Fantasy crashed violently with reality.
Until that moment, Baz hadn't realized how much he wanted there to be another option. Running away from his problems had been a back burner, if-all-else-fails solution. Rei offered it up as the first and easiest option, just like that.
Baz's stomach twisted, not unlike the way it had at the very top of Hillside. Both were, in different ways, leaps of faith he had to decide to take.
Rei sipped her tea on the other side of the island, so unaffected about abandoning her life for a little while longer.
Her hair was tied up in a bun, long silky tendrils of it falling loose around her face. Rei's eyes danced. Baz remembered that about her, the way her eyebrows arched and her dark eyes shone, like she was perpetually on the verge of mischief.
In school, her confidence appeared unshakeable, impossible not to notice both for reputation and demeanor. Now, she was a woman hiding in an apartment.
"You can't just leave," Baz protested.
"Yes," Rei said, matter-of-factly, "I can."
"Where would you go?" he asked.
What country would distract her from all that Temperance had to offer?
Rei shrugged. It didn't really matter, did it? The entire world was at her fingertips. Rei Collingwood could go anywhere she wanted.
"Italy?" Baz asked, more icily than he intended.
Rei froze, her teacup poised in front of her face, obscuring her expression. Could she manage strolling through Tuscan vineyards knowing she left Angelo Ferrero in the hospital in a coma, forfeiting everything he asked of her?
"Wouldn't you like to escape for a while? Even Cheng's attention span runs out. He can't chase you forever," Rei said. "Where would you like to go?"
Possibilities danced in her eyes, easy to lose himself in. Baz already knew the answer. Rei might've, too. He'd go to France in a heartbeat. He'd tour art museums, sit and read in hundred-year-old libraries. Everyone would pronounce his name with the same cadence his mother did, right on the first try.
That was a fantasy he entertained, a distant promise with unfulfillable prerequisites. He'd go when he could afford it. He'd go when the time was right. Maybe when all the planets and all their moons aligned.
Rei watch him knowingly. Baz hastily hid behind his own cup.
"We could be fugitives, wearing big sunglasses and trench coats," Rei said.
Except, Baz didn't mention out loud, only he would be a true criminal. She would just be playing pretend. Another game, another adventure.
"Is that an invite?" Baz asked.
"Well, I don't think this career choice of yours suits you," Rei said.
Baz wavered. Could it really be the best way out? That lie he told Gwen about meeting Rei in Europe could become true. Rei would be at her Rei-est. How could anyone who saw her at her Rei-est not want to find her?
He searched for that Rei-ness in her face, in her silhouette. Rei, too, was part of a star-aligning fantasy, full of unconquerable hurdles. If they left class at the same time, if they had to collaborate on an assignment, if he hadn't been gone by the end of the semester, Baz would have asked her if she wanted to grab a coffee and talk about the Sistine Chapel and the statue of David. He would temporarily ignore the sure signs that she wasn't just out of his league, but playing a different sport altogether: the self-assured way she spoke in class, the way she carelessly pulled her hair away from her face so it slipped loose and soft out of the elastic, and her fast, wide smile, especially when accompanied by her laugh. She had the kind of laugh you could pick out of an entire stadium.
There she was, offering France to him like it was nothing. It was too easy, somehow.
"What else would you do?" Rei asked. She crossed the room, stepping into the thick rug of the living area.
Rei's secret studio apartment was a condensed version of her penthouse bedroom and library. Succulents collected on the windowsills. Books collected on every other surface. A butterfly hung above the bed, singular and lovely.
Rei settled onto the couch, her cotton shorts creeping up her thighs. She'd probably been asleep when he unceremoniously interrupted.
"Probably get arrested for kidnapping you," Baz replied.
"You can hardly blame that on me. If anything, you'd have to blame my brother and the police for arresting you for a crime that didn't happen," Rei said.
And for the crimes that actually did. Baz reminded himself, in case he wanted to pretend he was innocent in the whole matter.
Despite the soft bite of the words she spoke, Rei tilted her head to the side, a silent invitation for him to join her.
Baz hesitated, not because he didn't trust Rei, but because getting comfortable almost certainly meant giving into his exhaustion.
He slipped from the bar stool to join Rei on the opposite end of the couch, leaving space between them.
"Why would you worry about what happens to me, anyway?" Baz asked. They weren't friends, though Baz had almost believed they were while he gallivanted around Temperance at Gwen's elbow.
He meant it as a joke, but it wasn't insincere. It was ridiculous that she'd been hospitable at all.
And yet... she studied him, her dark eyes dancing.
"I don't know anyone else like you," she said earnestly. Baz couldn't explain why that made him uncomfortable, triggering the instinct to shrink smaller.
"I'm not collectible," Baz quipped, hiding the tightness in his chest, yearning suddenly for the familiarity of being looked over. He wasn't used to anyone looking at him and seeing him. He was a hypocrite: complaining one night to Gwen how people only saw him as a tool, but as soon as someone identified him as a whole person, he didn't know what to do with himself.
Rei just smiled. "Won't you at least think about it?" she said, then more playfully, "you're the only one who knows I'm here. I can't leave you here with all my secrets."
Baz would think a lot about it, but something about the thought frayed his nerves. Maybe it was abandoning Diego or giving up on the good things he had managed to reassemble after dropping out.
"What about Angelo?" Baz asked. Surely Rei couldn't take off totally guilt free.
Rei looked quickly down.
"I was never the best fit to be in charge of someone's affairs," Re said, so solemn that Baz forgot she was supposed to be an intrepid explorer, afraid of no man or snake. "Think about it."
"I don't think I'm the person you think I am," Baz insisted.
Rei set her cup aside, inching along the cushions until they almost, not quite touched.
