Normally connecting with another person was like sitting in an all black room talking to a person, sometimes a picture would appear in blacks, grays and whites but this… this was incredible. Not only was it a full image, but it was in Technicolor, and yes… that was a breeze, I could feel the wind, the sand under foot and the dark storm clouds swirling violently above.
But they were blue.
The clouds didn't look like rain clouds… they were blue.
But they swirled like rain clouds. Odd.
"Ed…?" My focus snapped back to the ground to see Gaara… except he was midgetised.
He looked to be no older then five or so and didn't have the 'ai' tattoo on his forehead. But he looked so sad…
"Gaara…" He ran forward and hugged my legs tightly; I could feel his tears making tiny wet patches on my knees. I knelt down and hugged him. The poor kid… he was truly alone… this place… this desert was representation of his mind. He was still a kid. And this kid was all alone. But… Gaara had a small patch of dry grass with a single green blade in it. The small child hugged my waist tightly as I sat down and cradled him. "It's okay… your not going to be alone anymore."
Suddenly the small body in my arms grew, the grip around my waist tightened and then Gaara pushed back. He couldn't of been older then twelve. I was flung backwards by a torrent of sand.
"Why are you still here?" He yelled towering over me. The blow from the sand had knocked my breath out of me and when I didn't respond immediately he got very angry. I was then wrapped in a wad of sand with only my head sticking out.
"What are you doing Gaara?" I asked in a calm tone.
"I'm going to get you out of my head." Slowly I felt the sand tighten around me.
"If you kill me in here, I will die out there, and if I die out there… you'll never wake up again and you'll be stuck in here with Seikatsu and Shukaku."
"You're lying." The sand tightened again.
"Am I?" My voice was strained now from the pressure of the sand. "You're inexperienced with this sort of thing… so your ignorance is easily pardoned. But I am incapable of lying to you here, as you are incapable of lying to me in here. Go ahead… try…" He gave me a quizzical look; his eyes flickered around the empty scenery.
"Your eyes are bro-" He stopped and seemed to struggle with the words in the way a person struggles to remain sitting on top of an air filled ball in a swimming pool. "Bro… bro… brogreen…" Gaara was mildly surprised and I felt the sand slip away from my body. I coughed and brushed myself off.
"Shall we start the healing process?" I asked as if my near death experience had not happened. He looked at me incredulously and I just smiled.
"Fine." He mumbled as if he were admitting defeat. I plopped down on the sand and patted the space next to me. He sat down with a fwump and stared at me. Hard. Like I could feel his eyes on me like hands. I didn't shudder. "So… what now?" He asked impatiently.
"We talk." I said letting a small smile play across my lips. The boy looked at me as if I were stupid.
"We what?"
"I don't believe I stuttered. Go ahead… talk. I'll listen." He gave me a look as if he were trying to see through a prank.
"About what?" He asked finally. I shrugged.
"Anything you want. I have nowhere to be, besides time moves at a different pace in here. It can be slowed down so that a second lasts a year or sped up" I motioned up and down to him. "So that years go by in a moment." He looked at me skeptically, opened his mouth then closed it.
"I don't… know where to start…" He sounded embarrassed.
"We could ask each other questions, I could start talking, I could tell you some jokes or stories, you could tell me some jokes, or you could just open your mouth and tell me what's on your mind. Or we could sit here in silence. What ever you want." His expression was (in nicer terms) that of 'shut the fuck up'. I shrugged. "Sounds good." I let myself fall backwards into the sand which was surprisingly soft and arched my arms around under my head so that they formed a pillow and I watched the sky whirl and twist violently above me. I don't know how long passed in that time, minutes, hours, days it was lost to me; what I do remember is the question he asked.
"Ed…" He said my name so quietly, in a manner of fearing that if he spoke my name to loud it would break. "… this place… what is it?" My head lolled to one side and I saw him lying in the sand next to me, his hands folded over his stomach and his teal eyes fixed on the sky.
