A/N: This didn't turn out anything near what I had wanted. I had this great original concept but as soon as I started writing it it turned into this horrid messy blob. It's definitely not the best I've done but I wanted to write something from Scott's perspective which turned out being a lot harder than I had thought.
The beginning is kinda crappy it gets better towards the middle and then crappy again at the end…. There you've got it, fic boiled down.
Characters: Scott, Stiles, Lydia. Mentioned: Mrs. McCall, the Sheriff, Agent McCall, Isaac, Allison.
Parings: Can be seen as very slight Scott/Stiles/Lydia… if you turn off the lights, borrow Supermans x-ray vision and really squint.

OXXXO

Quote of the fic:
"It'll never get better… but it will get easier."
- Feicht

OXXXO

Scott wakes with a start and a breath clogged in his throat and for the horrid beat of a second he's unsure about his surroundings, like you can be when you're startled awake in an unfamiliar place or position, but he quickly recognisees his room as the same wallpaper, drawings and furniture that where there yesterday materialises like blurred silhouettes floating into place before his eyes. The edges of the bed, his bathroom door, the desk, his lacrosse stick and two neat piles of clothes on the floor slowly all swim into focus.

It's all similar; nothing has changed except everything has changed.

Even though night still has an iron grip on Beacon Hills it's not all that dark but that notion could easily be his wolf eyes adjusting faster than any normal eye would be capable of or be based on the fact that the curtains aren't drawn over the window he usually leaves open due to having grown up to become a furnace on two legs. Said window which is now tightly shut and the heat cranked up to active volcano.

He breathes to collect the wits his brain has decided to leave in the haze and blinks expressively as if he's trying to shake the remaining sleep off. Body drawing tight, tired muscles contracting he wants to be sure of the narrow world around him; vigilance means everything these days and it thumps deeply inside him as an innate craving for control.

With that first constricting move Scott notices the chair and remembers where he fell asleep… and why. It catches up to him with the weight of the moon shining in through the naked window and the relief that sleep had brought is mercilessly crushed by reality in the same way the moon's shine is obscured by the tiny bleak shadow of a vague cloud. The moon has no light of its own, it reflects the shine of the sun and that cloud is a shroud… like a veil that settles between him and the moon, keeping them apart.

Scott is not sure what wakes him, perhaps it's the heat no wolf should have to endure or maybe it was yet another nightmare playing on the edge of his brain but if so was the case it's gone now, whisked away the moment his eyes opened. His feels his heart drum an extra beat, the leap is a mere symptom of his already scraped raw senses but he listens intensely to the silent house nonetheless, half expecting to catch the ruckus of an intruder.

But the sounds and scents around are all the same and to be expected. The remote noise of quiet Christmas carols from a neighbours' house down the road, a car taking a too hefty turn around a corner and the Mellbourns' cat killing a meal. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. His mom is sound asleep in her bedroom, the Sheriff in the room they had begun to call Isaac's. Scott's heart clenches briefly at the thought of Isaac who called yesterday and told them to just throw away his leftover stuff, he didn't need it anymore.

These days it was almost as if his heart had been stuffed in an elastic bag of sorts and that bag clenched tighter every second spent awake.

Lydia and Stiles had spent yesterday afternoon packing Isaac's things in boxes sorted and marked by content. Clothes, books, school material and various trinkets. Then they had carried them downstairs and left them on the living room floor unsure of what to do next.

It had rattled Scott to see it; an abandoned life packed away in four small cardboard boxes to be thrown out and discarded, a life reduced to garbage. Yet he knew it was a mere shadow of what was happening at Argent's apartment.

The thought drills down deep inside and tightens the string of barbwire wrapped firmly around his heart and the breath he draws as a result is shrivelled like a dead, dry leaf crushed and trampled. Scott digs his fingers into the armrests, rubs against the rough and worn material and it's almost therapeutic, soothing in a sense. Allows him to grip something. He's careful, controlled, not to let the claws slip out and rip the thing to shreds.

The first night back had been numb, like moving in the twilight zone, they had been too raw and exhausted to even feel broken. When they had returned home, after grinding the Nogitsune to dust, and stumbled up the stairs like a pack of limp zombies, Lydia and Stiles aided by the Sheriff and Agent McCall, Scott trailing behind them guarding like a watchful patron his flock, Lydia and Stiles had collapsed on the bed and coiled up under the covers Mrs. McCall cocooned around them.

The Alpha had wanted to crawl up the bed, insert himself between them and pull them to him. Wanted to feel them curled up at his sides, resting their heads on his chest. Scott hadn't done that, not the first night when the Wolf wanted it so badly but he would do it sooner or later, once the hyper vigilance settled down and he felt like he could get some must needed rest without startling awake and scaring Lydia and Stiles.

The first night while Lydia and Stiles slept Scott had been too afraid to, not because he feared the haunting nightmares of watching Allison die over and over again on the dark canvas of his eyelids but because he was terrified of the mere thought of waking up. Waking up to a world without Allison. Scott had this idea that the first time you wake up to a changed world has to be the worst because there's still a part of you that clings to the idea that it was just a dream, so waking up that first time must be like being crushed all over again.

He had been right.

Scott shifts his weight around, trying to get comfortable in the lumpy old chair he's had for years and once again he catches sight of the shrouded moon. It looks trapped. Suddenly strikes him as a deserter of war, it doesn't even try to break free, as if it's scared and hiding behind the curtain of fuzzy clouds. The coward.

