Notes: Thirty years later, he's still playing peacekeeper.

Callbacks to a couple of ITerations moments included.


"The More They Change"

K


Slam!

"Ow! AbS?!"

She halted mid-step, dress ruffles whirling to a stop.

How?

The timing was just uncanny.

Torn between her boiling outrage and burgeoning mild alarm, Abby thought for a moment not to answer the high-pitched cry.

She couldn't have hurt him. He wasn't that-

Concern won out. Just for a second.

She twirled back around, opened the door again, hand lingering on the gold-plated knob.

Pennywise crouched on her bedroom threshold. He was wincing, eyes pinched, delicately holding a hand to his red nose as if it had been broken in the impact.

Which, of course, it wasn't.

But from the way he glared at her through the tops of his eyes, he was probably more agitated than he was in pain.

There. Crisis averted.

And far from being happy to see him, the four-year-old remembered why she was angry in the first place.

She tried to close the door again.

"You can go away, too."

Predictably, Pennywise braced a glove flat against the hardwood door, holding it with ease despite her best attempts to force it shut. It looked a bit like a chihuahua trying to fend off a doberman. Ignoring her grunts and struggles, the entity forced his head and shoulder through the gap.

He leaned low, to account for the difference in height.

"AbBy..."

Abigail Uris scowled over at him, standing far forward at an angle on her buckle-shoed toes, both hands pressing against her side of the door. Leaning the whole of her weight against it didn't seem to be doing any good.

But she wouldn't let that stop her from trying.

She made her best attempt at an intimidating growl.

"Go away, Penny. I mean it."

He snorted, ruby lips turning up in a smirk. The childish insistence in those two words was endearing enough on its own.

And the delivery?

Just adorable.

"Oh, realLy?"

With only one fingertip positioned on the door's edge, he made a slow, deliberate show of pushing it open. The hinges creaked omniously.

Well-oiled as they were, with no signs of wear, the noise was purely a figment of his present influence.

Abby scoffed, struggled, tried in vain to reposition her feet. Fiercely, she threw herself against the flat surface, shoulders hunching up with strain. She dug her heels deep into the bedroom carpet.

"Penny, no."

He shook his head, practically tutting in disapproval.

"Abs."

The hinges kept keening.

Then there was a soft thump and ting of bells as he set a shoulder against the door, wedging it open.

He didn't push back. Just stayed there, now playing the part of a costumed doorstop.

To her quiet outrage.

Stalemate reached, they stared each other down for all of a minute.

Then he raised an eyebrow.

"WhaT's the problem?"

"You'll just take Daddy's side," the toddler blurted out. In earnest, she resumed pushing on the door. "Mmph! Why should I tell you?"

"WhY?" Pennywise raised an eyebrow, blasé as could be. Sandwiched between the door and its frame, he didn't intend to budge. "Because... I'm curiouS."

"Ha!" Abby breathed out, explosively, leaning hard. "No, you're- not. Ugh! You know everything about everything. Why would you be?"

He tilted his head, brows lowering.

"BecauSe I am."

"That's not a reason."

Now, tilt the other way.

"It is, too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is no- infinity! Ha, got you!"

Pennywise scoffed deeply and rolled his eyes upward, unsure of whether to smirk or scowl.

It was a look that blatantly said, "Yep, Stan was right. When she's miffed, she goes all out."

Undaunted, deciding enough was enough, he threaded himself the rest of the way through the door.

Abby gave a little cry, surprised by the new lack of resistance. Her unwanted company caught the swinging doorknob before she could faceplant against it.

Breathing hard, she glared at him from point-blank range.

After a moment, he let go of the door, and gently eased it shut.

He stayed there, balanced in an easy crouch, and crossed his long arms.

They stared for another minute before he spoke again.

"You'Re being ridiculous."

"So are you," Abby hurled it back at him, hands on her hips - also known as the best Patty Uris impression ever. "I didn't call for help."

His brows lowered again, along with his tone. "You didn'T have to. I heard everythiNg."

"Did not."

"Did- no. Don't starT." Frowning, genuinely-growing annoyed with the lack of progress, Pennywise held up an index finger. To stop himself from caving a second time, or stop whatever she was going to say, no one knew.

Abby took it to mean her, apparently. Huffing in frustration, she spun around and marched over to her dresser. With both hands, she yanked the second-to-bottom drawer open.

Pennywise watched her rifle through her wardrobe, unmoving. This situation didn't call for too much animation on his part.

Yet.

She didn't seem to be looking for anything. More like... she was just looking to look. To somehow vent.

For Georgie, it once meant trashing his room.

Being the young lady in training she was, Abby couldn't bring herself to do the same.

Yet.

One floral-patterned blouse had hit the floor before he thought to speak up again.

"You don'T have to tell me, eitHer, if you don't want."

"Then why are you here?" Abby spat, the same quick snap to anger her father tended toward when frustration became too much to bear. "You say I don't have to talk, that you already heard everything. If I don't wanna talk, what do I need you for?"

Pennywise bared his teeth in brief irritation, eyes centering slowly. The displacement of her emotions wasn't totally unaffecting him, but him keeping a level head about this was the only way to get anywhere.

Stan hadn't asked him to, any more than his daughter had.

