A/N: Well, despite the fact that there's not much Fight Club fan-fiction out there, I had a really strong need to write this. It wasn't intended to turn out how it did, but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless. Hopefully someone will read it and enjoy it as well. This is primarily fluffy slash, so if you don't like that, it's not for you.
Disclaimer: If I owned any of the original Fight Club story I doubt I'd be posting this here, don't you?
Lucky
We are nothing but consumer's. Forget your job, your title, your Misses and Misters. You are just a cog in the machine that is capitalism. You are born into this, you have no choice. It doesn't matter what you do for a living. We are all in control at some point. Those who believe they have the most control, in all actuality, have the least. The number's lie in the lower jobs. At any time they can take control of the whole machine.
Yet they never do. Safety is only guaranteed as long as you play the capitalist game. And none of us can handle a world without safety. We have grown up with every minute in a world we deem safe. Leaving that is the end. We would rather give up control to other people than leave the safety that has been created for us.
Survival. It is a human's simple want to survive that provides the stability for our society. Otherwise we are in Locke's State of Nature, a constant world of war and barbaric lifestyle that cannot possibly allow for survival. Or so they tell us.
"They're telling you this because they don't want you to live, they don't want anyone to know what it's really like to live," Tyler tells me. "Me. You. We know how to live. Them? They don't know anything."
"But who's 'them,' Tyler? Who…who…what is so wrong with what they're doing? If what you're telling me is all true, then they're just trying to survive, they don't know any other way. How can we blame them?" I reply. I am trying to make sense of all these words, and somehow I am, more than usual. Every night, we talk, a half-mile away from anyone else, we are more solitary than anyone else in the entire world is.
Our words are near whispers. We talk at a normal level, a normal volume. Yet the things we are saying are the things we shouldn't be saying. We should be whispering. But we aren't.
Tyler nods at my question, a quick chuckle, before he drowns it in the cheap bottled beer we bought just an hour earlier. Still cold. "You speak the truth, my friend," he says, as he lowers the bottle from his lips, revealing a playful smile. "Someone is getting smart. We can blame them, because regardless of survival they know what they are doing is wrong. And because they know it's wrong, and because they have not stopped it…," here, he pauses, as if he's thinking of what to say next. I know he's not. This is Tyler, this pause is deliberate, it is to be dramatic. He concludes, "we must stop it."
It makes sense. To my mind, to his mind, to our mind, it makes sense. A rational mind, however, cannot make sense of this if it thinks about it enough. What is rational, though? To us, we are rational, but in all reality we are so far detached from reality, it is nearly impossible for us to even hope to find it again. But to us, well, we are closer to reality than any of them. No one understands the world like we do.
"But this isn't going to stop," I say. Despite his arguments, despite his words, I remain unconvinced. "There are a lot of us now, but there's nowhere near enough of us to throw over the whole fucking…the whole…what the fuck are we trying to do here?"
Suddenly Tyler is elated. He is laughing truly laughing. Hand to his stomach, eyes closed tight, hunched over, silent laughing. This is different than any other time I have seen him laugh. I realize this is truly him. He points at me, shaking his finger, unable to speak, but ready to. I wait.
Once his breath is sufficient to produce words, they fall out of his mouth, tumbling one over another. A stuttered waterfall of sense. "We are not anarchists, if that's what you're asking. We need government to survive and to thrive on. People say they don't need someone to tell them what to do, and then join a group of people telling them what to do. It's a paradox, it doesn't make sense. We. We make sense. Everyone else out there just doesn't know it yet."
"Ah," I say, a non-committed agreement to the words he had just uttered. The smile leaves Tyler's face. He is solemn now, searching my face for a moment, then, with a sigh, looking up at the night sky. I realize that he wanted more. This is the first time that I have not tried to respond with something that makes sense. Disappointment is rich on his face. I do not regret it. He does this every time I start to make sense, skips over things that I want to know, leaves me feeling completely ignorant to the world around me.
I am not paying attention now, and so it startles me when I hear Tyler grunt and look up to see him standing. Looking down at me I feel as though he is some sort of god, I am only waiting for him to pass judgment on me as I sit on the ground, a mere slave to the cause. "Seems like a good time to go to bed then," he says. A sly smile shows on his face. "I forget. Will I find Marla waiting there for me? Or am I lucky?"
