D'Autrefois - Chapter 2 - Being yourself
Title: D'Autrefois
Part I: Chapter 2: Being yourself
Author: koushi
Rating: R
Word count: 4504
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
She knew he loved her of course. Love that was as deep as the ocean water seeping into the Marianas trench. But it was a purely romantic love, a platonic love, as if they had been the closest of friends.
But still he tried. For years he tried. He wanted to hide from his truth, from what he was, to bolster the facade of a marriage that they shared. He told himself to believe in the opposite, repeating lies in his head until they became his reality.
“It’s okay,” Mal said, kissing Cobb on the forehead tenderly as if to tell him he was forgiven. “Don’t feel bad.”
But his face was staunchly obstinate, the anger at his inability to make love to his wife burning his insides hollow. He watched as she rose from the bed and started to dress, the lovely curves of her hips, the small of her back, the gentle lines that traced her into a work of art. He knew she was beautiful and that he wanted to be with her... so why? Why did his own body refuse?
He could see her waver, gazing upon him, as if she felt the urge to tell him to go, to leave, to search for what really made him happy. But she couldn’t stand the thought of losing the storybook life they’d built together in reality, the universe that they were still constructing within their shared dreams.
Instead she took his hand and his gaze. “Let’s go dreaming, Dom. Let’s go back to Limbo.”
Eventually she had picked up some of Cobb’s skill at repression and overlooked the appearance of a certain projection of his from their distant past. It seemed the more he shelved his feelings away, the more bitter and desperate his dream creations would be, as if they clawed and pleaded at the confines of their master’s skull.
***
You should never dream from your memory. Always imagine new things. These were mantra that were all too familiar to the experienced extractor and ones that Cobb, being Cobb, chose defiantly to ignore ever since the his earliest forays into dreamshare.
Now, with the loss of his totem, there was nothing he wanted more than to go back and correct things, to keep his memory and dreamworld separate like they should have been. But at this point, sorting either out was a task as close to impossible as reconstructing a glass that had shattered into a million pieces.
Cobb felt a sense of alarm as he awoke, as if he’d been jarred into existence by the fuel of some atomic explosion. What was it that he’d just witnessed? He... he thought he couldn’t dream anymore without the aid of a PASIV. Unless this “reality” was yet another layer of some abductor’s subconscious, and his true body was sleeping in a chair in some kidnapper’s office. After all the lumpy slab of a bed was unfamiliar to his aching back and the moldy darkness as foreign to him as the projections in a hostile subject’s dream.
He breathed slowly, in and out, trying to curb the rush of adrenaline that accompanied his panic. How did I get here? Where’s my totem? As his mind surfaced from the grogginess of sleep, however, the dismal truth also graced his path, about as inviting as a specter. He traced the line of continuity back from his arrival at LAX airport: how giddy with joy he’d been then. He should have known it was too good to be true.
The rest... he didn’t even want to think about. Why had he been so weak? Why didn’t he fight back against the Cobol agents? And why didn’t he have the slightest suspicion of Miles’ intentions? He was so overcome with his own guilt and sorrow that he hadn’t even contemplated what anyone else felt about the whole affair. Arthur included. Because... at that point, he just didn’t care.
What’s it like having the biggest blind spot in the world, Dom? A voice chortled in his head. It sounded vaguely like... the one person who he never wanted to see again. And the only one he was guaranteed to see again. He remembered, with a chill shuddering through his body, the fracturing of bone beneath his fist. No, this was reality, about as certain as reality could be.
Nonetheless he concentrated on the image of his children, the two smiling beacons of joy. Please let it be a dream. Please let me be at home, taking a nap. They were his only salvation, his anchor to his old life, now that he had lost his wife and totem. He clung to them for dear life, trying to imagine them there with him. But it was even more useless than the previous night: as hard as he willed it, nothing in the room changed. It was the same dark abyss of fungal growth.
He realized that the incessant whimpering had long since stopped. Looking around the dimly-lit swamp, there was no sign of the scrawny bastard. His blood froze in his veins. What if he’d... what if he’d killed him? Sent bone fragments spiraling into his brain, causing hemorrhaging after excruciating pain?
He leaped up to check the top bunk, but it hadn’t been touched. Ignoring the complaints of his battered muscles, he dashed to the intercom-his blond hair unruly, a few locks dangling before his eyes-and hit the red button desperately.
“What do you want?” a voice came up, unrecognizable due to static.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Where is... Nash?”
The peals of laughter came in piercing high-pitched bursts of sound. “I wish you guys had just killed each other last night. Would have saved our department on the food expenses.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We took your little buttbuddy to the medic, but he’s okay, sadly. He called us this morning begging for help, so we decided to take him upstairs to the in-house doctor just so he’d shut up.”
Cobb breathed a sigh of relief. So he wasn’t a murderer... this time.
“Yeah, his nose was purple and swollen to about three times the size. It was pretty sweet. But the bossman said it’d be pitiful if we let him die to an infection rather than offing the maggot ourselves, so he gave us the go ahead on the doc.”
“Right, right. Well that’s good to hear,” he said in a monotone before hitting the black button to end the call. Causing the deaths of two people in such a short interval, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he deserved all that happened to him. Figuratively speaking that is.
