Work Text:
I can't sleep.
I can't sleep and im miserable.
I am on the second floor of the house on paper street and I can't sleep.
Tylers gone. Not as in forever, as in he's out doing whatever Tyler does after three in the morning on half the nights of the week.
I lay on my side facing away from the door. I suddenly find the peeling paint on the wall madly interesting. Oh would you look at the way its curling up and chipping, look at that little mold colony go. I wonder how much of its black spores I've inhaled. My lungs are shit, my entire body is shit. I inhale cigarette smoke, factory smoke, mold spores which will bloom inside me. The collagen in my face is practically nonexistent. Maybe I need a collagen trust fund.
I touch the beaten parts of my face that refuse to heal. I imagine it's someone else's hand. Thats pathetic, Tyler would probably say. Or he might replace it with his own. I imagine it's his hand.
I don't even try to close my eyes. I guess I could go downstairs. I could try to do something productive, but I heard somewhere its better to lay in bed and let your body rest if you have insomnia. Something like that. I don't even remember if I ate dinner or lunch for that matter. Did I smoke today? What did we do at work exactly? I don't know. Fatigue of the mind and body are interesting, you feel each one independently. You could run a mile but you're too mentally exhausted. You could have a million thoughts racing through your head of things you could do and your body just wont budge. You know that feeling.
Usually to occupy yourself in this stage of insomnia you'd turn on the TV and watch mindlessly, but here we don't have that. Instead we have your own thoughts and damaged wallpaper.
I hear Tyler come through the front door, the nighttime draft reaching me all the way up the stairs. I'm still awake, I haven't slept.
My heart starts beating into my throat.
I hear his steps through the kitchen and the halls, the empty arteries of the house.
He sets things down, moves things around, any subtlety is impossible regardless because the floorboards would betray you, so why even try. He's carrying plastic bags and probably some beer. He was probably out having some fun. I was here in bed.
Tyler walks upstairs. He knows im awake.
I expect him to go straight to his room and leave me to suffer. He has his own things to worry about, his own places to be.
Tyler instead stands in the doorway. I know he's looking at me. I know this because Tyler knows this. Hello Tyler. Nice to see you. I need you. How was your evening? Do you even care about me?
Of course he does.
He sits on the mattress next to me. I feel the curve from his weight. I cant see him because my backs to him, but I can imagine his outfit. He's probably wearing his red leather jacket because I can smell the stale scent of a bar and cigarettes over the leather. I can smell that cold winter smell too. How long was he gone for?
He puts a cold calloused hand over my head.
A touch of caring. A touch of assurance. A touch of love.
Tyler.
"Yes?"
Where were you?
He dosen't say anything, he just continues to stroke my forehead and now the side of my face. I feel my eyelids fall for the first time in hours. I look over and see him, looking down at me, on the side of my bed in his red leather jacket. Tyler, real, in the flesh, here.
I reach out to him and put my hand on his back. I want to roll over and hug him and drag him under and sleep against his body.
Tyler turns towards me and now he's holding my hand. He runs his icy fingertips starting from crook of my arm to my own fingertips. He traces the lines in my hand. The fate line, Moon and Saturn. He'd done this before. He'd told me what it all meant.
My eyelids felt heavy.
Tyler?
"Yes?"
What were you doing?
"Don't worry about it,"
He pulls the blanket over me again.
Im not looking anywhere but his face, his eyes had a certain softness in them. I imagine this is what death looks like before it delivers you to the dead. Or maybe how someone who cares about you a whole lot looks at you. Tyler's hand is running through my hair and I close my eyes for a moment. He starts talking about something, I don't know what, it falls over me, warm and all encompassing. Suddenly my whole world is Tyler Durden. Everything I feel, everything I touch, everything I hear, everything I see.
I'm breathing through my mouth. I put my own hand on Tyler's forearm and shut my eyes. I feel him give his arm to me and allow me to pull it under the blanket. The draft in my room is horrible, it's only a few degrees warmer than outside. I should get another blanket, or a warmer coat. Or another warm body.
I hear him say something about tacos, you know one of those little shitty bar food tacos.
My eyes flutter open and there's one in my hand, It's still warm, I take a bite and suddenly I'm starving. I guess I hadn't eaten dinner or maybe lunch. I finish that one and had three more. He gives his arm back to me. Oh Tyler, what did I do to deserve you.
He sits there with me in the cold darkness.
My eyes close.
I'm falling.
I'm falling.
I'm falling.
I'm asleep.
And then he isn't there.