Ah, Marla Singer. How fond I am at the fact that I can give him this answer. "You told me to tell her to leave yesterday, Tyler," I say. Now I stand, following in his footsteps as usual. I am not as tall as him; he still towers over me at an uncomfortable height.
"Did I now?" Tyler says, a look coming over his face, confusion. "I did, I did." Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not crazy. "And she just left, no word to me, no promise of coming tonight, if you catch my drift?"
I sigh. "I catch your drift, Tyler. And, no, if I remember correctly she simply seemed angry at me, but that may have been because…because I was the one to tell her to leave, not you." I neglect to tell him other aspects of when I last saw Marla, like where her hands were. Tyler doesn't need to be bothered with such things; it's not the time for that.
Oh, but Tyler notices when I'm hiding something. I can tell in the way he raises his eyebrows at me, his warm brown eyes wider than usual, laughing at me in their own way. I want to cringe. I hate this look. It is like having a father again, that disapproving look in his eyes. But he does not mention this, though we both understand that he knows I am leaving something out. "Well, then, it seems that it is time for bed. Much too late for a growing boy to be up, isn't it?" he says, grinning at me.
This is normal standards for Tyler and I. By no means am I weak. I have been a part of Fight Club too long, I am carved out of wood. Yet we both know, we do, that if Tyler really wanted to, he could beat me to a bloody pulp. He never has. We haven't fought each other since the club started, there has been no need. Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I am so far mistaken to think so, but I can't help but to wonder if it's because somehow Tyler Durden cares for me.
Thinking that is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done. Tyler doesn't care for me in such a way that would constitute the strange agreement they seemed to have to not fighting one another. Somehow it has not been spoken, but we do not fight. Tyler puts his arm around my shoulders as we walk towards the front door of our house. "You are quiet tonight, aren't you?" Tyler says, breaking the silence. "Why's that?"
It is my turn to sigh. "Thoughts," I say, then I bite my lip lightly. "Just a lot of thoughts. It's almost like my mind just won't shut up. Every little thing it can possibly think of has to be examined thoroughly."
"I know some other things that won't shut up," Tyler mumbles, but I am sure he wants me to hear these words. Sharply I lift my head up. His arm is removed from my shoulder as he puts his hands in the air, a symbol of surrender. We have reached the house, and he pulls open the door, saying, "I'm kidding, just kidding, alright? Let your thoughts talk away, just say some of them out loud once and a while, all right?"
Strangely enough, I find myself missing his arm carelessly draped over my shoulders, and I think this to myself, but don't say a word aloud about this as we walk into the house. Instead I voice something else. "You don't voice all your thoughts though, do you, Tyler? Don't tell me you do, no one does."
"Right you are," he says, heading into the kitchen. I follow. "You don't know a thing about what's really going in this bad boy." Tyler leaned over the counter, tapping his temple with a smile. "Although, I'm not sure you would want to know." I could swear he looks me up and down as he says this, and though I want to deny it, it makes me shiver slightly. He notices. "Cold?" he asks, though we both know that's not why I tremble.
Curious, that's what it is. It is curious as to why I feel this way. It reminds me of so long ago. Was it the night I first came here or the day after? I cannot remember, but I do remember Tyler saying 'I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.' Originally I had only taken this as a reference to our own individuality, that marriage or a relationship with a woman beyond sex was not what was needed, at least at this time.
Maybe thought, maybe, Tyler didn't mean that. Maybe he meant that, simply, a relationship with a woman wasn't what we needed. Maybe…
"I swear I'd kill to know what's going on in your mind sometimes," I hear Tyler mutter.
This time I'm not sure if he wants me to hear him. Nonetheless I do hear as he says this, and I don't understand why but it causes a smile on my face. "Would you?" I say, approaching the countertop of the island that sits in the middle of our kitchen. I place my hand on it and lean slightly forward.
