Work Text:
Just let me know if you disagree with this dream that I felt behind the screen
I promise I will never sleep again
Just hold onto this fear:
what I could be / a heart complete
Energy, the forces I seek
Won't you come to me
and take me home?
Beautiful, the heart that I see
but it's not for me
Will you let me go?
~
How was it that the quote went? “You were so caught up figuring out if you could, you never stopped to wonder if you should.” Maybe that was what someone should have said to him when he first started messing with time travel, but Marty was the only other person to know, and he was just as excited. (After the first time, at least. And that had been such a mess, they should have known to stop then.)
They'd had fun with it for four years, vacationing wildly across time-- honeymooning, you could say. Maybe they weren't really married, since even in 2015 they'd have needed to provide documents they couldn't possibly share, but it was close enough for them. There'd been a big gathering of couples all getting married at the same time, and they'd stood in among them for their own personal satisfaction. They figured they'd do it officially when they really got there for good.
Things were so good, as perfect as any one person could rightly expect, but they kept-- they kept testing their luck. Going back, going forward, going home. Something was always different when they returned, some little detail that they often didn't realize for months and would laugh about later. It was never anything important: a fact, a coincidence that they shouldn't have taken for granted.
But now...
They should have stopped. He should have stopped before he ruined everything.
He came back one evening, after having taken a few stops in the past to research some points on a science history article he was writing. It hadn't been a very long outing, not more than 27 hours, not long enough to have to stay overnight anywhere, but he was very glad to be home, particularly because he missed Marty, who hadn't gone along this time (claiming to be busy with schoolwork and not saying that he was a little bored by Doc's research). He parked the car, took Einstein out for a short walk, and then collapsed into bed, still mostly clothed. It was past midnight and Marty wasn't home, but this wasn't unheard of on a night when he had classes, so Doc didn't think anything of it.
Then Marty wasn't home when he woke either, and Doc couldn't help but be a little uneasy. He took Einstein out again and made breakfast for them both before calling over to the McFly residence.
“Good morning, Lorraine. Would Marty happen to be there?”
“Oh, hello Doctor Brown,” Lorraine said brightly. “I'm sorry, he's not here. He hasn't visited for at least a week. Busy with school, I guess. Is he not picking up at home?”
“I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean,” Doc said, a little faintly. Maybe Lorraine thought he was calling from elsewhere?
Lorraine laughed. “Did he forget to give you the number? I would have thought you'd be the first one to have it.”
Doc played along, although he found he was feeling a bit ill at the idea that Marty had gotten his own place instead of moving in with him. “Oh, ah, I must have misplaced it. Do you think you could give it to me again?”
He was hesitant to call the number, to find out that he and Marty had never gotten so far in their relationship somehow. Had they not gone to 2015? They moved in together even before the mock-up marriage ceremony, so it made sense that it wouldn't have happened. Doc's heart felt heavy-- physically heavy, not the way Marty always used the word. He knew they could do it all again, if they wanted, but he wondered how much of their relationship had been erased or set back. They still knew each other, at the very least, as evidenced by both Lorraine's words and her tone. But every little touch, every kiss, every day or night they spent together-- he hated to think there was a single one that Marty wouldn't remember.
Eventually, he did call, but there was no answer, for which he was almost glad. He figured that Marty would come by sooner or later, and they could figure this all out then. In the meantime, Doc fiddled with his various experiments, hoping to distract himself. Mostly, he wasted the whole night wondering what he'd have to go back and change to set things right again.
X
Marty finally came around the next afternoon, and Doc couldn't stop himself from latching onto him and holding him close as soon as he was through the door.
“Geez, Doc, something happen?” he asked, returning the hug a little more stiffly than he normally would, even on his moodiest of days. This only made Doc hold on harder.
“I'm afraid perhaps something didn't happen,” Doc replied, fighting the urge to bury his face in Marty's hair and let the familiar scent calm him. This Marty didn't seem quite as comfortable with intimate physical contact. Was it really possible that they hadn't progressed past the initial stages of dating? “Do you remember 2015? The marriage ceremony?”
“Someone got married?” Marty asked. Doc could feel his goofy smirk against his shoulder. “Was it that power-couple everyone was talking about in the early 2000's? Y'know, the one that was on-and-off all the time.”
Doc sighed and forced himself to let off his death-grip on Marty. “No, if you don't remember, it's not important.”
