First of all a big thank you for werewolvesarereal for permitting me to write something inspired by their lovely work If Memory Serves. If Memory Serves has been a favorite story of mine for years now, (in fact all of their work is lovely, it's stuff I read whenever I need a nostalgia kick or just want to read good prose) and while I'd never change anything about the masterpiece, while I was rereading it I couldn't help myself but to think of how there could possibly be a happy ending somewhere in the distance for the digidestined. Of course none of this is 'canon' or whatever for If Memory Serves, just inspired by it, and I hope that you enjoy the read!
For those wondering about The Hope In Tamers it's not discontinued! I've been busy with college projects and decided to go ahead and write down some ideas I have lately, but Hope In Tamers is always on my mind in the background.
I'm not sure whether or not I'll continue this, but let me know what you think and we'll see what I can do!
I hope you enjoy the fic!
oOo
Izzy is taller than Joe remembers. Or thinks he remembers. Memories of his childhood friends comes in flashes, disorganized and chaotic, clattering harshly against his skull. For some reason it's hard to pin down the amount of time he's known Izzy and how they came to be friends when they were children. Looking at him sends his brain glimpses of that signature red hair, an orange shirt, a school uniform, computers and the sound of summer cicadas. Before Joe can grasp one of the flittering memories it slides through his hands as if he's trying to catch a fish in a pond. Instead he's left with the facts, not the glimpses of dreams or whatever else those had been.
He's younger than Joe by a few years, has an invested interest in computers, to the point where sometimes he seems to have a hard time remembering people outside of his screen. While Joe wants to learn, be well equipped to become a doctor, Izzy has a thirst for knowledge that he's never quite understood. Like it was water, or air. Essential to his very livelihood. Izzy could be a good kid, Joe muses, if he didn't let that pursuit of knowledge swallow him so entirely whole. But despite that, they had been friends for all of Joe's adolescence, for reasons that he couldn't quite grasp now.
Almost flippantly Joe dismisses the thought. Children are able to make friends with nearly anyone.
Joe takes his eye off of the younger kid, instead choosing to focus a little more on his ramen in front of him. It was nice of Izzy to offer to take him out for a meal, as a college student he was always jumping for the chance of free food. But this was unexpected. The call from Izzy had been rather abrupt and cordial, requesting to talk about… something. Whatever it was had yet to come up. Had yet to manage to penetrate the air of awkwardness that spread out between the two, turning the air to gelatin.
He had said yes, of course. Probably due to some feeling of responsibility to his old friend. Back when he had first left for college, he could recall the same group of friends giving him a piece of paper with all of their names and numbers on it. 'Just in case' one of them had said. Izzy had been there at a time, and Joe could recall the look on his face back then, full of pain and caring and connection. It was absent from Izzy's eyes now. Joe had held onto the paper on a whim, or maybe because it felt important somehow, a demarkation of the separation from his childhood and his adulthood.
"Joe." Izzy finally spoke, his voice was tense and it instinctively Joe's shoulders raised. "Why did we become friends?" Whatever it was that Joe had been expecting from this meeting, that certainly hadn't been it. But the question was asked with complete sincerity, earnest and searching eyes looking forwards. "When we were children, back at summer camp, you were the oldest. Therefore you are the one most likely to have relatively intact memories of that time." Izzy rattled off before fixing his stare back onto Joe expectantly.
"I-I don't know." Joe replied, somewhat flustered. "We were kids, we were at a camp. That's usually what kids do, isn't it?"
"Then why aren't we friends now?" Izzy prodded and Joe grasped for an answer.
"Sometimes people just aren't compatible. And sometimes that only comes to light as they get older." Joe said, and this time he said it calmly, looking at Izzy with softened eyes. Was he having a hard time making friends? Perhaps the other kid - he was more of a man now - missed the old days. Maybe he was lonely in college or in his career. "You're a, a nice guy Izzy. I'm sure people will want to be your friend." Now it was Izzy's turn to be thrown off, his mouth working soundlessly as it seemed to try and decide on a word to speak.
"Th-Thats not it!" He said, voice approaching indignant. "It's been bugging me for some time now, and no matter how many times I go over our childhood in my head I just can't seem to find the source of any friction that would cause us to all seperate like we did. Fraying on the ends until, until there's no cloth left. Only threads." Izzy took a breath and blew it out frustratedly.
