John had been informed, by his mom, that every woman wanted a knight in shining armor. Therefore, every guy wanted to save his princess, locked away in a castle, protected by a fierce dragon.

Yet, that was not the case with John. Or at least, he felt as if that wasn't the truth. Not for him.

When he was eight, sure, he was a prince. A dazzling one at that. The way he moved across the stage, graceful. But it wasn't him, in a sense.

See, in Cinderella, the prince loved a lady. But John did not feel that. No, he felt a much more different attraction. Something forbidden, a disregarded feeling in both his Christianity, and his Judaism. Hell, it didn't even just stop at religion, the hatred for this feeling that was tearing John apart- it thrived in society.

Oh yes, he wanted to be a knight in shining armor. John was valiant, brave. But he wasn't searching for a princess- he was searching for a prince, just like him.

Or maybe, he was waiting for his prince to save him.

He refused to acknowledge his attraction to boys, though, choosing to pretend that he didn't like anyone, and it worked, so well, until now.

On the brink of thirteen, the world was changing for John. The vibrant innocence and joy that he once saw in the world felt rare like it was all fake. So many lies had been fed to him, and in turn, he was hiding the truth from everyone he could hide it from.

Yet, he couldn't do it for much longer, he figured out, as it hit him quite hard in the face.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" he heard his friend, former 'enemy' (as he once considered him), Chris, ask, his voice echoing concern.

John clutched his cheek and stumbled backward, hissing softly. God, baseballs stung. They stung a lot. He didn't dare whine though, he had taken much worse from the back of his father's hand, and all this baseball did was catch him off guard. Although it would definitely bruise.

"Yeah," he lied, shaking his head. "I'm... perfect."

Chris, knowing his friend, sighed. "Pay attention man! You can't get all... distracted like that."

In their freetime, the two of them played baseball, and hell, they were damn good at it, weren't they? At games, Chris was an excellent pitcher, and John was an excellent runner. However, it didn't help when John got distracted, which he was starting to do more and more often during

It wasn't his fault he found Chris attractive, was it? He was talented, intelligent, and God- he had really nice blue eyes. Sometimes he got lost in those blue eyes, they were a vibrant tempest of water, neverending. He was beautiful, and it was okay, because he was pretty too.

"I'm not," he scoffed and straightened his stance, focusing on the ball and not the person who was throwing the ball.

Chris pitched to him, and this time, he struck the ball with his bat, quickly dropping his bat and dashing over to first base.He knew he could've made it to second base, but it wasn't a real game, so why should he have bothered anyways? To be honest, he could have cared less for baseball practice, but it was obligatory if he wanted to be on the team, and be really good at the sport, so he put up with it.

He kept himself ready to run, while he was stuck on first base. An island of tanned rubber, surrounded by a large sea of grass, and John was itching to step off of it, but of course, there had to be a reason for him to move first.

Unfortunately, the worst player on their team, Joseph Swartz, was at bat right after him, and he struck out for their half of the team, meaning that John didn't get to make it back to home base before they went on break.

Anne broke from softball practice just around that time as well, which was perfect. John, Anne and Chris sat next to each other on the blue bleachers, covered by the perfect amount of shade against the Florida sun. Their moms packed the best lunches, the trio had decided, as they pulled out their sandwiches, wrapped in tin foil.

Anne's mother baked them cookies that day-Her delicious, chocolate chip cookies, imperfectly, but perfectly shaped cookies, just a tad bit underbaked so the gooey insides melted on the tongues of anyone who ate them. Greedily, both of her friends reached for cookies, hands meeting on the first cookie at the top of the pile.

"I had it first!" The two of them said in unison, narrowing eyes at one another. Sure, there were plenty of other cookies underneath, but the point was that it was the first one and the only one the two of them would settle on.

Chris let out a low growl, as John scrunched up his nose. He knew he wanted to give in, he could've given in if he wanted to. But he didn't, because Chris had beautiful hands, and holding his hands made John's heart race like so.

His chest felt warm as if he was coming down with something. But if he was coming down with something... God, it was a good something. And his stomach was full of little insects, he felt so nervous- Yet he also felt as if he might conquer the world as well.

It thumped, and he almost felt his cheeks warm up, before Anne interrupted ever so rudely. Snatching the cookie for herself, she rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Men." She grumbled and broke it up into thirds, keeping the biggest part for herself and offering the smaller parts to her two comrades.

They rolled their eyes as if so insulted that their (limited) intelligence, was being questioned by this girl, but they put up with it, because she was their friend.

John cared less about that, though, because all he could focus on was that feeling. His brother explained something to him once, how being in love wasn't a thing. It could be seen in their parents' relationship. So when you fell for a girl, you couldn't dwell on that pathetic feeling. You had to move on because she probably wasn't worth it.

But Chris wasn't a girl. No, he was a guy. Maybe the rules were the same, but it didn't matter.

Chris was him.

Him, who made his chest flutter.

Him, who made his heart race.

Him, who had eyes that were so easy to get lost in.

Him, who was perfect, everything to him. 

Him.

He was all that mattered to him now.  

By the time break ended that day,  a new resolve filled John Brown. He made up his mind. He'd ask him out.

Hopefully. 

___________

Oof, I know that chapter was a bit longer than my usual ones, but I'm going for longer chapters now that I have the freetime to write like that. I hope this wasn't too rushed for you guys!

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Thanks, M!