Matt walked up the stairs and turned in to his room at the end of the hall, opening the door and throwing his backpack on to his bed against the wall in a well practised movement.
“This is bullshit” he mumbled under his breath as he toed off his sneakers, scrunching his toes as the white and grey two tone crew socks were freed from their day long prison.
It wasn't that he was really that angry with his mom, or hated his brother for that matter – but there had been so much going on, so much arguing, so much school work, so much change with his Dad leaving. All Matt wanted to do with his summer was relax. His plan was to spend his time seeing his friends, practising to make sure he gets on the team next year, and sleeping in. Okay, he might also really want to try and impress Sophie, but his chances with her seemed slim.
He flopped haphazardly on to his bed - it seemed like his moms plans were going to completely ruin his. And to him that just isn't fair, none of this is his fault, and he was just feeling tired. But then he felt his pants move, his phone buzz. Pulling it from the back pocket he put his finger on the sensor to unlock and looked at his messages – his friend Ethan sending him a meme. He locked the phone and allowed his head to drop back down on to the plush checkered comforter.
He could reply with something nonsensical of his own later, right now it felt like he was one long blink from falling asleep – and with his arms outstretched hanging over the side of the bed, frankly he got a whiff of BO. It was way to early to be thinking about sleep.
He groaned as he rolled over and sat up. “Shower. Plan. Me time” he mumbled as a plan as he took off his jeans and pulled his shirt over his head, throwing them in a heap at the end of his bed with his other dirty clothes. Standing on one leg to pull off his sock – and there was that whiff again – a thought suddenly struck him, the ring!
He reached down to the mound of biohazard dirty teen boy clothing and picked up the jeans, patting the pockets until he felt something … warm.
“The hell?” - he gingerly reached in to get the ring he had found glinting in the dirt earlier.
It was mostly nondescript - a fairly normal sized, normal goldish coloured ring, with what was probably normal tarnishing for something that seemed old and lost for a while. But it was warm to the touch – too warm for just being in his pocket, a warmth of its own. Definitely unusual warmth. He turned it over in his fingers, seeing what looked like very worn partly filled letters on the inside.
And then, there it was again, feeling faint, or really just tired he supposed. “Shower. Plan. Weird ring. Me time” he intoned as he closed his fist around the ring and then leaned over to put it on his bedside table. Standing straight and stretching his arms out behind him, he walked out of his room into the hallway, carrying only his phone.
Normally he wouldn't be so brazen, but his mom wasn't home, so he didn’t need to worry about propriety while walking to the bathroom in nothing but his boxers. The worst that could happen would be passing Tim - and he knew the younger boy had glimpsed that multiple times before. As brothers go they were pretty similar look wise (if not opposites in personality) - certainly people often commented Tim looked like a younger version of Matt. Possibly too young Matt felt (being sure he had looked older at that age) but with their differences chances were decent that as Tim got older he wouldn't quite follow the physical path Matt took.
Turning on the light and locking the door behind him as he walked in the small family bathroom, he caught sight of himself in the large mirror covering the wall by the sink. He let out the smallest of groans – still no visible muscle he thought to himself, not like some of the guys on the team. Sophie will want muscles. And height – at 16 he wasn't short at 5’9, but he wasn't 6 foot like he wanted to be either. His dad had told him a couple of months ago not to worry, that he had a growth spurt at college, so there was still hope. Green eyes, shortish dark brown hair (he had never liked it long, but was lazy about getting it cut), a decent swimmers build (some exercise, not too much junk food), and a not bad face (if he said so himself). Not a 6’1 blond haired blue eyed super jock Chad type that all the girls were giggling over, but not bad.
He took one final look in the mirror, put his phone down on the counter, then leaned over and turned the shower on. As he straightened, his head kept going back, looking to the ceiling and huffed. ‘Thank fuck school is done at least’ he ruminated to himself, before shucking his boxers off and pulling back the shower curtain.
“Hey siri – play shower playlist” – his phone burst to life and started to play thrashy metal music. His mom would probably be shouting at him to turn it down if she were here – but for the next hour or two he could do what he wanted as the responsible adult in the house, so he stepped in to the shower and closed the curtain.
He shuffled under the water and made a low sigh, the warm water was nice, relaxing on his inexplicably aching bones. It was like he had been exercising all day, it was enough to make him uncoordinated, almost as if his body wasn't quite doing what he wanted when he wanted. He reached out to grab the bottle off the shelf absent-mindedly having to make an effort to move further forward than he expected to grasp it - as soon as he had it he started rubbing himself down with his bodywash, paying special attention to the areas his whiffed earlier. He didn’t always know he had a smell, but he did know cute girls didn’t like it, so he made sure to shower regularly. Everyone knows those guys at school who don't, and no one liked the greasy nerds.
It was as he had lifted his leg to work the bodywash on his calf that his tiredness moved from maybe wanting a nap, to suddenly feeling like needing to sit down before he fell down, it had become dizziness, the world felt like it had shifted. He took a deep breath, quickly washed off the suds left on him, then turned off the water and moved to step out on the tub on to the mat.
It was more of a thud than he had expected – it felt like the ground wasn't quite where he expected it to be. As Matt raised his head to look in the mirror, mostly steamed over from the shower – his confusion slipped between his lips before he had a chance to process it.
“The fuck” – that wasn't him in the mirror.