Having dodged the bullet of additional culpability, Cobb then started pacing around, this time assessing his situation with a bit more clarity than he was previously able. His children were under Miles and, by proxy, Cobol’s control now, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except follow obediently whatever directions he was given. Planning an escape would be useless when they could simply remove his raison d’être from him at the wave of a wrist. They knew his weakness and had grabbed him deftly by the balls.
He was fairly certain that Miles, at least, wouldn’t hurt the kids. They were his only tie to Mal after all, and the most he would do would be to threaten Cobb with empty promises. But of Cobol, he was not so sure. For all he knew, they could force him into a Sophie’s Choice if they really wanted, and he... he knew that if that day ever came, he would wish he’d joined Mal in her leap of faith.
His mental ramblings were interrupted by a tap on the door, and suddenly a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door was pushed in with a tray of what could almost pass as food. Cobb dashed to the door to examine the compartment, trying to push it back out, but its hinges only swung one way. He slammed on it a few times but to no avail.
“Fuck,” he said before turning to the mess on the tray. He could now understand the reason for Nash’s skeletal figure. The fare that Cobol provided was no more than the leftovers of the guards’ most recent meal. He picked around, disgusted, through the half-gnawed chicken legs and a carton of mashed potatoes whose crown of gravy had been decapitated. He chewed gratefully on a piece of broccoli, however, as the bowl of vegetables, at least, hadn’t been touched.
As he munched, the door was again shoved open. He froze, the green sliding out of his fingers and onto the floor. Every time that pathway to the outside world was breached, Cobb felt a schizophrenic ambivalence: half of him crawling with the urge to dive out of there as fast as he could, to taste freedom at whatever cost, the other half dreading the identity of the intruder... it could after all be the Grim Reaper in the form of a company executioner. And if this were reality as I’d guessed, he laughed dryly, what dreams may come?
But this time it was merely a chattering Nash, escorted by an exasperated dark-haired man whose back and chest tattoos peaked out over the collar of his Cobol Engineering t-shirt, the first “o” replaced by a cog. The ex-architect stopped abruptly, in mid-word, as he noticed Cobb’s presence.
“Yo, does he complain this much to you?” the thug asked Cobb, who stood and wiped his hands off on a half-clean towelette from his platter.
He couldn’t help but manage a sheepish smile. “It’s what he does best.”
The guard nodded his head and walked off, locking the heavy door behind him.
Besides being in the obviously untenable position of prisoner of a bloodthirsty organized crime organization, Cobb really wished he could disappear from where he was. If tension could be sliced with a knife, the awkwardness could have been poked with a fork.
He and Nash both stood their ground, unflinchingly... perhaps unable to move. They each pretended to be extremely interested in the dents and fractures in the concrete beneath the other, souvenirs of beatings gone too far. But finally the sneaky glances upward lost their stealth, and they made eye contact.
“I-” Cobb started. There was nothing in the world he hated more than apologizing, but this was one instance of it being necessary.
“I’m sorry,” Nash said, his voice now more nasal due to the splint on his face, which looked like a clear visor for the nose.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Cobb retorted, instantly suspicious.
“Sorry for provoking you,” Nash shrugged, kicking at a pebble and averting his eyes once more. “I assumed the risk, so I can’t say I didn’t deserve this.”
“Oh goddammit,” Cobb groaned. “Is this some of that reverse psychology bullshit where you try to make me feel even more guilty? Look, I’m sorry, alright? Isn’t that enough?”
“It might be... if you meant it,” Nash replied. “But I’m not accustomed to placing my trust into the palms of pathological liars.”
“I am not a liar. I swear to you that it was never my intention to strike you: that’s not how I deal with things.”
Nash met his gaze again. “I’ve come to terms with the kinds of people we are, you and I. And I know exactly what either one of us will and will not do. So call me self-deprecating, but I was asking for it.”
“Once again, please don’t presume that you know who I am or what I think,” Cobb snarled, raising a hand defensively.
Nash sighed and inched past Cobb, taking the ladder towards the top bunk. It’s useless to argue with someone who won’t listen, he thought, or to show the truth to someone who won’t open his eyes. Go ahead and dream, Dom. Close your pretty little eyes. But you’ll have to wake up eventually.
***
She still had needs to be met. He knew this all too well.
Although they were perfectly happy living together, getting along as smoothly as two people could-as aligned in their interests and creative endeavors as a couple could be-he still knew that something was missing from their lives that he, try as he might, couldn’t fulfill.
So he told himself that it didn’t bother him, that he didn’t know, that he didn’t care. He made a resolution not to speak of it, that it never existed in his mind. But still he couldn’t help but notice the obvious signs and masochistically wallow in each of them, internalizing the blame.
Arriving home one afternoon, Cobb was in high spirits. After all, he’d been allowed to leave early from his job as a contractor for an architectural firm: it paid the bills but didn’t offer the kind of stimulation he was searching for in a long term career.
“Mal?” he called out. But only silence responded. “Are you there?”
A faint noise echoed from further in the house. Cobb put down his briefcase and hung up his leather jacket before crossing into the hallway towards the bedrooms. He eyed their engagement and wedding photos on the walls, elegant windows into the past.
A deep guttural moan issued from their bedroom. Mal? Was she hurt? Cobb hurriedly made his way to the bedroom door, making contact with the bronze doorknob before hearing her voice continue, “Oh, Arthur. Yes...”
