"Smart Aleck. Don't remind me." Mark complained while his brother put the rings they had used on the bed. A devious grin appeared on his face. Despite his comment, he replied, "You know, we were really sharing a lot more than just clothes."
"Yeah and..." Max turned, appearing to not be following his brother's train of thought.
"You must really like her, because I could feel you getting excited from your fantasy." Mark smirked.
Max's face instantly turned beat red. Jack and Zack seemed confused by the comment as they gave each other bewildered looks. Luke, on the other hand, could not help but laugh out loud, understanding the innuendo. Max opened his mouth a couple of times trying to speak, but he could not form the words. Luke spoke though fits of laughter, "Well... if she ever wanted to be with two boys at the same time, I guess you both now know that you could accommodate that dream."
It was Mark's turn to become red in the face; he seemed to have the same trouble with words as his twin. "I get it now," Jack and Zack spoke at the same time having come to the same realization. They both looked down at the spot between their legs with curious smiles. "One girl could give us both a blowjob at the same time!" Zack exclaimed.
"How do you guys know what a... Nevermind. We are going off of this subject." Mark stated firmly. Luke heard him mumble under his breath, "I never should have brought up the joke in the first place."
Luke kept his bright smile, but nodded in agreement. "Okay, I guess I should take my turn then."
"Yes!" Mark and Max spoke together, with equally dissatisfied looks.
Luke scanned the remaining rings that lay in the box, and one in the sixth column caught his eye. As he removed it, the ring seemed to spark, as if taking it from its spot caused enough friction for a fire to start. As he held the ring at eye level, it was nothing special. It seemed to be just a simple band, but the metal’s color shifted through different colors of red, yellow, and orange as it caught the light.
He slipped the band onto his right ring finger, and almost instantly, warmness ran through his body and slowly dissipated. Luke stared at the ring on his hand, expectantly, but nothing out of the ordinary occurred. He sighed in annoyance, “Instruction on at least how to activate the rings would have been nice.”
“If we had instructions, then Zack and Jack would not be stuck as they are.” Mark commented. He then asked, “You don’t feel any different?”
“Just this warmness, but that passed.” Luke informed them about the brief sensation.
“We know that a lot of the rings have a mental or telepathic component, so…” Mark started.
“So what.” Luke cut him off impatiently. “I just think of random stuff until it starts working.”
“That’s not what I was going to suggest.” Mark crossed his arm. “Maybe we start at what the sensation was like. What did the warmness remind you of?”
“I don’t know…” Luke. “It was warm. Like the heat from a small fire.” Luke imagined sitting by the fireplace of his house with a cup of hot chocolate. He then noticed that his fingertips getting warmer. As he brought his hand up to his face, flames suddenly appeared in the palms of his hand. “Ahh!” Luke was so surprised he almost toppled over, and the others all took a step back as well. He shook his hands, but the flames did not go out. Though, neither did the flames hurt.
Out loud so his friends would not worry, he commented, “It actually doesn’t hurt.” Luke focused on the flames on his hands, and they began to grow in intensity. He then slowly made them fizzle out. He dropped his left hand by his side and pointed one finger upwards with his right. A small flame, like a candle, appeared just above the point. Curiously, he was able to move the flame with a thought. It circled his finger for several revolutions before landing into his now open palm. When Luke closed his fist, the fire disappeared.
“Wow!” Zack and Jack were both smiling.
“I’m like a fire bender!” Luke exclaimed.
“That is kind of cool.” Max said as he stepped up to his friend. “I wonder if there are others like that one.”
“There has to be. There are like four elements, right?” Jack asked.
“More like one-hundred and eighteen.” Mark commented.
“Not scientific elements.” Zack argued. “This is magic, right? Most games or stories with magic talk about four or more elements like fire.”
“He has a point Mark.” Max smiled. “Maybe in magic, fire really is one of the basic elements.” He rubbed his hand together. “It would be kind of cool to manipulate earth or air like Luke is doing.”
