Work Text:
Space was weird.
Once you get past how terrifying it is, it’s hard not to notice how strange everything is. Doc would probably say that Marty simply wasn’t used to it, but that still doesn’t take away from the unfamiliarity.
He zips the jacket Doc gave him- zipping down instead of up- and pulls the hood over his head, tugging it a little further down his face than necessary. The bandana-like fabric covering his nose and mouth smells odd, but so does everything else here. With goggles made for eyes much larger than his securely in place, gloves donned, and wearing a headband with fake antennae carefully color-matched with the jacket, Marty looks like the most suspicious fake-alien ever.
Doc, however, says that all it needs to do is disguise that he’s human, not convince anybody of anything.
He picks at the edges of his gloves, the material slightly scratchy and tight where it should be loose and loose where it should be tight. The feeling between his fingers is unbearable and it takes everything in him not to pull them off his hands right then and there.
Doc enters the room, tail flicking as he watches Marty fiddle with his clothes. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Marty responds, bandana muffling the sound somewhat. “How long do I have to wear this getup for?”
“We’ll be planetside for about a month to sell as many of my creations as I can and to take on a few short-term projects, and then we’ll move on. You’re more than welcome to stay on the ship for the duration of our stay if you’d like, we’ll be sleeping on here anyway.”
Marty groans. “No, it’s whatever. I can deal.”
“Are you sure-”
“Yes.”
Doc backs up a little, hunching and putting his hands in the palm-out mock-surrender position he’s picked up from Marty at some point during their time together.
Marty rolls his eyes and walks over to the viewing window, pressing a button to turn the ship lights off and reveal the illustrious world outside.
Doc doesn’t like how often Marty opens up the viewing window, but Doc isn’t stuck hundreds of lightyears from home, so he doesn’t usually say anything about it.
Bathed in sudden darkness, Marty can’t see much of anything. The pitch black slowly bleeds to grey as his eyes adjust.
Out the window, stars speckle the void and shine a variety of colors, red and blue and yellow and orange and white. He sighs, eyes darting around. As he stares at each individual star, he slides his gaze a little to the side and the stars brighten and desaturate.
“Does that happen for you, too?” Marty asks.
“Does what happen?”
“When you don’t look directly at the stars, they get brighter. My dad really liked space and we never had the money for a telescope, but sometimes we’d go outside and just… look. I think the library said something about the rods and cones in my eyes when I looked it up.” Marty turns to face Doc, though he is just a silhouette. He does not flinch at the reflected light in his eyes, mirrors of bright light in the dark less frightening than it had been the first time Marty saw it happen.
“Hmm… not that I have noticed,” Doc gets close to the window, and Marty hears him click in thought. “No, it seems whatever distribution of structures in your eyes’ anatomy that causes that particular effect is not similar between us.”
Involuntarily, his heart picks up a little at the wording.
“Doc,” Marty warns.
Doc clicks a couple times, a set of noises Marty has come to learn somewhat equate to a sigh. “My apologies, Marty.”
“‘S fine,” he mumbles, though it really isn’t.
“Please refrain from throw-“
“I’m not gonna throw anything, Doc.”
Closest to them, taking up a good portion of his vision, the planet they are approaching is a deep red-orange: no doubt their destination. Though Marty cannot remember its name, it is not dissimilar to Mars, despite lacking any distinctive polar ice caps.
“What’s this place called again?”
“The Lou.”
Marty wrinkles up his nose, though Doc can’t see that through the bandana covering the lower half of his face. “The Loo? That’s, like, a British bathroom, I think.”
“I did not name it,” Doc replies, “and one of those words did not translate. I cannot see what is wrong with the room you have your bathing apparatus in, either. That sounds like a perfectly respectable, hygienic name.”
Spluttering, Marty finds he’s at a sudden loss for words. While it’s hard to forget that Doc isn’t human, sometimes the reminder that Marty will never talk to another of his kind again is jarring. “I- you- it’s weird!”
“Your own name is rather unconventional.”
This is all making him much more upset than it should. Doc is often blunt and objective, there is no intention to insult or demean him.
“Hey! You said you don’t even hear my name, just some equ- equivalent!”
Still, that deep ache in his chest he’s well acquainted with rears its ugly head yet again.
”That is true,” Doc shrugs, the movement of his shoulders stiff and clunky, “but its equivalent is rather strange.”
