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Wade reluctantly follows his boyfriend into a new thrift shop. After trying on some old surf shorts he is blasted into the past. With each passing moment and stray thought he's body and mind molded into the King of this mid-century beach.
What better time for a surfer TF than Winter huh? In season for any Aussie/Southern Hemisphere readers I might have haha! At any rate, Hope you enjoy this little time travel TF, got a cowboy TF coming next ;) Best ! -Occam
Wade and Dylan don’t know how they’ve somehow overlooked the vintage shop on Main Street until now. Wade’s more than happy to make a note of it and come back later, quite eager to get out of the cold. But when Dylan pulls on his sleeve and begs they check it out, “We’ll just be in and out babe-” the driver acquiesces with a grumble and turns into the small parking lot.
Before the engine’s off, Dylan hops out of the small car and sprints inside in search of some theoretical hidden gem. Wade sees his sigh in the icy air before he knew he released it. Longing for the end of the winter he trudges carefully along the icy sidewalk behind his happy-go-lucky boyfriend.
The woman at the counter pages through some old magazine of vintage clothing while Dylan raids the racks. Wade eyes the cluttered store as he fights back a sneeze from the dusty shelves. Quite the eclectic shop, certainly not a store with a specific market in mind. What can only be leather fetish gear hangs on the walls next to some army surplus gear and in between are rack after rack of pastel skirts and oversized vintage suits.
He hears his boyfriend squeak in excitement as he pulls two things off their coat hangers. “Wade! Look~ Bell Bottoms!” He holds a pair of something more akin to boho pants up to his waist and poses, “Aren’t they just 60’s chic babe?” Queen that he is, Wade opens his mouth to question or debate when exactly they became vogue, but before he has a chance there’s a glimmer in Dylan’s eyes as he pulls out a piece for Wade to judge.
“And I found these for you babe!” Stretching the string waistband with a wink, Dylan produces a pair of surf shorts that are surely a few sizes too large for Wade, who remains ready to leave. Responding to a complaint not yet uttered Dylan raises a finger to silence him and continues, “C’mon just try ‘em on Wadey! You can tighten them all the way up, this way if you keep up on your gym plans they’ll be perfect for your beach bod!”
Wade grumbles and reaches out to grab the shorts. Though he’s loath to admit it, he’s surprised at how right they feel now that they’re in his hands. Pursing his lips he doesn’t acknowledge the strange sensation. Wade shakes his head in shock as after a moment holding them, he’s filled with an urge to strip then and there to throw them on. Blushing at the strange thought he keeps silent and allows himself be dragged towards the two shabby dressing rooms in the back of the store.
Dylan, holding his bell bottoms and a vest Wade didn’t see him pick up, does a little pose before dipping into the changing room on the left. Ready to be done and slightly on edge from his intrusive thought, Wade enters the curtained space opposite. Like any other of the millions of dressing rooms throughout the country there’s a mirror, a small mounted bench, and spot to hang up your clothes. What is less expected is the bizarre silence that overtakes him as he steps past the curtain, as if he were in a recording booth.
Holding his shorts he forcefully assumes it’s just his ears popping and he’ll be right as rain any moment now. It’s anyone’s guess as to why the sound of Dylan’s humming as he changes into his little outfit is totally muted by two hanging sheets of fabric. As far as Wade is concerned his boyfriend has simply decided to go quiet, willfully ignoring how out of character that is for a man as uncomfortable with silence as Dylan is. Faced with this strange supernatural quiet Wade feels himself begin to understand the discomfort.
The man’s two feet away, Wade should hear the shuffling of clothing if nothing else. Hackles officially raised, Wade starts to investigate, though before his hands can reach the curtain he’s struck with a migraine and thought that’s not his own blaring in his head, It is of no concern, I should change into the surf shorts. Lip quivering the shorts are already in his hands as he turns back to the mirror.
His reflection flickers as his pants fall to the ground, goosebumps soaring up his legs from the shock of losing their cozy covering. Unwilling to acknowledge whatever horror must lie in the mirror he forces his eyes shut as his body moves of its own accord to pull the baggy shorts on. When he feels them cinched and tied on his thin waist he opens his eyes, holding fast to the idea that everything is fine, must be fine.
In the mirror he finds his reflection as it always is, tacky swim shorts notwithstanding. He looks exactly as he should. Wade sighs in relief before he notices that he’s not out of the impossible jungle yet. What is different is the room in which he finds himself, the curtain now striped, a harsh bulb hangs above him, the small bench replaced by a damaged wooden stool.
