Title: Angels in a Cage: Chapter Ten, Fiyah
Rating: R [language, alcohol use]

Summary: Chris makes a cute girl. Alyssa and Judith bond.




Looking at the picture in his hand, Chris frowned. It wasn’t like he thought he wasn’t photogenic at all and Susan often reminded him that he was sexy. But he really hadn’t expected his passport photo to look like a young Native American girl. He was only hoping he could keep it hidden from the rest of the band. But with his luck, Chris wasn’t going to bet on it. Kim seemed to have a six sense for the embarrassing.

“Um, excuse me?” he spoke up, blue-green eyes going to the frumpy woman behind the counter.

“Yes?” a nasally voice replied. “Is there something wrong with your passport?”

“Um, well kinda. Is there anyway I could get another picture taken?” he asked softly.

“Picture ain’t good enough for you, pretty boy?”

Struggling to not take offense to that, Chris responded, “Well I kinda look like a teenage girl in it.”

“Maybe if you got a haircut, you wouldn’t—”

Biting back a ‘fuck you,’ Chris quickly turned and stalked out of the passport office. He would deal with looking like a teen girl; it was infinitely better than being told to cut his hair. Fuck her. Really. Who the fuck did she think she was? Fucking old bitch. She would likely rot in h—

“Hey, Chris! How’s it going!?” a voice interrupted his internal raging.

His eyes went up from the dingy sidewalk, a part of him wishing he hadn’t chosen to walk that day, “Oh, hey, Andy. What are you doing in this part of town?”

“Just walking,” the singer replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning to join Chris stride-for-stride. “What are you up to?”

“Picking up my passport since we’re gonna tour Europe soon,” Chris answered.

“Ooooooh. Can I see?” Andy asked, a bright light shining in his eyes.

“Um.... only if you promise to not tell anyone,” he dug the hated thing back out of the pocket he had shoved it in.

“Why?” he accepted the passport, flipping it open. “Whoa. Who’s the chick?”

Snatching the id back from the other singer, Chris scowled more and shoved it back in his pocket, “Fuck you.”

“Seriously? That’s you? Wow. Next time let me do your makeup,” Andy stated.

“I am not letting you put sparkle eyeshadow on me. That’s your thing, not mine,” he responded.

He smirked, “You wanna get a drink?”

“It’s two in the afternoon, Andy.”

The singer paused for a moment, “So... you wanna get a drink?”

“Fuck yeah. Let’ go.”



Seated in the back seat next to her baby sister with a perfectly wrapped present in her lap, Alyssa watched the scenery go by happily. It was her first birthday party sleep over and the butterflies in her stomach could not have danced any more than they were. She had known Becca since the second grade, which seemed like an eternity to the about-to-enter-fourth-grade girl.

“Daddy?” she turned her eyes towards his, catching his glance in the rear view mirror.

“Yeah, Aly?”

“Do you think Becca is gonna like her Barbie?”

He smiled, “Of course she will. You picked out a very pretty one.”

She grinned, “And if I get scared or something, I can come home?”

“Of course, sweetie. But Becca is your best friend and you’ve stayed over at her house a dozen times. It won’t be any different this time,” Howard responded.

“Okay, Daddy,” her attention turned to her sister. “You’re going to have to tuck all our stuffed animals in yourself tonight. Think you can handle that, Judith?”

“Okay, Lyss-lyss,” Judith replied.

“Good,” Alyssa grinned again before looking out the window.

Before too long the family sedan pulled into the driveway of Becca’s family. Leaving Marilyn and Judith in the car, Howard escorting his eldest daughter up to the front door, carrying her purple backpack stuffed full of her overnight items. Watching his daughter hurry off to join her friends, he chatted briefly with Becca’s mother, double checking all the details of the sleepover. Satisfied with her answers, Howard stepped into the party room to say goodbye to his daughter. With her deep in some grade school conversation with the birthday girl, he merely waved and headed out.

His little girl was growing up so fast.

With Judith and all of the stuffed animals tucked in a few hours later, Howard and Marilyn headed to bed. Marilyn could see the worry on her husband’s face, knowing full well that he was thinking about their oldest daughter. Rubbing his shoulders, she assured him that Alyssa was fine, just as she had been the other times she had slept over at her friends’ houses. Yet despite her assurances and her strong touch, Howard couldn’t help the pit forming in his stomach. Something wasn’t quite right.

“I’m going to go work on some things in the office,” Howard declared, pulling away from Marilyn and standing. “You get some sleep.”

“Howard, Alyssa is fine. Really.”

