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It's Eames' dream, which doesn't matter much except for the context of his subconscious, the projections that fight their being there, no different, really, from any other dream. It's another trial, just another dream in a long stretch of them stealing them from more wholesome sleep, except this time, there's Eames placing a hand on the small of his back to steer him to safety and leaving it there, warm and heavy, when there's no possible excuse. Arthur leans into it before he realises he's doing it, then jerks back, right before Eames presses a gun to his temple and his hand beneath Arthur's jacket.
With a jerk he gets out of his chair, and sends a vicious kick to Eames' chair, sends him tumbling back into waking.
"I'm not useless," he says later to the back of Eames' neck, fights the urge to run a hand through his hair in frustration. "I can take care of myself."
Eames doesn't turn around. "Who told you otherwise?" he asks, and Arthur can't quite think of what to say.
But he doesn't stop. He doesn't stop the nonsense, the babying, a hand offered to steady him, catching on his jacket or curling around his wrist, and it's all so unnecessary.
*
"Why can't he take care of you?" Arthur mutters to Ariadne on another late night as she's twisting her hair into a knot and letting it fall, over and over, idle and exhausted like the rest of them. Ariadne, who is learning admirably, but is still just a kid, practically, a student, when Arthur's been at this for longer than he'd like to think about.
Her mouth twitches up, and when he asks why, she just says "Oh honey," in a way that's reminiscent of Eames. It's no help at all.
*
It's always in dreams. Outside of the dreams, Eames doesn't treat him any differently, the same darlings and sweethearts and occasionally princess if Arthur manages to piss him off, to get a crack in carefully cultivated amusement. Outside, it's all the same.
But the dreams are changing. Eames' hand is finding his back, scraping over his side, and once, notably, Eames gets down on one knee to tie Arthur's shoelace where it's come undone. There isn't any way to explain it. There's nothing that Arthur can do to make it fit into something that makes sense.
*
"I don't really want to talk about this," Cobb says, one night, after they're all pulled out of a dream where Eames carefully fit himself in front of Arthur to take the brunt of an explosion. "But is this going to change things?"
"Is what going to change things?" Arthur asks, and Cobb rolls his eyes and doesn't press, which only leaves him more confused.
*
In Arthur's defence, he gets it before he's told. Embarrassingly, it takes something beyond obvious for him to get it, but he'll cling to whatever dignity he can muster.
He's been shot. It's a gut shot, nothing immediately fatal, more's the pity, because he knows it's a dream, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. They've managed to get barricaded, separated from everyone else, and Arthur contents himself to slowly bleeding out on the floor while Eames tucks himself down beside him. He's getting blood all over his pants, but they're ugly pants.
"I don't have a gun, darling," Eames says.
"It's only a flesh wound," Arthur says.
"He has a sense of humour," Eames says, and his mouth brushes Arthur's, light, just before he snaps his neck.
Arthur jerks awake, and it's less than a minute before Eames is awake, probably torn to pieces by the crowd.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Arthur asks, after everyone's wandered off, done with bitching about a practice gone so fundamentally awry.
Eames raises an eyebrow.
"You didn't," Arthur says.
"I never pegged you for an idiot, pet," Eames says.
"You didn't tell me," Arthur repeats, because he's starting to feel like an idiot, to be sure, but that doesn't change the fact that apparently they've been caught up in foreplay for months, and nobody bothered to tell him.
"Would it have made a difference?" Eames asks, and there's no warmth there, all cool, calculated persona. An exit-strategy voice. A voice preparing for an inevitable kick.
"Well," Arthur says. "I guess this confirms you are an idiot."
"Oh?" Eames asks, and there's just a brush of a smile curling around the corner of his mouth, returned cockiness. Arthur hadn't even realized he'd been missing it.
"Shut the fuck up and kiss me," Arthur says, and Eames is all warm breath as he murmurs "the boy has bite," against his cheek, and then it's hot, his mouth a brand, chaste at first, a moment of not enough before Arthur's deepening in, impatient, strung-out on all the aborted touch with no follow through when apparently it'd always been on offer.
"This doesn't mean I like you," Arthur says, when Eames pulls back, mouth red and wet and almost captivating.
"Yes you do," Eames murmurs, and kisses him again.