Notes: More of a full-length drabble than anything with conclusive plot.
Still, enjoy.
"Waiting Game"
K+ (for mentions of dead bodies)
For all his metaphorical strides in the past year, learning as many new things as he had, there are some things about human beings It figured he would never understand.
Particularly the intricacies of what it meant for the male of the species to beat up on one another in an act that somehow signified affection.
Verbally, and often physically.
Richie and Eddie seemed to demonstrate it the most often. Occasionally, they would talk Mike into their roughhousing, but that was a rare occurence. Simply because the homeschooled kid was used to farmwork did not meant he necessarily enjoyed living rough besides.
Besides, wasn't Eddie a bit fragile for that sort of thing? He bruised easily. Paper cuts for others meant stitches for him. Some days one could hardly glance at him without enduring some hysterical lecture about the importance of "knocking first!"
Then again, Pennywise had mistimed that one. Never again would he try to drop in on Eddie, or any of the the Losers, in the morning, particularly when they were in a delicate state of mid-dress.
Oops.
Hearing the story, Richie Tozier's reaction was on par with a grand mal seizure.
If epilepsy caused laughter.
Looking on, his expression bordering on murderous, Eddie had the self control to not wring his friend's neck. His hands stayed where they were, curled tightly around his bike's handlebars.
Handlebars not to be confused with a certain someone's neck, mind you.
Instead, he settled for a scathing remark: "You know, for hating clowns, you seem to get a lot of enjoyment out of having this guy around."
Without waiting for the guffawing to stop (Richie was practically hiccuping now), Kaspbrak rounded on his next target, who crouched between them, expression blank.
"And you, you didn't need to tell him."
"Ha- he- how could he not?" Richie choked out, before the cosmic entity could fathom an answer. "Ruffles, you just made my week."
Caught in limbo between feeling pride at having earned Tozier's hard-won approval (in the way he had least expected, no less) and enduring the wrath of Eddie's fierce temper, Pennywise could only think of one thing to say.
"...You're weLcome?"
This, of course, sent Richie into another uncontrollable fit of sniggering. Within seconds he was wound into a convulsing ball on the ground.
"You-you're- urgh!" Eddie's hands worked spastically into fists before dropping to his sides. The clown's genuinely-innocently-baffled expression seemed to be working on him. The boy had seemingly successfully avoided punching him in retaliation. "Jesus, you're frustrating."
"That, and he's got his Georgie impersonation down pat now," Richie gasped, breathing heavy as he found his lost composure, and kept hold of it. Barely. "I mean, look at that! Shirley Temple couldn't do better."
There was a word for this.
What had Ben defined it as? Being compared to someone of apparent celebrity was a compliment, right?
"Thank yoU?"
Staggering, one last laugh leaving his system, Richie regained his feet. "Okay, dude, stop. We didn't call you here to practice your manners."
"We are a bit early, though." Reclining atop his bike, Eddie glanced at his watch. The change in topic was most welcome, from his point of view. "I don't know how I managed that, but I know Bill have the usual chores to do before he and Georgie can fly the coop."
Pennywise's already-off-center eyes drifted further askew in thought. "Hmm. Should I check on tHem?"
"Nah. Then they really wouldn't get anything done," Richie reasoned, arms folding behind his head. "And if you did, Eds and I aren't going a stone's throw around that place right now."
Pennywise blinked, eyes realigned. "How come?"
"You've seen their parents? If you think it's bad they don't pay enough attention to Bill and Georgie, it's even worse when they do. They're yessir-noma'am incarnate."
"You just made that up," Eddie accused.
"How else can I put it into words Stripes here will actually understand?"
Pennywise frowned, gaze turning flat not at feeling offended, but at thinking of Beverly, actually.
Versus the Denbroughs, there was no contest in who had the less-savory hand of cards. How she had retreated to the rooftop after four days of confinement, and how the entity had learned that, rather than phone her friends, lest they know the horror that was her home life, she thought avoiding everyone was the solution.
"There are worSe parents in DerRy."
Perhaps sensing how he had veered into dangerous waters, going by the clown's unusually-thoughtful silence, Richie wisely recanted. "Yeah, I guess."
