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If you were to ask Marty before the fucking week- month- thirty fucking minutes- from hell if he were the kind of guy to hold grudges, he would have laughed and said: “Hell nah,” and tried to move the conversation on.
Marty had always considered himself a sort of live and let live kind of guy. Had always thought if he’d held onto everything, he would have lost it. If he’d held onto it all he’s not sure how he would have gone back into that house every evening as he seethed and simmered with rage every time his Dad gave into Biff; Dad not caring how much he screwed the rest of the family over in the process. When Mom was on the couch bottle in hand, even when she’d promised she’d do something.
Nah, Marty would like to think he’d got pretty good at just accepting that, being annoyed, and then moving on. Going to his room to practice guitar or running off to Doc to just do anything else. Shit happens, that’s life. It’s annoying but it’s not bad.
Shit happens, you roll with the punches, try to get a few hits in yourself, but once it’s over it’s just over. Marty’s no fucking push-over, but it’s important to remember that, sometimes, if you swim against the current you just drown.
Sometimes things can bristle in him when someone calls him ‘chicken’, ‘coward’ ‘cause they don’t get that stepping down, stepping back is the right choice. It’s not cowardice to realise that the consequences of just pushing back and back and back don’t get you anywhere. That holding grudges just leads to a shouting match where nothing gets solved or whatever.
Then he gets back from the past and who cares if they call him ‘chicken’? Who cares, who cares, who fucking cares? Marty’s seen and done shit that should never have been real. So he swallows it down and steps back, holds the ‘fuck you’ in and smiles at Jen.
God, Jen. At least she knows, at least he can tell her without Jennifer thinking he’s gone completely loco. (Jen is someone Marty doesn’t want to say ‘fuck you’ to, one of the few maybe.)
Marty thinks he might be starting to hold grudges.
People who used to ignore him wave to him in the halls. It’s nice, maybe, at first. But then Marty has to think about what’s really changed- because he hasn’t, he’s still him. It’s everyone else, and his dad’s an author and because the McFly’s are rich now, Marty’s cool.
Cool as in popular. Cool as in everybody wants to talk to him cool, not just… whatever he was before. Cool and left to his own devices, if someone wanted to talk to him it was because they actually wanted to, and not because he was Marty McFly. With Jen, and the guys in the band, and everyone else just not… really giving a shit. Which was fine, Marty liked it like that, just moving on through with everything being easy.
Now everyone seems to think he’s some kind of hotshot guy, and Marty doesn’t even know who that guy is.
What’s the matter sport?” Dad asks him, leaning onto his desk to try and be relatable or something. Marty’s staring at his history assignment trying to remember which date applies to which fucking battle or bridge- like history is fixed and solid and not a fluid mess that even a teenager can destroy.
“History,” Marty says before he stops to think if maybe this other Marty is good at history or something. Dad just nods his head, so maybe that’s the same.
“You haven’t mentioned your college apps in a while, is all,” Dad picks up, “What’s that about?”
Marty just stares blankly because college apps? In October? Him?
An ‘I don’t know’ is on the tip of his tongue before he changes it to a shrug, gesturing to his alternate self’s desk that he’s yet to understand. They’re both messy and chaotic but it’s different. He shrugs instead, angry at the other him for applying to college already and angry at himself- and angry at this version of his dad for caring and pushing when it’s never happened before.
“I’ve always told you that you can do anything if you just put your mind to it, son,” his dad finishes smiling, a supportive hand on Marty’s shoulder and its’ everything to not wrench it off.
“I told you that” and “You’ve never told me that in my life,” both boil and bubble up deep within him. But they’re not true anymore? Are they? Who knows what this George has done? He’s angry at his dad for something he’s never even done, and Marty can’t air his grievance without being unfair and sounding insane.
Marty has wounds that scarred up before they started to bleed. What’s he supposed to do about that?