He froze. Her needs, Dom, put them before your own, a voice commanded didactically from the back of his mind. It wasn’t as if you couldn’t see this coming.
So what? he replied to the rebellious voice. This is my wife we’re talking about. His hands shook with the instinctual urge to barge in and stop the two of them in delicto flagrante.
What kind of man are you if you can’t even satisfy her? the voice added, unfazed by his interjection. Accept your fate as a cuckold and let her be. Or you could always go back to-
Stop right there, Cobb screamed. That’s enough. I’d rather die than to return and be... wrong... a deviant.
Letting another man fuck your wife. You call that right? the voice guffawed as a rhythmic pounding ensued, the result of the headboard hitting the wall. You know who and what you are. Better than anyone else, you said. So why don’t you go ahead and show it to the world?
I love my wife and our life together. Because this is the correct path; this is how things were meant to be. He closed his eyes and backed up against the cabinet behind him, sliding down into a sitting position, his knees bent before him. I have no answer to you besides that I’m scared... scared to lose everything. Scared of how the world would react to the real me. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be a welcoming parade...
So what’s the point of living as a shade of what you really are? Putting on that mask everyday and indulging in that pantomime. You enjoy playing the court jester to other people’s whims?
Muffled cries of ecstasy assaulted his ears. Cobb felt something slide halfway out of his pocket. He felt for it and held up the exacto knife he used at work for models and precision cutting. Maybe there is no point after all, he replied. He pushed up on the little dial until the razorblade was adequately exposed, the sharp metal glinting proudly. I have an insurance policy. What’ll she care? She can find someone else, someone whole rather than half of a person.
Finding her husband sitting in a pool of his own blood from slashed wrists may not be the healthiest scene to witness... you know, for her psyche, the voice admonished. Plus cutting yourself is such a girly way to go. Ever heard of sticking a shotgun barrel in your mouth?
Fuck you, Cobb replied, putting away his knife and crossing his arms over his kneecaps. As Mal sang the chords of bliss to her lover, Cobb rose and retraced his path to the garage where his car awaited him. Store it all away, and the facts can’t hurt you anymore. Keep yourself trapped in a cell, and may everyone know only the polished exterior, the reflection of what they want to see.
Nine months, eight days, three hours, and forty-two minutes later a warm little bundle in fleece blankets was handed to Cobb by a smiling nurse.
“You must be the proud father,” she said, cooing at the contents.
He nodded. “That would be me.”
***
Cobb woke up shuddering. Examining the dark spot on his pillow, he realized it was wet.
Arthur... His thoughts hadn’t wandered to his right hand man in awhile, but his feelings were certainly all but mixed. So conflicted, in fact, that selectively “forgetting” certain facts had likely been vital to the continuation of their friendship as it was. Really, in a way, he was grateful for Arthur’s role as a pillar of support to Mal in their trio, but when it began to blur the line towards usurpation...
Dammit, he almost preferred the guilt-tripping homicidal Mal of yesteryear to the creeping onslaught of all the bitter memories he’d tried to bury coming to the surface. Was his vault so full already that he couldn’t contain anymore? Was an upgrade available?
And it didn’t help that being locked underground had completely obliterated what circadian rhythm he had remaining after constant air travel and PASIV abuse. Now he had no sense whatsoever of night and day, and the mutual lack of desire to communicate between him and his roommate created even less mental stimulation. So all he could do was let all his remembrances wash over him like pungent, salty ocean waves on the beaches of Limbo, drowning him in unconsciousness until his mind was forever lost.
Nash seemed to prefer his little corner to the top bunk that had been relegated to him. That’s right, Cobb remembered, he’d always been unnerved by heights. Not to mention the fact that he’s an active sleeper, always tossing and turning, sometimes throwing himself off the bed. He chuckled aloud to himself, far from caring whether he sounded like a lunatic as he often heard Nash whispering to himself, a habit dramatically worsened by prison living.
Presently he was crouched in that very corner, as if being enveloped by the intersecting walls brought him comfort and a sense of security, like a mouse in its hole. Cobb decided to listen in on the “conversation.” After all, what is eavesdropping between inmates?
“-should have come back. Should have come back. Yes, but I was so frightened, Mom. I think you would have understood,” Nash argued with himself, tilting from side to side on the balls of his feet. “I don’t think I would have liked what I’d have seen. I know they took Dad. So they must have taken you as well. What could I have done? What could I have done? I was only eight...”
Stark raving mad, Cobb rolled his eyes dismissively. No wonder he couldn’t get it together to do his job when people were counting on him. The fucker’s batshit. Not to mention the lives he endangered by taking on a sensitive job... could he be any more careless?
But Cobb had to put his hypocrisy on hold as the door flew open. A bright stream of fluorescent light from the ceilings of the hallway flooded in along with three figures. It was Miles, dressed in a trenchcoat and holding a cane. He was accompanied by the thin man, who seemed to be the leader of the band of hoodlums, and the tattooed man from before.
Even Nash was rendered momentarily speechless by the guests, though more out of curiosity than fear. He recognized his and Cobb’s former Architecture professor, the father of the latter’s deceased wife, the thin man, who was, as Nash knew, better known as Mitch Wilcox, and the muscled head of the guard, Johnny Douglas. This had to be important business.
