A/N: To any folks following the HP story I had started last year and still haven't finished, real world stuff happened where I just couldn't put myself into the subject matter. I hope to be able to tackle it again soon.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of our heroic siblings with sawed-offs.

No beta. I claim all lame errors as my own.

Thank you for any reviews!

His little clusterfucks. It was the obvious name for them after all, appropriate – as they did fuck with everything.

There was another name for them – suicide headaches, and that one he didn't make up. The doctor had been kind enough to inform him about that particular eponym. The doctor Dean had only seen after his dad had made him go, after three consecutive nights of come-and-go lightning bolt misery that had forced them to back off of a hunt and into the ER. John had tried to make it seem like that was the main reason they were seeking out a specialist – that Dean was screwing up the hunt, but Dean knew better. John had been worried – worried enough to be searching the room for hex bags, not fully convinced that this was a medical problem. Hell, Dean was worried – it was his head that was set to explode at least once a day.

Explode it did – day after day after day. Pain that made him writhe and scream and sob, beyond broken bones, beyond the kidney stones that he'd had once. There was no warning, other than being aware of the time of the clock. That was another name the doctor had mentioned, alarm clock headaches. And, true to form, nearly at the same time for a whole month a rusty icepick would hit him in the right eye, chipping away at his brain and his dignity, bringing him to his knees – literally. The good news about the train-schedule-like timing of the pain was that he and his dad were still able to hunt; they just scheduled interviews and ghost-killing around it. It meant a lot of 5am grave digging, but this was the early winter so it was mostly dark at that hour anyway.

And then one day it stopped. John had busted his ass to get them into a motel on time. They were both at the ready with Imitrex injector and handful of Dilaudid in hand and nothing happened. It was a relief to both of them, to be sure, but it made them both nervous. Not knowing when it was going to happen was almost worse, somehow. The wrath of Thor's hammer could crush Dean's skull at any moment. "On edge" was not a strong enough phrase.

But - the pain continued to stay away.

It took a week and a half before Dean dared utter the phrase, "Maybe they're gone."

It was John's hope,too. Still – always one to bring down the room, he felt the need to advise against such optimism. "You heard what the doc said, kid, they can go away and come back."

It took a month of clear sailing before John felt comfortable enough for them to take separate hunts, and still another two months of further painlessness before they hunted in places that were more than a day's ride from each other.

And so it went. Enough time passed that Dean got used to his own skin again, didn't worry nearly so much about having his medication in his pocket all-the-time, didn't freak the fuck out when the clock hit 9pm.

Spring, summer, fall again. Then dad went missing. Then Dean went and picked up Sam. Then he and his pain in the ass little brother dispatched a Bitch in Blanca and a wendigo. In the middle of all that Sam lost the love of his life, and whatever time Dean had leftover from worrying about his father was spent worrying about Sam. Worrying about Sam, caring for Sam, it was like muscle memory. A little rusty from disuse, but the switch was fully flipped now that his brother was in front of him, eyes shadowed, barely eating, hardly sleeping. Out in the miserable woods of Blackwater Ridge, Dean told Sam to let go of the whole powder-keg image that he'd suddenly been cultivating, and Sam had calmed down some. That was good, because as much as Dean idolized his father, the last thing he wanted was for his geek little brother to turn into him. He'd spent his youth watching his dad compound his grief-laden rage into TNT, an explosive with one target – the creature that killed Mary Winchester. The problem with explosives is that there is nearly always collateral damage and that includes the person setting off the charge. Dean couldn't change his dad, but he sure as hell was going to make sure his brother didn't go down the same mine-field of a path. Dean really shouldn't have worried so much, for now it turned out the only bomb ticking away was the one in his head.

The first time happened in the car of all fucking places. Sam was asleep against the window, drooling on himself while the night sky flickered past. Dean was the most relaxed he'd been in ages, driving his sweet, sweet ride with his kid brother finally back where he belonged. So, this is what contentment feels like, Dean thought, swiftly making a vow to never utter that sentence aloud.

