Unexpected Song

He's not exactly what you could call "beautiful".

He's more gangly than anything else, and has a build that someone might charitably call "slender", but is really more aptly described as "skinny". And he snores. Not loudly, but more of a light wheezing sound escaping his slightly open lips unawares.

I guess this is another one of those times that I wonder what the hell I'm doing here, a cigarette cradled tightly between my pursed lips and a thin wisp of smoke escaping into the darkness. Him right next to me, hogging most of the blankets, arm sprawled across my waist haphazardly.

He certainly isn't like any woman that's ever caught my eye. The discrepancy is almost startling. He's not a sharp dresser, that's for sure--I'm pretty sure he's been wearing the same shirt for three days now. He doesn't have soft, smooth skin or a pretty face. What he does have is a ticklish scar from appendicitis on his lower right abdomen and, when he's been working too long and hard, a five o'clock shadow.

He's not graceful. I've even seen him trip over a fire hydrant before. Don't ask me how or why, but I've seen it. And that's not even mentioning the everyday items that vindictively decide to throw themselves in his path.

His television shows drive me insane, especially when he all but ties me down and forces me to watch them. Watching foreign cartoons with subtitles isn't exactly my idea of a good time.

But...

I like the little noises he makes in the back of his throat when I kiss him deeply.

The way he squirms out of my grasp whenever I bother him while he's reading or working on his computer before throwing me a glance that could curdle milk. To tell you the truth, I do it just to annoy him. I'm not really a touchy-feely type of guy.

Compared to some relationships I've been in--if this is even classified as a relationship, I haven't gotten all that sorted out yet--there's a strange lack of romance. Hell, our first time together only came about because we both got drunk when he insisted upon celebrating our twentieth completed mission. What little romance there was to it was proabably marred by the fact that I was moaning Meryl's name over and over again. Fuck, I was drunk; what do you expect?

What I feel for him...

I look out the window across the way, a neon sign advertising live nudes winking back at me.

I could never tell him this. It's not something I can exactly put into words.

He's so different from her...but I couldn't tell her either, now could I? That's the reason I lost her. Maybe I should be glad he's different. But, if I loved Meryl, then what am I feeling right now? It doesn't feel like the same thing...

He's like nicotine. That's the best way I can put it. I'm addicted to the way I can just be when I'm around him. I'm not a legendary mercenary, I'm his friend. He'll bitch at me about how much I smoke, or yell when I track mud into the office.

He sighes in his sleep, wrinkling his nose like a little kid before reaching up with a groping motion. He grabs my cirgarette and grounds it out in the nearby ashtray, giving me a sleepily reproachful look before turning over and drifting back to sleep.

My last thought before turning over, unsucessfully attempting to reclaim some of the covers, is "Why you selfish little...". But there's no malice to it.

I don't expect other people to understand. It's an unexpected song; something that only we can hear...

The End