Present Imperfect [Marty/Doc]
Apr. 16th, 2006 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akainagiTitle: Present Imperfect (1/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akainagi
Rating: R for dirty words, sexual comments made in poor taste
Fandom/Pairing: BTTF, Marty/Doc
Spoilers/Warnings: Nothing yet.
Notes: Pre-trilogy. Totally non-cannon for various reasons, including the fact that I have left out Jennifer. Apologies to cannon purists.
Summary: Marty’s temper rears its ugly head yet again, with unexpected results. When an opportunity presents itself, will Marty take a chance? Or is he just too chicken?
Had Marty come home to any other family than his own, he probably would have found himself grounded on the spot. But he was a McFly. And in the grand tradition of the McFly household, coming home from school with a shiner and a suspension for fighting earned him a stuttering, painful lecture from his milquetoast father and a sad shake of the head from his depressed mother, who chalked her youngest son up to another disappointment in a life full of disappointments.
His parents hadn’t even thought to ask him what possessed him to try and pound an upperclassman who had half a foot and a good forty pounds on Marty himself. Not that Marty would have told them anyway. His brother was the only one who had ribbed him about it, in that annoying tone that all older brothers are programmed with from birth. Finally the snorting laugh of his father, the relentless teasing of his brother and the sound of his mother pouring yet another glass of vodka became too much for one bruised teenage boy to handle. And when the youngest McFly casually announced at the seasonable hour of nine pm, that he was going to a friend’s house, he was met by the vapid and automatic “that’s nice, dear” from his mother, and the inane laughter of his father, who was still glued to the ubiquitous black and white sitcom.
He spent the short ride over to Riverside Drive meditating on the sound of skateboard wheels on asphalt and wondering how he was going to explain the impressive bruise to the Doc, who usually had more exacting standards for disclosure than his parents. Although Marty would rarely admit it, it was a comforting feeling to have to have someone give a crap that he got a “D” in chemistry or that he got into a fistfight on school grounds.
But how the hell do you tell your 65 year-old male best friend that you nearly got expelled from school for defending his honor?
***
Marty would be hard-pressed after the fact to remember how the whole thing had started. He thought he recalled the impossibly tall, impossibly built football jock casting some aspersions on both Marty’s height and masculinity. Upon which Marty, who was now seeing everything in a dull red, made likewise comments about the average intelligence quotient of high school football players.
Somehow the discourse had degenerated from there.
And when Mister Football Jock made an offhand comment about “that creepy old faggot you hang out with,” Marty’s vision blossomed from dull red to a brilliant shade of crimson. It must have shown on his face too, because the Neanderthal prick honed in like a vulture hones in on a carcass.
“What’s the matter kid? Don’t like it when someone badmouths your boyfriend? How’s that pervert nutjob in the sack, McFly? Got a thing for old man dick, huh? Who tops, Mcfly? You let the old geezer stick it to you? Or maybe you just like to suck wrinkled old cock-“
In retrospect, launching himself at the hulking asshole wasn’t the smartest thing Martin McFly had ever done. But it did rank up there with the most satisfying. And even with a hideously smarting left cheek and ringing skull, he couldn’t help but get pleasure from noting that he had dealt a lot better than he took. Mister Football Jock sported an impressive shiner, a split lip, and Marty doubted any cheerleaders would be throwing themselves his way for a while.
The two of them had been frog marched to the principal’s office, where Herr Strickland dealt them both suspensions and singled Marty out with threats of expulsion. And while the office lady typed up the letters for their parents, and then on the long skateboard ride home, Marty had ample time to reflect on the irony of his situation.
Mister Football Jock was not the first one to insinuate a not-quite-platonic relationship between Marty and his much older best friend, although no one had ever done it so … blatantly. It was natural, he supposed, in this day and age, to wonder why a 65 year-old man chose to socialize exclusively and largely in private with a 16 year-old boy. It was bullshit, of course. The idea that Emmett Brown would make a move on his young assistant was totally without merit. Marty McFly knew this because he had been waiting for the last two years for the man to try.