Cobb sat up swiftly in his bunk, poking his head out to scan his eyes over the visitors. He wanted to ignore them defiantly, to make them work for whatever they came here for, but with the lives of his children possibly at stake, he couldn’t risk anything. “What do you people want?”
Miles raised an eyebrow in an amused smirk. “Good afternoon to you too, Dominick. I hope you’ve found your accommodations, ah, most suitable to your tastes.”
“Quit the charade. I wanna know how my kids are doing.”
“They’re not your kids anymore, bro,” Johnny butted in. “You’re nothing but a missing person now, a picture on a milk carton. But they’ll never find you or your body when we’re through with you.”
Mr. Wilcox waved him down like an owner would do to a particularly eager Doberman as it entered the ring of a dogfight. “Please go on, Mr. Miles.”
Miles thanked him and resumed, “I thought you were entitled to at least an explanation for your... involuntary vacation here. It doesn’t take the most creative of imaginations, which I know you do not possess, to cross the logical gap from point A to point B. You killed my daughter, and I hold you responsible.”
“Did you plan this all along or was it only after I arrived home that you decided to double-cross me?”
“This had been my intention since the moment I heard the news of Mal’s passing from an FBI agent. You must understand that this is simply the way it has to be. There was never another option for me,” Miles stated, expressionless. He held an arm out diagonal to himself, leaning on the cane clutched tightly by his fingers. “You may call it vengeance, retribution, whatever you find in your pocket thesaurus, but for me, it is merely, as I said, tipping the scale back to zero.”
“Why did you help me with the Fischer job? And even offer one of your best students, Ariadne?”
“You were not guaranteed to accomplish your goal by any means. In fact, I had calculated a very narrow chance of success. If it weren’t for the capabilities of your team members, such as the ex-MI5 forger of yours and my top student, I’m sure your brains would be swimming in Limbo soup right about now.” He tilted his head to the side and raised his gaze in thought. “Come to think of it, I should have offered the class dunce instead. But even the best of us make occasional errors.”
“See, even you admit to mistakes. Can’t you understand that I’m human? I might have fucked things up with what I did to Mal, but I could never have foreseen the consequences-”
“Don’t,” Miles enunciated loudly and clearly in his “teacher” voice. “Don’t even entertain the idea of comparing yourself to me. After all, my plan B was, if anything, more deliciously satisfying because of the long, agonizing denouement that ensued after you got one last taste of fatherhood. You know what I told your children? I told them Daddy’s never coming back...”
Nash watched intently... almost hungrily, his mouth hanging open in rapture. How he loved a good show.
Eh, how much further could this downward spiral extend? Cobb was quite certain he had hit rock bottom. Knock on wood.
Sensing an impending explosion, Johnny stepped forward and took Cobb as easily by the arms as if he were a four year old, twisting them into a lock just short of painful. “Fuck you, you two-faced old corpse. The kids are innocent in this-”
“They never should have been born. I should have stopped your godforsaken marriage before it ever began. You started the day as an incompetent, talentless architecture student and ended it a greedy, spineless thief. Neither of which was ever good enough to deserve my beautiful daughter’s company.”
Miles then proceeded to withdraw a small silver object from his sleeve. “And you know what else you’ll never be in possession of again...?” My totem. Cobb strained hopelessly against his captor, trying to reach out for it.
“This belonged to my sweet angel. You never should have laid your grubby little paws on it,” the professor continued, “and I’ll make sure you’ll never do so again. Nothing of hers was ever yours really: it was taken through the most insidious of deceit. I never taught you to be a thief, no, but you seem to have done very well on your own, learning the craft and using it against my family.”
“You’re evil. How did I not see this from your endless lectures? You’re-you’re fucking psycho...” Cobb spit. I need to spin it. I need to know. Though he realized the object had already been tainted, he couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d never find out the truth of his existence.
Miles ignored Cobb’s worthless commentary and paced ahead, “In my experience, I have encountered many different types of people. And I know yours well. Oh, too well. Latching on like a parasite to the well-bred and the successful, you suck the life out of your victims until they’re nothing but hollow shells of brittle chitin. She was the cure for what you were afraid of becoming... yourself. Yourself and all the baggage that comes with that person.”
“I’m not perfect. Hell, even Mal wasn’t perfect. But she loved me. And I loved her. What more could you possibly ask of us?”
“You were only in love with the idea of her. People like you are such scum that they revise history in their own minds to suit the fancy of their hindsight. But no, you were not in love with Mal the person; you were in love with Mal the beautiful dream, Mal the validation of your existence,” Miles responded coldly and condescendingly, as if Cobb ought to be acquainted with his own thought process.
“I-I...” The thinned outer layers of his recollection were too superficial in depth to dispute Miles’ weighty claims. Cobb knew that filing away all of the emotions that he didn’t want to face could perhaps impair his perception of reality but... to this extent? The possibility that he could be in the wrong almost seemed conceivable at this point.
Miles tipped his head to the thin man, signaling the end of his tirade, and they turned, preparing to leave. Cobb was released from restraint as Johnny tagged along behind his superior. Without another glance at his ex-son-in-law, Miles slipped the top into the pocket of his coat and said, “Goodbye, Dominick. I hope that you burn to a nice toasty crisp in whatever Hell your chosen deity sees it fit to put you in.” The door slammed shut.
