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Baptiste is about four drinks deep when he first pulls out his phone. Without thinking too much, he punches in a number he knows he has blocked, just to see the last few messages from a man he says he never wants to hear from again. He last responded about five years ago, with a simple ‘leave me alone’ that got promptly ignored until he decided it was time to just block him and move on. Baptiste sighs as he reads every message.
It’s all a variation of how much Baptiste is missed and how much Baptiste is wanted back and all the things that would be done to Baptiste if he were to come back. Some of them make heat pool in his gut, blossoming into something that he quickly douses with more beer. His hand is shaky as he stares at the messages. He blames this on the beer. There is no other reason for him to be shaking like this.
Mauga shouldn’t be making him feel like this, especially after so many years without him. Baptiste has been doing great. Amazing, even. Perfect! He groans as sets his phone down to run a hand down his face, his mind focused less on how much he shouldn’t be missing Mauga and how much he likes the way those messages make him out to be the most important person in somebody’s life.
He grabs another bottle. Then another. He’s six bottles deep when he unblocks that number.
Why? Baptiste doesn’t even know. His mind is foggy and his throat burns because he’s never been a big fan of beer. But when it’s nights like this, where his mind travels back to some of the worst years of his life with something akin to fondness, he has no choice other than to drink that betrayal of his morality away. He does not belong with Talon. He does not belong with Mauga.
Even still, he types out and deletes ‘hello’ a dozen times. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he remembers how fun it was. How much they laughed, how close they spent their days, how their bodies fit together. It was fun. Mauga was fun. He was annoying, yes, but so charming. It took Baptiste himself so long to see past that charm, and he likes to think of himself as above all that sort of stuff. He was able to see past empty flattery.
But oh, Baptiste thinks as he sinks back in his chair with a frown and a burning to destroy the life he’s made for himself, oh was the flattery so rich. Rich and overwhelmingly real, the type that settled in his chest as his cheeks went hot and he slipped further into those large arms that held onto him like he was keeping the big guy afloat. It was always so nice, even when it wasn’t. Even when Baptiste wanted to get out, every bit of charisma was a chain that pulled him further back.
He’s happy now. Baptiste is happy. He empties his hands entirely and stumbles over to the window. Outside is a happy, better life provided by Overwatch and illuminated by the moon. His forehead rests against the cool glass, his beer-stained breath causing puddles of fog to form and softly fade away. Of course, this is what he wants. Now he’s one of the good guys, and they only ever think of him as such.
What would they do if they knew who he was? Who he thinks he might still truly be? The likelihood is, is that they would shun him back to the dredges of humanity for all this longing for a man so horrible. Then, eventually, that man would find him and drag him back by the scruff of his neck. The thought both sickens him and comforts him.
“Why is it never easy?” Baptiste asks himself. The stars in the sky flicker like dying bulbs, and his eyes scrape across every last one. His whole body burns with urges he tries to shut down as soon as they appear. When they don’t fizzle into nonexistence, he goes back to his other method.
He’s eight bottles deep when he accidentally hits send on the ‘helo’ he wrote. That sobers him up quick, and his uncoordinated thumbs go to delete the message as quick as possible. Mauga can’t see this. He won’t let it happen. Baptiste might actually be sweating when he finally erases the message from existence. In this fit of adrenaline, he throws his phone across the room and watches as it lands on the rough carpet.
Baptiste sits there, his heart thrumming in his chest like the heavy patter of bullet shells hitting the training room floor. His feet tap against the floor, his mind fogged with alcohol and what he can only think to describe as desire. A desire for what, he can’t pinpoint. What an idiot he is! He’s supposed to be better than this! He gave up that life to be good! He groans loudly, the corners of his vision blurring over. There is something seriously wrong with him.
For about a minute, he thinks that deleting the message worked. That somehow, it never went through to the other end and Mauga can go about his day without ever knowing Baptiste unblocked his number. He knows peace in this time, and it calms his heart and the hot sensation building in the pit of his stomach. But because it’s Baptiste and nothing can ever go how he wants it to in his life, he hears the first ping.
In the ten minutes it takes for the phone to ring, Baptiste counts six more pings. Every time he hears his phone alert him to a message, he seems to have moved a few inches closer until he’s sat on the floor holding the damn thing when he’s reading the last message of ‘where have u been!!!!!’ like it’s sacred. It started burning his eyes the same way the beer has burned his throat the longer he stared. Then, when the phone actually rings, Baptiste wastes no time in dropping it back to the ground.