Taking time to rationalize how he’s gotten these details mixed up, as is the only explanation, he sees a shimmer in the bottom of the mirror. Looking closely he sees a spark slowly panning up. When it reaches his feet he sees them slowly begin to darken, tanned by a sun they’ve rarely seen before they begin to bulge and lengthen. Seeing feet more akin to swim fins than what he knows he has he yelps and jumps away, getting tangled in the rough curtain before spilling into the vintage store’s hallway.
Dumbfounded, Wade scrambles to the floor and sees the vintage store is no more. In its place is what appears to be a cabana. Large windows show a bright beachside summer day, a far cry from the frigid world he knew it should be. Before he can pinch himself awake he flinches as some surfer bro gestures to his shorts and shouts, “Eyy Wade! Lookin’ killer brah!”
Refusing to engage with the world he’s found himself in, Wade beelines to the tall, tanned, muscular man who addressed him by name and asks as his eyes start to tear up, “D- Dylan?” The surfer’s eyes focus in and his mouth closes into a look of shock before dropping into a slack jawed, “Whuh?” and settling on a smile as he laughs and ruffles Wade’s hair, “‘S Ray dude, you know that ahahah!”
Ray? Wade rubs his eyes as he tries to remember if he knows a Ray, though really he doesn’t think he knows any surfers. Ray. With each searching thought comes a creeping sensation. The name feels right? It feels more at home, more familiar in his head, as if he’s thought of the man thousands of times. Ray. Yeah, he knows Ray, how could he not. Looking at the man standing opposite him, blushing at the tan pecs at his eye level he is struck with countless memories of watching him on the waves. Cheering on his, brah? No that can’t be-
“Should take your shirt off too Wade, show off for the ladies eh?” Ray flexes and Wade narrows his eyes, okay well that’s enough of this dude. He then slaps his forehead, what’s he thinking he just needs to call Dylan, obviously. He quickly runs back to the changed-changing room and arrives just in time to find his pants shifting into vintage shorts, quite like the pair he now wears. Swallowing his fear he reaches into the pocket for his phone, though the only thing he produces is a beaten up wallet and his car keys, now missing their fob.
Putting forth great effort to steady his breathing he checks the wallet to find a similarly damaged driver’s license unlike any he’s ever seen. Gone is the plasticine card he’s carried for years, replaced by some water stained, taped together laminated bit of paper with a signature sloppier than he’d ever use scrawled under his name. His eyes refuse to look at the date of birth as he opts to sprint back and confront Ray.
His feet pound hard on the few steps back to the cabana’s lobby, heavier than they had any right to. With each careening step they widen and lengthen racing to match the wretched paddles he saw in his reflection. Their soles roughening from what must be years of walking along dingy beachside sidewalks, perfect for sticking to a waxed board. “Okay dude, Ray, whatever your name is I’d like my phone back. I don’t think this stupid little prank is funny.”
Ray pauses mouth hanging open, its default state apparently, as he processes whatever it is that Wade must be whining about. He tilts his head and smirks a stupid smile at the clerk that Wade only just noticed, “Hear that Mabes? Wader over here thinks you had a phone in the changing room! Hah!”
She rolls her eyes before turning to address the clearly apoplectic newcomer, “Wade I don’t know what your deal is today-” she pauses to look him up and down and groans, “God! How many times do I have to tell you guys, if you’re going to come in at least throw on shoes. No one wants to see your disgusting little feet.”
Ray performs indignance at this, throwing a heavy arm around Wade’s shoulder, though he shoots higher than he should as if he were expecting his bro to be taller than he is, “Now Mabe, babe. You won’t get me defindin’ the cleanliness of my brah here, but little! I’ll have you know he’s got the best board huggers this side of San Fran!” Wade narrows his eyes in confusion as whatever is going on is clearly beyond and beneath him. Though as Ray finishes speaking, the smaller man grunts as his feet cramp.
Looking down, Wade discovers that, alongside the world around him, he too has begun to change. His feet have clearly already grown, Dylan always poked fun at his small shoe size, but now they have grown beyond measure. Wade recoils in shock as they balloon once more, toes stretching further as his soles bulge wider.
They seem so large that he wonders where he’ll be able to even get shoes that big. Eyes flickering back and forth he figures he’ll just have to order them on Ama- uh? Wade’s eyes glaze over briefly as he loses his train of thought. His head pangs with pain as the idea of online shopping starts to fade. Surely they have catalogues for extra-large shoes or something, he’ll check with Ray later, yeah. Ray’ll know.
Speaking of, Ray and Mabel have continued arguing. Wade is unaware that as he was lost in his own mind, his new surfer bro has continued to defend him, and with each complimentary phrase Wade has begun to inch taller in height. Speaking of waves conquered and tubes bodied, Wade catches the tail end of one particularly exaggerated story as his mind begins to fill in the details. Back stretching and calves slowly bulking as he clearly recalls bailing from his board. He grunts again as he surges taller, thighs slowly bulking up as his new height exposes a pale midriff, attracting eyes from both of the spatting pair.