And then there was nothing. Nothing but two men trapped in the dark.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post
Part I: Chapter 2: Being yourself
Author: koushi
Rating: R
Word count: 4504
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
She knew he loved her of course. Love that was as deep as the ocean water seeping into the Marianas trench. But it was a purely romantic love, a platonic love, as if they had been the closest of friends.
But still he tried. For years he tried. He wanted to hide from his truth, from what he was, to bolster the facade of a marriage that they shared. He told himself to believe in the opposite, repeating lies in his head until they became his reality.
“It’s okay,” Mal said, kissing Cobb on the forehead tenderly as if to tell him he was forgiven. “Don’t feel bad.”
But his face was staunchly obstinate, the anger at his inability to make love to his wife burning his insides hollow. He watched as she rose from the bed and started to dress, the lovely curves of her hips, the small of her back, the gentle lines that traced her into a work of art. He knew she was beautiful and that he wanted to be with her... so why? Why did his own body refuse?
He could see her waver, gazing upon him, as if she felt the urge to tell him to go, to leave, to search for what really made him happy. But she couldn’t stand the thought of losing the storybook life they’d built together in reality, the universe that they were still constructing within their shared dreams.
Instead she took his hand and his gaze. “Let’s go dreaming, Dom. Let’s go back to Limbo.”
Eventually she had picked up some of Cobb’s skill at repression and overlooked the appearance of a certain projection of his from their distant past. It seemed the more he shelved his feelings away, the more bitter and desperate his dream creations would be, as if they clawed and pleaded at the confines of their master’s skull.
***
You should never dream from your memory. Always imagine new things. These were mantra that were all too familiar to the experienced extractor and ones that Cobb, being Cobb, chose defiantly to ignore ever since the his earliest forays into dreamshare.
Now, with the loss of his totem, there was nothing he wanted more than to go back and correct things, to keep his memory and dreamworld separate like they should have been. But at this point, sorting either out was a task as close to impossible as reconstructing a glass that had shattered into a million pieces.
Cobb felt a sense of alarm as he awoke, as if he’d been jarred into existence by the fuel of some atomic explosion. What was it that he’d just witnessed? He... he thought he couldn’t dream anymore without the aid of a PASIV. Unless this “reality” was yet another layer of some abductor’s subconscious, and his true body was sleeping in a chair in some kidnapper’s office. After all the lumpy slab of a bed was unfamiliar to his aching back and the moldy darkness as foreign to him as the projections in a hostile subject’s dream.
He breathed slowly, in and out, trying to curb the rush of adrenaline that accompanied his panic. How did I get here? Where’s my totem? As his mind surfaced from the grogginess of sleep, however, the dismal truth also graced his path, about as inviting as a specter. He traced the line of continuity back from his arrival at LAX airport: how giddy with joy he’d been then. He should have known it was too good to be true.
The rest... he didn’t even want to think about. Why had he been so weak? Why didn’t he fight back against the Cobol agents? And why didn’t he have the slightest suspicion of Miles’ intentions? He was so overcome with his own guilt and sorrow that he hadn’t even contemplated what anyone else felt about the whole affair. Arthur included. Because... at that point, he just didn’t care.
What’s it like having the biggest blind spot in the world, Dom? A voice chortled in his head. It sounded vaguely like... the one person who he never wanted to see again. And the only one he was guaranteed to see again. He remembered, with a chill shuddering through his body, the fracturing of bone beneath his fist. No, this was reality, about as certain as reality could be.
Nonetheless he concentrated on the image of his children, the two smiling beacons of joy. Please let it be a dream. Please let me be at home, taking a nap. They were his only salvation, his anchor to his old life, now that he had lost his wife and totem. He clung to them for dear life, trying to imagine them there with him. But it was even more useless than the previous night: as hard as he willed it, nothing in the room changed. It was the same dark abyss of fungal growth.
He realized that the incessant whimpering had long since stopped. Looking around the dimly-lit swamp, there was no sign of the scrawny bastard. His blood froze in his veins. What if he’d... what if he’d killed him? Sent bone fragments spiraling into his brain, causing hemorrhaging after excruciating pain?
He leaped up to check the top bunk, but it hadn’t been touched. Ignoring the complaints of his battered muscles, he dashed to the intercom-his blond hair unruly, a few locks dangling before his eyes-and hit the red button desperately.
“What do you want?” a voice came up, unrecognizable due to static.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Where is... Nash?”
The peals of laughter came in piercing high-pitched bursts of sound. “I wish you guys had just killed each other last night. Would have saved our department on the food expenses.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We took your little buttbuddy to the medic, but he’s okay, sadly. He called us this morning begging for help, so we decided to take him upstairs to the in-house doctor just so he’d shut up.”
Cobb breathed a sigh of relief. So he wasn’t a murderer... this time.
“Yeah, his nose was purple and swollen to about three times the size. It was pretty sweet. But the bossman said it’d be pitiful if we let him die to an infection rather than offing the maggot ourselves, so he gave us the go ahead on the doc.”
“Right, right. Well that’s good to hear,” he said in a monotone before hitting the black button to end the call. Causing the deaths of two people in such a short interval, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he deserved all that happened to him. Figuratively speaking that is.
