One-Time Disclaimer: IT © Stephen King.

Notes: The first part of my very tentative multi-chapter take on a 2017 AU!IT. How is it different? Read on and see.

"Droplets of 'yes' and 'no' in an ocean of 'maybe'..."

Faith No More - The Real Thing, "Falling To Pieces"

A year later, then-seven-year-old George Denbrough would probably look back on that afternoon with a funny combination of sorrow, distress, and glee. The reasons for each respective emotion would be too numerous to name, but in short, the antics that unfolded between the months of October 1988 and August 1989 were memorable.

If he asked his older brother, Bill wouldn't disagree. Not exactly. But his recollections would be an altogether different scrapbook compared to Georgie's.

Then again, weren't everyone's memories inherently varied anyway? You could no more borrow another person's identity, to see through their eyes, than you could keep the sun from setting.

Realistically, their first meeting was as far from the "best of circumstances" as one could get. Perhaps it had worked in Georgie's favor that afternoon. Both parties were matched in how unexpectedly they had come to run into one another. Taken aback, they parted on bewildered terms. Blind stupidity, misplaced compassion, or base curiousity could be blamed (or thanked, if one begged to differ) for what came later.

When they found each other again.

It wasn't every day you fell into a storm drain, was it?

Georgie certainly hadn't meant to. Only a single, terrible second after it happened did he realize how foolish it was to lunge after the falling paper boat as if it were home plate - a home plate the catcher had unexpectedly yanked aside.

But at the time, it was the only option to spring to mind. Tearing around the street corner like it was third base, scantly avoiding running head-on into the orange Derry Works sawhorses standing guard against the curb, Georgie was only just regaining his forward momentum when he spied his wayward vessel's destination.

It - 'she', Georgie, you call boats 'she' - had fetched up against a small pile of coagulated leaf litter before the force of the running gutter water caused her stern to swing around. From there, nothing stood in the way of her plunge into utter darkness.

Boots kicking up splashes in his wake, her pursuer closed the gap.

"No!"

In his mind's eye, Georgie could almost picture himself, diving forward, arm outstretched, fingers spread wide. By some small miracle the top of his head did not collide squarely with the drain's upper lip and render him unconscious. He felt only a glancing scrape through the protection of his yellow hood, sparing him an ugly drag across the concrete. There was still a dull explosion of pain, but more frightening was the utter disappearance of light around him.

Like an overeager bloodhound who had chased a fox back to its den, the boy had wedged himself in after his prey. He had become stuck to an irreversible point, past his shoulder blades, new pressure pinching him in an uncomfortable place between chest and stomach. The radio in his pocket, once a device meant to comfort him with the knowledge help was only a quick call away, was crammed into his gut.

He was half-dangling into the filthy void beneath the street.

"No! No, no, no!"

The boat forgotten, he backpedalled frantically - or tried his best to, hands flailing, seeking purchase. Sheer panic seized him squarely in her unforgiving grip, and he tried in vain to twist aside, to get out, to free himself from the overwhelming torrent of cold water cascading over his back and legs, soaking him to the bone.

In only a few struggling moments (that, in truth felt more like an hour's work) he managed to loosen himself.

Only to fall forward.

"Agh!"

To be a mite fair, the drop wasn't that far. It was like tumbling off a bed. And the landing was soft enough, but it was the possibility of what he had landed in that repelled Georgie.

Said horror was compounded by the fact he landed in it facefirst.

He laid there only long enough to register an awful, mushy substance against his face and a dank, earthy texture invading his mouth, eyes, and nose before blind reflexes saved him again.

Lurching out of the falling water's path, he wriggled aside until his shoulder hit a wall, pawing blindly at his face, spitting franctically. Gradually, he cleared enough of the slime to breathe. The gritty taste of mud and rotting leaves was thick on his tongue, the most awful thing he could remember tasting in his short lifetime.

