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The first thing Bellamy hears on the morning after the worst night of full moon they've had in months is - banging.
Incessant, annoying banging coming from downstairs.
"Jordan, if you don't stop that right now, I'll kill you!" he shouts, wincing immediately because he's forgotten that full moon hangovers have the same effect as regular whiskey ones. Everything is loud and it hurts.
Jasper's voice comes from the room down the hall, where he's been bunking with Monty ever since they found out they were werewolves. Bellamy considers letting them move in to be one of his biggest mistakes.
"Not me!"
"Then who the fuck -"
He falls out of his bed and preserves what little dignity he has left by actually walking downstairs instead of crawling.
"Hello?" can be heard through the front door and he opens them, not giving a shit that he's wearing his sweatpants and literally nothing else. Everyone knows that this is Arkadia pack's house. If they don't want to see a bunch of half-naked werewolves, they shouldn't be here in the first place.
However, when he opens the door with a groan, he sorely regrets not getting some clothes.
Because the most beautiful woman he's ever seen is standing on his porch and as soon as she takes in his disheveled appearance, she smirks disdainfully.
"Is this a bad time for you, Mr. Blake?"
No one's called him that in ages and it makes him bristle instantly. Along with her neatly ironed grey suit, blonde hair in a tight ponytail and blue eyes inspecting every bit of his appearance, he doesn't have a good feeling.
"As a matter of fact, it is. So if you-"
She cuts him off by pushing her way into the house and she shoots back, "Well, it's even worse for AMC."
"AMC?"
She rolls her eyes. "Arkadia's Magic Council."
Oh. Those assholes.
The woman's lips become impossibly thinner and shoots him a glare, and he realizes that he must've said that out loud. "Yes."
"Fine," he presses out, wondering what the hell happened now. God knows that the Council is nitpicky but they wouldn't be sending a representative without a good reason. Especially not when Miller literally chased the last one off their property. "So, what is it now? Someone heard a howl and called the police? Grandma gone missing?"
"Actually," she cuts him off again, holier than thou expression on her face, "a citizen found one of your pack members naked on their lawn."
Bellamy barely stifles a chuckle because - damn, that's a good one.
The representative notices it, of course, eyes as sharp as knife's edge, and asks, "Does the name John Murphy ring a bell?"
"Shit."
The blonde smirks. "Oh, yes. And you wouldn't believe it, but human citizens actually mind when they find naked strangers on their lawns. Especially when they're going on about, and I quote, fucking full moon, man. I humped a tree."
Bellamy's not sure what's funnier - Murphy humping a tree or the representative repeating his words with a straight face.
He settles for huffing resignedly and inviting her into the kitchen. He's definitely going to need coffee for this.
She takes a seat on the only chair not cluttered with clothes no one's going to remember taking off and stacks of Octavia's hunting magazines. They're a mess, Bellamy's aware of that, but it's not easy being an alpha to a pack that mostly consists of hotheaded and reckless teenagers.
When she opens her mouth to say something, Bellamy raises his hand. "Please, Ms. -"
"Griffin. Clarke Griffin."
He pinches the bridge of his nose, firecrackers exploding in his head with every movement. He could've been a farmer. Planted tomatoes, milked cows and howled a little every full moon.
"Yeah, okay. Look, Ms. Griffin, I'm sorry and I promise it won't happen again. I haven't been alpha for a very long time and I'm still learning the ropes, but my pack are good kids. They just do stupid shit sometimes."
Something in his pitiful little monologue must've struck a chord within her cold, dead bureaucratic heart because her voice is softer when she asks, "Did you know that this is the third incident your pack has caused in the last two months?"
"I'm aware, yes."
"And did you know that two of those have directly threatened to expose the existence of the supernatural in Arkadia?"
Bellamy nods. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm trying to say that Arkadia Magic Council has decided to offer you help."
"Leashes and muzzles, I hope."
She levels him with a thoroughly unimpressed stare. "An expert to observe your pack's dynamic and fix whatever issues you may be facing."