Marty takes a step towards Doc, shoulders raised and fists clenched.
“Your equivalent is ‘rather strange.’”
Part of him wants to throw the wrench in his back pocket again. He won’t. He doesn’t want to hurt Doc. He’s been nothing but nice to Marty.
But sometimes Marty looks at him, and all he can see are bright lights and surgical tools.
“…Okay?” Doc responds, confusion clear in his tone and posture. He takes a step back.
Marty leaves the room.
Usually, these days, he stays out of the vents. They are cold and cramped and give him all sorts of bumps and bruises.
For the twenty minutes or so before they land, Marty curls up in the ventilation system once more, swathed in clothing that doesn’t fit, an unfathomable number of miles away from home.
The sky is pink.
Pink!
When he’d escaped his captors on- D2, he thinks Doc said its name was?- he’d caught sight of a purple sky there. But here it’s pink.
They landed amongst a sea of ships of all different shapes and sizes, like something out of one of his dad’s shows, or Star Trek or Star Wars. Aliens milled about between them, some exiting their ships, some returning from their excursions on the planet, some in groups, some by their lonesome.
Marty stares openly at one that they pass, a gelatinous mass with visible internal organs that slides along the ground at an impressive pace. Though the goggles hide his eyes, they do not hide the turn of his head giving away his locked-on gaze, and the alien bubbles out a “what are you looking at?” that still isn’t enough to make him take his eyes off of them.
He goes to touch the slime trail left by them, but Doc’s hand wraps around his arm, pulling him away. Marty flinches at the sudden contact and yanks his arm out Doc’s grip.
“It’s highly corrosive,” Doc explains, pointing a claw down at where the sludge is beginning to mix with the dust on the ground.
Marty sticks his tongue out at Doc, but only succeeds in tasting the fabric of the bandana he’d forgotten was covering his face. He readjusts the backpack he’s beginning to regret offering to carry and they continue on.
The dirt crunches under his boots, and the trolley Doc is pushing rattles with each stone the wheels go over. Marty had asked why he didn’t have a hover-cart or something similarly high-tech, and Doc had explained that it’s simply unnecessary. Why waste the energy, space, and material when the simple wheel will do?
They pay for parking, an action so eerily familiar Marty almost cries. The day Marty had been taken, his mother had complained about a parking ticket she’d received.
Doc navigates through the electronic menus. The device displaying them has both physical buttons at the bottom and a screen that reacts to touch. The hologram dictates everything that is onscreen, sentences cut off as Doc swipes through with practiced ease. Marty finds a little bit of comfort, though, in the fact that although he cannot read the language that is used, he would still be able to do this himself if it came down to it. Not… that he’s planning on paying for parking.
The market is, unsurprisingly, just as strange as everything else has been.
It is set up like the markets he knows, with stalls of aliens selling their goods that are out on display; the strangeness comes from everything else. The blatantly advanced technology everywhere, the items on sale, the gestures and body language of the aliens, the signage.
Marty cannot parse anything from the symbols lettering them, but where some are painted on and others are holograms, some aren’t… viiiisible?
It’s like he looks in a certain space and a word is beamed into his head; it is not there in reality, he cannot see it, but his brain knows that the words are hovering above that stall, graciously translated by whatever device is working to project it to him.
He doesn’t look at those ones for very long.
When they come to the stall Doc has rented out, Marty does his very best to help set it all up. He’s learned a good bit in his time with Doc! Really. And he’s not just saying that.
Well…
No, he really does do a good job putting out what he can. He recognises a number of the objects he is told to retrieve, and that really is a success in his mind.
Lots of little devices and inventions. Doc gets intrigued eyes on his wares almost immediately.
Still, he does get a little frustrated as Doc tells him where to put things, and then even more so once he starts conversing with other aliens. Marty doesn’t really understand how the stupid device in his head can translate words but not the meaning of a full sentence. He knows what those words mean individually, (whenever they translate, at least), but the meaning of the conversation goes straight over his head.
But he has to be at least a little bit happy for Doc, because they sell something almost immediately. More aliens come and go, and Marty hovers behind Doc as they do, sticking close to him like a lost duckling.
Soon, another alien walks up to the stall. He thinks they’re a Lyllan? The unfamiliar name had taken a long while to translate into syllables his brain could recognise when Doc had told him about them, no English equivalent to be found. Doc said that they’re a common species in this galaxy.
