D'Autrefois - Chapter 5 - J'accuse, j'accepte
“Eh, close enough.”
“What’s more, how are you always able to understand where I’m coming from? Can you read my mind or is this speaking from personal experience?”
Nash responded with the most exasperated of glares. “Hello? We’re on the same wavelength, remember?”
“Oh please don’t ask me to remember anything. Those muscles are sore right now,” Cobb groaned, feeling quite out of sorts.
Nash patted the back of his surprisingly cold hand hesitantly. Once he ascertained there was not to be another explosion, he laid his hand in the same spot, cupping the frigid fingers, one of them adorned with a white-gold wedding band. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you earlier, but you can understand how I felt. Anyway, it’s not just you, it’s everyone. It’s part of human nature, just one that no one will ever admit to. Like I said earlier, even Mal was guilty of selfish behavior. I mean, why do you think she kept you around even though she saw through your projected exterior? It wasn’t just you who was guilty of using the other. It was a mutual give and take. So you have nothing to be ashamed of. What happens happens. There’s another universal truth. Just take the trips and falls and roll with them, Dom, that’s all we can do in this rat race,” he mumbled, hoping to be more effective with his reassurances this time.
“What does it all matter anyway, showing me the ‘enlightened’ path? You’re perfectly aware that we’re both gonna die soon enough,” Cobb murmured, closing his eyes.
Nash narrowed his own. Why did he bother? Would clarity of vision really make this recalcitrant case come round? “I suppose it doesn’t, Dom. I suppose I was-and still am-fucking stupid and just want to hear you say just once that you... y’know... that you gave a shit about me or something.”
There was an awkward pause. “I do though. Why the hell else would I have been torn up in the first place?”
“Do what?”
“Do... give a shit.” He had a strange way of proclaiming affection, that one.
“That’s not the impression I got in the helicopter that day. Or in the Saito dream itself. You had no intention of divulging the measly bits of information that could have saved my hide because you were too scared of ridicule and emasculation in front of your self-worth meter stick, Arthur. And I still have no guarantee that I’m not some temporary boytoy that you’ll push off a cliff so that you’ll have a cushion to land on.”
Cobb took several deep breaths. “Okay, fuck. I never told you this and I never wanted to tell you this but.... okay.” One long exhale that seemed to drain his lungs dry. “But... even... even in my dreams with Mal... You would appear. I don’t know what caused it. You would be in the background, barely visible in the crowd, but you would always show up. Mal knew this as well, but together we chose to ignore it.”
Nash was taken aback, his rant extinguished.
“But you became more and more of a recurring nuisance. Disturbingly so. To the point where I couldn’t just will away your existence because you were around every crumbling corner, reflected back in every pane of glass. The longer I stayed under, the less cooperative you were. That’s why I couldn’t let myself dream anymore: I had to actively fight your existence in my subconscious.”
“And what happened,” Nash sneered, barely able to stomach this unlikely tale, “when I showed up in Limbo?”
Cobb smiled blissfully, his eyes sealed. He then flipped his hand over below Nash’s, their fingers weaved together. “I built a grand library of the world’s greatest texts for you-as intricate and awe-inspiring as a Baroque cathedral; I stocked all the shelves, which wound around the center of the structure, full of manuscripts and leather-bound volumes. And I asked you to climb up, reading to the top, until I came back for you.”
“Did you ever come back?”
“No... because I wasn’t able to face you at that time… it was a hiding place of sorts. The most I could do was to have my archives show you what I never could. The last book at the very top, once you’d finished digesting all of history’s knowledge in those fifty years... it told you everything, the entire truth. You know what it said?”
“What?” An anticipatory squeeze.
“I love you.”
Nash let each of those three words sink in, unable to fight the crinkling of his eyes and widening of his grin. For once in his life, he had nothing left to say.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post
“What’s more, how are you always able to understand where I’m coming from? Can you read my mind or is this speaking from personal experience?”
Nash responded with the most exasperated of glares. “Hello? We’re on the same wavelength, remember?”
“Oh please don’t ask me to remember anything. Those muscles are sore right now,” Cobb groaned, feeling quite out of sorts.
Nash patted the back of his surprisingly cold hand hesitantly. Once he ascertained there was not to be another explosion, he laid his hand in the same spot, cupping the frigid fingers, one of them adorned with a white-gold wedding band. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you earlier, but you can understand how I felt. Anyway, it’s not just you, it’s everyone. It’s part of human nature, just one that no one will ever admit to. Like I said earlier, even Mal was guilty of selfish behavior. I mean, why do you think she kept you around even though she saw through your projected exterior? It wasn’t just you who was guilty of using the other. It was a mutual give and take. So you have nothing to be ashamed of. What happens happens. There’s another universal truth. Just take the trips and falls and roll with them, Dom, that’s all we can do in this rat race,” he mumbled, hoping to be more effective with his reassurances this time.
“What does it all matter anyway, showing me the ‘enlightened’ path? You’re perfectly aware that we’re both gonna die soon enough,” Cobb murmured, closing his eyes.
Nash narrowed his own. Why did he bother? Would clarity of vision really make this recalcitrant case come round? “I suppose it doesn’t, Dom. I suppose I was-and still am-fucking stupid and just want to hear you say just once that you... y’know... that you gave a shit about me or something.”
There was an awkward pause. “I do though. Why the hell else would I have been torn up in the first place?”
“Do what?”
“Do... give a shit.” He had a strange way of proclaiming affection, that one.
“That’s not the impression I got in the helicopter that day. Or in the Saito dream itself. You had no intention of divulging the measly bits of information that could have saved my hide because you were too scared of ridicule and emasculation in front of your self-worth meter stick, Arthur. And I still have no guarantee that I’m not some temporary boytoy that you’ll push off a cliff so that you’ll have a cushion to land on.”
Cobb took several deep breaths. “Okay, fuck. I never told you this and I never wanted to tell you this but.... okay.” One long exhale that seemed to drain his lungs dry. “But... even... even in my dreams with Mal... You would appear. I don’t know what caused it. You would be in the background, barely visible in the crowd, but you would always show up. Mal knew this as well, but together we chose to ignore it.”
Nash was taken aback, his rant extinguished.
“But you became more and more of a recurring nuisance. Disturbingly so. To the point where I couldn’t just will away your existence because you were around every crumbling corner, reflected back in every pane of glass. The longer I stayed under, the less cooperative you were. That’s why I couldn’t let myself dream anymore: I had to actively fight your existence in my subconscious.”
“And what happened,” Nash sneered, barely able to stomach this unlikely tale, “when I showed up in Limbo?”
Cobb smiled blissfully, his eyes sealed. He then flipped his hand over below Nash’s, their fingers weaved together. “I built a grand library of the world’s greatest texts for you-as intricate and awe-inspiring as a Baroque cathedral; I stocked all the shelves, which wound around the center of the structure, full of manuscripts and leather-bound volumes. And I asked you to climb up, reading to the top, until I came back for you.”
“Did you ever come back?”
“No... because I wasn’t able to face you at that time… it was a hiding place of sorts. The most I could do was to have my archives show you what I never could. The last book at the very top, once you’d finished digesting all of history’s knowledge in those fifty years... it told you everything, the entire truth. You know what it said?”
“What?” An anticipatory squeeze.
“I love you.”
Nash let each of those three words sink in, unable to fight the crinkling of his eyes and widening of his grin. For once in his life, he had nothing left to say.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post