"You were the only person in an entire semester who had a higher grade than me. And you didn't even care," Rei said.
Baz flushed, color creeping up his exposed neck. He fingered the ring around his neck.
"I didn't know we were competing," he said.
"Of course you didn't. You weren't obsessive like me. You just... showed up. You weren't trying to prove anything and that only made it worse. I have to shout every accomplishment from the rooftop for my family to nod in my direction. You... was it just that doing well was enough for you?"
"Getting a degree is impressive and rare where I come from." Baz shrugged.
"But you don't have a degree," Rei pointed out.
No, he didn't.
Baz stared into his mug, nothing left but a dribble in the bottom.
Art was easy. Art history had no expectations for him, which was maybe why it was easier to surpass them. School just wasn't where expectation lay.
"Why didn't you finish?" Rei asked.
"I tore a tendon," he said, "I tore it in training one day and chose not to get the surgery to repair it, because that's what a headstrong gymnast does when there are competitions coming up. For about five months, I got by on a basically unlimited supply of Percocet. Then I fell. Spectacularly. It's probably still circulating the Internet. Finally got the surgery. No more gymnastics for the semester. Just me and the Percs."
Perfection to Baz had meant not giving up his season. That ruined his life, thousands of miles from home selling everything he had just to pick up painkillers to tide him over 'til he could get a prescription.
He missed the easy pep of taking them. It was so easy to wish for the feeling when everything was going to hell. It was easier if Baz chose to forget that the damn pills were his undoing in the first place.
Rei reached out, her hand closing around his at his throat, stopping him from dragging his ring up and down the chain. She was so close, enough for him to breathe in the domestic smell of fabric softener and cotton.
"I thought businessmen were stubborn," Rei said, "you tore a tendon and still did gymnastics? Like bars and rings?"
Baz nodded, a motion slightly inhibited by her hand over his. She must've been able to feel his heart hammering in his ribcage, giving mixed messages on his mixed feelings.
Being in Rei's apartment was like being in a separate universe, like trouble was paused outside. There was different trouble within, revolving around Rei's devil-may-care veneer. She knew him. That was the difference between Rei versus Jasper or Gwen. They relied on leverage.
Rei appealed to him personally.
And maybe she still straight up appealed to him, the part that very much liked the idea of getting on a plane and leaving Temperance behind.
Rei eased back, her fingers slipping away to twist the ties of her hoodie.
"Look, Sébastien." There was his name again, rolling so easily off her tongue. "The only thing Cheng cares about is his business and his reputation. If you damage neither, he'll leave you alone. This isn't about a grudge. It's about the fact that you're a loose end and he doesn't want me to own more of Sundial than he does. It's nothing personal."
It didn't need to be personal. Jasper had dressed like him. They needed a scapegoat. Baz was part of Jasper's exit strategy.
Except, Jasper had lost him.
Baz twirled his ring between his thumb and forefinger, resisting the urge to fidget further. He was missing, not unlike Rei. Staying missing was an easier task than going missing. Though Rei had managed it just fine, Baz wasn't so sure Jasper would let him slip away a second time.
"You said you broke into a pawn shop," Rei said, "what were you taking?"
She was asking for confirmation of something she already guessed.
Baz raised the ring in response and Rei nodded. It had always hung around his neck, too much of a hazard to wear on his hands during training, both for the gymnastics he did before and the parkour he'd taken up afterward.
"Family ring. I threw out all my painkillers one day in this fit of desperation to quit cold turkey and withdrawal is abysmal and about a day into that I gave in and sold anything I had on me just to get something so I didn't feel like I was dying. Pawned it off," Baz said. Time had dulled down some of the shame, but it was still there. The ring was a tangible piece of himself and his family and trading it was a short-term fix. The physicality of it, trading that thing for quick cash, was a sharper guilt than that of giving up on his degree.
"You were getting it back," Rei said, her sympathy stinging. Baz didn't want it. He brought it on himself in so many ways and how could Rei even imagine being in such a desperate, pathetic position? When had she ever been in a position to choose between heirloom and relief?
"They'd already put it on the sale floor and by the time I got the nerve to go back, the price was jacked up and I couldn't afford it. So..." It was going to be a one-time event.
He didn't regret breaking in as much as he regretted unclasping it from around his neck and handing it over in the first place. Or choosing his pride over his health. Or letting his life slip away from him without asking for help. The mistakes tracked back a lot further than letting Jasper puppet him around.
"I'm sorry Cheng took advantage of that," Rei said.
"I made the choice," Baz said.
"'Go to jail or join the dark side' isn't much of a choice," Rei said, "he knew that. I'm sure he also fully intended it to be more like 'go to jail now or join the dark side and go to jail later'."
There was that distinct possibility, but it hadn't occurred to Baz in the middle of that first confrontation.
"Barret is... a family name from Northern France? Normandy?" Rei asked, "beautiful area, especially if you enjoy Impressionism. Fan of Monet?"
"Prefer Matisse." Baz knew what she was doing, and it worked, but he was smarter than he'd once been. Like Jasper's deal of conditional freedom, there had to be hidden consequences to running off to France next to a woman who'd been out of reach since university. The dream was too good to be true.
Still, that didn't mean it wasn't the better of two options. Baz had become very good at postponing the inevitable. Maybe he was simply destined to live out his life trying to outrun the consequences.
"Sébastien?" Rei asked.
"Mhmm?" He didn't have much left in him in the way of responses. The night was beginning to catch up and the same thought kept spinning in his mind.
Criminal or victim. Did he want to abandon Temperance as either?
___________
A/N: A lot of Baz's backstory coming out here, his fall from grace and rings. Do you get where he's coming from?