The Lyllan is open and friendly, and Doc’s posture is relaxed. They’re having a lovely conversation about a little circular device that opens up into strange compartments filled with glass, but Marty’s eyes are stuck on the Lyllan. All he sees is the gleam of rowed teeth and sharp claws.
When walking here, Marty had seen aliens of all kinds, some whose appearance was generally terrifying, much more so than the Lyllan before him, at least. But Marty’s eyes cannot leave the alien’s hands, which are empty, he can see they’re empty, but the longer he stares the more he can see the outline of silver and his own rust red blood covering them and, and-
and-
Marty takes his leave, slipping under the flaps of the back of the stall and out into the open market square.
He stands still, fumbling with his Walkman, and he must be in the way as aliens bump into him on every side, the touch electric and hot. He struggles to place the headphones over his ears with the crowd pushing him around and his disguise in the way.
Once the steady opening bass of Runnin’ with the Devil starts and the comforting guitar chords fill his ears, he feels the choking sensation begin to fall away. Van Halen floods his veins and flushes it out, his fear leaking out through his headphones with the faint sounds of his music turned up too loud.
David Lee Roth’s voice becomes a lifeline, his way through the crowd even when everyone seems insistent on touching him. He follows it, weaving in and out and between aliens and stalls until he’s somewhere he can breathe.
The world seems to still.
Of course, the hustle and bustle of the market continues with or without him, but Eruption begins and, momentarily, it is just Marty, alone.
Marty, all by himself, brave in the face of the universe yet so unimaginably small. He feels simultaneously like he is the very center of everything and like a tiny, unreachable speck on the horizon, the rainbow jumping further and further away into the distance as you chase it.
His gasping breaths and the noise of the market become the squeal of Eddie’s guitar and the hum of the planet beneath his feet. He closes his eyes when Eruption ends and keeps them shut for the duration of You Really Got Me.
When he opens them again, the outside world has returned to him, and the residual fire on his skin from where he’d been brushed up against has finally faded away.
Hands still shaking ever so slightly, he removes the headphones from his ears and leaves them around his neck. A look at his surroundings reveals significantly more foodstuffs and produce instead of the devices and technology he was seeing in the section of market he and Doc set themselves up in.
He blinks and spins around, looking for something familiar, or even where he thinks he may have come in from.
…He’s lost.
Aw, hell.
Whipping his head back and forth, he really can’t find where he just came from at all. That’s… okay. It’s okay. He can definitely ask where the parking lot is, and he can definitely ask someone to help him find- what was Doc’s ship called, a DeLorean?
…Weird how those equivalencies work, he thinks, trying to put the image of a poorly functioning stainless steel sports car he’d seen adverts for out of his head.
Alright! He’s got a plan!
Man, he’s good.
He makes his way back into the heart of this section, walking past the stalls where the aliens manning them seem busy, and continues on until he finds a store that’s all covered up. He hesitates for only a couple seconds, tossing a glance over his shoulder to see if anyone seems to be obviously steering clear of this particular stall, before shrugging his shoulders and ducking in.
The inside is dark, a shroud that blankets him once the curtain-like flap of the front entrance falls back to its place behind him. Cool green lights are dotted around, casting dim light across the store. The alien Marty assumes is the clerk sits in a soft-looking chair behind a desk-like piece of furniture, picking at their fingers.
They look tall and spindly, even folded up as they are, two tails that wrap around each other in a double helix and a tuft at the end which flicks every so often.
“Um,” Marty starts, fidgeting with his own hands, “do you know where the-”
“You gonna buy something?”
The clerk looks up at him, a dozen eyes boring holes into Marty’s head.
“…What?”
“You’re just standing there like a ——fish, are you going to buy something or are you going to leave?” the clerk asks, gesturing vaguely at him. Marty cringes when the translator makes the words stutter.
“I just wanted to know where the par-”
The alien stands. “Listen, I do not know nor do I care where you’re from, but if you’re going to ask me directions, the least you could do is look at what I’m selling.”
There is a pause as Marty doesn’t know what to do for a moment. This isn’t… he wasn’t expecting that. On Earth, you can just walk into places and ask for directions. Places only asked what you were going to buy if you overstayed your welcome.
But he is a very, very long way from Earth.
So Marty bites back the retort on the tip of his tongue and walks further into the store.