Finding he has their attention he clears his throat and begs, “Look, I don’t care about any of this-” Ray recoils in shock, “Can I borrow either of your cellphones so I can call my boyfriend?” Their eyes widen at the brazen use of boyfriend though the friends are well aware of Wade’s proclivities, what actually causes the strange stares is his asking for a cell phone. “Brah, did you hit your head or what? You know the cabana don’t have a phone.”
Wade shakes his head, he doesn’t know that he doesn’t care, “Sure! Whatever!” he reaches out, “Can I borrow your cell phone.” Mabel and Ray eye each other once more before breaking out into laughter, “Shell phone? What are you on about dude?” Wade stares back with absolute shock and derision before his vision goes spotty and his head burns with a rolling headache. His hippocampus physically pulses as his mind and memories are rewritten.
A cell phone is foolish? A dream. A phone you could just up and carry anywhere? Science fiction. And yet he can almost picture a small black mirror in his hand. Embarrassed from their laughter and determined to not let this fact of reality be erased he continues to stare at his hand as if he’s trying to will one into existence. Unfortunately the only change that he notices is his skin bulging as his hand flexes larger, a few scars blanch from years on the beach as his hands struggle to keep up with his advancing height. One could almost hear his bones cracking as his fingers lengthen and grow calloused while his fingernails lose their polish, grow dirty, and shorten
He pounds the cabana counter and Mabel clicks her tongue, “Okay let’s cool it buddy, you wanna make a call Ray’ll take ya down the street.” She motions to the door with her head and Ray escorts him out, “Come back when you’ve worked out whatever this is on the waves huh Wade?” she pouts as she watches the pair go, taking care to stare at Ray’s defined back with a smile, then she snickers and whispers to herself as she gets back to her magazine, “been watching too much Star Trek I bet.”
Ray’s chipper as ever as he leads Wade out of the cabana, unknowingly more comfortable now that his arm rests closer to where it should after Wade sprouted a few inches. For his part, Wade finds himself distracted by the wild blue sea. Waves rise and crash into foam and he’d swear he could feel the bubbles, the surge on his skin. Like a dog staring at a treat he fights desperately with the urge to sprint across the sand to enjoy it right now.
In fact, his thicker feet begin their plodding to a surf wagon nearby with a couple boards stowed before he’s stopped by a question from Ray, “You wanna take your shirt off so you can get some sun brah? Lookin’ a little pasty there.” Wade shakes his head and tries to disregard his words, though as his mind continues to be assailed by a hunger to surf he gives up the ghost on the shirt battle and reveals his pale weak chest to the world, “s- sounds radical. I’l uhh, catch some rays. hah”
Ray starts to laugh at the pun but instead grimaces as the sight of Wade’s small pasty torso is incongruent with the reality that he knows to be true. Though with a mind accustomed to shrugging off strange ideas and problems too big to worry about he quickly throws his arm around Wade’s shoulders slowly growing wider. “Well let’s getcha to a pay phone so you can call your buddy!”
Wade rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as the pair head down the boardwalk. He can scarcely focus on the increasingly rapid changes occurring to his body and mind as he’s still distracted by the sound of crashing waves. As the Summer Californian sun beats down on him, his skin starts to darken, closer to the shade Ray recognizes as Wade. Spreading forth in patches he tans to the customary surfer brown, ushering forth from surf shorts that aren’t quite filled and up past a core that is only now getting defined.
So too does his hair suddenly start to lighten. Lengthening into something sun bleached and salt stained. His usually clean-cut look begins to giveaway as the life he knows he should have is slowly eroded, just like the ebb and flow of the waves calling out for him. Pecs beginning to form darken and shine with sweat under the beating sun as he dreamily stares at the sea. Though despite it all, despite true real memories of life in the twenty-first century slowly fading like a mirage, he still remembers his time with Dylan clear as day. To this he holds fast as he stumbles forward from his heavier upper body.
As he continues to grow into this new form, molded by the alien world of the past around him, he begins to notice other surfers and beachgoers eyeing him with familiarity and nodding with respect. After his bicep bulges larger from returning a few shakas, he bumps his shirtless body into Ray to get his attention like he's done a million times. Finally tearing his eyes away from ogling scantily clad women, Ray tilts his head as Wade asks in a tone clearly affected by the thickening neck and shifting disposition, “Hey brah, er- Ray? Am I like, a big deal?”