"Okay. We politely decline that offer."
"You can't."
Bellamy scoffs. "Then don't call it an offer. Who the hell is that expert, anyway?"
When heavy silence settles between them and Griffin worries her lower lip, Bellamy suddenly understands.
And he suddenly gets the urge to shout, "Hell no!"
For fuck's sake, she looks younger than him. Sure, she can wear a suit and carry a briefcase, but she's a fucking kid.
"Yes, Mr. Blake. It is in everyone's best interest for the pack to avoid incidents like these in the future."
Bellamy doesn't like using his alpha voice, not this early in the morning and not unless Jasper and Monty are on the verge of blowing something up, but he does. He lets the power he knows runs through his blood color every syllable as he states, plain and simple and just a bit threatening,
"No. Leave."
But Clarke Griffin is glaring like she's ready to fight him until he backs down and he's really not sure what the hell she is.
"This is happening, Blake, whether you like it or not," she retorts, not backing an inch. "And the next time you try that alpha bullshit on me, you'll wish you were an omega."
With that, she storms out of the room and it's not long before he can hear her car door slamming.
"Fuck," he whispers into the suddenly quiet room.
He really should have been a farmer.
*
"So, let me get this straight, we're getting a nanny?" Octavia asks, filing her nails at the breakfast table.
Everyone's been doing their thing up until that point and now they all turn to look at Bellamy.
Including Murphy, who still acts like he's done them a big old favor.
"Not a nanny, O. Just someone to help us out," he corrects her, even though the words don't ring true. It is a nanny.
They've fucking saddled them with training wheels.
"What's next? Are we gonna get housebroken?"
"Joke all you want, Monroe, but it'd do us a lot of good if some of us," with that, he narrows his eyes at Jasper, "learned how to lift a toilet seat."
"Hey, man, I swear that was the last time we made moonshine here!"
"It’d better be. With Griffin here, we'll have to be on our best behavior. Otherwise you can kiss the pack goodbye and we'll get reassigned."
They all shudder at the thought. Wolves usually tend to choose their packs or they gravitate toward the nearest one. But once they've chosen, that's for forever.
Being reassigned means adapting to a new pack while still feeling loyalty to your old one, especially if it hasn't been disbanded by the death of the alpha or natural causes.
"They wouldn't do that, right?" Murphy asks suddenly. "That's straight up cruel."
"They're bureaucrats, Murph," Harper tells him, stabbing her oatmeal with a sudden lack of appetite. "They can do whatever the hell they want."
*
By the time Clarke Griffin comes on Monday morning, the house is spotless, cleaned up, and they've even unearthed an old dining set from the attic.
"I figured it can't hurt, right?" Murphy offers, that and a half-shrug which he uses to try to mask how much he cares.
Bellamy lets him off this time, just grumbling a thanks and snagging the first clean shirt off the laundry pile they've shoved into his room.
It's a flannel and he's still not sure if he should've actually worn a suit when there's a knock on the door and everyone rushes to answer it, like a pile of overexcited puppies.
He manages to make them line up on the stairs and second-floor balcony and takes a deep breath, opening the door.
The first thing Bellamy notices is that Clarke smells of werewolves, but not like his pack. Just like the default werewolf smell, woods and petrichor.
The second is that she's wearing muddy boots and jeans, which. It's not a bad look.
"Hi," she gives a small wave, peering over his shoulder. "Can I come in?"
"Would you leave if I said no?" he asks, exasperated, but steps aside to let her in anyways.
She smirks. "Nope."
After that, it's every man for himself. The kids (so he calls them kids, what? It's not like he's not responsible for them) rattle off their names, some of them even going as far as to shake her hand and offer a smile. Clarke explains that she'll be coming over for a month, to help them out, and really - it's different.
He would've chased off the representative who came over yesterday. But this person looks like she actually wants to help and that's why Miller corners him in the kitchen as Clarke is talking to Harper in the small study.
"What the fuck, man? She's not even that bad."