Dimly, he felt a trickling under his nose and down the back of his throat. Enduring such abuse so quickly had caused him a nosebleed, the perfect rotten cherry to adorn the sundae of failure fate had suddenly forcefed him.

All because Georgie didn't want his brother to be mad.

With that realization came the tears, and he sat down roughly as the strength left his legs. Doing the boy some good, the tears helped to clear the sewer gunk from his eyes. He brushed the worst away with the cuff of his sleeve, dabbing the bloody snot from his nose, shivering at the soaked-through cotton sweater clinging to his body.

His sobbing abated gradually, as did the bleeding.

Craning his aching head up, he spied the drain's opening and the street it looked out onto, a vantage point to which he had never imagined being on this side of.

Until now.

His crying hitched to a grating stop, as nothing answered it besides the torrent of falling rain. It spilled into the drain, a neverending waterfall. Georgie braced his trembling hands against the wall behind him, noting with dismay that - even on tiptoe - the saturated edge was virtually unscaleable for him.

Only if he were two feet taller would it be somewhat possible (then again, at that height and corresponding size, he would never have slid into this deathtrap in the first place).

There was no way for him to jump high enough to clear the three foot drop from the gutter below.

How was he gonna get out of here?

"Help! Somebody, please! Anyone! Help!"

A slim chance was better than no chance at all.

Gradually, he lost the strength to shout, growing more winded and tired with every attempt. In a matter of seconds, minutes, an hour, he didn't know.

What did it matter? Who was going to hear him in this downpour?

Fumbling, he tried the radio in his pocket, wincing at the bruise it had surely left against his skin. Static crackled incomprehensibly from the speaker when he pushed the button, but each plea for help was met with the same useless white noise.

Panic started to well up within him once more. His eyes stung suddenly, growing moist again with stress and fright. He huddled back against the wall, rain slicker catching and sliding roughly against the concrete, and he sank down into a sitting position, arms wrapped around bent knees. Fresh tears slid down his cheeks, carving new trails through the filth marring his skin.

Out of the immediate range of the falling water, he waited a spell and mustered enough strength to stand again. He cried himself hoarse, screaming desperately against the elements of wind and rain, hoping against hope someone up above caught onto the sound.

No, no, no. Please, let me get outta here. It'll be dark soon.

...No! Someone has to have noticed I was gone this long. Billy, where are you?

Despite the mounting frustration and fright, he tried to breathe easy, to think through the problem, head spinning. What little light there was to see by here didn't offer him any reassurance.

Was it worth venturing into the darkness to either side? Who was to stay he wouldn't run into a dead end?

What if he ended up falling again, into another gutter, one from which there was no escape whatsoever?

"Even if I didn't, Bill's gonna kill me," Georgie moped aloud to nobody, wiping at his nose again. He felt like the definition of miserable. "I lost the boat."

He belatedly thought to consider where she had gone, and glanced around. A few minutes of feeling blindly about the cramped, dark space yielded no results. His dirty fingers passed over clumps of mud, spiky pieces of tattered leaves, and stringy wet sticks. No waxed paper was to be found among them. No doubt the running water had swept her away to places unknown.

Despite himself, the waterlogged boy gave a little shaky chuckle, still on his hands and knees.

"At least she was fast."

"...Ss-ss-sss..."

The noise, which he dismissed as imaginary at first, did not alarm him. It was a byproduct of the weather, a trick of the wind whistling pitilessly overhead. Surely the sewers were full of inexplicable sounds that echoed and bounced about until they became unrecognizable.

"Ss... Sh-sss-ssHE?"

Only when it returned, an decibal louder and explosively right next to his ear, did Georgie give a startled cry and try to scramble away.

Away to where turned out to be the few inches left to reach Nowhere, Maine, as he wedged himself into an unseen corner beneath the street. He paid it no mind, too transfixed by the unexpected sight before him to consider anything else.

