The Scariest Part (Pennywise Romance)

My Boring Life

She followed the clown closely, eyes scanning each passage for signs of her daughter. Suddenly, he stopped while she was looking and she ran right into his back. The clown laughed and shrugged.

"You know what your problem is, Lady?"
"No, and I don't want to know."

"Well I'm gonna tell you anyway." He said and turned to her. "You need to get more fun out of life. Even when you're not scared, you're bored. Nothing much happens in Derry, aside from my glorious presence every 27 years, and you're trapped in it's monotony just like your daughter's trapped in this sewer. You're not boring, Lady, you're just bored."

Lady couldn't help but listen to him. "Ivy, it's momma, where are you?" She called when she realized the clown wasn't going to go any further. No response. She sighed.

"I like my boring life." The clown rolled his deep blue eyes and brought a fist up under his chin to rest comically on it.

"Please, Lady, keep lying. I've got all day."

"I'm not lying! I like my boring life where no one gets hurt, and where clowns stay in carnivals and don't steal the only thing that means anything to me. My life is simple and that's what I need!"

He scoffed and began taking steps forward. "Humans don't know what they need.. What's the point of living if life is so dull?"

"At least I don't have to be terrified walking down the street." She shivered as she reflected on the human monster he'd turned into earlier.

"Who ever taught you that fear was a bad thing?? It's exciting! Don't you feel alive, here, now?" He stopped again and pushed her with a finger back against the dark tunnel wall. "Y'see, it's when you really start to be afraid of death that you learn to appreciate life. I don't feed on death or fear, I feed on life."

"Why did you let my daughter go then?"

He laughed and backed away from her, even bringing a hand behind his neck to rub it awkwardly.

"While your daughter did look tasty," his voice grew darker, "her mother is scrumptious."

Lady scoffed as he continued.

"I tried to grab her for you, return her to you so we could play another time and you could see, I'm not such a bad clown." He forced puppy dog eyes before skipping through the rest of the tunnel. "But she ran from me. What do we teach these kids nowadays?"

Lady almost laughed. "You can't blame her. I'm glad she ran. You are a bad clown. Couldn't you have just pretended to be me?" She looked over to him, and she was looking at a carbon-copy of herself. Her gasp echoed.

The clown looked down at himself, fully disguised as Lady now, and said, "I've never looked better." He threw a wink her way. "But it's not exactly scary."

"Do you always have to be scary?"

"Of course not. I want to be scary. Most people have an underlying fear of clowns, even adults. Not sure why; just the way it works."

Lady sighed and watched him transform back into the clown she recognized.
"Yeah well, not me. I used to love them." He looked at her with pleasant surprise and she shook her head. "When I was a kid. Now they're a little stale, dontcha think?"

"Stale?" He tilted his head. "Maybe I should eat you now after all."

Lady lifted a bucket to check if her daughter was hiding beneath it, then folded her arms across her chest. "Maybe you should. At least it would put an end to this pointless conversation... I'm not afraid of you right now."

She felt emboldened; perhaps it was how civil he was being, or perhaps it was her growing irritation at not finding Ivy. She truly didn't feel scared of him in that moment. It was as though she were talking to a new friend, or some flirtatious stranger at a bar. She felt like she held the power for some reason. He seemed to grow taller though, and her confidence faltered a bit when he leaned down and put his face right in front of hers.

"You should be." He scrunched his nose twice and a honking sound emanated from it.
"Well I'm not." She defied. "All I want to do is find I--"
"Mommy?"

She heard Ivy's voice and gasped, following it instantly. She ran to the corner and found her daughter cowering beneath a pile of garbage. Lady wept and held the girl so tight Ivy protested. Opening her tearful eyes, Lady picked her daughter up and looked to where she'd left Pennywise.

He was gone.