that he's done dealing with this. He's just- there is a line he'd drawn, and it's somewhere behind him, and coaxing some Upsidedown Monster Version of a guy he may or may not have had a crush on out of Fight Mode is definitely crossing that line. He carries Eddie back to his car.
As soon as Eddie is mostly comfortable, Steve pulls out his walkie and radios Dustin. "Hey, Henderson, I found this weird lookin', uh, cat? Meet at mine tomorrow morning." He reports. Dustin responds immediately.
"Why are you telling me about some cat, Steve? Are you going to keep it or something? Over."
"I think we should keep it. It's kinda- uh, bitey right now though, so that's why I said wait until tomorrow."
"You're supposed to say 'over,' over."
"Oh my- fine, whatever. My place, tomorrow. Ten. Over."
"10-4, over and out." Steve snorts a little at just how seriously Dustin takes his radio chatter.
Dustin is delighted to find out Eddie is alive, as is the rest of the Party (although they are a bit shocked to see he'd been shifted into a vampire-esque monster). Eddie, now that he isn't fighting for his life- or maybe now that Steve has his arms tied securely- seems more than happy to let things happen to him. He chitters as Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Max fawn over him, makes those weird growling noises as Robin tries to talk herself into being totally cool with the claws and fangs and subvocal communication, and melts into a puddle of churrs and purrs and happy grumbles when Steve carefully washes his hair. He does so well that the Party decides to untie him-
Eddie grabs Steve by the throat and holds him for about three lifetimes seconds, as if to assert that he did not like being tied up, and then reverts back to a mostly tame being. After that, Eddie likes to follow Steve around the house, happy to observe until something in the wind changes or whatever motivates goblin people like Eddie, and then he spends about ten minutes chasing Steve down, biting the shit out of him, and parading around the house like he'd done something praiseworthy.
El tries to offer her help, but after much talk, the Party decides to try and bring Eddie back to himself the old-fashioned way. It's a bit awkward, if only because Steve is insistent that they treat Eddie like he's Eddie. Steve becomes Eddie's Person, for a while, because they'd all agreed not to tell Wayne until they could get Eddie back to himself (or at least mostly back to himself).