Marty had suffered from a spectacular crush on the older man almost from their first meeting. No one had ever put that much effort into cultivating a relationship with the youngest McFly before. No one had ever cared so much about him until the day he met the man he would come to refer to simply as “Doc.” Someone had finally found Marty McFly to be person worthy of caring and effort.
It had acted on the boy like a drug. With the gluttony of an emotionally deprived teenager, he had soaked up the affection and attention, always hungry for more. Somewhere along the line, Marty realized the desire for affection had become simply desire. Since then, he had done his level best to squash it, persistently and ruthlessly. Because, even thought the young man had known for some time that his own sexual preferences ran something other than the straight and narrow, that didn’t mean that the Doc’s did as well. And even if it did, it was painfully clear to Marty that the older man had him pegged as a friend and protégée, not a potential lover. It took only a shorthand cost-benefit analysis for Martin McFly to realize that approaching Emmett Brown could obliterate what relationship they had, and that thought filled him with abject fear.
In this respect, and this respect only, Marty McFly was a colossal chickenshit.
***
The first words out of Doc Brown’s mouth were exactly what Marty expected.
“Great Scott, Marty, what happened to your face?”
Marty grinned sheepishly. “That’s nothing. You should see the other guy,” he quipped.
The inventor shook his head in dismay. “Fighting, Marty? I understand the impulsiveness of youth as much as the next man. But there really are more civilized ways to solve your problems.”
Marty suddenly pictured the sneering look on Mister Football’s face when he asked Marty how he liked old man dick. “The other guy wasn’t really interested in civilized, Doc. Look, can I crash here tonight?
The older man stepped aside to let him in. “Of course, but why?”
Marty sighed as he deposited his bag and skateboard next to the door. “Because if I spent another minute in that house I was gonna commit matricide, patricide and … is there a word for killing your brother?
“Fratricide,” the Doc supplied.
“That too.”
The Doc took on his I’m-lecturing-you-for-your-own-good tone that Marty found frustrating and oddly endearing at the same time. “Now Marty I understand that your family can be … trying at times, but I don’t think running away from them is going to help.”
“I know, Doc. But it’s been a long, crappy day and I’m just not up for dealing with it.” Marty worked his way around the clutter of Doc’s garage to drop himself heavily and unceremoniously on the threadbare couch. It was then that he noticed the lab looked slightly more of a mess than usual. “Whatcha workin’ on?”
The inventor let the topics of Marty’s dysfunctional family and pugilistic tendencies go, albeit temporarily, Marty was sure. The Doc picked his way expertly around the clutter and reached down to pick up a contraption that was bizarre looking even by Doc Brown standards.
“You remember my mind-reading device don’t you, Marty?”
Marty looked dubiously at the object, which resembled a cross between a bike helmet and an erector set gone horribly wrong. He would have remembered that invention. “No, I don’t think so.”
It might have been Marty’s imagination, but the inventor looked like he paled for a moment. “Quite right, Marty, Quite right. My mistake. I must have gotten my inventions confused. Anyway, with this device, I should be able to read the thoughts of another person.”
Marty raised an eyebrow, one part impressed and two parts doubtful. “Mind reading? Isn’t that, I dunno, kinda unscientific?”
Doc Brown looked slightly offended. “Not at all. I’m not talking about that nonsense psychic mumbo jumbo, mind you. Thoughts are merely electrical impulses traveling through the brain. This device will read those impulses and transmit them to another person.”
Marty decided to go with impressed for now. “That’s pretty cool, Doc.”
The inventor was all wide-eyed enthusiasm. “Isn’t it? Think about it! Misunderstandings will be eliminated by direct mind-to-mind communication. The applications for international diplomacy are staggering! You can help me give it a test run tomorrow.”
As usual, the older man’s enthusiasm was contagious and thoroughly endearing. Marty grinned.
“But, Marty, I’m going to be working on this for a while still. I hope I don’t keep you up,” the Doc said as he began to contend with the hopeless mass of wires coming out of his mind-reading device.
Marty stretched out on the couch. “Don’t sweat it. I don’t have to be at school tomorrow anyway.”
The Doc looked up from his work. “Why not?”
The younger man nonchalantly slipped his earphones over his ears, cranked up the volume and closed his eyes. “I got suspended.” The screaming guitar of Van Halen drowned out Doc’s reply. All of his questions would keep until tomorrow.