What he saw was a shadowed, gangly, man-shaped figure, stooped in a half-crouch in the space above him. Its face was indistinguishable, save for the pair of eyes - impossibly bright, dark blue toward the center, with yellowing edges that practically glowed - staring down at him.

Freezing water continued to pour in from the drain above, pattering loudly against the stranger's form, but the eyes never blinked, never strayed from their target.

He thought he saw the pupils change shape. In the span of a second, they widened from narrow slits to rounded ovals and back, like a cat's.

In his hysterical state, he couldn't tell if it was real or a trick of the light.

Georgie blinked rapidly, mind reeling. His hands clenched around the useless walkie-talkie in a deathgrip. He held his breath, senses numb.

How? How was it possible there was anyone else suddenly down here with him?

There was no other way down here... was there?

"W-what? W-w-who are you?"

The figure leaned closer, one spindly arm playing out to balance itself against the wall. The hand settled on the wall beside his head, poised on its fingertips. Trying to see past his delirious disbelief, Georgie thought he heard the slight jingle of bells. As his eyes adjusted further, picking out more details, a clearer picture in his mind began to form.

With a gasp he saw the figure draw even closer, and another hand - again, very human-shaped - was reaching directly toward him, white as bleached bone.

"No, stay away!"

Undaunted, the hand rotated at the wrist, long fingers unfurling from a wide palm. The tips brushed against his quivering chin, hesitant and soft.

Georgie froze anew, half-reaching up to smack the invasive hand away.

"D-don't hurt me! Please, I'm lost, I fell, I-I d-didn't- "

The hand's index finger suddenly reared up, the tip settling easily against his chapped lips.

Obediently, astonished by the bizarre gesture, the boy shushed.

The pallid stranger's eyes narrowed quizzically. Below them, a row of sharp fangs stretched into an obscene grin, as ice-white and mocking as any Cheshire cat's.

All the better to match those slit-pupilled eyes.

"Y-you feLl?"

Lightheaded, about to be overcome by terror or sheer overwhelming fatigue, Georgie faintly heard himself admit, "Y... yes, I-I did."

"ReaLly?" The figure gave a solitary wheezing laugh, eyes gleaming. "Hah! Now hOw did you manage tHat?"

Georgie felt a prickle of anger kindling in his chest. Usefully, it chased the swirling dots out of his eyes. There was nothing remotely funny about his tumble into the drain. He was at this erstwhile stranger's mercy, yes, but that didn't mean he had to sit there and take even more abuse.

He scowled.

Slowly, the eyes lost their amused gleam. The fingers holding Georgie's chin pulled away. With a sudden flicking motion of the wrist, a ruffled cloth appeared in the same hand. Georgie tried not to gape when it was brought against his cheek, rough as a wet washcloth, wiping the dirt and blood from his face with gentle strokes.

While instinct screamed at him to run, and his rational brain coldly declared there was simply nowhere to go, Georgie did the only thing he could do.

He held still.

Face scrunched up, it was oddly comforting to be this little bit cared for.

"I only mEant, it isn't everydAy a visitor simply drops iN to say 'hello'."

Breathing deep, the boy tried to explain, to keep his nerves steady. If only his heart would stop hammering so wildly.

"My boat, s-she... was washed down here. I thought I could save her. I tried, I..." The stroking paused. He swallowed thickly, hugging himself, eyes upturned and beseeching. "Mister, please, I need help. I-I just want to get back home. Do you know a way out?"

The stroking resumed, on the opposite cheek. The yellow eyes drifted away, their owner lost in new thought. One pupil finally swung back to regard the boy. "Hmm, maybE. But it means going baCk the way you came."

"What?" Georgie shot an uneasy look at the drain's bubbling edge. "Why? How did you get down here? Can't we go that way?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"BecauSe."

"Because, why?"

"It doesn't woRk like that."

Ire swirled up to consume Georgie again. He clambered to his feet, emboldened, determined to close the gap and get an answer to his liking.

And to get a better look.

