out on the street for a living, picture's only begun

1. Strutter

13/09/1975

As the fire flickered and twisted, illuminating the night sky like a lightbulb, Gene half-wondered how it was even possible for things to have changed so much so quickly. After all, just mere hours ago, he had been laughing and joking with Ace, chatting idly with Peter, starting to write a song for the band's new album with Paul. All that normality, though, had gone up in smoke (both literally and figuratively) once the flames had started to mercilessly tear their way through the hotel.

He watched in horror as the flames began to dance their way along the hotel rooftop. Sure, he was more than used to fire – hell, he breathed the damn stuff on stage every night – but this, this was different. The fire he breathed on stage was never this out of control, the fire he breathed on stage was never this dangerous.

The fire he breathed on stage never made his bandmates disappear without so much as a trace.

"Paul?" the bassist cried hoarsely for what felt like the millionth time, the smoke in the air making him choke slightly, "Peter? Ace? One of you, any of you, just please... please answer me..." There was, like all the previous times he'd desperately called out for his bandmates, no response to be heard, and it made Gene's heart crack just a little more than it already had. It wasn't like he could just look for them, either, not with the seemingly endless throng of people filling up the area in front of the hotel so they could watch it burn and blaze unceasingly, so calling out for his bandmates was the only hope he had of finding them – and even that, to his despair, wasn't working.

"Please, no," Gene murmured brokenly, "I can't have lost all three of them, they can't all be gone..." He tried calling out for his bandmates one more time, but to no avail, and then he finally hit his breaking point, then his heart finally shattered, then the tears finally came. "No," he practically wailed, "I don't want to do this alone, I can't do this alone, please..."

Suddenly, Gene was sure he caught a glimpse of Peter out of the corner of his eye, and it felt as if his heart had started to soar. He began to roughly push his way through the packed crowd, winding his way towards where he thought he saw the Catman, not even stopping to apologise to the various people that he abruptly shoved out of the way. Peter was all that he was able to think about – if he still had the drummer, then maybe, just maybe, his heart wouldn't hurt quite as much, maybe he wouldn't be quite so broken. "Peter!" he cried happily, more than ready to hug the drummer close...

But Peter wasn't there.

Gene's heart sank. He could have sworn he'd just seen Peter stood right by where he was standing now, could have sworn he'd seen the drummer looking right at him with tears in his eyes... but maybe he hadn't. Perhaps he had imagined the drummer being stood there, perhaps he'd never been there in the crowd at all, and Gene had been hallucinating.

A flash of white and silver flickered at the edge of the bassist's vision, and he whipped around, hoping beyond all reasonable doubt to see Ace... but again, his bandmate simply wasn't there. Yep, he was definitely hallucinating now, Gene was absolutely certain of it. There was no way that both of his bandmates could have disappeared from sight so quickly if they had ever really been there in front of the hotel in the first place. He was hallucinating, and it was breaking him on a whole new level.

"Gene, where are you?" he thought he heard Paul's voice cry, but he screwed his eyes tightly shut and tried to block the sound out. He'd already hallucinated two of his bandmates, after all, so what was there to stop him from hallucinating the third as well? Besides, he wasn't quite sure he'd be able to handle it if he went looking for the source of Paul's voice, only to find out that it had, in fact, been a hallucination, and he hadn't really heard his best friend calling out for him.

Gene bit his lip in a half-hearted attempt to stop himself from completely breaking down all over again right then and there. Things had been going so well for the band lately, but now...now it had all come crashing down around them, around him. He had no idea if his bandmates were still around to watch everything they'd worked so hard for come crashing down around them. He hoped they were, to the point where it was almost selfish, because if they weren't... Gene didn't know what he would do, but he knew it would end badly. All he could do right now, though, was cling on to the tiny little bit of hope he had left.

That small remaining bit of hope, however, was all too quickly dashed when he overheard someone, some guy that he never even saw the face of, say rather offhandedly that there was no way that anyone who hadn't managed to get out of the hotel was still alive. Gene's hands started to tremble slightly as that information sank in, and he wanted to scream until he couldn't anymore. He hadn't managed to find his bandmates anywhere in the crowd, which meant that they must have still been inside the hotel, which meant...

He'd lost them. He'd lost all three of his bandmates, all three of his closest friends. Paul, Ace, Peter... they were all gone.

He must have looked a real sight to the people around him, Gene realised rather belatedly as his legs gave out beneath him and he collapsed to his knees. After all, he was still in his stage costume, still wearing the makeup that he hadn't bothered to take off when the band had first got back to the hotel – but as he stared up into the dark, smoke-marred sky where the stars faintly twinkled, tears spilling down his face once more, he couldn't quite bring himself to care. He knew that after tonight, he'd not be able to so much as look at his costume again without breaking down. He'd not be able to put the Demon makeup on again, not without his heart completely shattering in the process.

He'd never be a part of KISS again, not for the rest of his life.