His feet take him to Doc’s house before his brain reminds him there’s nobody there. He’s there, skateboard in hand, wondering if his key still fits.
It’s the weekend so he’s got two days until school and nothing real to fill it with.
He thinks he kind of hates other him.
Marty plays the opening bars of Johnny B. Goode over and over (and over and over and over and over an-) looping right back to the beginning until his ears bleed and Linda comes to shout at him.
She doesn’t, she opens her mouth like she’s gonna scream, and this, at least, Marty is used to. But she looks at him, really looks, and just unplugs his guitar before flouncing off.
(It shouldn’t feel like his sister switched off his heart, he doesn’t even like this song that goddamn much, but it’s never about the song.)
Mom asks him if he’s alright, quietly, as Marty passes an unopened can of Diet Pepsi between his hands. The others are all out, it’s just the two of them, Mom looking at him with some concern. Marty returned from the past two weeks ago.
He wants to scream at her except Marty doesn’t because he loves her and she’s his Mom and he’s never hated her. So why is it when she’s finally got nothing but time for him and she’s sober that all the anger and the grudges start?
Before (and that’s how he thinks of it- before he messed everything up even though it’s an after- but that depends on your perspective) Biff was just a guy. Like, he was a total dick. An utter ass, and kinda a creep if Marty’s gonna be completely honest. ‘Say hi to your mom for me’ like what the fuck? And this isn’t just Marty with his knowledge, like why not just say hi to her himself? Except that Biff had never seemed to be there when his Mom was, or maybe Mom was never there when Biff was. And yeah, Marty always wanted to deck him a bit, or shove him, but Biff would probably just punch him back, and then Dad would be involved and-
Dad might not have stood up for himself, but Marty thinks he might have gotten involved for him- not that that would have fixed anything because Biff would then just take it out on his dad and Dad wouldn’t stand up for himself and-
Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches. Marty can take a hit and he can take a hit in a fight he won’t win, but not if that means someone else is just gonna get hit too.
But yeah, all that aside Biff was just a guy. And the Biff from the- the alternate 1985, the Hell Valley, Marty thinks to himself- like he was a proper piece of work.
And Marty would have decked him if Biff’s goons weren’t there. And that was a Biff who treated his mom like shit- literally smacked her to the ground, threatened her- forced her to fucking marry him, killed his dad, and then tried to kill fucking Marty.
And you know what? That doesn’t make Marty scared of Biff. It might make him angry, sure, it’s grievances he can’t air, trapped inside him until they bubble up into grudges. But those are all the actions of a Biff that could have been, but a Biff that isn’t. It’s-
Marty might be wary, but Biff- Marty would say this one’s a fucking coward. That he wouldn’t do shit if someone managed to tell him no.
Except that Marty knows the real horror is the Biff that was told ‘no’ back in November fifth 1955. The one that tried to rape his mom. To bash Marty’s brain out on the side of a tunnel and rip through him with his car.
The Biff in front of a Marty is the same Biff that did those things. Did- that everyone else and Biff remembers. Not things that only Marty remembers.
(Except that everyone remembers Biff did them to Calvin Klein, mystery heartthrob from the ‘50s, not Marty McFly, his employer’s son.)
Marty tells Biff to get out on some primal Calvin (because Marty never got the choice) instinct, and then Biff is sliding back into a simpering demeanour that doesn’t make Marty feel any better and still doesn’t give him anyway to get this feeling out.
He slides in front of Linda or his mom the next every time he sees Biff. Tells Biff to lay off the car and tries not to be sick when he sees Biff driving around town in his own. He doesn’t care if this is a change. Some things are more important than the timeline.
Biff might be all smiles and ‘yesses’ and agreeing, but Marty remembers thirty years ago like it was last week. Marty’s memories are not the slightest bit dulled by age. Toadstools don’t change their spots. Mom and Dad aren’t the same, one could argue- but that’s not a risk Marty’s gonna take.
