Lee should have known better than falling for someone's half.
Lee remembers first-seeing the twins, but wonders why didn't he think something was off with them right away. They used to feel so natural, with tiny eleven years old hands clasped tight and those hauntingly identical mischievous smirks. Everything they did was perfectly mirrored, but Lee guesses it was only so because he was not acquainted with their ways yet and maybe, had he narrowed his perceptions, he would have realized the subtle differences. But back then, their dangerous proximity seemed exactly the kind of proximity you should have with your own self.
He wonders how could he have possibly felt included in their particular environment of uniqueness and imagination, and if he's able to capture this long lost how once more. Probably not.
Lee reckons he's the only person who can see that Fred and George are as similar as they're different. Perhaps more than their family, than anyone. This might be the reason why even after the obvious happened and, apparently, he turned into a menace and saw how beautifully, horribly awful they actually were and thought he could steal some of that awfulness and just maybe, be sufficient, the twins weren't able to let him go. Fred was excessively untrusting and George simply needed love from someone other than himself. He was a reminder, a map, a guidance stopping them from losing it inside each other.
Mostly, this appeared to Lee as a signal of his failure.
Nowadays, Jordan thinks even their looks are slightly distinct. Consequences of their quirks translating into the way they wear their skins - it was just a knowledge matter that Lee Jordan solves every single day since Hogwarts started.
Fred may be described as daring. However, this trait doesn't change the keen awareness of his actions' effects, and keeps him eternally alert. Fred answers unpredictably and wears his body tense, a little provoking, attacking before others have the chance. Though he doesn't care very much for anything, he's protective and possessive of those few matters he happens to care about. Lee understands why he tries so hard not to care - it is rather tricky to mock the whole world whilst caring.
Fred cares so much about George it is painful. Makes Lee guilty for all his wishful thinking, and appears constantly in his behavior towards George, in each arm-surrounded waist and discreetly-caressed strand of hair. He also cares about Lee, but Fred's care falls disturbingly easily into malice.
George seems to think that Fred works their look so much better. He wears his body vulnerable and naive, uneasy. Keeps his heart oh-so locked, but is so fucking oblivious about the key. He goes with Fred's ideas mostly, because he never knew how to do otherwise and to certain extent, he incorporates those ideas. George never realized all the possessiveness because it just felt right. Feels right and safe and easy. George blinks his lashes prettily, holds the world softly (Fred always takes away the roughness - and Fred is always around). Sharp words between soft lips.
Fred has exactly the same eyelashes, hands and lips. However, it's not the same; in George, they reckon pure.
Fred acts like he owns his twin. And George answers as if he's perfectly right, thank you very much.
Trying to locate exactly where his view changed from natural to wrong, Lee Jordan fails.
Besides feeling natural, it certainly had the weird feeling buried inside his chest when he accidentally brushed hands with George and the boy's face blushed, all rosy over the freckles and pale creamy skin, or when he watched the twins holding hands and felt that jealousy burning. They shouldn't be doing that. They're of the same blood, same flesh, same everything.
Lee, why do you even care?, his mind blurted reasonably. They were just holding hands, just like the first time you saw them. Nothing wrong with that.
It's just the way they do it, he replied in anger.
He had always thought there were two very different ways of holding hands: When you solely hold the entire thing and when you entwine the fingers. Fred and George were the perfect definition of the second, so intimate. Their hands shouldn't fit together that well. Identical pieces of a puzzle can't fit, so how can they? It bothers lee so badly, and at the same time, he feels like the biggest jerk on earth just for questioning it, all at once.
(Get out get out get out of my head.)
He'd follow and crave George with his eyes and simply imagine what if.
What if he was allowed to do all the things Fred did. To trace drawings with the tip of his fingers on George's collarbones. What if he was allowed to see their skins contrast beautifully, and press softly his lips against the oh, so breakable hipbones (which seem like Fred's, but feel like beauty). What if it was his arm around the waist, if he was the one counting and tasting the freckles.
