Work Text:
Second installment! Still trying to gain my footing with this thing and decide just how close to canon I want it to be because, frankly, the lore is exhausting lol. Also, if anyone has any requests for prompts in this series, please don't hesitate to share them!
Pennywise frowned, sharp eyes narrowed in concentration on his current task. A wet sniffle broke the silence.
"Quiet," he spat.
Alice did her best to heed the demand, her watery eyes flitting around the room to find some sort of distraction for herself. Dirty wall, a dead bug in the corner, drops of her own blood on the floorboards. Her vision blurred once again as the memory of the events that had led her here resurfaced. A particularly harsh tug pulled a pained cry from her throat.
"Ow!" Alice exclaimed, twisting her body to glare up at the entity currently bandaging up a rather nasty gash on her arm.
His reaction to her outburst was near instantaneous; fingers stilling and gaze practically on fire with irritation as he regarded the child.
"If you rather, I can just take the whole thing off," he gave her a mean, toothy grin.
Alice gawked, "But then I won't have an arm!"
"Gangrene will take it soon enough anyway."
She didn't seem to appreciate his humor, however, tears finally overflowing as new fear wracked her already fragile heart. The girl's shrill cry echoed off the living room walls and he winced at the sound, teeth baring.
"Enough!" the creature shouted, throwing his hands up, "I'm finished. This is the best you're going to receive from me, so keep it out of the dirt."
"...it's coming through," she complained, gesturing to the spots of red already leaking through the layers.
"It will stop on its own," Pennywise said, rolling his eyes, "Now get out."
"What? And go where?!"
"That's none of my concern," he sneered back, standing up and stalking away, "Go find your little friends and play in the street or whatnot."
The girl stood, wiping at her messy face with the back of her hand and staring straight daggers at his back. Dusting off her filthy dress, she clenched her little fists angrily before taking another look at her bandages. After a few beats, her expression softened, and she marched out the door with a tired sigh.
Finally, blissfully alone, It took a moment to study Its surroundings. The house, in short, was a mess...long abandoned by its last resident before It took on the persona of Gray and "obtained ownership" of it. "Obtained"- ha! It had always possessed dominion over this place, from the time it was a simple well to the day they built the house over it. The notion that the land ever belonged to anyone else was laughable and the illusion of it was only due to It's own graciousness, though that quickly ran out. It was just simpler to remove the extra variables.
That being said, It supposed the state of t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ little home was why It had been so heavily inconvenienced by Alice's injury in the first place. It had no functional use for furniture or decorations...no one ever came to visit, It had no family or companions, and It spent a majority of Its time underground.
Cue, the outlier...
With the seasons changing, nights were becoming colder; which meant all the town's pests were making their way indoors in a vie for comfort. This included Its own in all her scraggly, whining, curly-haired glory. Typically, the girl would only show up a few times during the week to loiter at the house or follow It around if she happened to spot It in town. With the approaching winter, however, the little rat had gotten more comfortable overstaying her welcome; having designated one of the upstairs rooms as her own. Where she got the nerve, It would never know...
The blood on the floor had long since dried, but It could still pick up its delicious scent. Truth be told, the careful control It prided Itself on had very nearly slipped the moment her skin had been sliced open by the broken glass littering the ground. Her fear and pain and blood...it had almost been too much. Simply keeping Its glamour in check had been a chore, claws and a mouthful of jagged teeth at the waiting for what Its instincts said would be an easy meal. Her initial cries had been positively intoxicating.
Materializing Itself in "her" room, the creature took noted of the peeling walls and floors ruined with moisture. The room had clearly belonged to a child before (It remembered them well) and it was no surprise as to why Alice had picked it. A sunny sky with big, puffy clouds had been painted on the ceiling and ribbons of flowers had been intricately drawn across the crown molding that wrapped around the room. It was all cracked and faded, ruined by time. The furniture was mostly unscathed, save for years worth of dust and cobwebs.
Easy enough.
Alice dragged her feet as she walked, her boots kicking up the gravel of the dirt path. Night had fallen and while she was anxious to get somewhere safe, she was dreading her return to the well house. It was cold tonight, a small breeze nipping at her already goosebumped skin. She didn't want to see Pennywise, but she wanted to sleep in the gutter even less.
Turning on Neibolt, she crossed the overgrown threshold of house 29 and opened the front door to surprising silence. Peaking inside, the child breathed a small sigh when she found no sign of the man, and tip-toed the rest of the way in. She strode across the house to the staircase, in too much of a hurry to notice the lack of debris crunching underneath her shoes, or how the air smelt slightly fresher.
She did, however, notice that the door to her room was closed. Agitation and a hint of unease fluttered in her stomach...she didn't ask for much, and she stayed out of the way as much as she could, so why could he not leave her stuff alone? He was probably hiding inside; melting into the shadows and waiting to ambush her with a hoard of terrors as revenge for having to patch her up. He hadn't made any moves to truly hurt her yet, but that didn't stop him from taking advantage of her insecurities.
Steeling herself, she pushed open the door and was greeted by the smell of...vanilla? Flipping the switch on the wall, Alice was immediately left speechless at the sight before her; warm light from the ceiling fixture bounced off of the clean, baby pink walls. The aged embellishments were refreshed and the splintering wood of the floor glistened like new. Even the painted sky above her could have competed with the real thing. Choking dust gone and corners cleaned, the nasty mattress she usually slept on now pristine and set into an iron bed frame. A small case of books sat beside a rocking chair just her size with an assortment of stuffed toys nestled in its seat. Twirling around, Alice caught sight of the house's other occupant observing her from the doorway.
"Don't get any silly ideas," the man shrugged, taking in her astonished expression, "I simply figured you might be more inclined to stay out of trouble if you were properly distracted. It's more for my own benefit than yours, I promise."
Warmth blossomed in her chest and she hopped excitedly on her feet, unable to contain herself as she bolted toward him with her lanky arms outstretched. Fortunately, Pennywise saw the hug coming from a mile away and shot out a practiced hand to keep the distance, allowing her to cling to that instead of his legs. The entity ignored the uncomfortable squirming the tenderness caused, valiantly letting her hold onto him for a few more seconds before shaking her loose. If she was at all hurt by the denial of affection, she thankfully didn't let it show; turning away from him as he left to let her get more acquainted with her new gilded cage.