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fantasiasodapop · 1 year

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Making A New Friend

This is a oneshot revealing the merging of Swap and Fresh into Ellie for the story of To Cure A Glitch's Blues. If you do not wish to consume spoilers, do not continue. If you are willing, walk on. A killer is waiting to greet you.

(Look in tags for trigger warnings. We keep everything light except for Fresh being a parasite but we don't want anyone getting hurt.)

Swap looked around, calling Fresh’s name. He had disappeared earlier that day and hadn’t told him where he was going, which was weird, because Fresh always told his little broseph. Swap knew so. Fresh promised.

Looking around the maze of a castle—Swap had gotten lost half an hour ago, but that wasn’t going to stop him—he tried to find any trace of the older skeleton when he heard�� whimpering.

Swap froze. He knew that sound. He knew it far too well. Those were the cries of someone PAPS DON’T LEAVE ME PLEASE trying to hide the fact that they were dusting so no one would notice. He had heard it too many times to forget that muffled sobbing sound of a monster holding their hand to their mouth mixed with the coughing up of dust as they prepared to disintegrate.

That wasn’t going to happen today. Not on his watch.

Swap rushed up to the door and grabbed the door handle only for the sounds inside to stop.

“W-who’s there?” came the all too terrifyingly familiar voice of Fresh, wobbling and shaking with pain.

Fresh. It was Fresh who was dying alone in the endless corridors of the Crescents’ Castle. Not today. Not today!

Swap slammed the door open to see… a random Sans tied up on the bed and Fresh with his glasses off? Fresh never took off his glasses. What was going on?

"S-Swap? No... No no no no no Swap you've gotta skedaddle on outta here, squirt! You're gonna get totes unfresh if ya stay here!" Fresh whispered, waving his hands at Swap before noticing his left one disintegrating and hiding that one behind his back.

Swap just stared as Fresh's glove dropped to the floor in a pile of dust. "You're... You're... You're dusting! We have to get Geno!"

Fresh blinked, staring at him. "I... Kid, dis ain't what it looks like. I'm... I'm totes r-rad! I promise!" he said, trying to give the little skeleton a reassuring smile.

"No you're not!" Swap insisted, stomping his foot as tears welled up in his sockets.

"Really, if you close dat door I'll be totes fresh again in a couple o' days―" Fresh began before Swap shocked him into silence.

"STOP LYING TO ME PAPY!" the little kid screamed before covering his mouth, tears streaming down his cheekbones.

Fresh looked down at him, finally realising what was going on, why Swap cared so much... and why Berror had insisted on this one.

"I know what dusting means, okay?!" Swap yelled, staring at the floor as his little gloved hands clenched into fists. "I know what happens when people dust. They promise you that they'll be back, that they'll be okay, but then they dust and you yell and yell and wait and wait but they never do! And you're all alone and you don't know how to take care of yourself because you always had your big brother to take care of you but he's gone now and you're all alone and the human went away and I CAN'T DO IT AGAIN I CAN'T!"

Fresh gave a shaky sigh as his arm finished disintegrating, and he walked up and put a hand on Swap's shoulder, getting down on one knee so he could look Swap in the eye.

"Okay. Okay, broski. I'll tell you," he said softly, giving Swap the best smile he could. "I just... I know you'll probably hate me after dis, so... just let me explain, okay?"

"I know I wasn't brought here to just be your friend," Swap whispered. "It seemed like a weird request, but I was so lonely, and he was giving me a way out... I couldn't say no. I knew something weird was going on, but I just wanted to leave."

Fresh clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Dat... Dat explains quite a bit, actually..." he admitted. "How long have you known?"

"Since you glared at Starberror for offering to take me," he said honestly.

Fresh nodded. "Dat would do it... Dat would do it... You are a smart little broski."

"My dad taught me not to trust people if they said weird things that didn't make sense," Swap replied proudly. "I just... bent that rule this once because... I wanted to come home with you..."

Fresh gulped, trying not to cry himself as he took a shaky breath. "Yeah... I get it. Not having a family is hard, broski. Dat's why I'm so lucky I've got the gang, y'know?"

Swap nodded. "Why didn't you tell them you were hurting?" he asked quietly.

"Oh Swap... dey already know," he replied solemnly.

The little one's eyelights widened in horror. "And they didn't do anything to help you?!" he gasped.

