Re: [Dream Training]
To be fair, Arthur didn’t really know what “dream pieces of puzzle” together meant either. Eames had a whimsical mind and Arthur didn’t know what the man was saying half the time. Arthur gave Hannah a curious look. “We aren’t teaching you extraction right now. We’re just teaching you shared dreaming. It doesn’t have to be a weapon all the time.” There was something implied in Arthur’s tone here, a vague grayness that didn’t quite achieve neutral. He decided not to repeat this concept again; he’d said it twice and that would be enough. The dark eyes flashed sideways to Eames as Hannah closed her eyes, Arthur curious to see if Eames either agreed or disagreed with that concept. He didn’t know what Eames meant by “having it in him,” and the dark eyes narrowed again with vague suspicion that he was being laughed at. A near constant state around Eames, to be honest.
Arthur put the coat over Hannah’s knees, not for the sake of modesty but because there wasn’t another place to put it. He was going to sit on Eames’ cot, as he wanted to face the door, and in his experience women didn’t like men looming over them when they were sleeping. He didn’t care about Eames’ sensibilities. “Sorry,” he told her, as he pulled the sleeves over so they wouldn’t wrinkle. “It’s just for a sec.” Then he looked at Eames’ discomfort with an expression newly bland. “I’m not going in. All you, Mr. Eames.” He spooled out more tubing, found a vein among what there was available in the wreckage (dreamers having the same problems that needle addicts did) and gave Eames his arm back. For all their relatively icy fencing, he was both perfunctory and careful about it, and he had learned a long time ago not to look into Eames’ face during the process, lest he be subjected to one of those sly smiles.
“Yes,” he affirmed to the three minutes, pushing the buttons on the machine so the red numbers displayed the 3:00. “Somnascin has a fast-acting sedative in it,” he also confirmed for Hannah, who was taking all of this with a passivity that he found just a little alarming. Most people had some uncertainty about being hooked up to an unknown machine and being pumped with an unknown drug. It told him a lot about her. Arthur looked expectantly at Eames. “Are you going to lie down, or are you worried I’m going to steal your cufflinks?”