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The most frustrating thing for Arthur is that he loves Dom. Really, truly, ‘drag himself over hot coals just to make sure he’s okay’ kind of love. But he doesn’t know how to help him. You can’t just fix a person, can’t just take away the grief and the guilt and make it so they don’t hurt anymore. In the absence of a solution, all he can do is be here. Stand by Dom’s side through all the crazy leaps and theories-- can’t heal him, can’t soothe that pain, but at least he can make sure Dom doesn’t get himself killed .
Sometimes he wonders if it’s selfish; that maybe it’s not because he cares about Dom but more because he can’t lose him like he lost Mal. Thumbs the strip of her cloak tied around Dom’s bond while he sleeps and reminds himself that it wasn’t his idea for Dom to become a sunsinger, obsessed with cheating death to a point that Arthur wonders if his ultimate plan is to try and resurrect Mal somehow.
He ignores the question in his gut; if he’d really object to it all that much if it was.
Eames and Ariadne are of a mind when it comes to Dom - that he’s a danger and Arthur needs to cut him loose - and he can’t entirely blame them after they nearly died real deaths in the Vault of Glass, but they don’t understand. Ariadne didn’t know him before, and he’s fairly certain Eames doesn’t fully understand concepts like ‘friendship’ or ‘loyalty’, but Arthur can’t leave him like this.
He still remembers vividly; the way Dom near collapsed under the shock of grief when they got the news, Arthur holding him up and holding him close as he sobbed and rambled his guilt. He remembers Dom offering Arthur her cloak, sans a strip of cloth tied about his own arm. Months spent bleeding every last piece of information he could get from her dead ghost, pouring his light into it in the hope it'd yield something .
He remembers it all just as clear as Mal's voice in his ear, her hand in his as she dragged him across the ruins that used to be Spain to show him some discovery. Mal giggling and shushing him and Dom as they dragged him excitedly to their bed after their wedding; throat dry because he'd been happy for them but certain it meant he didn't fit in their lives anymore, and maybe they knew him so well or his anxieties had drunkenly slipped out, but Mal kissed his fear away while Dom murmured sweet nothings in his ear. Three hands clasped, assuring Arthur of his place in their lives.
“You're our closest friend. Of course we wanna share this with you.”
They don't really share that part of themselves anymore, but it's fine. It's fine because Dom is still his closest friend and still so fucking brilliant it amazes him, and when it's the two of them and Dom isn't running hot on a cocktail of stress and grief and anger, he's still tender. Still thoughtful. All his worst qualities come to light when it's work, so it never surprises Arthur that people think he's some doting nanny for an ungrateful child when they don't know Dom for who he really is.
(As if it's not always Arthur who's first to tell Dom when he's fucked up. When he's pushed too hard. When his ideas are bad and he's being reckless. Maybe it does surprise him a little.)
Sometimes he finds Dom asleep in a pile of books and maps and notes and gently tells his ghost not to worry as he leafs through the notes himself, mentally putting things together to prepare himself for whatever mission Dom’s about to suggest next.
Arthur is-- has always been dependable. Has always been logical and concise, a skill for seeing the links that bring the broader picture together and weaving facts into something tangible. Coherent. It's the only way he can remember being, but it's also something he honed and refined working with Mal and Dom. Being with them. There's a chasm hollowed out in him that's all them, everything he's given them and everything they gave him in return.
And so he'll continue to be dependable.