Were the World Jon's

Everything changes with a different Point of View. 'My name is Jonathon Cordon. I've never felt like this about anyone. I was in love with Timothy!' WtWM from Jon's POV. 'I opened my eyes and saw him there, fairy wings and all, and thought him beautiful.' "But I fell in love with you, today."

…

Ok, about all the dialogue taken from the movie in this story. Most of it I'm pretty sure about, but some bits I had to guess on because my dvd DOESN'T HAVE SUBTITLES. Grrr. Seriously, it's one of the most unhelpful DVDs I own, and I own quite a few. In any case, please forgive me if something seems odd or if you heard the line differently or whatever. I did my best with what I had.

Hope you enjoy Jon's POV on the movie Were the World Mine. Presented in 3 parts.

My name is Jonathon Cordon.

Most people know me as the star rugby player at Morgan Hill. Morgan Hill is a prestigious academy, and by prestigious I mean that it takes a whole lot of money to get enrolled there. Also, you have to be a boy. Which was all good and well, unless you were gay, like me.

I was pretty much flawless at hiding it from the world, even myself, so no one suspected a thing. I was captain of a rugby team, had a lot of money, near perfect grades, and a girlfriend that I kissed every time I saw her. My life was pretty much set that way and I had almost completely convinced myself that I liked my girlfriend as much as everyone else thought I did when my world got flipped upside down.

One day, a week into term, a new kid showed up in class. He wasn't actually new, because he'd been on the roster since day one, but it was the first day he showed up to class so he was considered new by all the other guys in school. I met him in gym class first. At first I didn't even notice that anyone new was in the class, and then I turned around in the locker room and my face met with his chin. He let out this odd yelp and backed off, fell over the bench between the rows of lockers, and hit his head against the lockers on the other side before landing in a probably aching heap on the ground and holding his head.

"Ow," he murmured and opened one eye to look up at me. "Sorry. My bad." Then both his eyes opened and he let go of his head and simply stared at me as I stared back. He seemed to have randomly started daydreaming and I couldn't blame him for it, because my mind wasn't really working either.

His ridiculous maroon colored gym shirt was riding up and the muscles in his lower stomach were showing. Now, I've been working out for awhile to be a great rugby player, so my muscles were much more impressive than his, but for some reason I felt the greatest desire to reach out and map out those muscles in grand detail.

"Alright, warriors, let's go, let's go!" Coach Driskill yelled out from somewhere beyond my sight and I came back to myself.

"You alright?" I asked, and thanked God that my voice was normal.

He nodded and gave a faint smile. "Yea. Just a bump. I'll be fine."

I moved so my legs were pressed against the bench and held my hand out to him, but before he could take it, Cole slammed his locker shut and grabbed me by the wrist, yanking me towards the door to the gym.

"Watch yourself, Cordon," he warned like I was some stupid child. "He'll rub off on you."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, pulling my arm back and stopping just in sight of the new kid, who was starting to pull himself up using the bench.

"He's a fag," Cole said with a shudder and a voice laced in poison. I saw the new kid freeze mid-stand from the corner of my eye. "Now let's go."

Without waiting for permission, Cole grabbed me by the wrist and finished pulling me from the locker room. Had I been braver, I may have stopped him and told him I was gay too, and what was wrong with that? As it was, I stayed silent to save my own skin.

…

…

Three weeks later I found some guys from our school behind the storage room beating the new kid, whose name I learned was Timothy, up and throwing his stuff all over the place. I couldn't understand it. I mean, I understood why the guys were beating him up and tormenting him, it was how certain people responded to something that frightened them or threatened them. What I didn't understand was why Timothy wasn't fighting back. He was taller than anyone else in school and he wasn't weak (if his stomach muscles meant anything), so why was he just letting them hit him?

