At twenty-six, Nico could be anyone he wanted - and not just in that metaphorically crappy way parents tell their children - he could literally transform into anyone he wanted!
Most shapeshifters used their gift carefully: a sharper jaw for a date, a few inches of height for a night out, maybe a fake sunburn to get out of work. Nico had always been more impulsive. He liked trying on lives the way other people tried on shirts. A surfer for one weekend. A silver-haired professor for a Halloween party. A tattooed bartender when he wanted strangers to tell him secrets. A pretty twink when he wanted men to fawn over him. But Father’s Day weekend brought out a different itch in him, one he couldn’t shake.
The ads in his slice of the gay world were everywhere: grill specials, pool parties, “Daddy Day” brunches, men in sunglasses lounging with towels and drinks and casual confidence. Nico caught his reflection in the black screen of his phone - smooth face, dark curls, clean jaw, still very much the pretty young guy everyone expected him to be - and sighed. He didn’t want to be pretty that weekend. He wanted presence. The kind of body that made a lounge chair look like a throne. The kind of man people glanced at and immediately thought, yeah, that one knows exactly who he is and what he wants.
So, despite his best judgment, in public beside the pool, he lifted his camera to watch and let the change begin. It started with the mustache. A faint shadow started to gather under his nose - because what is a daddy without a little facial hair? The changes continued as hair began to sprout and slowly move across his chest and stomach. Nico kept the changes slow and modest - to not attract too much attention.
Happy with the start and committed to the change, Nico continued to thicken his mustache into a dense, salt-and-pepper sweep that transformed his whole expression before the rest of him caught up. His face broadened subtly, youth smoothing into maturity, cheekbones settling into a handsome middle-aged confidence. The curls at his temples lightened with gray. His chest filled out, not into a gym fantasy, but into something better: solid, warm, masculine, touched with softness and sun. Not too much of a change. Just a slight…modification.
Hair spread across his chest and stomach in dark curls. His shoulders widened against the striped towel. Even his smile changed, becoming slower, more amused, like he had spent years perfecting the exact position of his lips to accentuate his thickening mustache.
When Nico took stock of his new body through the camera on his phone, the world looked the same, but the way it reacted to him did not. A young man walking past the pool glanced over, looked away, then looked back. Someone nearby murmured, “Happy Father’s Day,” with a grin that made it clear they knew exactly what kind of father they meant. Nico lifted one hand to his new mustache, feeling the bristly proof of the transformation, and laughed under his breath.
For once, he didn’t feel like he was pretending to be someone completely different. His usual changes were so extreme that with these small changes he felt like he had unlocked a version of himself that had been waiting patiently in the future: relaxed, handsome, a little cocky, and entirely comfortable taking up space. Father’s Day had given him the excuse, but the older body gave him the permission.
He stretched out on the lounge chair, green swim briefs bright in the sun, chest hair catching the light, mustache hiding the corner of his smile. Maybe he’d change back tomorrow. Maybe he wouldn’t. For now, Nico let the pool shimmer around him and settled into the role perfectly.
This weekend, he wasn’t just shapeshifting - he was shifting his entire outlook on life.
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