Roike looked at the male he had delivered the banishment to, he was a drunken shadow of the male he had been before and it made his chest feel like it was going to cave in onto itself. Flint swayed on his feet, his hair lanky and unwashed, he reeked of alcohol and sweat. He looked shrunken, his rather dishevelled and filthy clothes hanging off of him.

It hurt Roike to see. Fifteen years of banishment had caused this drunken mess and he was just as much to blame as Brutus was. They had tried to find him, they had but here he was, looking far too close to death's door if those bags under his eyes were anything to go by. His form spoke for itself. Banishment was killing him, just like it killed every other werewolf who experienced it.

"Go home." The words pushed out of him and he wanted to say more but he couldn't because the words piled up in his throat. "Just go home." He didn't want to see Flint like this, didn't want to see his best friend looking like he was on the edge of a cliff getting ready to jump.

"Home?" Flint swayed and looked at his drinking buddy. "Gunna take me home and sex me up, pal?" He let out a loud laugh that his red faced friend followed with.

"Gunna sex you up real good." His friend swayed and hiccuped before bursting into laughter. Roike wanted both of them to walk away, to just leave it and go. He didn't want to push this interaction further than he needed it to go. Despite seeing Flint again, he was still on a mission, he couldn't blow it, not for Agent Anders.

"You two need to sleep off this buzz and come to your senses that you are verbally harassing an aristocratic lady of high standing." The words came out from between clenched teeth and Roike felt like his molars were going to shatter if he clenched them any harder than he currently was.

"Oooooh an aristocratic lady of high standing." Flint's slurred voice was high and mocking as he said it before he slow blinked and pointed at the high heels his Order contact was wearing. "No good and proper aristocratic lady, wears five inch fuck me heels." The words came out clipped and his gaze swung up her body in a rather lecherous way that had Roike wanting to punch his former best friend in the fucking face. And for a moment Flint's eyes glinted as his met her gaze and he was starting to look not as drunk as he seemed.

"So, little lady, when you come out of the chaos of the hierarchy of back stabbing bitches and into the real world, just remember that out here, your high and mighty attitude of I'm better than you because, I have a drop of blood from High King Gregoire or whoever the fuck is on the throne at the moment, we common folk don't give a shit about your blood or your title or your fucking table." Flint sounded less drunk with each word and he leaned towards her slightly as he spoke before he reached down and grabbed the edge of the table and casually flipped it. The crash of the table and smashing of the mugs on the floor were like gunshots in the silent bar before Flint grinned wide and turned back to his drunken friend who was looking at the table with a pale face and wide eyes.

"Let's go get several twelve packs and get rid of the scent of blueblood and man servant blue balls." At his urging his friend started laughing as he agreed and they staggered to the bar. Roike was more than aware of the eyes on him and not friendly ones at that. He didn't understand how Flint could change that much. His friend had always been respectful, had always been one to push to uphold the traditions in place that saved their species. Having him act like he was showed just how far gone the banishment had pushed him.

And Roike felt fucking guilty for it.

Flint had told him the die was cast, that there was no changing how they would land and he had been right. It just hurt to see his once proud and honourable friend, drunk in a bar, being so disrespectful to others. The Flint he knew would never have done that, not in a million years.

"Everly." His contact snapped her fingers and pointed to the overturned table. Roike looked a tit before moving over and righting it slowly.

He picked up the bigger chunks of glass and carried it over to the bar. "Do you have a mop or a broom I can use to clean that up?" He gestured to the mess and the bartender looked him up and down before sneering.

"Best hope that royal blooded brat doesn't run out more of my regulars." The words were growled out and Roike stiffened unable to help himself. He knew it was an act and he knew others didn't know that information but his contact wasn't one that deserved to be derided like that. "Leave the mess and I'll clean it up." The male turned away, a clear indication he was done speaking as he moved down the bar to where Flint and his friend were leaning next to a box of beer cans Roike couldn't make the label off of.

A regular. Flint was a regular in this shitty little bar in this podunk little town that was resurrecting the old traditions. Wasn't that a kick in the fucking teeth? His honourable, loyal friend, who had spoke of the virtues of keeping the new traditions to make sure the species was safe even as he told him he had been banished. That Flint had mixed himself up in the back water, nasty shit that this town was doing.

It hurt. It really did.

