Reddie Oneshots

Back To The Future (Or Something Like That)

this made me uwu the whole way thru. mad props to the author, theappleppielifestyle on ao3

-

There's someone in Eddie's bed.

He doesn't realize at first, too occupied with waking up. Something is strange. He feels... different. Wrong, almost, but he can't figure out what -

Beside him, someone stirs.

Eddie turns towards it, thinking of sleepovers with the Losers, of Richie knocking on his window at 10pm and crawling into Eddie's bed when he lets him in.

His eyes adjust. It still takes a second.

"Morning, babe," says a man, a full-grown adult man, in his fucking bed.

Eddie screams. The scream is much lower than he expects, but he's not focusing on it, too busy in his knee-jerk reaction, which in this case is literal. He strikes out with his knee and catches the guy in the nuts.

The guy lets out a choked yell, curling up on himself. He starts to say something that sounds like, "What the fuck , Eds," but Eddie's too busy yelling to pay attention.

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU," he screams. He whirls around, grabbing the first thing he sees, which is a lamp, and brandishes it at the dude, who has groaning on the mattress, clutching his genitals, which are mercifully covered by boxers.

"MY MOM'S GONNA KICK YOUR ASS," Eddie screams. "I'M - SHE'S GONNA CALL THE COPS AND THEY'RE GONNA BE HERE SO FAST-"

All of this is wrong. It still takes a while to sink in, because he's still in panic mode, but he looks down at his arms and they're - not his arms. They're too long, and they have hair, proper hair, like a man's arms, and his legs are the same. He's wearing boxers with little Superman symbols on them that definitely aren't his and he's standing in a room he's never seen before, and when he looks out the window he's in a city. A real, actual city , like on TV.

"What happened to me," Eddie croaks. He swallows, tries to suck in more saliva for a yell, but he can't get his mouth wet enough. "Where - where are we? How did-"

The guy has managed to roll over onto his knees now. He's still clutching his nads with one hand, but the other one is held out to Eddie, as if trying to calm a spooked animal.

"Oookay," the guy says. "Are we doing 13 Going on 30 right now? No, you won't know what that - Eds, what's the last thing you remember?"

Eddie bristles at the nickname. Bizarrely, another part of him relaxes at it. There's something about this guy -

He holds up the lamp higher. What was that thing, Stockholm Something?

"I said , where are-"

"Eds," the guy says. He's looking at Eddie like he understands, which shouldn't be comforting, but it kind of is. "Do me a favor and look to your left, okay? There's a mirror."

Eddie swallows again. He adjusts his grip on the lamp, which he now notices is still plugged into the wall. Then he looks over.

He means for it to be a glance, but his gaze sticks and holds. The mirror is a full-length one, so Eddie sees all of it: an adult stares back at him, eyes wide in fear and alarm. His forehead is creased. He has stubble. His expression is familiar, and so is his posture, because it's Eddie's expression and posture, but the body is - is -

Is this IT , Eddie thinks, but it's distant. It doesn't feel like IT, doesn't have that under-the-skin quality that always came with those encounters, even before he knew what was going on.

"It's you," the guy says. "It's you, okay? You at 38. You're okay, Eds, you're just - getting a glimpse into what's coming. Last thing you remember, you were hanging in the clubhouse with your pals, right? In Derry?"