Author's note: After a bit of nudging from one of my readers, I decided to bring this work over from AO3. This is my first time using this site, so please bear with me if I mess something up. What to expect from this story: loads of angst, hurt/comfort, some fluff, themes of abuse, outsider POV and pseudo-incest later on.

Disclaimer: Neither Supernatural, nor Sam and Dean are mine, but this work is.

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way"

- Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII.

After thirty years of working as a nursery nurse in various care homes and orphanages, Adelaide is no stranger to heart-wrenching stories that would haunt the faint-hearted for life. She is strong, and she knows where to find a boost when it feels like she has already given it all. She loves these kids and she does her best to make the start of their long, long journey as good as possible. There are several happy moments and miracles that prove her work is worthwhile, and after all these years, she can easily sort her memories and put them into boxes she opens only when the time is right. But there's one particular story, something she still hasn't made peace with, that always has her heart aching with compassion, wonder and guilt at the same time.

Although it happened almost fifteen years ago, she has every detail sketched into her mind. It was a rainy morning, clammy autumn weather making its first appearance. Those days were always harder, for kids and adults alike. Nobody wanted to play. Nobody wanted to sing. Some of them were afraid of the thunder - but there was no momma to hold them, only one Aunt Addie for ten ducklings. She remembers how they were all clinging to her at one point, except for one: four-year-old Sammy Wesson. He was a chubby-cheeked little angel, she can see his face in her mind's eye clear as day. Floppy brown hair, hazel eyes, curious gaze. It was his second week there, but despite their best attempts, he seemed too scared to do more than asking for his mommy. He just sat in a corner and clutched at the plush toy the firefighters managed to salvage from his family's burning home. A couple of the kids had tried engaging him in a game of tag, but it was all wide-eyed staring and thumb-sucking fear they got for an answer. Adelaide asked around about him. House fire, her colleagues said. No living relatives, they said. She sighed and tutted and wiped a stray tear from her eye, then went on about her day as usual. Wallowing never helps.

And then… then they brought him in. Dean Winchester, eight, blonde boy with green eyes and a scattering of scars that had no business marking up the body of such a small thing. They had found him sobbing next to a burning building, soaked to the bones. He was wrapped in a blanket, clothes a size too large, and he smelled a bit like campfire. The guy who brought him lead him to one of the nurses' chairs, then pulled Adelaide aside. His family - there, the social worker stopped and lowered his voice - his family had been murdered. Father shot his wife and their infant son, then set the house on fire, committing suicide. Dean was, apparently, supposed to be in there too. But he stayed at school longer than usual and by the time he - but that wasn't too important at the moment. The scars, though, those ugly welts on his back... they knew those signs. Another heartbreaking story. The social worker pursed his lips and said, they only needed a day or two before someone came and took the boy to a bigger place, more suitable for his age and background. Adelaide sighed and nodded. They worked with the smallest of children, up to age 6. Dean would have to move.

With another sigh, she turned back towards the children and she remembers noticing two incredible things at once. First, Dean wasn't staring blankly ahead anymore. Second, Sam Wesson was sitting in his lap and they were hugging so hard that Sam's chubby cheek was squished against Dean's chest.

"What the hell" The social worker gaped, and Adelaide had been too stunned to even think about reprimanding him for language. Do they know each other, she recalls thinking, then it was followed by a how do I keep them together that made her frown. She couldn't pull that on herself.

She was curious, though, so she crept close enough to catch Dean's teary green eyes. "Hey Dean, I'm Adelaide. You can call me Addie or Aunt Addie if you'd like."

The only indication that he got the message was his barely perceptible move to shield Sam from her with his arms and the blanket. She smiled and crouched down. Dean tracked her face.

"Do you know each other?" She asked gently. Dean glanced down at Sam's head, squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then nodded. Adelaide swallowed and shot a look at the social worker. He seemed doubtful. "Are you two friends, Dean?"

To her surprise, Sam straightened up at the question and gave her a big, toothy grin, something she hadn't seen up until then. "Dean's my big brother, Aunt Addie!" He exclaimed and hugged Dean again, who let out a smile himself.

The social worker cleared his throat and gave her a shake of the head. Adam, he mouthed. That was the name of Dean's real brother and he had been only six months old when his own father took his life. The demons of this world, she thought.

But they couldn't exactly tell Dean that right then. He was still in somewhat of a shock and despite getting a shower, his hair kept that faint smoky smell throughout the day. He didn't speak to any of the adults, not even to the police, according to his social worker, but as the hours went by, Adelaide saw him reading a story to Sam, who hadn't let go of Dean's shirt for longer than a second since Dean came back from getting cleaned up. She has a vague memory of her colleagues talking about post-traumatic delusions and coping methods, but she can't say she paid much attention to what they considered healthy and what not. She had no idea how or why, but these boys found each other within minutes of being in the same room and she knew a bond when she saw one.

That night, she barely had a blink of sleep. Her mind kept spinning around the awful fact that Dean would be taken away soon and Sam was too little to understand a sound reasoning, he would withdraw back into himself again. When she went back the next morning, the nurse on the night shift told her, contrite and tired, that she couldn't separate the boys without crocodile tears and tantrums and she didn't know what to do, so she let them sleep together, in the same bed. One night couldn't hurt, right? Right. Adelaide thought differently.

She went to supervise the kids' breakfast routine and to eat her own meal with her friends. The children were sitting neatly at their tiny tables, except for Sam, who was sitting at the adult table, in Dean's lap again. They were sharing a jam sandwich and had matching sticky smiles on their faces. Adelaide shared a look with a fellow nurse, who shrugged, as if saying what else could we do? And then, just as Adelaide pulled out her chair to sit down, Dean laughed. Happy and genuine and little-boy-like, and the pieces clicked into place in Adelaide's head in sudden, terrifying clarity. She knew what to do. Even if it put her career at risk and changed fundamental things about these boys' lives, she knew it.

Now, fifteen years after that decision, she still doesn't know if she did the right thing or made the biggest mistake of her life. It keeps her awake at night, sometimes, how it could have gone better. But then she reminds herself: Sam and Dean had been brothers in everything but blood and name. She just made sure one of those wasn't an obstacle anymore.