The pain came just as swiftly, sudden and fierce – a barbed arrow to the eyeball so that he could barely see, wetness pouring down his cheek from that one eye, snot from that one nostril. Dean stifled a cry and the road swerved in front of him. He felt the thud-thud-thud as the car's wheels hit the gravel on the shoulder, an odd syncopation with the rhythm in his brain. Sam woke up startled and Dean felt his younger brother's ginormous hand grab him at the elbow.

"Dean, what the hell?!"

Dean pulled some masterful corrective driving shit out of his ass and managed to get them off of the road. A loud creak echoed off the trees in the distance, emphasizing that they were in the middle of nowhere. The chill night air felt at once fantastic and dreadful on his skin, the entire right side of his face feeling like a giant frayed nerve, so that any sensation, even the tears wending their way down his face, sparked blasts of pain.

"Gotta take a leak," said Dean, his voice trembling slightly as the sensation of someone being in a knife fight with his eyeball increased. The image came to his mind that his eye was going to shoot out of his head. Frankly, if it meant it would stop hurting – he would gladly start donning an eyepatch. He turned the key off in the ignition and used whatever strength he had in him to get himself into a standing position outside the car, but not before snagging his jacket from the backseat. He couldn't see the stark incredulity that was his brother's face and he really didn't want to. All he could focus on was getting away from Sam, his fingers pawing across the medication in his jacket pocket – their mere presence offering him comfort.

He concentrated on keeping himself upright on the uneven terrain as he got himself far enough away from the car. Stupid. He'd been stupid and he knew it, not telling Sam, not expecting this to happen. Like any lie or sin of omission, though, it had gone on too long to feel like he could just come clean. Or maybe that was an excuse, maybe – probably – he just didn't want to tell Sam. It had been hard enough letting his Dad look after him.

Let.

As if that had been the case. As if there was even a choice.

As if once the pain kicked in good and proper, Dean was anything other than a sniveling twisted soul praying for death. And he had said those prayers – aloud, the Tourette's of the insanely ill, begging God or any nearby person to end the pain by any means necessary. The first time those words had left his mouth, his dad had barely been able to look him in the eye the next day. Dean had feared it was because he had shown true weakness, which was why he was afraid to meet his dad's eyes. There was something about the sag in John's shoulders, though… it just kept nagging at Dean. Neither of them brought it up. They had spent an uncharacteristic day kicking around the same motel room, even had a pizza delivered. As the clock had ticked on closer to the accursed hour, John began to pace frantically. Dean tried to focus on watching Cannonball Run, but his eyes kept flicking over to the check the time, his mind going in a thousand places with the anticipation. Then John had decided to talk, which was completely not the normal suck-it-up code of ethics Dean was used to.

"Did you mean it?" John had asked quietly.

Dean had blinked, his mind struggling to focus on what his dad might mean, not even sure if he had been ignoring a conversation his dad might have been trying to have with him. "Mean?"

"What you said….about wanting to die?"

And John had looked at Dean in a way that froze his heart in its tracks; his father looked terrified.

And what could Dean say?

"Dad, you can't take that seriously…at the time my brain is pretty much on fire. The rantings of the unwell." Dean had tried to joke, but his dad had given him the look, the fatherly look that said who-do-you-think-taught-you-how-to-bullshit.

In the end, Dean had told his dad the truth. "Look, I probably meant it at the time, but we both know I'm going to come out the other side and be fine. A couple of hours and the right meds and it is like it never happened. "

Except that it did happen, over and over again. They both knew that.

"I just…," John had started, his words faltering. "You can't check out on me, kid. I couldn't…"

And suddenly Dean had understood. He'd understood why John wouldn't leave him alone in the room that day.