"Hey!" I yelled, unable to just stand by and watch at they continued to hit him. They sort of jumped and dropped Timothy's stuff, and Timothy, and ran. I scoffed and moved to help Timothy collect his things, but he was super fast and had already grabbed and stuffed everything messily into his bag by the time I'd taken one step. "You alright?" I asked, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

"I'm fine," he said, sounding a bit defeated and keeping his head down. "It's nothing I wasn't expecting. Don't worry about it." Then, without even looking at me, he turned and sauntered off.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized he may have kept his head down because of the black and purple bruise across his left cheek and his split bottom lip. I wondered if he had any more bruises under his clothes that he was hiding, but I couldn't find the courage to ask.

…

…

Every time I saw Timothy after that, he seemed to grow more and more quiet. He rarely raised his head from staring at the floor and he randomly seemed to go off somewhere, something similar to daydreams like I'd seen the day I first met him. I was completely enthralled by the contradiction in his mannerisms and the intense look in his eyes. There was something there, inside, that was just waiting to be let loose. A part of me couldn't wait for that day to come.

I dreamt about him. I dreamt we sat and held hands for hours and ate lunch together and no one cared. And I dreamt we kissed. I kissed him so many times in my dreams that sometimes I got scared that I was actually awake and had only thought I was dreaming and had kissed him in broad daylight in front of all of Morgan Hill. Sometimes we were chaste and wanton with our kisses, and sometimes we kissed like they were the very air we breathed and if we stopped we would die, desperate and passionate. I don't remember it ever going beyond kissing. That was probably because I'd barely caught any sight of the body underneath those clothes and my mind either could not or simply would not fill in the blank spaces for me. It was both a comforting and aggravating thought.

…

…

It seemed every time we had gym class, Timothy got hurt. Golf, basketball, baseball, dodgeball – no matter what they did in class, everyone seemed to aim for him. It didn't help matters that some crack about his sexuality was made every four seconds. It was pissing me off because I knew that one slip up and they'd be saying the same shit about me and it wasn't fair. And I was too cowardly to say anything to stop them.

We were playing dodgeball the day everything started to change. Or at least, it was the day I noted that something clicked and things changed. Timothy, for once in a blue moon, had made a comeback statement to the crap statements thrown at him and for once the laughter wasn't directed at him, but at Cooper. The moment Timothy got hit with the dodge ball, Coach Driskill called time and told us to get ready to leave. I'd noticed that was a trend of his, to wait until Tim got hit or hurt in some way before letting us leave for the day. I think that's called discrimination, people, and it's wrong.

In the locker room, I moved as slow in changing my clothes as I could without being suspicious in the hopes that I'd catch Timothy alone once everyone else was gone. It was the only time I got up any courage to talk to him, which was embarrassing. He reached into his locker for a towel while taunts were thrown around him and the only back talk he gave them was a simple 'My name is Timothy.' How could he stand it?

Then we were alone and I turned to face him. A few seconds later and he hadn't really moved, simply holding the towel in his hands in front of him. "Need some ice?" I asked, trying to sound sincere in my offer.

"I can handle it," he responded almost bitterly.

It hurt. I couldn't explain it, but Timothy's apathy hurt me. I really wanted to help him, but I couldn't do it in front of the other guys. I couldn't tell Timothy that either, because I was afraid. If I told him that I cared about him, and that I wanted to be his friend, it would never work out. We could never hang out or go anywhere together because of the taunting, and if my feelings developed any further than simply being ok with the dreams then I'd be hard put not to reveal myself to him and then…what if he wanted to go public and do PDA? I couldn't do it. I was too used to the fame-like status my captain's spot had given me and I wasn't ready to give it up. Not even for Tim. No matter how much I wanted to.

I didn't want to hurt him….so I kept a certain amount of distance between us. Because I think I was already starting to fall for him then, before I knew anything about him.

…

…

I think he missed the entirety of Ms. Tebbit's class. He stopped reciting the words she said like the rest of us and the one time I glanced back at him, he was staring at the front of the class in a daze.

