Sebastian couldn't see faces.
Growing up, Sebastian was an unusually hyper child. His parents couldn't handle him. His nanny couldn't handle him. He didn't have many friends because he rarely stopped moving long enough to meet them. He was extremely intelligent, but couldn't be bothered with trivial things like school and books. He couldn't walk to school unchaperoned because on the days he did, he never made it there. An exceptionally large tree would call to him, and he would be compelled without reason to climb it. Or he would find a neighbor's skateboard in the grass and skate away to the next town. One bizarre morning he was discovered at a neighbor's house painting their fence.
It was on a day when he was running late for school and the nanny was sick and his mother and father were out of town that Sebastian took off down the street just to be distracted by his old foe – California black oak. A small fence constructed at the base of the tree and wound around with yellow caution tape couldn't deter Sebastian. He leapt over them with barely any effort and shot up the trunk, scurrying straight to the top like a squirrel. He bounced among the high branches, swinging from one to the other, pretending to be a lemur in Madagascar, which is why the crew from the city maintenance department didn't see him.
Men in cherry pickers started thinning out the branches, never noticing the rambunctious little boy until one of the workers spotted him balancing on the branch he had just finished trimming. Green eyes met brown for just a moment before the branch broke with a sickening snap and Sebastian fell to the ground, knocking out a few loose tree limbs along the way.
Eight broken bones.
A concussion.
A bunch of nasty looking contusions.
Close to fifty stitches.
His nanny never forgave herself.
His mother felt guilty for being grateful that her uncontrollable son's massive injuries would force him to stay in one place for a while.
His father sued the city.
The doctors predicted that he would make a full recovery.
But Sebastian was an unusual boy.
Nothing about him was easy.
Something most children would have recovered from, even a horrendous accident like his, wouldn't leave Sebastian without some kind of life-altering scar.
So when Sebastian opened his eyes and looked around his bed, he found he was completely and entirely alone, not because his family wasn't standing at his bedside. He saw their bodies and their legs. But not a single one of them had a face.
The doctors assured his parents it would likely go away.
They gave his parents books. They put them in touch with support groups, specialists, and therapists.
His parents called acupuncturists, gurus, and monks.
No one had any solutions.
His parents pulled Sebastian out of school. They got him private tutors. He took his classes online.
He graduated with honors and when he turned eighteen he left his parents' home against his family's wishes and moved to New York City.
He never saw his parents again.
Kurt hated his face.
He wore turtlenecks and high collars.
He pulled the edges up to cover his right side.
He ate in the cafeteria by himself.
He spoke to no one.
In a room full of people, he tried to disappear.
Kurt was a meticulous child; a perfectionist really. His father never truly understood him. It all started when his mother died. After that, Kurt had an obsessive need for utter control in his life. Excessive neatness. A place for everything and everything in its place. Even ridiculous things needed to measure up to Kurt's almost insane level of perfection. His father would wake up some mornings to not just a spotless house, but a thoroughly clean and organized garage. One Sunday morning, on the third anniversary of his mother's death, Kurt's father found him outside rearranging the plants growing in the garden. There Kurt was, dressed in head to toe plastic, two pairs of gardening gloves on his hands, and a ruler. He had started by measuring the distance from the house to the first tulip, and with mathematical precision, he readjusted all the tulips to match, color coordinated the gladiolas, and redistributed the gerberas by varying shades in order according to the color spectrum.
Kurt's father sat and watched his son the entire afternoon, until Kurt reached a hydrangea and stopped in his tracks. The plant grew in an area of the garden with constantly changing levels of aluminum in the soil. Part of the plant grew blue and part of it pink. No matter how hard Kurt tried, he couldn't figure out a way to divide the plant, and after an hour of trying, he broke down, sat in the dirt, and began to cry.
Kurt's father held his son, and told him he would make everything all right. The next morning, the beautifully troublesome hydrangea had been adopted by a kindly neighbor down the street who knew what it was like to lose someone she loved.
