All he wanted, at that moment, more than anything else, was to feel safe.
But that wasn't currently possible.
After all, the only way would be for his mother-brother to remember him, but a millennium had passed and his mother-brother still didn't seem to remember. Sometimes, he would do something that made Fresh hope, but that small hope was always extinguished when he still didn't remember.
Fresh tried to drop by as much as possible, trying to kick start his mother-brother's memory, but his mother-brother seemed to hate him, despise his being and feel only disgust for him. It... hurt. As much as he could feel that.
Uncle-brother didn't snap out of his insanity induced rage when mother-brother disappeared, he came to only when Death had appeared for Fresh, and he fought him off, managing to open a portal to a random AU to protect him. Uncle-brother fought Death while he was in that AU, Underfresh, and the Sans of that AU found him. Self-preservation overtook the small shin and somehow his small underdeveloped SOUL wrapped itself around the older Monster and he found himself looking through the Sans' eyesockets.
The fight between Death and his uncle-brother halted when they noticed what had happened, and his uncle-brother rushed over to him, checking him over to see if everything was working right. His original body has dusted and the only thing keeping him alive was the body he was occupying.
His Host, as he started to call them, dusted after sometime but this time, Death helped him find a new Host. Death had fallen in love with his uncle-brother and was trying to get in his good graces by helping. Geno, as he learned his uncle-brother was named, refused to name him, wanting his mother-brother to name him when he returned. Death suggested using the name of his first Host until his mother-brother came back, and he agreed, since they needed something to call him.
Geno had somehow managed to meet with his mother-brother, and that had caused him to remember Geno. He had tried to mention Fresh, but the moment any mention of him passed his uncle-brother's mouth, his mother-brother left.
He knew how bad it must look, he was practically stalking Error after all. But while sometimes he checked on him because he wanted to know if he remembered, most of the time he just needed to be near him. Error's magic calmed him down every time he felt a breakdown approaching. His Hosts had to be kept somewhat alive for him to get nourishment, but they were eternally suffering, and while he wasn't able to care about that, they were always so LOUD.
And that's how he got into this situation. Nightmare and his gang had cornered him, and he could feel his anxiety levels rising, something that Nightmare probably felt beneath all the layers of suffering from his current Host, since he immediately started interrogating him.
"Tell us why you have been stalking and harassing Error these past centuries." Nightmare demanded, but when Fresh didn't answer, his grin widens and he nodded to Dust.
A bone attack pierced Fresh's ribcage and pinned him to the wall behind him. Fresh's eyelight disappeared from behind his glasses, his SOUL started to glow in his eyesocket, and his wound started to heal around the attack, the glow fading once it couldn't heal anymore.
Nightmare's eyelight narrowed slightly and he leaned forward. "What are you doing?" he demanded, looking down at him.
"Nothing, broski, nothing. Say, maybe you could, like, call your minions off or something? Ya know how it is; people to see, food to eat. Food doesn't eat itself ya know?" Fresh tried to remember how to use slang, but Nightmare's increasingly more successful attempts to have his aura affect him started to wear him down, too much of his concentration going into not breaking down. Fresh wasn't normally affected by Nightmare's aura, but now that it was starting to build up, and Fresh realised that if he didn't manage to leave right now, his emotions would overwhelm him, not being used to intense emotions. Or, you know, more than 20%, and his emotions seemed to have arrived at 120%.
"Now, why... would I do such a thing? Right. When you're about to. Break down and... TELL ME." Nightmare's voice started to deepen as he fused more of his power into it. Horror seemed to shake from it, and Fresh missed Nightmare shooting an apologetic look at Horror.
"I... I..." Fresh started to shake, some dust flaking off of his skull as the emotions overloaded his Hosts body. A purple liquid fell from his eyesockets like tears. The substance always leaked instead of tears and was actually the same liquid that was expelled during labour by Skeleton Bearer named Bumin, since he didn't possess a body wholly his own.
Nightmare seemed alarmed at that directing all his minions away from what he thought the parasite's vessel dusting, making him a danger to his own.
Fresh fully broke down, unable to hold back answers anymore and yelled: "Error is my mother!"
The gang froze and Nightmare's eyelight shrunk, an unspoken threat in his voice as he said: "Error would have told us if he had reproduced."
