Sans didn't want to wake up.

Because waking up- that would acknowledge the fact that he was okay now. And that would mean Gaster would let go of him, set him down.

Sans hadn't just... been hugged in a long time, it seemed. He didn't want it to end. He just wanted to stay curled in his creator's arms, pressed against his chest, just knowing that Gaster was there.

He felt like Gaster hadn't really been around as much.

Well, no. Gaster had been around just as much as he used to be, but it was... different. He was always there for the injections and the checkups, but he wasn't... with Sans. Wasn't there to keep him company, or hold his hand, or tell him it was going to be okay when the pain hit.

Sans knew it was probably because he was getting older. He didn't need that kind of care anymore. But that didn't mean he didn't miss it, especially when he was writhing on the table, fully conscious and under the effects of the physicality serum.

So Sans was content to just lay there, curled up against Gaster, and be hugged.

Eventually, though, it had to end. Sans felt Gaster's grip on him loosening as he was carefully set back on the table.

"Sans. You're okay now?"

Sans looked from Gaster to the IV still in his Soul. The bag was almost empty. So was the one in his arm. "i... i think so, yeah." Then he looked back up at Gaster. "what-... what happened?"

"I-..." Gaster paused, chuckling a little. "I suppose I tricked your body a little too well into thinking the larger Magic capacity was normal. Because your Magic capacity was higher, but I didn't put anything into you, so you still had the same amount of actual Magic in you. So your body thought you were extremely low on Magic, as in, starving and dying low, and responded as such." He paused, looking also at the nearly-empty IV bag. "Once I got some Magic into you, though, you started to wake up."

Sans paused, thinking on that. "... oh. ... wait, if my magic capacity is higher, but my body thinks that's normal, does that mean i'm gonna have to keep my magic level higher?"

Gaster nodded as he reached for the IV, carefully pulling it out of his chest, then for the one in Sans' arm. "Yes. It won't be too difficult, though. Just a bit more food, a bit more rest... It won't be hard. Once you get into the habit of it, you won't even be able to tell it was different."

Sans nodded, slowly sitting up, stretching his back. He could feel the excess Magic, burning in his Soul. It felt good. Strong. It felt like he could do something big, something powerful.

Like he could use Blue Magic.

Gaster seemed to read his mind. "Give it a few days to make sure your body's fully acclimated to everything, and we can try out Blue Magic again."

Sans grinned and nodded.

~o0o~

The next day, he went with Gaster into the upper floors of the lab. Whenever anyone asked where he had been for the last two days, his response was that he hadn't been as recovered as he thought, and had needed to take a little more time off.

Everyone thought, of course, that he was referring to his wounds from the human attack. He didn't correct them.

The CORE construction was proceeding nicely. It was about a quarter of the way built now, already covering almost two thousand square feet at it's base, and having roughly five floors already built. The tricky part was that a lot of the interior working, the machinery and such was MASSIVE, and not all strictly floor-height uniform. So it was "roughly" five stories tall because much of the interior that wasn't the area open to the public wouldn't be hallways and rooms. Granted, there were a few of those, but it was mostly catwalks to control panels, through one of several large, open, cavernous spaces.

To make matters worse, there was mist everywhere, fine particles of Magic condensation that clouded together in the open space. Sans said it was a dramatic movie battle just waiting to happen-- and that was saying it with the implication that it was one of those where someone falls off the catwalk into the empty space, down to the reaction chambers below, where they would get torn apart by the sheer Magical energy that filled the area.

Gaster insisted everything would be fine. There were rails on the catwalks, it would be fine.

Sans wasn't a hundred percent sure, but he trusted Gaster.

~o0o~

Sans was, to be honest, quite excited. Three days had passed, and, aside from the twenty minute nap break he started taking at lunchtime, everything was the same.

But now, he was finally going to be able to use Blue Magic.

... As soon as he figured it out.

They were in the weapons testing room, and, true to form, Gaster had more or less said, "figure it out yourself." He was standing at one end of the room, posing as Sans' test subject for once, as Sans was going to be using Blue Magic on him.

It wasn't going too well, though.

It was much easier to find Gaster's Soul, to feel it, but when he tried to actually grab it...

Sans let out a sharp yelp, staggering back a step as a stab of pain tore through him. It faded as soon as he dispelled the Magic.

"seriously, dings. i think i'm doin' somethin' wrong." Sans said, just as he had the past five failed attempts.

Gaster, in turn, shook his head. "No. Your body just doesn't know how to use that much Magic yet. Just keep trying. You'll get it."

Sans nodded and closed his eyes again, reaching out with his Magic. There was Gaster, his Soul, but when Sans tried to grab it with Magic...

"but it hurts!"

Gaster blew out a small sigh. "... Fine. How about we call it a day, take a break, and pick this back up tomorrow."

Sans nodded. They had planned to reinject the Determination into him today, anyway, and he would rather not be tired and aching for that.

Together, they left the weapons testing room.

~o0o~

The recovery Determination injection went well. There were no problems, and Sans body seemed to accept the Determination without issue. The biggest problem was that, when Sans woke up, he was starving. Almost so much so that he could only just stagger from his room and collapse against Gaster. Needless to say, after that, it was decided that Gaster would always have Sans hooked up to an IV after the Determination injections.

It wasn't until two days after that the issue occurred.

~o0o~

Sans was looking at a set of blueprints for the next stage of CORE construction. A lot of the publicly-open part of the CORE, and the swappable traps and such, had been his idea, and Gaster wanted him to make sure everything was going to work correctly.

It looked like everything was in working order. All the measurements were in order, the materials would withstand decades of wear, the traps all lined up so that any two could go right next to each other without crossing or interfering.

