Before Christian Frost died, his truest passion had been the piano.
It was one good thing Winston did for him. Likely, the only. Forcing his children to take as many flashy extracurriculars as possible to make show ponies of them. Initially, the plan for Christian wasn’t music. Something refined, of course. Set him up to become a poet, perhaps. A speaker. But it became quickly clear Christian – while ever clever with them – wasn’t delicate with his words. Not always as careful as people, namely Winston, wanted him to be.
That was when they tried music. Strings didn’t land, and the flute was dead on arrival, but oddly, the boy connected immediately with keys. His longer, slimmer, hands well suited to it. A miracle, considering there wasn’t much else to do with a son gifted beauty genes when you had three daughters.
While Winston didn't think it very manly to train your fingers to make dainty and delicate sounds, Hazel always loved hearing music, so it was the one piece he allowed her. It was also probably why Christian couldn’t grow to hate her the way she hated him, though she fell short in her own ways. Regardless, he swiftly became the one who played piano. There would always be one at parties, and the Frosts sure loved their parties.
Sometimes, Winston or Hazel would announce their young son would play, and that would become the nights entertainment. Other times, it was left simply to invite him with an empty piano in the room. Beckon him through the silence to start a song. Play it perfectly, for a little bit of applause. To appease their parents. Perhaps, if he had been one of his sisters, Christian would have played for one of those reasons. Adrienne would leap at the opportunity to effortlessly impress. Emma, bless her, still thought she could get in Winston’s good graces by reaching perfection. But that wasn’t why he played. Maybe if he was as careless as Cordelia, he would slam the keys to make a scene. That wasn’t why he played it either.
Piano provided an escape. To study it meant to be completely alone with his thoughts; since Winston cringed at every wrong note and Hazel often grew disinterested of the repetition. He was given plenty of space with just himself the piano. His brain and his fingers. There was no audience to impress. No family name to uphold. He didn't even have to play along to written notes. Not if he didn't want to.
With a piano and a quiet room Christian Frost could go anywhere. Not that he didn’t already go anywhere, anyway, but that was his secret. Piano was his truth. Right under his family’s nose, and maybe the one thing they would not – could not – take away from him.
So, alone in the study, doors shut, late in the night, while their parents were off at some no children party, Christian bent over the shiny ebony and ivory. Memory urging him, after an hour of regular practice, to recreate a song he had been working on in secret. One he had heard on one of the earliest nights he snuck out of this wretched place. On the best night of his life.
It came easy to him. Tonight was far from the first time he had played it, in the quiet all alone. And just like every other time, as his feelings swelled and his hands glided across the canvas of sound before him, Christian poured his soul into the song. Into the piano. His lifeline. It was perhaps the only thing with an ounce of soul at all in this entire estate. Almost.
He started slow. Singing softly along with his playing. “The more you see, the less you know…” In the quiet, emptiness of the larger room, the notes echoed. It was a nice place to practice for precisely that reason, though you could say that about anywhere in this wretched place. Full of rooms too big, too empty, that managed to both swallow you up and make you feel alone. Always echoing.
Though, he wasn’t always completely alone.
The music stopped suddenly when Christian raised his hands from the keys. Though, he didn’t look up. Not yet. A small smile broke out across his face. “Em, you know I can tell you’re there.”
The irritated huff of his younger sister standing in the doorway behind him confirmed Christian’s suspicions. Though, he never was wrong about these things. Not about her, at least. If there was anybody in this sorry excuse for a family Christian knew and didn’t hate for it, it was Emma. He felt he’d do almost anything for that poor little girl. Even if he could practically hear her sticking her tongue out at him.
“You didn't even look.” He didn’t need to look either to tell her arms were crossed. Foot likely tapping impatiently as well. She always had been one for dramatics… but well, look at her family.
“Don’t have to.” Christian replied smugly, returning to playing, but this time without singing along. “You have… a presence.” He continued. There was a smirk in his words he in turn needn’t look her way for Emma to hear. It wasn’t long before he heard her footsteps patter over to him. The young girl barely in high school, slinging her legs over the bench beside him. Tilting her head, and watching his fingers, while Christian paid her no mind in particular, before she spoke again. A little softer than she had before, but with just as much offense.
“Well, you’re going to sing aren’t you?”