Marty seemed a little annoyed by that (he must have realized something had changed in the timeline), but he didn't press the issue. “If you say so, Doc.”
“I do,” Doc said, and then had just the tiniest of heartbreaks over the stupid words. Maybe again, in the future, he thought, in the real future. He mentally shook the thought from his head. “So, how is the new place treating you?”
“It's good,” Marty said, nonchalant. He stepped out of Doc's personal space bubble and went to go 'make himself at home' in the garage. “The water pressure on the shower head is super low, but I thought I could ask you for advice before going to the office about it. They take forever and a day to fix crap like that.”
Doc nodded, more in acknowledgment than empathy. “I'm sure I can find a pressure adjuster for you,” he said, and walked off into the mess of the lab to look into it, and to get some room to think.
Getting an apartment seemed like a very illogical choice for Marty. As far as Doc knew, Marty's parents were happy to let him stay at home indefinitely. (At least, that was the assumption, considering how they treated him like their baby, and how they'd never made Linda or Dave move out, even when they were considerably older.) And even if they'd made him leave, Doc was certain he'd have offered to let Marty move into the garage with him. Though if they were still in the early stages of dating, living together would likely have pushed an evolution of their relationship, which didn't seem to have happened yet.
And the community college was fairly close, so it didn't make sense to have gotten an apartment to make the school commute easier; the price for rent would have vastly outweighed the savings in gas and time. Unless Marty had decided to go somewhere else? A university, maybe?
“Where are you going to school these days?” Doc asked, raising his voice to be heard from across the room, where Marty was playing with the amp.
He stopped what he was doing and quirked an eyebrow in Doc's direction. “HVCC,” he said. “Y'know, the community college on the other side of town? ...Are you doin' alright? You seem a little weird today.”
Doc thought for a moment about how to respond. It was hard, not knowing where he stood with Marty, and not wanting to be too bold, in case... He hadn't had to be this guarded with him since Marty was sixteen and they were still figuring out the logistics of their feelings and what in the world they were going to do about it. It had been a hell of a year.
“I'm just a little jet-lagged,” he eventually said. It was close enough to true.
Marty didn't seem to buy Doc's suggestion that that was the only problem. “What happened? Something's different about the timeline again? What all changed this time?”
“...I'm not entirely sure.” Not only that, but Doc wasn't sure he wanted to tell Marty either, even if he figured it out. He didn't want to put that sort of pressure on him. Marty wasn't having it, though; it was as though he could tell Doc wasn't being completely honest and was uneasy about it. (But of course he could tell, and of course he was uneasy. They'd been around each other for going on seven years now, even if they weren't married, and Doc almost always told Marty the whole truth, especially if something was wrong.)
Abandoning the amp, Marty came over to where Doc was still rummaging around in a cardboard box full of screws and washers and pipe fittings. “Is it something serious?” he asked, standing next to Doc but just slightly too far. “Maybe we can go back and fix it.”
Fix it? Well he certainly wanted to, but he didn't know where to start-- other than the usual way, the way people normally fixed relationships when they weren't going quite how they expected. First, he supposed, you needed to figure out the differences between what was and what was supposed to be. Doc had the sinking feeling that he already knew, but he had to find out for sure. “Do you remember the night of your eighteenth birthday?”
“Yeah, sure,” Marty said. “We all went out for pizza and bowling. Dave and Linda kicked everyone's asses.”
“And after that?”
“We all went home?” Marty seemed a little confused, as if he wasn't sure what other options there could have been.
Those words could have meant what Doc hoped, but somehow he knew they didn't. “Home,” he said. “You mean your parents' house?”
Marty nodded and crossed his arms. He leaned slightly away, like he was trying to get a good look at Doc, trying to puzzle him out. “Yeah, I mean, of course,” he said. “Why? That's not how you remember it?”
“In my timeline, you stayed here that night,” Doc told him, trying his best not to let too much emotion into the statement, to let it just be a statement and not a plea.
“That's kind of a random change. Was it important or something?”
Important was definitely one word for it, and his Marty would have known that; no change that happened in the past several years could have possibly erased how excited Marty had been for that night, the first night they'd agreed not to hold back.
But if Marty didn't know that, it implied that he didn't remember the two long years that came before it, the years of careful touches and chaste kisses and hands held and grievous longing, which meant that he'd never-- they'd never talked about how they felt.