Ray looks dumbly at Wade as his irises change to match the deep blue of his quarry before laughing, “Hah! Such a cut-up today brah! Course everyone knows you, you’re always ripping! If anyone needs any tips or tricks they come to you.” Wade clenches at his head as years of memories and knowledge rush into his mind. Equivalent to the sensation of bailing on his board into the choppy sea, he’s drowning in visions of showing off on the waves and taking care to help anyone who so desires to join him in enjoying the spray of a set. His chest puffs with pride and puffs larger with pecs as his jaw widens and now-blue eyes roll back. He’s the king of this beach. And just like that, as soon as the words, the idea, cross his mind he’s overwhelmed and pulled under.
He awakens laid out on a bench somewhere down the way, he hears the Beach Boys playing through some static nearby and opens his eyes to see Ray’s face painted with concern, though as soon as he hears Wade speak up he returns to his usual happy-go-lucky expression. “Gnaaarly dude- feel like I just woke up for the first time~” The new surfer then coughs up some sea water which he finds as strange, he wasn’t surfing was he?
This small quibble with reality acts as one final life preserver to the life he once knew. Just odd enough for him to question his situation, his reality. For a moment he stares at his tanned, veiny hands and questions is this who he is? Trailing up arms patterned with sun-bleached blonde hair and briefly hung up on the quarter-sized nipples poking off a thick chest. He scratches his stomach, for some reason expecting to find a bit of a belly, his fingers instead bump against tight abs.
Unfortunately his last grasp at the future is haplessly wasted as he’s almost immediately distracted by Surfin’ U.S.A, “Ugh-” he chokes out in his now perpetually fried, laid-back voice, “Why’s this dad rock playing?” Ray laughs and helps the man up, “Maan Wade you’re on a trip today, first goin’ on and on about selling phones and some enter-net! You know your dad hates the Beach Boys! Ahahah” With this paltry grasp his past self is evermore washed to sea, Ray’s recollections sound just as strange to Wade as they did to him and Mabel.
Even the explicit mentions of cell phones and the internet isn’t enough to prevent the rubber band from snapping as decades of lived experience with future technology is wiped from his mind. Memories of the modern world thoroughly displaced by life sprinting across the sands and mooring the foundations of surfing as a continental sport. Just as Ray has done countless times today alone, Wade smiles dumbly in brief reflection on his life lived.
Going forward on rare occasions some fragment of his other self washes up to his mind like jetsam. Sometimes when he sees a record he can’t help but wonder if they’ll be smaller one day or he’ll reach for something in his pants out of habit when he has a question to ask, before shaking it off like a strange tic. His crew often labels him some kind of prophet as he seems almost too keenly aware of how global events will shake out.
“I swear brah, gettin’ me worried that your new guy’s slipped ya somethin’” Ray says with a wink. Wade flinches with a start, that’s right! He needs to call Dylan immediately! Putting change in a pay-phone like he’s done all his life he dials a number he knows by heart and holds his breath, begging the universe that Dylan will answer the other line as the ringing tone vibrates the receiver, and then his miracle is answered.
Sounding as if he’s discovered cloud 9, somewhere across the town his love, Dylan, answers, “Heyyyyy, ‘s this Wadey?” The sound of his voice fills Wade’s thicker chest with comfort, “Dyl! God it’s so nice to hear you…” He stands there for a few seconds, only then does he notice how tight his swim shorts have become from his bulking thighs and building ass. Though of course, the most prominent issue at the moment is the rising dilemma in front. He blushes and bites his lip as he tries to speak with more discretion, “You uhhh, down to come over to ours later today?”
He can almost hear the smile of the man on the other line, “Uhhh yeahh, yeah… Me ‘n my uhhh freaks are on a trip righnow. But yeaaah, think I could swing by baby” Wade can almost see the man on the other line, delighting in the feeling of his fingers twirling the phone wire in his hands, certainly too high to work out a time but Wade doesn’t mind. The promise of a future fuck and time together after is more then enough, “Righteous brah, well I’ll see you then Dyl.” His lover just giggles and the pair hang up at the same time, bonded tighter than ever despite their strange unknown journeys apart. Sighing in delight and ignoring the pulse in his pants, Wade turns to face his brah.
For the first time Wade throws his arm around Ray’s shoulder as the pair wander off towards his wagon. Ray gestures for him to try and mask his clearer than anything erection though the surfer just shrugs, “Oh sure dude, as if anyone ever misses your goose eggs you little horndog.” The pair guffaw and continue to tease eachother as they start back towards Mabel’s cabana.
Glimmer in his eyes and too eager to not speed up, Wade hits his bro on the back and challenges him on a race to their boards. His new legs carry him faster than he’s ever managed before. Settled into his new life the feeling of his feet pounding into the hot sand fills him with contentment. There’s no place he’d rather be than soaring across the beach while his crew watches.