Echoes|| König x Reader x Ghost

71: Depressing Third Week

The third week is when I felt it. The depression, anxiety... the pure stress. It was a slow creep; I didn't feel it in my manic state and the cleaning was so repetitive I scrubbed away my anxiety. But at the start of the third week, I woke with fear. It spread fast I felt unease with the amount of... stress slowly set on my shoulder.

I soon fell back into my high school rhythm, falling asleep late and waking up early because my stress and insomnia is kicking my ass. It didn't help I had to wean off my medication slowly, it could be a few days in the field or an entire month. Going cold turkey on medication can lead to bad side effects.

I couldn't sleep much, and I found him often sitting at the table watching me cook whatever I felt like. He ate anything I cooked honestly like I was Gordon Ramsey.

"What are you making?" That phrase turns into a routine.

"Crepes... with Nutella," I ask.

"Chocolate at this hour?"

"I feel depressed let my depresso ass feel high on sugar." I justified myself, he with a grunt, and watched me intently. His eyes always looked with this strange look; was it care? Sadness? Worry? I couldn't read it.

It's hard to read a man who you can only see the eyes. It's hard to read a stiff person and choose to be unreadable.

"You're scared?"

"Aren't you?" I look up slowly, "scared of losing your squad?" My question hung in the air.

"Always." I nod and we both know the same thing. We are terrified of losing our team.

I flip the crepe and spread chocolate all over it, "any fruit?" I ask looking up.

"Add what you like," I nod and just add a random array of fruit, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, and powdered sugar.

"You have a sweet tooth," he notes seeing the plate before him. I shrug and go and make myself one.

"It's an old comfort, my brother used to buy me chocolate stuff to cheer me up." Ghost nods roll up his mask and take a bite.

"You're a night owl and an early bird," Ghost states before smiling. He had a small cut on his lips, that tugged with his smile.

"I have insomnia and I can't take medication right now," I sigh sitting across from him and eating my sweet.

"Why not?"

"We're going onto the field soon, I can just raw dog life without my dosage so I'm bringing it down." I explain, "My medication is also anti-psychotic medication so going off it gonna be pretty jarring... I'm about to go back to who I was in the beginning." Ghost nods slowly.

"I see so you're going to be moody again." Ghost notes, I nod, and we continue to eat the only sound is the clanking of our utensils on the ceramic plates.

"My sleeping medication knocks me out for 9 plus hours. Great sleep terrible morning." Ghost snickers.

"You seem sad."

"I come and go," I mutter looking up. I could see in his eyes confusion before realization. "You think I'm bipolar too."

"You go in and out," I let out a slight chuckle at his words.

"... you're a solemn man, and I am a mirror, I do reflect the energy output of the other participants." Ghost froze before nodding.

"I see, you were reflecting König—"

"He emotes better, but being that high energy is... Exhausting. Be glad I don't mirror back all the Sergeants you'll never know peace then." I half-heartedly joke. The chocolate felt too sugary, and I felt sick, but I kept eating... I haven't eaten in a while.

"You're not the only one stressed about the upcoming mission—"

"I'm scared for Charlie, more than anything." Ghost stiffens before giving a curt nod.

Charlie this, Charlie that. Ghost knew the two were close but... it felt like he was competing with Adonis, he had no chance. Ghost looked at her she looked sad her bubble personality subdued and fused with a melancholic sadness. Ghost hated it was his doing, that his personality was rubbing off her badly.

"It's not you, I'm just stressed." Ghost nodded at her words and studied her. She's young but the bags under her eyes added a maturity to her.

Y/N was a woman of contradiction. A dichotomy in living form. Mature beyond her years and is as immature as a kid. Can be the life of a small group and the outlier of the team. She's a strange thing.

"What do you do when you're alone?" Ghost asks. She looks up ponders for a second and goes back to her plate.

"I am nothing without someone else. I have no personality, no emotion, nothing. I move like I'm in a haze... I think more rationally on my medication but right now my mind is scattered." Ghost nods and studies her posture and form. She seems lost and melancholic.

"Gaz was worried about you a few weeks ago..."

"Before... my crazy phase," She waves her hands and Ghost slightly nods. "Well sometimes I get hijacked by my ego and I feel invisible then I crash and remember everything I forgot in that short period."

"That sounds like bipolar—" Ghost was cut off by her look, a strange sad look. "You know."

"I kinda always knew... but I rather not get diagnosed with another disability right now." She whispers and leans back in her seat. "I already discriminated against now for being weird, I don't need the world to encourage or discourage me for another disability."

"It must be hard—"

"It's not as bad as PTSD, once your mind is traumatized it drags in all the other disorders and disabilities and twists them together till you can't separate them. How do you heal the trauma when it is connected to everything else?" She asks looking him in the eyes.

Ghost never noticed how pretty her (e/c) eyes were. They were deep and a little lifeless, just like his. He didn't realize just how similar he is to her, chained down by their past, but she could talk about hers and he couldn't. Ghost envied her ability to have strong support like Charlie and the strength to talk about her past to any degree.

"You can't." He said back, she nodded sadly to his words.

"To fix the trauma you must address every other problem... where do you find a therapist who can specialize in your pain and can take you beyond the coping section? To truly heal? Therapy is still written for the generation before me, learn to cope, but my generation is beyond that, we want to heal." Ghost couldn't help but smile. She was wise and intuitive of her generation.

"You're wise."

"I spend my entire life looking for an answer and when you do you slowly discover things." She slightly smiled.

"And what have you discovered?"

"You're running from your pass." She leans in, "I know what that looks like since I did that for years." She offers up after exposing him like that. Ghost felt raw, bare for her to see.

"I can tell you don't trust easily and when you do it is shaky. I can tell you cherish your team; I see it when you look at Roach, but you would not hesitate to kill us if you had to." She rotates her glass of water making the liquid spin slowly. "You're also an observant man, what things have you noticed about me?"

"You seem to hide yourself in the mirror of other's personality." She froze before laughing.

"That cuts deep..." She looks sad. "I think I lost myself trying to protect myself," She tears up. Ghost felt bad exposing her like that. Opening a wound she probably wasn't expecting to think about.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Don't be, you're right." Her gaze seems to glaze over as she stares past him, "As my generation says you become who you needed as a child."

A/N: Not me exploding my own trauma here lol.