"Dad, I'm far too stubborn to go gently into the friggin' night." Dean had a crooked smile ready when John had looked up sharply, searching Dean's face for signs of more bullshit, and then nodding as if he found an answer he could live with. Reassuring his family was what Dean was good at, and it had still taken days before that haunted look had left John.

Now he was faced with his kid brother hearing the same god-awful pleas. And it was too late now to ease Sam into it, to prepare him. No matter what Dean wanted or needed, no matter how Dean wanted to provide for Sam's wants and needs, pain quickly became the priority as it lanced through him like splinters of bamboo being shoved into his optic nerve. He found a tree to lean up against as a shaking, fumbling hand sought out the comfort of medication. It took him nearly five minutes just to load the injector with the medication – and the friggin' thing was geared to be idiot-proof. His eyes were blurred with tears as he hurriedly shrugged a shoulder out of his flannel and pressed the gray plastic tube firmly against his arm. A click and a prick, he felt the loaded coil stab the medication into him. Within minutes he felt the familiar ache descend, the skin in his forehead feeling tighter. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, sometimes it worked just enough that he could pretend it was a concussion he was dealing with.

This time it worked just enough.

Dean stumbled back to the car, feeling lightheaded from the medication, still clutching the Dilaudid in his sweaty hands, not wanting to take it and go off to La La Land when Sam didn't even know what the hell was going on. Sam was standing outside the car, crossing his arms, brow furrowed.

"That was some leak, man." Sam laid out the sentence, waiting for the response that could start the conversation about what had happened.

"What can I say?" Dean shrugged, trying to quirk a smile, trying to ignore the pound-pound-pound that was still in his head. He tried to keep to the shadows as he made his way closer to the Impala. "When you gotta go, you gotta go."

"Try again, man. I can see you're in pain, I saw fucking tears." And there was the Sammy bitchface he was used to: pissy demeanor, excessively flared nostrils, pursed lips.

"I got something in my eye." Dean lied automatically, which was pointless he realized – when he needed to tell Sam what was going on. "Look, Sam…can we….can we just go to a motel? We'll talk about this, I promise, but I just…I need to lay down." To emphasize the point, Dean pulled out the keys and held them out for Sam.

Whatever plan Sam might have had to force Dean to explain himself immediately was drowned out by fierce concern. Sam reached out hesitantly and claimed the keys. "Sure, man. No problem."

Dean's body sagged in relief and he trudged – yes, Dean Winchester trudged – over to the passenger side of the Impala. When he opened the door the interior lights zapped his pain up a few notches and he had to fight himself to yell at Sam to just get in the car so it would be dark (blessedlyblessedlydark). His brother just kept looking at him out of the corner of his eye, clearly biting his tongue and trying to lay off. For the moment.

They pulled into a motel a half an hour later. Dean was pointing his face toward the window as much as possible to hide the stream of tears that kept pouring out of his right eye. He felt like Two-Face, and Dean hated Two-Face. As if Batman couldn't take on someone who was basically a case study for a psychology grad thesis, the DC Comics version of Sybil. Hardly a challenging villain.

Dean had leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. Before he knew it Sam was tapping on his window, frowning at the wetness he spied on Dean's face, or at least that's what Dean assumed Sam was making faces at. Jesus, he really hoped Sam didn't want to hug him.

"We're in 2. You need help?"

"Naw, I got it." There was no mistaking the firm edge in Dean's voice.

"Okay, I'll get the bags." Which is exactly what Sam busied himself doing, all the while flicking glances over toward Dean as he slowly urged his limbs out of the car. Dean stood, and there was vertigo, but manageable enough that he only made a slight zig-zag pattern on his way to the door. Sam had the foresight to unlock it, so Dean just went into the welcoming darkness, away from the neon signs on the exterior of the building, and launched himself face down on the first bed.

He heard Sam scrambling back and forth, the clink of steel weapons, the shaking of salt. Eventually all the sounds came to a halt and he heard the bed across the way creak as his little brother settled his weight on it.

