Work Text:
Lin Ling couldn't even recognize himself in the mirror any more.
The changes had started small. Of course, at first Miss J had insisted on bleaching his hair to be absolutely sure he could sell the act. That had been unpleasant, but simple enough. What he hadn't expected was the way the public's Trust Value started to affect his body.
While he was on the slender side, he had never been physically fit. At first, the clothes in Nice's wardrobe had even been a bit baggy on him. As the days passed and the public believed all was well with their favorite hero, he found his muscles had toned just enough to fill out his workout uniform snugly. He found himself accidentally gripping a glass too tightly during dinner at one point, and was alarmed at how upset he was by the broken pieces littering the floor. The old Lin Ling would have laughed it off, but now his brain was in panic mode, sending him signals that the scattered shards were ruining his perfect living space. It was only after he finished emptying the dust pan into the trash that he realized his breathing had slowed down to a normal level.
The hair and eye change had been difficult, to say the least. He swore that every time he caught a glimpse of his reflection, the white had slowly but unmistakenly taken over more and more of his head. He had gazed at himself in the mirror for a few minutes one evening, almost certain he could see the brown in his irises slowly, slowly phasing from brown, to grey, to blue. The first few mornings after he had groggily walked to the bathroom and washed his face, he would be startled awake by the stranger looking back at him.
At least Lin Ling's face and body were nearly identical to Nice's. Nearly. When the week was nearly over, he woke in the middle of the night, gasping in pain as the changes started to take their toll on his skeletal system. Bones in his legs and spine stretched ever so slightly. A pinching sensation began at the front of his skull, as muscles lengthened and flattened to contour just slightly to the splitting image of Nice's flawless face. His teeth began to straighten themselves out to match Nice's pearly whites, shifting in their sockets and making his gums bleed.
The next morning dragged himself out of bed, whimpering, and made his way to the bathroom. Lin Ling stared in the mirror, and Nice stared back.