Fic: Reset

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Reset
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: AU, Drama, Hurt/Comfor
Ratings: M
Word Count: 4972
Pairings/Characters: Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak, Losers.
Synopsis: In which Richie is trapped in the deadlights.
Comments: First try at fic for IT. First try at Groundhog Day AU. Wandered way out of my control. Comments and kudos are awesome. Thank you for reading!

Richie wakes up to a knock at the door.

He sits bolt upright in his bed in his room at the Derry Town House, trying to chase the details of a dream that's fading too fast to catch, beyond the gut-wrenching fear it leaves him with. His stomach churns, though it's debatable whether that's because of the dream or because of the too many shots at the Jade last night. He feels like he's going to be sick, but the knock at the door comes again and a quiet call of his name stops him from lurching for the bathroom.

"You up?" Comes Eddie's voice through the door, and something about it brings back that nightmare terror and for some reason he doesn't quite understand he needs to know that Eddie's alright. In an instant, Richie's out of bed, half-blind because he didn't stop to grab his glasses off the nightstand on the way, and flinging the door open. Eddie's there, looking vaguely alarmed – so perfectly normal – and adds on a reasonably calm, "Mike wants us to get going soon."

"Fuck," Richie breathes, dragging a hand over his face. He reaches out, suddenly very dizzy and grabs for Eddie's arm, holds tight, probably too tight, and very nearly pukes. He reins it in – figures Eddie wouldn't appreciate it too much – and his body opts to sway alarmingly instead.

Eddie's nice enough to catch him, reaching out to brace him with a steady hand on his shoulder. "Um," he starts, clearly doesn't know what to do with this version of Richie, "are you okay?"

Richie laughs. How could any of them be okay? There's the shitstorm of childhood memories, the fucking killer clown, and the certainty that they're all going to die if they don't do something about it before this murder cycle ends. What part of this whole fucked up situation could possibly be okay? "I don't think I have a good answer for that one, Eds."

"That's fair," Eddie concedes, gives his shoulder a squeeze and turns to go join the others. "See you downstairs."

He heaves a heavy sigh and turns back to his room, and that's when he remembers his dream, at least enough to get an idea of what it was – nightmare flashes of the sewer and below the sewer, of deadlights and dead friends.

Richie feels sick all over again, barely even makes it to the bathroom before he's puking his guts up.

It must have been a dream, he tells himself, when his stomach has finished its rebellion. Must have been the damn clown fucking with his worst nightmares to make them even more traumatizing. Must have been a ploy to get him to leave or something. No way it was real.

Couldn't be real.

Except it is.

Because he's done this all before.

All of it. Every second that comes after they follow Mike out the door.

The walk to the Barrens. The clubhouse. The tokens. He even knows what everyone's are - knows that it's the showercap for Stan, Georgie's paper boat for Bill, Ben's yearbook page, Bev's postcard poem, the rock from the fight for Mike, Eddie's inhaler and he knows the literal token in his pocket is his own figurative token. He knows about the kid from the restaurant, that Bill will rush off alone to try to save him at the festival, that he'll fail. He knows about the unfortunate return of Henry Bowers, that the maniac will get to Eddie in the bathroom and then Mike at the library and that he'll be the one to stop the bully once and for all. He knows they'll skip directly over the completely logical step of making a plan and go straight for the damned house on Niebolt Street. He knows that something will happen to Ben in one room, while Stan's head will nearly kill him in another, and that Eddie will freeze when it's time to act. They'll go down the well, down even further and there will be a ritual, but it won't work, and he'll already know that it never did. He knows Pennywise will nearly have him, will have him trapped in the deadlights and that Eddie will act, then, when he shouldn't and that it will cost him his life. He knows that Eddie will solve the riddle for them all, give them the answer they need to kill the fucking clown once and for all, and that they'll get out, but Eddie won't. The other Losers will drag him away from Eddie's body, drag him out of Niebolt as it collapses in on itself. They'll all go to the rock quarry, to clean up, to collect themselves, and then they'll all walk back into town together, all still lingeringly damp, back to the Derry Town House. He knows they'll make a plan to meet up tomorrow and they'll go their own ways.

He doesn't know what Bill and Ben and Bev and Mike do after that, but he knows that he takes the longest, hottest shower he can stand before he collapses into bed, cries himself to sleep in this new and terrible world without Eddie Kaspbrak.

And then he wakes up to a knock at the door.

And it all happens exactly the same.

And then it happens again.

And again

And again.

Finally, he decides he should probably do something to change it. If he has to be stuck in this nightmare-loop of watching Eddie die, he's damn well going to explore his options. He's seen Groundhog Day, after all, so when he wakes up to Eddie knocking on his door yet again, he resolves to try to figure this shit out.