But he wasn't. Fred was. And it was so fucking unfair.
But every night, he would just watch silently and strain his ears to listen to the little noises and the intertwined shadows and all that obscenity. Craving for their wrong doings, because he couldn't perform them himself.
Matter of time until realization, desperation, conflict. Not necessarily just once, not necessarily in this order.
Fred's caring fell disturbingly easily into resentment and malice and unpredictability. Too easily.
"I know what you want, Lee." he said one sunday morning, a smirk playing on his face. George was asleep, face resting over his lap whilst his twin twisted a lock of ginger hair delicately. Lee raised his eyes from the book he was reading, apprehensive.
"What are you talking about?" He retorted. The uneasy politeness in his voice gave it away, and Fred arched an eyebrow.
"You want to steal something from me. Actually, I'd rather say someone." A pause. "Don't you?" The following silence sounded very agreeable. His heartbeat was insane, it was gonna rip his chest. He knows he knows he knows he's gonna take George away from me (you never had him anyway). An amused sigh. "I can't say I blame you. He's gorgeous, isn't he?"
"You are twins." Lee pointed the bias and Fred laughed. What was he going at?
"Ah," mischief flooding narrowed eyes "but we're very different. You know that. George has this..."
" ...innocence... " Jordan muttered.
"…Exactly, that makes you want to mess him up and then take care of the damage. Break all the prettiness. And you want to do this, Lee. You want it so bad it burns in your eyes all. the. fucking. time." He couldn't deny the screaming truth, oh no. So he just kept quiet, glad his dark skin hid the blush. "You're not gonna say anything, will you?" Fred smiled.
"What the hell can I say?" the reply was low, angered. Fred ran his fingers over George's face. Touched the parted, wet lips.
Playing games, toying, pranking.
"I could let you taste him. He wouldn't mind at all if I asked him to do it." It felt like selling his soul to the devil. He swallowed, his throat dry. "He notices, Lee. Oblivious as he might be, he notices. You are exceedingly obvious. Although I can't blame you for wanting to commit this theft so bad. We both agree it's theft, right?" and Fred's hands were holding george, delicately asleep on his lap, looking exactly the same, equal lenghts and softness and contours and Lee couldn't deny it.
So he just left.
When night started, George went looking after him. A beautiful bait scowling his escape.
"Lee?" he muttered, as if the darkness terrified his voice. It wasn't the case. "I used the map to find you. What are you even doing here?" a tiny laughter as George sat ahead of him, his warm presence being a nuisance in a way he never thought something could be. A slim hand found its way to his, resting softly. There was a constant rosy blush on his face.
He knew.
"I'm hiding." Obvious is obvious. George stomped in silence for a long time, once in a while opening his lips as if he was going to say something. But he didn't. He leaned forward and kissed Lee instead.
It was somewhat awkward, just the lips pressed together, slighty parted - just the amount that allowed him to savor. Their hands fidgeted a bit, but were kept together tightly. It was only static lips.
"Fred knows you're here?" Lee whispered hoarsely. He relaxed his hands and felt the skin of the slender waist under fabrics. Static lips, yeah, but it tasted like heaven. The blush reddened slightly.
"Yes… he asked me to find you." The guilt flooding the unusually bright eyes was too much, so Lee grabbed himself to the feel of the body shivering a little against his chest. "Why haven't you told us? We care so much about you, you are the only one who understands us! I like being with you, I…" the hands feeling him up kept making him stutter awkwardly. "would have let you." and he would. Lee knew that now. Mostly because Fred allowed. But a bit, just a bit, because George was curious to how would it be. "He wrote something for you." the red-head handed the young man a little note and trembled. It made Jordan so very hot, but it also made him sick with the realization that he had just borrowed a pretty - and temporary - possession.
My dear Lee,
I just might let you fuck him already.
Take care of him. Don't break him too much.
With love, Fred Weasley.