Work Text:
Eins: Worker B.
She was a housewife, once.
She wore a kerchief on her head and denim cut-offs and answered to a diminutive, and when she smoked cigarettes in the garden she felt vaguely guilty about it, because cigarettes can kill you if you indulge too much. (Later, she became inordinately fond of both indulgence and things - people - who could kill her, but didn't.)
She had a university degree, a good one, and not only that, she was smart. She put money in the bank, she mixed a damn good martini (took hers dirty, three olives, drank just one unless it was a weekend), and when she walked into a room and wanted people to take notice, everyone took notice. She kept the house clean, was loved by all her friends and his as well, and absolutely loathed every minute spent with that goddamned good-for-nothing selfish bastard she had the misfortune to marry.
(Later, she learned to despise both asceticism and people she could kill - which, as it turned out, was nearly everyone, including him.)
Now, though, she looks at her nice house, at her nice husband. She looks at her nice body, full breasts, strong legs meant for running and kicking. It's made both to love and to maim. She runs her hands over her curves, and the places where she doesn't curve, and the places where she shouldn't curve, and says, "My body is a weapon."
The words catch fire in the air, coalesce, and reform to spell out TAKE WHAT YOU WANT GIVE NOTHING BACK.
This should seem odd to her, but B - just the initial, that feels right - B only thinks This is just like a pirate movie, and takes the words to heart. A little piratical behavior will do her good.
Zwei: Queen B.
B never knew living life on the wrong side of the law could feel so good.
She gets up in the morning, makes herself up - primer, foundation, powder, blush, eyeliner (pencil on the bottom, liquid cat eyes on top), plum lipstick, slick gloss; she used to resent it, but now it's a costume, a mask. More than that, it's a secret identity, a movie trope, something out a pulp fiction novel. No one actually thinks the femmes fatales can do anything more than be rescued, not in real life; strong, sexy women are nothing but broken inside.
It's so nice to subvert expectations.
She dusts a final brushful of powder over her face, to set the rest, and then wiggles into the black and red dress she has set out for the day. Just a few things left to do, and she can get out of this house; cap her lipstick and slip it in her bag with the rest of her things - it's Chanel, a black tote with the ubiquitous double C logo, nice but not her style; that's the point - find her coat hanging on the stand in the hallway, go back to the bathroom (it's where women keep their secrets); she straps on her shoulder holster and tucks her baby away. Then she adjusts her hair, pulls on her coat, kisses him on the cheek (he pulls her in close, grabs at her ass, she switches her hips out of his reach and winks as she leaves, covering her anger; she's not his to handle), and as soon as she steps out of the door she's in her element, an actress walking onto the set. Heels click-clacking on the sidewalk, she flags down the taxi she hired this morning, like she does every morning (a different one each time, of course, from different companies; best way to avoid suspicion), and from there it's a scant few minutes to downtown. B asks the driver to drop her midway down Second Avenue; she picks a new place each day, but she's running low on options. Soon she'll have to come up with an algorithm to make her repeats seem random. Not every criminal genius would take that precaution, but she will.
For a moment, when she looks in her wallet, she thinks the bills only have Benjamin Franklin on them, hardly the sort of thing to pay a taxi driver (or what she usually keeps in her wallet; that's the sort of thing movie criminals would do, not her, she's cleverer than that). But after a moment, they resolve themselves into a normal assortment of ones, tens, and a few twenties. She hands over the cash and gets out of the car, click-clacking her way to Central.
B hasn't hit a bank before, just stores. She started with supermarkets, liquor stores, that sort of thing, but it was so typical to do that, the same thing a meth head wanting some disposable income would do. So she moved her way up, robbed a few upper-class department stores, a jewelry store (where she got the earrings she's wearing today, actually), and once a rare-book dealer, just for the joy of stroking the ancient spines lining his shelves as she waited for him to scramble her money together. By the time he came out, she had a single-digit edition of Phillis Wheatley's poems in her hands, following the lines with her finger.
(She gave it back, of course. The book, not the money. Money she can filter to offshore accounts; what the hell is she supposed to do with a book?)
Bank robbery seems like a natural step from there, and she can't deny the thrill that runs through her when she thinks of sidestepping all their anti-theft protocols; it doesn't even occur to her that she might not make it.
She steps into the bank, pinpoints the manager instantly, and makes a show of looking lost and confused. He catches her eye, looks her over; she's dressed head to toe in designer wear, and diamonds gleam at her ears and throat (all of it stolen). Of course he makes a beeline for her, thinking she's some rich L.A. airhead who needs help making her way around a fucking bank, and as soon as he cozies up to her she undoes the last button on her jacket and slides her Walther P22 out of its holster; she jams it under his jaw, and says sweetly, "Okay, baby, now we're going to walk over to that nice bank teller and you're going to get him to give me all the money the truck dropped off this morning. Sound like a plan?"