In the todays that follow, he does everything he can possibly think of to try to change the outcome. But, if anything, the things he tries to change only make matters worse.

He tries calling out Mike's bullshit ritual before they can waste their time with it, but Bill overrides his valid concerns about the mysteriously scratched out fourth side of the artifact.

He tries meeting up with Bill at the carnival to try to save the kid so they don't run half-cocked into Niebolt, but they still can't save the boy and if Richie's there, he's left helpless to stop Pennywise from killing Bill, too, trapped in some other arm of the mirror maze the same way Bill was kept away from the kid.

He tries stopping Bowers before he can strike, but Bowers derails and goes after easier targets, instead, if left unchecked – he'll happen upon Ben or Bev or Eddie on their token quests and with no one around to help out, it never goes well.

He tries not getting caught in the deadlights, but that gets Mike killed.

He tries keeping the spike away from Eddie when they're in It's lair, so he doesn't have it to throw when the time comes, but then Eddie tries to save him without a weapon and still gets killed.

He tries the regular Scary door – it's scary, too.

He tries not letting Spider-Stan get him so that Eddie can't freeze up and feel the need to prove himself later, but then he has to watch Bill or Eddie get killed by Stanley's head if it doesn't almost kill him. If he's not with them in Niebolt, he's watching Ben get his neck slit in the other room.

He tries splitting off with the others when they're fleeing from Pennywise after the ritual fails – switching out with Ben or Bev gets the other one killed, though, and he sees Ben buried alive in the clubhouse or Beverly drown in a bathroom stall full of blood – whatever happens, they need to be together for that part, apparently. Tagging along with Bill on his guilt-trip doesn't cause problems for him, but leaves Eddie to get trapped in the deadlights in his place.

He tries just leaving town by himself, but around the edge of town something pulls him back in.

He tries just fucking telling everybody how to kill It before they go down the well.

He tries telling them he knows what's going to happen, all of them, some of them, one of them.

None of it works.

He sees all of them die so many times in so many different ways.

And quite frankly it takes him a stupid amount of time to realize that that's how he can get someone to believe him. "I've seen all of us die," Bev had said – who knows how many last night's ago – and if he knows how, he might be able to convince her. He catches her in a rare moment alone after they split up to find their tokens. Ben must not be back from the school yet.

"Eddie gets stabbed through the chest trying to save me."

It gets her attention, drawing her surprised eyes away from the folded up postcard she's fixated on and up to meet his. "You've seen it, too?"

"More times than I can count," he admits, hates how his hands are shaking at the mere thought of it. "I've seen everyone else, too, but mostly Eddie." He wonders if she mostly sees Ben? Or Bill? If it works the same for her at all.

"But, why? You haven't been in the deadlights."

He sighs, heavy and exhausted and fully prepared for this to go the way it has every other time he's tried to tell someone. "I have. I will be again, later. I'm trapped in this day, in this fight. I keep living it over and over and I can usually get all the rest of us out of it alive, but no matter what I do I can't get Eddie."

"Have you tried telling him?" She asks, and there's a hint of a smile on her face suggests she doesn't mean the whole watching him die thing.

Richie pales, hates how much the thought of that scares him, too, that this fear is at the heart of them all, that it's what Pennywise feeds on from him. "What're you talking about?"

She slings an arm around his shoulders, gives him a friendly squeeze, "I'm not an idiot, Richie, I can see the way you look at him." Richie doesn't necessarily agree – because apparently she hasn't seen how Ben looks at her. Then, a frown, "I've seen you die for him, too."

"Oh." That's one thing he hasn't seen. In all of his attempts, it's never been him left behind. Somehow, he always makes it out alive, makes it to the reset that'll just leave him waking up to Eddie knocking on his door again and again. On the few occasions where everyone else has died, Pennywise laughs and leaves him there alone, lets him walk out and do it all over again.

"Tell him," she encourages him, just as Ben makes his return.

Maybe he will. It's not like he hasn't tried everything else.

The day dawns several more times before he finally decides to try something new. He gets out of bed with the usual rewind-dizziness still settling in, so he's less than graceful when he stumbles across the room and swings the door open on Eddie. He hauls the other man inside before he can get in his typical wake-up call.

"I need to tell you something," Richie blurts out, but whether his admission is going to be the one about his feelings or the one about the time-loop is still up in the air. "It's important. And you probably won't believe me."

Eddie rolls his eyes, "It is way too early for another joke about my mother, Richie."