To break the tired whirlwind of disarrayed thoughts and emotions swilling around in his head and squeezing his heart to the point where it all threatens to implode and swallow him whole in a black hole he sneaks a glance over at the bed and wonders silently why he doesn't miss sleeping in it.

The answer is evident and self-explanatory as half of his bed is still occupied by Stiles while the other half has been taken by Lydia; his Pack, what's left of it anyway. They're right there, wrapped up tightly in thick comforters like the nights before. The two are bruised, scraped and traumatized but they're safe and fast asleep buried deep under the fluffy winter covers on Scott's bed.

It's almost as if they are synchronized sleepers: if Lydia is on her back Stiles is on his back, if Stiles is on his side Lydia is on her side, if one sleeps in fetal position the other sleeps in fetal position. Scott thinks it's cute albeit a little odd…. Or maybe it's a Pack thing; a subconscious recognition of sameness.

They look comfortable.

It's like his heart expands at the sight of them, that elastic bag lets up a bit. They're close enough for him to reach out and touch. He has to keep them that close right now otherwise he'll lose it; keeping his pack close is the only thing holding him together.

The first night Lydia had slept a consecutive 18 hours, her mother came by with a backpack of clothes and other necessities. Stiles pretty much doubled Lydia's time, not like that surprised anyone. Scott's sleep the first night had been nothing but a sporadic imitation of slumber; broken, jagged and frequently interrupted. The slightest misplaced sound would stir the Alpha and flair the instinct to protect his shaken and wounded Pack.

Wounds are tricky, not all of them can be seen and it's the ones you can't see that tend to be the deepest and hardest to heal. Bruises, cuts and cracked ribs will heal in due time but those that penetrate far deeper than the skin; those that disturb hearts will take far longer.

His body unclenches and he slouches back, melts into the worn cushions, staring at the dancing flicks of the neighbour's Christmas lights as they illuminate his room. Sometimes those lights scare him, especially the yellow ones. At first glance they appeared like the fireflies.

The first night back, after everything, the three of them had been alarmed at the sight of those flickering yellow lights reflecting like an obscene taunt on the walls… they had been so terrified that the Sheriff had ran over to the neighbour flashing his badge and demanding the lights be turned off, while his Mrs. McCall had burst into the room and gathered the three of them up in her arms the best she could and tried to sooth them.

The lights didn't bother them anymore, it was only in the haze of that first night when shock, trauma and exhaustion had reduced them to trembling heaps, partially unable to tell it was all truly over and they were now safe that they had been incapable of telling the difference between the flies and decorations for the upcoming holiday.

Scott quickly returns his gaze back to Lydia and Stiles. They're both spread out atop the bed, covers pulled up as far as they can go without becoming consumed by the fluff. Stiles' pale skin looks crisp and fragile against the blue fabric and he sleeps now stiller than ever before. Stiles always used to fidget and flail in his sleep but since the incident he's been still, not a muscle in him twitches, the only moves are the rhythmic motions of breathing.

Perhaps his quiet motionlessness was due to exhaustion; his system simply didn't have the energy to move. Sometimes his brow creases and he begins to whine and trash as the trauma courses like panic in the veins of his nightmares but tonight the expression ghosting over his face is one of ease.

Lydia sleeps on her side, halfway onto her stomach, just like Stiles. Her nose smashed into Scott's pillow, he silently suspects she's trying to smoother herself. Tresses of her hair spread around her like a smashed and splashed halo, frankly it's more similar to a splattered strawberry blonde water balloon but that doesn't sound as poetic. One lock is so close to Stiles' lips that if his tongue darted out to wet them he would lick it into his mouth. Scott wonders briefly if it tickles and watches with calm observation as Stiles shifts and rolls over landing fully on his stomach before letting out a breath and seemingly melting deeper into the mattress as the air siphons from his lungs.

A strained smile twitches and draws on the corners of his lips as Lydia repeats the motion within seconds. Them both flipped over face down allows Scott to let his eyes run the expanse of their backs, his gaze lingering a little extra long on their necks now presented so beautifully in the dull shine of Christmas lights and the dimly moon; his Alpha stirs, rumbling protectively and proudly in his chest at the sight.

Sometimes Scott has difficulty telling where he ends and the Wolf starts and somewhere in the middle where the line gets blurry resides the Alpha.

Every once in a while the Alpha compels him to slide up the bed in-between them without stirring their sleep, gently push Lydia's hair out of the way and pull Stiles' shirt down just a little, enough to indulge in their scents.

He wants to smell them directly. Sometimes it wasn't enough that his room and bedclothes smelled like them he needed more. He needed to nuzzle in closely, bury his nose in their necks, lavish in their presence, assuring himself they were there, their scents like home, family, Pack…

But he doesn't do it because he doesn't want to wake them and the desire to possessively lick their pulse points was one that had to be resisted and retained with the heaviest chain Scott had in his arsenal; because the Alpha roars and riots through him with that desire.

Allison had been his anchor. There it is again that bloodied diamond drill that penetrates his heart and shatters it to hundreds of serrated pieces and scatters them across the pit of his gut, their jagged edges cutting into every organ in the way. This is why he needs Stiles and Lydia, watching them heal triggers his own healing.

He may no longer have the anchor but he still has the chain.

So Scott doesn't touch Lydia or Stiles, no matter how much the Wolf fusses and grumbles, wants to scent and feel, paw and mark; instead he watches them for hours, his eyes burning Alpha red.

An Alpha reassuring itself his Pack his home, safe and healing.

THE END