A/N: Warnings: Child Abduction, neglect, some disturbing sexual subject matter between two children, and violence.

"Look."

Stanley sighed, pursing his lips as he stared at Richie's hand. The boy across from his was a nuisance when it came to showboating, that much was clear. And Stanley found that be a certainty despite having only met the kid today.

There weren't too many children that were Richie and Stan's age that came to the synagogue, and none aside from the two boys that stayed after for lukewarm orange juice and flaky donuts on after Shabbat morning. Stanley knew that Mrs. Berman had a two-year-old daughter she kept nearby while meeting with the other parents. And there was an infant boy that (he assumed but never asked) belonged to Mr. Aaron and was being raised by his grandmother. However, in general Stan was the only kid who stayed behind and kept stuck and silent while the adults chattered in a circle above his head.

Until Mrs. Tozier decided to hang around, muttering quietly with Stanley's father, while her mop-head son perked up like a firework the instant he saw Stan.

"Look! Are you looki – You're not looking Stan-man!" Richie shouted.

The boy was so loud. And maybe he was Stan's age, and maybe Stan's father had smiled politely and told him to go off and make friends – but Stan couldn't help wishing that Richie hadn't come there at all. While Stanley was quiet and disposed to thinking to himself more than speaking to others, the Tozier boy was brash and said whatever he wanted to anyone.

"Don't call me that. M'name's Stanley." Stan grumbled back. No doubt about it, Richie was annoying, too.

Stan would've preferred being alone that morning, since the synagogue was interesting when you could be hands-on without anyone calling him out. Now he was outside and his bottom was wet from the grass below them, because Richie had dared him to sit. He'd goaded Stanley, just because Stan had made a fuss how wet his shoes were getting.

"Why're… why you showing me?" Stan asked between exhalations, fidgeting with the leaves that had fallen around them. He was ripping up dewy blades of grass and clumps of leaves in anxiety, still irritated over having to prove himself able to sit in the wet earth.

Stan crossed his arms. "Go show your mom if it's so important."

"No!" Richie knocked against Stan's shoulder with his knuckles, receiving a sharp shove in return. "I don't show her. I don't show anybody, just you."

"Why?" His partner whined.

Richie's smile was blinding, and his irises darted behind his glasses to the fist that he held out to Stan. Stan gazed at the boy's hand again, as though moved by a magnetic pull of some kind.

Richie's hand opened slowly, although Stan had caught movement from inside as well as light glowing through the thin skin of Richie's small fingers. Stan felt like a stone had dropped into his chest, making everything twist around inside until his chest seemed to compress and make even his throat feel too tight. He couldn't turn away from the ball of light floating from Richie's palm, bright and small and soft. It floated lazily at Richie's command, as though it were one of the fairies that Stan heard of in storybooks, but there were no wings to keep it in the air.

"Why?" Stan questioned again, voice drawn low.

"You can do it." Richie leaned in, perching all his body weight on one hand. "Right?"

The first thing Stan wanted to do was say 'no' and push Richie away. It would've been easy to do, and Stan wasn't old enough to have tempered his personality and behavior. His shyness was innate, but it didn't extend to everything.

And Stanley could remember that very morning before Shabbat – he always woke up early to the birdsong, and they'd been singing in a dark blue sky before he opened the window. He'd opened it without getting out from under the warmth of his covers, all trussed up in his big boy's bed. Birdies had flown in the magically-lifting sill of the window, and a little robin had rested on his belly above the blankets for a while. No, making a ball of light wasn't something that he'd ever done, but Stan had also made the pages of books in his dad's library flip without touching them. Stan had made the pictures in picture frames move and smile at him when he was alone in a room.

"Other people… can…" Stan muttered hesitantly.

Richie's brow furrowed, and the color of his eyes turned slate. "They can't."

"How d'you know?"

Richie shook his head, scruffy hair whipping around his pale shoulders. The light lowered into his hand and he cupped it like it was a living creature in his frail grasp.

"I feel it when I look." Richie said matter-of-factly. "Everyone's dark inside, but you're… sunshine! Like sunshine, Stan-man."

Mr. Uris and Mrs. Tozier had been talking for a very long time, so long that one had to wonder if they remembered their children at all.

It was not yet afternoon, but the service at the Uris Congregation at taken place bright and early in the morning. The sun had already risen to its highest point while Stanley and Richie continued to muck around in the tall grass out back. They played a host of games, all the games that they both knew how to play, for Richie was hopeless at following any that he hadn't known of before and that had more than two rules.

Stanley had discovered that while his dislike of the scruffier boy lost its intensity, he was still exasperated by Richie's boundless energy. Had he been older and had more experience in the world, perhaps Stanley would've been tackled by a sense of self-awareness with that feeling. But at four-years-old, the nuance of unsaid meaning was lost on Stan.