And this is something that happened, this happened. They all know it happened. But it’s not something Marty should know, it’s still not a grievance he can air.
“Say hi to your mom for me!” Biff calls to him, and it’s less slimy than the Biff- before- more chipper, desperate- Marty’s skin slides and squelches more than it ever had before.
“She doesn’t give a shit about you,” Marty retorts, because even if Biff hits him Marty can hit back. He doesn’t just gotta roll with the punches, Biff isn’t gonna take it out on his dad. He says Mom doesn’t care rather than ‘fuck off’ ‘cause he has a feeling which is gonna bother a guy like Biff more.
Marty’s glaring up at him, fists clenched. And this is familiar, he wonders if Biff finds it familiar too, looking at him with eyes just too narrowed and a gaze just too long. His smile twists, and then he’s down shuffling off and away.
Marty watches him go and doesn’t feel any better when the guy’s out of sight.
“Nah Jen,” he says confused and maybe a little more annoyed than is entirely fair, she’s just staring at him, bottle of alcohol still held out.
“Oh C’mon?” she insists, confused, but not forceful and it sorta hits him. That she doesn’t know, she knows about the time travel and she’s Jennifer but she’s not his Jennifer- she’s not before’s Jennifer. She doesn’t know that Marty McFly doesn’t drink if you pay him, and that he’d rather not be around alcohol- but it’s fine, he’s not a square.
“Y’know when I said my life changed?” he says instead, hands on the wheel, head on the wheel. The truck, his truck. It’s convenient, it’s weird. It’s nice, and he doesn’t get it.
(Why does he have a car? Why doesn’t Mom?)
“Yeah,” Jennifer says, “God I can hardly believe it- I mean, I do… but that whole thing with Doc Brown- and our kids and-“ Jen shakes her head, he can tell by the sound of her hair ruffling, “Just weird…”
Marty snorts, ‘cause she can say that again.
“Tell me about it,” he groans, picks up his head a little, “My mom was-“ Marty doesn’t know how to phrase this, he’s never had to phrase this. It was an unspoken truth plain for anyone who spent any time in the McFly house to see. That’s why Marty tried to never have anyone around.
“Before- before that is I mean, she- she liked a drink.” Marty stares dead ahead, “Like, a lot- it’s not- I just-“ he shrugs, “I dunno, it’s stupid. I was just always so much about not ending up like her, or my old man.”
He’s never really liked talking to people about this, but Jen knows- knew- so it doesn’t really feel like he’s telling her.
“I’m sorry, Marty,” Jen says, and she sounds it. She puts the alcohol back and Marty wants to grin, but he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t and-
Look, Marty’s man enough to admit if before- if you’d ask him if he could change things, he would have said yeah. He would have wanted Mom to drink less, so that if she said she’d do something she always would. He’d want Dad to tell him to do something if he wasn’t sure, not just say that the best thing was to make sure you were never disappointed. He’d want Biff to back the fuck off.
But it was his life. It was his fucking life goddammit- and just because it was different it hadn’t meant it was bad. Jen’s looking at him with sympathy, ‘I’m sorry your mom was like that- but she’s better now’ like she still wasn’t his fucking mom. Like it couldn’t- wouldn’t- happen if things just shifted a little to the left. Again.
Marty McFly knew where he stood with his family from before, and they annoyed the fuck out of him. And he’s still annoyed and certain Dave stole his Pepsi. (Not that after Dave drinks Pepsi)
And he fucking loved them and would have moved heaven and earth to get back and he thought he had and he’d thought he’d made it all so much better but now everything is just wrong and he doesn’t care if it’s better or worse.
Even if before was worse it didn’t mean it was bad. Before was a time where Biff hadn’t tried to kill him, and Jennifer thought him being friends with Doc was just a quirk and not a sign Marty was gonna- whatever.
“She was the mom who raised me,” Marty says instead of any of that, “I don’t have the memories with this one.”
