Kam pushes forward with his hands. A massive gust of wind launches the eight legged monstrosity back much harder than Kam intended. The tarantula crashes into the fourth floor of a skyscraper. 

It’s not him, Kam thinks as he runs and hides. All the conjured people are gone leaving Kam by himself in an abandoned city of glass and steel. 

It can’t be him, but Asa’s human husk flips over in the distance. Even from a distance, his friend’s face is twisted in a pained grimace. 

This is a trick. It has to be. Tucker did this. “Tucker!” Kam shouts. “I know this isn’t real. That’s not him.”

No one responds. 

“Tucker. Stop hiding. I get it.” Kam braces himself for the lie. “I won’t-” but a piercing pain in his calf interrupts him. He screams instead. The pain is nothing like he has faced before in his dreams. It convinces him that he can and will die here. 

He tries to take a step but trips and falls forward. He looks down at his leg where a needle thin hair-like arrow juts through his leg. Before he can inspect further, four more land on the ground around him. He flips himself and sits facing where he just ran from. 

The tarantula kicks its own abdomen, launching urticating hairs. Before Kam can think, another hair stabs through his shoulder. Kam tries to get up and move, but his right leg is completely numb, and now his left shoulder and entire left arm are losing feeling. 

Satisfied, the creature begins charging. This is where Kam makes his stand. 

With his working hand, he conjures the hundreds of blades he used against the Delphi. That’s not Asa, a voice in the back of his head says, but his rapidly beating heart disagrees. He closes his hand into a fist and the blades form a sharp metal wall instead of launching themselves at their target. He hopes against hope that it stops the creature.

Donngggg. Eight legged fury collides with the wall. It breaks through. The wall collapses. The swords strike the ground, and the spider continues with a few cuts across its carapace. 

Kam raises a wall of earth next, but the tarantula burrows through with ease. Glass follows and it shatters against the unstoppable force. Wall after wall and barrier after barrier, the spider tears through them all with relative ease. Kam erects one last barrier of steel.

Kam lifts his working hand to his face and wipes a tear off his cheek as the tarantula pierces through. It knocks him prone to the ground. Their eyes meet as it rears its head back to strike. 

A realization breaks through Kam’s fear. Asa has never shown this form before, and this moment is exactly why. Tucker never refers to Asa as a person, but a creature. A monster. Kam has let Tucker’s words influence him beyond what he already knows. 

Asa is not fully human. Asa has kept damning secrets. Asa obsesses over him to the point of murder. But Kam is aware of all of this and still chooses to love him. 

Because Asa is still a person. Because Asa stays by his side. Because Asa is secretly shy about his feelings. Because Asa trusts him.

Kam reaches his working hand up and strokes the tarantula’s, no, Asa’s head just under his eyes. “I’m sorry, Asa.” Asa stops and Kam makes a sudden realization.

He’s hungry. Why? Kam remembers the third promise he forced on him. Only eat my dreams.

“I’m so sorry.” Kam hugs Asa with one arm, while struggling to raise his body up. “I should have talked with you. I forced too much on you and your body and you couldn’t stand it. No, you could stand it. You’re resisting even now. You’ve put all the effort on yourself while I’ve just let your needs go by the wayside.”

He drops the hug, but pulls Asa’s head close to his neck. “Do what you need to do. It’s ok. Even if it kills me, it’s ok. I would die for you any day, Asa.”

Asa’s spider form twitches. His black eyes go grey. His abdomen opens suddenly, and a mucus-covered Asa drops from the shell of his former form. 

Asa holds him tight as tears stream down his face. “I’m sorry too. I lost myself. It was so hard, Kam.” he cries. “I didn’t mean to do this, I swear.”

Kam rubs Asa’s side and kisses him. Asa’s lips are damp from the mucus membrane, but he doesn’t care. This is his Asa, no matter what form he takes. 

“Disgusting.” Tucker reappears and kicks Asa and his molt off Kam. His face is twisted and angry. “You genuinely think this is love? You’re sickening.” 

“No, Tucker. You’re just wrong,” Kam says, determined. “I don’t know who hurt you but-” Tucker grabs the hair still stuck in Kam’s shoulder, twists, and pulls it out. Kam screams as the barbs take flesh with them. 

Tucker analyzes the hair. “You had so much potential. It’s too bad you’re siding with them.”

Kam grits his teeth. “I’m not taking sides. I don’t want anything to do with you or other Dream Eaters.”

The man clicks his tongue. “That’s a risk I’m not willing to take. I’ll just need to kill both of you.”

Suddenly, Asa appears next to Tucker with his four extra legs extended and strikes at the man. Like a blur, Tucker avoids it, grabs the leg and with super-human strength slams Asa into the ground. 

Asa grunts “You’ll touch Kam over my dead body.”

Tucker sighs and floats into the air with his arms extended. “That was the plan all along.”