former cartoonist, died in an awful tiger tragedy

“So, here’s the guest room, which, uh, I guess has sort of become my room,” Marty said. 

He gestured to a made bed in the corner. Then to the inflatable mattress on the carpet. 

His counterparts, McFly—I don’t give a shit if my step-father forced my mom to change it; McFly is our real family name—and Martin—I haven’t gone by Marty since I was five-years-old; it’s a childish nickname—stared at the room. They both looked unimpressed. 

“I’m taking the bed,” Martin decided. 

“Fine.”

Marty led them to the dresser. On top was a crate of vinyl records and a record player. 

“I have a lot of spare clothes in here. Uh, you guys can borrow some pajamas for the night. Don’t touch my music.”

“I would never; it’s contraband,” Martin assured.

“And your taste is lame,” McFly added, eyeing the titles. 

Marty groaned.

His current situation was stressful enough already. Their realities were on the verge of folding and collapsing into each other like a shaky house of cards. Doc was still working on finding a way to stabilize all three timelines before they reached the estimated point-of-no-return. After the critical period passed, the best he could do was ensure that his and Marty’s reality wasn’t the one that would be overwritten.

Understandably, Martin and McFly were not thrilled with the possibility that their realities, the worlds they knew and lived in, could be erased from existence and re-written by the rules of Marty’s. It was a heavy thing for all of them to deal with, but his other selves seemed to have no interest in trying to make coping with it easier. Those two had endless complaints about everything in his life. And if they were in the same room for much longer, they’d probably start throwing punches.

Wrapping up the end of the quick house tour, Marty told them, “Bathroom’s at the end of the hall. I’ll get you guys some toothbrushes—”

“I already have one with me,” Martin interrupted, patting his satchel.

“Huh?”

“I always bring a spare with me,” he explained easily. Then, he raised a critical eyebrow at Marty. “Do you not brush your teeth after going out to lunch?”

“Uh, no...”

Martin huffed, “Of course you don’t.”

“Right, uh, I’ll just get you a toothbrush,” Marty amended, addressing his 1985A counterpart. “And then you guys should have everything for the night.” He stepped out of the guest room. “I’ll be on the couch downstairs if you need me. If you need Doc, he and Clara are in the room next to the stairs. Oh, and if you get up at night, be quiet; Jules and Verne are in the room next to yours, and Jules gets really cranky if he doesn’t sleep enough.”

“Noted.”

“Doc will have something figured out by morning, and everything’ll probably be fine.” Marty rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, not truly convinced by his own words either. “But, uh, for now, can we knock it off with complaining for a while? It’s driving me nuts.” 

“Our lives are in danger of being merged into yours,” Martin said sharply. “Seeing as this—” he hissed, gesturing openly to the house, “—may be my new life, I think it’s perfectly within my rights to complain about it.”

McFly just glowered.

“Fine,” Marty conceded, tired, “then let’s just try not to beat the crap out of each other.”

Martin nodded.

With final, “good night”, Marty left his counterparts upstairs. Once he was certain that the other two wouldn’t need to come downstairs, he quickly went to the living room to let Einstein out of his kennel. The sheepdog had spent most of the day either stuck in a closed room or in the carrier. Martin was deathly afraid of him after their first meeting. Einstein, only understanding that one of his favorite humans had somehow tripled and—more importantly—was in distress, had rushed to protect them. But Einie’s desire to comfort didn’t pair well with Martin’s cynophobia. He was visibly nervous at the dog’s appearance and screamed when Einstein licked his hand. Marty’s 1986G counterpart wouldn’t calm down unless Einstein was physically removed from the room.

But with Martin not around, Marty let Einstein free. He gave the sheepdog extra scratches as an apology for keeping him locked up. After he set up the couch for bed, Marty let Einstein lay on top of him like a second blanket.

Sleep didn’t come to Marty easily. His thoughts kept wandering back to his alternate selves, hoping they didn’t kill each other overnight.

-

Martin was the first to use the bathroom after Marty left them. He dressed himself in a pair of dark sweatpants and Marty’s blue “class of ‘86” hoodie. The young man was in the middle of flossing his teeth when McFly pounded on the door.

“What's taking so long? Did you die in there?”

“You can come in,” Martin grumbled.

McFly nudged the door open with his shoulder and entered. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and black shorts. A new toothbrush was in his fist. Martin shuffled over to give him space at the sink.

For a moment, the two of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking at their reflections in the mirror.

To a stranger, their differences were practically non-existent, they were basically twins.

But to the pair, the contrast was like night and day. Knowing their faces, living in their own separate bodies for more than eighteen years, they were familiar with every little fine detail in their looks. Their distinguishing features may only be marginally different, but they could both easily see the distinctions.