Ah… he opens up…
"More or less… it's your mind, this is the place where strong memories are held, where dreams come from, where those random thoughts that don't seem to have any ground come from. It's a place our minds retreat to when we want to escape reality. Some say it's our imagination… but it's more then that… it's bigger then that."
I kinda suck when explaining this stuff.
"Oh." He sounded like he understood. "Your place… what's it look like?"
He's never this chatty on the outside.
"Well… it's kind of like this… vast… empty… except… instead of sand… mine's a giant ocean. Instead of that patch of grass you have; mine's a bit of land, just enough for me to stretch out on. It has six flowers, two of them are dead, three are still growing and one is in an eternal bloom. The sky above is almost exactly like yours except there are swirls of reds, grays, oranges, purples, and black. But… just like you… when I go there… I'm alone."
"What… what do 'normal' people's places look like?"
For some odd reason I took his phrase and somehow, someway managed to turn it into something dirty. Again I blame Shima's influence. I giggled then shook my head and glanced at him. He was looking at me.
Hard.
Again.
"Normally in a place like this a person has ghost's or shadows of other people who were close to them… semi transparent images of people, normally a place in the mind would look like a forest, each 'tree' would be a memory, usually a fond one."
"Why is mine so desolate?"
"Do you remember the Five Of Cups?"
"Hold onto what you have no matter how little it is…" He quoted. Absently my hand roved up to the shape beneath my coat and shirt. "What is it?"
"Eh?" I asked turning my head to see him on his side very close to me his eyes dead locked on the vague shape under my outfit. "It… it's a memory…" I covered the shape with my hand. Why didn't I want him to see it? Then again nobody except Seikatsu, myself and the person who had given it to me knew about it.
"Let me see it." His hand reached and I freaked out.
"Do you mind!" I asked swatting his hand away. His expression darkened.
"I want to see it…" He seethed and then before I realized it the sand bogged my hands down and I was stuck. "Stop it!" His hand reached out and I struggled, but in doing so he ripped not only the front of my coat but my shirt as well. Thankfully he only ripped the front of my coat and enough of my shirt to make it a one shouldered top. He reached for the light blue cord of my necklace and yanked it off.
"It's a needle…"
He looked from it to me.
"… and it has stuff carved in it…" Gaara mumbled the second part then read the inscription aloud.
"I'll forever love you, even if you're doomed, we'll always be together 'cause we're both under the moon (- ICP) –Haku." ( I'll touch on that point later on.)He looked oddly from the needle to me and saw tears bubbling in the corners of my eyes. The sand released me. "Ed… what's wrong? Did the sand hurt you?" I wiped my eyes and sat up.
"Please… can I have it back?" He looked down at the needle then back to me and silently held the cord out. I took it.
"Look I didn-"
"Can you tie this for me?" I asked completely ignoring what would've developed into and apology from him.
"Look I-"
"Just forget it okay? We have more important things to do." I said turning around to face him. He blushed and looked away, looking down I realized that my torn shirts were showing off what little endowments I had. "No worries." I placed my palm over the beginning of the rip and moved it slowly upwards. As if it were on a zipper the cloth reattached and I was once again covered.
"See? No harm done… now go on and talk. I won't interrupt." I don't know what it was but somehow I connected with his twelve year old form and he talked.
Woo crap did he talk.
But it wasn't boring and the main focal point of his talk focused around the chuunin selection exam in Konoha.
(Where I'd first seen him.)
He spoke of a fight with a boy in the final part of the exam, of Suna's plan to attack, of him losing control, and of his fight with Naruto.
After a long silence his eyes met mine.
"So… what do you think?"
"I think…" I paused to smile. "The we have made progress. Are you ready to wake up?"
He nodded.
Without a word I embraced him. I felt the sand encompass me up to my waist.
"Gaara, please drop the sand. It's just a hug." He relaxed ever so slightly and the sand dripped slowly from my waist. "Hold on tight." Colors smeared all around and I felt something close to a light mist haze over my body and seep inside of me.
