Ah, memories. Good times.

"Do you remember any good times in your life?" He asks. Tord thinks to himself for a moment, slowly nodding.

He reminisces. Smiling faces, colored pullovers, pleasant escapades. One in particular rises into his mind, bringing the faintest crack of teeth onto his lips. He's younger, in these days. Everyone is, given the date being a good few years ago. Almost a decade has passed since these times, even.

Him and his friends are enjoying themselves at some kind of old diner, eating lunch and sharing funny tales and bad puns. Almost every comment a certain green-wearing brunet makes the others groan in annoyance. "So I was trying to get this... this, uh... I forgot." His blue-wearing friend, Tom, starts, before giving a narrowed side-eye in Edd's direction. "Maybe the presence of horrible puns made me forget."

"Or you drank to forget." Tord quips through a mouthful of food, snickering. The others chortle with him, to Tom's exasperation, signaled by a heavy sigh through his nostrils.

"Gee, Tom, you sure have a MEMORABLE life, don't you?"

"That wasn't even a valid pun, Edd!"

"I know!"

Matt rubs his cheek with a hand, sipping at a soda. "Remember when there were all those clones? Where'd the one of me go, the one we replaced Tom with? He was a fun guy."

"I killed him." Tom mutters, answered by horrified silence from the ginger. A grin spreads on his face as he gently punches Matt's arm. "Just kidding, I haven't a fucking clue where he is. Two Matts are not better than one."

Finishing off his second refill of cola, Edd speaks up. "I have a better thing to talk about! I found a can and put it on a chain!"

Tord glances over at him, raising a brow. "...your point is?"

"...the, uh... the logo was facing up, so that's good luck, right?"

"You're confusing that with finding pennies heads-up."

"Oh." Tord feels a heavy shove on his back, a searing pain on the right.

..wait, what?

Perhaps there was more humor and fun in that day than what he can remember.

The other speaks up again, bored of seeing Tord silently recall up memories. "Well? Are you going to vocalize anything?"

Tord uncomfortably rolls his shoulders, wincing. "We went camping, once."

"And?"

"We only brought one tent? One?" Tom protests, looking around at the others with a frown. "Really? I have to sleep with you guys?"

Tord scoffs, shrugging. "We'll have separate sleeping bags, right?"

"Actually," Edd starts, digging through a bag, "we only have two. Not four."

"Are you serious?!"

Matt snickers. "I say we make Tord and Tom share a bag."

Both of the respectively blue and red-clad men shout "NO!" at once.

"Great idea, Matt. How about we set up a fire and tell spooooky stories?" Edd sets down the bag, pulling out a lighter. "Could someone go grab some wood?"

"I'll do it." Tom pipes up, a hand shooting in the air. He pulls out a somewhat oversized pocket knife, shrugging. "Mind if it's just a bunch of branches, for now?"

"What, too weak to cut some actual logs?"

"I will end you, Commie."

"Whatever, Jehova."

Tom goes into the woods with a heavy sigh and a roll of his nonexistent irises, going to cut off a few medium-sized branches from a tree. A loud cracking noise rings out behind him, making him shout in alarm and drop the branches and knife. Tord laughs, jumping out from behind a tree and making the other jump once again.

"Tord, are you fucking kidding me?! I could have cut my hands open!"

"Scared you, didn't I?" He snickers, scooping up the dropped branches and going back to the fire.

The group of four build a fire, sitting around it, eating marshmallows, and telling badly improvised scary stories until they all get tired. Tord and Tom refuse to use sleeping bags at all, sleeping in just their pullovers.

Tord dozes last. An intense, burning pain spreads in his back and shoulders, sourced by a point right between his shoulder blades.

He snaps out of the reminiscing, crying out in pain.

"What, scared of a little burn? I thought you were invincible, Larsson."

"Why-- why are you making me talk about these, anyway?!"

"Because it'll be the last time you ever remember a thing before I'm done with you."

God, physical contact sets Larsson on edge so badly. And now a robotic hand, being forced to overheat to the point of being able to cause burns, is being pressed into his back. The jackass's own little logo already got carved into him where he's now being burned.

"Get-- get your filthy hands off of me, you-- you bastard..!" He's trying to hold back pained tears, but everything hurts so much.

It hurts.