"And not just among us," Eddie went on, his expression growing distant. "You gotta wonder, all the missing ones, they can't all be missing because Mom said 'no TV for a month', or Dad left the front door unlocked?"
"You're saying some of them wanted to go missing?" Richie asked. Adjusting his glasses, turning the sun's glare away, he was mercifully oblivious to their gangly companion's fleeting moment of jaw-clenching, gaze darting away almost guiltily. "Maybe. But that can't be said for most, Eds. As much as I hate my home life, I'd hate ending up in a ditch somewhere even more."
Swallowing the bitterness that was thinking an overgrown, rutty ditch was the best place any of the Losers could end up, associating with the likes of him, Pennywise forced a sigh.
"How much lonGer?" he almost growled.
"You know, maybe you should- "
Snap.
That was all the permission Pennywise needed to vanish.
Staring at the now-vacant space between them, Richie took in Eddie's bewildered expression and shrugged, mimicking it threefold. "What got inta him?"
Trundling down the sidewalk, steering his bike alongside Bill's, Georgie swung his leg over the frame, kicked to stand up on the pedals, and listened to Richie's recounting of the last two hours.
Two hours waiting for the Denbrough boys to finish the morning's dishes and tidying their bedrooms, and thus far, Pennywise had not returned.
"I hate it when he does that."
"We thought he was off to see you two," Eddie explained.
"He would have, eventually," Richie concluded. He rode in the street, practicing his role as the embodiment of kinetic motion, weaving aimlessly around a pothole. "Good luck guessing when. Stripes is his own man- beast, demon... thing."
"He's not a thing," Georgie insisted, so automatically and so fiercely the subject clearly brokered no further debate.
Smiling patiently at his brother's over-insisting tone, Bill brushed his bangs from his eyes. "Well, w-we know he'll find us when he's ready. There's no rushing that. Now let's get Ben."
Initially, the plan had been to recruit everyone, to resume the woodworking job that had sprung up, and quickly grown out of control, in the heart of the Barrens. And by 'woodworking' one would refer to the haphazardly-leaning hut made of branches, sticks, old leaf tarps, flattened cardboard boxes, currently standing tall in a thicket of close-growing oak trees.
While the Losers already had their perfectly-imperfect clubhouse in the form of 29 Neibolt Street, the appeal of constructing their own homage out of whatever refuse and building materials that could be cobbled together was too entertaining a project to pass up.
"Project" was too dignified a word for this sight, Stan Uris decided.
"Mess" was closer to the truth.
Completely and utterly.
"Think we should stop 'em?" he mumbled, chin resting in his hand.
While the others toiled, he and Beverly had opted to sit this leg of the construction out. They stood guard over the group's cache of backpacks, lunchboxes, and bikes. Six sets of hands trying to erect what a sorry-excuse-for-a-hut that was were more than enough.
Stanley sat in the crook of an overarching oak root, curving up from the ground like a giant talon, its tip buried in the soil. Claiming to be suffering from a sore back, he kept his hands clean for the sake of passing out snacks later.
Beverly leaned against a nearby pine tree, seemingly unbothered by the possibility of sap dripping into her hair, or staining her clothes. She had taken one look at the boys' endeavor and broken out a cigarette. In no way was she going to be associated with this farce of a structure.
"No, let them have their fun," she decided after a moment's pause. She exhaled slowly. "It's only a matter of time before they lose interest, or run outta nails. Pounding hammers is more work than entertainment."
"I guess so," Stan agreed. He reached up to wipe his nose, a mild dose of allergens having induced the sniffles in him. "Georgie said they were thinking of naming it."
"Really?" Beverly smirked. As if the hut ever would have a chance to reach a completed state, the younger Denbrough was already thinking of what to christen the sorry thing. Oh, to be six-years-old again. "What for? It's not like it's gonna survive the next big thunderstorm."
"Something to remember it by, I guess," Stan shrugged, then thought twice. A twinge ran up his back, just loudly enough to be heard. He hissed and gripped his shoulder. "It's fine, I'm fine." He waved off Beverly's suddenly-concerned fawning, struggling to his feet. "I just need a good stretch."