"Error is my Mother-Brother." Fresh gulped at the threat and continued, not a hint of 90's slang in his words, "When I first appeared from the Genocide branch, only 148 Genocide Routes had gone through the Underground since my SOUL shard had been 1/10th of the original SOUL and was barely functional. When I appeared in the Save Screen, my shard wasn't strong enough to survive and was about to crack further, killing me. My body was incapable of even a twitch. Mother-brother took me and allowed me to grow within him, and when the key broke, I seemed to have been reborn as a normal, magic-born, shin of Mother-brother. When mother-brother disappeared, I was still a shin and needed my Bearer's magic to survive. Uncle-brother was still lost in his rage and insanity, so he wasn't able to help, he only came back to his senses when Death came for me when I was about to starve. I became a parasite when self-preservation shoved me into a Sans's body, eating their SOUL in replacement for the magic I would have normally received."
Fresh nervously stared at them, and Nightmare frowned at him, "Then why do you still eat SOULs if it was only as a replacement for your Bearer's magic? You have been around a long time by now and you shouldn't need it anymore."
He winced and answered, "My body dusted when I hopped for the first time and... a skeleton can only start to eat normal food when they become a Lesser Skeleton...
"Yes, and?" Nightmare asked impatiently.
"I still need my Bearer's magic to grow, I just won't starve without it. Others SOULs are just keeping me from starving to death. Despite having been alive for a large amount of time, my SOUL is still that of a shin."
Nightmare stared in horror at him and Dust took that as a signal to dissolve the bone attack in his ribcage and the wound healed immediately. Having a shin's SOUL made him a shin, albeit a mature one because of the years of having been one, but still a shin. A toddler.
Fresh tried to reassure them when he saw the horror in all of their faces, "Most likely I would skip the Lesser Skeleton stage if I did have my Bearer's magic, so you don't have to treat me like a shin..."
His reassurances didn't help at all since it was a horrible thing to be forced to skip that Stage, and most of the time those that skipped it had been at least at the start of it and had said that it was the most painful thing in the Multiverse.
"We need to find Error." Nightmare decided before glancing at Fresh.
"Why do you believe me so easily...?" Fresh wondered.
"Because I can tell when someone is lying, even with emotions as muted as you, I can still feel it." Nightmare told him before frowning, "Why did Geno not tell Error about you?"
"Uncle-brother tried but every time my name was mentioned, mother-brother would get angry and leave."
"Hmm... guess we'll have to force him to listen..."
"N̷o̵ ̸n̵e̸e̵d̴ ̴t̶o̵.̸ ̶I̸'̵m̷ ̶h̸e̸r̵e̶ ̴a̵n̶d̴ ̷I̴ ̸h̵e̴a̴r̷d̷ ̶e̶v̵e̵r̶y̷t̷h̷i̸n̶g̷ ̷a̴l̶r̷e̴a̷d̶y̵.̴ ̴K̸i̷l̷l̸e̴r̷ ̴h̵a̵d̴ ̴a̵s̷k̵e̴d̴ ̴m̷e̷ ̸t̷o̵ ̵s̷t̷a̴y̸ ̵c̶l̷o̵s̷e̶ ̵b̴e̷c̸a̵u̴s̵e̵ ̷h̵e̶ ̸h̶a̷d̷ ̶a̴ ̴w̶e̴i̵r̸d̸ ̴f̶e̵e̷l̴i̶n̷g̵.̵" A voice said above them.
Error lowered himself down with his strings and stepped in front of the newly Healed Fresh, Cross had gone back to the others when he finished Healing Fresh.
Error put his glasses on and looked closely at Fresh, not recognising him. He grabbed the parasite's glasses, which had remained blank during the whole explanation, and stared at the tiny SOUL in his eyesocket.
For once Error's speech stopped glitching, as he whispered, "V3?"
"Hello. Mother-Brother..." Fresh answered hesitantly.
