Sans groaned and shifted a little.

"You see?" A very familiar voice said. "I told you I know what I'm doing. Besides, if you didn't want me doing things to them, then why in the world did you call me up here?"

As the doctor stammered out a reply, Sans opened his eyes, blinking away sleep.

"Oh, just get out." Gaster huffed, leading the doctor away by the arm. "You're the one who wanted me to work up here, so let me work."

Sans looked around. They were in a hospital room. He was lying on a hospital gurney IV drip in his Soul. Papyrus was similarly on a gurney to his left, still passed out, though.

Gaster, having successfully shut the door behind the doctor, turned back to Sans. "Well. That's taken care of. Sans. Good to see you're awake."

Sans subconsciously scooted back on the bed, trying to get away as Gaster took a step forward.

Gaster saw, and frowned. "Sans. It's okay. I'm not going to do anything. I ended the DTW project four years ago, and I'm doing my best to make sure it stays ended." His frown deepened a little. "I won't lie, though. They called me up from the lab, said there were two monsters with some strange Soul condition, one they didn't recognize. When I came and saw it was you two, there was a rather large part of me that wanted to say I'd have to take you back to the lab, and then just keep you there." He shook his head. "I swear I'm trying, Sans. I'm doing my best. I haven't done anything to you. I'm going to do my best not to. The DTW project is over."

Sans didn't relax. He didn't trust Gaster.

Still struggling a little to wake up, he gestured to the IV.

"It's just Magic. To wake you up."

"whh- why-- what--?"

Gaster blew out a sigh. "You remember the weekly checkups? How I always gave you that IV to strengthen your Soul?"

Sans nodded.

"Your Souls, yours and Papyrus's are only just from Soul fragments. That stuff really did help your Soul, kept it strong. Now, you're going on four years without it, and your Soul is starting to decay, fall apart until it's just back to the size of the original fragment. Which, if the strain isn't too much, and if it doesn't just shatter and you die, then it still won't be enough to keep up with the mental strain, and you'll fall comatose. Barely smarter than a vegetable. The excess Magic I have feeding into you is reversing it just a bit, enough to wake you up and keep you alive."

Sans just blinked.

"I know. It's a lot to understand."

Sans looked at Gaster a moment longer. Then, he called on his abilities as Judge.

*Wingdings Gaster
ATK: 90 DEF: 78 HP: 150 Lv: 71
*Royal Scientist
*Wishes he could feel sorry. But he can't.
*... Really is trying.

Sans looked from this information, back to Gaster's face, eyes unavoidably attracted to the scarred crack running from Gaster's left eyesocket to his mouth. Sans thought it looked weird. It was strange there. Something different.

Slowly, Sans asked, "hypothetically, if i were to ask you for help in stopping this... hypothetically, what would you do?"

"Well..." Gaster looked off into the distance, thinking. "... We could restrengthen your Soul with the same solution we used to. Then you could either come in for weekly doses, or I could try to stop the decay with runes..." He trailed off.

Sans blinked slowly. Neither of those sounded appealing. "... gaster. what would you do?"

"... Oh. That." He sighed. "... Sans, I'm not going to say sorry. I'm really not sorry. My Lv is too high. But I realize, for as little as I feel for it, that helping you, without experimenting on you is the 'right' thing to do. Maybe it will even help to lower my Lv. I know that just doing so much as reviving you here, now, has already lowered my Lv a bit. So, I will try to help you." He paused a moment, then continued. "Besides, I like my creations to last. It would be a shame if you died now when you have so many years left, just because of something like this."

Sans sighed, settling back down. "i don't trust you, gaster."

"And I don't blame you. I probably wouldn't trust me either. But you don't have any other options. Without my help, you are going to die. Or become a gross inedible vegetable." Gaster chuckled a little. Sans could tell though, that it was an act. That Gaster was trying, and failing.

A for effort, though. He really was trying.

Sans closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Finally, "can you call jeff for me? i wanna talk to him."

Gaster looked a little surprised. "Jeff? Why would you want to-... right. Yeah, I will. Try to sleep. I'll wake you up when he gets here. Or he will." He shrugged a little, then stepped out of the room, pulling his cellphone out of his lab coat pocket.

Sans closed his eyes again.

He really wasn't sure of this. Wasn't sure if he could trust Gaster.

But there was a part of him that told him he had to trust Gaster, because there was a chance of lowering Gaster's Lv. Of getting Gaster back, the real Gaster, who had loved him and cared for him and helped him, of getting Dings back, of--...

Sans fell asleep, a small smile lifting the edges of his permanent grin.

~o0o~

Jeff was a little surprised to get a call from Gaster, calling him off work, on the premise that Sans needed him. He was scared that Gaster had found Sans and done something to him.

Upon meeting Gaster at the hospital, Jeff immediately accused him of such.

Gaster shook his head. "No, Jeff. I saved his life."

As they walked to the hospital room Sans was staying in, Gaster explained how and why Sans' and Papyrus's Souls were decaying.

Jeff nodded and walked a little faster.

When he got to the room, Sans was fast asleep, and rather comfortable looking. Papyrus stirred a little, but settled back down.