Now I say this was the day things began to change because this was the day that Ms. Tebbit told us the senior play was A Midsummer Night's Dream and that we all had to audition on Friday before rugby practice could start. I panicked. If I got cast as a girl, it'd be all over for me. If I got cast as a guy who was supposed to act like he was in love with a girl played by a guy, it'd pretty much be over for me anyway! Any one suspicion and my life would be over!

But that wasn't until Friday, and I forced myself to not think about it until then. If I started screwing up in rugby, that would only cause more damage to me later if they found out I was gay. My girlfriend showed up to watch us practice that afternoon. I never could figure out how she managed to get here from her own school so fast. I think she was skipping her last class, but I never asked. It didn't really matter to me all that much. Like she didn't matter all that much.

Today I glanced over at the bleachers, something I made a habit of doing when she was watching, and saw Timothy instead. I called time and hurried over to the bleachers, to my girlfriend, to see if it was really Timothy hiding behind the bleachers. It was. The holes were so large between seats that he was in plain sight. After a quick glance his way, I leaned in to give a complementary kiss to Becky and immediately regretted it when Timothy walked away.

"Hey," Becky nearly whispered. "Looking good."

"You like watching us out there?" I asked, hooking my arms around the bars of the bleachers.

"I love watching you play," she emphasized quietly.

I laughed and it was almost a scoff. "Yea, I bet you do." It was almost sarcastic and I bit my tongue to stop myself from getting angry at her. It was my fault if I was pushing Timothy away in some way.

…

…

Friday came around too fast for me and I tried to be the first one in the audition room so I could be the first one done. I was. Thus I was also the first person dressed out for rugby and sitting by the auditorium doors waiting for the auditions to be over. I listened to all the other guys auditioning and realized with horror that I should've flubbed the audition, but I'd done too well and I was bound to get a good, important role with a lot of stage time.

I was so frightened by this fact that I forgot that Timothy was going to be auditioning too. I didn't recognize the voice coming through the door when he began to sing. I think maybe, if I'd heard him speak a bit more, I would have, but maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. I heard Ms. Tebbit singing and sighed. I'd heard her teach the song to like…twelve people already. It was getting old, so I blocked her out. Then someone, I was too bored to realize who it was, asked who was singing and I looked through the crack in the door and forgot to breathe.

I don't think I'd ever thought of anyone as beautiful until then. But he was. His voice was. I turned away from the door and closed my eyes, feigning the same boredom I'd had only moments before as I tried to catch my breath. His voice washed over me in waves and I kept seeing the little smile he gave me the first time we met, before he'd been bullied into submission. Suddenly, I was overcome by the desire to see him smile, really smile. I could just imagine what he'd look like wearing a full blown smile, and it made my chest hurt my heart beat so fast.

I didn't do my best at practice that afternoon, to say the least.

…

…

That night, he sang me to sleep and we had a long conversation in my dreams that was mostly me listening to the sound of his voice: a deep rumble, but warm and kind, with a sad tinge to it.

…

…

Monday, Ms. Tebbit announced that the cast list would be posted on the auditorium doors after school. I'd never changed into my rugby uniform so fast. I ran up the stairs towards the auditorium and froze halfway up. Timothy was standing in front of the doors, just staring at the cast list, not moving. I walked slowly and quietly up to the doors until I was standing next to him, and when I saw his face, I could tell he wasn't all there. His mind was somewhere else right now, like usual.

I smiled at how cute I found his daydreaming and then mentally shook myself. Someone could come along any moment now and it wouldn't do to see me staring at Timothy with some goofy smile painted on my face. But…we were alone at the moment, weren't we? This was my chance to talk to him! To tell him I thought his voice was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard in my life. But how to go about getting his attention and start up the conversation? I was a jock. I had no reason to talk to him.

I looked at the cast list. My name was right beneath his. Aw. Wait. I'm a guy. I don't have stupidly girly thoughts like that! Ah. Wait a minute!