He laughed. In the soft, refined way they all did. Of courseshe needed singing too. “Not impressive enough?” He teased, knowing that wasn’t why she asked. Perhaps, in her own way, Emma loved music as much as he did. Perhaps this was making their own memories. More likely than not, however, she was just trying to connect with him somewhere real. Unlike the rest of this dastardly estate. And, well, he really couldn’t fault her. He could never turn little Em away. So, he took a drink from his glass atop the top board. Setting it down, and singing out a little louder with a refreshed throat. The music took him right back.
“Neon heart, day glow eyes…”
. . .
The night he met Dante Ortega was exhilarating.
It was one of the first times Christian had snuck out. He was so young then. Still on Winston's leash, primed to be an unwilling heir to a company he didn’t care for. He found escape, real and genuine physical escape, through the servants entrance. A road the old man didn’t bother guard. With his freedom, he was allowed to really explore the city, and in his exploring he found a bar. In a bar he found Dante. And he would always remember it, the music, the feeling in his chest he’d never felt before. They hit it off as fast friends. With a few drinks, they found themselves more than that.
The city lit like fireflies
The music echoed, a life performance of a song Christian would come to memorize, as spun together on the dance floor. Christian laughing genuinely for what felt like the first time he in his life. It was all new. Something else entirely. Something different. Something terrifying. But something amazing, too. Something Christian decided all too soon he never wanted to be without.
On the balcony, overlooking the city that had always been out of reach, they kissed. And despite the fear that would come with it. The hiding. He knew the feeling was so, so right.
They’re advertising in the skies for people like us
. . .
Thanks to a nudge from Emma, the last person from that wreck of a family Christian knewwould always be on his side, he went back to Dante. Explained everything. Was more open than any Frost ever had been or ever could be in a lifetime. And Em was right, as she tended to be these days, it worked. Dante understood, after Christian explained and swore he was finally ready to live an open life as they were, no matter what anybody said or thought. He let him move in. Giving the wayward Frost shelter from his father’s wrath. Promising they would figure it all out together.
And for the first time in his life without a piano, Christian Frost was well and truly free.
The future was uncertain, but that didn't matter. It was something he didn’t have to be alone to face. Christian had stared down steep odds before, fought tough battles, this would be nothing. Especially with Dante at his side.
They invited Emma over to celebrate. Christian setting himself up at the keyboard he had purchased for Dante’s place, back before the first breakup, and playing their song at the height of their little celebration.
“Don't look before you laugh,”
Dante sang the loudest, and he did it beautifully. Christian almost would have wanted to sing quieter to better hear his lover if cheerily belting along with him and his little sister didn’t feel so good. He played with lively vigor, but he didn’t have to think about the notes to hit them perfectly. All he was thinking about was how happy he was. Turning away from his fingers to see the proud expression of his little sister. Not as little as she had been, those few years before. When they were trapped.
“Look ugly in a photograph!”
Maybe they were laughing more than singing, but the room felt lively. Dante’s apartment was small, and without Christian's work there wasn’t much either of them could do on that front, but music made every space feel twice its size. Christian could hardly tell he was playing something electric (he could, of course, in the weight of his fingers, but he tried not to focus on it in the sound), because the moment was too organic. Too real.
Dante sat beside him. Trying to assist in the melody, even though he didn’t really know his way around a piano, but Christian didn’t focus on that either. The widest smile that had ever graced his lips resting on the older Frost’s face as he lost himself looking in Dante's beautiful eyes.
“Flash bulbs, purple irises, the camera can't see.”
. . .
I've seen you walk unafraid.
The warmth was gone. Everything was gone, and once again Christian was caged. Once again he was chained. He lied awake in bed. Staring at the ceiling. He’d been doing that for hours, feeling like little more than a guilty, trapped, shell of himself.
I've seen you in the clothes you’ve made
What happened to Dante was his fault. He was naive. He thought he could have it all, but he should have known outwitting Winston was impossible. Of course it had been his sister to turn on him. Of course it had been his father to pull the trigger. He felt disgusted giving either of them those titles, as if they had ever for a moment deserved it. His jaw tightened, and he sat up. Swinging his legs over the bed. He knew what he had to do.
Can you see the beauty inside of me..?
. . .
Christian was lucky Xavier’s school had a piano.