Martin’s skin was paler and always carried a faint scent of hand soap. His nails were clean and short. His fingers had no calluses and their dexterity were apt for typing—not playing a guitar. His hair was cut neatly. It was a bit fluffy, but mostly tame. He had light red marks on the bridge of his nose from where his glasses had been sitting all day.

McFly’s face was littered with tiny healed cuts. His nose was slightly crooked, never fully aligned again after getting broken in a particularly intense fight with his stepfather. His hair was longer and it was messy. The odors of smoke and ash clung to the fabrics of his clothes. There was grime underneath his nails. His arms had a rainbow of different colors, the blues and purples and yellow-greens of bruises and the reds and pinks of fresh cuts. His hands rested as fists instead of resting loosely by his side.

They looked so alike and, yet, were so different. The same individual, shaped by a life of unique forces out of their control. A glimmering of understanding passed between them.

The moment passed as quickly as it came. Once McFly finished brushing his teeth, their bickering resumed.

“You are not done yet. That was barely thirty seconds,” Martin scolded. “And clean the sink when you’re finished.”

McFly did neither of those things. Instead, he flipped off his counterpart and he stomped back to the guest room.

When Martin returned to the room, he found McFly lounging on the air mattress, considering the ceiling. His jacket was draped over his pillow and his head rested on top of the black leather.

“Do you think First Cit—? Do you think Doctor Brown will have our timelines fixed before tomorrow night?”

“Probably not,” McFly grunted.

“I think th—”

“But I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care,” he repeated. “My Hill Valley is a complete shithole. If everyone there had their lives re-written to be like the ones people had here, it’d be an improvement for a lot of them.”

“Well, my Hill Valley is not some—some backwater suburbia. Decades of work towards building the perfect society is going to be wasted. I can’t believe you’re fine with all of this.”

“You’re really not a fan of getting re-written, huh?”

Martin sighed. “You don’t understand how far behind this world is to mine.”

“Enlighten me, genius.”

“First of all, this place is filthy,” Martin began, counting everything on his fingers. “There’s garbage on the streets, no protective coating on buildings—all the graffiti here is basically permanent, everyone still drives cars, there’s only one type of recycling, and there’s no community service system to maintain town cleanliness and ensure citizens are responsible for their civic duties.” 

Martin took a deep breath.

“And the number of corruptive materials that are legal to possess here is absurd,” he continued, “I’ve seen people with alcohol, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, bubblegum, pot—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on,” McFly said, putting a finger up. “Did I hear that right? Is bubblegum illegal in your town?”

“Of course, it’s—”

“You’re kidding!”

“—prohibited, and so are circus peanuts, and dogs, and—”

“Christ,” McFly laughed, “you’re from the most rigid, uptight place I’ve ever heard of. Why the hell do you want to go back there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your Hill Valley sucks. What do you guys do for fun? Watch paint dry?”

Martin rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t have expected you to understand. Just know this: my town’s citizens are good people. We have one of the lowest crime rates in the entire country—I know you can’t say the same. Our town is a model society, and I can't, in good conscience, stand by and let all of it disappear.” He gave McFly a stern look. “So, if you’re not going to help to prevent our timelines from merging into this one, then don’t get in my way when I try to stop it.”

McFly squinted at him. “What makes you think you can fix all of this if that old man can’t?”

“Believe me, I have the highest faith in Doctor Brown, even if he’s...different from First Citizen Brown. But we’re more likely to succeed if I assist him. I've been training for a position like this my entire life, and it helps that I’m an honors student, too.”

“God, you're such a nerd.”

Martin stepped over to the air mattress to look down at his other self. “At least I have a future,” he said coldly.

The light in McFly’s eyes vanished. He rolled over on the air mattress, turning his back towards Martin.

“How ‘bout we both shut up and try to sleep so I don’t punch you in the face?”

“Fine by me,” Martin said, returning to his own bed.

“Good.”

Martin picked up his satchel from where it was placed by the folded pile of his old clothes. He started to empty it, neatly stacking its contents on the nightstand. Out came his pens and pencils, his notebooks, his calculator, a packet of algae cakes he was saving for later, his citizen ID, and—what he had been looking for—a sleek black digital watch.

Putting his glasses back on, Martin began to methodically press buttons on the side of the watch. A sharp little beep emitted with each careful click. The silence of the room was broken by a dragging rhythm of electronic tones.

McFly slowly rolled over. “If you don’t shut that thing off…”

Martin sighed. “This thing is a Citizen Plus wristwatch.”

“And?”

“And it’s a revolutionary piece of technology—” another beep, “—this watch is going to change everything.”

“I bet it will,” McFly drawled.