He move back to the table and he bowed his head at his contact but she just held up a finger and tapped on her phone. "I want a salad but from the looks of it, this place doesn't even know what that means. Go find a grocery store and make me a salad, Everly, and I might rethink having daddy dock your pay." She waved him off without looking at him and Roike bowed his head again and despite his instincts telling him he should stay in view of her, he also knew he had to stay in character. So he turned on his heels and walked to the main entrance.

He slipped out of the dark bar, stepping onto the cracked sidewalk with a sigh. He looked down the street and couldn't see much of anything and when he turned to look down the other way he spotted Flint staggering down the sidewalk with his friend. A part of him, the logical side of him, told him to leave it, to walk away and do what he needed to blend it. But the other part of him, the one who had mourned his best friend for fifteen years, who had felt guilty for sending his friend from the only home and clan he had known, told him he had to stop what Flint was doing.

So even though he told himself to find the grocery store, he found himself heading towards Flint instead. He told himself to say what he needed and then leave. To tell Flint that he was better than the hole he had fallen into. He would do that and then leave, it wouldn't mess anything up. It couldn't.

"You burn through tha-t cash you ski-immed from that lee-ch?" The other male hiccuped slightly as he spoke, swaying from side to side, his grip surprisingly tight on his box of booze.

"Nah, cheap booze is a friend." Flint swayed as he pulled out a small handful of bills, waving them in the air. "Still got half, my friend." He shoved them carelessly in his pocket.

"It easy gettin' their money from them?" The other male looked at Flint and Roike watched with an ever sinking heart as Flint laughed.

"Fuck yah. The blood suckers are fucking stupid." The words hammered home just how far Flint had fallen. Scamming people, something the Flint he knew never would have done. He would have rather slept outside and gone without rather than taking from someone unjustly.

Roike caught up with them and grabbed Flint's wrist. The male stiffened as he came to a stop before he threw Roike a bloodshot glare. "Flint, we need to talk."

"I ain't talking to some rich-y bitch's poodle." He slurred it out and shoved at Roike's hand and Roike refused to let him go.

"This isn't you. This entire thing isn't you." He stressed the words, trying to make Flint remember himself. He knew banishment and losing a clan made a werewolf shaky mentally but he wanted him to remember.

"The fuck you know about me?" He swayed slightly and narrowed his eyes. The scent of alcohol and sweat wafted off of him thickly and Roike swallowed.

"Your family wants you home, Flint. You can go home."

"You know this ba-stard, Flynn?" The red faced drunk friend Flint had hiccuped as he looked Roike up and down.

"A long time ago. Life time ago." Flint said it slowly, tilting his head slightly as he fumbled at Roike's hand as if trying to get him to let go.

"Flint, you don't have to do this. To stay living like this." There was an aching sort of pain in Roike's chest as he looked at just how far his friend had fallen. It was such a mess, such a goddamned mess. A con man tied up in resurrecting the old traditions? No one back home would have expected that of Flint, no one.

"Ha! Says the fucker who told me I was banished." Flint pointed at him, swaying a bit more.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" His red faced friend narrowed his own eyes, letting out a sloppy sounding growl. "That's fucked up." He swayed as he pointed at him and Roike ignored him like he would a pesky and irritating fly.

"Your family wants you home, Flint. You can go home." Roike stressed the words and Flint let out a heavy bark of laughter.

"Home? Fuck, Barry here is closer to me than those bastards are." He swung his free arm around the other male's shoulders. "He wouldn't kick me out on my ass." There was a heavy dose of bitterness to his voice that cut through Roike like a sharp knife.

"Damn right I wouldn't!" His friend let out a wet sounding burp and Flint finally managed to yank out of his grip but Roike was pretty sure it was because he had loosened it.

"So fuck back off to your rich bitch. I'm going to stick with my new friends." Flint shook his head, poking Barry in the chest with his finger. The other male nearly shouted his agreement and Roike watched as they turned and walked away, holding onto each other as they stumbled and swayed, the thick scent of booze following them.

Alea iacta est

That is what Flint had told him the last time he had seen him. The die had been cast and Roike was now realizing he was seeing the effects of them landing on a shit fucking roll. He just hoped that when they came back to the town to clear it of the cultists, that he wouldn't find his old friend on the other side of the line.