“I’m home,” Spencer murmurs as he closes the door behind him. His brow is tightly knit in discomfort, one hand pressing against his temple with a force that suggests desperation rather than relief. With a heavy sigh, he lets his bag slip from his shoulder, letting it fall carelessly to the floor.

From your spot in the kitchen, where the scent of dinner is just beginning to fill the air, you turn toward him at the sound of his voice. The frown that crosses your face is immediate and instinctive. You set down the knife you were using to chop onions and quickly rinse your hands.

“Another migraine?” you ask gently, though the answer is almost always the same.

“Like clockwork,” he exhales, his tone flat with exhaustion. He leans into the counter for support, eyes shut tightly, hands pressing against both sides of his head as if he could will the pain away. “Can you grab my pills?”

This routine has become all too familiar over the past few months. Mornings start with a dull ache. Days are powered through under a constant fog. And nights, more often than not, end with him collapsing into your arms, his pain swelling into full blown migraines.

Of course, your concern has been tireless. You’ve taken him to doctor after doctor, demanded answers where there were none, and stood your ground when specialists offered nothing but dismissive reassurances. You’ve kept track of his medication, insisted on second opinions, and stayed up late researching treatment options he’s too weary to explore himself.

And Spencer knows, deeply, wordlessly, just how much you care. He sees it in the way you cradle his head at night, fingers working gently to ease the pressure. In the ice packs you rotate without complaint. In the way his pills are always waiting when he needs them.

Tonight, though, is different. Worse. He can feel it in the way the pain crawls behind his eyes, sharp and unrelenting.

He stumbles toward the couch and collapses onto it, every movement dragging pain across his nerves. Tears prick the corners of his eyes. Frustration, fatigue, and sheer physical agony blurring his vision. He barely registers your presence until you’re kneeling beside him, a bottle of water in one hand and his medication in the other.

“God,” he breathes, the word escaping like a plea. “This one’s bad. Really bad…”