"See, dis is deir help," Fresh said, gesturing to their surroundings. "Dey gave me a rad room, dey got me a totes fresh Sans dere, and dey left me alone."

"They left you alone to die?!" Swap repeated. "Why?!"

"Broski..." Fresh sighed and sat down on the floor as his legs started disintegrating. "I don't got a lot of time to explain dis, okay? So... I'm gonna have to make dis quick unless ya wanna wait until next week."

Swap nodded, sitting down in front of him and looked at him attentively. "Dis... Dis isn't my body, Swap. Dis is Sans's body from Echotale #932," Fresh began, looking down at the floor. "My body is da little tentacle thing wrapped around da soul in my socket."

"That Sans is really nice then," Swap said with a smile. "Why didn't he need it anymore?"

"He... He did need it, Swap," Fresh corrected him gently. "I... I just took it from him because I needed it too."

"You... You took it? Why?" Swap asked, sounding distraught.

Fresh flinched, knowing exactly where this was going to go. "Because... Because I would die without it, Swap. I get really, really hungry, but I can only find food in other people's bodies or by eating souls, and eating souls is harder because I have to fight the body that I have, broski. So instead, I only eat the souls of very bad monsters occasionally, and have to keep stealing bodies to stay alive."

"So... You want to eat the souls of bad people, but the people whose bodies you take don't want to, so you have to keep stealing bodies to stay alive?" Swap summarised, letting that roll over in his mind.

"Yeah, that's exactly right, broski," Fresh agreed, a tiny spark of hope igniting inside him. Maybe Swap wouldn't hate him after all...

"What if your body let you eat souls?" Swap asked curiously, the cogs beginning to click together in his head. "What then? Would you still have to steal bodies?"

"No, I guess not, but no one would willingly give up deir body to me. I'm... I'm a freak," Fresh mumbled.

Both of them ignored the frantic muffled screaming on the bed.

"What would happen if someone gave you their body?" Swap asked, continuing his line of thought. "Willingly, I mean? You never said."

"I don't know. It's never happened before, broski," Fresh admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

"What if... I gave you my body?" Swap offered quietly. Fresh looked up for the first time since he had started explaining, eyelights wide.

"W-what?" he asked, startled and not quite sure he wasn't hallucinating or dreaming. It wouldn't be the first time he had hoped for something like this...

"I trust you. I'd let you have mine. We could share it! And... And you could eat all the bad souls you want, and we'd never be alone, and I'd protect you and you'd protect me, and you'd never have to hide in a dark room dusting by yourself ever again!" Swap rambled, rushing forward to explain his idea.

"Swap... You... You don't know what you're offering... You're offering to give up everything for me. You'd never get to be alone; you'd have to eat other people to live; you'd be labelled a freak by everyone outside our castle; you would be stuck with me for the rest of forever, broski! Think about what that means!" Fresh pleaded, little more than a rib cage and a skull now.

"I did, Fresh. It means you get to live and you don't have to be scared that there won't be a next body. I think I'm okay with that," Swap assured him. "Just... tell me how we do this. Do you... Do you need me to do something or...?"

"I... I shouldn't be agreeing to this... You're just a kid... You can't... You can't consent to this..." Fresh muttered to himself. "You can't actually understand this..."

"Do you really want to go and have to fight the skeleton tied up on the bed?" Swap reasoned, rocking back so he could fold his arms. "Do you actually want to have to fight just to live to tomorrow?"

Fresh stared up at the Candyfell on the bed and could feel the aching exhaustion settle in long before he even attempted to take the Sans for himself. He could already imagine the week-long struggle it would take to just get him ready enough for Fresh to go about his daily business, and the month after where he'd have to relearn to fight again away from prying eyes so no one could know of his weakness. Memories of nights going hungry flashed before him, a hunger he tormented himself with because he had promised himself that this host would last longer than the last one, because it wasn't fair to Geno and Error to make them hunt down a new one just because he couldn't make his food stretch. Swap was right; he really didn't want to do that. He hadn't wanted to for a long time now. He was just so tired.

