Chapter Text
Marty was unable to sleep, which was a shock. Well, not really, he hadn’t been sleeping well from all the nightmares recently but regardless. It was 2am. He was exhausted, he had literally just gotten back from the old west and he wanted to sleep, but he had been woken up from another one of doc dying.
The doorbell suddenly rang.
Who was coming by at 2 in the morning, especially to Marty’s house? Maybe it was doc, he hoped. That would prove he was alive.
Marty groaned, lifting the blanket from his legs and walking sleepily to the front door.
He opened it, and he was met with the faces of two boys similar age to him. “Hey, ass ho-“
“Hello fellow Martin!” The second one interrupted. Marty stared at the two of them, a bit bewildered.
The slightly taller one- although Marty would bet it was due to the boots he was wearing- was dressed in a greyish-black trench coat, with greasy slicked back hair. He had a pair of sunglasses on his head, and seemed to be overall pretty unbothered and cool. He had a plain red shirt under the trench coat, and they way he was smiling right now, it was clear he had a tooth missing.
The shorter one, he guessed, had an orange collared polo shirt, similar to the ones he had seen people wearing on polo Thursdays in the alternate- oh.
“Are you guys like, alternate mes?” Marty sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“How’d you get that so fast?” The.. trench coat one said, a little shocked.
“Time travel,” Marty grinned, gesturing for them to step into the house. “My parents know about it, so we should be good, but try not to wake them up. It is 2 am.”
“How did you time travel?” The citizen brown one asked. Marty was now realizing he really needed to make nicknames for them because this would not work.
Marty considered the ways to answer this question without sounding insane. “You know, uhm, citizen brown, right?” The one from that timeline nodded. The other scoffed. Marty guessed the citizen brown Marty wouldn’t shut up about his dictator. “Well, in this timeline, he’s my good friend, and he spent 30 years constructing a time machine.”
“You’re friends with first citizen brown?! Can I meet him?!” He exclaimed, grabbing Marty’s pyjama shirt.
“Yeah, maybe tomorrow,” Marty nodded. “First, we need to figure out.. some sort of nickname system, because it’s getting annoying in my head. I’ll be Marty?”
“That’s fine, I go by Martin anyway,” Martin explained, setting down the backpack he had on Marty hadn’t noticed until now.
“Sometimes my mom calls me George,” the one in the trench coat admitted, blushing. “But if that’s too weird we can like, call me by my middle name. You know, I feel like it’s weird being named after my dead dad, so we can just use Seamus-“ he rambled on, his face turning more red.
It hit Marty what timeline he was from. “Biff Tannen’s your step dad?” Marty asked. Trench coat gritted his teeth. This was clearly a sore spot for him, and Marty immediately felt bad bringing it up.
“Dad is saying a bit much,” is all he said in response. There was an awkward silence filling the room. Minutes, it felt like, went by.
“George works as long as it won’t confuse your father,” Martin put in after a while.
“Uhm, yeah, I think it’ll be fine,” Marty smiled halfheartedly. “If we want to just wait it out until everyone wakes up we can. There’s no way I'm sleeping after this,” he added.
“You got a TV?” George- I guess they were calling him now- asked. “And I'm okay to go by Seamus. I forgot your dad would still be.. alive and all.” Seamus added. Seamus. This would still confuse him a little, Marty admitted, after having met the real Seamus McFly. It was fine though, better than calling him trench coat.
“You know, I’ve met Seamus McFly," Marty said, and then promptly realized he hadn’t answered his question. “The TV’s right there,” he said, pointing to the living room.
Sometimes Marty forgot that it was the newer living room. The one the richer version of his family owned. In the dark, he would go to sit on a floppy, stained bean bag and fall on the floor, because they had fancy chairs now. It was fine. He would get over it.
They sat on the couch, all three of them, and Seamus put on some crude western. Marty didn’t mind, he and Doc would watch this kind of stuff all the time, but Martin seemed appalled. He was tightly gripping the couch, in some sort of shock that they would watch such a thing.
“You watch a lot of this.. awful garbage?” Martin said, disgust filling his voice.
“I do, asshole, now fuck off,” Seamus groaned, throwing a pillow at Martin.
“You can’t use that language!” Martin cried, reaching over Marty’s lap to get to Seamus.
“Woah! Everybody calm down,” Marty tried, shoving Martin off his lap, causing him to hit the floor. There was a muttered ow, and Seamus snickered. “How did you guys even get here? Why don’t you tell me that instead of watching this,” Marty suggested, switching off the TV.
“I was in class, and my hand started to look oddly transparent! And then boom, I was in the school, except it looked much less clean, and it was night,” Martin explained.
“Well, basically the same thing for me, it was already night, and then the casino stared like.. fucking fading around me, and I was outside of a courthouse. I ran into this guy, and he started shouting at me about how my clothes would get me a demerit,” he chuckled, looking at Martin, who was still on the floor.
“Jesus,” Marty groaned, throwing his head back. “We are definitely going to go to docs tomorrow. This cannot be good.”
After that, it was a bit of a blur. Marty was pretty sure everyone fell asleep until around 5am, when Dave walked into the living room, pyjamas still on. He nearly tripped on Martin, who was still on the floor.
“Jeez, Marty, fall asleep on the couch again?” Dave chuckled, the lights being off and all. Martin stirred, sitting up slowly.
“Marty?” Martin asked, a tint of confusion in his voice.
“Well, yeah, dude. Who else would you be?” Dave asked, moving over to the light to switch it on. He was met with three people who looked nearly identical to Marty, and screamed.
