It was only natural for Arthur to test the sedative first.
Cobb wouldn't.
Ariadne couldn't know the difference; she'd been under a handful of times.
Yosef needed to administer the drug.
And Eames, well, Arthur didn't trust Eames.
So he volunteered.
Of course there were risks; there was always an element of chance when traversing the labyrinth of your own mind.
A possibility to lose yourself.
Cobb refused to speak of his time in limbo; something that was, in itself, almost more frightening than knowing the details.
However, Arthur had no place for fear in his work.
He smothered it.
He couldn't spend every day fearing that which kept him, and his family, alive. They didn't know his work was not legal, but they knew that it was the one thing keeping them from a brutal life of hunger and sleeping in doorways.
Besides, he owed Cobb.
It was no debt Cobb recognized, but there were times when Arthur felt it would only be fair if he spent the rest of his life repaying Cobb for the gift he had given Arthur.
The dream world.
A possible never-ending supply of knowledge, a steady stream of information.
Arthur loved information. Craved it. Longed for it. It was part of what made him such a good point man, so good at figuring out details.
And this? The chance to see the insides of everyone else's head; to see what they see. To hear their thoughts.
Their ideas.
For someone who was forced to join the military because that was the only way he'd get a college education, this was a priceless gift.
Of course, it was his association with Cobb that lead to his dishonorable discharge.
But that was hardly Cobb's fault.
And the world of extraction, illegal though it was, more than made up for it.
There was one more reason why he volunteered.
His whole life, he'd had amazing dreams.
Buildings impossible to conceive when one was awake.
Sudden flashes of insight.
Things he could not begin to explain once he woke.
But after years of constructed dream time, his mind – like all who lived any large amount of time hooked to a Pasiv machine – forgot how to dream by itself.
At first it was merely harder to remember the wonders he created while he slept. Then they lessened, and eventually stopped completely.
Nights were dull and slow for Arthur.
Part of him was interested in how little interest sleep held without dreams as a possibility.
The rest of him wondered how nights seemed to stretch beyond their allotted length so paradoxically.
So Arthur offered himself up as a test subject.
Because anything, even just a few moments before being unceremoniously shoved out of his chair, was better than the empty nights.
And he filled his days with dreaming.
A/N: This is basically just a way for me to get out all my Arthur headcanons. /sobbing/ the feeeeels
Hope you enjoyed it!