If you had told me a year ago, that I would be living on a sentient paradise island in the middle of the ocean, helping my sister run pharmaceutical trade for a sovereign mutant nation, I probably would have believed you. Granted, I was institutionalised and heavily medicated at the time, I would have believed anything. That being said, if you had told me I would meet the love of my life I would have laughed in your face.
Like I said, I was heavily medicated.
The name is Christian Frost. One of the four children, and only son, of world-renowned business tycoon Winston Frost, and high-society socialite Hazel Frost. However, you may be more familiar with my more infamous sister, Emma. Former supervillainess-turned-super heroine, the White Queen is a staple member of the team of mutant superheroes, the X-Men. But enough about them, this story is about me.
It was probably a cool midsummer's afternoon, it's hard to tell in Frost Manor, the place I called home. The house often felt like a very expensive, and well decorated tomb. Suffocating. I had only been back for a few weeks, but the familiarity was slow to return. It had been so long since I was last here, I had been through so much and changed so much, it was hard to feel comforted by its walls anymore. But I had no better place to be.
It was easier while Emma was around. The Manor might not feel like home but Emma always will. She and I have always been close, the closest out of all our siblings. I've always felt compelled to take care of her, ever since I watched our parents first bring her home. She was so small and fragile with her teeny, tiny fingers and her teeny, tiny toes. Nothing like she is today, God no, she's taken care of me more than I ever have, her. I don't know how I can ever repay her for that, but I will. Point being, Emma makes me feel safe. That, and she has a knack for becoming centre of attention, for better or worse, it makes it hard to worry about anything else.
When Emma was not around, I'd turn to the piano. It is a habit I picked up as a child. Our house has a beautiful, ornate grand piano situated in our dining room. The polished white wood glistens in the sunlight which has always captivated me. The piano bench sits in the path of sunbeams from the window, so sitting on it feels warm and comforting. My mother taught me to play. She learned young, taught by her grandmother, and she hoped to teach all of us but none of my sisters took to it. So it was something we did together, just mother and son. Playing never failed to ease my soul. So as I grew older, I played a lot.
It was around 2:00pm when my chest started to feel tight. A memento from my stint at the Briarfront Institution. Every day at two o'clock, a nurse would wheel around a cart full of medication and hand us a kaleidoscope in a cup. I sat down at the piano and began to play Beethoven's moonlight sonata to soothe myself. Then the clock struck two and the bells began to toll. And my vision went black.
"Come on, Christian, don't be difficult. Open your mouth. It will all be over soon."
The smell of antiseptic burned my nostrils like acid.
"Ugh, fine. Be that way. Rita, hold his head for me, please."
The memory was disrupted by the sound of Vanilla Ice crashing out of my phone and buzzing vibrations against my leg. Ice, ice, baby...
Hangin my head down and sighing, I stopped playing to answer, knowing exactly who was on the other side. Bobby Drake.
Let me tell you a little bit about Bobby. More famously known as Iceman, Bobby Drake is a mutant, a close friend and teammate of my sister, Emma. A superhero by nature, he was a founding member of the X-Men. Not to mention a founding member of X-Factor and the original team of Champions. He's even had a brief stint with the Defenders and an even briefer stint with the Fantastic Four. As you can see, Bobby is somebody who lives and breathes heroics. Which makes it no surprise that when Emma requested his assistance in freeing me from our father's control, Bobby didn't hesitate.
It all started when my father, very generously, ordered my release from Briarfront. I'm the disappointment of the family, you see. My mother was gracious enough to provide my father a son to carry on his oh-so-wonderful legacy, and he turned out to be a 'worthless daffodil'. Of course, it goes without saying, the perversion couldn't be tolerated. It's a long story really, but that's the gist of it. Getting back on track, good, old Winston had managed to estrange all three of my sisters while I was indisposed so, of course, daddy dearest came crawling back to me.
Now regrettably, I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time. Being dosed daily with potent tranquillisers and anti-psychotics does that to a person, mind you. Not to mention the re-education sessions. I'm not proud to admit it, but some days they had me believing the lies. When you are kept isolated in drab, grey cells and forced to wear drab, grey clothes and walk through drab, grey halls only to sit on drab, grey furniture in drab, grey rooms, day after day, you find it hard not to get lost in the monotony. There were days where I barely knew who I was, let alone anybody around me. Other residents would fade into the background. There seemed to always be a new face, every day, while others seemed to disappear for days on end. Maybe they did. Who knows what they did to us while we were out of it. I sure don't. Those days you just went through the motions, completely numb. They could have told me I was a tortoise and I'd have crawled around on the ground and chomped lettuce. Usually, however, I would feel a humming in my skull. Imploring me to resist their lies. Then, once or twice, I felt lucid. I remembered everything I wasn't meant to. I knew exactly who I was and I refused to let them take that away from me. So I tried to escape.