"She was yesterday. Just give it time. She can't keep up the façade for long."
But it turns out - she can and she will. During the next few days, Bellamy passes her on the stairs, in the kitchen, hears her talking about football with Miller, hashing out Murphy's incident when the rest of them are out, and it's weird. Bellamy still doesn't trust her, even if she submits a full report to him every evening.
And then Octavia starts talking to Clarke, too, and Bellamy is done.
"My own flesh and blood!" he whisper-shouts after his sister closes the pantry door. Everything smells of wolves and garlic and it's too tiny for them but it's also the only place Clarke won't think to check.
Even in the darkness he can see Octavia's exaggerated eye roll. "Come on, Bell. Dial it down a notch, won't you? She's cool."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. She gets that it's not easy to be a female werewolf. We get like no representation at all. Everyone wants a werewolf boyfriend. Not a girlfriend."
Bellamy softens at that, finding her shoulder and squeezing it. "Come on, O. What did we say about boys liking you?"
"If they don't, rip them a new one," she repeats a little tearfully and Bellamy grins.
"Exactly. Besides, who gives a fuck? You like you. That's what counts."
"Clarke said the same thing, actually."
Bellamy swears under his breath, mentally goes to his happy place, decides to just fuck it.
"Just go do your homework, O."
He can hear her boots stomping all the way up to her room and before she slams the door, she shouts, "I don't wanna be old and miserable like you!"
And because his life sucks, that's the exact moment Clarke chooses to appear in the kitchen, looking worried.
She's trying to seem as non-threatening as possible these days, wearing sweaters and jeans, smiling instead of frowning, offering everyone a shoulder to cry on like some kind of a werewolf whisperer.
Bellamy doesn't buy the shtick for a second and so he glares at her until she turns on the coffeemaker and places two cups on the table.
"Sit," she says, gesturing towards the seat across from her.
"No, thanks."
"Sit."
With a groan, he complies, but doesn't touch the coffee even if it smells heavenly. She might be a witch, even though they usually just smell like incense sticks and lavender.
Clarke practically dares him to a staring competition and he's not proud to admit that she wins when he breaks the silence.
"What is your endgame here?"
"Helping your pack."
"Why?"
"Because you're a mess."
Bellamy crosses his arms, switching to defensive. There's something about her that always makes him question his own authority.
He never was the one to assert his alpha status on anyone, but that's exactly what she's doing right now.
"Are you a werewolf?" he asks instead, and something inside him cracks when she grins.
"Not quite." He cocks an eyebrow at her and she elaborates, "I'm half witch, half werewolf. Nothing in particular, just really useful in diplomacy."
"So you don't have a pack? Or a coven, I guess?"
She shakes her head. "Nope."
"How are you qualified to call my pack a mess, then?"
"Because you are!" she says, exasperated, but without real heat to it. And then, "Let me prove it to you."
Bellamy makes a gesture for her to go on and regrets it instantly.
"Okay. Let's start with the fact that most of your pack are teenagers. There's hormones all over the place. Jasper can't find a date and he smokes way too much pot. Which is why he's restless when he shifts. Monty, I'm pretty sure, has a crush on your beta, Miller, and whenever he's around, Monty can't focus. Octavia feels like she's always in your shadow. Monroe compensates for being the smallest wolf physically by asserting her dominance whenever you're not around. Don't worry, she's not going to challenge you, it just bothers her. And Murphy feels like he doesn't belong."
When she's done, her eyes have nearly boggled out of her head and she exhales loudly, making Bellamy burst out laughing.
It's not that she's not right, it's just that he's been living with them and hasn't noticed, torn between trying to make everyone do their homework and accept that their lives will never be the same. Every twenty years, there'll be a power surge in Arkadia that results in kids turning into werewolves, whether they like it or not, and it's not easy.
But now that she's said it, it makes sense and so Bellamy keeps laughing until his coffee's gone cold.
Only then does he look back at her and sees the same amusement reflecting in her eyes.
