Gaster had gotten there only minutes before Sans had lost it.

After ensuring that Papyrus was in a stable condition, he assigned an assistant to watch over Papyrus, and took off running for the ferry. This time, no one had stopped him.

He had made it to the battlefield, and was more than a little confused to see everyone watching Sans beat up the Corrupt Sans. He had made his way to where Asgore and Undyne were watching. Asgore had started to reprimand him for coming to the battlefield, but Gaster had cut him off, using every combined ounce of his Royal Scientist authority and intimidating fatheriness to demand an answer.

When it had been supplied, he felt no better. Because the "Pure" Sans was apparently fighting for the Corrupt, and the "Corrupt" Sans was fighting for the Pure.

Why was everything so blasted confusing?

And then the "Corrupt" Sans had been stabbed through the chest, and the "Pure" Sans had threatened to destroy the Pure Army.

It had dissolved into chaos, then. A full out war between the two sides.

Before it escalated too far, though, the "Corrupt" Sans was on his feet again. The "Pure" Sans gave an order to his army to kill the "Corrupt" Sans, and every spare Corrupter in the cavern had lunged at him.

That was when things got really bad.

Because Sans started attacking with a mix of Corrupt attacks and Pure attacks. Well, attacks like his Pure attacks.

Every bone that he summoned was cracked, Corrupt Magic leaking out of the cracks. His shortcuts left a dark shadow where he had been for a few minutes. Blue Magic slowly strangled anyone it was effecting. The Blasters, though, those were the worst. The beams they fired were the purple-black of Corruption, and Corrupt Magic bled from their eyesockets and nasal cavities, running down the sides of the skull, dripping off the teeth, sliding down the jaw...

It was horrifying, and nothing lived long. A few Corrupters managed to hit Sans, but all were obliterated sooner or later, either by a Corrupt attack, or one of the Corruptly-fueled Pure attacks.

By the time Sans walked up to the imposter, nearly half the Corrupt Army had been destroyed, and Sans should have been more than dead with the number of hits he had taken.

And the imposter tried to fight. Tried. But Sans was untouchable, unavoidable, unstoppable.

And then Gaster changed his mind about the worst part of it. The worst, most horrifying, sickening part of it was not the horrifying Corrupt Blasters. It was the attack that killed the imposter. Sans had lifted his hand, summoning Corrupt tendrils to hold the imposter in place. Then he had turned the imposter's Soul Blue, and pulled. But the imposter couldn't move, he was held still by the vines.

Sans ripped out his Soul with his Corrupt Blue Magic.

The resulting scream of pure, raw agony was enough to make everyone, who hadn't already, stop what they were doing and watch.

A Blaster fired, and the imposter's Soul was destroyed. And then Sans turned to the rest of the Corrupters and started destroying them with a single-mindedness that scared Gaster.

And when all the Corrupters had either been killed or fled, Sans still stood at the ready, two Blasters in the air above him. That was when Gaster had first gotten a good look at him.

He was bleeding Determination and Magic, both Pure and Corrupt, and nearly every bone had at least one fracture in it. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was his eye.

Both his right and left eye were lit up with Magic, and his left eye did glow blue and yellow. But Corrupt Magic leaked out of the cracks in his left eye, dripping from his eye socket and running down his face, similar to the Blasters.

Gaster couldn't imagine how much it must have hurt.

But Sans had refused to move. He had completely ignored Gaster when he had tried to get him to let go of the Blasters. So Gaster told him Papyrus was safe.

Then he had just collapsed, vomiting up what Gaster could only assume was a mixture of Pure and Corrupt Magic, going off the ash-gray color mixed with purplish and bluish splotches.

He had waited until Sans had finished, then carefully lifted him up. Now he was carrying Sans back to the lab, followed by a crowd of clamoring monsters. He ignored them all, swiftly walking away from all their questions. Sans was in need of help, and Gaster was going to ensure he got it.

Still, when the lab's elevator doors closed, he let it a sigh of relief. People could be so annoying!

Sans moaned and shifted in Gaster's arms. He had started trembling at some point, and he was still bleeding Magic.

When Gaster stepped into his lab, he was glad to see that Papyrus and his assistant were gone, presumably home. Much as he loved and wanted to see Papyrus, it would have been hard to work if Papyrus were still lying on the table.

As it was, the table was empty, so he carefully laid Sans out on it, and went about efficiently gathering up what he would need to take care of Sans.

First thing first, he needed to clean up Sans' eye. If the leaked Magic dried in his eye socket, it could cause enormous issues later.

Luckily enough, all that required was a few washcloths and a bowl of warm water, as his eye only leaked Magic when he was using it, and he wasn't using it now. Unluckily, it was going to be very painful for Sans, and quite possibly very difficult for Gaster because of that.

So Gaster sat on the edge of the table and pulled Sans into his lap, cradling his skull in the crook of his arm, in a position that would allow him to hold his skull still and, if necessary, his eyesocket open.

After getting himself and Sans situated, Gaster looked his exhausted son in the eyes. "Sans. Listen. What I'm going to do is probably going to hurt, possibly a lot. But I need you to trust me, and stay as still as you can. Okay?"

Sans let out a whimper. Gaster couldn't tell if he had heard, and even then if he had understood, or if he was just whimpering. But he decided to take it as an affirmation.

So Gaster picked up a washcloth and started wiping away the leaked Corrupt Magic. It stung a little whenever it came in contact with his bones, but he couldn't imagine the agony Sans must have been in. All in all, though, it went fairly quickly, and Sans was motionless, except for a few occasions where he flinched away, crying.