Richie ignores the jab, paces awkwardly in front of the other man, and goes for it. If it blows up in his face, there's always today forever to do it over again, right? He takes a deep breath and then, "I love you."

"What?"

"I love you, you idiot," it's easier to say this time, but his heart is still racing at finally admitting it aloud. "I have since we were kids, I think, and I-"

Eddie looks torn, "…This isn't a joke?" Richie's just glad he hasn't bolted from the room yet.

"No. No, it's not a joke, Eds," he swears, "It's the thing Pennywise taunted me with back when we were kids and what he'll use on me now, too. I've never told anyone before." He's not even sure which part he's admitting to never having said before – that he's gay? That he has feelings for Eddie? Hell, he's never told anyone outside of his family that he loves them. "And in case today doesn't go-"

Eddie's hands land on his shoulders, stopping him from his endless back and forth. "Rich, don't."

"Hm?" Richie's afraid to make eye contact, stares intently down at the hideous carpet in the room. "Look, I know you're married. I know you don't feel the same, Eds, I just – I needed to say it."

"What if I do?"

Richie does look up, then, startled because it's the last thing he expected to hear. "What?"

"When we were kids, I-" Eddie starts, stops, tries again, "I liked you when we were kids, even if you were a giant dick." Richie's about to crack a joke, but Eddie seems aware of this and shoots him a warning glare, so Richie wisely fights the urge. "And, Myra… we're not… doing well? With all of this stuff in my head again, I don't know how I ended up with her at all – she's everything my mother was: controlling, anxious, bossy…"

"What are you saying, Eds?"

He feels Eddie's fingers curl into his shoulders, closing the distance between them, and Eddie kisses him. Eddie kisses him. Eddie kisses him. It's quick, because the others are still all waiting just downstairs, but the message is clear. "We can talk about it once this is over," Eddie assures him, ducking for the door with a smile on his face.

Richie catches his arm before he can leave, pulls him back in for just one more quick kiss, "Just promise me you won't do anything stupid, okay?" He asks of the other man before he lets go.

"I promise."

The day goes on. They go to the Barrens. They split for their tokens. They meet back up at the Derry Town House. Bev and Ben are already back by the time Richie returns from the arcade, and he prevents Eddie from running into Bowers, even manages to convince the others to head to the library early so that when the attack on Mike happens, they're all there to stop the bully for good. Bill still goes to try to save the kid – Dean, he's learned – and that goes as poorly as it always does, but when they make the impromptu run to Nielbolt, Richie's ready. This is going to be it, this is going to be the last time, he tells himself. They're going to beat It, they're all going to get out of this alive and then he and Eddie are definitely going to talk and probably kiss and hopefully do more than that.

But, by the time they get to It's lair, Richie's suspicious of how smoothly things are going. The group didn't get separated in the house, so the Stanley head was easier than usual to stop. In the flooded cistern, Bev didn't get pulled under and so they all made it down the hole without issue. The ritual is still a joke, and they all still get split up when they're running from Pennywise, but he grabs Eddie's hand as they race for the Not Scary At All - Scary – Very Scary doors and for once it doesn't feel quite as terrifying, even if all the doors are still equally scary. When they get back to the center, though, Mike isn't about to be killed, so Richie doesn't have to throw the rock, so Eddie doesn't have to throw the spike, so Richie doesn't have to watch him die. All that's left is to defeat the monster, which seems not quite as daunting a task with Eddie's hand still clutched in his.

"This way," he says, pulling Eddie toward Mike and Bill, who are hiding behind a rock lean-to. Only as he does, the tentacle claw comes out of nowhere and impales Eddie through the chest like always. Pennywise howls with laughter and pulls Eddie away from him, pulls Eddie's hand from his as he swings him around the cavernous room.

Richie can't believe it. He watches Pennywise throw Eddie aside and rushes after him. Eddie's just as almost dead as he always is. Only this time, instead of rambling on about the leper, he's reaching for Richie's hand and begging him to stay, which is even worse.

They kill the clown. They drag Richie away from Eddie's body. They go to the quarry. Richie cries himself to sleep.

He wakes up to a knock at the door.

After that, multiple todays pass by with Richie stuck on autopilot, just going through the motions without doing anything to try to influence what occurs, trapped in his own head after the jarring trauma of losing an Eddie who knew. It doesn't matter what happens – it doesn't matter who dies, it'll all be the same when he wakes up again.

He comes back to himself in the midst of yet another today. Like the last few, he's gone through most of it without actively participating, all the way up to the moment the rock leaves his hand, saving Mike from the claw poised at his neck, drawing It's attention his way. Only, today, pure anger tips the scales from the fear and dread and pain facing Pennywise usually leaves him with. Instead of his usual taunting, the words that come out of his mouth are different. "I'm not afraid of you," he shouts at the monster, and he'd swear he sees Pennywise flinch, "You're nothing, just a fucking stupid-"

It traps him in the deadlights. As usual.