This wasn't a relationship issue they could fix; this wasn't anything at all.
There was just one more thing, one more point to clarify, though he didn't know how to ask. Sure as he was that he already knew the answer, he simply decided not to.
Doc felt his world crumbling around him, and he tried to keep it together, to answer Marty's question. “No,” he said. “I suppose it wasn't important.” Because it didn't matter how he felt. He was the trespasser here, in this Marty's timeline. This Marty didn't care for him the way his Marty had, and damn but he couldn't help thinking of them as different people. This was the Marty who lived and belonged here; his Marty was now long-gone.
But how similar they were; it tore Doc to pieces.
Marty stuck around for another hour or two before he went home, glancing over his shoulder with a concerned and distrusting look as Doc waited to lock the door behind him. After that, the night was long and cold, the following day scarcely any better. In fact, aside from walking Einstein, Doc couldn't be bothered to keep track of the time. By the time Marty returned, he could only guess that it'd been several days, judging by the concerned expression he wore.
“Geez, Doc!” he stage-muttered, eyeing the man with mild disgust. “I thought maybe you were just having a bad day before, but somethin' tells me you haven't left the house in days.”
“I have,” Doc argued. “I've walked Einstein at least fourteen times.”
“Which means people have seen you like this, in the same clothes for four days straight.” Marty shook his head, a little amused with his friend's antics, as always, but mostly just worried that something was actually wrong this time.
Doc stared into the middle distance somewhere in the vicinity of Marty's head. “Has it been that long?”
A short laugh escaped Marty, but it felt more forced than humorous. “Wow, when did you stop paying attention to time?”
Doc laughed as well, and it was perhaps the most derisive noise that had come out of his mouth in years. “When I stopped having a reason to care,” he said, and then immediately regretted it. He blamed the stupid slip on sleep deprivation. “I'm sorry, I don't know when the last time I slept was.”
That wasn't a particularly clever thing to say either, he realized, if he was trying to persuade Marty that he was fine. It was just that... he hadn't had to lie to him in so long, and now there was this god-awful situation, and he really was not thinking clearly.
Marty stared at him for a minute and then took a sharp breath. “Okay, I've got an idea. Come with me.”
Instead of heading back outside, like Doc had expected, Marty led them further into the garage, to the living area and Doc's big bed, which hadn't been slept in recently but also hadn't been made up since whenever the last time was. He gently pushed Doc down onto it and then hopped over to the other side, where he laid down and pillowed his hands behind his head.
“You need to get some sleep, and I'd like an explanation,” Marty said, turning his head just enough to give Doc an uncompromising look. “Both would be great, but I'll take either one right now. So take your pick.”
Though he didn't especially want to lay down next to Marty (because he wanted to lay down next to Marty), Doc let himself fall back until his head hit the pillow, too physically and emotionally tired to resist.
“Alright, what's it gonna be, Doc?” Marty asked, looking at him from the corner of his eye.
Neither, Doc thought. Both. Instead what he ended up saying was, “Do you know how much I care for you, Marty?”
A light blush colored Marty's cheeks, just a touch of red when he smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “Y'know I care about you too.”
“No, no, I appreciate the sentiment, but it was a question,” Doc clarified. “I've no doubt you know that I care about you. But do you know how much?” He laid a hand over his eyes, even though they were closed.
“Kind of a lot, I guess?” Marty said, sounding less sure now than he'd made himself seem before. “Since you've put up with me for this long.”
“Put up with you,” Doc repeated, followed by half a sarcastic huff of a laugh. “You don't know the half of it.”
There was a short silence then that was broken by the shifting of weight on the mattress beside him and the sound of a sigh. “What happened, Doc?” Marty asked, almost a plea. “C'mon, tell me what's really going on.”
If he didn't think too hard about it, and he let his emotions calm down and the sadness seep out of him, Doc could almost forget that things weren't as they'd always been. With Marty here beside him, close enough to touch, close enough to feel his warmth even if they were keeping their hands to themselves, it was much like the timeline he considered home. And then when he remembered how wrong this timeline was, this closeness gave him his reason for not wanting to be honest with Marty, because if he didn't alienate him then maybe at least sometimes they could be like this. And this, if he didn't think about it too hard, was almost good enough.
But physical closeness was not the epitome of their relationship; trust was. And that was why Doc could not keep quiet any longer.