She makes it. She always does.
In a hotel bar on Seventh Street, she orders a martini and drops her bag at her feet, tucking the strap around one ankle so no one can run off with it. She's still wearing the black and red dress; dangerous, really, but she's flying high, there's a thrumming in her veins that tells her to stay, to stay, something truly fantastic is going to happen soon. After a moment, she shakes her head and taps the bar to get the bartender's attention.
"I changed my mind," she says. "Château Pétrus instead."
"Vintage?" the barkeep asks. B waves her hand vaguely; she isn't much of a wine drinker, usually.
"Your best, baby." It's not a voice she recognizes.
B looks to her left, at the small blonde who slid into the seat next to her while she wasn't looking. B frowns, and the blonde rakes her body and soul with her eyes; whatever she sees must please her.
"My name is Lady Gaga," she says, "and we are going to burn this whole fucking world to the ground."
B has always been good at anticipating plot twists, but not this one.
Drei: Killer B.
She used to make him breakfast in the mornings. Sausage, eggs, bacon; he liked meats, animal products, but waffles were her specialty. Gaga loves them. He never wanted her to eat any; said they'd make her gain weight, and then he'd find a skinny bitch with a fat ass instead of one who was fat everywhere. And if she didn't do what he wanted, he'd sneer and mock her and tell her she'd end up like her mother, obese and in a home and stupid, as if she wasn't already, ha ha!
She hopes his tongue and throat bled, hurt badly, were flayed open then cauterized by Gaga's poison like the rat he was. She danced in the diner next to his corpse, a merry (murderous) jubilee complete with all the trappings of Americana and a techno backbeat. It's the sort of thing that always seemed fake in musicals, but not here. Not now.
He always took all her damn honey, too.
That selfish motherfucker.
Vier: Honey B.
They find the Pussy Wagon stashed where they left it six months/ten years/two days ago, three miles in on a demolished county road off the US 95. It looks like new, though it's so hot B wouldn't be surprised if the leather seats started melting, and B knows the Pussy Wagon's sat through a sandstorm or two; still the paint is glossy, and the keys are right on the ground where B dropped them like no time has passed at all. She feels like she's lived a lifetime, but all she recalls are flickers, montages, gunshots and bizarre buildings and the way bruises show livid on Gaga's skin and how they last so long - especially if B put them there.
"It's home, Gaga," she says, and picks up the keys. Gaga strokes her back possessively when she leans, digs in with her nails at the top of her spine.
"Where the heart is," she agrees. "Like everywhere we've been."
B unlocks the car and turns to ask Gaga what she means, but just as she does Gaga slips into her arms and goes on tiptoe and kisses her full on the mouth, and B's arms go around her waist and they tumble into the Pussy Wagon. B's knee is between Gaga's legs and Gaga arches, rubs against it, purring like a leopard and biting like one too. She makes B tremble, makes her want to be savage and flip her over and take and take and take her apart, love her, fuck her to pieces with her hands tied above her head so she can't scratch or push or tease - she makes B want, and B takes what she wants.
Rubbing, shoving, pressing, the eager lick of hands and shift of legs, mouths on breasts; Gaga rolls down B's elbow-length glove and nips at her pulse point, then soothes the sting with her tongue.
"What do you want, Honey B?" Now the inside of her elbow, where B was tattooed with a spiderweb-thin needle in - where? She doesn't remember until it flickers into her head, grainy film footage. Belarus.
"To never die," B says. Gaga's white leotard comes off so easily, practically disintegrates beneath her hands; Gaga's nipples are pink and small, and B pinches them to hear Gaga moan and wriggle above her. "Do you know what you want, Gaga?"
"I want to eat your honey bun," says Gaga, and then there is the caution tape she stole off a policeman in NYC and she tries to wrap it around B's wrists (though instead they wind up taped together), but at this point it doesn't matter; they're panting and rutting against each other and rubbing their sweat and the scent of sex all over the red leather seats. Then B is four fingers deep inside Gaga and Gaga is shaking and whimpering and bucking against B - her hipbone smacks against B's jaw and it hurts so good, yes, B croons at her. "Baby girl," she whispers, "yeah, you fuck my hand like that, I wish I could get a picture of you, you're so good," and Gaga is panting and writhing but she doesn't beg, never begs; B puts her mouth against the pink she craves and licks and sucks and gets messy, gets her good and thorough, gets Gaga all over her face and hands, and makes her scream instead. Then Gaga flips her over and goes to work, and B loses the ability to speak; Gaga is a tease and she knows how to use her mouth, knows how to use her nails and her fingers, knows how B likes it rough and quick and with more than an edge of pain; at the last moment she pauses and looks up at B and gives her an absolutely feral, bare-toothed grin, and says, "You bad, bad girl."