"S̶̗̣̓t̴̼̮̓̽ā̴͎̝̐r̵͖̈́ş̵͎̈̍d̶̦͛̊ä̴̜́́m̵̝͎͘͝n̶͇̱̈́̄į̶͓̂̏t̸͇̿̃!̴̙̆ ̴̻̞̔T̴̻̦̍͗h̵͍̜̃a̶̟͉͗ẗ̴̟̟́ ̶̱͌b̴̟̎̉ị̷̐͊t̷͔͐̍c̸̝̟͗h̵̹̟̀!̷̃ͅ ̶̢̰I̷̘̖ ̶̞̿h̵̠͑̔a̷̭͌͂v̷̖̓e̴̘͊̎ ̸̪̑a̶̻͠ ̸̲̚ͅs̷͍̄̚ő̴̪n̸̑ͅ-̶̧͚̕ḇ̴͖͋͘r̷̡ö̵̐ͅṱ̷̭͗͆h̵̟̕e̴̠͗̚r̴͓͎̋?̵̨̭̅ ̸̰͋Ḥ̷̰̈́ō̶̡͎w̸͚̳͐ ̶̰̈͊d̴͇̏ą̶̞̏̓r̸̦̤̈́e̴͕͂̇ ̸̠̈́ͅṣ̸̀̀ͅḧ̶͓͝e̶̜̍͐ ̷͔̥̾t̷̗̻̾͝a̶͕̩̓ķ̷̯͛̈́ȇ̷̙̝ ̸̡̊͝m̷̨̂y̴̪̝̽ ̴̰̉̌m̷͖͉̄̊ḙ̵̞̇͘m̶̰̽̈́ŏ̴͜r̵̫͘i̶͎̒ȩ̴͂s̸̳͋͆ ̶̡͉̿̄ḁ̶̑̂b̴̺̃́o̸̩͉͛̐u̷̟͝t̷͖̹̒ ̷̼͖́͗ẏ̶͉̹͌o̷̝͠ͅȕ̸̦͎ ̵̝͔̔̓ą̷̂̿w̸̝̋̈́ä̵̱́̕ẙ̵̜̲!̷̪̎" Error practically roared in anger as his memories returned, but immediately stopped when he saw how distressed Fresh started to look. The ERROR grabbed Fresh, his haphephobia not acting up now made sense, since it wouldn't be triggered by offspring, and had never been triggered by Fresh, no matter how much he had annoyed him before he knew he was V3, and hugged him tightly. Fresh's skull was pressed to the ERROR's chest where his SOUL was, and suddenly Fresh felt himself relaxing as he realized that his Bearer was feeding him. The gang looked away politely, as this was the first time in centuries that the ERROR could feed his son-brother, and thus counted as a private moment.
____________
A few years had passed since the ERROR had regained the last bit of his memories, and just like Fresh had predicted, he had spent a total of 1 week as a Lesser Skeleton before skipping to Skeleton. Which was lucky for him, since Nightmare isn't a pedophile and would refuse to even hug him so long as he remained with a shin SOUL.
By now Error had even settled down with Dream, which had been an eventful and weird day, but ended very happily. The family dynamic was even weirder now, since Dream had been upgraded to Father by Fresh when he seemed to actually love Mother-Brother and his behavior had remained loving even when he was introduced to Fresh as Error's son-brother, who he had until then only know as an insane parasite. And since Fresh had ended up mated to Nightmare, Dream was Nightmare's brother AND father-in-law and Nightmare his brother AND son-in-law, which had caused several jokes to be told by various people in the gang and even Ink had joined in after being super scolded by his Mama-Dream.
Nightmare could feed on Fresh's Host's suffering, which helped Fresh since HE didn't feel it anymore and Fresh's SOUL finally had grown enough that his emotions had gone from 20% to 100% as they should be.
Everything was as it should be.
Fresh had never felt so safe in his long life.
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A/N: Hello! I haven't updated in months, and don't really have an excuse, just that my brain didn't let me write. Dang, I really have a problem with Writer's Block... It just keeps hitting me whenever it feels like it...
Anyway! I finally have an actual computer to write on, so I no longer need to on my tablet. My school has been currently closed since Wednesday (we still went Tuesday), and that means 6 days. They didn't really say when they'll open since they said 15 days but it'll probably be longer. I'm not in my last year, so I don't know what they'll do for us lowly 2nd year High Schoolers...
I hope to update a little more, since I did get the feeling to write some of my ideas in my enormous list of ideas (I might make a book with the ideas, since I wanna see what others write with them, though at some point, I would still write the idea of how I imagined it).
I love comments! Please comment! It makes me super duper extra happy...