Waiting For A Star To Fall

1 - Fascination Street

Sorry for the possible spam as I get these back up. This one was a little trickier to piece together.

—

"Did you have to eat bloody entrails on stage?"

Gaga lights a cigarette and glances at her manager with an amused glint in her eyes. "Are you being British or facetious right now?"

"I'm being neither," Ben blocks her challenge off and holds a robe out to her that she chooses to blatantly ignore.

"It was a heart. It's symbolic."

"Oh, yeah, right, that's so much better then."

"And I didn't really eat it."

"Could have fooled me."

"I just took a bite."

She shows him her teeth, her lip curling up and he groans. "That's disgusting."

"No swallowing," she grins, "at least not on stage."

"Yeah, see, that's not going to make a difference," says Ben, "Interscope aren't going to sponsor either, sweetheart."

Gaga shrugs. "Then I'll sponsor it myself. It was the last show of the tour; it was meant to be special. And you know, a reference."

"A reference to what album?"

"What? Not to any album. It's a reference to La Vita Nuova."

Ben stares, the way he stares when he waits for a moment to pass so he can pretend he never heard what she said in the first place. Then he looks more nervous with each step while he walks circles in her dressing room and it's beginning to transfer over to herself, so she starts to get the feeling that maybe she shouldn't make this even worse. Until he takes one more large step towards her, making this laden gesture with both of his arms and she knows Ben will come up with one of those ideas next.

"Maybe you just need something that'll make you look more approachable to the public. Less disturbing."

"Who cares about how approachable I am to the public? And disturbing? I haven't heard that one in like four years."

"-something distracting, something that'll make you look a little less like a homewrecker after that whole mess with Adam," he says, emphasizing the name so strongly that Gaga winces.

"I didn't wreck anything there. They were a mess before we even started filming and before I had ever met him."

Ben tilts his head and is silent for a moment, simply looking at her as if to demonstrate the practiced display of his empathic mode.

"I know, sweetheart. Life isn't fair to you. Especially not if you get wasted and make out with your co-star in public."

"It was part of a character study."

"Yes, thank you for reminding me; I saw you studying all over Twitter that day."

"Whatever."

Gaga doesn't have time or patience to dwell on past drama on social media and if not even Ben is believing her, there's no point even beginning to argue.

She turns to face the mirror plastered with fans' artworks and Ben isn't sure what kind of reaction he'd expected, but it's definitely more than this. He throws the useless robe over the back of her chair and straightens his jacket before going for his third attempt at this. "Let's settle for something that'll give them something to write about that at least won't get you banned anywhere. Something that drags their attention away from the rumors with Adam, because his management is not having it."