A few days passed in a blur of sustenance, bathing, and passion, not necessarily in that order. The new massive beds arrived quickly. Pax, Mateo, and Elias were cuddled up in one of them, with plenty of space to roll around. When Pax heard the Omega's stomach growling, he frowned.

"Hungry, Eli-love?" the silver-haired werewolf prompted.

The sleepy Omega yawned and nodded. "I'm craving bacon really bad about now..." He admitted.

"Oh?" Pax wondered aloud. "Then, I'll take a trip to the store to pick up some groceries. I know we're also out of eggs and milk."

The mocha-skinned werewolf stretched and got out of bed. "Come to think of it, there are also a few errands I wanted to look into later today," Pax commented as he got dressed. "Gotta also bring down the quilts I have stored in the attic for the beds..."

"Do you want a hand with the groceries?" Mateo asked sleepily, curling around their Omega's petite body.

Neither Mateo nor Eli was an early riser. It was almost painful to see how easily Pax hopped out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as Eli's grandma would say.

"Yeah, we can help," Elias added in a sleepy mumble, snuggling into the warmth of Mateo's broad body.

Pax let out a low chuckle as he reached over to press a kiss to both their foreheads. "You two can rest a while more. What's the use of waking up without food to eat?" He questioned. "I'll be back soon."

"Mmm," Elias murmured, pulling the blanket over his head.

"Yell when you get home," Mateo said, smiling down at the lump that was Eli under the covers. "I'll help bring everything in."

Mat settled back into the pillows, closing his eyes.

The golden-eyed werewolf smiled at the sight of his mates bundled up peacefully in bed and then walked over to the kitchen to make a quick list of what he needed to buy. He left the house with his list and drove off to the nearest marketplace.

::

Mateo snored softly next to Elias. The Omega was warm and comfortable, but his stomach kept growling angrily, and he couldn't get back to sleep. The green-eyed wolf snuck out of bed like a ninja to keep from waking Mat. He then carefully shut the door after pulling on a pair of jeans that had been strewn on the floor. Elias smiled, thinking they had probably landed there after being passionately tugged from his body.

They were out of milk and just about everything else. So, Elias wandered around the house, munching on a bowl of dry cereal. He was walking back to the kitchen to steal another bowl of Cheerios when he noticed the little door set into the hall's ceiling.

"Must be the attic," Eli said, shoving the last bite of cereal in his mouth.

He put the bowl and spoon in the sink to wash later, then wandered back to the hall. He stared at the hatch to the attic, wondering how Pax was going to get up there. Eli wanted to help. Pax was already getting groceries. He didn't need to haul stuff from the attic, too. He didn’t want to wake up the sleeping Mateo, whom they wore out the night before. It had been filthy and fun.

But, Elias certainly wasn't going to wake him to ask silly questions about attic access. Besides, Mat was fantastic, but it was difficult for him to keep from coddling Elias; it was frustrating. Eli had to keep himself from snapping at Mateo when the bigger man got things down from shelves for him when Elias was perfectly capable of doing it himself.

Eli needed to show that he could do things for himself. He wanted to make Mateo understand that while he was an Omega, it didn't mean he was fragile.

The green-eyed wolf grinned as he remembered a stepladder in the garage.

Elias discovered it's difficult to be quiet when carrying and setting up a tall stepladder. Eli had liked the look of the house's vaulted ceilings before, but now the Omega wished they were a little lower. That's because Eli didn't like heights when he was near the top of the ladder. At all.

He'd never been allowed to climb trees like the other pups. Even monkey bars were forbidden. He'd certainly never been allowed on a ladder before. Were ladders supposed to be so wobbly?

Eli took a fortifying breath and reached for the little string hanging from the access door. It took several heart-stopping tugs before it popped open, the ladder swaying precariously beneath Elias. The young man looked up into the shadowed darkness above him, wondering what he should do. It was still too far above him to pull himself up. He'd have to stand on the ladder's top step to reach it. Damn, he hated being short.

It took a few more deep breaths before Elias talked himself into climbing to the top. The ladder seemed to shiver beneath him as he reached for the edge of the opening. The Omega grinned as he caught it with his fingers and pulled himself up.

"Piece of cake," Elias told himself as he flicked on the bulb hanging over his head. "Wow, Pax. Didn't know you were a packrat."

Eli walked around the attic, peeking under drop cloths and looking at carefully labeled boxes. He found an end table he thought would look nice next to the bed and eventually found the box of quilts Pax must have been talking about. The redhead set his finds next to the hole in the floor, fists on his hips. The ladder was farther away than it had seemed before. Elias thought he could reach it with his toes, stand at the top, and tug the box and end table over the edge. He'd have to catch the container, hold it in one hand and then keep a hold on the leg of the table so it didn't crash into the floor. It seemed doable, though. And the Omega really didn't want to make a second trip up that shaky ladder. 

The wolf's heart was thumping as his foot waved in the air, and he clutched the edge of the opening. His toes finally found the top step, and he carefully eased himself back. Elias frowned as he heard a car pull up and its door open and close, then Mateo's snoring cut off from the bedroom.

Shit. He had to hurry.

The box of quilts nearly knocked Elias over, but he grinned triumphantly as he kept his balance. He heard the bedroom door click open.

"Eli?" Mateo called sleepily. "Is Pax home?"

Elias blew his hair out of his eyes and reached for the leg of the little end table as he heard the front door open.

"Grocery delivery!" Pax called cheerfully.

Elias yanked, and the table tumbled out of the hole, making him yelp as the ladder danced under him. He clutched the box of quilts to his shoulder as he clung to the table leg, refusing to drop it. Eli could do this. He had the stuff. He just couldn't figure out how to get down.