Kurt's obsession with order seemed to get worse from that day on, and his father was at a loss. He thought maybe his son was too isolated. Kurt had no real friends. A little girl from down the street had invited him over for a tea party once, but became frustrated with him when he took all of her collectibles down off of her shelves and categorized them by color and magical species.
His father planned a barbecue. He invited friends, neighbors, and family members from all over Ohio. Almost everyone came. Kids ran around the yard. Adults laughed and talked over potato salad and unhealthy fried foods. Kurt's father broke out the old grill for the first time in years. Everything went off without a hitch. Kurt's father even thought that Kurt looked happy.
A neighbor stacking the charcoal briquettes on the grill caught Kurt's eye. The man stepped away for a moment, and Kurt noticed that the pyramid the tiny black blocks formed angled off obtusely on one side more than the others.
Kurt felt an overwhelming need to fix it.
He didn't know the briquettes were already doused in fluid and lit.
Kurt reached for the grill, and brought the whole thing down on top of him.
The few neighbors who had decided not to attend the barbecue could hear Kurt's screams from blocks away.
The entire right side of his face was scorched into one huge, angry scar.
Everything but his eye had been irreparably damaged.
He carried the burn his entire life.
Everyone in the relatively small town of Lima, Ohio, knew about Kurt's accident. No one spoke about it. Kids didn't tease him about it. Everyone understood, but Kurt still felt alone.
He hid his face.
He hid his life.
The day after graduation, he packed a bag and ran away.
Kurt was tired of hiding.
Running away to a place where very few people stood out seemed perfect to Kurt, but he was still terribly lonely. To a degree, the campus at NYU was a lot like Lima. No one really judged him for his scar, but no one made an effort to be friends with him either. He knew he was hard to look at. Sometimes, the people who tried hard not to stare at him were more obvious than those who stared openly, or the ones who gasped and looked away.
On the first day of Intro to College Math, Kurt, the boy that people tried not to notice, found a boy who didn't notice anyone. Kurt watched him from a distance as the young man took notes and diligently did his work. If there was a single incomparable human in the world, this man had to be it. Everything from his modernly styled hair to his sea green eyes, his flawless skin and his impeccable fashion sense, screamed perfection…and unavailable.
The thing that fascinated Kurt the most was that regardless of the loads of attention that people heaped on him – girls flirted with him, metrosexual men practically begged to be his friend – he ignored them all. Even the professor calling out his name didn't seem to attract his attention.
Sebastian.
Kurt sat three rows back and to the left of unrivaled beauty, and his name was Sebastian.
He wrote it on his left arm so he would never forget it.
"Okay, now you're just making shit up," a girl behind Kurt scolded her friend. "Can't see faces? That's not even a thing. You just don't want me to ask him out before you get the chance. FYI – it's not going to work. I'm totally getting up on that as soon as possible."
"Whatevs," her friend retorted. "It is so a thing. I heard Professor Evans talking about it. That's why he doesn't talk to anyone…and P.S. He's mine, thank you very much."
Their conversation peeked Kurt's curiosity, and even though he wouldn't normally give either girl the time of day, he turned quickly and confronted them.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, sounding more assertive than usual under the circumstances. Both girls jumped back a bit.
"Ugh," the first girl commented. "Rude much?"
A third girl sitting beside them closed her book with a frustrated sigh.
"It's called visual agnosia," she clarified without sparing them a glance. "It's not that he can't see faces. He knows what a face is, it's just his mind doesn't recognize them anymore, so it replaces them with something else. From what I hear, everyone just looks kind of like a big blur on legs to him."
The girl started to gather up her belongings and shove them in her bag.
"But…but what could cause that?" Kurt asked, suddenly excited by the prospect of a gorgeous man who couldn't see his face, wouldn't see how damaged he was.
Maybe they could be friends.
"Uh…I don't know," the girl said, zippering up her bag. "Maybe an accident? A blow to the head or something." The girl looked up at Kurt with an unexpectedly warm smile. "Maybe you should ask him." The girl winked at Kurt, shouldered her bag, and headed for the door.