Author:
akainagiRating: R for dirty words, sexual comments made in poor taste
Fandom/Pairing: BTTF, Marty/Doc
Spoilers/Warnings: Nothing yet.
Notes: Pre-trilogy. Totally non-cannon for various reasons, including the fact that I have left out Jennifer. Apologies to cannon purists.
Summary: Marty’s temper rears its ugly head yet again, with unexpected results. When an opportunity presents itself, will Marty take a chance? Or is he just too chicken?
Had Marty come home to any other family than his own, he probably would have found himself grounded on the spot. But he was a McFly. And in the grand tradition of the McFly household, coming home from school with a shiner and a suspension for fighting earned him a stuttering, painful lecture from his milquetoast father and a sad shake of the head from his depressed mother, who chalked her youngest son up to another disappointment in a life full of disappointments.
His parents hadn’t even thought to ask him what possessed him to try and pound an upperclassman who had half a foot and a good forty pounds on Marty himself. Not that Marty would have told them anyway. His brother was the only one who had ribbed him about it, in that annoying tone that all older brothers are programmed with from birth. Finally the snorting laugh of his father, the relentless teasing of his brother and the sound of his mother pouring yet another glass of vodka became too much for one bruised teenage boy to handle. And when the youngest McFly casually announced at the seasonable hour of nine pm, that he was going to a friend’s house, he was met by the vapid and automatic “that’s nice, dear” from his mother, and the inane laughter of his father, who was still glued to the ubiquitous black and white sitcom.
He spent the short ride over to Riverside Drive meditating on the sound of skateboard wheels on asphalt and wondering how he was going to explain the impressive bruise to the Doc, who usually had more exacting standards for disclosure than his parents. Although Marty would rarely admit it, it was a comforting feeling to have to have someone give a crap that he got a “D” in chemistry or that he got into a fistfight on school grounds.
But how the hell do you tell your 65 year-old male best friend that you nearly got expelled from school for defending his honor?
***
Marty would be hard-pressed after the fact to remember how the whole thing had started. He thought he recalled the impossibly tall, impossibly built football jock casting some aspersions on both Marty’s height and masculinity. Upon which Marty, who was now seeing everything in a dull red, made likewise comments about the average intelligence quotient of high school football players.
Somehow the discourse had degenerated from there.
And when Mister Football Jock made an offhand comment about “that creepy old faggot you hang out with,” Marty’s vision blossomed from dull red to a brilliant shade of crimson. It must have shown on his face too, because the Neanderthal prick honed in like a vulture hones in on a carcass.
“What’s the matter kid? Don’t like it when someone badmouths your boyfriend? How’s that pervert nutjob in the sack, McFly? Got a thing for old man dick, huh? Who tops, Mcfly? You let the old geezer stick it to you? Or maybe you just like to suck wrinkled old cock-“
In retrospect, launching himself at the hulking asshole wasn’t the smartest thing Martin McFly had ever done. But it did rank up there with the most satisfying. And even with a hideously smarting left cheek and ringing skull, he couldn’t help but get pleasure from noting that he had dealt a lot better than he took. Mister Football Jock sported an impressive shiner, a split lip, and Marty doubted any cheerleaders would be throwing themselves his way for a while.
The two of them had been frog marched to the principal’s office, where Herr Strickland dealt them both suspensions and singled Marty out with threats of expulsion. And while the office lady typed up the letters for their parents, and then on the long skateboard ride home, Marty had ample time to reflect on the irony of his situation.
Mister Football Jock was not the first one to insinuate a not-quite-platonic relationship between Marty and his much older best friend, although no one had ever done it so … blatantly. It was natural, he supposed, in this day and age, to wonder why a 65 year-old man chose to socialize exclusively and largely in private with a 16 year-old boy. It was bullshit, of course. The idea that Emmett Brown would make a move on his young assistant was totally without merit. Marty McFly knew this because he had been waiting for the last two years for the man to try.
Marty had suffered from a spectacular crush on the older man almost from their first meeting. No one had ever put that much effort into cultivating a relationship with the youngest McFly before. No one had ever cared so much about him until the day he met the man he would come to refer to simply as “Doc.” Someone had finally found Marty McFly to be person worthy of caring and effort.
