Luke started trying to un-fuse everyone. He had no idea what he was doing; he had only fused himself with two people maximum before, so trying to split all five at once was difficult. He had come up with a plan though. Seeing how he was in the middle, he could just push them all outwards. Luke closed his eyes and pushed as hard as he could until he felt himself standing in the middle of everyone. But when he opened his eyes, he saw it didn’t turn out the way he planned.
“Hmm, that didn’t work out like I intended.” Luke sighed looking at the others. Max and Scott were still joined at the chest, as were Mark and Ethan. Luke didn’t know if he had pushed the pairs closer together; they couldn’t look directly at the other.
“Okay, now just a little more.” Max started fidgeting, trying to distance his head from his father’s. Scott gave a quick shake to make Max stop, then his head away from Max’s.
“Yah, ok…” Luke rubbed his head as he walked over to Max and Scott. He was feeling a bit dizzy and weak. Nonetheless Luke put his hands on their chest and tried to fuse so he could pull them apart. He closed his eyes and concentrated, pushing against them. Luke opened one eye and saw that nothing had happened. He tried again, concentrating even harder, but again nothing happened.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t you splitting us?!” Max shouted angrily.
Scott glared at Max for a second, then looked at Luke, “Luke, are you ok? You don’t look very well.”
Luke rubbed his head again, “I feel really dizzy. Like I have no energy left. I think…”
Luke fell down on the couch with a moan as he passed out..
“Luke! Luke!” Ethan tried racing over to his son, but his legs got tangled with Mark’s and they fell. Ethan still panicked, crawled over to Luke, dragging Mark with him. He lifted Mark and himself into a sitting position. Ethan stroked his sons head and sighed, “I think he’s exhausted from all this fusing and un-fusing. We should let him rest.”
“What?!” You can’t be serio…” Max started freaking out, but Scott put his hand over Max’s mouth.
“Yah, I think that’s best too.” Scott nodded at Ethan, who nodded back, thanking him. Scott looked back at Max who was trying to break free. “I need to go to the bathroom, we’ll be back in a minute” Max looked at his father with horror as they walked down the hall and into the bathroom.
Ethan got up and awkwardly sat at the end of the couch with Mark. They shifted around trying to get comfortable, but decided it was useless so they stood up. There was an awkward silence as they tried to put as much distance between them as they could. Mark couldn’t take the quiet, “I’m sorry about Max.” Ethan looked puzzled. “He tends to over react about everything. He’s not blaming Luke or anything like that. He’s just not very good at keeping his cool. I don’t know, I just… don’t want you to take it personally. To be honest, we think of Luke as our unofficial triplet.” Mark couldn’t help but grin at his last comment.
Ethan smiled too, “That’s good, cause I think of you and Max as two of my own. I’m sure your dad feels the same about Luke.” They stood there, no longer trying to distance themselves from each other.