It was in their… library, of sorts, and by all means it was nice. Grand, in the traditional sense, and remarkably – considering it was surrounded by children – still in tune. Christian could not be sure what possessed him to play. He hadn’t touched a piano in years, had the music practically torn from his heart, but his fingers ghosted the keys anyway. Picking up a song he could never forget. He played wordlessly. Not daring sing.
The thought of Dante made him cringe, now. He could still feel the icy water they plunged his hands in now, as they glided ever less gracefully across the keys. Catching, trembling. But Christian was stronger than an ice bath. Stronger than any pain they had put him through to force the gay from him. He had to be. He had to be stronger than the boy who woke up in the hospital. For Em. May she someday forgive him…
Though the song itself was quiet, walls of the institute relatively insulated, the most surface level, loud thoughts of her older brother called his caretaker to his location. There really was no hiding from a worried telepath, though she had managed to lose track of him for a little while. She didn’t even need to know his minds voice to recognize the song. To know where she would have to go to find him.
…What happened to the beauty I had inside of me
Christian was growing frustrated. Tears welling up in his eyes in a way he hadn’t let them dare in… well, in his whole lifetime. The notes were wrong, his fingers clearly shook, but Christian pushed on anyway. Ever forwards. Ignore mistakes, and adding strength to his movements. Allowing the music to swell. He didn’t need to hear footsteps to know Emma was in the doorway behind him, and Emma didn’t need to hear his singing to know what part they were at.
And I miss you, when you’re not around
He poured his heart and soul into the music. It was easier for Emma to hear that now, with her mastered telepathy. These days she did not need to touch someone to know just how their heart ached, though, she knew all too well Christian's pain without her abilities at all.
The music died down after its grand final crescendo. The older, damaged, Frost’s fingers hovered over his canvas of keys. They trambled still, more obvious than before, but he didn’t have the heart or will to fight it. They waited there a moment. Together, but separate, before Christian broke the silence. Speaking up without looking behind him.
“I know you’re there, Em.”
“That was miserable.” She replied, with a blunt honesty Christian knew her well for.
“Yes it was.” He agreed, and the silence that followed could have broke Emma’s heart. Christian’s wit had been one of the prices of his admission – one of the robberies, conducted heartlessly by their father – that had never been returned to him. Not yet, anyway. Instead of an insightful retort, he offered silence. Watching Emma. Waiting for her move.
“You’re out of practice.” She said, to fill the silence, but she didn’t approach. Remaining in the doorway. To her surprise, it was Christian who turned to face her. Leaning a forearm on the top of the piano, as he plastered a thin smile on his face. A well rehearsed one Emma had seen plenty of times before… everything. Her own expression was still flat, though it usually was around here. Christian was the rare exception to that. “You could barely recognize the music.”
Christian hesitated a moment. Making a bit of a face, for a moment, one Emma didn’t like. One he would have been able to hide had he been in a better state of mind. Like the one she knew before all this. That one must have hit. He recovered quickly, though. “What ever could have kept me?” He teased, but she could tell it was hollow. Though, the bitterness was shared.
Emma couldn’t help the way she softened for him. Sighing, after another length of silence, as she took a step closer. Trying not to invade his limited personal space too much, knowing how her brother’s opinions about that fluctuated with his mood. “I’m sure he’s still waiting for you.” She blurted out, with an instant regret at the way it made Christian’s smile die.
They didn’t have to say who he was to know. The same way they knew the song that had echoed from the piano moments before belonged to him too. The silence befell them again. Christian scratched his neck. The scar was obvious when it wasn’t stuffed underneath a collar or caked with concealer. Even if it wasn’t, Emma could never forget the look of it. He was sure he could never forget the feel.
“Not for me. Not anymore.” Christian said finally. He shut the fall board on that remark. Words blunt, with layers only Emma could read. Just like how a Frost should speak.
He lingered barely a moment like that. Sitting beside the dead piano, before moving to his feet and walking to Emma. Looking past her to the doorway, and speaking again as he approached her. That fraudulent smile tugging at the edges of his lips again, as if to assure her and also as if to laugh at himself. The humor of all the awkward and unfamiliar. The dead Frost, letting out a chuckle after his own funeral song.
“I trust you’ll want to see me to bed?”