"Eli, was that you? You okay?" Mateo called, coming closer.

Elias closed his eyes, forcing his foot down to the next step. He hadn't known to snap the cross-bars firmly when he'd set up the ladder. They hadn't locked, and the ladder was starting to fold under him.

"Eli! Holy fuck!" Mateo shouted as he came into the hall to see his tiny mate about to take a tumble with a massive box on his shoulder and a piece of furniture in his free hand.

Mateo dove forward to steady the ladder, brown eyes wide and terrified as he looked up at Elias.

"Just drop them, and I'll catch you!"

"No," Elias protested, taking another trembling step down. "The table will break."

"Then, at least drop the box!"

Eli had to admit that was probably a good idea. The fall wouldn't hurt the quilts. It dropped to the floor with a thud just as Pax barreled around the corner with grocery sacks still in his hands.

Mateo's shouting had alerted Pax. He dropped the bags in his hands and rushed over. Taking but a moment to assess the situation, he climbed up the ladder to place a steadying hand on the end table. "Can you climb down now?" He asked calmly, although his heart had leaped to his throat. "We can bring the table down together."

"No problem," Elias answered, voice shaking.

As soon as he was low enough, Pax took the little table from Eli's hand, and Mateo tugged Elias from the ladder and into his arms.

"Hey!" Elias squeaked as Mateo nearly ran, carrying the Omega to the bedroom as Pax fixed the ladder so it wouldn't fall on anyone's head.

Mat sat on the bed and started looking Elias over for injuries.

"Fuck, dammit, fuck," Mateo muttered under his breath, hands shaking as he felt for broken bones.

"Stop," Elias snapped, trying and failing to push away Mat's searching hands. "I'm fine. Cut it out."

"You are not fine!" Mateo bellowed. "What were you thinking?"

"I was just grabbing some blankets from the attic!" Elias shouted right back, eyes prickling with tears.

"You nearly fell and bashed your head in! We can heal a lot, but we can't heal that!"

Pax's face was grim as he approached his mates. "Mateo," He called in a low voice as he placed a hand on his shoulder. "This is not the way. Yelling at him won't help him understand."

Golden eyes shifted towards Elias as Pax placed a gentle hand on the Omega's knee. "Eli-love, you made Mateo worry himself sick to his stomach," He explained. "Everything in the attic...not even I placed it up by myself; I had help. And I would have asked for help from both of you before going there. You could have really hurt yourself, and that's why Mateo is so upset. Do you honestly think you wouldn't be acting the same if it was Mateo or myself that nearly fell from such a height?" A tense moment of silence followed. "I love that you enjoy helping around as much as you can. But, I think it would be best if you make sure someone's at the bottom of the stairs to help next time. I don't mind showing you how to lock the ladder safely."

Elias crossed his arms across his bare chest, tears shimmering in his emerald eyes.

"I would have been fine," the Omega protested, hating how his voice wobbled as much as the ladder had. "I nearly had it. Even if I fell, I wouldn't have had more than a couple of bruises."

"Head. Bashed. In." Mateo's voice was an inhumanly deep growl as he gritted his teeth to keep from bellowing. "Brains on the floor."

Pax turned from one upset mate to the other as he tried to calm them both down. "Elias, you can't expect Mateo to push down his instincts to protect you so easily. He needs time," he said. "And Mateo, you need to learn to observe before taking action. As our mate, you have every right to jump in and protect Elias, but you have to learn to pick your battles-"

"How is his nearly cracking his head open not a good time to jump in?" Mateo questioned with a loud gasp.

Pax frowned. "I'm not talking about that. You did well to hold the ladder steady," he elaborated. "What I meant was after. If Elias really had an injury, don't you think that moving him so quickly and tugging him every other way could have made it worse?"

"I..." Mateo frowned. "It felt dangerous, and I needed to get him away from the danger."

The silver-haired werewolf reached out to press his large hands to the back of each of his mates' heads and gently tugged them forward until all three foreheads touched. Pax then let out a long sigh. "I love you both, just as you are. But we all need to learn to compromise a little. Fighting amongst ourselves solves nothing."

"I'm sorry if I overreacted," Mateo said gently, wrapping his arms around Eli's tense body. "I don't mean to be overbearing. I don't want to control you. But seeing you about to fall..." Mat took a shuddering breath. "I think…I'm falling in love with both of you. It would kill me if either of you were hurt."

"I'm sorry, too." Elias swiped the tears from his cheeks angrily. "I'm just so tired of being unable to do anything for myself. I just wanted to show you that I can do something to help without somebody doing it for me before I have a chance. I should have been more careful."

"It's my fault...?" Mateo looked stricken. "I make you feel that way?"

"It's not...I just...I know you don't mean anything by it. You're just trying to help, but I've spent my whole life never being allowed to get something from the top shelf." Eli sighed. "Makes me feel useless."

Pax couldn't be more relieved that they were talking things out clearly. "That's why, if I know it's not dangerous, I tend to allow Elias to do anything he wants to do on his own. I'm always there if something goes wrong to protect him and to fend off other werewolves if they're judgmental...but I rarely do anything for him unless he asks me to," he relayed. "And that's the thing, Mat...if he needs help, he will ask."

"But today, you didn't ask, Eli..." Mateo said carefully, the look in his warm brown eyes making Eli's heart clench painfully.

"I know." Elias dropped his eyes, his gaze trailing over the wolf prints trailing up Mat's muscled arm. "I was stupid."

"You're not stupid," Pax defended. "You just have to trust us a little more. We're your mates, after all. We will listen."