That number he had memorised far longer than he should have kept blocked, right on his screen and calling him. His chest hurts. He remembers running, fleeing, and meeting the eyes of the man that number belongs to before turning away and being allowed to leave. No pursuit. Nothing. It didn’t take Mauga very long to show his regrets with this, and neither did it Baptiste, both their regrets manifesting with distance and a desire to either lengthen it or cut in half.
Tonight, it appears, Baptiste’s intentions on maintaining that distance has dissipated into the stuffy oxygen of the random hotel room he’d ended up in during a mission he’s not all that focused on in a city he can’t even place right now. Everything is so… wrong. The room starts to shrink until all that remains is Baptiste and the phone that is still ringing. His hand reaches out again, but he doesn’t answer fast enough.
Even drunk, Baptiste knows that this is no bother. In fact, he almost rolls his eyes when Mauga calls him again within the minute. His thumb hovers over the little green button for far too long, his hesitation causing the nausea building in his stomach from the alcohol to make him dizzier faster. This, actually, spurs him on. This was what most of their relationship felt like to him.
Baptiste picks up on the third call. The line is silent for half a second before he hears that damn handsome laugh on the other end that works him up in just the right ways.
“Knew you couldn’t stay away forever, Baptiste,” is the first thing he hears after that laugh, the words slick with that casual charisma, the voice deep and low. His name is dragged out in a way only Mauga can manage, a lure to pull Baptiste in that is working quicker than ever.
“A lapse in judgement, I think,” Baptiste says, and Mauga just laughs again. Sleazy, fun, and beyond addicting when you’re eight drinks in. Baptiste is lucky he has a higher tolerance than most, because that laugh might have ended him on the spot if not.
“I think you just know what you want after years of lying to yourself, buddy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Touchy tonight, aren’t you? Are you drinking again?”
“No.”
“That was a very unconvincing ‘no’, but I’m in such a good mood that I won’t push,” Mauga says, and Baptiste can just visualise the smug look on his face as he settles in with the phone. Baptiste sits stiff and cross legged, his lips pulled into a frown.
There’s a beat of silence that Baptiste knows Mauga will fill. He’s always been the same. Baptiste can let silence stretch if it needs to, even if he doesn’t like it much either. But Mauga’s a man of base instincts who likes the sound of his own voice far too much.
“If you’re wanting to come back, I can’t say that’s a good idea. We’d have to kill you, doc. Third strike and everything. Just not good.”
“You say these things so casually, you know,” Baptiste says as his frown immediately starts to soften, “but I’m not here to go back. God, no.”
“Oh? Did you text me because you missed me?”
“No.”
“Man, you’re no fun!” Mauga’s grin is audible, those charms that shouldn’t still work on Baptiste working more than ever on a night like this. It’s unbearably nostalgic. “So what is it we’re talking about, hm? Just wanting to catch up?”
Baptiste is silent again. Mauga doesn’t hesitate to fill the gaps.
“Just a drunken night all alone in some hotel in Myanmar, regretting leaving me behind so you finally unblock me and drop me a little text. Is that it?”
“No. Wait. Myanmar? How do you know that?”
“A mutual friend might have left Talon as well, but she didn’t take everything. Even an idiot like me could figure out how to use some of these trackers,” Mauga says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Baptiste feels that frown coming on again.
“And they say romance is dead,” Baptiste says, which causes another laugh from down the line. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he has the urge to contact Commander Chase and let her know that his mission has been compromised because one of the biggest and baddest agents of Talon knows his exact location. This is overruled quickly. “Where might you be, then? In some bar across the world?”
“Who cares where I am? I can be in Yangon in three hours if you want me to be.”
“That doesn’t sound quite like something I’d want.”
“Come on, doc, you know you do. You used to live a little! Overwatch has made you soft.”
Baptiste looks around the hotel room, at the files on the coffee table like they’re at fault for the conflict that has been weighing on him all night. He’s on the right side of history, now, he’s sure of it. He can’t just throw that way for some smooth lines he’s heard a dozen times before. Baptiste is a good man. He repeats this in his head as he adjusts the phone in his hand, knowing he should hang up.
