we stared at the sun (we made a promise) [inception]
Title: we stared at the sun (we made a promise)
Fandom: Inception
Summary: Yusuf can't remember dreaming of a future like this.
Character: Yusuf
Rating: PG
Notes: I needed some Yusuf-centric fic in my life. Enjoy.
He thinks he should be ashamed of himself.
I didn't send you to college to play games, Yusuf, his father chides, sipping his coffee loudly and purposefully.
Yusuf shifts uncomfortably in his seat, remembering all the understanding and soft, quiet moments with his father, who pushed him and moved him and whispered in his ear -
- you can do whatever it is you dream of doing -
and he thinks that now, his father was right.
In so many frightening and awful ways.
Yusuf, she's looking at you, Eames says in the bar. The chemist downs his beer and shakes his head, his thoughts a jumble and his mind wandering. A pair of long legs sidles over to their table and Eames throws him a last-chance look before slipping away into the night with the girl called Miranda.
Miranda, Miranda, the forger says in the morning. She had a roommate. You should have gone with us.
Yusuf shakes his head.
(he remembers a thousand marriage plans made over pots of rice and bowls of spiced lamb and frozen vegetables.)
He thinks of gold rings and girls who all knew the same poem in English and could cook good food and would have good sons and daughters. He thinks of the hours his father worked and schools he sent him to and the job he was supposed to have.
(eighteen years of patience and good advice, wasted on a boy who steals from dreamers, who keeps hordes of men asleep and alive in dark, damp rooms underground and away from reality)
The beaker crashes in the warehouse and thick, red chemicals spill like blood on the floor. Arthur bends down with a rag and comes up, his hands covered in bad, red sedatives.
Don't breathe, Yusuf warns through his mask. Arthur purses his lips and back away while Yusuf dilutes what has spilled on the floor.
(don't breathe, said the boy. not to deep. and he passed a beaker over the black lab table and grinned wickedly. yusuf vomited for days after that. he swore he'd never mix something of his own, never make something that was supposed to be impossible.)
His father dies in January. The only son, the only child -
- it isn't my fault you can't have a girl, his father yelled so many times. it isn't my fault you can't have more children. -
takes a flight to India and sees his father down the river. He mourns for three days and returns home.
And he thinks that it's wrong when he can't call his mother's land his home anymore. That he can't call his father's house his. And that his cousins don't seem like his family.
Marry a good girl, his mother whispers on the plane ride back to the states. Make your father proud.
Yusuf knows it's too late for that. Pride is in short supply, especially for the dead.
(sometimes he's on a job, and his father saunters next to him, cigarette in hand, eyes following. good boy, yusuf. smart boy. why do you waste yourself?)
Ariadne takes his hand and they leave the dream together.
Don't let him get to you. He's not real.
Her words are a stark reminder of the difference between memories and reality -
you're a good boy, yusuf. a smart boy. dream of the future tonight, yes? and a smile and a rare kiss on the forehead before falling into a warm sleep -
and he goes home and can't remember having a dream of any future like this.
(dream of the future tonight, yes?)
Yusuf goes home and drinks his father's black coffee and dreams of the past.
Fandom: Inception
Summary: Yusuf can't remember dreaming of a future like this.
Character: Yusuf
Rating: PG
Notes: I needed some Yusuf-centric fic in my life. Enjoy.
He thinks he should be ashamed of himself.
I didn't send you to college to play games, Yusuf, his father chides, sipping his coffee loudly and purposefully.
Yusuf shifts uncomfortably in his seat, remembering all the understanding and soft, quiet moments with his father, who pushed him and moved him and whispered in his ear -
- you can do whatever it is you dream of doing -
and he thinks that now, his father was right.
In so many frightening and awful ways.
Yusuf, she's looking at you, Eames says in the bar. The chemist downs his beer and shakes his head, his thoughts a jumble and his mind wandering. A pair of long legs sidles over to their table and Eames throws him a last-chance look before slipping away into the night with the girl called Miranda.
Miranda, Miranda, the forger says in the morning. She had a roommate. You should have gone with us.
Yusuf shakes his head.
(he remembers a thousand marriage plans made over pots of rice and bowls of spiced lamb and frozen vegetables.)
He thinks of gold rings and girls who all knew the same poem in English and could cook good food and would have good sons and daughters. He thinks of the hours his father worked and schools he sent him to and the job he was supposed to have.
(eighteen years of patience and good advice, wasted on a boy who steals from dreamers, who keeps hordes of men asleep and alive in dark, damp rooms underground and away from reality)
The beaker crashes in the warehouse and thick, red chemicals spill like blood on the floor. Arthur bends down with a rag and comes up, his hands covered in bad, red sedatives.
Don't breathe, Yusuf warns through his mask. Arthur purses his lips and back away while Yusuf dilutes what has spilled on the floor.
(don't breathe, said the boy. not to deep. and he passed a beaker over the black lab table and grinned wickedly. yusuf vomited for days after that. he swore he'd never mix something of his own, never make something that was supposed to be impossible.)
His father dies in January. The only son, the only child -
- it isn't my fault you can't have a girl, his father yelled so many times. it isn't my fault you can't have more children. -
takes a flight to India and sees his father down the river. He mourns for three days and returns home.
And he thinks that it's wrong when he can't call his mother's land his home anymore. That he can't call his father's house his. And that his cousins don't seem like his family.
Marry a good girl, his mother whispers on the plane ride back to the states. Make your father proud.
Yusuf knows it's too late for that. Pride is in short supply, especially for the dead.
(sometimes he's on a job, and his father saunters next to him, cigarette in hand, eyes following. good boy, yusuf. smart boy. why do you waste yourself?)
Ariadne takes his hand and they leave the dream together.
Don't let him get to you. He's not real.
Her words are a stark reminder of the difference between memories and reality -
you're a good boy, yusuf. a smart boy. dream of the future tonight, yes? and a smile and a rare kiss on the forehead before falling into a warm sleep -
and he goes home and can't remember having a dream of any future like this.
(dream of the future tonight, yes?)
Yusuf goes home and drinks his father's black coffee and dreams of the past.