I Think In The AU Where Richie Gets Taken Instead Of Bev And Ends Up In The Deadlights, He Likely Still

I think in the AU where Richie gets taken instead of Bev and ends up in the deadlights, he likely still has to be kissed awake but I put forward this version of how Eddie would do it because I don't think it'd be same as Ben:

I think when the losers find Richie, Eddie has been trying to keep up a brave face since finding out Richie went missing cause he figured that's what Bill would've wanted but after pulling Richie down from where he was floating and seeing his eyes like that without his glasses, he just cracks and just hugs him and begins crying and won't move and the others try to begin coming up with a theory as to how to get him back to normal.

Stan checks his pulse and his breathing and it seems like they exist like he is breathing and has a pulse but they're fading. He calls it a sleep like death and jokes Richie would probably joke that he's a regular sleeping beauty but no one not even Stan laughs about that.

Bill suggests that maybe killing IT will free him cause maybe its a trance, it needs to be alive to actively be keeping him there and the others prepare to look with him and Eddie doesn't budge and he asks if he's gonna come with them but Eddie tells him he can't just leave Richie here like this out in the open, that that was exactly what got Stan killed earlier and what got Richie taken in the first place.

Bill, even though he's willing to let Eddie stay with Richie, isn't so keen on letting him stay there alone in the main room, even if only on the other side of the trash pile of missing kids' belongings, so as they're moving, he asks Stan to go back and stay with Eddie, seeing in his face that Stan is still pretty shaken from his last encounter with it

Stan agrees and also agrees to yell for.help if anything appears to them as he turns to head back, Bill watching him till he's out of sight. Stan walks over and sees Eddie seemingly trying to think of ways to wake Richie up, pleading to shaking to slapping him in the face quite hard and then profusely apologising when that didn't work.

Then he starts mumbling and thinking and Stan a little far away but knows he hears the phrases "sleep like death" "sleeping beauty"

Before Stan has a chance to announce himself, he watched as Eddie leans up quickly and kisses Richie before pulling back and hugging tightly, just repeatedly praying "please work please work please work"

Stan approached and as he does, sees that is beginning to seem less catatonic and is no longer floating at all, and his eyes as going back to normal and tells Eddie to look at him.

At first Eddie looks back at Stan terrified but then does what he said and steps back from him and sees Richie wake up from the deadlights.

Richie is super confused and a little frightened but gets tackled in a hug by Eddie, just crying and cheering about how he's so glad he's not dead.

Stan, who's been in possession of his glasses this whole time, gives them over and welcomes him back to the land of the living

Far after this and the battle when Stan gets some alone time with Eddie, who's been avoiding being strictly alone with him for weeks now, he finally asks why he thought to kiss Richie and why he thought that could work.

Eddie wasn't allowed to watch a lot of Disney movies or read fairytales, his mother didn't like the idea of her son reading books about a future where he left her to go start a life with someone else, so he doesn't remember the plot points of certain stories well.

So he tells Stan that cause he said sleeping beauty and they had to get someone to kiss her awake in the movie, that he thought cause he was the only one with Richie at the time it should probably be him.

"You mean like True Loves Kiss?"

"I thought it was just kiss..."

And in that moment, Stan becomes very aware that Eddie probably didn't know that epithet of the term before doing it and likely didn't want to think about it and was ready to right now either.

So Stan keeps quiet.

Which is why in Chapter 2, he'll need to show up when Eddie gets trapped in the Deadlights trying to save Mike, so that anyone actually knows how to wake him.