Sans sighed. This was the twelfth time he'd checked it all over. Gaster had left the design, the organization, everything, entirely up to Sans. He had even put Sans in charge of the construction crew.

Needless to say, Sans didn't want to get anything wr--

...

What had just...?

Something had fallen. Some sort of thick, milky liquid, dripping onto the blueprints he was leaning over.

Sans looked up at the ceiling. There was no evidence of any leakage or--

Plip!

He looked down as another droplet fell against the blueprints. Suddenly, his face, and his jaw in particular, felt... hot. Almost painfully so.

Hardly even thinking about it, Sans reached up to brush his fingertips against his jaw, except his jaw stuck to his fingers, a sticky substance coming away stringily as he pulled back his hand.

What was this? What was going on?

He had to find Gaster. Had to get help.

Pressing both hands to his face in an attempt to stop the dripping, Sans turned and started running. Gaster would probably be somewhere in Hotland, overseeing CORE construction.

The moments in the elevator were the worst. Just standing there, his face dripping through his fingers, as calm, cheery music played in the background, waiting for the doors to open.

He was out the elevator before the doors had even fully opened, running towards the True Lab doors.

Luckily, Gaster appeared to be coming into the lab just as Sans ran up.

"d- dings!" Sans cried, his voice strangely not muffled or warped despite its disfiguration. "help!"

Gaster only stood there for half a second, his eyesockets widening as he took in the situation, before he swept forward, scooping Sans up, and continuing onward, he strode into the elevator, shoved a few lab employees out with a harsh "get out," and hit the button for the tenth floor.

By now, the hotness in Sans' jaw had tuned into a fiery blaze, burning and stinging his face. When he had been going to find Gaster, he had pushed the pain aside in the urgency of the moment. But now that Gaster was there, and Sans was no longer the one responsible for the situation, he started sobbing.

It felt like his jaw was being burned off.

No. No, it felt like his jaw was being melted off.

And that was just the worst of it. His entire body was starting to hurt.

Soon, Gaster was running into his lab, setting Sans on the operating table, and pulling Sans' clothes off. Gaster worked with a quick efficiency that, had Sans been more aware and less focused on his pain, he would have appreciated.

But the pain was only getting worse.

Sans tried to curl up, tried to block out the pain, but Gaster wouldn't let him. Gaster forced him to lay flat, to stay still. And then, Gaster was pulling Sans' hands away from his jaw, which only made the agony flare brighter. It clouded over Sans' vision, blocked out Gaster's forceful insistence of "I can fix this, Sans. Just stay still, I can fix this," and overwhelmed any control over his body.

It's okay, Sans. I can fix this.

~o0o~

It was difficult to wake up.

Sleep clung to Sans with a determined strength, fighting to keep him in its grip.

He struggled away, though, forcing himself awake.

He was lying on the operating table. There was an IV in his Soul yet again, and a variety of other machines. Most he recognized as the sensor equipment. Some of it was unfamiliar to him, though.

Gaster was standing over him, doing... something with Sans' ribs, although Sans couldn't quite see what. He seemed quite focused on whatever it was.

Sans tried to crane his neck a little to see, but Gaster suddenly snapped his attention up, and pushed Sans back down. "Stay still. You haven't fully... solidified yet, and moving too much could mess things up."

Sans leaned back down, slightly afraid. What did Gaster mean, he hadn't solidified yet?

He asked. "whu-...?" He trailed off, realizing his face felt funny.

Gaster sighed, pausing with whatever he was doing. "We forgot to take into account the fact that adding more Magic to you would raise your Magic-to-physicality ratio, and make your body more susceptible to the Determination. On top of that, you've never taken such a concentrated amount of Determination before, and that messed up your body a bit. You started to melt." He went back to what he was doing. "Luckily, I had the next batch of the physicality injections ready, so I used those on you, and... you started to get solid again. For the most part, it seems like everything's in the right spot, but..." He trailed off.

"...but...?" Sans prompted nervously.

When Gaster looked at Sans, his face was grave. "Your jaw was the first thing to start melting. By the time I got the physicality serum into you, your mouth had already completely melted, and when things started getting solid again, your jaw fused to your skull."

Sans blinked, not understanding. "... what do you...?"

Carefully, Gaster took one of Sans' hands, and set it on his mouth. For a moment, Sans worked his fingers across his own mouth. Nothing seemed to be wrong; everything was there and it all felt solid.

"what exactly--" He cut himself off.

When he spoke, his jaw didn't move. At all. It was stuck in place.

Almost frantically, Sans started to claw at his mouth, trying to force his jaw down, pull his mouth open, do something.

Gaster had to forcefully pull his hands away from his face.

So Sans looked to Gaster, panic in his eyes.

"d-dings! what--!! i- i don't--!! how-- what do we do?!!"

Gaster shook his head sadly. "Nothing. There's nothing we can do."

"b-but there has to be something! please, dings, p-please! anything! pl-lease, you ha-have to be able t-to do som-meth-ing!" Sans sobbed.

"Sans. Calm down. You're alive. You're not in pain. Everything's alright. Maybe it's not optimal, but you're not in danger."

"n-not--!? h-ho-w d-do i e-eat--?! i c-can't open m-my mouth!"

Gaster gave a bit of a small grin. "You always did like ketchup and mustard. You'll just have to drink more."

That wasn't funny. Not really. Sans wanted to say that he didn't want to be stuck drinking liquids for the rest of his life, didn't want to have his jaw frozen in place. But he laughed. He laughed and cried and sobbed and shook.

And Gaster stayed by him, holding his hand and rubbing his skull and quietly telling him it was going to be okay.

§

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Remember, votes and comments are not only always welcome, but always appreciated!