Seamus immediately opened his eyes, looking around. “Where’s the gunshots?” He asked sleepily, confused.
Marty was, somehow, still asleep. Dave was shaking him trying to wake him up. “Marty! Marty. Who are these people?!” Dave asked hurriedly in a low whisper.
“Hmm?” Marty replied, mostly still asleep. “These guys? They’re like.. alternate mes. They showed up last night,” he replied, stretching his arm out.
“And you just let them in our house?” Dave asked, his panic growing. “And they’re time travel related?” He asked, gesturing to the two other barely awake Martys.
“Yes, we are,” Martin answered helpfully. “I am from a much nicer timeline, where the city is not so filthy,” he added.
Marty rolled his eyes. “Citizen brown timeline,” he said, gesturing at Martin. “Hell valley,” he added, gesturing at Seamus.
“Jesus,” Dave groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was a lot to take in, and Marty didn’t blame him for being confused. There were just three Martys on the loose now. One was hard enough, he could hear Linda saying if she were here.
“I like that. Hell valley,” Seamus mused. “Fits the town well. Suppose that would make Biff Satan?”
Marty chuckled. “I guess it would. By the way, did you really get kicked out of the boarding school in Sweden? Biff kicked my ass for that one,” he asked, before getting rudely interrupted.
“Is everyone alright? I heard screams! Is anyone shot?” George asked, walking into the room. He looked a little panicked, but he didn’t seem to realize the number of people sitting in front of him.
“That’s what I said!” Seamus grumbled, before it hit him who he was looking at. “Holy fuck,” he gasped.
“Everyone’s fine, dad,” Dave answered. “Marty’s got some.. friends over, and they scared me.”
“Marty, who are these people?” George asked calmly. Seamus seemed to be staring him up and down, in shock that he was real. He was wearing his pyjamas - a plain grey shirt with flannel pants. His hair was greying significantly, much more than in the original timeline, Marty noted. He was pretty sure it was due to the fact George no longer put gel in his hair everyday.
He had a much happier light to him that Marty wasn’t used to from the original timelines version of his father. He liked it, but it was still jarring at times.
“You’re George,” Seamus said before Marty could answer the question. He was still gaping at the sight of the man. Like he was some mythical creature he had heard tale of but never seen.
Which, it hit Marty, was exactly what it was like. He probably had no memories of George from when he was still alive.
Seamus had probably looked at a picture of his father, trying to imagine what it would be like if he was alive. He had probably hung on to every word his mother said while telling him stories of his father. Marty felt a pit grow in his stomach. It was all his fault he would have needed to live like that in the first place.
“I am,” George smiled. “You are..?” He prompted, still utterly confused. Instead of answering, Seamus pulled George into a hug, and Marty could see tears pricking in his eyes.
“This is Martin, and this is Seamus,” Marty said, ending the confusion. George made a face, and gestured at the boy hugging him. “They’re me from alternate timelines, essentially.” He added quickly.
“The one hugging you is from hell valley,” he explained. Marty had been over all the different timelines many times with his family, so they instantly understood what he meant. “This here is Citizen Martin McFly,” he said, gesturing at Martin, and holding back a laugh.
“So they just showed up here?” George asked, releasing from the hug and giving the boy an awkward pat on the back.
“Indeed,” confirmed Martin. “We were going to go see Citizen, er, Doctor Brown about this.”
George nodded, looking deep in thought. Dave had left the room a couple seconds ago, presumably to get breakfast, now that he was running late. George’s eyes darted between the three of them, looking for all the differences. The differences were subtle but they were there.
Marty’s hair was messy, but it was washed and combed. He had his clothes on from yesterday- a plain grey button up with jeans- and they were all slightly stained. When he smiled you could see that he used to have braces, as his teeth were nice and straight. His eyes were so bright and blue, and he seemed filled with so much hope. He had bags under his eyes from the recent lack of sleep.
Martin had the orange polo shirt on he had been wearing when he was forced to come here. It was in perfect condition, no stains whatsoever. He had on a pair of jeans, and it was clear they had been ironed. There were no wrinkles in them, and they hit right at the ankles. His hair was much tamer than Marty’s, but a similar style. His teeth still had braces on them, and when he smiled, he seemed almost nervous to do so. He had glasses on- no one had asked why he needed them and they didn’t- and they were large black rimmed.
Seamus was really a mess, when you looked at him well. His trench coat sleeve was rolled up, and there was a mess of bruises, probably from Biff Tannen. There were numerous scars along his arms, and Marty couldn’t help but wonder if they were self inflicted or not. His dark wash jeans were ripped, and covered in dust and grime. He stood a little slouched over, and he was clearly trying to seem cool after hugging someone he had never met. When he scowled, as he did that more often than smile, you could see one of his teeth was missing, in the front. It had been from a big fight with Biff a year or two back, and he was bullied relentlessly for it for a while.
“Why don’t you all take the truck out to Doctor Browns then?” George asked after a moment. “Im sure he’ll be up by now, he always was an early riser,” he chuckled.
Marty checked his watch- a Casio one Doc apparently gifted him- and it read 5:26. George had a point, by this time Doc would normally be up. “Yeah, okay,” Marty agreed, nodding his head. “We’ll try to be back by dinner,” he added.
Marty gestured for the other two to follow him to the garage. As they were walking, Seamus ran past Martin. “Shotgun!” He called, throwing a punch at Martin’s shoulder.
“Ow!” Martin cried, chasing after Seamus. “Come back here!” He screamed, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Marty laughed, and followed them into the garage.