Jeff stepped over to the gurney and set a hand on Sans' shoulder. "Sans. Wake up."

Sans shifted a bit, eyesockets cracked open. "hey jeff." He yawned.

Jeff smiled at him. "Sans. You wanted to see me?"

Sans nodded as he sat up. "uh-huh. 'cuz gaster says he can help me 'n' pap, but i don't trust him. so i wanted to ask you if you'd watch him 'n' make sure he doesn't do anything to us."

"Of course I will."

Sans gave him a small nod of thanks. Then he looked over Jeff's shoulder at Gaster. "'kay, as long as jeff's here, i guess you can do it."

Gaster gave him a small smile. Whether it was genuine or not, Sans couldn't tell. Then his shoulders slumped a little, and he sighed. "You're not going to like this, Sans, but for me to be able to do anything, we're going to have to go back to the lab."

Sans didn't like that. But he realized that, if Gaster said he needed to go back to the lab, then Gaster wouldn't be doing anything here, regardless of whether or not he actually could or couldn't.

So, looking at Jeff, Sans agreed to go back to the lab.

~o0o~

Gaster's lab had changed quite a bit, Sans found.

For the most part, it was just a whole lot messier. Like someone had taken a half of every project Gaster had ever worked on, and dumped each of those halves into the room.

Clutching Papyrus to his chest, Sans looked at the mess and whistled. "i mean, it was always a horrifying mess, but you've really let the place go." He didn't like being here. It was well lit (Gaster would never willingly work somewhere he couldn't see well-- too easy to make errors,) but to Sans it felt dark as the depths of tartarus.

Gaster just shook his head before walking over to the steel table Sans had lain on so many times, which was now covered in a clutter of his projects. "I want to run a few tests. Just to make sure I understand what's going on. It would be really bad if I started to work on fixing this when this wasn't what needed fixing."

"I think that's a given." Jeff said.

Gaster started sorting through the mess on the table. Said mess also expanded out onto the machines around the table. "So we can start just as soon as I get this all... cleared off."

"no duh." Sans saw that the only really good place to sit was Gaster's desk chair, so he sat there. "... woah, hey, was that a sock?"

Gaster glanced towards the trash can, where he had thrown the offending object. "So it would appear, yes. There were more of them, I believe."

Sans decided not to ask what might have happened to the rest of the socks.

Instead, he pulled his knees up on the chair. Snuggling Papyrus to his chest. Papyrus's Soul was in a much farther state of decay, and he hadn't really woken up at all when Gaster had first given him the IV drip, so he was totally limp in Sans' arms. Sans was torn between having Gaster do whatever it was to Papyrus first, to get Papyrus better first, or having Gaster do it to him first, so that if anything went wrong, or Gaster had been lying, Papyrus would still have a chance.

A few hours went by as Gaster picked through the mess, slowly clearing off the table. Sans could practically feel his Soul decaying as his mental efficiency went down. First, he just sort of... had trouble thinking. It was just.. slow. Then it got kinda hard to see, his vision going sort of blurry. So he leaned back, closed his eyes.

And there was a sort of calmness as his body just sort of stopped. As he relaxed, except for the occasional twitch.

And it was just... quiet.

He slipped off.

~o0o~

Coming back around was difficult.

There was something so familiar about it, so painfully familiar about it. The cold metal beneath him, the sensors attached to his body, the IV in his Soul, the experiment--

Sans let out a strangled cry, struggling to sit up. This was wrong, so so wrong, he couldn't be back here, had to be a nightmare, couldn't be back in the lab--

"Jeff!! Stop him!"

And then Jeff was there, one hand pressed against Sans' collarbone, forcing him down, the other grabbing Sans' hand. "Hush, shh, shh. It's okay, Sans. You're okay."

Gradually, Sans' panicked breathing evened out, his pulse slowing as Jeff kept rubbing his clavicle.

"whh- whhaah-- wha-at--"

"Shh. Just calm down. Stay still."

Then Gaster slipped into view. Sans flinched away.

Gaster's face was carefully neutral.

"I suppose this is my fault." He said slowly. "By the time you blacked out, I had more or less gotten the table cleaned up. I wanted to get started with things immediately, so at the same time I got the IV into you, I also hooked up all the monitors. I... neglected to consider that, as you woke up again, being here might trigger traumatic shock."

"you- you di-didn't--"

"Just the sensors and the IV. Nothing more."

"p-papyr--"

"Also has an IV. But, like I said, he was at a more advanced state of decay, and hasn't woken up yet because of that."

With the knowledge that everything was okay, or at least more or less heading that way, Sans relaxed a bit.

After a couple moments, he looked up at Gaster. "w-well, then? do you know what to do?"

Gaster nodded. "Yes. I still have several minor details to work out, but for the most part, yes. But that's fine, because your Soul needs to be stronger before I can do anything. It will probably be a week or so at least before anything can be done."

"so what do we do until then?"

"We wait. Keep this full," he gestured a little to the IV bag that was connected to Sans' Soul, "and wait for you and Papyrus to get stronger."

Sans closed his eyes. "wait, huh? i think i can do that."

§

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