“This isn't my world,” he said, not uncovering his eyes. “And you're not the Marty I knew.”
“Yeesh,” Marty said, his tone forcibly light. “Am I that bad?”
Doc shook his head as much as a he could with it sunk into the pillows. “Nearly the same, I'd guess. But the Marty I knew... He was my partner, in every way.” He took his hand from his face finally and turned on his side. He had to look at Marty for this.
The young man's face didn't drain of all color; it was pale already, like he'd been figuring it out the whole time they'd been laying there together. But Doc had gone this far; he had to make sure Marty understood completely.
“We got married in 2015.”
Marty stared, his face strained and static, until he said, predictably, “That's heavy, Doc.”
“It's not a lie, I promise,” Doc said, worried Marty would think he was playing some unsavory trick on him.
“I believe you,” Marty assured him. “There's no reason you'd lie to me. It's just--”
“--hard to believe?” Doc ventured, hazarding a guess based on what he knew of other young men, of young men who hadn't married older men and probably couldn't even imagine doing so.
Marty's eyebrows drew down a little. “No, not really,” he said. “It's just... strange, I guess, how it happened like that for you, but it went a totally different way for me. How-... how did it start?”
Doc thought back to those strange, complicated years. There wasn't one clear point when they suddenly realized that they wanted to be together. Instead, it was months of slowly drawing closer, some of it conscious, some subconscious. Months of sitting nearer and nearer, brushing hands, lingering looks. Even the first kiss... it was hard to say exactly whose idea it was, other than that it was obviously both of theirs and had been for maybe the whole year beforehand.
That wasn't an answer, though, at least not one he could give. If this Marty hadn't lived that, he wouldn't know what Doc meant by it. He wanted and deserved a clearer answer.
“It, hmm--” Doc cleared his throat. “--wasn't love at first sight. But it wasn't far from that either. I think there were a few months when it didn't really occur to us, when we were just getting used to each other, but by the time your senior year rolled around, I'd say it was pretty obvious that neither of us was going to back away.”
Surprisingly, talking about his relationship with other-Marty didn't depress him further. It actually lifted his spirits a little. This Marty seemed neither pleased nor bothered by Doc's answer, just deep in thought. “Senior year, huh? I guess that makes sense, then.”
Doc wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Marty answered his unspoken question before it could leave his mouth. “Junior year was when I met Jennifer.”
As much as he'd been expecting something like it, Doc's heart sank. He remembered her, now that he thought about it, now that he could reach back into his new-self's memory and know what to look for. Jennifer Parker-- she was a lovely girl, and they were lucky to have each other.
But that sentiment didn't erase his feelings for Marty, not for him or for the Doc that this Marty knew. Except while he'd been gallivanting around with his partner in time, this Doc had been softly suppressing the feelings he'd never get the chance to express. Here was the chance; he'd already done it now, but to what effect?
“Doc, I'm sorry,” Marty said, sounding so genuine it almost brought him to tears.
“Why should you be sorry? I'm the one who came into your timeline and put this upon you. I should be sorry. I am sorry.”
They talked for a few minutes after that, nothing consequential, and as Doc's emotions began to settle down enough that he could perhaps consider sleep, Marty gently stood up.
“I'm gonna call Jennifer,” he said, heading toward the phone hanging up on the wall across the room. “Tell her I'm staying for the night. She won't mind.”
Doc opened his eyes, a little surprised that they'd fallen shut. “Marty, you don't have to stay. That's not fair for any of us.”
Marty gave Doc a hard look. “Please, Doc, c'mon. I wanna stay.”
It looked so much like something Marty really wanted, as opposed to just something he was doing for Doc's sake, that Doc sighed and told him, “Alright. You know you're always welcome here.”
He was asleep before Marty returned.
The dreams were not as bad as he thought they'd be, but waking up next to Marty was uniquely torturous. He opened his gorgeous blue eyes as soon as Doc shifted into wakefulness. “Feeling any better?” he asked, voice a little rough.
“Somewhat,” Doc answered honestly. “I needed the sleep, so thank you for insisting.”
“Hey, it's what I'm here for,” Marty said, smiling with the corners of his lips but not his eyes.
“I'd say you're here for taking care of your girlfriend,” Doc argued. “You never signed up for this.”