The first attempt, I managed to get as far as the lobby before this Goliath of a nurse tackled me. He and another held me down as the ever charming Rita came in like an angry wasp, stinging me with her hypodermic full of tranquilliser. Then when I woke up, they punished me.
My final attempt to escape involved a piece of glass I had found on the floor. They refused to let me live as myself so I was determined to die as myself. While I still had the chance. They punished me worse for that one.
As you can probably imagine, I wasn't exactly in the best shape to be groomed to take over the family business. Yet that's what Winston wanted so that's what Winston got. Now my father has never been a kind man, quite the opposite in fact. He has consistently been abusive to almost everyone in our family, and unfortunately for him, his sudden reappearance in my life stirred up all kinds of unresolved feelings. This severe emotional distress managed to trigger the activation of my extremely latent X-gene, and manifest my mutant powers. Again, unfortunately for Winston, my mutation gave me the ability to control and project astral energy and upon activation I gave off a particularly strong blast that managed to kill my father, dead. This slight mishap may have triggered a little bit of a psychotic break, but that only made me project an astral energy illusion of my father, that just went about his life quite normally, and repress what actually happened deep into my psyche.
Emma couldn't discern it was just a hologram, at first. Apparently it just read like holo-Winston was immune to her telepathy somehow. But after she and Bobby found Winston's body, they quickly pieced things together and endeavoured to help. My newfound powers managed to close my mind to Emma's, so Bobby volunteered his own mind instead and she shunted both herself and me into it. The result meant I got to see deep into Bobby's innermost thoughts. His hopes, his dreams. His fears, insecurities, trauma, all laid bare like an exposed nerve. Emma struggled to get through to me still, so Bobby whatever he could from his mind to form a connection and bond with me in the middle of my breakdown. To show me that I wasn't alone and that things were going to be okay. And, long story short, it worked. In the end, he and Emma managed to coax me out of my stupor.
Bobby and I became extremely close following The Incident. It was hard not to after opening our minds to each other like we did. Though we didn't discuss it much, I suppose the amount of vulnerability involved isn't the most comfortable thing ever. But we didn't really need to talk about it. It was like we had a silent understanding, we already knew how each other felt about what happened because we shared everything in that moment. It helped Bobby as much as it helped me. He struggled to show people that side of himself, the hurting little gay boy, his entire life. But he didn't hesitate when he saw that I needed it just as much as he did. Because that's who he is. And afterward he felt like the weight of the world was lifted from his shoulders. He was Atlas holding up the sky and somebody came along to bear the impossible task with him. I know that because I felt it and there's no way I can repay him for what he did for me. So I'm determined to hold on for as long as he needs.
But he likes to push his luck.
He has set himself a personalised ringtone on my phone, thinking himself hilarious. On top of that, I haven't been able to figure out how to change it, which amuses him to no end. So, naturally, he refuses to enlighten me.
Finally I stop the racket.
"What is it, Bobby?" I snapped.
"Wow, okay. The claws are out," Bobby replied, faux offended.
"I was playing Beethoven, you interrupted my flow," I explained.
"Oh you were playing Beethoven? Please forgive me, Master Frost. How truly gracious of you to take my call at all!" Bobby mocked, in a god-awful English accent.
"All right, I'm sorry," I conceded. "Good afternoon, Bobby. What can I do you for?"
"Now that's more like it!" Bobby cheered, his accent returning to normal. "Are you doing anything tonight? Any fancy plans? Business dinners, regatta galas, blah blah blah?"
Nothing official, if that's what you mean. I simply planned on curling up with a book, if I'm totally honest." I answered. "Why?"
"A book?"
"Yes, Bobby. A book. It's this fancy collection of paper pages with words printed on them, usually telling a story. You probably know them better made from cardboard and covered in pictures," I taunted, my mouth beginning to curl into a smirk.
"Ha ha. Very funny," he said dryly. "Do you have plans or not, asshole?"
"I guess not, then."
"Perfect!" He concluded.
"Is there something you had in mind?"
"Yeah, come out with me."
"I thought you already came out, recently? And I came out years ago, Bobby," I said, smirking again.
"Oh my god," he sided. "Leave the cheese to me. Rictor has a bar in Mutant Town that he needs to check on. A few of us muties thought it would be fun to turn it into a Gays' Night. You wanna come or not?"
"What on Earth is 'Mutant Town'?"
"Jeez Christian, you're so snooty. It's New York's mutant neighbourhood, District X. We just call it Mutant Town. You've really never heard of it?"
"No, can't say that I have."
"Well, it's not the fanciest place in the world. Certainly not like anything you're used to. But it's ours, at least."
"It sounds cute."
"There's no need to be so icy, Mr. Frost. If you don't wanna come you don't have to."
"No, no. I'm not being icy, truly. It sounds cute, let's do it."