Having dodged the bullet of additional culpability, Cobb then started pacing around, this time assessing his situation with a bit more clarity than he was previously able. His children were under Miles and, by proxy, Cobol’s control now, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it except follow obediently whatever directions he was given. Planning an escape would be useless when they could simply remove his raison d’être from him at the wave of a wrist. They knew his weakness and had grabbed him deftly by the balls.
He was fairly certain that Miles, at least, wouldn’t hurt the kids. They were his only tie to Mal after all, and the most he would do would be to threaten Cobb with empty promises. But of Cobol, he was not so sure. For all he knew, they could force him into a Sophie’s Choice if they really wanted, and he... he knew that if that day ever came, he would wish he’d joined Mal in her leap of faith.
His mental ramblings were interrupted by a tap on the door, and suddenly a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door was pushed in with a tray of what could almost pass as food. Cobb dashed to the door to examine the compartment, trying to push it back out, but its hinges only swung one way. He slammed on it a few times but to no avail.
“Fuck,” he said before turning to the mess on the tray. He could now understand the reason for Nash’s skeletal figure. The fare that Cobol provided was no more than the leftovers of the guards’ most recent meal. He picked around, disgusted, through the half-gnawed chicken legs and a carton of mashed potatoes whose crown of gravy had been decapitated. He chewed gratefully on a piece of broccoli, however, as the bowl of vegetables, at least, hadn’t been touched.
As he munched, the door was again shoved open. He froze, the green sliding out of his fingers and onto the floor. Every time that pathway to the outside world was breached, Cobb felt a schizophrenic ambivalence: half of him crawling with the urge to dive out of there as fast as he could, to taste freedom at whatever cost, the other half dreading the identity of the intruder... it could after all be the Grim Reaper in the form of a company executioner. And if this were reality as I’d guessed, he laughed dryly, what dreams may come?
But this time it was merely a chattering Nash, escorted by an exasperated dark-haired man whose back and chest tattoos peaked out over the collar of his Cobol Engineering t-shirt, the first “o” replaced by a cog. The ex-architect stopped abruptly, in mid-word, as he noticed Cobb’s presence.
“Yo, does he complain this much to you?” the thug asked Cobb, who stood and wiped his hands off on a half-clean towelette from his platter.
He couldn’t help but manage a sheepish smile. “It’s what he does best.”
The guard nodded his head and walked off, locking the heavy door behind him.
Besides being in the obviously untenable position of prisoner of a bloodthirsty organized crime organization, Cobb really wished he could disappear from where he was. If tension could be sliced with a knife, the awkwardness could have been poked with a fork.
He and Nash both stood their ground, unflinchingly... perhaps unable to move. They each pretended to be extremely interested in the dents and fractures in the concrete beneath the other, souvenirs of beatings gone too far. But finally the sneaky glances upward lost their stealth, and they made eye contact.
“I-” Cobb started. There was nothing in the world he hated more than apologizing, but this was one instance of it being necessary.
“I’m sorry,” Nash said, his voice now more nasal due to the splint on his face, which looked like a clear visor for the nose.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Cobb retorted, instantly suspicious.
“Sorry for provoking you,” Nash shrugged, kicking at a pebble and averting his eyes once more. “I assumed the risk, so I can’t say I didn’t deserve this.”
“Oh goddammit,” Cobb groaned. “Is this some of that reverse psychology bullshit where you try to make me feel even more guilty? Look, I’m sorry, alright? Isn’t that enough?”
“It might be... if you meant it,” Nash replied. “But I’m not accustomed to placing my trust into the palms of pathological liars.”
“I am not a liar. I swear to you that it was never my intention to strike you: that’s not how I deal with things.”
Nash met his gaze again. “I’ve come to terms with the kinds of people we are, you and I. And I know exactly what either one of us will and will not do. So call me self-deprecating, but I was asking for it.”
“Once again, please don’t presume that you know who I am or what I think,” Cobb snarled, raising a hand defensively.
Nash sighed and inched past Cobb, taking the ladder towards the top bunk. It’s useless to argue with someone who won’t listen, he thought, or to show the truth to someone who won’t open his eyes. Go ahead and dream, Dom. Close your pretty little eyes. But you’ll have to wake up eventually.
***
She still had needs to be met. He knew this all too well.
Although they were perfectly happy living together, getting along as smoothly as two people could-as aligned in their interests and creative endeavors as a couple could be-he still knew that something was missing from their lives that he, try as he might, couldn’t fulfill.
So he told himself that it didn’t bother him, that he didn’t know, that he didn’t care. He made a resolution not to speak of it, that it never existed in his mind. But still he couldn’t help but notice the obvious signs and masochistically wallow in each of them, internalizing the blame.
Arriving home one afternoon, Cobb was in high spirits. After all, he’d been allowed to leave early from his job as a contractor for an architectural firm: it paid the bills but didn’t offer the kind of stimulation he was searching for in a long term career.
“Mal?” he called out. But only silence responded. “Are you there?”
A faint noise echoed from further in the house. Cobb put down his briefcase and hung up his leather jacket before crossing into the hallway towards the bedrooms. He eyed their engagement and wedding photos on the walls, elegant windows into the past.
A deep guttural moan issued from their bedroom. Mal? Was she hurt? Cobb hurriedly made his way to the bedroom door, making contact with the bronze doorknob before hearing her voice continue, “Oh, Arthur. Yes...”