"People drift away." Joe responded carefully. It was nice? Almost? How much it seemed like Izzy apparently missed the old group, although Joe wasn't sure he could understand the feeling.
"I'm not sad about it." Izzy said derisively, as if he had sensed Joe's thought and was determined to cut it down. "It just isn't right. It doesn't sit well in my mind. I've tried to talk to Tai-"
"You still talk to Tai?" Joe interrupted, eyebrows raising. Izzy shifted in his seat.
"From time to time. More often than I do any of the others." He admitted. "He's an even older childhood friend. An outlier, if you will."
"Izzy, it's been ten years, why are you bringing this up now?" Joe asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose for a moment.
"It's been on my mind for a long time, but while I was moving some things in my room I found something of interest." Izzy reached into his shoulder bag that he had brought and withdrew an envelope, holding it out towards Joe. Joe couldn't help the skepticism that reared up as he took the letter into his hands, reaching inside to withdraw the paper. With careful fingers he unfolded it and began to scan through the writing.
'Dear Izzy,' It started off, before going on to explain that it was in fact a letter written to Izzy by Izzy. So he had found a time capsule then? And it had made Izzy suddenly nostalgic? Joe continued down the letter, reading it line by line before finally coming to the end, where it was simply signed, 'Yourself'. He raised his eyes to Izzy.
"Okay…?" Joe asked.
"Joe… what did my letter say?" He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out, and he felt his eyebrows scrunch together.
"I- it was from yourself." Joe said, which wasn't an answer. "It said, uh…"
"This isn't a test Joe, you can read it again if you need to. As many times as you need to." Joe looked back down at the letter, his thumbs pressed deeply into the paper making it scrunch up, and he had to forcibly will his fingers to relax. He read it again, taking note to pay more attention this time. And then a second time, and a third, but the words that he read slid off of him like water on a duck. They refuse to stick, much less allow themselves to be formed together into sentences from which Joe could extract meaning from.
His hands were shaking.
"What is this Izzy?"
"It's the same if you have someone read it out loud to you." Izzy said instead. "I've been trying to read it for weeks. Finally, I managed to get a few words to stick. Something about summer camp friends. About paying attention to the missing time. The date I can read just fine, it was written the day before my eighteenth birthday. I have no recollection writing it."
Joe tried to take deep measured breaths, like he had learned. To manage his anxiety. But it refused to work this time, and it boiled up from somewhere inside of him, making it feel like his lungs were at half capacity.
"Izzy," Joe said desperately. "...tell me more." He could see the satisfaction on Izzy's face, and knew that both sides of the table knew that whatever was going on, whatever it was that Izzy was looking into, Joe was wholly onboard. He wasn't just onboard, he was committed. He had to find out what was going on.
"There's more. Everytime someone left our summer camp group, it was within a year after they turned eighteen. Even me - the last time I texted or called almost any of them was within a few months after I turned eighteen, and then I stopped almost all at once. And some of those old texts, they do the same thing that the letter does. They just can't stay in my head, no matter how many times I read them. Words don't register, or if they do they don't stay that way for long."
"How many of the, uh, summer camp kids have you talked to about this?" Joe asked.
"Right now, just you and Tai. But regardless of if things went well today or not, I've been hoping to get in touch with Cody as well. To start out with at least, we'll definitely need all of those who seem to be caught up in this in order to truly find out what's going on. That is…" Izzy said, voice suddenly becoming small and quiet all at once. "...if you're willing to help."
"I'm in." Joe said firmly, sticking his hand out. Izzy gave a big grin and reached out and took the hand. It still didn't feel right, and he still was unsure why he was so inclined to trust Izzy like this, when his memories provided him with nothing that would back it up. But with his hand in Izzy's he knew this choice was the only one that made sense at the moment. "Where do we start?" Izzy beamed.
"We're going to need to find out who can and can't read the letter first of all, see if it's all of the summer camp kids. IT's clear that through persistent hard work some things can be gleaned from the writings, and with any luck we can see if the other's have similar pieces that are as inscrutable from which we might be able to absorb some information." Izzy rattled of. "Oh, and of course, we need to find out what exactly this is."
Izzy reached and placed something on the table, pulling back his arm and letting Joe's curious eyes manage to get a good look.
Sitting innocently on the table between the two boys is a light blue device of some kind, and it sends a shiver up Joe's spine.
oOo
Thank you so much for reading!