Arthur turned his head at Cobb's call, but before he could reply the butt of a gun smashed into his temple; knocking him unconscious instantly.

When he awoke Arthur was certain he was still in the dream—either that or he had been transported to their target's base of operations in Thailand, and he highly doubted that. His arms were duct-taped behind the chair he was uncomfortably thrown into, and his feet were bound to the legs. He was completely immobile.

"Hey—hey! Guys, he's waking up." A deep and throaty voice wailed from beyond Arthur's range of sight. But, Arthur noted, there was no accent to the clearly American voice, and that meant he was somewhere in the dreamscape. There was a chance at safety.

"Get him the fuck up." This voice was closer than the others, and seconds after he heard it a fierce slap echoed around the room, and his head began to spin. "You're Arthur. Right?"

The command startled Arthur, but he still managed a slight nod. By this time his eyes were adjusting to the small amount of light in the room, and he recognized it as the backroom of a warehouse Ariadne had built—if he were to escape it would be simple to find himself back with the others.

"Tell us what you and your accomplices are doing here, and speak fast or you won't wake up so easily." Again it was the closer man speaking, and he sounded true to his words, so Arthur began,

"What do you mean? We were hired to come in here and… gather information Mr. Hurtz had forgotten," the momentary stutter in Arthur's voice had been all the gang needed; they knew he was lying.

This time Arthur wasn't so lucky—the thud of the hammer breaking three of his toes was sickening; Arthur would've thrown up had he not remembered he was dreaming. Slow breaths circulated in and out of his lungs, but the pain was still flashing, and he couldn't suppress a whimper of pain. The goons began laughing.

"Trying to be a tough guy?"

"Don't he look cute trying to pretend it don't hurt?"

"I say we give 'im something to whimper about!" The last voice was lusty and almost a purr. Arthur felt a hand slither up his thigh and quickly retreat with the sound of a slap. "Hey, you said we could do anything to make him talk!"

"No matter how idiotic you are… you may be onto something with this one," spoke the close-man. He stepped into Arthur's line of sight and got on his knees. "You have another ten minutes to give us the information we want. If you go over those ten minutes and we don't know jack-shit… well I'm sure you won't want to find out what happens next." The last words were made clearer when the man put his hands on the insides of Arthur's thighs and squeezed. Arthur tensed and yet again suppressed his gag reflex's reaction.

"We'll be back soon honey, and I want you to know—I don't think you should tell us anything." The four men left the room, but Arthur had the prickling feeling that there were security cameras lining the room—waiting for him to make a decision.

Seconds ticked by mercilessly, and Arthur struggled—with no results—to remove his bindings. He knew that if he gave any information to these men that Mr. Hurtz would, upon waking up, either find all of them, or go to the police. Both of these options left Cobb, Eames, Ariadne and Yusef out of a job and maybe even sentenced to jail time. Why was this so hard for him? It was simple really, just suffer his way through and when the time ran out, wake up. So why couldn't he force himself to do it? No… he had to. There. That was that, no one had to know what he suffered through. Really, it was just in a dream, no one was really touching him like that, and as these thoughts came to him, the door opened.

"It's been eight minutes. You have two minutes to tell us everything we need ta know, so spill." Close-man came up towards Arthur and put his hands on the shoulders of the 3-piece suit Arthur swore to never wear again.

"No."

"Awww. You think you can resist us? That's sweet. Well, unfortunately for you—you have another minute and ten seconds, and we have another incentive." Close-man stepped aside and in walked a fifth man and trailing behind him, wearing handcuffs and several bruises, was Eames. Arthur's heart dropped to his stomach—no way was he going to let them touch him like that with Eames there. He'd never let him live it down.

"He—hello, darl—," Eames' words were raw and cut off by another stream of fists.

"Eames…" the word came from Arthur's lips almost as a whisper. He turned to his captors and, quietly as he could, begged, "Please… just not in front of him."

"See now we have a problem. Neither one of you will talk. But, I'm sure that you, Arthur dearest, will talk very quickly when we give Eames a little show." Close-man purposefully kneeled down onto Arthur's broken toes, and the resulting gasp of pain surprised Eames, who'd never seen the Pointman vulnerable before.

"Eh, guys, come on. Let's let Arthur darling go. I'm sure he'll not give up a thing, even being sliced in front of me." Eames' voice was the only comforting thing in the entire warehouse—it was familiar and it was sane. Still, Arthur could not imagine Eames being in the room during the… he shivered… show.

