He looked at them. He tried not to, tried to keep his eyes trained on the other Windsors or the wall or his lap when they were around, but somehow, every time, he would find himself secretly looking over at them, taking in the exact ice blue shade of their twinkling eyes, the way the sunlight shone off their golden hair, the curve of their carefree grins, the way their tall, lithe forms moved.
He saw them. Sometimes he thought he was the only one, or very nearly the only one, who really did. To most everyone else, they were troublemakers, Windsor's wild, more than slightly mad, over the top and insanely energetic twins. To everyone else, they were something a little strange, brothers who never separated, who grinned like Cheshire cats and gave out Alice nicknames to their favorite people. They were simply those Brightman twins, something you laughed at or with or tolerated or ran from, a Dalton oddity that just was. To him, they were so much more. He saw the quiet seriousness that crept into their eyes when a prank went too far or someone was in trouble. He saw their fierce love and loyalty towards their Wonderland creatures. He saw the fear they had, one that remained unspoken, pushed away, a fear of everything ending, of Warblerland falling to pieces, of someone leaving, of being alone. He saw that their bond was something pure and unbreakable, that you could never have one without the other, though frankly he couldn't fathom anyone wanting just one of them. That would be like wanting half a person. He saw that to want them was to want them both, because they were the same soul, shared between two bodies.
He wanted them. In every way possible, he wanted them. He wanted to spend his days with them, scolding and laughing and playing. He wanted to share the quiet parts of the day with them, the way they had a handful of times over the years, reading books or doing homework or laying on the couch watching a movie. He wanted to kiss them, touch them, feel their lips and bodies pressed against his own. He wanted to run his fingers through their shining golden hair and stroke and kiss and worship the parts of them no one else had. He wanted to fall asleep in their arms every night and wake up to their smiles every morning. He wanted to reintroduce them to his family, as his, and he wanted to be reintroduced to their family as theirs. He wanted a life with them, a future.
He loved them. He knew he did, in that way you cannot hope to explain, in a way private and obvious and secret and deep. He just knew, without knowing how or when it had happened. He loved them completely, with all he was, and it made no sense to him at all but once he knew he never questioned it. It was simply fact. He loved them, and would likely always love them, for they had reached a part of him no one else had, or could. He was theirs, forever.
He knew he looked at them. He knew he saw them. He knew he wanted them. He knew he loved them.
He also knew he could never tell them.
He knew that he would always be theirs, but they would never be his.
He knew.
But they never would.