"I know you're awake, Dean."

"Yeah, and?" came Dean's muffled reply, more directed at the blankets he was laying on than Sam.

He heard the bed creak again as Sam stood up, and he felt his brother's ginormous hands pulling at his head so he had to face him.

"Dude, stop groping me! What?" Dean squinted against the light Sam had left on while he was squaring their things away.

"Dean, please. You look like you're having a stroke, your eye is all messed up, droopy. Talk to me, because I'm about ready to call 911 on your ass."

Ah. Dean hadn't even thought of the drooping eye. No wonder Sam was wearing that panicked expression.

"It's headaches, dude. That's it. No stroke, so wipe that Miss Muffet look off your face."

"A headache." Sam said doubtfully. "This isn't just a run-of-the-mill headache. You're getting migraines?" Their dad had gotten two kinds of headaches – migraines and hangovers. The hangovers had been much easier to deal with.

"Er, no. Different kind." Even talking about it was making it worse. "Look, it's called a Cluster Headache, go do your geek thing and google the shit out of it. But for the love of god, Sammy, turn off the light and let me try and sleep. Please."

"Okay, I will." Dean heard Sam say quietly, and he heard the immediate shuffle as his brother hurried to flick the light off.

This shuffling returned to the bedside and the quiet voice continued. "You need a bucket or anything, these things make you throw up?"

"Not usually." As soon as the words left Dean's mouth, Sam made sure the garbage can was right next to Dean's bed. For someone who had never been in the boy scouts, the kid sure loved being prepared.

"You have any meds you take?"

"Yeah, in my pocket."

"The pocket of the jacket you're still wearing."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"Well, can we take it off you, man?"

"No, Sam…we can't, I can." Dean would have rolled his eyes if he didn't think it would probably end his life. Still, he managed to get himself in a sitting position, his head feeling like a lead weight and drooping forward. Sitting across from him, Sam had paled several shades after getting a full look at his brother's face, the drooping eyelid with tears dripping off like a permanently leaky faucet and clear mucus pouring out of his right nostril, the strange difference between that and the left side, which aside from mirroring the pain looked normal.

"Jesus, Dean….Two-Face."

"That's what I said." Dean wiped his already wet sleeve across his face. "Couldn't have been the Joker or some shit, right?"

"It isn't a joke, Dean."

Dean ignored Sam's seriousness, which he knew was going to get worse once the kid did his research. Dean also knew that the only reason Sam wasn't hitting him with a deluge of questions at the moment was because he was only a few keystrokes away to reading whatever the Journal of the American Medical Association had to say. He reached into his pockets and pulled out the gray case and injector.

"I took this already. I can take it again in an hour and a half or so." The intensity of the pain was already inching up, shooting through his eye, crawling in his jaw as if someone were pounding a chisel at each tooth. Dean scrunched up his face for a minute, his breathing becoming more rapid. He felt Sam's hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, stay with me. One more question. You have any pain meds?"

Unthinking, Dean just held out his hand that still had the pills stuck in them, the yellow-dye on the outside of the pill staining his hand.

"What are they?"

Dean looked at Sam blankly for a minute before producing the actual pharmacy bottle from his pocket.

"Jesus, Dean! Dilaudid? Strong stuff!" Sam caught Dean's wince as he raised his voice and returned it with a wince of his own. "Sorry, man."

There was a beat of quiet. "Why don't you take the pain meds now?"

"Save 'em til it gets bad." Dean muttered, flopping back down on his stomach. It was the Winchester way regarding any medication – you save it until you absolutely need it.

The question was hanging in the air, unasked. How much worse was it going to get for Dean to need to take the stupidly strong pain meds? They were meds that they were never prescribed for knife wounds, broken bones, concussions and all the other assaults on the body that the hunt caused. Sam had only ever seen it given through IVs.

"I'll be right here, Dean." Dean heard Sam settle on the bed, the sound of the laptop turning on.

"I know."