"Richie! Wait!" Stan stumbled over his shoelaces while trying to speed up and slow down at the same time. There was a gently sloping hill down from the congregation feeding into the edge of the Barrens.

"Hurry up, slow-poke!" Richie caterwauled instead of waiting.

He was already lying on his tummy and beginning to tumble down, disappearing like an inkspot against the horizon of the hillside before Stan could stop him.

The pair had crossed quite a distance, for them, to get to it and while it was very fun to roll down, it was the sort of place that often required adult supervision. The Barrens were illustriously dark and full of depth. Just looking at the massive wall of trees like guard posts to keep all its secrets within made Stan imagine it to be and other-world of mystery.

Nevertheless, Stan stalled. He looked back at the synagogue from over his shoulder, and the saw the familiar brick patterns of his father's pride and joy rising above everything else like a shining beacon. It was a complete contrast to the rough, wild, irrational up ahead.

Since learning about it, and being told never to go into that area, Stan had had the conflicting mindset of a too-serious child. In one mind, he wanted to do the exact opposite of what he'd been told and go exploring the only woods he'd ever known. Woods that, from every angle, looked just as impressive as those from bedtime fairytales. In the other mind, Stan was too afraid to disobey and too likely to justify the safety entailed in those rules. The other mind was always the correct one, but Stan had to admit as he followed Richie's shrinking body flopping up and over that that mind wasn't nearly as fun.

Go on… Have fun… Play.

The wind carried through Stanley's curly locks, and he grinned hesitantly before huddling to the ground floor. He winced at the feeling of the clammy dirt below, but tried to ignore it while getting in position. Soon, Stan was dropping from the top of the drop-off, a burst of laughter in his wake as his little body spun against the tide of gravity.

"Richie!" Stan smiled as he stood up while wiping the stains on his pants and shirt. He didn't like the squishy mud and blades of grass that had caked onto his clothes, for they didn't feel nice, but he found himself happy to have fallen. "Richie?"

"Where're you?" Stan asked of the air, the grass, the empire-state tall trees. They loomed now that he'd reached near their roots, and without another person there. Stan's mood was quickly plummeting

Richie wasn't at the bottom of the slope, but Stan squinted around until he saw the boy's striped shirt and shaggy hair nearer to the Barrens trees. Stan walked until he was right behind Richie, an exasperated frown on his face.

"Richie." He said flatly. The tone was meant to tell his friend that he'd scared Stan, when Stan didn't want to admit being scared. He was a big boy, and big boys didn't frighten easily.

"Hey!" Stan smacked Richie's shoulder. "Listen! Listen to me!"

Come one, come all…

Richie turned, eyes blazing not out of anger but in awed disbelief. "Stan…!"

Richie shouted, pointing forward violently. "The sun!"

Stanley tsk'd automatically, but his eyes followed in Richie's desired direction regardless. Stan wasn't only mature for his age like Mama said, but he was observant as well. If the sun had suddenly fallen into the Barrens, he would've noticed it, just as everyone else would've noticed it too. And Stan doubted that Richie, who didn't appear to notice what wasn't right in front of him, probably would not have noticed such a humongous event unless it were burning his face off.

"No! The sun is up… up there…" Stan argued futilely, trailing off as he was taken with the orbs of light ringing around thin tree trunks.

The lights were scalding like fire, emitting flame from their orbit like suns and flaring into a large heated mass as they came together as one, like a sun. Neither child was harmed or impaired by those qualities, however, they simply couldn't look away from the dancing display.

"Then what're they? What. Are they?" Richie slowly inquired. He'd begun to speak, while stumbling over some broken branches and litter upon the ground.

Richie was set to chase the floating orbs despite there being no origin from which they'd come from, nor an explanation for what they were. The light was warm and inviting, beckoning even. That was more than enough of an incentive for Richie to let it lead the way.

Stan was pushed forward like gravity were still at work – the Barrens had a gravitational pull of its very own, it seemed. "You made 'em."

Stanley…

Leaves above them shook lazily in the breeze, shivering and whispering. The cold wind never extinguished the lights that bade them to follow and Richie was already disappearing once again, behind the trunks three times his size. It would've been wrong, and bad, for Stan to let him go chasing after these strange things (fairies? Lightening bugs?) alone.

"…Nuh-uh…" Richie's voice came from far away.