There are aisles made with what appears to be boxes covered by blankets of some sort. Marty isn’t sure what is being sold, but hums and haws at them nonetheless.
The clerk comes up behind him, but not too close, which Marty appreciates somewhat.
“You have to lift the covers to see them,” the clerk instructs, speaking slowly in a manner that suggests he believes Marty is on the slower side. “Like this.”
Lifting the edge of the blanket, the box is revealed to be a cage, and there are suddenly beady little eyes on him.
The creature within looks like the oddest mix of a goldfish and a beetle, though he fears such an observation may be lost on his current company. Still, he takes a few steps back as it growls at him, this low, terrifying gurgle kind of noise.
“It likes you!” the clerk says, tone happy as their scales seem to…rattle?
“Uh, um,” Marty swallows, “can I see another one?”
The clerk’s scales still, and they put the cover back down. “Take your pick,” they say, lifting a hand to wave at the aisles of animals they have in here.
There must be hundreds, stacked atop one another. How many will live out the rest of their lives imprisoned here?
…
He takes in a shuddering breath, forcing his mind away from the thought of cages and the feeling of shoving his arms through the gaps between the bars, trying desperately to take his Walkman back from his captors. His Walkman is in his pocket, and he is free.
Looking around, he tries to pick a cage at random, but finds the sheer number of options overwhelming. He could pick the one right next to him, but if there’s any kind of organization to this place, then he doesn’t really want to see another one of… whatever that was.
His eyes finally catch on a covered cage hidden away in the corner, beyond the neat rows and almost entirely out of sight. The clerk seems to notice where his attention has been drawn.
“Oh, that one isn’t, ah, the most- hey, wait, that’s not the best representation of my wares-”
Marty ignores the clerk, curiosity piqued, and the questions brewing in his mind a welcome distraction.
“Listen, that one is… I’ve sold it before, and it was returned,” the clerk insists, “there really are much better options. I have ——fish! And ——fish! And if ——fish aren’t your thing, then I have ——fish, too!”
Marty has to refrain from clamping his hands over his ears at the awful static-y buffering that he can hear. That’s in his brain. The device that’s struggling with whatever animal names it’s convinced are fish is in his brain. He can only hope it doesn’t break.
When he arrives at the cage, not letting the clerk’s blabbering deter him, he kneels down and braces himself. The clerk doesn’t want him to see this one. It could be a grotesque sort of creature, or one of his nightmares, or perhaps an awful fusion of everything he is afraid of in one convenient animal.
“I’m not even sure where it came from. I’m trying to get rid of it. You aren’t going to want that one, so why don’t you come see what else I have to offer?”
The last creature had been a mix between a fish and a beetle. This one could be all teeth and strength, a lion in a cage pacing the perimeter, waiting to strike. A snake lying in wait, biding its time.
An alien hiding behind a row of shrubs on the outskirts of his hometown, double row of serrated teeth glinting in the sunlight.
He lifts the cover.
It’s a dog.
The dog startles up from where it seems to have been sleeping, barking aggressively at Marty and the clerk. The clerk reaches to put the cover back over, but Marty seizes their wrist in his hand.
“Don’t,” he commands, not taking his eyes off of the dog. If ever he were a sailor lost at sea, the clouds have parted and revealed to him the North Star, twinkling light in the distance a beacon to the home he never thought he’d reach again.
He stretches out his hand to the dog, which only barks harder at his nearness.
“Hey, buddy,” he says, voice low and warm, “hey.”
The dog’s ears perk, and the barking quiets a little. Marty spares a look at the clerk before deciding he doesn’t care whatever conclusions could be reached and removes his gloves, stretching out his hand yet again.
“Hey, who’s a good boy? Or girl-” he continues, cutting himself off after the dog goes silent, “oh, you’re a good boy? Are you a good boy?”
The dog barks just once more, and finally approaches Marty’s outstretched hand. He seems to still have his harness, a familiar nylon webbing from their home planet. There does not appear to be a collar.
Marty is pulled from his thoughts when the dog starts licking his hand and pawing at the cage, and Marty turns to the clerk.
“How much is he?”
The alien’s eyes seem to scan Marty’s face, and he finds himself really wishing he understood alien body language at all.
“… if you take it off my hands and promise not to come back with it, then you can just take it. It got thrown in with my last shipment, and I’m pretty sure it got smuggled because it doesn’t match any animal in my database and is an aggressive predator.”
