Chapter Text
The drinking started in the winter. It’s always the worst memories that are the clearest. Snow fell gently onto the street, dark and calm. He could look for the missing pieces of the robot at night. Only drunks out tonight. Tord hugged himself as he walked down 5th, looking up when he noticed anyone coming toward him. Always an unfamiliar face. He didn’t know who he was expecting but disappointment would sink in with every drunk person that would pass him by. He didn’t know why.
He wore latex makeup over his scarred face and the navy blue coat hid his robotic arm. A black eye patch was fixed over his damaged eye. There was only so much you could do with cosmetics. He dyed his hair dark brown and although the two tufts of hair that protruded from his head could not be tamed, the disguise worked fine. The police still didn’t see him.
It was around 1am when he noticed that things started to feel familiar. Like he’d been down this way more than once. He looked up and saw the bar.
Three men had stumbled out of the door. Faces flushed from the heat inside, they laughed and desperately tried to hold onto each other as if they’d float away if they let go. Tord remembers stopping in place and watching the whole thing. He was on the other sidewalk. It was like watching a television show in a language you didn’t understand. Like watching a terrible accident happen right before your very eyes: unreal, unnerving. His body and soul had been transported somewhere, far away from reality. A gap had opened where only he and the other three men existed. He recognized those faces, those laughs, the familiar colors. The most clear and distinct figure that he recognized is what makes him queazy when this memory randomly hits him now at lunch time. It flashes like a camera going off while he showers. Tingling fingers, and gasping, and lost appetites.
On the opposite sidewalk on 7th street
Saturday
1 o’clock in the morning
Snow covered and dark
Tord watched Tom stumble out of a bar.
Happy, drunk, and in the arms of what he realizes were Matt and Edd. They didn’t see him. Tom looked up once but he still didn’t see Tord. They kept on laughing and clinging onto each other. Tom right in the center. In memory, the moment lasted for years but when it had happened, Tord saw Tom for a minute before the brunette and his friends turned the corner. Tord stood there for another 10. He felt like entering the bar. He felt like ordering something strong but he didn’t.
He kept walking. Out of that strange plane where that moment existed and back to his own. Until he was in Paul’s car again. He didn’t find what he was looking for. Paul turned to Tord and asked, “You okay?” Tord nodded his head and wondered why his second-in-command would ask that. They remained silent though. He was taken back to their temporary base. A house, in a neighborhood that was far away from the robot incident. Far away from…them. That’s when the drinking started. When they got back, he dismissed Paul and Patryk and retired to his room. He pulled a large bottle of vodka from his desk and drank himself to sleep. Not a word to anyone.