It is just like my dreams.  The man I love standing before my eyes, the door behind him locked by his own hand to ensure our privacy.  His scarlet eyes focus on me and only me as he saunters towards the bed I lay upon.  I sit up anxiously as he nears me, watching the way his golden brown hair sways with each hypnotizing step.  I notice how his frameless glasses give him a sexy, professional kind of look.  I ogle his colonel uniform, and for the first time take in how formfitting it is.  I realize how astonishingly perfect he is physically.  My passionate thoughts are brought to a halt as his graceful hand smacks me across my face.

     “Dist the Rose, was it?  I have to say, I don’t agree.”  It takes me a moment to recover from the impact.  When I was certain I had control of my voice, I spoke.

     “Colonel Jade Curtiss…the necromancer.  It’s about time you showed up!” I hide my love for him behind my ‘desire’ to fight him in hopes of winning.  I want Jade on my side so terribly that it has become almost intolerable!  With those eyes, that voice, that heavenly hair…and he’s a good asset to an army.  On top of looks, he is powerful.  Oh, Gods, the power he has!

     “Let me find a more suiting title.  How about…Dist the Runny.” His thin, luscious lips curve into a suspecting smile.  ‘He means to upset me’, I remind myself.  ‘He KNOWS I don’t have a runny nose!  We grew up together; he knows my nose does not run when I’m upset…right?  Or does he truly believe I’m that vile?  I can’t let him think that!  No, no, no!  Jade must not think I am that vulgar!’

     “My nose does not run when I am upset!” I screech, defending my misunderstood nose.

     “Oh?  Then will you explain what your nose is excreting at this very moment?”  I quickly turn away from him, kneeling on the comfortable bed with my back to him.  I dab furiously at my pitiful nose with a kerchief I keep in my pocket.  I growl vehemently.

     “Jade, you snake!  My nose was not-” I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Jade standing at the side of the bed, smirking that smirk he smirks when he’s done something…smirk worthy.  Instead, I see him grab my shoulders, and I feel him pull me to face him.  I blush inadvertently, expecting him to acknowledge his undying love for me.  However, he pushes me on my back instead, sinuous hands still keeping my frail shoulders hostage.  He leans over me with his knees on either side of my undersized waist.
     
     “I am well aware.  If we were still children, I expect it would have.  Perhaps, if we were still children…I would still possess even a minimal amount of patience for you.” I perceive instantaneously that his playful smirk has vanished, and has been replaced by an aggravated frown.
     
     “H-how uncouth, Jade!” I hide my approval of the situation behind my anger.  “Disrespecting your old friend after you smack and shove him!”

     “Oh, but I’ve valid reason to disrespect one such as you.  It is fair, after all.” Jade’s tone is serious, edged with what I believe to be annoyance and possibly anger.  I am unsure, however; while his tone has changed, his gorgeous eyes remained stoic and unwilling to clue me in on the problem I was not seeing.

     “Fair?  How is this fair?!” My voice squeaks as I raise it to parry his statement.  I blush yet again.

     “You treat me with no respect, Dist.  You’ve changed so drastically, yet you insist on acting as if you and I are the same people we were twenty years ago.  You act as if we’re still lovers.” I’m unsure how to respond.  It’s painfully obvious how broken up we are, but I had not intended for him to bring that into this.  Thinking back on our teenage days is grueling.  It consists of my whimpering, whining, and heartache.  I can slightly see my reflection in Jade’s glasses.  I see my eyes are full of sorrow.  I glance from his glasses to his eyes, ecstatic to find his eyes as sad as my own.

     “I have not changed!  You’ve changed, Jade.  You follow around a pack of teenagers on a quest to ‘save the world’ or whatever it was you were so intent upon accomplishing.  You push me away and insult me and then come here and abuse me!” I use a softer, hurt tone to convey the message.  I would not dare raise my voice to an emotional Jade.  It’s a rare sight, and I fear that raising my voice to him in this situation is the equivalent of a wolf trying to befriend a tiny hare.

     “Indeed.  However, you’re the one who grew obsessed with fomicry and the resurrection of Nebilim to such an extreme extent that for months I didn’t see you.  We lived in the same house at the time, Dist, and you disappeared for months!  When you’d returned, it was naught but pushing and pleading for my assistance in returning our Professor to us.” I observed an intensifying pain in both my shoulders with each word he spoke.  His nimble hands were constricting my shoulders, leaving my arms with a numbed feeling.  He continued, his grip growing increasingly tight.

     “After you’d returned, we weren’t lovers.  You treated me as your partner yet again.  You were trying to fix your mistakes and your flaws and somehow thought you were helping me by trying to bring back a woman I once loved.  Needless to say, you did end up helping me.  You opened up my eyes, Dist.  I saw what truly needed fixing.  It wasn’t the emptiness in me caused by the death of the Professor.  It wasn’t even the failed experiment.”  I writhed beneath him in an attempt to silently cue him in on my pain.  He disregarded my gesture.