Only, this time, when he falls out of them, he knows it's going to be different. He drops ungracefully, painfully to the ground below but for once, Eddie isn't there. A glance over his shoulder reveals the other man – floating, trapped in the deadlights, too. He looks in the other direction and sees Mike and Bill both similarly transfixed. Ben and Bev are frozen at the entrance to another off-shoot tunnel. Pennywise has them all. The monster in question, however, is unaware that Richie's managed an escape – It's controlling the lights, feeding on the fear that the visions he's trapped them all in produce.

Eddie's closest, so Richie goes to him. He reaches up, grabs hold of an ankle and manages to pull the other man back down to level ground. "Eds, you gotta snap out of it," he begs, shaking him a bit to try to pull him from the depths of the deadlights. "Eds!" Then, a flash of a memory – he remembers the cistern all those years ago, when it was Beverly trapped in the deadlights and Ben with an idea to snap her out of it. "Fucking Sleeping Beauty shit," he mumbles to himself, but he presses his lips against Eddie's all the same, and just like back then, a few seconds later, Eddie snaps back to reality.

"Well, that's never happened before," Eddie quips, suggesting that he's been stuck in his own Groundhog Day nightmare. Eddie's eyes dart frantically from Richie to It, to the others – all still trapped in the deadlights. "We're absolutely going to talk about that later, but for now – what the fuck is going on?"

"We've gotta get the others out of the deadlights before It realizes we're free," Richie answers, "And I'm not kissing them, so…"

Eddie sighs and picks the fence spike up off the ground. He stares at it warily – Richie wonders if it gets him killed in his version of today, too – and looks up at Pennywise's gaping maw and the deadlights beyond. "Good thing this can kill monsters, then."

Eddie throws the spike.

Just like all the other times he's thrown the spike, it does damage. Pennywise roars back, choking on the spear lodged in its throat, thrashing about in surprise at the attack until it falls back onto the jagged spikes of the impact crater, where it goes still for a moment. The others all rather abruptly come crashing back to reality, falling hard on the rocky floor.

He's too wary to believe that it's actually dead this time, even if this is the real thing and not a deadlight induced hallucination. "Move!" He shouts at Eddie, grabbing hold of the other man's arm so that they can get the fuck out of dodge before It's up and moving again.

As is usually the case, the tentacle spike takes a blind swing. While they're not in position for the fatal blow to Eddie, Richie feels the stabby bit pierce his shoulder with a white hot searing sort of pain. He feels the blood flow start nearly immediately. The movement of the tentacle itself, however, proves equally problematic – it sends Eddie flying into one wall while Richie's thrown in the opposite direction.

The rest of the Losers are back on their feet by now – if probably still a little confused – and they split to rush to Richie and Eddie's sides. Ben and Bev help Eddie up from where he'd landed with a very clearly broken arm (the same one he'd broken as a kid) while Bill and Mike try to come for him, but Pennywise is blocking their path.

"I'm not afraid of you," Richie says again, facing down another blow, "Not anymore."

Just like before, in the deadlight world, Pennywise flinches at his words, backs off a little. The others don't miss it, even if they don't quite understand why. Despite the risk, the five of them all circle around to stand beside him, sure that whatever Richie is doing can only work better if they're all united in it.

Eddie's the first to figure it out. "I almost killed It," he tells the others and Richie knows he isn't talking about the spike. "Before, when it showed up as the leper for me, I was more angry than scared and I almost killed it. I could feel it choking – if we can make it something we can kill, if we can make it small enough, it can die."

Richie nods. "Just a fucking clown," he mumbles.

The others set to work on this task, shouting down It's attempts to intimidate them, but Eddie stays with him, painfully struggles his way out of his jacket so that he can ball it to press against the hole in Richie's shoulder. It's an eerie mirror of all the times he did the same for Eddie in that nightmare world.

Richie feels impossibly dizzy, which is quite the claim while sitting still. His glasses are broken but he's pretty sure that doesn't explain the way his vision swims in and out of focus. He's bleeding to death, he knows, the same way he's watched Eddie bleed out in front of him so many other times. He doesn't have long and there are things that need saying. "Eds," he tries, as hard as it is to think, to breathe, to talk. "Eds, I need to tell you something, man."

