Page 57 of Elemasters

The floor buckled. The smoke obscured his vision. The pictures of him and… never mind. The pictures of just Dustin melted and burned to nothingness.

The ceiling collapsed inward, and the foundation gave way; the entire house fell in on itself, with Chris right at the center of the carnage as billowing smoke, ash, and dust rumbled outward like a pyroclastic cloud…

For a long moment as the remains of the Ying house smoldered, everything was deeply quiet.

Dustin couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

Their house… or at least the garden’s approximation of it, had just literally fucking exploded out of nowhere. The group noticed the fire, but before they could do anything other than put distance between themselves and the house, it had been reduced to nothing more than a smoking frame.

The smoke and dust were burning Dustin’s throat and eyes, but he couldn’t stop running towards the fallout, hoping to God or whatever the fuck else was out there that he’d find Chris alive among the damage.

“Chris! C-Chris, you here?!” he called out, coughing furiously.

He didn’t get an answer; at least not with words. But through the cloud of smoke, he could see… lights. Rhythmic, pulsing red lights, almost like a heartbeat.

When the dust cleared enough, he realized it was Chris standing there, shirtless but unharmed. Beneath his skin were those glowing, fuck, what were they called? Meridians! Qi meridians. They were lighting up the darkness like a beacon.

The twins locked eyes, but clearly neither of them had the words to express all the things running through their minds.

After a beat of silence that seemed to stretch on forever, Chris finally smirked, his red irises and meridians finally dimming.

He raised his fist triumphantly in the air.

“Take that, motherfucker,”

Chapter 22

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"

Thanksgiving already carried little weight in the Ying household, but this year was proving to be particularly rough.

After the Lotus Garden fiasco, everyone wordlessly, mutually agreed to go their separate ways and just… process. They’d all been through personalized psychological torture chambers, and the last thing any of them needed was to account for anyone’s emotions besides their own.

But unfortunately for Dustin, there was no escape. Him and Chris lived together after all.

Since they’d gotten home, he’d spent the whole night and following morning simply trying to stay out of the way. Sure, he was resorting to his worst habits, but shrinking inward was better than provoking Chris to explode outward. At least for the time being.

But of course… he eventually had to pee. He couldn’t put biology on hold forever.

He peeked through his bedroom door, carefully scanning the hallway for any signs of life. He could hear football pre-show on the TV downstairs, hyping up the annual Dallas Cowboys vs Washington Redskins game. Their dad was probably watching it on the big screen in the living room, meaning Chris was likely in his own bedroom.

The coast seemed to be clear.

Dustin speedwalked to the bathroom, trying not to trigger too many floorboard creaks as he went. Just as he made it to the bathroom and reached for the handle however, the door swung open and a wall of steam hit him in the face.

There stood Chris in his towel, with the scent of hair bleach lingering in the air between them.

“Oh… hey,” Dustin said, lowering his gaze to the floor, “sorry I just needed to use the bathroom,”

Chris chuckled.

“Sorry? Fuck are you apologizing for you damn nerd?”

Dustin cringed. Not because of Chris’s words, but because of the affectation. He delivered it in the same nonchalant, casually confident way he would’ve before any of this happened. Before the rings, before Leo, before the garden.

It’d always rang hollow, but now it felt egregious.

So, against his better judgement, Dustin asked the question. Like an idiot throwing a match onto gasoline.