"And you - I'm pretty sure you are mortified of disappointing everyone because you care more than you let on."
Bellamy pauses, his stomach plummeting.
"Which is great, actually. It means that you care and you just have to start talking to them. My business here is pretty much done."
"That's it?" he asks, shocked. "You're just letting us off that easy?"
"You're a good pack. You all care about each other. You just have to stop being so stubborn and start showing it."
With that, she smiles at him, properly - without malice or mockery, and Bellamy doesn't know how to feel about that.
"Thank you, I guess," he says finally, running a hand through his hair. "Any tips on how to do that?"
It's Clarke's turn to laugh then and the sound surprises him. It's much higher than he thought, much happier.
What exactly has been going on while he wasn't paying attention?
"A cuddle pile," she suggests. "Or just a movie night. Preferably something with girl werewolves because, you know," she scrunches up her nose and he wonders why they aren't friends, "patriarchy sucks."
"Tell me about it."
Her responding grin is a little daring and it takes the edge off. Sure, she's still on Arkadia Magic Council's payroll, but she might not be the cold bureaucrat he's took her for.
They all pile into the living room that night, Clarke included. She tried to leave but this time, it was Bellamy who asked her to stay and none of the kids protested, welcoming her into their midst like she's always been there.
Octavia, Monroe and Harper are devouring popcorn with M&M's in the first row in front of the TV, Octavia flipping Bellamy off when he tells her that she's going to ruin her eyesight sitting that close to the screen.
Jasper's got his head in Clarke's lap and Bellamy watches them joke around, Monty leaning lightly on Miller as the latter throws peanuts into Murphy's mouth.
Bellamy calls them kids but he really wasn't aware of how much they still are. Jasper lost his parents in a fire a year ago, the same fire that perished Aurora Blake, and maybe all of them really could do with more moments like these.
It's not until they're all passed out in various places around the living room that Bellamy sneaks out onto the porch.
The night is calm, wind rustling the trees, and he doesn't even notice Clarke until he smells earth after rain under a clear night sky.
She's wrapped in Harper's favorite blanket and it shouldn't feel so damn domestic to move away on the swing for her to sit down, point at the woods and reminisce about all of the things that have happened in the past year.
Bellamy talks and she listens. He tells her about the time Jasper went berserk under a full moon and it took both Miller and Bellamy to hold him down until the danger had passed.
Clarke asks him about the fire and he tells her. Warring packs. All decimated. His mother in chains and a new kind of electricity flowing in his blood. Octavia wrecked at the kitchen table after they've transformed for the first time, a stranger's blood under her fingernails.
"Huh," she says at last, staring into the distance. He wonders whether she sees potential in the woods surrounding them or just danger. "You guys haven't had it easy. At all."
"Nope."
He remembers panicking when Miller appeared on his porch, tattered clothes and looking like he might pass out. Octavia coming home with the dynamic duo in tow, introducing them to the small pack and the Blakes' microwave.
"I really don't know how we made it," Bellamy says, incredulous and truly wondering. "I think we just winged it."
It somehow doesn't surprise him when Clarke untangles her hand from the blanket and covers his hand with hers, flashing him a reassuring smile.
"I know."
"Please, enlighten me."
"It's easy - you just decided to be stubborn dicks."
They laugh until the night drowns out their voices and when Murphy finds Bellamy sleeping on the couch the next morning, it's only because giving Clarke his bed felt like the least he could do.
*
She sticks around for a while longer because "the Council said they needed me here for a month" but no one's wary of her anymore.
Most of the time, she's just shooting the shit with everyone else, not bothering to look or act professional.
In fact, when Bellamy comes home from work one afternoon, it's to Clarke and Octavia painting Murphy's fingernails and Miller braiding Monroe's hair.
"What the fuck," Bellamy deadpans on sight.
Clarke rolls her eyes. "Pack bonding session."
And she finds the weirdest excuses for the weirdest shit they do. Monty and Jasper teaming up with Murphy and Clarke to make the loudest Fourth of July fireworks everyone has seen?