Marty stands back up, and meets the alien’s gaze, though they wouldn’t be able to tell through the thick goggles covering his eyes. “Do you have a lead?”
The clerk points back towards the entrance.
“Can I get that for free, too?”
They squint at him, and Marty can almost see the internal debate. “…Fine.”
Marty does a little hand pump in victory that the clerk flinches at, and Marty is now one dog and lead richer and still doesn’t know where the parking lot is.
When he asks the clerk, he gets an initial sharp sounding intake of air that sounds somewhat exasperated, before they freeze and look at him confusedly.
“Come again?” they ask, tilting their head to the side.
“The parking lot. Do you know where it is?” At their continued silence, Marty elaborates further, “where all the spaceships are?”
“Ah! The shipyard? What an odd thing to call it. It’s- come, I’ll point it out to you. Least I can do for you since you’re taking that… thing off my hands.”
Marty holds the lead tighter to his chest. “Don’t call him that.”
The dog presses closer to Marty’s legs as the alien passes them, who in turn gives Marty and his new companion a wide berth before exiting.
Outside, which is so bright by comparison it takes a few seconds of squinting and rapid blinking for his retinas to stop burning, the alien points off in a direction.
“Just go straight that way. You’ll go through a textiles section and another produce section, and you should come to the dock and the shipyard.”
Marty says thank you and bids them a curt goodbye. Walking through the market now with the dog beside him, fewer aliens bump into him, though the dog does bark and growl at a couple of them. Marty holds him close and scratches behind his ears every now and then, hoping the touch helps a little.
After some expert navigation, if Marty does say so himself (he does), and a little bit of luck (the DeLorean was amongst the ships he saw right as he entered the shipyard)(it was mostly his expert navigation, though), he makes it back to the ship to find Doc worried out of his mind. Right by the entrance of the ship is the trolley from earlier, not neatly stacked as it had been but instead filled with Doc’s merchandise thrown on it haphazardly, Doc’s departure from the stall apparently not a placid or unhurried affair.
He’s pacing, but not in the way Marty often sees him doing, not lost in thought drawing out mechanisms and solving problems in his head. His eyes are not almost glazed over, looking at nothing, vanished to a world of numbers and equations.
No, this time, Doc is mumbling, and his tail lashes back and forth in agitation. His eyes dart around the shipyard, scanning, searching, until he finally sees Marty.
He goes still, and Marty watches him stutter-step into a sprint that he abruptly halts when Marty flinches at the movement.
“Marty!” he frets, more slowly approaching now, “where did you go?!”
Doc doesn’t even seem to notice the leashed animal beside them, hands hovering until Marty gives the go-ahead and he grabs his shoulders.
“You just disappeared! I had no clue where you went, do you know how big this place is? What if something had happened? You are unfamiliar with most of- well, everything!”
Doc continues to ramble, until his worries are abandoned quickly once he sees Marty’s new friend.
The next few minutes are filled with a very one-sided argument.
“What in the world were you thinking?!”
Doc is not happy with the dog.
”Oh, come on, Doc, look at him! I’m sorry, but I couldn’t just leave him there!”
“Look at its teeth, Marty, it could tear your throat out in seconds!”
Marty stays petting the dog while Doc paces back and forth, ranting about how dangerous the animal is and that it was not domesticated and-
Wait.
“Hey, wait, Doc,”
“You cannot possibly hope to keep it aboard with you,”
“Doc,”
“Marty, you didn’t even discuss this with me first, you just ran off and acquired yourself a beast,”
“Doc!”
Doc stops.
“He’s domesticated. He’s from my planet, we domesticated them. We keep them as pets all the time.”
Doc’s wide eyes close in a slow blink. “…You are certain?”
“Yeah. I always wanted a dog, back home, but my mom said they were too expensive to look after and required too much time and effort.”
Marty can see on Doc’s face that he still doesn’t like the idea of the dog on his ship, but at least he’s entertaining the idea, now.
Running his fingers through the dog’s fur, there is a patchiness to it, and places where it is uneven and shorter than it should be. Surprisingly, though, Marty does not find any mats.
When Marty was eleven, his Aunt Sally gifted him a book of dog breeds after hearing how much Marty wanted a dog. He’d been disinterested at first, but found himself poring over the pages some nights, just looking at and reading about the different kinds and their temperaments.