“And dangerous.” Mark was clearly being cautions. “We’re inside your bedroom Luke. Unless you want to catch your house on fire, maybe we should test out some different rings.”
“Okay, geese.” Luke complied and put the ring on his bed with a tag. “But, I call dibs on the fire ring when testing all the rings is done.” Everyone in the room took a moment to consider that statement, even Luke himself. They had not talked about what they would do after going through all the rings.
“Does that mean we can split all of the rings between us?” Jack asked. “When we’re done?”
“As long as Luke is okay with it.” Max pointed out, but his friend nodded in agreement. “Thirty-six does not divide evenly between five people, but we can probably figure something out.
Mark impatiently cut in, “We can worry about that later. Right now our main priority should be finding a combination of rings to separate Zack and Jack. Bottom line, we need to mitigate the damage that Zack did.”
“The damage? What damage?” Zack glared at his older brother. “And for the record, Jack and I like being stuck together. We don’t want to be separated.” Though, Zack glanced at his twin to make sure that what he said was true.
Jack nodded in acknowledgement and spoke up, “Not to sound lame but…” He shrugged his shoulder, “we’re like two peas in a pod.”
“You have only been like that for a couple of hours now!” Mark clenched his fists. “What if you ever disagree or argue? Its not like you can go into separate rooms. And, you have no idea what it be like staying stuck as your are. How much will you like having to go to school as conjoined twins?” He took a quick breathe before continuing. “And what about mom and dad? It’s weird enough that we have to tell them that they magically have a fourth son! We’ll have to tell them that their youngest are stuck in the same body!”
There was a long pause, and the silence felt heavy. “Mark… you’ve clearly had this weighing on your mind. Let’s take a second to breathe.” Max tried to approach his brother, but Mark shrugged him off.
“Even if we find a way to separate you, there being two of you will throw our entire lives out of whack. Have you thought about the repercussions of suddenly having a new sibling? Jack has no school files, no medical files, no birth certificate! He just suddenly popped up!” Mark realized that his hands were clenched so tightly that his nails were digging into his skin. He had to force his muscles to loosen.
Max approached his twin again, and was successful in laying a hand on his shoulder. “Your right…” Max said calmly. “None of us have thought about what would happen, not seriously.”
Zack and Jack were all quiet. The younger twins were staring at their feet, appearing to be lost in thought about the realization Mark threw at them. Luke slowly stepped up beside Mark, opposite of Max. He also laid a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Max rubbed his brother’s shoulder lightly. “We’ll cross the bridge of telling our parents eventually. Let’s just focus on what we can do; we still need to catalog all of the rings. Regardless of whether they want to be separated or not, we can still figure out which rings will get the job done. Right?”
Mark finally sighed. “Yeah.” He looked to his younger brothers, though he began by apologizing to everyone. “I’m sorry for blowing up. We all were trying to make light of the situation earlier, but that just ended up making me angrier.” He stepped up to his younger brothers and wrapped them in a hug, which they allowed. “I am sorry for exploding.” It was an odd sensation feeling his arm wrapped around a single body, but two heads pressed into his shoulders.
“We know.” Jack spoke up for them. “I guess I did kind of mess things up.”
“No!” Mark said firmly. “You did nothing wrong, and neither did Zack. We’ll think of something with our parents later. We’ll have to.” Mark let them go, and brushed a few strands of hair from his face. “We will make this new family arrangement work. I am glad that I have you both as brothers now, but it will take getting used to what changes are likely coming.” He did feel better by venting his thoughts, though he still felt terrible in how it came out. He sighed again. “I don’t quite get why you guys enjoy sharing a body either, but as long as we can figure out how to separate you two, then I will be happy. I would rather you guys have a choice.”
The three of them hugged again. “Why don’t you take your turn already. Maybe this next one will be the one you’re looking for.” Zack said, as he lightly pushed his elder brother towards the box of rings.