Stanley… Stanley… Stanley boy…

Richie! Richie… come here… come here…

Stan had, like most little boys and girls, been read bedtime stories. He was still growing, but as he entangled his hand with Richie's, Stan couldn't help relating what was happening now to what he'd only heard of from books. The comparison was abstract and incoherent, a visual menagerie where Red Riding Hood met Hansel and Gretel, chasing crumbs to Grandma's house. Their feet were burning, Hansel was blind and snagged by thorns, and it was a daydream that shifted non-linearly in Stan's mind. Stan was mildly spooked when the fantasy ended again and again and again, always with the three children being snatched into the wolf's den.

Come here boys… come here to me…

What came after, Stan didn't know.

Henry had punched Patrick in the throat, and now he was running after the (slightly) taller boy as though his life were a bet on it.

In the pudgy boy's defense, Patrick had it coming. He was Henry's oldest 'friend' and had seemed to think he was entitled to do anything he wanted to Henry with the title over his head.

This wasn't limited to things like sharing lunch, toys and the like, not after ten minutes prior to their race. They'd shared secrets, although Patrick's were more malevolent and not convincing, such as when he'd gleefully cupped Henry by the ear and told him that he, Patrick, had killed his baby brother.

Patrick never asked to share, he usually took what he wanted and could only be reeled in by Henry's physical abuse, thereby becoming Henry's friend. It seemed that there was a catch to that unspoken agreement, as Patrick had decided on that Saturday that he wanted to see his friend's genitals.

He'd garnished the demand with nice words, polite words that any six or seven-year-old child was capable of retaining. Patrick had made Henry feel self-conscious over it, to the point where he'd been close to pulling his pants down for Patrick's benefit. Henry didn't understand his friend's fixation or his want, but he'd frozen when Pat made the decision for them both. He'd knocked Henry down and torn off his pants before staring at and pulling Henry's penis out of his underwear.

It had taken Henry more than a minute to understand that what was happening was really happening. He'd been entranced by how his body grew at Patrick's touch, and his tummy squirmed like he was being tickled from the inside out, but then he became cold. Boys didn't do this to each other, Henry realized, and friends definitely didn't do this to each other. So, Henry had pushed Patrick off, pulled up his pants and stared at the other boy before punching Patrick as hard as he could.

If something scared you, you got mad. You beat the shit out of it – Dad said so, and Henry lived by his Dad's every word.

Henry had to.

Patrick had also been the one to grin and laugh, to make the hunt into some kind of game. Henry was blusteringly mad, but Patrick handled it blissfully. He'd gracefully run into the Barrens near the train yard (the one that Dad didn't know they went to) and skipped around the trees. Patrick didn't feel any danger with the wind at his back and the grass flinging from beneath his feet, even when Henry pounced on him sooner rather than later. They weren't too deep into the woods when Henry pulled Patrick into a headlock and shouted against him. Rage curdled inside of Henry while Patrick laughed and kept laughing till he was out of breath.

"Henry!" He wheezed from under Henry's armpit, giggling.

"Shut up!" Henry retorted, but he was beginning to lose his grip on Patrick.

Patrick was being loosened from the chokehold against his friend's better judgment, lips curled into a conniving sneer. "But I saw somethin'."

"Don't care!"

"No, Henry. I saw the Jew boy back there." The taller boy stood up again. "I saw him and a four-eyes over there."

Patrick was totally free and skipping again, this time around a different set of trees while Henry picked up on the fact that they were deep in the Barrens and he had no way of finding a way out. No way out of these scary, dark woods. You couldn't beat the shit out of trees and make them cry for scaring you, Henry knew that.

"You swear?" Henry followed, grumbling while pushing low-hanging branches out of his face.

Patrick answered by shushing him, halting behind a tree and hiding until he and Henry were both silent. They were ready to jump out in a sneak attack when Henry sought a stream of light surrounding the two children. It was momentarily off-putting, yet the light of three miniature suns winked out of existence when Henry blinked and shook the creepy-crawly shivers down his spine.

Something was wrong, prompting the Bowers boy to jump out like a wild rabbit, landing just outside of the little circle that the four-year-olds had made.

"Jew boy!" Henry snarled, happy and angry all at once. He was glad that Pat hadn't been lying, and fast forgetting what had happened prior to them entering the Barrens. Watching the smaller, weaker boys squeak and startle up from his shouting made the discomfort from before disappear into a fuzzy haze.

"And four-eyes." Pat sneered, skulking toward the children.

He, too, liked how visibly scared the kids were, so much so that he yearned to see those expressions up close. In reaction, Patrick led the charge in lieu of Henry, running straight at Richie and Stan whilst they cried out in alarm.

The tussle was short-lived, for Henry and Patrick had numbers on their side. Richie and Stan were too small to win the battle, and Richie cried as sharply as any infant while his arm was twisted behind his back. Patrick snickered, catching Richie's glasses as they fell from his face and holding them away from the little boy.