Kurt absentmindedly got up and followed her. She seemed to know something he didn't. Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? Either way, if Sebastian couldn't see Kurt's horrible scar, then it wouldn't hurt to talk to him, maybe ask him out for coffee. Maybe he could make up an excuse, ask Sebastian for help with the math assignment.
Shit!
Kurt was almost through the classroom door when he realized he had left his book and the rest of his belongings on his desk.
Kurt turned on his heel, muttering to himself. He ducked his head to avoid any possible stares from his classmates. A herd of gabby girls walked into him head on, and Kurt landed on his tailbone on the hard, linoleum floor.
A hand grabbed his arm.
"Hey! Are you alright?" Kurt heard a velvety smooth voice ask. Then the voice gasped. Kurt was sure some well-meaning jock had reached down to help him and caught sight of his face.
But the reality was worse…much worse.
Sebastian, his green eyes even more intense and incredible from close up, had grabbed hold of Kurt's left wrist. The long sleeve of Kurt's hoodie had pushed up to his elbow. Sebastian stood frozen, staring at his own name.
Kurt's terrified eyes watched Sebastian's face closely, waiting for a reaction.
Sebastian smiled, his all-too tempting lips twitching up into a crookedly adorable grin.
"So, is that my name on your arm? Or is your name Sebastian, too?"
"Uh…" Kurt hadn't expected this. This gorgeous guy wasn't cringing in fear, wasn't backing away, wasn't ignoring him uncomfortably as if he didn't exist. In fact, Kurt wasn't too certain, but Sebastian might have just flirted with him. Kurt felt his face glow red. The most handsome man Kurt had ever seen was flirting with him.
To be fair, Sebastian hadn't really caught sight of his face yet.
Kurt swallowed hard. He couldn't think of anything to say. He simply waited for the shoe to drop.
Sebastian's eyes found his face.
Kurt went rigid, but then breathed a sigh of relief remembering that Sebastian wouldn't react like everyone else, because he wouldn't see his face. He would only see a blur. For once, Kurt would be just another face in the crowd.
Sebastian didn't react like anyone else ever had.
His eyes went wide. His grip around Kurt's arm tightened. He stared for a moment, a strange, unreadable expression on his face.
Then Sebastian choked out a laugh, dropping to his knees in front of Kurt, who still lay sprawled on his ass on the floor.
"I can see you," Sebastian whispered. Kurt would have thought the man was poking fun at him if not for the genuine sound of awe in his voice and the tears shimmering in his eyes. "I can see you," he repeated softly. He reached his free hand out to touch Kurt's face. Kurt backed away as far as he could to avoid Sebastian's fingers, but not far enough to pull his wrist free of Sebastian's grip.
"Is everything alright, Sebastian? Kurt?" Professor Evans asked from behind them. Kurt looked up and saw the professor staring down at them, along with almost every other student from their math class, and a few others who lingered in the hall.
"Kurt," Sebastian parroted. The sound of his name wrapped around that velvety voice brought Kurt's attention back to Sebastian's astonished green eyes. "Kurt," he said again. Sebastian slowly started to come to the realization that they were both sitting on the floor in the doorway of their classroom, with a group of their peers staring at them strangely. He stood, pulling Kurt to his feet, unwilling to take his eyes off of Kurt's stunned face.
"Would you like to go have coffee with me, Kurt?" Sebastian asked. "I would like to get to know you…if you have the time."
This was all too weird, even for Kurt. He had no idea what was going on. But was he really going to let that get in the way of him having coffee with this stunning man?
"I would love to," Kurt answered breathlessly. "I just need to…to get my books."
Sebastian followed behind Kurt while he got his things. It should have unnerved Kurt, the way Sebastian looked at him. Kurt had been stared at most of his life, but not like this. Not like he was someone to be admired.
Not like he was beautiful.
He gathered all of his things into his bag and shrugged it onto his shoulder, but Sebastian intercepted it, and slung it over his shoulder instead.
"This way you can't run away from me," Sebastian whispered with a satisfied smirk on his face. He took Kurt by the hand and led him from the classroom, several dozen pairs of eyes and gaping mouths following them as they walked away.