If Marty had to guess, he thinks the dog is some kind of a sheepdog. The fur is soft under his fingers. If he recalls correctly, they’re some of the most intelligent breeds of dogs.
“Marty, I’m choosing to trust you, here,” Doc says, and Marty looks up from where he’s petting the dog. “Please don’t make me regret that.”
“You won’t.”
Doc kneels down, the joints of his knees and ankles not quite in the same place and the same kind as a human’s, making the action look distinctly odd. The dog’s ears pull back as he stiffens under Marty’s hand. Still, he does not attack or growl as Doc reaches a hand out to gently pet him, and Marty almost laughs because the dog is doing a much better job at warming up to Doc than Marty had done.
“He’ll need a name. We cannot simply keep calling him- what did you say he was?”
“A dog.”
“… I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to say. I’m hearing ‘bitch’.”
Perhaps it is the deadpan tone with which Doc says it, or the statement itself that makes Marty burst out with hysterical laughter. Maybe it’s the stress of the day finally returning back to the commotions of the market, and the freedom to be himself again. The dog beside him flinches and comes to attention, standing and padding back a little.
Marty tries to suppress it, holding a hand to his stomach and another one over his mouth as his shoulders shake.
“In the past, I have named my pets after historical scientists that made extraordinary discoveries,” Doc says, not waiting for Marty to finish laughing, “I could recommend a few names, if you wish.”
The dog barks once, and Doc nods at him.
“Well, if Marty won’t name you, I would be honored to,” he says to the dog.
Marty splutters. “Wait- wait- hold on-”
“Einstein.”
The dog’s ears perk up, and he tilts his head. Marty finally gets ahold of himself.
“You can’t just- he’s my dog!”
“I believe he likes the name ‘Einstein’.”
“All he hears from you is clicks and chirps, not words!”
“He hears similarly meaningless noises from you; and I believe he likes the order in which I made those clicks and chirps to create his name,” Doc points out, petting the sheepdog in the same motions Marty had been moments earlier, “is that not correct, Einstein?”
Einstein barks and- damnit, Marty’s just been usurped.
“You didn’t even want to keep him five minutes ago!”
Marty looks down at Einstein, who happily accepts Doc scratching behind his ears. Traitor.
He wonders what the Einstein that Doc knows discovered. Probably not E equals whatever it was.
Einstein does not leave Marty’s side, unless Doc is in the room, in which case he’ll happily ditch him for the scientist. For someone who had been adamantly against Einstein’s staying with them, Doc sure did come around fast, chatting with the dog like a friend.
Doc and Marty are watching a film, Einstein laying across Marty’s lap in pure canine heaven as both Marty and Doc pet him simultaneously. In the days after Einie’s arrival, the dog seemed completely content with both of their company, though continues to be easy startled and doesn’t much like the crowds of the market.
The movie onscreen is set on a planet with a green sky and three suns, which throws Marty off a little because such a setting always used to imply sci-fi but no longer does; this is closer to a melodrama, theatrics and unrealistic interpersonal conflicts galore.
Beside him, Doc seems to have nodded off, the weight of the day catching up to him. His breathing has evened out to a rhythmic faint whistle, in and out, in and out, and his hand on Einstein has stilled in his fur, tufts sticking up between his fingers. A person onscreen reads a letter that gets shown onscreen, more of those symbols of the common language that seems to be used out here that Marty can’t read, and starts sobbing uncontrollably. Or laughing. Without Doc to tell him, he’s not really sure.
Einstein looks up at Marty, and Marty looks back down at him, smiling. The dog opens and shuts his mouth with a click, panting a little and tilting his head as if to say, “you good?”
“How’d you end up out here anyway,” Marty mutters, “what’d they take you for?”
Of course, Einie does not respond with anything more than a flick of the tail and a twitch of the nose. He’s on the quieter side, for a dog, and Marty reckons that’s because he’s really listening and paying attention to everything. Clever dog.
Where have you been? What have you seen?
While Marty hasn’t been the most open with Doc about the events that landed him in space, at least his story is able to be told, if he so desired. Einstein’s is a recollection lost to language barrier, the only witness unable to communicate it in any meaningful way.
Regardless of the how or the why, Einstein is just as far from home as Marty is.