Stan, meanwhile, ducked from Henry's punches, yet fell for Henry driving a foot into his shin. He screamed when the pain shot up into his bones and made his legs give way.

Stanley landed face first into the ground, struggling with all his might as Henry's foot pressed on his head. Beside them, Richie began to sob desperately. His tears made the blurred, spinning images of the forest around him become less distinguishable from everything else, and impaired him as far as putting up a fight.

The rest of the world was hauntingly unobtrusive and unfeeling as the chaos reigned, as Patrick pushed Richie to the ground next to Stan.

"What'd we do now?" Pat asked, forever smiling. His companion didn't know why, but an idea instantaneously grew in his shallow mind.

"Pee on 'em." Henry backed away from Stanley, who was breathing raggedly. Richie pawed at him, clinging to Stan's shirt and curls to keep steady as he continued crying.

"Sick!" Patrick was already unbuttoning his jeans, and though Henry was slower to the movement, he too began to pull his pants down for the second time that day.

Something enormous dove down from the treetops between the luckless boys. It struck the ground and Stan was certain that the Earth trembled while trying to support the striking white and red animal that landed upon it. Quickly, he reached for and grabbed hold of Richie before pulling the scrawny child to him. Stan shielded Richie, terror on both their greyed faces, while the most terrifying roar bellowed ahead of them.

The growl silenced everything in its awake, aside from the clear sway of the trees that cowered before the beast. No birds sang, no squirrels chittered nor climbed the thick tree trunks, but while dunking for cover Stan and Richie both recognized the garbled screams that followed it. Henry shrieked the loudest, having soiled his pants while groping at the ground with clawing nails as he sought a way out. Richie's glasses were smacked from his grip and buckled below the human-shaped beast attacking him. Patrick had not fallen, but he was backed against a tree stump, eyes as wide as they could possibly get.

A warped skull, like that of a desert-dwelling steer's cranium, that had been set on fire hovered above them. It was death incarnate, yet animated by the peeling muscle and flesh that schlicked to the ground like heavy raindrops met their gaze. It hung on a crooked pole of a spin, arced and bloody with bones that stuck out of its sides like a lizard's spine, rising from a visible chest cavity tearing through the flesh and cotton of the monster's suit. Its teeth were sharp and endless, gleaming in the backdrop of the darkness all around them while bared with fury.

The young bullies were scarred permanently, so much so that in the span of a second they went from paralyzed to sprinting in different directions. They were tearing through the thin edge of the wood as though their lives depended on it – and it very well could have.

Their disappearance from the scene was swift and noted with little interest apart from a deeply displeased rumble that rose into the woods. The melody made the forest come alive in every eerie way possible, until it too seemed to sound like an otherworldly animal. The monster that had spared them did the ever-more unthinkable by seeking respite after, feeling the damp dirt beneath until his fingers fell over a curiously artificial object. As he ogled the aid, the Entity transformed from what it had been to a 'normal' form, and its ugly eyes bowled into the reshaped eye sockets. Those eyes slowly became a natural shade of blue.

The clown stared at the glasses in hand, then 'tsk'd while tossing them away and into the underbrush. His focus returned to the two boys lying side by side, staring at him with guileless eyes. The thrill of the chase, the promise of salted meat from Bowers and Hockstetter's guts was nothing compared to these boys that were more dazed than stunned at the sight of ol' Pennywise.

Pennywise was rather pleased at the sparks that emitted between the boys and himself. Both children were projecting out of fear, befitting of any living creature that had some sense, but Richie's energy was being pushed to its limit. He was so young and frail-looking, half-groomed but for the cuts on his face from the thorn bushes, but he was a fighter.

It was compelling for Pennywise, who already counted these children as belonging to him, that one brother had gone so far as to protect the other with his life. Compelling and charming, endearing the clown to his little mop-headed boy without preamble.

The protective screen wasn't difficult to shatter for Pennywise, whether they were a sign of bravery or not. Richie was too young to be well-adept at his capabilities and couldn't overpower Pennywise in his wildest dreams.

The alien shook his head after staring them down. Stan wasn't being worked so hard, but his ability to look Fear in the face was staggering. Already, Pennywise was proud enough to ignite.

"Here." Pennywise said softly. He sounded as hushed and rhythmic as the leaves in the wind as he held out one gloved hand. "All is well, children. I've made it so."

Richie opened his mouth, but was too exhausted to speak while Stan kept to his guns in the confusing haze. Their energies were absolutely zapped and they were falling again, floating again, like soap bubbles never meant to last in the material world.

"I'lL FiGht for YoU Both NOw." The orb-like bells ringing around the clown's wrist rang, even before one little hand fit into his perfectly and he pulled the pair up all at once. "Keep yoU SaFE. JuST ME. FoREVER."

You both came here, to me.