He doesn’t look at Jen, this way she’s both smiling pityingly and not. She’s sad he hasn’t got the memories with the ‘’good’ mom and he’s sad ‘cause he’s missing the mom who was his mom.
And this after Mom is Mom. She strokes his hair sometimes and tells him she loves him and remembers the time he tripped and bled from his chin so bad that at first she’d thought he’d bitten his tongue.
Before was his mom and after was his mom too, and now- now? Fuck now, fuck time, Marty doesn’t know shit.
Mom hugs him as he cries, rocking him on the couch like he’s seven, not seventeen. He avoids burying his face in her shoulder (to avoid the whiff of alcohol) because he doesn’t want to know if she smells different. He concentrates on the feel of her hands on his back and in his hair and the sound of her voice in his ear.
“My baby, my special baby boy” Mom murmurs and Marty cries.
It’s kind of been a secret, although Marty guesses it’s not really ever been a secret, he just never told people, not even Doc about it. But Marty’s dad did a lot of raising him- when he was young. Mom was… too drunk, too checked out, too run-ragged with all of Dave and Linda’s problems- and Uncle Joey was in and out of prison at this point, instead of just in- which somehow seemed to make everything harder.
Anyway, so a lot of it was Dad, washing his hair, and reading him stories, listening to records together, and taking Marty to the park. And a lot of it was nothing at all because Biff was slowly grinding Dad under his thumb as he’d been doing since 1955; but it wasn’t a lot of Mom.
She was there more, when he was older, and less needy, and Uncle Joey was a distant problem that didn’t take up his mom’s thoughts, and she was coping a little better, tried to check in more. But by that point Marty had started to check out- he had Doc by then, and Doc always wanted to listen, and Doc paid him for doing odd jobs so he could buy tapes, and let Marty jam out on his guitar for once, without Linda or Dave or Mom coming into yell at him and Dad to timidly ask him to ‘keep it down please’.
But now Marty’s really the baby of the family, the one coddled by Mom, Mom’s special, maybe not quite favourite, child. This Mom never got so drunk she checked out, this Mom was a super Mom, a cool Mom, this Mom wasn’t staying up until 4am trying to find her brother a job or support an appeal, or beg him to not do something stupid.
(Or maybe she did, but nobody ever mentioned Joey these days. Marty tries to not think about the various reasons that could be.)
This Mom didn’t need Dad to take over, Dad who was too busy writing books and revelling in punching Biff and being a real man, not a boot who had to do the mothering instead of his wife.
(Which is unfair and not how Marty saw it at all- but then why did he never tell? Why did he never thank his dad?)
Marty’s special relationship this time is with Mom, who stopped all her hobbies and organising to spend time with him when he was little.
Marty loves his mom- both of them- it’s unfair to deny her the rewards of a relationship she’s worked so hard to build. But Marty…
Marty never thanked his dad or anything, never talked about it, never told him how much he cared because he didn’t think he should have to say any of that stuff. He’d been so- so- disappointed in his old man, before- because he’d done all that for Marty and he still couldn’t tell Biff where to shove it? Or maybe that was exactly why he couldn’t tell Biff to shove it and-
And now that Dad, the Dad who he could actually say all that stuff to, is gone; to say any of it would be unfair to this Mom.
Marty’s upended his whole life and he’d been so glad because he’d fixed it and he hates it (but not enough) and he only has himself to blame.
Is Marty not Biff? Has he not changed the present (twice) for his own selfish aims? He and Doc had fixed the Hell Valley because it was wrong but is this new 1985 one (two) pine trees short not just as corrupted and twisted and selfish?
At least Hell-Valley Biff had been able to grow into himself naturally, fucked and twisted as that was. Marty has no idea who he’s meant to be now, who and what he’s meant to like.
What’s real and what’s not.