“I’m pretty sure it got smuggled because it doesn’t match any animal in my database and is an aggressive predator,” the clerk had said. Of course Einstein was smuggled. There isn’t really another way to get to Earth, let alone get anything off-planet.
”Humans are widely considered some of the most dangerous creatures we know of, if only for their endurance and tenacity. That, and their tendency to be resistant to common poisons and sedatives.” Doc had explained when he’d handed him the ill-fitted disguise.
“You’re just like me, huh?” he murmurs, and Einstein presses his head further into his hand.
Someone in the film screeches some horrid kind of noise as another pushes them, spindly purple limbs thrown into the air.
Marty’s eyelids begin to droop, and it is not long before sleep claims him, too.
The sky is blue, and there is but one sun.
His journey home from school is not a long one, but he often extends it by taking the scenic routes and stopping by different places in town. Some days, most days, he prefers being home for as little time as possible.
He stays out for a while, sun staggering unnaturally across the sky, but the roads in town blend into his street, transporting him to where he would really rather he was not.
The wheels of the skateboard quietly rattle until he comes to a stop at the end of his driveway. He kicks the end of the board down so the other end comes up into his hands.
He stands there for a few minutes.
Biff’s car is in the driveway, and he can hear his voice from all the way inside, yelling one thing or the other.
With a heavy heart and feet of cinderblocks, Marty ambles towards his front door, eyes cast down.
As much as one would expect him to be used to it by now, he doesn’t think he will ever see his father’s supervisor making regular visits to their home as ‘normal’.
Marty slinks into his own house, dropping his bag by the entrance and balancing his board somewhere Biff won’t notice it, lest the man decide to break it again.
His mother is further in, sprawled across their couch already halfway through a bottle of wine. Marty greets her, and she mumbles a greeting back.
He isn’t sure if it is the derisive words that float in from the kitchen, the miserable sight of his mother, parking ticket still unpaid on the coffee table, or the fact his siblings have clearly vacated the house as well that make him decide to leave. Whatever it is, he tells his mom he’s going out for a while, and, leaving with nothing but his Walkman, he exits his home for the last time.
The walk is peaceful. Mild and warm, the afternoon air is not the stifling pressure of his house nor is it the hurricane of teen angst that is being a freshman in high school.
Melancholic, perhaps. At least, he thinks that’s how he would use that word. He learned it earlier that week in English class. The peace is not the serenity of a calm forest, but the quiet stillness of that forest after it has been burned to the ground and smouldered for a couple days, wallowing in its destruction and beginning life anew.
In seconds, that calmness flips on its head.
One moment, he is as safe as he’s ever been. The next, he is stolen away by something that only ever existed in movies and television shows, thrashing and hollering for help to no avail.
The scene blinks, a week or two in captivity skipped like a scratched record as clawed hands hold him down and a needle pricks his neck. From the site, coolness spreads, a freezing feeling washing over him as his blood distributes the chemical to the rest of his body, and his struggle ceases.
He can’t move. Whatever it was they injected into him, he can’t move a muscle.
Heart pounding ever harder, there is little else Marty can do besides watch as they haul his limp body around. They are not gentle, happily letting his limbs knock against every surface and twist in ways they shouldn’t.
And it hurts. He’d much rather be fully numb than just immobilized. This is so much worse.
The chattering above him, a nonsensical amalgamation of barking and hissing, continues on as they lay him across the table. Uselessly, they strap his arms and legs down, as though he were able to move anyway.
When they make the first incision, Marty cannot even scream.
He awakens with a jolt and barely stifled yelp, something cold and wet being shoved in his face. Unthinkingly he shoves the source of the wetness away, hands meeting fluff and eliciting a whine from it.
A hand brought up to his chest, he tries to calm his hammering heart, but with each too-deep breath, he can feel the edges of his fingers going more numb and his vision blurs further.
Einstein presses himself up against Marty, and he so desperately wants to lean into it but he can’t, he can’t, he needs Einstein to stop touching him now.
So he pushes the dog away again, who whines again, and Marty can’t help it. It’s so embarrassing, but he can’t stop the stupid tears from falling.
Hiccuping, he continues to fail to get a grasp on himself, until his Walkman is gently tossed onto the cushion beside him.
He wastes no time in putting the headphones on and pressing play.
It’s uncertain, how long he stays there like that. At least three songs, he’s sure. During that time, Einstein dares to snuggle up against him again, and, more able to process it this time, Marty lets him.
