"Sammy, are you suicidal?"

He asked it point-blank, his voice steady and measured.

I had never thought I would hear those words come out of Dean's mouth. And, hell, if they did, he wouldn't say it like that. He would be drunk, or joking, or angry… not calm and serious, like he was now.

And, to be honest, I had no idea how to answer. "Suicidal" is such a weighted term. It's a dichotomous variable; either you are or you aren't. And if you are, you obviously have a gun held behind your back and are ready to pull the trigger. It's something that will get you hospitalized because everyone is afraid. If you aren't, you're totally fine and you never need to bring it up again and you'll just pretend we didn't talk about it. But in all reality, suicidality is something that you live with, something that ebbs and flows. It's something I live with. It's something that laps like waves at my psyche, day after day, night after agonizing night.

If depression and suicidality are waves, anxiety is thorns. Sharp and annoying, and there always seems to be at least one digging into me. And, granted, when there's just one it's no big deal. But with anxiety, every time I move to pull out a thorn, another one pops up in its place. Sometimes, two more appear; sometimes, ten. It's never ending, and sometimes it gets so bad that I feel that sharpness in every inch of my body. It becomes overwhelming, but I hide yet again.

Some days, it's worse than others. Some days, I get up and spend the day with Dean and wanting to die is no more than a tiny nagging thought in the back of my head. But other days, I feel almost completely unable to get myself out of bed and put on a fake smile and pretend everything is okay. I want to lie in the dark, letting the waves wash over me, letting them drag me out to sea and do what they will with me. I wanted to give in – so badly, sometimes, that I lay there shaking and crying at night, trying to convince myself that I shouldn't want to die so much, that my life is just fine. As though that will fix it. I fight and fight, trying to hold back the tears so that Dean never suspects anything. In the morning, I wake up exhausted and torn apart, trying to pull myself together and put back on the mask that Dean is so used to.

As much as it made me want to scream, I also want someone to know. I want someone to understand. And I want someone to not panic when I tell them, someone who would recognize that these feelings as much a part of me as my shaggy hair or my green eyes. It begs to be noticed, and I want to beg for it to be eradicated. But I can't tell anyone, because no one will ever understand the way that I need them to.

Dean will never understand, and I thought I had fooled him. I thought I had managed to hide it all away. But at some point, I had fucked up. I had missed something, and I had let him see too much, and now he was on to me. If I lied, he would know. And if I told the truth, I would be forcing him to shoulder a burden no brother should have to bear.

But today, as I looked my brother in the eyes, I saw years of pain and hurt and love. I saw his fear for me. Most of all, I saw his fierce desire to protect me. I had seen it for years; it seemed like it was always lurking in the depths of his eyes. But today, it was different. Today, there was no monster to save me from. Today, he wanted to protect me from myself.

Today, I looked my big brother in the eyes and said:

"Yes."