It all happened in a hellish blur, a mixture of a screaming feline, shedding fur, an apologizing Myrna rushing him away. Matteo had done something wrong with his very presence. His wings contained the souls of countless birds; of course the cat would take issue to that. Did the small animal know what horrors his holy relics held? The angel-boy stood awkwardly, waiting for Myrna to rush away the yowling animal, all the while wondering if he should go. He was just a nuisance, an inconvenience to a kind lady, but what choice did he have? Go back out there, all alone, helpless, feared, avoided? He was stuck with Myrna as long as her generosity lasted.
When she returned, Mateo instantly noticed the bright red on her cheek. He moved to wipe at it but hesitated and decided against it, an apology muttered under his breath. He looked to the bathroom she'd motioned towards and paused. Did he know how to use a shower? He got in and pressed the buttons--or were there knobs? And then he'd take the soap and lather it in... a towel? Or what was that puffy thing Momma used in the showers? Did Myrna have one of those? In his struggle to remember bathing etiquette, Matteo didn't realize Myrna was staring at him, waiting for an answer. "A drink?" he repeated quietly. "Um, yeah, some soda would be--er." Soda was perhaps more than his stomach would be able to handle. "Water, yes," he decided on again. "Thank you."
With that, he waddled towards the bathroom, wings brushing against the hall walls. He left the door ajar behind him, in case Myrna had to come in and help with something. She seemed like she wouldn't mind that... right? His eyes scanned the toilet, the sink, the bathtub, all white. He pulled back the shower curtain, and there they were, knobs that controlled this contraption. Hesitating, he turned one, and water came rushing out of the faucet below him. He looked up at the shower head, and turned and pulled the knob until water came out of there, instead.
It took a few minutes of messing around, but eventually he got the shower to work how he wanted it to. He peeled off his clothes, his shirt wet with blood and sweat, his pinkened white shorts, the torn sandals. He stood before the tub, stark naked, tracing the splotches of blood on his body. Shaking his thoughts, he was about to get into the shower when he caught a glimpse of the mirror.
He looked so old, he thought, tracing the line of his law. There was hair there, or small echoes of a beard he couldn't remember shaving. His eyes were deeper set than he remembered, narrower. His lips were full, and was that--did he have a moustache? He poked at it, the tiny hairs, barely noticeable, too blond, too fine. He had bulging shoulders, muscles he didn't remember working towards, a physique of an athlete. He looked... like a man. If he needed further confirmation that he wasn't the child he had been, this was it here, staring into his own eyes.
Matteo stared blankly at his reflection for a long while. Finally, he pulled himself from that stranger and stepped into the shower. It took some scrubbing for the water to wash the red from his skin. Pink swirled at the drain, blurry rosy rivers that he struggled to make out. A feather or two fell softly to land on the drain, soaking up the dyes of his blood. He tried not to notice, not to pay attention to things like blood and feathers, things with no place in the shower. Distracting himself, Matteo grabbed for Myrna's bottles. The words shampoo and conditioner stuck out to him from his memory, but he didn't remember which did what, and he didn't know the difference. Illiterate, he couldn't make out the symbols on these bottles, so he took a guess and hoped it didn't matter.
After he finished scrubbing his hair and body, Matteo shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. The mirror now was glossed over with fog, shielding him from his own eyes. He grabbed a towel and tried to wrap it around himself, but his wings twitched under its texture, and it ended up falling to the floor. He glanced towards the clothes he'd abandoned, wondering what he was to do with them. He didn't want to put them back on, but he couldn't just walk out there naked, could he?
"Myrna?" his voice was small, a child asking permission. "Do you... have something for me to wear?" Matteo poked his head into the hallway. "Just, like, pants?" He doubted any shirt she'd have would accommodate his wings. Now, cleaned up, his skin looked pinker, healthier, and his hair fell in brown-blond curls to his collar. He looked more like a man and less like a murderer, if not for the wings dripping down his back.
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