"Team building," she shoots back, carrying a crate full of explosives. It doesn't even surprise Bellamy that the town witch/mechanic, Raven Reyes, is right behind her.
Whenever there are explosives, Raven's bound to be in close proximity.
"Accidentally" locking Miller and Monty in the attic?
Bellamy finds Clarke and Harper huddled in front of the door, the trapped two banging to be let out, and Clarke presses a finger to her lips, smiling devilishly.
"Communication skills crash course."
Octavia getting a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and prancing into the kitchen, only for Bellamy's heart to nearly stop?
Clarke nods sagely. "Individuality within a pack is so, so important, Bellamy."
She also calls him Bellamy these days and he'll even catch her smiling in his direction. It's oddly unnerving, how much he actually likes her.
How she fits in perfectly. As if she'd just melted into their pack, became one with all of them.
One night, when Raven and Wells Jaha are there, too (their friendship groups are now connected because it turns out that Clarke Griffin is too lazy to spread her socializing over two separate places), he teases her about it.
"Don't you have a house of your own?"
It's just the two of them in the kitchen, warm yellow light and a pile of unwashed dishes. The youngests' report cards stuck to the fridge and rags Bellamy can remember his mom buying.
Clarke frowns and Bellamy wishes he hadn't said anything when she winds her arms around her waist.
It's easy to forget that she's just a normal (well, as normal as any of them are with those freaky powers) being, not someone who's always in control and unfazed.
"If I'm bothering you, just say so."
Bellamy rushes to explain, barely stopping himself from reaching for her. Everyone in the pack is wildly affectionate; it's easy to forget that Clarke isn't one of them, when she fits so seamlessly.
"It's not that, we love you here. Jasper asked if we could adopt you the other day."
A small smile plays on her lips, her gaze fixed to the scuffed toe of her chucks right on a creaky floorboard. "Seriously?"
"Cross my heart and hope-"
She stops him with her fingers circling his wrist right above his chest and a serious look in her eyes. "Don't."
"What? Why?"
"It's bad luck."
"You're superstitious, Griffin?" he teases, cocking an eyebrow at her and feeling the nervous tension dissipate.
"I get it from my mom's side of the family." She turns her back on him, runs the tap, keeps talking as she starts on the dishes. "Black cats are good luck, always open your umbrella inside if you want to pass a test, walk under a ladder if in doubt, throw a little salt over your shoulder in the morning and fall in love whenever you can."
Bellamy doesn't know why he's smiling by the time she stops talking, her voice calmer than it'd been when she started. He keeps forgetting that she's half-witch, realizing it only when she makes her spoon stir the tea on its own and when she winks, doing it with childish, witchy glee.
"And how's the last part working out for you?" he asks, rolling up his sleeves and getting to drying off the plates.
Clarke shoots him a sidelong glance, a crooked smile, makes his heart flip when she says, "It's working."
Bellamy chokes on thin air and manages to breathe out, "What about your dad's side?"
"Oh, you know, werewolves," she makes a vague hand gesture, flicking some water from her fingertips right in his face, "bad temper, fight the world or die trying, and the howling. What's the deal with all the howling?"
Miller chooses that exact moment to howl out in the backyard and Bellamy laughs, running his fingers through his hair.
"It's fun."
"Just that? It's fun?"
Bellamy nods, puts the last plate in the rack and leans back on the counter. "Yeah, a fun activity for the whole family."
Clarke chuckles and admits sheepishly, "It is kinda fun."
"You howl, too?"
She hums in confirmation, turning around as well, her elbow brushing his. "Sometimes. Mostly on a full moon. No one ever howls back, though."
He wonders whether there's more to it than just the shrug she gave him when she explained that she was half witch, half werewolf.
Because now she's pouting and Bellamy knows that she's trying to look like it's not getting to her but, in all seriousness, it might be.
"Hey," he says gently, brushing his shoulder against hers and making her look at him. "You're always welcome here, you know that."