“You out there by your lonesome?” Mauga asks, and Baptiste shakes his head drunkenly before remembering they’re speaking down a phone.
“For now. Most of my team’s en route tomorrow. Lot of people going from one mission to another, so times are staggered,” Baptiste says before thinking that maybe hey, he shouldn’t be telling Talon this. But there’s not much Mauga can do with this information, so he doesn’t feel too bad.
“Poor Baptiste. All alone missing his favourite guy,” Mauga croons, “tell you what. Let me book us a hotel room away from where you’re staying, one with a mini bar. Somewhere just for us, perfect for a little… catching up.”
“I already have a hotel room.”
“Overwatch is probably keeping tabs on it, then, aren’t they? Considering your past? Unless they don’t know about who you were and who you got tangled up with…”
Baptiste wants to throw the phone away then and there. How awful it is that he can just casually bring that up when Baptiste suffers over this every single day. It’s what ultimately led to tonight, he thinks as he runs a hand down his face. He wouldn’t be drinking himself silly over his own morality if he had already told them who he used to be. Mauga really doesn’t have a lot to do with his feelings over the matter, if he wanted to believe a lie.
“Booked. I’ll text you the details, doc. Ask for Malosi. I’ll see you in three hours - give or take.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“No!”
Mauga laughs and the call ends. Baptiste is sat there, on the floor, staring at the wall as he tries to process everything that’s happening. The last half an hour might be worse than the hangover he’s going to get tomorrow if he decides to keep avoiding all the feelings that won’t leave him alone. It’s about now that he really wants a drink of something be actually likes, maybe a rum and coke. He’d have to go to the shops for that, and he doubts his ability to stay away from whatever hotel Mauga’s booked for them if he leaves this room.
His phone pings with the location followed by a photograph of a very smug looking Mauga in the front seat of some modified car he doesn’t recognise. So it’s actually happening. Baptiste was dumb enough to get caught in his own head, and now Mauga’s going to be in the same place as him within the night. He lets out a noise half way in between a scoff and a laugh before he leans back and lays on the floor, staring at the ceiling, as he waits for himself to come up with a solution.
Eventually, he gets up and leaves his hotel room. The stale air is getting to him, and he just wants a cool crisp night breeze on his skin. Baptiste sighs with relief as he starts walking, even if the open air doesn’t help with the alcohol in his system. His feet hit the pavement with staggered movements as his vision blurs more, his mind grinding up to a pulp with the blinding intoxication of a man desperate for answers to his own selfish questions.
Then, he remembers nothing else. There’s a vague recollection of laughter coupled devilishly with a profound sense of guilt. The rest of the night is a mystery to him as he groans himself awake, sore and dizzy with something akin to satisfaction on the tip of his tongue.
Baptiste blinks away the haze in his vision to see a hotel room that is definitely not the one he started in. There’s an inhuman mass weighing down one side of the mattress, a throbbing ache in his pelvis and rear. Pricks across his neck, shoulders, collarbones that are closer to bee stings than love bites. His eyes flicker to his left, not surprised to see his old partner snoring away in his birthday suit. Carefree, content. It stirs something in him that he doesn’t like.
So Baptiste forces himself to sit up despite the pain in his lower half, propped up on one hand as he reaches out with his over to pinch cruelly at the crook in Mauga’s neck. He wakes up with a hiss, his face contorting into tired annoyance that he must be sure is anger. One large hand bats Baptiste’s away as if it were nothing more than an annoying fly.
“What’s that for?” Mauga asks, to which Baptiste has no answer. In all honesty, he thinks he just wanted him awake. A honeyed sort of desire runs over Baptiste, the type that reminds him of old nights that were much better spent than waking up hungover and sore. The sort of nights that made Baptiste want to unblock his number in the first place, why he wanted to text him, why he wants to be exactly where he is right now.
Mauga’s about to say something else again, as he always does, before Baptiste leans in to lock his lips against his. Whatever tension came from the pinch leaves the other man entirely as his hand cups the back of Baptiste’s neck and pulls the man impossibly closer. Soon, Baptiste will have to find a way out of this and return to point. He’s not entirely corrupt, not enough to betray Overwatch for the sake of a good night.
But he can make the good night last as long as possible, can’t he?