If he closes his eyes, face buried in Einstein’s fur, the music in his ears and the scent of dog pull him years into the past and impossibly far away. He’s just visiting his grandparents’ home and bothering their dog despite the fact he was told to leave the old thing alone, because Buster loves Marty and Marty loves him back. Next to him is the awful cheap portable radio he’d nicked from the electronics store after Dave told him he was too much of a chicken to do it, crackly audio mixed with static blaring all the newest hits of 1978.
When he opens them again, Doc is staring at him, unblinking as usual. The scientist holds his arms up in an awkward gesture, offering.
After a moment of deliberation, Marty accepts readily, throwing himself into Doc’s embrace. Doc’s arms close around him, Einstein half squished between them, and seemingly not upset by it.
“The water from your eyes,” Doc mumbles, “that is not a positive thing, is it?”
“It can happen sometimes,” Marty gasps twice, sentence interrupted, “when I’m happy.”
“Does it function to aid with overwhelming emotions?”
Marty doesn’t respond, just burying his face further into Doc’s shoulder. The fabric gets wet, and Marty only feels a little bad about it.
They stay there, like that, with Marty’s Walkman still playing into his ears and Einstein’s tail thumping against the seat and his and Doc’s arms interlocked. The thought that he misses his parents comes unbidden, for his parents had not held him in such a way since he was much younger, but it comes nonetheless.
“My kind often end up solitary,” Doc says out of nowhere. Marty’s grip on his coat tightens. “Not because we are solitary, we’re really quite social, but it simply ends up being what happens.”
“Where’re you going with this?” he mumbles back.
“I’m glad you are here. I like having you around. I am sorry for yelling at you about Einstein.”
Marty pulls back, putting Doc at arm’s length, and looks up at him.
“I’m… not glad I’m here,” he admits, “I wish I was home. But I’m glad I found you.”
Doc’s face goes a little solemn, but understanding. His ears prick up slightly in a bittersweet sort of smile and Marty gives one back.
Breaking contact with him fully, Marty hops off of the couch, rubbing at his eyes and nose. He sniffles, and Doc, too, rises to his feet.
They start to get ready for the day ahead. Then, eventually, Doc kneels down in front of Einstein, no doubt pondering whether they should leave him here or take him with them. Einie’s coming, of course, as he has been the past few days. Marty is going to make sure of that, but Doc doesn’t know that yet. Marty should probably tell him how exactly you’re meant to care for dogs, at some point.
Doc stiffens and rises a little, turning to Marty, as he seems to suddenly think of something.
“How old is he, would you say?” Doc asks. That’s a good question, and one Marty hadn’t thought of.
Doc turns back to Einstein and starts inspecting him in a way that makes Marty’s stomach churn. Swallowing the lump in his throat down, Marty looks long and hard at the dog.
His fur isn’t scraggly or greying the way he expects of old dogs, and he seems quite spry. His eyes lack cataracts and his bark seems relatively-
Oh, who’s he kidding.
“I don’t have a single clue,” Marty replies, “not old, but not a puppy- er, baby.”
Doc hums. “What’s their lifespan like?”
“Ten to fifteen years, I think?” Images of a book he couldn’t put down back home flash through his mind. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds right. Especially if one dog year is seven human ones.”
That last statement earns an impressively baffled look from Doc, and Marty realises that measuring lifespan in such a way is probably odd for an alien, who is surrounded by vastly differing lifespans and developmental periods.
“It’s like, uh, humans live for seventy years on average, and dogs live for ten, so one to seven…”
Einstein barks.
“Does their childhood similarly translate to yours?”
“Uh, no. Some dogs are adults at, like, eight months, I think? And others take like two years. So, using dog years, that’s like a human range of… four to fourteen years. And humans are adults at eighteen, but aren’t really fully in adulthood until twenty-five, so, no, it doesn’t really translate like that.”
Marty watches as Doc seems to be doing math in his head. Look, using years gets the point across. He’s not measuring age in months, no matter how much Doc insists that it’s the standard. He’s still going to tell anyone who asks that he’s fourteen years old and if they want to know what that is in months, they can calculate it.
Then, Doc’s ears droop. He slowly turns away from Einstein to face Marty.
“You told me you were an adult.”
Oh, shit.
“I am!” Marty lies.
Oops.