Then his gaze shifted to Swap, kind loving wonderful Swap, who knew exactly what would happen to him if this went wrong and still offered everything to him. He shuddered, his little violet body curling in on itself around the last dregs of his current host's soul as he tried not to think of how nice it would be to just say yes, to give in, to let someone who loved him take him in and protect him for the rest of eternity. How... How could he say no to such a tempting proposition? All the food he could ever want; someone to talk to who wouldn't just scream at him about how horrible he was; the sweet warmth of being able to feel love and compassion from the soul he was guarding instead of hatred and fear; and he'd be able to, wouldn't he? He'd be able to protect Swap's soul instead of devour it, cradle it in his tentacles where no one could ever hurt him again and he'd be his wouldn't he? Swap would be solely his and no one would ever be able to take him away. He'd have a forever companion, one he could tell all of the stories he'd witnessed over his long, long lifespan.

It was then that Fresh realised he was out of time, and he shook the dust from his torso, looking up at Swap warily with one beautiful multi-coloured eye as he tucked his tentacles closer to himself. This was the final test, he supposed: Swap's reaction to his true form.

Swap looked down at him in awe, brushing off a little bit of dust before picking Fresh up―and didn't that make the parasite want to bolt; nothing good had ever come of being held before―and holding him up just below his chin so he could see him better.

"Is this... Is this you?" Swap whispered reverently, eyes beginning to sparkle with stars. Fresh, no longer able to speak, shuffled in Swap's hands for a minute before nodding his torso at him. "You look so cool, Fresh," Swap told him, gently removing one of his gloves with his teeth before running a gentle phalange down one of Fresh's appendages.

The parasite shuddered, leaning into the touch that he so craved. No one had ever touched his true self so kindly before... not that many ever had the chance, but Fresh could feel the beating intent inside of Swap's soul with every stroke of his finger, and there was not an ounce of fear or hatred to be found; only pure, unadulterated compassion and familial love for him and him alone.

"So... How do I...? What do you need me to do, Fresh?" Swap asked, studying him for any kind of reaction.

Fresh, resigning himself to his fate and trying to deny his excitement, pointed at Swap's scarf.

"You... want my bandanna?" Swap asked, confused. Fresh shook a tentacle at him to mimic a finger waggle before tapping Swap's hand and pointing at the bandanna again.

"Oh! You want to sit on my bandanna!" Swap realised. "Okay!" He carefully moved his hand over so Fresh could climb into the fabric. "Now what?"

Fresh chuckled silently to himself as he climbed over the fabric to the opening between the two collarbones and slipped through.

Swap burst out laughing, reaching for his neck instinctively. "C-careful! I'm t-ticklish!" he warned Fresh.

The parasite ignored the warning, practically not even hearing it, as he was too busy staring at the beautiful soul that had been given to him. It was pure and white and whole, the most beautiful soul he'd ever seen, and he got to hold it in his tentacles. Man, in a few years when all the other Sanses would look at his host buddy with envy, he'd know that he was the luckiest guy alive. Swap was that good.

Fresh gently wrapped his tentacles around Swap's soul and turned, getting ready to take it to its new home in the safest part of any skeleton as he climbed back up Swap's ribs and came out the other side, clutching his prize.

Swap's metaphorical breath hitched when he felt Fresh wrap around his soul, wondering for the first time if this was actually a good idea, when he felt Fresh climbing up his neck. "What... What are you d-doing, b-broski?" he practically whispered, beginning to grow nervous now.

Fresh just patted the side of Swap's skull, trying to reassure the little skeleton. With that out of the way, he gently vine-roped his way across Swap's head with his tentacles to be stationed right over his eye, both of them staring into each other's beings.

"Everything... okay...?" Swap asked, his voice slurred as he was entranced by Fresh's gaze and grip on his soul. Fresh nodded, content that he had prepared Swap thoroughly, before climbing inside his new host's eye socket.

Swap immediately doubled over, scratching at his socket without ever gaining purchase with hyperventilating breaths. It only seemed to get worse―then he froze and simply sat there for a moment, still as a mouse as he stared at the floor.

The Candyfell Sans didn't dare move a muscle on the bed, not wanting to attract either entity's attention in order to save his own metaphorical skin. Unfortunately, that didn't last long.

"I'm... so... hungry..." Swap whispered, eyelights still dark as he stared. "So... hungry... We're so... hungry..."

Swap looked up at him, and in one socket there was his original eyelight dilated beyond measure while in the other a mesmerising red and yellow eye held him frozen.

Little did the poor Sans know that gaze had already marked him for death.

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