"What'd you do?" The redhead took a final drag on the cigarette, stamping it out amidst the wet pine needles.
"Nothing, I just slept on it wrong," Stan muttered, twisting his shoulders to one side, then the other. He sighed as something popped and realigned itself, and stopped aching so badly in the process. "Pen needs to lay off with the bearhugs."
"Ohh," Beverly smiled.
That had been a fun afternoon at Neibolt, as per Georgie's instructions, Pennywise had ambushed each of them with an unexpected embrace. The creature claimed it was just a show of fondness on his part, demonstrating to them how "well" he knew how to perform the act, and he was making sure each of them got "a fair share".
Why it mattered so much to him that he spent half a day on such an endeavor, that was anyone's guess.
Except maybe Georgie's.
But the little boy hadn't confirmed or denied anything.
The smile wavered as Beverly blinked, realizing just what was missing from their otherwise-perfect equation.
That was what had felt so out of sorts about this.
And why Georgie didn't look so enthused with the idea of hammering sticks together.
"Pen, he... Where is he?"
What went unspoken was the flush of shame that rose inside her.
I forgot.
I actually forgot.
How?
Feigning a distraction, Stan scratched at his hair. The restrained look of alarm on his face said Beverly hadn't been alone in mistakenly-overlooking their mascot's absence. "Not sure. Richie said he split before they met with Bill and George. And that was this morning."
"Where to?"
"You think Richie wouldn't have told me if he knew?"
Reaching the same conclusion, the pair of sentries slowly glanced around, as if there were unseen eyes suddenly watching their every move in the "seemingly safe" thicket.
Or worse, it was as if none were watching at all.
Not... anymore.
"...Yeah, I don't like that, either."
Wait. Stop. Wait. No!
You don't want to - don't, no! Idiot, I told you to "wait"!
The animal in him wasn't listening anymore.
Almost as if someone had flipped a switch in his psyche, It was back in control, in body and mind.
And it very much liked where this afternoon was going. Nothing he told himself would stop the eager chattering of his mandibles, pre or post kill.
True, this was a major, major backstep on his part. But no one was going to know that. The Losers wouldn't know, and Derry certainly wouldn't care.
And even if they did, they would forget.
Maybe not forgive.
But certainly forget.
In time, he was sure he could even convince himself to forget.
Ribbons of torn cloth, the remnants of a once-pristine baseball uniform, adorned the four-year-old's body like horrid garnish. Facedown in the stream, where she had been driven, It snatched the carcass up in both forelimbs, serrated mouthparts fastened securely to the back of the girl's neck.
Moving quickly on its remaining six feet, he scrambled for the nearby drainpipe.
Back to the sewers, back to the cistern.
Thunder rumbled outside, as if Mother Nature were voicing her wordless displeasure, driving him back underground.
He kept moving.
All the while, the half-spun threads of spiraling, conflicting, ever-intersecting logic (a simpler, saner person might call them his "inner voices") would give him no peace.
Idiot, idiot, IDIOT.
Shut up! I am not!
You weren't that hungry.
Ha! Says you. What's wrong with planning a bit further ahead?
"Further ahead"? Do you not see how skinny this twerp is?
Ohh? What're you gonna do about it, then?
Nothing, if you stick to your word.
My word. My word is my own. I can bend or break it as I see fit.
Bend or break. Hmph!
So you'd do the same to Georgie and not bat an eye? Or Bev? Or Stan?
That's different. They're different.
Sorry, bucko. At the end of the day, they're not that different. Pretend all you want. Ration all you want. You know this small fry isn't gonna keep you satiated for long.
Then what're you gonna do?
He practically threw the body aside upon reaching the cistern. Curling tightly in on himself, he fell to the cold stone floor, quivering talons arranged atop his armored head, creaky joints all atremble.
Three months.
This kill would suffice him for one.
If that. Maybe.
Still, it had to be done. Better to cull some hapless, fourth-born runt whose parents forgot to pick them up from tee-ball practice than hurt the ever-present cluster of eight souls still loitering in the Barrens.
He had his favorites.
Favorites weren't food.
They weren't.