Decades after first meeting the Losers, the entity once again took it upon himself to mend their social rifts.

And with Abby, that duty now extended to the new generation just as equally.

...what do I need you for...

Brushing off the potentially-hurtful words, he stood up.

Okay.

He would call that bluff out for what it was.

"Alllll right, I trIed."

The pretend sigh did just as he hoped.

"What...?"

"No, I heard you rigHt." Without looking, he made a little, dismissive finger-wiggling wave. "Good luck with that, Abs."

"With what?" Hopelessly confused, she gave up doing any damage to her once-folded clothes. Turning back, she stood, took a few uncertain steps his way. "Good luck, with what?"

"HmMm?" Nonchalant, the clown raised an eyebrow, pretending to study his covered fingernails. "I thought you hAd it figured out?"

"I-I- Penny, what do you mean?"

"No, no. You're correct. You know betTer than me? You have somEone else to talk to?" He shrugged high for effect, expression deadpan and pointed off into the middle distance. "Who am I to aRgue?"

No smiling. Don't smile.

Not yet.

Abby's mouth worked uselessly, the soundless motion matching her darting, wide brown eyes perfectly.

The clown said nothing more. Only waited. With just a little nudge, he had effectively derailed her self-righteous anger and replaced it with something easier to manipulate.

Bewilderment.

To a four-year-old, thinking fast on your feet wasn't always done successfully.

Particularly when you were thrown for a loop like this.

"I don't... I don't know what you're talking about, Penny."

Arms uncrossing, he took a half-step closer, sharply stooping lower so they could look eye-to-eye again. His arms uncrossed and played out like tentpoles, fingertips poised on the carpet.

He tilted his head, staring out from under furrowed brows, and reminded himself not to smirk.

"Me, neither. You teLl me."

Abby took a half step away. Her hands found the nearest ruffle on her dress, which she kneaded uneasily between her fingers. Her eyes started to glisten.

Pennywise sighed heavily, dropped his gaze, feeling momentarily ashamed.

Stupid clown. That move, it was too intimidating. How her nervous system had prickled with fresh-wrought anxiety. He wasn't trying to make her cry.

She's not Richie or Eddie, you dolt.

Or Georgie.

Easy. Go easy on her.

"Sorry..." He withdrew and sat down in one fluid motion, back curved against the door, long limbs folding up around him. "Abby girl, I'm just worried. I'Ve never seen you so- so angRy."

"So?" She sniffed, rightfully upset by his performance. "You- you could be less mean about it."

...no idea what it means to go too far...

Her eldritch caretaker paused and went still, faint echoes of a thirteen-year-old Stan Uris' voice fading from his ears.

Then, with a bell-ringing twitch, he snapped back to the present.

Sorry, twofold. You can't know what "mean" is for me.

I backslide sometimes. Still.

Stan will tell you when you're older.

Instead, Pennywise folded his arms, hands under his elbows, and hunched his shoulders, hugging himself like he was playing the victim card. "I'm sorry, Abs. I only want to heLp, but I get iT wrong sometimes."

And that's all you need to hear.

The girl blinked at him in the silence that followed.

Once, twice. A third time.

But with each one, her eyes lost their growing shine. The tears didn't fall.

Her jumpy nerves stilled.

"If you wanted to help, you'd leave me alone."

Pennywise frowned, but offset its stern impact with a raised eyebrow.

This? We're already back to this again?

Abby spoke again before he could comment. "It's nothing you can change anyway, Penny. It's done. Daddy says so."

"WhaT is done?"

She looked up, a dejected frown marring her expression. "You said you already heard. You know."

"I did, but I wanT to hear it fRom you, now," he explained, far gentler than before. "Don't you want to teLl me?"

His kicked-puppy face never worked on Bevs.

But it did wonders for getting Abby to lower her defenses.

She took one look at it and crossed over to sit beside him. Her dress bunched up around her legs as she worked herself into the crook underneath one arm, hand reaching across to hold him in a half-hug.

Said half-hug was returned a moment later. He couldn't help giving a gloating little smile, chin gently pressing against the top of her head.

"Knew iT."

"Be quiet," she retorted, voice wavering. "Just... be quiet."

He scoffed one last time, pausing only to kiss those wavy brown locks.

Abby ducked and fussed wordlessly under the touch, heels slipping on the folds of her dress.

But she scooted even closer to him in the process.

Just as he hoped.

She would talk.

When she was ready.


"Ohhh... StaNny!"

Paper in hand, Stanley Uris almost choked on his tea. Seated at the dining room table, he reared back in alarm at the sight awaiting him over the newspaper's top edge.

Just managing not to breathe his beverage in, he gaped.

Lying on his stomach, balanced on his elbows, Pennywise reclined upon the glossy-finished table as though it were a lounge chair. His eyes glowed yellow, bordering on orange.

Belatedly, Stan thought to cough a spluttery, "What?"

"What, indEeeEd," the clown-beast parroted, and tilted his head in challenge. "LiKe, what's this I hear abOut you not letTing AbS get a puppy?"

Stan held his visitor's gaze for only thirty seconds before laughing - half in a disbelieving sigh, half in amused exasperation. He set the cup and paper aside.

Did the entity really not see the irony here?

"Where do I start?"