When they finish, Gaga curls around B, the big spoon, waiting for B to get her voice back. Once she does, she huffs a laugh and says, thinking of the caution tape wrapped around Gaga's wrists like bracelets, "Girl, I own you."
"Mmm-hmm, Honey B," Gaga hums, mouth pressed against her back. It's strange to see her still, at an interlude in the action; but then, she's only like this around B. It's intermission, and finally the actresses are allowed backstage, a reprieve from the heat of the stage lights.
B traces the sharp edges of Gaga's shoulderblades, wraps a loose curl around a finger. It's a wig, of course, but for Gaga, artifice is ten times more real than what's natural.
"Mexico, next," she says thoughtfully. "Get us some Aztec gold. We can run this con - "
"Mmm, no," sighs Gaga. "No, I have a plan."
"You have a plan?" B doesn't think Gaga has ever had a plan. Gaga is not the one who thinks things through, who considers the consequences, who storyboards their world out in advance. Gaga is not the director, and to have her interfere is - not.
"Arizona," Gaga says decisively. When B cranes her head to look at her, she tips her a wink and a smile.
"Why Arizona?" B asks doubtfully. Gaga pauses, and the mood shifts. Darkened lighting, a cold breeze from stage right, the rustling of dust blown against the car - handfuls of rice thrown at a piece of sheet metal.
"All great friends eventually go to Arizona," she says after a moment.
Fünf: Beyoncé.
She'd always thought it would end somewhere steamy and sultry and hot, like Mexico, maybe Baja; isn't that what happens, the criminal-protagonists survive and go to the beach? Somewhere with palm trees, leaves as green as hundred-dollar bills, with a pool as blue and cold as Gaga's flashing eyes when she's angry enough to set fire to the sea. She'd thought that's how it would end, hand in hand, silhouetted by flames, running from the reality of this con onto the stage of the next - and then, after that, into the next - and the next - an infinite amount of cons, echoing like two mirrors facing each other, the only two women in the world who matter, constantly reflecting, refracting -
"Do you trust me, Honey B?" Gaga asks. Her eyes glint like the red dust of the ground they stand on, heated like the Arizona sun, setting in the west.
"I never thought it would end like this," B says. She doesn't shut her eyes, doesn't see her life flit before her like a film shown on closed lids. Keeps them open wide; if this is going to be the last thing she sees, she's damn well going to make that thing be Gaga.
Gaga takes a step closer, balancing perfectly on cut-your-heart-out stilettos, reaches out and entwines their fingers. Tilts her chin up; B ducks her head and places the most delicate of kisses on Gaga's lips, the final razor-edged stamp on a letter detailing a year's worth of pleasure and chaos.
In the distance, sirens scream. B waits for the whine of a synthesized beat, but none comes. No song-and-dance routine is going to save her ass this time.
"Come on," Gaga says, and nudges her a step closer to the edge (not alone; with Gaga, she'll never be alone), then another, until her Louboutins peek over the cliff, crumbling dirt and loose pebbles to fall six thousand feet into the great roaring river beneath their feet. It seems so much farther, the walls of the canyon looming miles above the twisting, winding snake of blue - and it's so blue, too bright to be real. Like a scene in a movie. She peers at it, leans over too far, and wobbles; Gaga has to grab her arm to haul her back. It's not time to go just yet; they need to have their closing dialogue before the credits roll.
She shivers; she can't help it.
(In the not-so-distance, thunder moans, the sound of approaching engines and the whistling sirens.)
"Oh, baby," Gaga says tenderly. She brings their entwined hands to her mouth, brushes her lips across B's knuckles. It's not a kiss so much as an inhale. "Oh, Honey B. It's okay."
B turns away to face the drop; across from them, the South Rim wavers in the half-light, drops a naughty wink and curtsy, like it's seen it all and knows exactly what they're going to do.
"I'm always going to be here for you. But you don't need me anyway."
She's right, in a way. B has always written her own script, and she'll be damned if she'll stop that now. But she'll always need Gaga, too.
"In the end," she says, and inhales sharply; she hasn't felt fear in a very long time. "In the end, we'll go together."
"We'll always be."
"I didn't think it would end," she repeats, or has she said it already? Gaga looks at her with eyes like the madness of the dying sun. B can smell the exhaust of the police cars on the breeze.
The transition from rock to air is meaningless, euphoric; her whole body shudders, her skin and stomach contract and expand with the joy of the fall; the wind wails in B's ears, rails against the sky, blazing red and orange and violet as the sun throws its rays on the mirrored clouds; everything flares into brightness too clear to be real, goes from brightness into transparency, and B has never felt this kind of fierce joy before, has never screamed like this, and the only solid things that remain are Gaga's hand gripping hers, and Gaga's voice, shouting, blissful,
"There is no such thing as an ending - "