A/N: Trigger warning for domestic abuse and disordered eating. I shot my plot-wad in the first chapter, so if you want to read more, please feel free to message me with suggestions.
"Pass the Pad Cashew?"
"Who are you, and what have you done with Eddie? Demon, I command you to depart from this man's body. Omnis spiritus immunde."
Richie was holding out the dish with the hand not currently crossing himself, but Eddie hadn't taken it. He was blinking at Richie like it was the first time they'd seen each other in twenty-seven years, which: been there, done that, got the I (Heart) Derry T-Shirt because their clothes were covered in blood and/or sewage.
"What the fuck," said Eddie. It didn't exactly sound like a question, but he was looking at the Losers like he expected them to answer it anyway.
"Eds?"
"What the fuck."
"Eds?" Richie said again, and then worried they had slipped into some sort of Groundhog Day scenario, where they only repeated the last two seconds, which would make it really hard to break the curse, because how he supposed to learn a life lesson in two seconds? His best time was twenty-seven years.
"Don't call me that," Eddie said, apparently on automatic.
"So do you not want the Pad Cashew, or…?" Richie was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the Pad Cashew, but his arm was getting tired.
"I'm allergic to cashews." Eddie still seemed to be working on automatic.
Richie put down the dish. He wasn't allowed to eat fried food. His dinner consisted of two salad rolls with low-sodium soy sauce. He was a little light-headed, which was not helping him get a handle on the situation.
Eddie's eyes were bush-baby big. He looked so innocent that Richie was almost fooled, until he remembered the previous night. Eddie's eyes had been narrowed then, so controlled and unaffected that his pupils had been barely pinpricks, brown irises flashing almost gold in the low light.
"No, you're not. We did that whole allergy test? The doctor drew a tic-tac-toe board on your back?"
Eddie shifted to manual. "Where are we?"
"Home," said Richie.
"Your home? In L.A.?"
"Our- Our home, Eds. You moved to L.A. After you divorced Myra."
"I divorced Myra?"
Richie nodded.
"Good," said Eddie. "Why the fuck can't I remember it?"
Richie panicked, and probably would have gone on panicking if the rest of the Losers hadn't been there for Anything But Chinese Night. Eddie used to talk him down from panic attacks, using the same breathing techniques Richie had taught himself as a child to help Eddie through his own psychosomatic asthma attacks.
These days, Eddie left him alone, because Richie was only doing it to get attention. Eddie knew what he was talking about. He had thrown away his inhaler months ago.
"What's the last thing you remember?" asked Mike.
"The– Richie in the Deadlights." Eddie's breaths were fast and shallow, accompanied by a high whistle. "Where's my inhaler?"
Richie found the backup he had hidden behind his Emmy and handed it over.
Eddie took a long hit. "Is It dead?"
"Yes," Bill said immediately. "It's dead. We killed it. Everyone survived, except—"
"I remember about Stan," said Eddie.
"That's not what I was going to say." Bill put his hand on Eddie's shoulder. "You were hurt. You went into shock, and you were technically dead for a few seconds. Richie gave you CPR. It's all over now. You're fine, and It's dead."
"I'm not sure It's dead," said Richie, because the same part of his brain responsible for two-second Groundhog Day had just come up with something else. "Um, I was a Superwholockian."
"What?" asked everyone, except for Eddie who said, "What the fuck."
"When I just um— I just joke exorcised you. Because you asked for Pad Cashew, and even though you're not allergic, you usually don't eat cashews anyway— I mean you're pretty big into veal these days, and I guess cashews just don't cut it, so…" Richie paused but only for breath. He hadn't spoken this much in months. "It was real Latin, because they used real Latin for their exorcisms in Supernatural, which I was into, because apparently I was a sucker for queerbaiting, even though my whole life was basically— Anyway, I think maybe when you died, It was also dying, so It possessed you, and I just exorcised It."
This was met with silence, so he took another breath and kept going. "That would explain how we killed it so quickly, because— Let's face it. That was way too easy. The rest is a little more— I mean It's not from this world, but that's sort of the point of exorcisms, and—"
"You think," Eddie said, "that I have been living with you for—"
"Three months."
"—three months, as It, and you didn't notice?"
Richie shifted uncomfortably in his seat, which was only in part because his lower back hurt if he sat for too long. "Sort of?"
"You sort of mean that, I was sort of It, or you sort of didn't notice?"
"All of the above?"
Eddie tried to frown, but he was already frowning, so it looked like Pennywise's exaggerated pout. "No one wants to play with the clown anymore."
Richie looked away. "I think it had your memories. I mean, it always knew everything about us, right? And if it was so easy to exorcise, then it wouldn't want to draw attention to itself? So it would keep things subtle?"
"What things?" asked Beverly. Her grip on her chopsticks had shifted till she was holding them like knives or fence posts, and Richie wondered if she had even noticed.
Richie shrugged. "Just things."
"No," she said. "You've been living together for three months. Not just living together, you—"
"Stop," Richie begged, without meaning to.
"Richie—"
"Please." This time he meant to. "I don't want to pressure him into making a decision he doesn't really want."
"He already made that decision once," said Bev.
"I'm not sure he did."
"Okay, I know I haven't been here for the past three months," said Eddie, "but I'm here now, so stop talking about me like I'm not."
"I think it was trying to get revenge on Eddie," said Richie, because the more he talked, the more sense it made, and usually the opposite was true, so he was running with it, waiting to see how much it would hurt when he finally tripped. "For surviving, or for the fence post, or maybe for the whole Leper Epiphany."
"By occupying my body?" asked Eddie, like they were talking about fucking Wall Street.
"By doing things with your body that you would never do."
"Like what?"
"Like dating me," Richie said quietly.
"No," said Eddie, shaking his head, and Richie's heart sank all the way down to his bunny slippers, but Eddie was still talking. "That's not what you meant. I figured that out. I'm not an idiot, and we're wearing matching slippers. I don't even like Donnie Darko."
"Blasphemy."
"What did you mean?" Eddie insisted.
"Did It hurt you?" asked Bev. One of her chopsticks had broken in two. Ben was picking out the splinter. She still hadn't noticed.
"No," said Eddie. "It was more subtle than that, wasn't it? It was like what my mom— What Myra did to me. I did that to you. Did I drug you?"
"No." Richie shook his head. "It was just diet pills. And sleeping pills for the nightmares."
"What the fuck." Eddie looked so mad, eyes narrowed, that Richie flinched away even though It had never hit him. That would have given It away. "And you just— You just let me? You just thought I would do that to you? You—"
"I'm sorry," said Richie.
"No, you don't—" Eddie took another hit on the backup inhaler. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
Richie shook his head again. He hadn't been able to tell the difference between his biggest fear and the love of his life. He stood up, pushing his chair back from the able so fast it would probably leave bruises on his bony thighs. And now all he could think about was Captain Holt pretending to be straight by talking about thigh gaps. "That's my favorite part of a woman. There's nothing more intoxicating than the clear absence of a penis."
Richie only made it outside before throwing up because he hadn't touched his salad rolls.