Echoes|| König x Reader x Ghost

65: Stim

König was interested in Y/N, why Charlie calls her Gisele, why she does what she does, says what she says, and laughs so freely now.

He found Charlie crawling down the hall like a zombie in the early morning. The sergeant didn't even greet him. They were so different Charlie could barely get out of bed functioning and it seemed like Y/N was always awake.

"Charlie," he calls out. The boy turns around eyes squinting.

"Yeah?"

"Can we talk?"

"After coffee." Roach walks out of Charlie's room followed suit by Soap and Gaz clearly, they are having Sergeant night, König peaks in to find the room messy and snacks litter the ground. Councils all over the floor.

"Party hard?"

"Yeah..." Soap said also looking like shit.

"Why did Ghost make us get up so early?" Charlie asks Gaz who seems well rested.

"I don't know mate, but we need to haul ass, or we be yelled at again." Gaz smacked him on the side of the arm.

"Will you tell me more about her autism?" König asks Charlie, he froze and looked over. He looked wide away with a strange smirk.

"Sure man," Charlie gestured him over. "What do you wanna know?"

"Why does she stomp her feet and clap her hands?"

"She's stimming... it's like a coping mechanism that helps alleviate stress and help regulate herself." König nods.

"Why was she repeating let's go?"

"She had echolalia. It comes and goes, sometimes months before she echoes again, it's not always negative but stim but she can positively do it. But I think she's been suppressing that one it's... intrusive." König nods.

"She hides it by singing repetitive music."

"Why is she so... more manageable?" Charlie shrugs.

"Not sure man, I think that ego death hit her hard, and after that emotional high of the trail she may be manic."

"You think she's bipolar?"

"Have you seen her?" Charlie turns to him, "she screams bipolar to me, but she's holding off on that diagnosis."

"Why?"

"We're in the military she doesn't want that to be against her, being bipolar is a disability." König nods and continues to follow the young man to the cafeteria.

"You never told me she's funny." Charlie chuckles and shakes her head.

"Four people is a crowd, two people are maneuverable. Her personality shines when she only has two people to bounce off of instead of a whole crowd." König nods and looks down at him. That smile...

"You're in love with her."

"Yeah." He admits.

"Why don't you go after her?"

"She's oblivious as hell, she doesn't see me like that, and I don't want to ruin our current relationship. Besides, you like her too, I see it in your eyes." König froze.

"Is of obvious?"

"No, but I know when people like her more than a friend, I see the way you look at her, I am a man after all I see that look." König nods and looks away, so it's obvious to him.

"Do I have a chance?"

"Hell, yeah more than I do!" Charlie chuckles, "I'll tell you her type: 5 or more years older than her, the closer to her parents' age the better, she likes them taller than her, and money. You have that." König felt his cheek flush, he had a chance.

"She's so simple."

"Just remember your competition isn't Ghost, it's her fictional men."

"What?"

"She like fictional men, one of her favorites is Aizawa, a man in his 30s, Toji a father, Leon Kennedy, Optimus Price for fuck's sake, she likes them tall, slightly disheveled, and rugged," Charlie explains.

"How do you know this?" König asks suspiciously. He stopped walking and fully turned to him.

"Who do you think listens to her gush about not real men? Who do you think knows way too much about fictional men? Me." König chuckles.

"You're a great friend—"

"I do owe her for my life," König nods.

"It must be hard finding close friends."

"Nah you looking in the wrong place get you a neurodivergent friend, they are loyal and a tad slow when it comes to realization."

"I'll keep that in mind."

ᔕᔕᔕ≼∴≽ᔕᔕᔕ

"I-E-A-O-U," she sings a little vocal warm-up in the empty commons room.

Ghost stood outside listening in, what a pretty voice, she could have been a great singer. He listens in leaning against the door not to alert her of his presence. He knew she shut up the moment he stepped into the room.

König appears down the hill and stops next to him to listen in too. Soon she was stuck on a single sound, she was going through all the sounds as one breath, over and over again.

König pokes his head in and walks to her. She closed her mouth and smiled. Ghost follows suit. She smiles and waves but doesn't say anything.

"Is that your echolalia?" König asks gently. She purses her lips before nodding.

"Is that song a stim?" Ghost asks she shrugs.

She pulled out her phone and typed away before showing them.

'Sure, I mean it's very appealing to me, very appealing.' The two nodded and looked at her closely. She was drawing a strange-looking creature.

"What's that?" Ghost points to it. It was a grump sunken face with wide blank eyes and a toothy force smile as the skin on the lips shriveled up and rotted away. It was lanky noodling and lopsided. It was tapeworms-like. Its hands and arms look like roots and never-ending branches that reach across the world.

"The monster in your dreams?" König asks. She shook her head and looked at them typing something out.

'It's simply how I view myself.'

"Why do you choose to be a monster?"

'I feel tall, all the clouds are at my shins, my hands can reach everything I want, and my body stands taller than anything a man can build. This is who I am at my rawist, monstrous, powerful, grand.' They silently read this and slowly turn to each other. That was the rambling of a madman.

'Charlie did ask for a self-portrait I am. This is it.' They nod, it is a self-portrait of the soul. König looks at the drawing with sadness... to hate yourself that much, it must hurt.

Ghost could appreciate the honesty. That she didn't glamorize herself to delude herself into a fantasy. This was her at her most bare, no makeup, no mask, just her. His mind fell into thought, what would his self-portrait look like?

'I have never once looked at my face and connected with it. I am not the body. I am not the puppet master controlling the body. I'm just the strings. I am forgotten about but still important, I am running consciousness.'

"Alright, Shakespeare now I don't understand it," Ghost jest. She shrugs and looks back at her phone.

'I use the words I know to express a concept you do not comprehend. It is unfair for me and you, that you will never understand what I am going through, and I who have no words to make you understand.'