In Which Tam Becomes Both A Murderer And A Boyfriend

A dagger flew by, slicing his shoulder. Tam roared in pain. Another dagger flew towards him. In a flash of pure desperation and panic, Tam reached out and grabbed the dagger right before it slammed into his chest.

Tam blinked, staring at the dagger in his hands. Nearby, an elf was stabbed with a sword. The weapon went straight through her stomach. Tam felt a rage rush through him, and leapt towards the nearest goblin, sinking the dagger into his back.

The goblin roared, and tried to shake him off, but Tam was determined. He pulled the dagger out and stabbed the goblin again, this time in the neck. The goblin swayed before pitching forward and hitting the ground, hard.

Tam stared, the realization of what he'd just done hitting him like a truck. He'd just killed someone. He'd just freaking killed someone.

He'd just killed someone, and he wasn't breaking from the grief. No, he felt stronger, more powerful than ever before. The fighting around him stopped. Everyone stared in shock at Tam and the dead goblin beside him.

The goblins all yelled, and charged.

Dex, Linh, and Marella had made it to a small side yard in between two of the Councillor's castles. Marella was still unconscious, and Linh was bleeding even more. The dagger had fallen out along the way.

"We need to take care of that leg of yours." Dex said matter-of-factly. He cut off the bottom of his cape using a knife he'd found on the ground, and wrapped in tightly around her leg.

"Thank you."

Dex nodded, and found himself looking at the knife in his hands. He was out of gadgets, but Louvise had taught him how to use a knife to protect himself. He could fight, even if it was just a little bit. He had to. He had to fight, to save Tam.

"Go. Do it." Linh's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked at her, confused. Had she really just said that?

"Go. I know you want to. I can cover Marella and myself until she wakes up."

Dex nodded. "Okay. Thank you." He reached down and gave her a short hug. "Stay safe."

"You too."

A dark, inky substance poured out from Tam's hands. He knew what it was, and the very idea that he could control it terrified him. But he had to keep fighting, he would use the shadowflux.

Tam shot a tiny bit of it towards one of the nearest goblins, hitting her in the stomach. She threw up. Tam wasn't too sure what he was supposed to do next, but if he went by what Lady Zillah told him, and based off of what he knew Umber had done, then he was supposed to make the shadowflux expand.

Expand! Grow bigger! Break her bones! The last one was out of frustration, and he certainly didn't expect it to work.

But it did. The goblin sort of collapsed, and when Tam looked at her dead body, he could tell that most of, if not all, of her bones were broken. Not just broken, they were almost… shattered? Exploded?

Tam tried not to think about how he'd now killed two goblins. Instead, he focused on Linh, and how she was hurting because of him. Because he hadn't been able to save her. But he could now. He just had to kill all the goblins, and then she would be safe. The thought fueled him, and he attacked again, killing two goblins, much faster and more precise than before.

Dex ran through the fighting elves and goblins, dodging daggers and swords and anything else that the elves used to fight back.

He ran faster, he had to get to Tam. to protect him.

You can't protect him. You aren't even strong enough to protect yourself. It's your fault. You're so weak.

Dex cried, clutching his head as he fell to his knees.

Tam heard a cry and instantly looked over to see Dex, on his knees, crying. He charged towards him, shooting an arrow of shadowflux at a goblin who leaped at him, his sword just missing Tam.

Tam dropped to the ground next to Dex, putting his arm around him. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is Linh okay? And Marella?"

Dex looked up at him, tears in his periwinkle eyes. "Marella's still unconscious. Linh stopped bleeding, but she's still in a lot of pain. What about you? Are you okay?"

Tam looked at his injured shoulder. "I'm fine. But you didn't answer my question."

"I'm fine."

"Then why are you crying?" Tam demanded, glaring at him slightly.

"Because- because I'm just so weak. I couldn't help them, and… they were all dying, and they were hurt, but I couldn't do anything because I'm just a dumb shitty technopath." Dex looked at the ground, but Tam knew he was still crying.

"You're not. You're not weak or dumb or just a technopath. I doubt Marella and Linh would be alive right now if you hadn't helped them get to safety. Do you think I would love you if you were weak?" Tam blushed, embarrassed, as he realized what he'd just said.

"I love you, too." Dex said, looking up.

Tam blushed even harder, and then, for some unknown reason, he kissed Dex. On the lips.

Dex blinked, surprised, and then kissed him back.

A few of the elves that weren't fighting for their lives clapped and cheered.

Tam blushed and pulled away. "We can continue this later. Right now, we need to get back to Marella and Linh."

"We aren't going to keep fighting?" Dex asked.

"No. We need to help them first. We can take them to Foxfire, or maybe the Black Swan… No, not the Black Swan, Foxfire. Then, we can come back if everyone's still fighting."

Dex blinked, then nodded. "Soo, just to clarify, you're my boyfriend now, right?"

Tam stared at him. "Yeah. Now let's go."