Clarke nods, says "thank you" and drags him back to the living room, their friends in various states of disarray again. Wells Jaha being a ghost apparently doesn't mean that he can't hold Raven's head in his lap.
But when Clarke smiles at him from across the room half an hour later, just as he's telling Miller about an asshole customer, Bellamy knows that he's fucked.
Falling in love with Clarke Griffin would destroy men much stronger than him.
*
The full moon after Clarke's arrival is the best one so far.
It doesn't even hurt, not like it used to. To Bellamy, it's just like he's stretching his muscles and welcoming the pain of a workout that's bound to leave him better by the end.
After that, after he steps off his porch, flanked by Miller and Octavia, and into the night - it's just freedom.
It's the dizzying kind, so much air filling his lungs as he runs through the woods. He feels his pack around him, their hearts beating as one. Jasper is laughing somewhere, rolling in the mud like he did the first time, and Murphy's tongue sticks out from between his sharp teeth in a grimace-like gesture when Miller leaves to join Monty's side.
They're happy and the night is young, drenched in moonlight. They run and run and they never stop.
*
The world is always different after they've shifted back into their human forms. Brighter, better, colors and smells exploding around them.
For Bellamy, it means that as soon as he shifts in the middle of his overgrown lawn, he sees Clarke as clear as a day, leaning on the porch railing and grinning at him.
It's always good, seeing her right after, but it's never as good as seeing her like this, after a full moon.
She smells like woods, still, but she smells like her rundown crappy car and gasoline, a little like a cat, lavender incense sticks and that one scent he can't recognize as anything other than the essence of who she is.
They all drift in through the door, wolves and humans collapsing wherever they find a free surface, but Bellamy stays on the porch, his hand curling around her hip.
Clarke swallows hard and her heart is so loud, like a war drum, when he tightens his grip.
"Bellamy-"
He breathes her in, high on life and the freedom that still has twigs stuck to his hair where it was once fur.
"Clarke," he responds, both of them wearing matching smirks.
After that, it's just flashes and colors. Sensation of burning when she presses her lips against his, bright orange of how desperate she is, hands roaming from his face to his back, grasping for purchase when he slides his hands down to her thighs, her legs wrapping around his waist like muscle memory.
Her teeth are on his neck in one moment, in the next he's slamming the door to his bedroom and telling a laughing Miller to fuck off.
Clarke is yellow like the sun filtering through overhead canopies of trees in the woods when she laughs.
"They're your pack," she teases, unbuttoning her shirt and gasping when he stops her to do it himself.
His grin is wicked and dangerous and he knows it because her heart picks up the pace, as he says, "They're our pack, Clarke."
Because it's the truth and judging by how she kisses him then, deep and dirty, her tongue curling into his mouth, she knows it, too.
Flashes and colors until they're both breathless and spent, his hand sliding down her body and her nails digging into his skin when he finds the exact spot that has her begging for more.
"I'm going to kill you if you stop now," she presses out and Bellamy knows. Yes, she’d absolutely kill him.
But he kisses her shoulder, world exploding all around him as she writhes in his arms.
"Good thing I don't ever plan on stopping, then."
*
When Clarke comes down later, wearing nothing but his flannel shirt hanging loose on her frame and his stupid cartoon character boxer shorts, she's greeted by everyone and one coffee mug in the middle of the table.
"What's all this?"
It's Bellamy who presents her with the mug, pink with thin black stripes, the prettiest he could find on short notice.
"This is for you."
She narrows her eyes at him, suspicious, until he presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek that has her swatting at him and everyone else gagging.
"Why?"
"Just because you're not all werewolf doesn't mean you don't need a pack, Griffin."
He watches it dawn on her, a smile pulling the corners of her mouth impossibly up until their kitchen becomes too small to hold Clarke Griffin and her beam.
Jasper pours her coffee and when they're all seated around the table, toast crumbs and easy laughter, Clarke's hand finding his, Bellamy thinks - yes.
This is exactly what a family should look like.