It had acted on the boy like a drug. With the gluttony of an emotionally deprived teenager, he had soaked up the affection and attention, always hungry for more. Somewhere along the line, Marty realized the desire for affection had become simply desire. Since then, he had done his level best to squash it, persistently and ruthlessly. Because, even thought the young man had known for some time that his own sexual preferences ran something other than the straight and narrow, that didn’t mean that the Doc’s did as well. And even if it did, it was painfully clear to Marty that the older man had him pegged as a friend and protégée, not a potential lover. It took only a shorthand cost-benefit analysis for Martin McFly to realize that approaching Emmett Brown could obliterate what relationship they had, and that thought filled him with abject fear.
In this respect, and this respect only, Marty McFly was a colossal chickenshit.
***
The first words out of Doc Brown’s mouth were exactly what Marty expected.
“Great Scott, Marty, what happened to your face?”
Marty grinned sheepishly. “That’s nothing. You should see the other guy,” he quipped.
The inventor shook his head in dismay. “Fighting, Marty? I understand the impulsiveness of youth as much as the next man. But there really are more civilized ways to solve your problems.”
Marty suddenly pictured the sneering look on Mister Football’s face when he asked Marty how he liked old man dick. “The other guy wasn’t really interested in civilized, Doc. Look, can I crash here tonight?
The older man stepped aside to let him in. “Of course, but why?”
Marty sighed as he deposited his bag and skateboard next to the door. “Because if I spent another minute in that house I was gonna commit matricide, patricide and … is there a word for killing your brother?
“Fratricide,” the Doc supplied.
“That too.”
The Doc took on his I’m-lecturing-you-for-your-own-good tone that Marty found frustrating and oddly endearing at the same time. “Now Marty I understand that your family can be … trying at times, but I don’t think running away from them is going to help.”
“I know, Doc. But it’s been a long, crappy day and I’m just not up for dealing with it.” Marty worked his way around the clutter of Doc’s garage to drop himself heavily and unceremoniously on the threadbare couch. It was then that he noticed the lab looked slightly more of a mess than usual. “Whatcha workin’ on?”
The inventor let the topics of Marty’s dysfunctional family and pugilistic tendencies go, albeit temporarily, Marty was sure. The Doc picked his way expertly around the clutter and reached down to pick up a contraption that was bizarre looking even by Doc Brown standards.
“You remember my mind-reading device don’t you, Marty?”
Marty looked dubiously at the object, which resembled a cross between a bike helmet and an erector set gone horribly wrong. He would have remembered that invention. “No, I don’t think so.”
It might have been Marty’s imagination, but the inventor looked like he paled for a moment. “Quite right, Marty, Quite right. My mistake. I must have gotten my inventions confused. Anyway, with this device, I should be able to read the thoughts of another person.”
Marty raised an eyebrow, one part impressed and two parts doubtful. “Mind reading? Isn’t that, I dunno, kinda unscientific?”
Doc Brown looked slightly offended. “Not at all. I’m not talking about that nonsense psychic mumbo jumbo, mind you. Thoughts are merely electrical impulses traveling through the brain. This device will read those impulses and transmit them to another person.”
Marty decided to go with impressed for now. “That’s pretty cool, Doc.”
The inventor was all wide-eyed enthusiasm. “Isn’t it? Think about it! Misunderstandings will be eliminated by direct mind-to-mind communication. The applications for international diplomacy are staggering! You can help me give it a test run tomorrow.”
As usual, the older man’s enthusiasm was contagious and thoroughly endearing. Marty grinned.
“But, Marty, I’m going to be working on this for a while still. I hope I don’t keep you up,” the Doc said as he began to contend with the hopeless mass of wires coming out of his mind-reading device.
Marty stretched out on the couch. “Don’t sweat it. I don’t have to be at school tomorrow anyway.”
The Doc looked up from his work. “Why not?”
The younger man nonchalantly slipped his earphones over his ears, cranked up the volume and closed his eyes. “I got suspended.” The screaming guitar of Van Halen drowned out Doc’s reply. All of his questions would keep until tomorrow.