"Oh… so you want to stay then? Well boys, it's been OVER ten minutes, so let's not keep either of our guests waiting. But, Arthur, if you give us the information right now we promise to not hurt Eames anymore than necessary." This time it was the fifth man who spoke, and as he did he took out a wrench and bashed Eames' knee in. The resulting yelp was terrifying.

"Don't tell them anything Arthur. The others will finish without us, and everything will turn out… fine." Even Eames didn't sound convinced while speaking his last words.

"Alright then boys, let's begin." Close-man spoke the words and immediately followed them.

Eames was gagged and tied to a chair, one that was faced directly towards the side of Arthur's—giving him a full view of the events that followed.

Close-man pulled out a knife and slowly, but not carefully, cut Arthur's coat and shirt off. The trails of blood running down his abdomen were gushing, but the cuts were not deep—it barely stung Arthur at all.

Eames, still unaware of what he was about to witness remained calm and controlled. He had witnessed torture before, but this time it was falling upon the one person on the entire Earth he could consider himself in love with. It had been growing for years, but it was the Inception project that had finally confirmed his suspicions of love. The glances and soft touches he had bombarded upon the Pointman had gone mostly unnoticed, but when Arthur seemed to notice them, he did nothing to stop it. Eames had seen the kiss Arthur and Ariadne had shared, but he didn't believe it meant anything—a peck was nothing compared to what he had dreamed of doing to Arthur.

Suddenly Eames was pulled from his thoughts by a gasp from his darling Arthur. What he saw next would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Arthur controlled his breathing, and remained tranquil as the men stripped him of his upper clothing, but could not suppress his gasp of shock when he felt his belt being pulled from its loops. Suddenly his button and zipper were open, and the close-man was yanking down the pants he used to adore.

Eames' eyes went wide, and the pain on Arthur's face made him want to kill each and every man in the room with a bloody chainsaw.

Arthur tried to hold back the tears, but several slid silently down his cheeks as his final pieces of clothing were removed. Now—naked in front of five nameless men—he sniffled and squirmed. His priority was still to make sure his eyes never connected with Eames', but Eames had not let his eyes leave Arthur's tear stricken, and pained face. Eames began to roar with anger, and he yanked against his bindings; kicking and squirming to no end.

"Shhhh. Baby, this won't hurt at all. I promise to make it nice for you too." Close-man began to whisper into Arthur's ear, but the words did nothing more than make Arthur's tears run more profusely down his face. Suddenly he felt a hand glide up his thigh, and begin to stroke the head of his cock. He whimpered in disgust, but that only earned him a groan of pleasure from one of the men holding Eames.

The man began to dip his head towards Arthur's member when he heard Eames' shout.

"Stop! This has gone on enough, I'll just tell you what you want to know." Eames' outburst surprised no one in the room more than it did Arthur.

"Wow, that's surprising. I haven't even gotten to the good stuff and you're already running scared. Well, I have the power here so… I chose to skip the offer. But, I'm sure you'll be just as willing to tell me what I want to know in… oh… let's say… five minutes?"

"Please. Me instead! Not him. Just not him!" Eames' heard the begging spew from his lips, but could do nothing to stop it. He realized how pathetic he looked; thrashing and begging.

"Hush hush. Five more minutes and then we'll think about it again." Close-man then left his lips spread and slowly engulfed all of Arthur's length in seconds. Arthur tried to kick out in protest, and he yanked his hips away, but this only gave the man on him more pleasure. Eames' watched in horror, but even more so when he began to get hard—the looks of stifled pleasure on Arthur's face were beautiful. Arthur knew he shouldn't be enjoying it, but he couldn't help it. Conflicted, he continued to whimper and tug at his wrists.

"Ay! This one seems to be enjoying the show a little too much." A man holding Eames had noticed his problem, and only made the situation worse by shouting it to the close-man.

Arthur's face went red when he realized what had been said. This was the first time in six months someone had seen his naked body, and they were all men. Even more than that, one of the men was Eames. He was so lost in thought that he couldn't suppress the moan that escaped his lips. He began to scream,

"Stop it! I'll tell you everything. Let me go. Now. Please. Stop. Stop. St-Stop. S-S-Stop." He began to let his guard down and shed more tears as the sucking continued. Closer-man's tongue went from the base to the tip and back again before wrapping casually around the head. Then he began to bob wildly against Arthur, massaging his thighs in the process. As Arthur began to lose control he started to plead again, this time with nothing more than the word no. He continued, over and over and over again.

"No… no… no… no… no…" and then he had his head thrown back and his non-broken toes curling. His moan of extasy rattled around the entire room, before he heard an identical moan emanate from Eames. And for the first time that night he looked into Eames' eyes; what he saw there left him both scared, and oddly happy. His naked body was making Eames hard.