I lifted my arm up until I could land it on Timothy's shoulder (which was higher than I expected it to be. It's amazing I wasn't embarrassed about being shorter than him.) and smiled generously at him when he startled back to the real world and looked over at me.

"Looks like I'm one of the lovers," I announced simply.

Timothy didn't seem to know what to say to me and the moment he opened his mouth to speak I spotted the other guys in our class rushing up the stairs behind us. I inwardly cursed and lifted my arm from Timothy's shoulder a moment before Bradley shoved past me to see the cast list. I stood back and waited, hoping I could talk to Timothy once they were gone. One sentence of conversation wasn't enough for me.

"I'm not shaving," Bradley protested.

"At least you're not the jackass," Ian tried in consolation.

"At least the jackass doesn't have to wear a dress," Bradley whined as he turned and walked away.

Ian stared at the list as other guys came and went and his face took on something akin to concern. "What is Thisbe?" he looked around and noticed all the others, Bradley included, had left. Running after them he called, "Is that a chick?"

When everyone else was gone, Timothy and I took a simultaneous step forward as he looked at the list. He was Puck. I supposed it fit. He was known to be a fairy, and he was tall and thin, and he had a great voice. I refused to admit I'd read the play over the weekend, but I had and Puck seemed like a pretty pivotal character…so it was good that Timothy got the role.

"Congratulations, gentlemen," Ms. Tebbit said suddenly and we both turned to look at her. "Awaken and empower what's within," she announced in that cryptic way of hers. What did that even mean?

Timothy let out a breath and glanced at me before leaving down the stairs. I had to stop him! I hadn't said anything yet! How…how do you announce you like someone's voice without openly announcing you like them? Um…Um…!

"Nice pipes!" I called out and he stopped and turned around. Ok. Don't chicken out now, Jonathon Cordon. Tell him you- "I heard your audition." I'm such a coward. I fumbled for the door handle and vanished inside the auditorium before I could beat myself over the head for my stupidity.

…

…

I saw him come to school the next morning on a bike instead of the bus. Well, that was useful information. He lived close enough to ride a bike. I could-

What was I thinking? What am I going to do, stalk him home or something? God, Jon, pull yourself together man! I pressed my fists into my eyes for a few seconds and held my breath until I felt like I'd pass out, then took a deep breath and lowered my hands. Together. Together. You can do this.

…

…

Ms. Tebbit's class that day was a rundown of the play's accessories; the stage and costuming and music. I was feeling a bit unbalanced and was looking for anything to make myself feel better. My costume looked cool enough. Timothy's looked better. Bradley complained about his costume, ("Where's the rest?") and if Dr. Bellinger hadn't walked in, I would've probably yelled 'It's a dress, moron. There is no more!'

"These are for the Pyrmus and Thisbee finale, which I have reinvented as an incredibly hip song," Ms. Tebbit announced.

"That's hot, Ms. T," I said loudly, louder than I'd meant to. I was trying to sound interested, not overly excited!

"Shakespeare was meant for the masses," she agreed, but no one had laughed or anything, so it was still embarrassing.

I glanced back at Timothy and felt myself beginning to blush when I realized he was looking at me too, so I quickly faced forward again and looked at my desk instead. God, I must've sounded so stupid to him!

It took all my self control not to lay my head down and cover it with my arms in shame.

…

…

The next day in class, Ms. Tebbit handed out copies of A Midsummer Night's Dream and we had to read it in our parts.

"Either I mistake your shape and making quite or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow: are not you he that frights the maidens of the village…ry?" Cooper read blandly.

"Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night," Timothy said in response. It was read too fast in my opinion, but it was just the first class reading. Besides, I was listening more to the voice and not the words. "I jest to Oberon and make him smile."

Me too.

