Hey, everyone:
This story is a little bit different than my usual fics, so enjoy. It's rated PG-13 because of some rather disturbing themes, you have been warned.
Living A Life
By: Catherine
Considering that I have no basis of comparison, I must say that I've done a pretty good job of living Shane McMahon's life. Then again, he would have had it easy, what with the privileged family and all the money. In fact, he would have been a member of a family with so much money that they could create a person's entire life.
That's the kicker of it all, finding out there had actually been a Shane McMahon. He died when he was three and the McMahon family never really got over it. So they did the only thing a rich, influential family like that could do: they recreated their son. I was an orphan, so young back then that I can't even remember the orphanage or any of the people who took care of me. I do seem to recall that it was a decent life, they didn't beat me or anything, but it was nice to go to a loving home.
But even as a kid, I was scared by the way Linda would sit on my bed with me for hours, brushing my hair and calling me Shane, even though that wasn't my name at the time. She'd sounded so happy that over time, I didn't correct her.
Vince and Linda were very good to me that first year. Then they started noticing little things: my eyes weren't quite the right colour, my hair was too light. One night, they bundled me up and took me to see a very special doctor. I thought I was sick. That first operation was a blur – literally because I was crying as the doctors held the gas over my mouth and anesthetized me just enough to keep my eyes open as they placed contacts over my eyes. Mind you, this was long before laser surgery was common knowledge.
It must surprise you that the McMahons could find doctors who would be willing to perform this sort of operation on a child. Then again, money is an amazing thing.
I went through a lot of those surgeries over the years, it became a sort of habit; some people are afraid to go under the knife, it was a fact of life for me. As I grew up, they bothered me less and less. The strangest thing out of this remarkably strange ordeal is that Vince and Linda kept calling me Shane, even though I was sure that wasn't my name. But they'd punish me if I tried to correct them.
When Stephanie came along, they pretty much left me alone in order to take care of her. Most of the time, if they came to check on me, it was to make sure that I was healing properly after the latest operation and getting the proper care.
As I grew up, I came to find out that they were so happy to have Stephanie and their original Shane because doctors had told them that they couldn't have children. It was one of many discoveries that would shape my life. So their son and daughter were miracles. When Shane died, they couldn't handle the loss of their miracle, so they got me.
Only recently did I discover that Vince and Linda hadn't told anyone that Shane had died; according to family friends, he'd gone away on a camping trip with friends.
Except he died and I took his place.
But they couldn't risk the scandal of having a son that didn't look perfectly right. In their circles, people have eyes like hawks and if there was an inkling of suspicion that I wasn't their child, or somehow illegitimate, the truth would come out.
Hence the surgeries. Anything you can think of to make sure I looked like Vince: Eyes, nose, cheek bones, facial structure, surgeries that most people aren't aware of to this day. Linda and Vince spared no expense to make sure that I looked like a facsimile of what their dead son would have looked like.
Now you're thinking: How is something like this possible? Think about it, only the McMahons and the doctors involved know the truth. The orphanage doesn't know what was done with me after the papers were completed. But what about my friends, my wife, how could they not know? This kind of enormous conspiracy doesn't seem possible, but it is when you're living it.
For one thing, she's not my wife; she's the wife that Vince and Linda wanted Shane to have. Her name isn't even Marissa; she's Kendra Gordon, a Barbara Streisand impersonator from SoHo and on a few nights, the McMahons hire her out to play the role of Marissa McMahon. She's quite the actress.
Then again, I'm a hell of an actor, I've built up a man's entire life and he was only alive for three years. Vince and Linda are so pleased because in all of the ways that count to them, they have the son they always wanted. But it's been all me, bearing the surgeries, living the life - that's all my doing. People think that all wrestlers are such great actors because they develop their characters so thoroughly. I've not only perfected a wrestling persona; I've perfected an entire life.
At times, I can't help but wonder if all of this hadn't happened, if I'd stayed at the orphanage without having the McMahons in my life, if I would have been an actor anyway. Judging by how spectacularly the past thirty or so years have been going, I probably would have been a good one.
But there are a few small problems.
For one thing, I have no idea what I'd look like. I've undergone so many surgeries to make me look like the rest of my 'family' that there's no way for me to know.
Add that to the fact that I can't even remember my real name and there are plenty of good reasons when a future in Hollywood isn't feasible.
That and the physical problems I have don't help matters.
Not even the doctors who performed all of the operations could have foreseen the repercussions so many alterations to my body would have had. Those long absences from television are me either recuperating from a corrective operation.
Did you know that I can't be underneath bright lights for long periods of time? Anything more than twenty minutes usually results in me curled up in a dark room with tears running down my face because my eyes burn so badly, it feels like my whole head is engulfed in flames. There were operations done to make my eyes a little closer together. It seemed really simple when it was explained to me, just a little operation, a few millimeters. When it's really sunny outside, I lose the ability to see colour.
My skin has undergone a whitening process so advanced that Michael Jackson would kill for. It's been done to me so many times that I can't tan. The reason I'm not on WWF television now? I began to have severe muscle spasms in my legs so bad that I'd be paralyzed for days at a time. Vince and Linda sent me for yet another corrective operation out in some country whose name I can barely pronounce. The doctors think that a steroid treatment in my teens to make me taller is having unforeseen side effects.
Seems like the McMahon family's perfect son is falling apart. Bet they're wishing surgeons who'd promised them that everything would be fine had told them the truth, rather than drooling over the wads of cash being offered.
Most of the doctors who did this to me are either dead or retired. Even if they are still alive, my 'father' paid them all so well that none of them would talk. Stephanie was too young to remember many of the operations and the others were explained off as me being sick or travelling with friends. After recovering enough to return home, I would regale Stephanie with stories of falsified debauchery.
Yet another bit of acting.
I came to the realization a long time ago that there isn't anything that I can do to correct this situation. My real parents are probably long dead and who in their right mind would believe this story of futuristic operations and a dead Shane McMahon? Besides, Shane wouldn't have had it so bad, I mean, look at how far his parents went to replace him when he croaked. All I have to do is act the part, live the life he was supposed to and hope that this all ends eventually.
What other choice do I have really – being that kid whose name I can't remember – or continuing to play the role, ironically enough, of a lifetime?
THE END