He froze. Her needs, Dom, put them before your own, a voice commanded didactically from the back of his mind. It wasn’t as if you couldn’t see this coming.
So what? he replied to the rebellious voice. This is my wife we’re talking about. His hands shook with the instinctual urge to barge in and stop the two of them in delicto flagrante.
What kind of man are you if you can’t even satisfy her? the voice added, unfazed by his interjection. Accept your fate as a cuckold and let her be. Or you could always go back to-
Stop right there, Cobb screamed. That’s enough. I’d rather die than to return and be... wrong... a deviant.
Letting another man fuck your wife. You call that right? the voice guffawed as a rhythmic pounding ensued, the result of the headboard hitting the wall. You know who and what you are. Better than anyone else, you said. So why don’t you go ahead and show it to the world?
I love my wife and our life together. Because this is the correct path; this is how things were meant to be. He closed his eyes and backed up against the cabinet behind him, sliding down into a sitting position, his knees bent before him. I have no answer to you besides that I’m scared... scared to lose everything. Scared of how the world would react to the real me. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be a welcoming parade...
So what’s the point of living as a shade of what you really are? Putting on that mask everyday and indulging in that pantomime. You enjoy playing the court jester to other people’s whims?
Muffled cries of ecstasy assaulted his ears. Cobb felt something slide halfway out of his pocket. He felt for it and held up the exacto knife he used at work for models and precision cutting. Maybe there is no point after all, he replied. He pushed up on the little dial until the razorblade was adequately exposed, the sharp metal glinting proudly. I have an insurance policy. What’ll she care? She can find someone else, someone whole rather than half of a person.
Finding her husband sitting in a pool of his own blood from slashed wrists may not be the healthiest scene to witness... you know, for her psyche, the voice admonished. Plus cutting yourself is such a girly way to go. Ever heard of sticking a shotgun barrel in your mouth?
Fuck you, Cobb replied, putting away his knife and crossing his arms over his kneecaps. As Mal sang the chords of bliss to her lover, Cobb rose and retraced his path to the garage where his car awaited him. Store it all away, and the facts can’t hurt you anymore. Keep yourself trapped in a cell, and may everyone know only the polished exterior, the reflection of what they want to see.
Nine months, eight days, three hours, and forty-two minutes later a warm little bundle in fleece blankets was handed to Cobb by a smiling nurse.
“You must be the proud father,” she said, cooing at the contents.
He nodded. “That would be me.”
***
Cobb woke up shuddering. Examining the dark spot on his pillow, he realized it was wet.
Arthur... His thoughts hadn’t wandered to his right hand man in awhile, but his feelings were certainly all but mixed. So conflicted, in fact, that selectively “forgetting” certain facts had likely been vital to the continuation of their friendship as it was. Really, in a way, he was grateful for Arthur’s role as a pillar of support to Mal in their trio, but when it began to blur the line towards usurpation...
Dammit, he almost preferred the guilt-tripping homicidal Mal of yesteryear to the creeping onslaught of all the bitter memories he’d tried to bury coming to the surface. Was his vault so full already that he couldn’t contain anymore? Was an upgrade available?
And it didn’t help that being locked underground had completely obliterated what circadian rhythm he had remaining after constant air travel and PASIV abuse. Now he had no sense whatsoever of night and day, and the mutual lack of desire to communicate between him and his roommate created even less mental stimulation. So all he could do was let all his remembrances wash over him like pungent, salty ocean waves on the beaches of Limbo, drowning him in unconsciousness until his mind was forever lost.
Nash seemed to prefer his little corner to the top bunk that had been relegated to him. That’s right, Cobb remembered, he’d always been unnerved by heights. Not to mention the fact that he’s an active sleeper, always tossing and turning, sometimes throwing himself off the bed. He chuckled aloud to himself, far from caring whether he sounded like a lunatic as he often heard Nash whispering to himself, a habit dramatically worsened by prison living.
Presently he was crouched in that very corner, as if being enveloped by the intersecting walls brought him comfort and a sense of security, like a mouse in its hole. Cobb decided to listen in on the “conversation.” After all, what is eavesdropping between inmates?
“-should have come back. Should have come back. Yes, but I was so frightened, Mom. I think you would have understood,” Nash argued with himself, tilting from side to side on the balls of his feet. “I don’t think I would have liked what I’d have seen. I know they took Dad. So they must have taken you as well. What could I have done? What could I have done? I was only eight...”
Stark raving mad, Cobb rolled his eyes dismissively. No wonder he couldn’t get it together to do his job when people were counting on him. The fucker’s batshit. Not to mention the lives he endangered by taking on a sensitive job... could he be any more careless?
But Cobb had to put his hypocrisy on hold as the door flew open. A bright stream of fluorescent light from the ceilings of the hallway flooded in along with three figures. It was Miles, dressed in a trenchcoat and holding a cane. He was accompanied by the thin man, who seemed to be the leader of the band of hoodlums, and the tattooed man from before.
Even Nash was rendered momentarily speechless by the guests, though more out of curiosity than fear. He recognized his and Cobb’s former Architecture professor, the father of the latter’s deceased wife, the thin man, who was, as Nash knew, better known as Mitch Wilcox, and the muscled head of the guard, Johnny Douglas. This had to be important business.
