Eames didn't understand how someone just couldn't dream anymore.
He got some of his best ideas from his dreams. Although he'd been warned time and time again not to, he'd always use bits and pieces of his dreams in his work. A pretty girl's hair. A French man's moustache. Of course, he wasn't stupid enough to use whole bodies or faces, but he knew that he'd be lost without those small details.
"Well, perhaps I do still dream. Perhaps I just don't remember them anymore," Arthur replied, exasperated, when Eames voiced his curiousity.
"But you remember everything," Eames insisted.
Arthur sighed. "Remembering dreams, however, is out of my control, Eames."
"But you remembered your dreams as a kid, right?" he pressed. "You had nightmares and wet dreams and everything, right?"
At this, Arthur spluttered and slammed his hands on the table. "Jesus. What sort of question is that?"
Eames would have loved to press further, but Arthur, having quickly recomposed himself, had gone straight back into his work, making it very clear that he would not be continuing the conversation.
That didn't stop Eames from thinking about it though. Was it true? Did Arthur really not dream anymore? How could he stand it?
From time to time, Eames would find himself fighting the need to bring the topic up again. Eventually, he asked Cobb. In hindsight, it was a silly thing to do. He should have known that Cobb wouldn't take him seriously.
Cobb looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "Honestly, Eames, I'd be more concerned if he told you that he does dream. No one in the business dreams. And if they do...well, it's never rainbows and unicorns."
"I dream," Eames said simply.
Cobb furrowed his brow and then replied, "Well, I feel sorry for you, I guess."
Cobb had left the room before Eames had had the chance to call out and tell him that no, he had it wrong and that his dreams were still dreams and not nightmares.
However, it did shed a little light on the situation. If Cobb thought that no one in the business dreamt, it probably meant that Arthur was telling the truth when he said he didn't dream anymore, assuming that Arthur told Cobb all that everyone said he did.
And for reasons that Eames couldn't explain, it was then when Eames decided that if it was the last thing he did, he'd make sure that Arthur would one day dream again.
Proper dreams. Dreams fulled with colour, exotic lands and people he'd thought he'd forgotten about years ago. Not nightmares of guns, blood and people he'd wanted to forget about years ago.
You see, it wasn't so much that he didn't understand how someone couldn't dream anymore. It was more that he didn't think that anyone deserved not to dream anymore.
Plus, if Arthur couldn't dream, that meant that Arthur couldn't dream about him.
And well, that simply wasn't acceptable, was it?