This is a re-imagining of the terrific entry for week 5 of this contest written by the awesome inkstainedfingertips (thank you for being okay with me doing this! <3). Please read his story first. You can find it here: https://inkstainedfingertips.dreamwidth.org/6251.html


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"Toi, toi, toi!
The monster
I banish -
Right outta sight!
Toi, toi, toi!
The monster
I become
Night after night!
Toi, toi, toi!"

Liam scribbles out the lyrics that just came to him, sings softly under breath that is as shaky as his hands.

His first two attempts to light his cigarette fail.

Third time is the charm and the hit of nictotine soothes him if only momentarily.

He knows he should quit the cancer sticks just like he did the pills.

So far this year he's already quit smoking twice.

Right now though he doesn't care about the risk of heart attacks or lung cancer.

He just needs a cigarette.

Or twenty.

It's not the first panic attack he's ever had, and he knows it won't be the last.

The same goes for the nightmare he just woke up from at two thirty in the morning.

What really gets him is how every other dream he has, he can never remember anything about them. Hell, he doesn't even dream in color.

But this one nightmare that's been recurring since he was twelve years old transports him right back into the scene that haunts him.

The night his father tried, and failed, to kill him.

He can still recall the smell of the forest after the rain, the owl hooting in the trees and the sound of his father's heavy footfalls as he hunted his son like the birds he was fond of killing.

He remembers how he'd asked his Nana for help, attempting to banish the evil the he knew dwelt within his father's heart.

The tears running down his own face.

The fear he'd felt as his father loomed above him before -

Liam forces himself to stop thinking of what came after his father found him.

Inhales, then exhales deeply, focusing on his breathing just like he was taught, even though his therapist wouldn't approve of the relapsed habit.

It works, briefly.

"I'm safe, it's over. Dad's dead and he's not coming after me again," he repeats, he repeats the affirmation taught to him with closed eyes, but all he can see behind his eyelids is the look on his father's face that night out there in the trees.

More monster than man.

Which is exactly what his father was.

What the memories are.

He knows some people refer to memories as ghosts, haunting them but for him memories have razor sharp teeth and jagged edges that can and do hurt.

Next Liam tries the moving arond and feeling your body techniques together.

Pacing his bedroom he rubs his hands up and down his arms, his seen-better-days Green Day t-shirt hanging low and baggy on his lean but wiry frame.

Despite the humid summer temperature of ninetey three degrees, his bare legs and forearms are still pimpled with gooseflesh.

This isn't working either.

He runs his hands through his so-black-it-looks-almost-blue-under-the-light hair and gives a frustrated groan.

Sometimes Liam feels like giving up.

Fighting against this constantly is exhausting.

Managing and learning to live with PTSD, his therapist calls it.

Liams just calls it bullshit, bitter that he has to do this because he had the misfortune of being his father's son.

He's still shaking as he lights the next cigarette.

His panic attacks have lessened lately, he has to admit but sometimes the nightmares bring on a doozy.

He doubts he's strong enough to keep doing this, even though his therapist insists that he in fact is, and that it will get easier over time.

"You said you thought of your father as a monster," he told Liam during their last session. "Why not think of this disorder as one too? One that you can take control back from."

What's the point? he asks himself aloud as he begins the grounding technique Dr.Hwang assured him would be helpful.

He scans the room, mentally checking off five things he can see.

His lyrics notebook, the beginning of a new song waiting on the page.

A framed photograph that hangs on the wall near the window, of him at seven years old with his Nana. Both of them laughing, the love between them clear, immortalized in a camera flash.

The view of the city through his open window, vibrant and alive at any time of day or night.

The purple haired character in his favorite show that continued playing on his laptop after he dozed off earlier.

His own reflection in the mirror opposite, hair a mess, eyees drawn. But his eyebrow piercing is finally healed and looks pretty good if he does say so himself.

Four things he can touch.

His soft bed.

His phone, the group chat between him and his friends lighting up as he does.

His own body, living proof of his survival.

The comfortable slippers shaped like Garfield that no one knows he owns.

He laughs to himself.

Three things he can hear.

His dog softly snoring from the next room.

The sounds of the rain and city's activity outside.

Two things he can smell.

His own cologne.

The smell of late summer rain.

A scent he's always loved.

Even though it's synoymous with what he's trying so hard to forget.

His dad doesn't get to have that too, he thinks.

One thing he can taste.

The cigarette that has almost burned down to the stub.

He takes one more drag and then crushes it out in the ashtray on the bedside table.

He looks around the room, eyes meeting his own in the mirror opposite.

All those things he just listed are the point he realizes, noting that the grounding technique worked too.

"Your father doesn't get to decide your future Liam, you will do that."

Those had been Dr.Hwang's words to him when they met for the first time, six months ago.

Now for the first time he believes it.

He stand up, tosses the cigarettes into the wastepaper basket and climbs back into bed.

And when he falls aleep again, it's a dreamless one.

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fiction.

but with heavy inspiration from reality because I too have ptsd. I wanted to imagine adult Liam, who is living his life but of course still has issues, how could he not? But I also wanted to show that even when you have ptsd/live with such memories and trauma you can still live a life and find happiness.

inkstainedfingetips sorry not sorry about the Thanos cameo.