Cobb sat up swiftly in his bunk, poking his head out to scan his eyes over the visitors. He wanted to ignore them defiantly, to make them work for whatever they came here for, but with the lives of his children possibly at stake, he couldn’t risk anything. “What do you people want?”
Miles raised an eyebrow in an amused smirk. “Good afternoon to you too, Dominick. I hope you’ve found your accommodations, ah, most suitable to your tastes.”
“Quit the charade. I wanna know how my kids are doing.”
“They’re not your kids anymore, bro,” Johnny butted in. “You’re nothing but a missing person now, a picture on a milk carton. But they’ll never find you or your body when we’re through with you.”
Mr. Wilcox waved him down like an owner would do to a particularly eager Doberman as it entered the ring of a dogfight. “Please go on, Mr. Miles.”
Miles thanked him and resumed, “I thought you were entitled to at least an explanation for your... involuntary vacation here. It doesn’t take the most creative of imaginations, which I know you do not possess, to cross the logical gap from point A to point B. You killed my daughter, and I hold you responsible.”
“Did you plan this all along or was it only after I arrived home that you decided to double-cross me?”
“This had been my intention since the moment I heard the news of Mal’s passing from an FBI agent. You must understand that this is simply the way it has to be. There was never another option for me,” Miles stated, expressionless. He held an arm out diagonal to himself, leaning on the cane clutched tightly by his fingers. “You may call it vengeance, retribution, whatever you find in your pocket thesaurus, but for me, it is merely, as I said, tipping the scale back to zero.”
“Why did you help me with the Fischer job? And even offer one of your best students, Ariadne?”
“You were not guaranteed to accomplish your goal by any means. In fact, I had calculated a very narrow chance of success. If it weren’t for the capabilities of your team members, such as the ex-MI5 forger of yours and my top student, I’m sure your brains would be swimming in Limbo soup right about now.” He tilted his head to the side and raised his gaze in thought. “Come to think of it, I should have offered the class dunce instead. But even the best of us make occasional errors.”
“See, even you admit to mistakes. Can’t you understand that I’m human? I might have fucked things up with what I did to Mal, but I could never have foreseen the consequences-”
“Don’t,” Miles enunciated loudly and clearly in his “teacher” voice. “Don’t even entertain the idea of comparing yourself to me. After all, my plan B was, if anything, more deliciously satisfying because of the long, agonizing denouement that ensued after you got one last taste of fatherhood. You know what I told your children? I told them Daddy’s never coming back...”
Nash watched intently... almost hungrily, his mouth hanging open in rapture. How he loved a good show.
Eh, how much further could this downward spiral extend? Cobb was quite certain he had hit rock bottom. Knock on wood.
Sensing an impending explosion, Johnny stepped forward and took Cobb as easily by the arms as if he were a four year old, twisting them into a lock just short of painful. “Fuck you, you two-faced old corpse. The kids are innocent in this-”
“They never should have been born. I should have stopped your godforsaken marriage before it ever began. You started the day as an incompetent, talentless architecture student and ended it a greedy, spineless thief. Neither of which was ever good enough to deserve my beautiful daughter’s company.”
Miles then proceeded to withdraw a small silver object from his sleeve. “And you know what else you’ll never be in possession of again...?” My totem. Cobb strained hopelessly against his captor, trying to reach out for it.
“This belonged to my sweet angel. You never should have laid your grubby little paws on it,” the professor continued, “and I’ll make sure you’ll never do so again. Nothing of hers was ever yours really: it was taken through the most insidious of deceit. I never taught you to be a thief, no, but you seem to have done very well on your own, learning the craft and using it against my family.”
“You’re evil. How did I not see this from your endless lectures? You’re-you’re fucking psycho...” Cobb spit. I need to spin it. I need to know. Though he realized the object had already been tainted, he couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d never find out the truth of his existence.
Miles ignored Cobb’s worthless commentary and paced ahead, “In my experience, I have encountered many different types of people. And I know yours well. Oh, too well. Latching on like a parasite to the well-bred and the successful, you suck the life out of your victims until they’re nothing but hollow shells of brittle chitin. She was the cure for what you were afraid of becoming... yourself. Yourself and all the baggage that comes with that person.”
“I’m not perfect. Hell, even Mal wasn’t perfect. But she loved me. And I loved her. What more could you possibly ask of us?”
“You were only in love with the idea of her. People like you are such scum that they revise history in their own minds to suit the fancy of their hindsight. But no, you were not in love with Mal the person; you were in love with Mal the beautiful dream, Mal the validation of your existence,” Miles responded coldly and condescendingly, as if Cobb ought to be acquainted with his own thought process.
“I-I...” The thinned outer layers of his recollection were too superficial in depth to dispute Miles’ weighty claims. Cobb knew that filing away all of the emotions that he didn’t want to face could perhaps impair his perception of reality but... to this extent? The possibility that he could be in the wrong almost seemed conceivable at this point.
Miles tipped his head to the thin man, signaling the end of his tirade, and they turned, preparing to leave. Cobb was released from restraint as Johnny tagged along behind his superior. Without another glance at his ex-son-in-law, Miles slipped the top into the pocket of his coat and said, “Goodbye, Dominick. I hope that you burn to a nice toasty crisp in whatever Hell your chosen deity sees it fit to put you in.” The door slammed shut.
And then there was nothing. Nothing but two men trapped in the dark.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post