Chapter Text
His name was Jimmy Novak. He was Dean’s best friend. Dean could remember countless afternoons of running around in their backyards, building forts and having adventures. Dean could remember on one memorable occasion when they went to a fair together, licking up melting ice cream their mothers had bought them as they traveled through the stalls, admiring the crafts and local artwork.
There was a medieval section of the fair, something that drew in Dean’s interest immediately. Jimmy thought it was stupid, but as soon as he had a play sword in his hands, his eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed with excitement. Dean was sure they spent hours in the spray painted ring, clashing their wooden blades together until they were sweaty and in need of more ice cream.
He was the best friend Dean ever had. He couldn’t imagine ever living without his friend.
But they were nearly ten years old when Jimmy threw rocks on his bedroom window, waking him up in the dead of night. Dean opened his curtains, spotting his friend’s tear stained face in the moonlight. He unlocked the window and pulled his friend through the opening.
Jimmy’s father had gotten a new job halfway across the country. He didn’t know if he’d ever get to see Dean again.
Jimmy cried. Dean tried not to, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. He simply pulled Jimmy under his sheets and they fell asleep staring at the ceiling, wondering what the next day would bring.
The next day nothing happened. Jimmy’s family packed up for their move for just short of a month. Dean spent all of that time finding ways to keep Jimmy with him, playing games, getting away from the houses and having ‘real adventures’ that they’d never been brave enough to do before.
Two nights before Jimmy had to leave, Dean organized a sleepover. They huddled under a fort of blankets and munched on popcorn, candy, and pizza. They stayed up nearly all the night, desperate to remember and cherish every moment they still had as friends, still living in the same city.
The next day was filled with lingering looks, silence that couldn’t be expressed, and a hollow presence that Dean couldn’t relieve.
He hugged Jimmy goodbye at the airport. He cried for real, that time. Jimmy didn’t do much better.
“You’ll write to me, right?” Jimmy whispered as their parents exchanged a few final words.
Dean nodded hard.
“I’ll send you a letter every day. Promise.”
Jimmy smiled and wiped his eyes. He squeezed Dean’s hand and stepped back with his family.
Dean waved as the plane took off. He had no idea if Jimmy could see him from way up in the air, but the thought of it was comforting.
He carried through on his promise. He wrote to Jimmy every day. He wrote about how annoyed he was with Sammy, and how he couldn’t get his walkman to work right. He wrote about the new pie his mom made, and how perfect it was.
“I’m gonna’ make it for you someday,” Dean wrote. “Just you wait.”
He sent all of the letters he could. Jimmy wrote back, of course. But it only lasted a few months before the letters stopped coming.
Dean’s mother looked at him sadly as she hung up the phone.
“They moved again,” she explained. “That was Mrs. Novak. They were about to board the plane so they couldn’t talk long. I’m sorry.”
“You got their new address right?” Dean asked, tugging on her skirt.
His mother sighed and took his hand in hers.
“It sounds like it might be complicated.” It was the tone she used when she was about to say something he wouldn’t like. He’d learned it well over the years, especially over the dinner table when it came to eating his vegetables or when grandpa passed away.
He wasn’t going to like it. Dean didn’t want to hear it.
“We have an address for now,” his mom said, pressing a small note into his hand. “But honey… it’ll probably change again soon. I’m sorry.”
Dean ran straight to his room and bunkered down at his desk. He wrote two letters that night. He wanted to make sure Jimmy knew how much Dean cared about him. If they never got to see each other again, that was awful enough. If he could never talk to Jimmy too, that would be worse.
He needed to make every word count. He needed to make sure Jimmy knew Dean would always think of him as his best friend. It was important.
The next morning he went with his mom to the post office, where he bought his favorite Star Trek stamps and rubbed his fist over them until they were flat against the envelope. He pushed them through the box, and then, they were out to be delivered.
He never got a letter back.
His mom tried to reassure him that Jimmy got his letter. The reply probably just got lost somewhere. It’d come eventually.
That’s what she said anyway. But it never did.
Dean still wrote letters, though. He wrote them, put stickers on them instead of stamps, and hid them in a shoebox under his bed. He knew Jimmy had probably moved again. He didn’t have an address anymore, or a phone number.
Jimmy was lost to him, and it wasn’t fair.
He turned twelve and his mom suggested trying to find a new best friend. He didn’t have many anymore. It was probably because he was still bitter about losing Jimmy. Dean didn’t really care. But he knew his parents were starting to worry. They didn’t want antisocial sons. They wanted happy and friendly sons.
It was for that reason only that Dean wrote one final letter on his twelfth birthday. It read simply, “I miss you. I wish you’d come back.”
He put it in his shoebox, but this time, placed it at the top of his closet.
The next day he went to school and made a conscious effort to make new friends.
He got lucky. He met Charlie, a girl who liked Star Trek and knew more about his favorite shows than he did. He liked her instantly.
He also met Benny and Victor, as well as Jo Harvelle, a girl who’d moved in on his street a few months back but he’d never felt the need to meet.
They were good friends. They were kind, and supportive, and didn’t make him feel bad for talking about Jimmy when he got lonely sometimes. They were understanding. He learned about some of their old friends. He heard good stories, some sad, some bad. But in the end, they all had stories about friends they’d lost before junior high could start. Good friends, the best friends.
And now, Dean had new friends. Good friends. He loved them dearly. He loved them all through middle school and high school. He loved them through graduation. He loved them when they all started looking at colleges.
They were the best friends anybody could ask for. But in the end, Dean still found himself missing Jimmy every once in a while. His face would spring to his mind, unbidden, but always welcome. He remembered the good times, the adventures, the swords fights and lawn racing.
He missed Jimmy, still, even now.
Dean was packing for college. His sheets and blankets were packed up. His toiletries were in a bag and ready to go. Everything he needed was already out in the car and waiting for him to join them.
But there was one last thing he was missing.
He pulled down the shoebox from the top of his old closet. He looked at the letters inside.
Dean smiled.
The box sat in the passenger seat of his Impala as he drove to Kansas University.