you own half my dream

Out of nowhere, he started it. Felix always harbored thoughts in that way, stewed on them. Chewed on them, but never gnawed like Oscar would. So similar, yet so different. Rather, so different, yet so similar.

"You remember that time, when you were...ah, no, it's nothing." And just as suddenly, gone.

"What, Felix?" Oscar's chase was soft but fully engaged. Why?

But, Felix just shook his head sideways-downward in that inmitably irritating way of his, almost stuttered in the motion. "I-I-- No, I shouldn't. It wouldn't be fair play."

Oh, with the mind games, now. Oscar could feel his jugular begin to pulse uncomfortably, and compensated with hands thrown out in consternated poses above his waist. "I'm a sportswriter, Felix, I know all about foul play! C'mon, what?"

And, then, hands back to hips, hooking underneath his untucked sports shirt and into his waistband. Lame outfit. Nothing distinctive about it. He might as well have been wearing pajamas. Only, he never wore pajamas, only a white t-shirt and boxers - if he was lucky, and had even bothered to strip off his standard outer layers.

Meanwhile, Felix was busy petulantly relenting. "I...agh. You remember that time you were filling out that personality form, for your computer dating?"

Now we're getting somewhere! "Oh, sure, I remember. André le Plume, and all. Worst embarrassment of my life."

"And you've had many of those," Felix tacked on with admirable expediency and smoothness. Of course he did. Even though it was all his fault. "But what I mean in specific is how I said you were average-looking."

"Oh, average-looking. And you, with your 'well above average'. You were right, this is foul play."

"I don't know if you'd say that if you..."

"If I what, Felix? Come on, enough with the suspense, just spit it out."

Felix didn't spit. He never spat. He more ladled the words out like his favorite creme bisque. "Oscar, you're the most above-average guy I know."

Liar. You know you don't think that. You know you think I'm a slob and a failure and as much of a neurotic mess as you are, only in all the exact opposite ways. I'm a wreck, and you like it. You like it because I'm the one skewing the mean for you. I'm the one who makes you above-average, because if every guy in the world were like you, you wouldn't be so special, huh?

Wouldn't you?

God. All the jabbing thoughts, floated away, just like that. Because...well. We needn't quantify it, only qualify it. Say, what are your most attractive qualities?

"Oh, really?" Oscar allowed himself his most slack-jawed grin. "Y'know...I think they do have a category for cutest person after all."

"They do? Where?" Because of course Felix had to know how to win that prize. Regardless of the fact that he'd already admitted to possessing the greatest one of all.

"It's not on any paper, any scantron bubble-dot sheet. But it's in my heart."

Corny. Cheesy. Oozing with schmaltz. Tastes so sweet it'll rot your teeth.

And then Oscar wakes up, and that's the bitterest cliché of all.