Eddie stays at his side as the others force Pennywise back with their combined lack of fear. He puts more pressure on the wound, an alarmed look in his eyes when he realizes that whatever Richie wants to say is some sort of goodbye. "Richie, don't-"

"I love you." It's harder to say than it had been the day Eddie knew because Richie knows that there isn't going to be a reset on this one, that this is the real world. "I love you and if this is what has to happen to get you out of this place, if this is what it takes for it to not be you, then I'm okay with that."

"What?" Eddie looks floored, eyes wide with panic as he tries to stop the steady flow of blood leaking from Richie's shoulder. "No, no, no. You don't get to do this to me, you asshole!" Eddie shouts, shakes him a little when Richie's eyes start to fall closed.

The others have Pennywise pinned down in the center of the room, amidst the impact point of whatever brought it here. It'll be dead, soon, Richie knows. "Go, Eds," he mumbles. "They need you, too."

"Don't you dare die on me," Eddie demands, but the words sound far away, and Richie would swear he feels the press of lips against his own as everything fades to black.

---

Richie wakes up to a knock at the door.

His heart sinks. He's still trapped. It didn't work and he's still stuck in this fucking nightmare time loop of todays. But, when he forces his eyes open this time, fully prepared to see the dreary wallpaper and grimy windows of the Derry Town House staring back at him, he instead finds stark, white hospital walls and bright afternoon sunshine filling the room.

It's not today.

It's tomorrow, finally.

And fuck, tomorrow hurts. Bits and pieces of the fight come back to him. Falling out of the deadlights into something new, kissing Eddie back to reality, getting the others to figure out how to stop It, confessions when he didn't think he'd make it out, a kiss just before the darkness closed in on him.

The knock comes again, and Eddie pokes his head into the hospital room, "You up?" he asks, the same question he's asked every morning for the last who knows how many mornings, but that's okay, because today isn't those mornings.

Richie's first question is an easy one: "Is everyone okay?"

Eddie nods, crosses the room to sit at Richie's bedside. "Yeah, we're all a little beat up, but you and I got the worst of it," he gestures to the bandages wrapped about Richie's shoulder, the cast on his own arm, "We did it, It's dead. For good."

A sigh of relief, at that. It's over. It's finally gone.

"How'd I get here?" Is his next question because he has no idea how the hell they managed to get him out of that death trap – out of the lair, out of the cistern, out of the well, out of the house, especially with the time limit he knows they were working on before it all caved in on itself.

"Luck," is Eddie's answer. "We found another way out. It dumped us out by the old Ironworks."

It makes sense. They know It used the sewer network to get around and the well house couldn't have been the only access point. Still, he's amazed it worked.

One more question, then: "…Did you kiss me or was I just hallucinating from the blood loss?"

Richie watches Eddie's face go red. "What the fuck else was I supposed to do?" He asks, "I get trapped in a fucking time loop of watching you die, I come out of it to you kissing me, then you tell me you love me and pass out. I panicked."

"You watched me die?"

A nod, "And Ben watched Bev die. And Mike and Bev and Bill watched all of us die. I'm guessing your version had me dying?"

"Mostly. That was the default scenario – the others would die, too, if I messed with things," he explains. He reaches out, settles a hand on top of Eddie's and relaxes a bit when he doesn't pull away. "I told you how I felt once, and I thought that was the thing I needed to do to stop it but It still killed you. After that, I was more pissed off than I was scared of It, and I got out."

"That's what happened when we were kids, too, when we fought It before. We ended up more angry than afraid and we started to win," Eddie agrees and Richie realizes that's true. The deadlights had made it so they couldn't fight back – they'd all been alone in their own nightmare worlds when they needed to be together to win.

Eddie's phone rings, breaking the silence of the room as they both sort out their understanding of the fight with Pennywise. Eddie pulls his hand out from under Richie's to fish it out of his pocket, but a glance at the display leaves Eddie scowling down at the device and he sends the call to voicemail without another thought. "Myra keeps calling."

Richie frowns, feels the empty space Eddie's hand left under his own all the more. "Oh. Guess she's worried about you?"

"She's calling to yell at me, actually. Divorce papers'll do that, I guess."

"What?"

"I had my attorney serve them this morning. I think she was part of whatever magic It worked on us while we were gone. How it took our memories of Derry. How we all ended up successful, all ended up with no kids." Eddie tosses the phone aside and settles his gaze on Richie. "Alright, my turn to ask a question," he starts, "You love me?"

Richie's the one who turns red this time. He looks away, but Eddie's hand slides under his again, flips over and curls their fingers together. He thinks of a 27 year old carving on the kissing bridge. "… I think I've always loved you."

Eddie smiles, leans in close and presses his lips to Richie's in a kiss that's better than he ever could have imagined. "Good," he says, when he pulls back, "I love you, too."