"What?" he mutters. And for the first time I see Tyler Durden as a real person. It is like earlier, when he was laughing. These qualities make Tyler less perfect, more human, and he only shows them around me. Not even Marla gets to see this. Oh, Marla, perhaps she does. But I have a feeling she's only seen the more, shall we say, physical attributes of Tyler, whereas I see the emotional side. "What are you talking about?" he says, and I pull myself out of my thoughts, to see his eyes worried.
"Oh, someone's worried, are they?" I say. The upper hand is, for once, mine. This has never before happened. "What you just said. You would kill to know my thoughts. I heard you." The last sentence is nearly a whisper, but harsher than any other words I have spoken.
At this Tyler seems speechless for a moment. I feel vindicated. For once I am the one who makes him search for words. "Yeah, well, maybe I would," he finally says. "See what you think of all this. What's going on. This place. Fight Club. Me."
The rest is all formalities. What he really means is the last word that comes out of his mouth. What this means is that Tyler Durden cares about what I think about him. "I respect you," I blurt out, immediately regretting the words. Power has returned to Tyler, a triumphant look decorating his face.
"Respect?" he says, in the haughtiest voice I have ever heard. He rounds the island, slowly coming to stand towards me. The entire time he does not speak, and he movers at an exasperatingly slow pace. Now he is inches away from me, and he leans onto the countertop, next to me, then turns, his mouth near to my ear and says, "When you respect someone, you wish to fight them."
Startled by the forcefulness of the words, so close to my face, I back away slightly. "We've fought before," I tell him. Tyler shakes his head, but I speak again, quickly. "I don't want to fight you right now. Respect was, perhaps, the wrong word."
"Ah," Tyler says. This is all he says, and I realize he is mocking me from earlier. I can see why this response is bothersome, but it is different circumstances, much different. So I do not say a word, and sink, once again, back to the countertop, closer again to Tyler, our shoulders brushing against one another. Tyler cannot stand silence as I can. "What is it then? What's the word, then?"
"I think there's quite a few words that describe how I feel about you," I say, half-joking, half-serious, fully not sure what else to say.
"Tell me them all," Tyler replies, his tone of voice softer than usual. I can't refuse.
I start out angry. "Alright then. You are the most pompous, arrogant person I have ever met. You enrage me to no end with all these little schemes you think the corporate world has. It just makes me angry. I don't understand it, how you make me feel," I feel my irritation dwindling though, as he listens, his face nearly emotionless, but just a hint of hurt fluttering. Oh, I can see it, despite how he tries to hide the looks. "Yet, Tyler, regardless of all of that, or maybe because of it, I'm intrigued by you. I've never met anyone like you and it makes me…well, I don't know how to explain it, to be honest."
"How strange," Tyler says. Now he is leaning against me, I can feel him move as he speaks, the vibrations of his voice affecting me. "That is nearly exact to how I feel about you, did you know? The second part at least. And in the interest of the first, it is more that I find you utterly odd and so involved in the commercial world, yet so unknowing of it at the same time." Suddenly he reaches for my hand, the one he had sometime earlier nearly disfigured. Holding it in his right hand, he looked at the scar for a moment, and for that time we stood on silence. "Does this still hurt?" he asked, unexpectedly, disquieting me.
"A bit, sometimes," I reply, quietly, keeping my eyes on how he holds my hand so delicately, as if he's afraid he will cause some harm to it. "Not too much though. Shouldn't you know? Does yours ever hurt?" I motion to his hand, where he has nearly same scar, only more aged.
"Sometimes, rarely. Yours isn't as healed, though, I just wanted to make sure." Outlandish how he brings my hand to his lips, pressing the wound to them, I feel my own face grow hot, as he simply looks up at me with that smile that I have come to know so well. It is so much like my own, I realize, but I can't manage to smile right now, a feeling of nervousness has washed over me. "It seems I am lucky tonight," Tyler says quietly. "Am I?"
Those two words have a profound effect on me. I am not quite sure what he means by them, but I do know one thing. Whatever Tyler wants me to do, I will do. He only has to say the word and I will do what he wants. No more words are spoken, I simply nod, and he takes this as affirmation.
Marla Singer may not be here tonight, but Tyler Durden will still be getting lucky.