Ever since he was five years old, Dean Winchester would tell anyone who would listen that he was planning on marrying Castiel Novak.

The two had been basically inseparable ever since they'd met on the playground in kindergarten. Cas had been sitting on top of the monkey bars, and Dean had been unsuccessfully trying to do the same. Cas had reached out his hand to help Dean up, and thus their friendship was forged.

The whole marriage thing had started when Dean had asked his mother why two people get married. She'd responded, "Because they love each other, silly."

Dean then thought about what love meant to him. He knew he loved his family - mom, dad, and Sammy. He thought that his best friend naturally fit into that category, so it was a logical conclusion that since they weren't already family that they would have to get married one day.

When he told his dad, he just laughed. When he told his mom, she laughed too, but added, "As long as he makes you happy, honey." Sam, who was only three at the time, had replied, "Good. 'Cause I like Cas."

That was all the approval Dean needed. He'd told Cas too, who'd merely responded with an agreeable, "Okay."

As Dean grew up, his plans to marry Cas never wavered, and everyone around him just came to accept it as an inevitability. Most people he told just thought he was joking around, but those who were really his friends knew he meant it without a hint of sarcasm. In the fourth grade, he'd informed his friend Victor of his intentions, and was then told that boys were supposed to marry girls. Dean socked him in the arm, then told Victor he could marry whoever the hell he wanted. Victor respected Dean after that.

Once, in the seventh grade, Lisa Braden asked Dean if he wanted to go to the movies with her. He did, but at the end of the date, he told her she was nice and all but that he was going to marry Castiel Novak.

By the time high school rolled around, Dean hadn't brought up the marriage thing in a while and Castiel hadn't asked him why. Whenever he'd mention it to Cas before, he'd just shrug his shoulders and informatively remind Dean that they were too young to get married. He would never say anything more.

Dean's friends he'd had since he was little (namely Jo, Ash, Chuck, Victor and Charlie) who were all aware of his marriage intentions, would tease Dean about when he and Cas were going to start dating. The two spent nearly all of their free time together anyway, they argued. Dean wouldn't admit it to the group, but once he'd told Charlie in a private moment that he was afraid Cas didn't like him in that way, and even though he'd gone along with Dean's plans since they were little, maybe he'd just been pretending. Dean was worried that he could lose Cas's friendship, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

There were hopeful moments, though - like the time that girl Meg had asked Cas out when they were sophomores and Cas turned her down. That, at least, was heartening for Dean.

The summer after Dean and Cas's junior year in high school, their families split the cost of renting an old ramshackle house on the southern coast of Maine. Because of the boys' friendship, their families had become very close over the years, and the Winchesters and Novaks had thought it only logical that they should spend the summer together.

On one humid day in mid July, a thunderstorm rolled in and it rained all day. Dean, Sam, Cas, and Cas's sister Anna spent the day inside, playing board games and doing nothing much at all. Later that night, Dean lay awake in bed, not at all tired from an eventless day.

He tiptoed quietly from the room he shared with Sam, and went down the hall to the room where Cas slept and poked his head inside.

"Are you awake?" he whispered into the darkness.

"Dean?"

"Yeah."

"I take it you can't sleep? Neither can I."

"Do you wanna go to the beach?"

"Dean, it's past midnight."

"So?"

"Alright, give me minute. I'll meet you downstairs."

A few short minutes later they were heading out the door and walking the quick quarter mile to the beach. The rain had stopped and the clouds were clearing, enough to see the stars. They walked quietly, the silence hanging comfortably in the warm night between them.

When they got to the beach, they simply walked along the shoreline, talking every once and awhile but not really saying much. The night was beautiful, and the empty beach made them feel if no in the world existed but them. After awhile, Dean decided he was going to run into the water, against Cas's cries of "But Dean, it's freezing!"

He only made it up to his knees before running back out of the cold Atlantic water, running up the beach to where Cas had sat down on a blanket he'd brought with them. Dean sat down quietly, burying his toes in the sand still damp from the day of rain.

After a while Cas laid back, resting his the back of his head on his hands, staring up at the sky.

"Those are some nice stars, Cas."

"Yes, they are."

Dean felt like that if he could live in this moment forever, here on the beach with Cas, he would. It was nearly perfect.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Why would you always say that we were going to get married some day?"

Dean was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, and how it seemed to be so in tune with what he was thinking of right at that moment.

"I, well . . ." Dean knew he had to tell Cas how he felt, because he couldn't talk his way out of this one. ". . . I always meant it when I said that, Cas. I said it because I wanted it to be true."

"Why did you stop?" Cas had rolled over on the blanket and was staring at Dean with wide eyes that Dean could still make out in the near-darkness.

"Stop what?"

"Saying it."

"I don't know. We got older, I guess, and I thought maybe you thought I was joking, and I thought . . . well, I thought a lot of things."

"In the tenth grade when Meg asked me out I said no."

"Yeah, I remember."

"I told her that I couldn't go out with her because I was in love with you." Pause. "She thought I was kidding."

Dean took a deep breath. "Uh . . .were you?"

"No." Dean felt his cheeks burning, and he didn't know what to say, let alone what to do. He reached out, taking Cas's hand and intertwining their fingers.

"I was never kidding either. I love you Cas, I really mean it" Dean said finally, and it felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Cas took his hand out of Dean's and instead wrapped his arms around Dean's neck, pulling their faces close.

"I guess this means we'll actually be getting married someday, then."

Dean didn't answer, but instead leaned forward and kissed Cas on the lips.

"You could say that."