Sweet Fox- Carrhley

Careless Performances

Concerts, this could only end in one way or another and neither of them could be seen coming before they struck. That was the worst part of it, the surprise element to it. Ace liked to believe that when it came to surprises, they should only be ones that had no harm attached to them. Just the thought of them being anything but that brought him back to a place he didn't want to experience ever again. He had learned that the hard way and it had stuck to him ever since. Too many incidents had happened where they didn't match up to his idea of what a surprise was supposed to be. And they were all the result of Paul or Gene trying to get back at him for something he had done, petty if he was being honest.

Falling on stage, messing up a solo by a couple of notes, one little mistake was sure to set them off and he was more than tired of their bullshit. Every time they were on his case for doing something wrong, the internal fuse he had inside grew closer to exploding. He hadn't lashed out on them yet, but it was bound to happen one day. Balling up his fists until they turned a pale color and clenching his jaw to the point of being sore to not scream out at them wasn't working anymore. Drunk or not, he couldn't control if he did anything that didn't meet their standards, it was just how he was. Peter on the other hand, he was a whole different set of problems.

To them, he was the worst thing that had ever happened to the band and that didn't make sense to Ace, if they hated him so much, why was he still in the band? If they were being serious about kicking him out, they would've done that ages ago and knowing them, he wouldn't have lasted a full year with the band. With his drug and alcohol habits growing worse over the course of the past few months, Paul and Gene's definition of what a good show had changed to the point of no relation to their original idea of it. Both of their definitions weren't what one might think of as good or bad. To Paul and Gene, those two words meant nothing, the only outcomes they knew could be described as a disaster or at worst, a detriment. Both of them rang a bell in their minds and it wasn't a good thing.

Of course, they never blamed themselves if anything went wrong during a show and Ace had no idea why but from what he could gather about them, it came from their type of mindset. They were close minded and nothing could pass through to them if it was out of what they thought of themselves as or simply didn't like it at all. And if anyone dared to challenge them, they were quickly shut out before they could get a word out. Again, Ace was speaking from personal experience and he had given up on getting them to change their ways and instead adapted to control himself from the desires he had in mind for them. Peter was on the contrary to Ace, he was clear about his intentions and this upset the others and since his outburst at the bar, the others were all on his case, making sure he didn't ruin things more than he already had. But there was no way to have complete control over what he did, it was in his nature to be unpredictable. For now, the band had to hope for the best. The possibility of the worst happening was still there but at the same time, a better outcome was another direction things could take.

...

The playing of the opening band rang through the walls of where the rest of them were, in the process of finishing up getting ready and also having the worries of how today's show was going to go. The cheers erupting from the crowd mixed with all chaos going on outside didn't help matters in trying to keep it together but the mess in front of Ace was the worst.

Makeup was scattered around everywhere, splotches of color streaked along the tables, setting powder sprinkled wherever it pleased. It went as far as to begin a trail from the door to where it stemmed from. Peter reflected the appearance of his setting up station, his makeup coming out worse than ever, his lips too big to the point it was ridiculous, something like that of clown makeup, but what difference was there between the two? Without their fans, they would've been just four clowns in makeup. The green shades to his eyes were taking up most of the space he had on his face and overall, it was a disaster, the ends of his makeup running down his chin to form a splotchy pool of colours.