#1885a

how is our main trio holding up? —

marty ‘clint eastwood’ mcfly — not too different from our current marty, but with the couple extra months spent in 1885 (now 1885a) and him and doc constantly being on the run from mad dog tannen and his men, he is a lot more on edge. pair that with having to watch seamus die and you’ve got a walking volcano always on the verge of errupting. really needs to just take a nap.

he’s become extremely protective of doc, really not wanting to watch him die again. brings an axe around with him along with a revolver seamus gave him. he wears mostly the same outfit as he did in part iii (obviously cleaning it in when he can) just now with some wear, tear and custom belt to keep his axe on him without carrying it in his hands 24/7.

emmett ‘the blacksmith’ brown — mad dog tannen’s main target after the marshals and the mayor. due to the current going ons™ in hill valley, him and marty are currently unable to find a perfect chance to go back to the future. now while outrunning certain death and trying to put an end to tannen’s reign over the town, doc is also trying to figure out how to hopefully go back in time, prevent the events that start this timeline and then go back to 1985 without fucking over the delorean, the timeline and his and marty’s mental health even more.

he is very worried about einstein, even though he's only really been gone for about 11 hours to einie. like marty is to him, he is very protective of marty and also clara, though he hasn’t seen her in a hot minute. he carries around a musket and again has the same exact outfit as he did around the end of part iii (him and marty haven't had much time to think about unique outfits okay) but it is a lot worse for wear than marty's. a lot dirtier, ripped and even has a few bulletholes in the coat.

clara clayton — believe it or not this woman is one of the most feared gunslingers in hill valley now. heavily working on her marksmanship to be able to keep the residents of the town, her students and her pretty little princess (doc) and his friend safe. while having developed a bit of a stricter and more blunt personality, she’s still clara. she refuses to fold to the reign of mad dog and is currently trying to track down marty and doc, though that might be a bit difficult considering they're moving around like every 5 seconds. lol. she’s killed 8 people. good for her.

she carries around a revolver with a holdout pistol on hand and wears her typical purple gowns, now with an awesome fucking coat for some awesome fucking pizzazz because FUCK YOU that came to me in a dream and it looked FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!! sometimes she switches it up and wears something similar to that first image. ok? ok.

somewhere in december, 1885.

marty couldn’t sleep. typical. not out of the ordinary. it’s not easy to sleep when fearing for your life and melatonin was still seventy years away from discovery. he sat in front of the fire doc had lit, wrapped in a “blanket”—really just a coat he stole—with his gaze completely fixated on emmett, who was currently fast asleep, face first in a journal. it was kinda funny but all marty could think was ‘how does he sleep?’.

doc was scared as he is, maybe to a slightly lesser extent but they’re on the same wavelength in terms of fear, yet he somehow slept fine. marty was envious of how well emmett could sleep in these conditions; the harsh cold, the dread of being hunted, the risk of being trapped here for all eternity. to be fair, he could be having insane nightmares too and be really good at dealing with them. marty wouldn’t know.

the doc being able to sleep fine just kept marty up, really. sitting there for hours on end, axe tight in his grip just incase whoever was on their trail finally caught up to him. there was a very real risk of having to watch his best friend die for a second time and marty would rather fight, very possibly to his death, to prevent that.

buford didn’t give much of a damn about him, though. his target was very much set on that blacksmith. maybe “eastwood” would get a beating or two but they’d leave him alone for the most part. doc would be gone, he’d be trapped in 1885 and his family back in 1985—if it hadn’t turned into another twisted alternate universe—would be wondering where their son went.

just thinking about it all made marty’s paranoia worse. tears welled up in his eyes and he brung his knees to his chest. it’d all work out in the end, right? him and doc always found a way to get out of their tense situations. surely this is no different.

december ? maybe. probably december.

—

doc was in the midst of giving marty an earful about running off or something like that. marty was barely listening, just repeating ‘yeah, doc’ and ‘sorry, doc’ over and over. he wasn’t doing it to be an ass, he was just in a world of pain right now.

this time around, the doc doesn’t exactly know what the hell happened. all he remembers is the boy disappearing from his side while they were checking out a farmhouse they assumed to be abandoned, before reappearing with a pretty gnarly cut on his arm. safe to say, house wasn’t actually abandoned. just a bit rundown. whoops.

“stop moving around,” the older man’s voice was stern, “moving around’s not gonna do anything for it.” he pressed his fingers down on the skin around the cut.

“does it still hurt?”

“yeah, ‘cuz you’re squishing the shit out of it.”