Marty angles himself between Mom and Biff and Linda and Biff, he’d say it’s like instinct, he’s not thinking about it, but he’s also thinking about it so hard he can’t stop. He’s thinking about being dragged away and locked in a trunk, eyes refusing to believe what he was seeing; running back late, too late to help his mom, and seeing George- Dad- there already (thank God, thank fucking Go- thank George).
Even when they’re not there, if Marty’s home alone, or it’s just him and Dad, or Dave, Marty doesn’t dare take his eyes off Biff for a second. It doesn’t matter if Biff is just waxing the car or drinking some water in the kitchen (it’s so much worse when he’s by the car). Marty watches Biff like he’s a dangerous predator- which he is.
Dad- before Dad probably would have done a lot to just get Biff to leave them all alone if he’d thought it would work. Now he doesn’t seem to hold Biff in any regard. Any regard, as in George doesn’t seem to care about Biff at all, and Marty can’t stop watching, stop waiting.
Biff never asks him what he’s staring at, ‘butthead’ or not. It makes the wrongness on Marty’s spine grow a little more. A Biff who didn’t think, didn’t care, would want to know what it was that had Marty McFly staring so hard all the fucking time.
This is a Biff who’s maybe thinking a little too much.
Marty’s lying on his bed apathetically tracking the changes in his room. To keep them and feel wrong, or to change them and act wrong. Who fucking knows.
He’s interrupted by a knock at the door, he doesn’t respond, but it nudges slightly open anyway to reveal his Dad behind it.
They stare at each other for a moment in silence, Marty looks away first.
“Are you doing drugs?” Dad asks him, slightly shifty and nervous, a touch of disappointment he probably wants to hide but otherwise open. Not angry.
Even now Dad doesn’t really get angry, he’s just more confident, the changes aren’t so big.
(They feel infinite.)
“I fucking wish,” Marty replies bitterly, because if this was all drugs then he could stop. He turns over and puts his headphones on, because that at least he’s in charge of. He chooses when to pause the tape, and it’s almost like he can stop time. He can rewind the deck and it’s fine, it’s all fine. The tape always plays back the exact same.
Marty strains his ears though, waits for the sigh, or the half-hearted ‘talk to me son’, some awkward wringing of the fingers because when it comes to Marty Dad knows and Dad sees even if he’s often too nervous to say it. The little pathetic something that has Marty rolling his eyes and gets him talking anyway because there’s no point in grudges.
There’s nothing, Dad just leaves the room.
Marty rewinds the tape. A grudge builds.
No second chances, not because they don’t exist but because they make everything worse.
Marty stops rewinding the tape.
He’s trapped in a 1985 that he created by mistake, and the only person who really knows that is living it up in 1885, 2015, some point beyond the now or before it. Doc gets to have his own life, that’s only fair, but god fucking hell Marty needs him.
But maybe after Marty didn’t need him, after Marty with the dad who knew the word ‘no’ and the Mom who’d never acted like anything but the picture perfect, wholly put-together Mom. A Marty with a brand new car and-
Marty’s just being selfish, he changed his family because he was an idiot, and now because he can’t deal with it; he wants Doc to come crawling back. To give up on his own family.
Marty wishes he’d never gone to the mall that night- sure Doc would have died but with him gallivanting off somewhere, anywhere that’s not now would it even make a difference? Doc’s still gone but now Marty’s life is- it’s not even ruined, it’s- it doesn’t exist.
(Marty pinches himself and immediately takes back that thought.)
Still, somewhere, Marty wishes he’d just stayed at home, stayed asleep, told Doc he wasn’t meeting him at ass O’clock in the morning.
But it’s dangerous thinking like that, that’s the kind of thoughts that had Marty thinking leaping into a hunk of stainless steel would fix his problems instead of make them.
The DeLorean is destroyed, and even if it wasn’t Marty doesn’t think he’d climb into that thing again. This is his life now; he just hates that it feels so goddamn hard to make it his own.