“I wish I could believe you. But something isn’t quite ri—”

The house phone on the nearby nightstand rang, interrupting Howard’s response. He quickly snatched it up. His worried expression was quickly overtaken by concern.

“I’ll be right there,” he responded before hanging up the phone and looking to his wife. “I’m going to go and pick up Alyssa.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know the details, but she’s been crying for the past twenty minutes. I’ll be back soon.”

A million scenarios played over in Howard’s mind as he drove to pick up his daughter. Everything from Emilie showing up to Alyssa being hurt in some grade school play raced through his thoughts. He had known something was wrong, should have trusted his instinct and jumped in his car immediately when the feeling hit his gut. Instead he was racing down streets after dark to rescue his crying daughter. Alyssa never cried. What had happened?

Passing the house he meant to stop at, Howard swore at himself and quickly turned around. Nearly forgetting to turn the car off, he hurried up to the front door, headed directly in without needing to knock as Becca’s mom stood there with the door open. She directed him to the dining room where Alyssa sat on the floor in the corner, knees pulled to her chest. Without a word, Howard headed over to her, squatting a foot away.

“Aly?” he muttered softly.

Her eyes rose from her knees, “D-daddy.”

“Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you home,” his arms circled her, pulling her up while he stood.

Once she was settled in the car, he collected her backpack from the house and exchanged a few words with the mother who had little clue what had caused his daughter’s meltdown. Thanking her for calling him, Howard turned back to the car, slid in behind the wheel after tossing the backpack in the backseat, and reached across the console to squeeze Alyssa’s hand.

“Everything is going to be okay, Aly.”

She shook her head, biting her bottom lip, “Becca made fun of the book in my backpack. And then they all called me names for reading and said that reading was stupid and that I was stupid for reading. Then she took my book and tore some of the pages! And.... and.... I don’t wanna go to school next week. Don’t make me go.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it softly before shifting the car into reverse, “Alyssa, you have to go to school. You know that. The kids will forget by the time classes start.”

“They’re not gonna forget, Daddy. They’re not,” she sniffled. “I hate Becca.”

Howard frowned, glancing over at her, “You don’t hate her, Alyssa. You’re just upset.”

“But Daddy! She made fun of me! She was supposed to be my best friend!” she exclaimed.

“I know what she said was hurtful, but that doesn’t mean you hate her.”

Alyssa glowered at her father in the darkness, “You just don’t understand me, Daddy!”

Her words echoed in his head. He was certain this was not the first time she would declare such a thing to him. And for a brief moment he feared her teenage years, which were already much too close for his comfort. Taking a deep breath and turning the corner, Howard tried to figure out how best to respond to her, to counsel his daughter in this moment. He knew it was part of the learning process, that she had to learn things like this, but wasn’t it his duty to help her through it?

“Alyssa, sometimes people say things in front of other people that are mean to feel important and special. It’s not right. It’s never right to say mean things at all, in front of people nor especially behind their backs. Becca was mean tonight, but I’m sure she didn’t realize what she was doing. Give her a few days, give everyone a few days, and you’ll see,” he finally replied, flicking on his turn signal to merge onto the I-5.

“I don’t ever want to see her again, Daddy. I’m serious,” she declared, arms crossed over her chest. “She’s dead to me.”



Coming off the stage in Amsterdam, Chris was certain some sort of blowout was destined to happen. Hiro had been more angsty than normal before taking the stage, resisting pretty much every suggestion everyone had. And to be honest the entire set sucked. It was all about to come to head.

He only hoped he could get a few swigs of booze before the bassist went off.

When Hurricane Hiro hit in the green room, Chris had already drained what was left in the bottle of rum from before the show. His head was still spinning from the concert; he vaguely remembered throwing something back at the crowd after it narrowly avoided his head. He tried to focus on the bassist’s words, especially when they were directed at him, but the rum and cokes before the show and the straight rum after the show made that infinitely harder than any would expect.

However in his drunken haze, Chris was fairly certain Kim was handling Hiro, after all the two men had known each other the longest. His glassy eyes tried to focus on the argument but all he really wanted to do was.... hurl. Pushing away from the wall, he stumbled towards the bathroom and sank to his knees. His forehead hit the toilet seat, moments before his stomach emptied its burning contents. Slowly he slumped away from the porcelain throne, his cheek pressed against the cold, dirty tile floor. In the back of his mind he heard angry, loud words pummeling the delicate folds of his brain. They didn’t really make any sense, but it no longer mattered. Darkness was overtaking him.