Marty laughed softly, a gently disagreeing sort of noise. “Yeah, but Jennifer can take care of herself for a while. I'm kinda getting the feeling you wouldn't know what to do without me.”
Doc closed his eyes again. “I think you're right.”
There was a few minutes of silence while they both properly adjusted to the waking world. After a little while, they both seemed to decide it was time to get up, and wandered together out into what served as the kitchen to make some breakfast. While they were sat down in mismatched chairs at a small table (another difference; the McFlys had given them a new set as sort of a wedding present, so they'd donated these ones), eating plates of eggs and toast, Marty spoke up again.
“I'm not gonna break up with her.”
Doc paused in the middle of bringing a forkful of egg to his mouth, surprised by the sudden admission. “Of course not,” he said. “Why would you do that?”
Marty looked at Doc like he didn't want to say it. “Because,” he said shortly, an exasperated sigh escaping with the word. “I'm not going to, but, you know, Doc, right? Back before I met her, you know now, how I felt about you, don't you?”
Doc wasn't sure what to do with this information, as affirming and yet irrelevant as it was. He didn't know what to say, so he remained quiet and let Marty continue.
“So, I'm not gonna break up with her,” he said again, “but I think we should get you back to your timeline. Because that Marty deserves to be happy too. And you too, of course.”
It was a strange thing, but very touching to Doc. Those words were so equally selfless and selfish. He wanted Doc to be happy, and he wanted his past self to be happy as well, and he thought of them all as different people, almost maybe because it was the only way not to feel regret.
“Marty...” Doc began, actively resisting taking his hand “You know they're not separate from you, any of the other Martys out there. They're just different potentials.”
“I know, Doc,” Marty said with a decisive nod. “That's... why I want them to be happy.” He reached out and laid his hand on Doc's arm, a companionable gesture just shy of the type of intimacy Doc craved, but more than enough for the situation.
“And what about you?” Doc asked, warmed by the contact, but a little worried that this Marty might not be taking his own needs seriously enough. “Are you happy too?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said, without a trace of doubt.
“Do you love Jennifer?”
“Yeah, Doc. I do.”
“Good,” Doc said, and he wholeheartedly meant it, because even if he was just a potential of the Marty he would always consider his, the one he would always consider real, Doc still wanted desperately for him to be the happiest he could be.
They finished breakfast in relative silence after that, but finally it was comfortable.
X
Immediately afterward, after Marty had headed home and Doc had showered and changed, he began to obsessively catalog everything he did on his last trip through time, in hopes of finding what exactly had gone wrong. Or... what went differently, as he began to think of it. He couldn't in good conscience think of this timeline as wrong, when Marty was happy, and Jennifer was not at all at fault.
When he thought he had a few ideas, he headed back again. Unfortunately, the first trip back yielded no noticeable change, nor did any subsequent trips for the next few months.
Marty was extremely supportive of him, more than Doc felt he deserved. Regardless of his schedule, school or work or his personal life, he always made time to help. He saw Doc off when he went, and welcomed him back a few minutes later, and then went out with him for coffee or back to the garage and discussed what changes, if any, had occurred.
Time continued to pass, though, and Doc's optimism about ever getting home waned. Only Marty's enthusiasm for staying involved kept him going at all.
Marty was also considerate to a fault, when it came to Doc's feelings about him and his relationship with Jennifer.
“Doc, can I talk to you about something important?” he asked one day, some time after their initial conversation. He seemed a little nervous, and Doc was worried it would be something about them, about the two of them and the relationship that they'd never had. He couldn't help but worry that one day Marty would change his mind about the whole thing, decide it all was wrong even in concept, and tell Doc to get over it; say that he didn't appreciate the way Doc looked at him sometimes.
If that was the case, if that was what Marty wanted to say, Doc had long-since decided he'd hear him out. “You know you can tell me anything,” he said, steeling himself for whatever it might be.
Marty took a deep breath. “I'm thinking of asking Jennifer to marry me. I wanted to know if that was okay with you.”
Almost instantly, tears welled up in Doc's eyes and began to spill over with alarming suddenness. He cried, not because he was sad about the progression of Marty's relationship with Jennifer, or from relief that Marty wasn't rejecting him, but because he could hardly believe that Marty thought Doc's opinion on this momentous occasion was so important that he'd ask him before all else.
“Of course,” he said, choking back tears, wiping them away with the palms of his hands. “I want nothing more than for you to be happy. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” Marty said, almost equally red-faced as he too fought not to cry, and failed. They stood there in the garage for minutes, just crying and laughing at themselves.