…

…

We played basketball a few days later and Timothy, surprisingly, didn't get hurt. He actually shot a basket himself. He didn't move fast or anything, and no one really tried to stop him, probably because they thought he'd be an easy target to stop. But he simply lined up the shot and landed the ball in the hoop with almost no net easily. The smallest of smiles graced his face at the accomplishment, even as everyone was already heading to the other side of the court to try and land a shot in the other hoop.

That kinda turned me on. And it gave me enough courage to actually pat him on the butt and say "Nice form," before hurrying back into the game.

Dear god, did I just flirt? In a crowded room? Maybe I could do this after all.

Timothy ended up on his back about five seconds later when Cole started barreling back towards the hoop on that side and didn't see him. The best part? Cole just stepped on him, right on the chest, and kept going. The next best part? Coach called time and told us to go to the showers and never once asked if Timothy was alright. Sometimes I hated my school mates.

I knelt by him as he held his hands across his lower chest and kept his eyes shut and simply breathed. "You ok?" I asked, trying not to let too much of my worry slip into my words.

"Yea," he coughed out. "I got it. I'll be fine."

"You can breathe alright?" I persisted, not quite believing him. He even sounded wounded. He nodded and opened his eyes a bit to look up at me and I sort of lost the air in my lungs. "Good," I breathed out before taking a deep breath and clearing my throat. "I mean, I'd hate to not hear Puck's final song in the play." I was attempting it to sound like a joke, but I failed miserably and sounded simply sincere.

He gave me a curious look and let his arms fall from his chest. I must've been as red as a tomato I felt so foolish. I cleared my throat again and stood up, not offering to help him, and scurried like a dog with its tail between its legs to the locker room.

…

…

"This play is a complete waste of time!"

I sighed silently into my mashed potatoes. My father kept bringing up his opinion on Ms. Tebbit's play every chance he got. It was like he expected me to be able to weedle out of it or something.

"Darling," my mother tried quietly and motioned to the food on the table between us. She sat at one end, to my right, while my father sat at the other end to my left. My youngest sister, age six, sat next to me on my mother's side and my oldest younger sister, age fourteen, sat directly across from me.

"I'm serious!" my father raged on. "The boys shouldn't be acting in plays like sissies! They should be out doing more manly things, like rugby!"

"Honey, acting is a perfectly respectable past time that men have been doing for centuries," mother explained gently. "And it's just one senior play."

"That's not the point!" He stabbed his steak harshly and held it up as he spoke. "I just don't want anyone thinking that my son is a…a-"

"Jon!" Hannah piped up from next to me. I gave her a smile to show she could say what she wanted, even though father looked aghast. "Are you playing a girl in the play?" she asked happily, bouncing in her seat.

I laughed once at how cute she was and ignored the seething I could feel behind me. Taking Hannah's hands in my own, I shook my head. "No. I'm playing a man who gets tricked into thinking he's in love with a girl he really isn't in love with."

"Are you cool, Jon?" she continued cutely, a beaming smile on her face.

"Uhuh. Super cool," I supplied and she looked so happy and proud of me that I couldn't stop the beaming smile coming to my own face. "Now, eat your dinner."

I turned back to my food only once she had and kept the smile on my face as I ate, not able to stop myself at all. I looked across the table and saw Hayley giving me a curious look. My smile faded and I gave her a curious look in return, but she averted her eyes and went back to eating her food.

What was that all about?

…

…

The set was coming together nicely the next day, a Wednesday, and so Ms. Tebbit decided we should practice laying out the scenes in practice on the stage that day. Russ was still stumbling over his words, but Timothy sounded like he could probably read them without the book as reference. He was right in front of me all practice, or sitting next to me when he wasn't in a scene. I never even spoke a word to him, and we never made eye contact, but the atmosphere around me felt charged.

I've never felt like this about anyone. It kind of scares me because I'm not sure how much longer I can hide it. From him and from the world.

...

Please review and leave lots of comments! I'll post part 2 soon!