"Why doesn't - Like - You... you're, y-you're a clown?"

Here, there was enough light to see by.

The being's face - as human as the hands - was painted white, save for the red, exaggerated lips, and the trails that curved upward from the corners of the mouth, across the cheeks, spearing through those yellow eyes. His nose was adorned with the same shade of red.

Staring down at him, the being's mouth split to reveal another terrible grin.

"Kiddo, seEing where you aRE, it doeSn't matTer what I am rigHt now, don't'cha thiNk?"

"Right now"?

A whole host of strange thoughts crossed Georgie's mind at that moment.

"I... I..."

"You wanT to go hoMe?"

"Y-yes, but..."

"CoMe herE, then."

Again, a hand reached toward him.

But this time, it did not touch him. The stranger let it hang there in midair, palm up, waiting.

Georgie took another precious moment to study his would-be savior. The clown's suit was the complete opposite of what one expected a clown to look like. The collar and the ruffles were there, with decorative frills for each limb. It was a dull silver, drab and colorless, save for the line of three red pompoms down the center. Rather than sport a frizzy, out-of-control wig, this one bore upswept tufts of orange hair, a mane of flames sitting atop his oversized skull.

Somehow, the overall appearance fit their colorless surroundings even better. And where there was color, it seemed even more vivid.

There was a mark on the suit.

Looking closer, Georgie saw the washcloth that cleaned his face hadn't been a seperate cloth at all.

It was the same forearm cuff-frill, bearing a bloodstain, dangling from behind the glove now held toward him.

Nervously, Georgie swallowed.

He thought to step forward, but his feet wouldn't move. His arms remained locked and tense at his sides.

It was as though while his brain said, "yes, take his hand; it's the only way outta here", his body's best plan was to refuse.

The stranger's painted face frowned, almost as if they sensed the same conflicting message. Thought twice of their performance.

Perhaps he hadn't meant to sound so brusque?

Slowly, the hand dropped out of sight, into the shadows. He took a half step back, and then stooped even further down.

Backlit against the drain's meager light, he seemed like a virtual giant.

"What'S your namE?"

Ah.

That was what had been missing. An exchange of names.

It was rude not to introduce yourself. Even if, in his panic, the boy had asked first, after overcoming the initial jitters, now was a better time to ask. And to answer.

And Georgie was nothing if not polite.

"G-Georgie. George Denbrough."

The clown seemed to ponder this at great length, pupils slowly sliding apart from each other, just like a chameleon's, before recentering.

"NiCe to mEet you, Georgie. I'm PennywiSe the DanCing Clown."

And just to complete the moment, he stooped low in a textbook bow.

Charmed, I'm sure.

Which Georgie instantly was. The title was so equal parts delicate and somewhat playful and just totally-not-meant-to-be-in-a-place-like-this. Compared to the dark dangers of the sewer and the fear that he had endured, it sounded more than appealing.

Someone had answered his cries for help.

Even if it was the last thing in the world he thought that would.

He couldn't help a shy smile.

Pennywise grinned down at him again.

Those weren't fangs. Just oversized teeth.

One of the big gloved hands came down on the six-year-old's shoulder.

That time, Georgie didn't balk.

"NoW, let'S get you outTa here."

Author's Notes: *rereads what she put Georgie through* ...Jeez, I'm awful. And on top of all that, I leave it with a cliffhanger. Bad writer, bad...

Anyone else notice how that storm drain just happened to be big enough for a small child to be pulled in? Never mind Pennywise. Would kids just have to avoid such a gaping death trap on a daily basis?

Yes. This is inspired by the likes of "Commit To The Bit", "An Emotion Bent Out of Shape", "Turned Good (Tumblr comic) / You Can Keep Her" and a host of other oneshots involving divergent takes on our favorite shapeshifting monster. Check them out if you want more of the same AU!

Seems pretty standard, this intro? Part two is where things really start to diverge. Follow or fav if you'd like to see it!