The wedding ten months later was gorgeous. Doc was, of course, Marty's best man; regardless of whatever might have transpired recently between them or in Doc's personal life, there was never any chance that he would miss such an opportunity. He gave a speech that made both bride and groom cry, as well as a good deal of other guests, and received an honorary slice of cake to the face, delivered jointly by both Marty and Jenn after the two had fed each other theirs. The whole affair was quite fun and, for the most part, light-hearted. The only slight regret that either Doc or Marty had was that Doc was still around to see it.
Busy as he was with his newlywed life, Marty didn't have the time to come over as often as either of them would have liked after that, but he still did his best to support Doc, to help parse the data he returned with when his trips obviously didn't yield the anticipated results. He was still more emotionally available for Doc than Doc told himself he could rightly expect. And never once, despite all of Doc's fears, did he guilt or shame him for any of it.
The fact that this Marty was still so compassionate, so loyal, so everything that he loved about his Marty, was what eventually made Doc decide to stop. The constant searching for something that no longer existed was only hindering his ability to return all the love Marty was giving him. So he called Marty over to help with one last trip.
“After this one, I'm done,” he said, waving off Marty's protests. “Then I'm going to dismantle this damn thing. It's only brought us heartache.”
“C'mon, Doc, that's not true,” Marty tried to tell him. “The time machine's the best thing that ever happened to either of us.”
They both knew that neither of them was more right than the other. The beautiful and terrible experiment had given them both their fair share of ups and downs.
“I'll see you soon,” Doc said as he got into the DeLorean and set the time display back for the last time.
“I hope not!” Marty called after him, and through the windscreen Doc could see his sad and hopeful smile as he waved him off.
Doc's journey was no more or less interesting than any time before, no more illuminating about why the future had changed so drastically for him. He checked off the last few items in his notebook, the last few possible reasons why he'd been stuck for more than a year in a world that didn't belong to him. Hadn't belonged to him, but he supposed Marty's acceptance of him made it just as much his home now as anyone else's.
He didn't hold his breath as the light of the in-between flashed around him, but Marty wasn't there waiting for him, on that lonely stretch of rarely-used California freeway in 1991. It was dark and lonely and Doc hoped, if nothing else, that he hadn't erased Marty from this timeline entirely. He wasn't sure he could live in a world that didn't have at least some version of his best friend to keep him on track.
Something had to have changed, he knew; otherwise, Marty would still be standing where Doc had left him, waiting for his return. It wasn't clear what that might be, though, so he followed plan B and went home. Everything seemed in order on the drive back; at very least, Hill Valley hadn't turned into any sort of obviously-hellish nightmare. (No more than it was by virtue of his relationship status, anyway, and that was only so bad on his worst days.)
Einstein was ecstatic to see him, so he took him out on a quick walk, despite how much he wanted to sleep. That was pet ownership, and he'd known what he was getting into when he adopted the puppy all those years ago. He didn't wonder why the dog had had such an enthusiastic response to his return, but when they got back into the house and he finally noticed Marty sleeping in his bed, his first thought was to wonder if maybe Einstein had been trying to tell him something.
Marty didn't look sick or anything, though. He looked very much like he belonged right where he was. Doc would have been inclined to agree with that assessment, if he hadn't carefully schooled such thoughts to silence over the past year. He knew where Marty really belonged, which was where he'd chosen to be.
“Sorry I kept you out so late,” he said at a medium-quiet volume as he approached the bed, meaning to wake him, but not abruptly, if he could avoid it. “I meant to come back right after I left, but something must have changed in the timeline. You should get up and go, though, if you don't want to risk annoying the missus.”
Marty groaned and rolled over almost automatically. He looked at Doc, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Doc...” he murmured, taking a few deep, tired breaths before shuddering awake, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open in disbelief. “...Holy shit, Doc! You came back!” He lunged forward and latched on to Doc, making the man's heart thud painfully at the contact.
“I can't believe you're here,” he said, grabbing handfuls of Doc's clothing and his hair and whatever he could reach, burying his face in Doc's neck. While Marty melted, Doc went stiff, tense and unsure what was going on until it slowly dawned on him and denial gave way to hope.
