64Face It
Rating: M
Warnings: Homosexuality, sex in later chapters.
Summary: MxM. SLASH. Disfigured in a horrible car accident and mistaken for a rising actor, Noah is given plastic surgery accordingly. Timid and untalented, he must adapt to life as a celebrity -and his 'rival' Jack Garnet intends to make that even harder for him.
Prologue
I never know if I'm lucky or unlucky.
You know how, if someone gets into an accident and just gets a fender-bender, he'll think 'how unlucky' and another person will say to him 'how lucky you are that no one was hurt'. It's that sort of thing, only with everything for me. I suppose I'm trying too hard-my mother always said I tried too hard.
To please people, mostly.
I don't know why, but that has always been the biggest cause of stress in my life. Will I annoy someone, will I not work hard enough, will I piss them off, will I make them have a bad day because I wasn't good enough….It's hard to be that way. It makes you crazy with it sometimes, and there are moments when I just don't know what to do. Being a people-pleaser is never satisfying, there's always the next person to help or to stay away from because they don't like the way you look. You know?
Maybe you don't. I'm told I'm not normal. You probably think I'm insane too. I don't know, maybe I am…but I just think I'm unlucky. Why should other people have to bear being around someone so unfortunate without some sort of consolation prize? So I try to please them, to abate the general unpleasantness that comes with being around someone like me.
I'm not smart….
…I'm not good looking…
…I'm not tall or muscled…
…and I'm definitely not outgoing. No, not in the least.
In fact, my looks have always been below average. Sure, I had the general 'oh, he's so cute' air that all people below ten-years-old did, but after than, when I entered middle school, the lack in that area grew more noticeable. My nose was big and my teeth were crooked. My eyes were a pretty color, a pretty sort of dark green, but small and too close together, and marred by thick glasses. My lips were thin and there was too much baby fat to see my high cheekbones. I was scrawny and I had bright messy red hair and I just…wasn't an attractive person. I never was, and in high school it only got worse.
My height became more of an issue as boys began to grow to heights of six foot and above and I stayed at my measly 5'5. As I said, I was scrawny. Not even the skinny type that the gothic girls liked…I was generally offensive in every possible way, at least that's always what it seemed like to me.
That's also where the acne kicked in, and…just, yeah, I won't go into detail.
My personality was lacking about as much as my face. I've always been timid, and my small stature made sure I was the target for bullies. High school was not a party, but there was art club…the teacher was nice, and the people were interesting. I wasn't very good, and I didn't make any real friends-but I had fun there. I mostly kept to myself…I figured that was the way people wanted it. No one really gained anything by being with me. I understood their standoffishness.
I guess you could say I'm kind hearted. I'd like to think so. But that was hard to see, because you'd have to get past…everything else. My mom loved me. That was the best thing about my life. We were too broke to afford braces or contacts, but she did her best. Acne cream was affordable, and she did her best with that too.
My grades were average, and I didn't have any other clubs. College was never for me-I get stressed too easily, and I freeze up on tests. I never passed the SAT or ACT, although I tried…I barely got halfway through. I love reading, and math isn't too hard, I'm just…to darn nervous to concentrate. I'm not stupid, so I couldn't hang out with the proud-to-be-failing group, and I'm not smart, so that meant I couldn't claim a spot with the honor roll. I was too below average to sit with the average kids, and too antisocial to talk to the few others like me. I had no talents. I enjoyed drawing, but had no skill.
Everything that a person could be, should be, I just…
…wasn't.
I wasn't a lot of things, back then. Funny, how a horrible event can change everything. Your life, your friends, your outlook on life, the people you thought mattered. It hasn't changed me, not the real me-I don't think. But it changed just about everything else.
I was driving to the library, when it happened. Car accidents are common, and deaths in them aren't unusual but…cases like mine are unheard of. I think, anyway. I kept it a secret, didn't I? Maybe other's have had similar occurrences happen to them, but I doubt it. I was turning a corner, and so was he, and by he I mean Lukas Fyre. He was an up and coming movie star, well known and growing to the heights of people like Johnny Depp, before he died…but not quite there yet.
Living in L.A., you knew things like that. Not a place for someone as low as me, honestly, but it was where I'd grown up. I lived just outside it, actually, but I went in to grocery shop, or like days like that Saturday, to the library. It was the middle of the day, it was hot in July and my car was a clunker Nova and his was a Porsche. They both were totally irreparable.
I don't know the whole story. Just that he died, and I was disfigured. Burnt in terrible places, completely unidentifiable…it was an easy mistake to make. He was crushed, and his manager just saw my red hair, and we were about the same height and build…
There were pictures of me, before they did all that plastic surgery. It consisted of six surgeries, over the coarse of 8 months, all of which I was in a coma. They said that was a good thing, because by the looks of it, it would have hurt…excruciatingly. I couldn't afford all the surgery, so I suppose it really is a blessing, that they thought I was him. Because Noah Steilson would have been left to rot in a hospital room until he died or woke up burnt and charred and even more ugly than he'd gone into it.
But Lukas Fyre was rich. Lukas was beautiful, successful, ruthless and talented. He had a personality that got him places, he was confident in himself despite any flaws... and so they rebuilt him.
On me.
People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart. -Bertolt Brecht
I've had this written for a while, ever since I got this idea. I love this idea really (I wish TV producers would listen to the ideas of 16-year-olds, because this would make a kick ass TV show...if they accepted the whole 'gay' thing.) and this character will be a blast to write. This is set about twenty years from present, I tried to convey that...so I guess it's sorta sci fi? Oo Huh. I needed this surgery to be possible, and plastic surgery is good, just not not that good.
So yeah...I've been having trouble motivating myself to write this, but I really wanted to get this out there, I hope the response is good. This is just the prologue, the action is in chapter one. :) I hope I conveyed just how awkward this boy is...Anyway-please review? Pretty please with strawberries on top? Thanks ya all!
Nilah