“well, i have to, squeezing a cut is actually pretty important. for one, it helps clean the cut out,” doc explained, relieving the pressure on the cut, “keeps it hygienic, lessens infection risk. give me your bandana.”

marty pulled his bandana off in one rough tug, passing it over to the other. “you know, doc, i think hygiene is gonna be really hard to maintain around here,” he huffed.

emmett didn’t reply, just worked on tying the bandana around marty’s bicep. “how does that feel?” he spoke up once he was done.

“it’s a little tight.”

“but does it feel like it’s cutting off circulation at all?”

the boy shook his head.

“good,” doc’s lips curved into a small smile, feeling proud of himself. he wasn’t happy that his friend got an injury bad enough requiring his neglected medical skills but he was happy that he got to use said skills, “all done.”

marty gave a thin-lipped smile back, “thanks, doc,” he looked down at his feet, kicking his feet back and forth in his chair.

“now marty, i don’t wanna have to repeat myself again but please, be–”

“be more careful, yeah, yeah, don’t worry doc, i heard you the first eighty times you said that.”

doc sighed, nodding along with what he was saying. “it’s just, i need you to drill those words into your head,” he pointed at marty’s forehead, tapping his finger against his skin, “you’ve got to really get it in there.” he dragged out each word like he was teaching something to an infant, an act that irritated marty just a little bit.

“yeah— okay, okay. i’ll keep it in mind, promise," marty swatted the other’s hand away, “i’m seventeen, not seven, don’t treat me like that.”

it’s not really his fault that he keeps getting into situations. along with the constant dissociation, fear of loud bangs and insomnia, marty has become extremely clumsy. it may have something to do with the fact he’s in a state of constant fear but who knows?

the older man didn’t apologise for the way he acted, staying silent for a few moments before getting up and brushing it all to the side. “right, we should get going.” he slapped his knees upon standing up in true dad fashion.

“what’s the rush?” marty followed suite, picking his discarded serape up off the floor.

“i’m not fully confident that this place is abandoned, that’s all.”

“..why not? shit’s falling apart all over the place.”

“you could say the same for that farmhouse. look at what happened in there.”

oh, doc. he could completely annoy marty one minute and be completely overprotective the next. he’s making a really realistic fatherly figure, marty thought. “if this wasn’t abandoned i think we’d be found out by now.”

“still, we mustn't assume. the owners could be out for all we know.” emmett was busy gathering his items in quick succession, really ready to make a run out of here incase it’s non-existent owners return.

december 11th, 1885. thank god places in town kept their calendars.

clara wasn’t the type to walk into a saloon in the middle of the night, mainly because women weren’t exactly welcomed in them but also it just wasn’t in her nature. however, since the errr, change of management, we’ll call it, of hill valley; people didn’t really care about the old societal rules of 3 months ago.

that left clara able to waltz on into the palace saloon as she pleased. and that she did. good for her!

“chester,” clara called out upon entering. she approached the bar, side-eyeing the men glaring at her from across the room before directing her attention to chester. “whiskey, please. it can be that rotgut stuff for all i care, i just need something both strong and potable.” she kept her request short, still maintaining her manners. she placed—more like slammed—12 cents onto the counter. a bit over double the price of a glass before tannen’s takeover.

she’d gone in and asked for whiskey so often lately that neither chester or joey questioned her on it anymore, just passed her the bottle and let her go about her time in the saloon. anytime they’d ask what the matter is, she’d always hit them with the ‘oh you know, life’ which wasn’t actually that far off, honestly.

to be truthful, she didn’t really like whiskey. thought it was gross, could never understand how people willingly drank that stuff. it was strong, though, and while she was able to hold her liquor like a certain someone; whiskey was really the only thing that helped her forget the misery of the day prior.

in her shoes though, it’s hard to blame her. having to teach kids no older than 10 how to properly handle weapons just so they and their family would have extra protection … from a child. some of these kids were from the types of families that’d teach their children gunslinging from a young age yet the rest couldn’t have even told you the purpose of one. that just made the sinking feeling in her worse.

combine that with the disappearance of emmett and his friend eastwood who were apparently so off-the-grid that literally no one has found a single clue pointing to them and you know what, clara deserves to drink herself into a blackout. does that mean she should? no. will she? probably.

clara was brung out of her thoughts and back to reality upon hearing the clinking of glass. a bottle of liquor and a shot glass were left in front of her, courtesy of chester.

“thank you, chester.” i told you she’s still maintaining her manners. she gave a small smile that didn’t really last long before her face dropped again. once chester’s attention was elsewhere, she picked up the bottle, pouring the contents into the cup. she popped the whiskey down and took the small glass in hand.