Marella woke up to voices arguing with each other. Very familiar voices. "Tam? Dex?" Marella asked, opening her eyes.

"Marella! You're okay!" Dex exclaimed.

"Yeah. Where am I, anyway?"

"Foxfire. Healing center." Tam said, continuing to pace the room.

"What happened to you two? And Linh! Is Linh okay?" She asked, gesturing towards the bandages that covered Tam's shoulder and the blood that covered them both.

"Linh's fine. She got hit with a dagger, but Elwin was able to fix her up. She's resting now, but you can probably see her later." Dex said.

"We're fine, it's not our blood." Tam replied, which wasn't very reassuring at all.

"What?" Marella practically shrieked.

"It's goblin blood. They attacked us, remember? You went all crazy and set yourself and quite a few other people on fire, and then passed out."

"Oh. I remember that part." Marella said, her mind still foggy. "And then what happened?"

Tam and Dex began to explain, leaving out the bit about their kiss. "And then we both went to go get you and Linh-" Dex was saying.

The door opened. "Marella?"

Linh was standing in the doorway, wearing a simple white nightgown covered in blood. Her hair was a mess and she had dark circles under her eyes.

"Linh!" Marella tried to get out of bed to hug her, but Dex held her back.

Linh rushed towards her friend and leaned over and gave Marella a hug. "Are you okay?"

"My head hurts a little, but other than that, I'm good. What about you?"

"My leg hurts like hell." Marella's eyes widened. She'd never heard Linh swear before. Linh laughed, then started coughing.

"Sit down." Tam said. Linh sat on the edge of Marella's bed.

"Keep telling her the rest of your story! I want to hear it, too."

"Well, like I said, we were going to find you and Linh. It was really hard, goblins kept on attacking us, and watching so many elves just die like that… it was terrible." Dex choked up, and Tam grabbed his hand, which seemed to calm him down.

"Anyway, it seemed to take forever, but I don't know how long it actually took. So we finally found you guys, and light leaped you to Foxfire." Dex continued, his voice shaking a little.

"But we didn't want to be seen, because then Elwin probably wouldn't let us go back to Eternalia, so we left Marella and Linh outside of the healing center. And then Linh knocked on the door-"

Linh interrupted Tam. "I knocked on the door, then slammed my head into the wall as hard as I could." She touched the small cut on her forehead. "It knocked me unconscious, and also made sure that Elwin would come running. And that way, he couldn't ask questions until we sorted our story out."

"Right. So then Tam and I went back to Eternalia, where people were still fighting. We decided that the best move would be to find the Council, and have them stop the fighting. So we went inside Emery's castle, and the goblin inside told us that the Council had all leapt to a safe house somewhere, and left him to stay behind and die.

"Then he told us to hurry up and kill him if we were going to, and we said we wouldn't, and he was like okay, and then pulled out his sword and stabbed himself. So Tam said that we should just leave him there, but I said no, so we took him outside, because he still wasn't dead yet, and we were all sneaky and just kind of dropped him by some goblins and ran before they saw us.

"And then after that, we were back to fighting, but we were both exhausted, and it was almost getting dark by then, so we didn't know what we were gonna do, so we just kind of watched and took care of our injuries for a while-"

"Wait, it was getting dark? How long was I out?" Marella exclaimed.

Dex and Tam looked at each other. "We're getting to that." Tam said.

Dex started talking again. "Yeah, so we watched, and the elves were totally losing, because they couldn't kill the goblins. Well, some of them could, but like, not all of them. So they were losing, and we needed to help out, so we were like, let's go help.

"And then these dudes in black cloaks appeared out of nowhere and were able to turn the tide! I wanted to go to Foxfire and make sure you were okay, but Tam said that you were and that we needed to stay and fight while we're winning. So then we fought with the cloak people, and they were all, sorry we're late. And then Tam was like, yeah, well, we had it covered."

"And we did." Tam interrupted. Marella noticed that he'd never dropped Dex's hand.

Dex rolled his eyes. "And then the cloak people said that they'd be in touch, and left. So us and the rest of the elves all went to regroup, taking the injured and the dead with them, and they went to some base or something, and we went here. The end."

"Wait, black cloaks? Were they the Neverseen?" Linh asked.

"I don't know. Maybe? They didn't have the Neverseen symbol, though." Dex said, remembering.

"Yeah. Hard to say. Anyway, you need to get some rest, and I need to wash all this blood off of me."

"First, you need to explain why you were there at that protest to begin with, and tell us just how many goblins you killed."

All four of them turned to see Elwin, Magnate Leto, Sophie, Biana, Fitz, Keefe, their bodyguards, Grady and Edaline, and a few others that hadn't fit into the Healing Center.

Tam, Dex, Linh, and Marella all had the same thought at the same time. Oh, shit.

A/N

This wasn't even supposed to be a Dex and Tam story, it just kinda made sense. This was supposed to be a Kam story, but I realize now that Dex and Tam will make more sense later on.