“Marty...?” he asked, a shiver rolling through him. He pulled away so he could get a good look, the fabric straining at his shoulders where hands held tight. “My Marty?” Doc searched the young man's face. It looked just like the one he'd seen all throughout the past year, but overcome with a slew of raw emotions, things Doc felt he understood all too well: relief, fear, confusion, and a love that was probably visible from across state lines. At the same time, he realized all the things he'd already seen but not processed on his way in-- the matching breakfast table and chairs, a new bedspread they'd picked out a while back, odds and ends of Marty's that had moved in with him.
“I'm sure as hell not someone else's Marty,” he said in a loud, hoarse whisper, as if he was having trouble controlling his voice. A wry smile drew his cheeks up into his eyes and caused them to shimmer. “God, Doc, where have you been?! A whole year and no word. You couldn't have sent me another letter on the Western Union or something?”
“A year?” Doc asked. “It's been that long?” He thought about it for a moment, a little horrified. “Yes, of course. I always went back to the day I left, so he could tell me if anything had changed.” He looked down at Marty, still holding tight to his shirt, still staring at him like some sort of miracle. “--So you could tell me... But now that I know things have been fixed, I can go back to the first day I left. It'll be like nothing ever happened!”
“Whoa, waitaminnit Doc,” Marty said, holding on to him harder, adjusting his grip to stop him from getting up and leaving. “I don't know what's going on, but you're not going anywhere, not now that you're back! Not even to erase the last year, hell no. I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again!”
Doc thought about it for a moment, one long second in which he remembered the year from his own perspective and imagined it from Marty's-- his Marty's-- before he decided that Marty was right, as usual. “Alright. I think that's fair,” he said with a nod, slouching forward slightly to break the physical tension between them. “Besides, I'm a little too tired to safely travel much further before I get some rest.” He began to twist out of Marty's grasp, to get up and remove his shoes and shirt, but Marty dragged him back down.
“You want to sleep?” he asked, dubious. “I don't think so. I haven't seen you for a year, Doc. A whole year. Do I need to say it again? How do you think I'm feeling right now?”
Doc was pretty sure he knew exactly how Marty was feeling, and then some. “No worse than I am, I can guarantee,” he said with a grin, accepting that he might be spending the night with his shoes on and leaning down on his palms over Marty.
Laughing, Marty pulled Doc closer, down onto his elbows so they laid chest-to-chest, so they could feel each other's warmth. “Are we competing now?”
“If we are, then I'm fairly sure I'm winning, and I'll tell you why.” He kissed Marty then, almost physically unable to stop himself, now that he knew he didn't have to. “Later, though,” he amended, “if you think you can wait.”
It was clear in the worry that lingered in Marty's gaze that he needed to know why he'd been left behind for so long. He had a million different theories and was irrationally afraid that this was just a dream; Doc knew, because he felt the same.
The epitome of their relationship was not physical closeness, it was trust, something they'd both known from the start. But at the moment, Doc was asking for both, and Marty was more than willing to grant him them. “I think I can,” he answered, trusting that Doc would tell him as soon as they'd held each other close enough and long enough to chase off whatever doubts remained, and trusting that the explanation would be a good one.
“I promise I'll never make you wait again,” Doc said as he melted into Marty, no amount of closeness quite close enough.
Marty wrapped his arms around Doc's back and held him like he was prepared to make good on his threat, to never let him leave his sight. “You know I'd wait as long as you needed me to,” he said, a selfless declaration that was at-odds with his body language but was so very in line with the loyalty Doc knew first-hand from two different versions of his best friend.
Nodding into Marty's hair, Doc said, “I know. That's why I had to come back.” And that's why he'd tell him the whole truth in the morning, even his failures and doubts. Marty deserved to know that the only reason he managed to get back at all was because he was so endlessly devoted to their happiness.
“I'm glad you did,” Marty said, and Doc was inclined to passionately agree. Still, he hoped that, if he existed anymore, other-Marty was well and happy. He knew, he knew, that that Marty wasn't really separate from this one, only a different potential, but he couldn't help thinking of them as different people. They had different histories, after all, different memories that they could never share. There was no way for Doc to thank that Marty anymore, no way to tell him that he'd finally gotten home, all thanks to his help and devotion.
There was only one thing he could do to thank him, and it was something he'd gladly spend the rest of his life on: making sure that this Marty was the happiest he could be, and never ever taking for granted what it was like to have a heart complete.