The soft buzz of an airplane motor churned Chris’s stomach, waking him with a gurgle. It took him a few moments to realize where he was, where the toilet to puke in was. Crawling along the coarse carpet, he made his way to the tiny plane bathroom, pulled himself up to the toilet. Resting his cheek on the seat, Chris tried to not breath deeply, hating the blue liquid they used instead of water in the bathroom. It’s putrid, supposedly clean, scent wafted up to his nostrils. That was all it took to set his stomach muscles to clenching. He did not think there was anything in his body to vomit, but his body seemingly wanted to test that theory.

The door he held open with his legs, banged against his body and a gruff voice growled, “Bout time you woke up. Was worried I would have to call your woman and tell her you have alcohol poisoning.”

“Fuck you, Kim,” Chris grumbled before his body heaved again.

Waiting until the front man was done with his dry heaves, Kim yanked Chris up onto his feet and escorted him back to his seat. Plopping him down unceremoniously, he motioned to the flight attendant for the pre-ordered drink for the singer. Shoving it into Chris’s hands, Kim sat beside him.

“So Hiro’s out.”

“Wha?” he mumbled, trying to feel his tongue in his mouth.

“Hiro quit the band last night. Susan has a bunch lined up for us to audition when we land,” Kim explained.

“Oh.”

Watching Chris pound the juice the flight attendant brought, Kim frowned, “He’s gonna be hard to replace. But we have a tour to do, so we’ll make do.”

“Uh huh,” he nodded slowly, reaching for the flight attendant button to request another drink.

Kim slapped his hand away, “She’ll be back with another in a minute, Chris. Your woman was a bit concerned about your... performance last night.”

“The entire set was fucked. It wasn’t just me.”

“I don’t mean that,” he replied. “The drinking and passing out while puking performance.”

“Oh.”

“I told her it was Amsterdam shit, but was it?”

He shrugged, accepting another glass of orange juice, “I dunno.”

“Well thank god one of us was sober last night. I don’t think we would have made it out of the venue alive if we had all been drinking.”



Kneeling next to their bedroom door, Alyssa peeked out. Silently surveying the hallway, she decided that it was safe and pulled the door fully open as she got to her feet. She held her hand out to her little sister. With Judith’s small hand in hers and her other hand to her mouth, motioning her sister to remain very quiet, Alyssa tiptoed out of the girls’ shared room.

They made it past their parents’ door without any issue and slowly crept down the stairs. Alyssa paused midway to lift Judith over the squeaky step before continuing down. The girls reached the main level of the house, the soft scent of pine wafting in the dim twinkling light of Christmas lights. Judith pulled her hand free from Alyssa’s and rushed over to the tree, her large brown eyes looking up at the tree. With a squeal she hurried over to the fireplace.

“Look, Lyss-lyss! Santa came!” the three year old exclaimed, pointing at the full stockings hung with care.

“Shhh,” she warned the excited little girl. “We don’t wanna wake Mom and Daddy up.”

Judith pouted, “But I wanna open now!”

Alyssa headed over to the fireplace, reaching for each of their stockings, “I think Daddy said we could open these first, even if they weren’t up. Then... then we should make them breakfast!”

“Ooooh. Pamcakes?”

“I was thinking French Toast,” she responded.

“YEAH!” the younger girl responded, forgetting the stockings and heading into the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, Howard and Marilyn woke with a start as shrill squeal filled the air. Alarm filled both parents upon realization that it was the smoke detector. Marilyn rushed out of the room towards the girls’ room, Howard lept down the stairs to find the source and hopefully stop the fire from spreading. He skidded to a stop in the kitchen entryway. His eyes focused on his daughters in front of the stove, Judith standing on a chair in order to reach the stove. Both hadn’t yet noticed his presence as Alyssa was trying to find some way to stop the smoking from whatever they were cooking. Calmly stepping up to them, Howard reached around the girls and turned off the stove top. He reached for the blackened pan and moved it over to the sink, running water over whatever it was to stop the smoldering. Leaving the sizzling pan in the sink, he pressed the red button on the squealing smoke detector and reached to crack open the window above the sink.

He slowly turned to the girls, “Merry Christmas. Shall we go see what Santa brought us?”

“You’re not mad?” Alyssa quickly asked.

“Of course not,” Howard smiled. “It’s Christmas!”

Marilyn entered the kitchen, quickly surveyed the scene and nodded, “Good morning, darlings. I hear Santa thought you girls were good all year long.”

“Wreally!?” Judith jumped off her chair, stumbled, and hit the floor with a splat.

She quickly got back up and hurried into the room with Alyssa, giggling. The burned toast already forgotten.