But still, Gaster sighed as he leaned back a little. The worst was over. Now he only had to deal with broken bones, which, while never in this size or quantity, he had dealt with on a regular basis with Sans.

Gaster started to lift Sans out of his lap to go get the supplies he would need, but found that while he had been cleaning out Sans' eye socket, Sans had grabbed onto Gaster's lab coat, and didn't appear to be letting go any time soon.

Gaster pulled gently at Sans' hands, whereupon Sans let out a plaintively pitiful whimper and clung on all the tighter.

"Okay." Gaster sighed. "Okay, you can stay there. But I need to get up, so then you need to come with me."

Sans didn't respond as Gaster stood, carrying Sans with him.

A couple minutes later, Gaster was again seated on the edge of the table, struggling to cut away the scraps of Sans' clothes, as Sans utterly refused to let go of Gaster's lab coat. When he finally did succeed in pulling away the torn fabric, he paused. Sure, the shattered sternum and broken ribs were bad, even for Sans, but overall, it looked like he would recover. That was the thing about being a skeleton; it was a lot easier to set broken bones when there was no fleshy stuff you had to work around.

No, the thing that concerned Gaster was his Soul.

The white streak was still there, but it's borders were fuzzed and faded, and there were splotches of paler purple in and around the white. Sans had mixed his Corrupt and Pure Magic to fight, and this was the result.

At the very least, it did explain why Sans had been sick. Corrupt and Pure Magic mixed about as well as oil and water, yet Sans had done it, presumably through sheer determination to protect Papyrus. Now that he knew Papyrus was safe, however, his Magic was in turmoil, the same war as had been fought all across the Underground now being fought in Sans' Soul. And ejecting what it could of the catastrophic mix was most likely one of the easiest ways his body could speed up the process of separating his Soul back out into it's distinct territories.

Well. If that was the case, Gaster doubted there was very much he could do about it. He was loath even to try to restore Sans' energy with an IV, as that might make things worse. Sans' physical form, on the other hand, was in dire need of attention, and he could provide that.

As he worked to wipe away the dust and Magic and Determination, and push and pull Sans' bones back into their proper alignment, and wrap said bones in bandages and splint them, Sans' grip on his coat gradually weakened, until he finally let go entirely, too exhausted to hold on anymore. As bad as he felt for Sans, this came as a bit of a relief for Gaster, as it allowed him to move Sans off his lap and actually stand up, which, in turn, made his job that much easier.

From there, things proceeded quickly. Sans occasionally moaned when Gaster pushed a particularly nasty break back into place, but other than that, he was silent and still. Or, he was until Gaster stepped away a moment.

He had underestimated the amount of bandages he would need, and was less than five feet away, digging more out of a cabinet when Sans let out a weak sob. Gaster pulled away from the cabinet and looked at Sans. He was trembling and shaking, tears dripping from his closed eyesockets, his bandaged ribcage heaving with his quiet, strained sobs.

Gaster just about ran to Sans, his paternal instinct just about overwhelming any other thought in his mind. As gently as he could, he scooped Sans up in his arms, hugging him tightly.

~o0o~

There was some small, still fully conscious part of Sans that told him this was ridiculous.

Told him that Papyrus was safe, his wounds were being taken care of, and Gaster was ready to attend to any need of his that might arise. So why, why in the world, was he crying?

The rest of him answered. He was hurt, everything ached. He felt queasy, and every pulse of his Soul sent another wave of nausea through him. The last few days had been too stressful, pushing him to, and then beyond, his limit. And now he was tired, so, so tired, but every time he started to doze off, some horrifying nightmare of either a Corrupter killing Papyrus or Papyrus becoming Corrupt shattered what little peace he had gained.

So he cried. He sobbed and choked on his own tears.

Everything hurt.

Then Gaster was there, lifting him up and holding him close, drying his tears on the hem of his sleeve. For a little while, he just let Sans cry. Then he started rocking slightly, hugging Sans to his chest. He told Sans everything was going to be okay. Told Sans to just calm down, relax, and he was going to be fine. Told Sans that he had done it, he had saved everyone, saved Papyrus. Told Sans it was going to be okay.

Sans weakly gripped Gaster's clothes, and sobbed into his chest.

He was so tired.

It's okay, Sans. It's okay, go to sleep.

But every time Sans tried to sleep...

It's okay.

It scared him.

It's okay. I'll keep you safe.

It hurt him.

I'll take care of you.

Eventually, he did sleep, deep and peacefully, head resting on Gaster's chest, listening to the beat of his father's Soul.

~o0o~

Gaster looked at Sans, who had finally fallen asleep in his arms. He had been sitting there, just holding Sans for an hour at least. Probably more.

That didn't matter, though. Not really. All that really mattered was that Sans was calm and comfortable, and finally resting.

After a bit of maneuvering, Gaster did manage to finish getting Sans cleaned up, and bandaged his last wound, without moving him from his lap.

Holding Sans, he stood.

For a moment, he looked at the cell, one wall still missing.

Oh well, he reasoned, it's not like it would keep him in anyway, not with the wall gone.

Then, tucking Sans halfway under his lab coat, he turned and left the lab.

Not much later, he was somewhat irritated to find that most of the crowd of monsters who had followed him to the lab were still waiting outside, despite it having been over sixteen hours.

He waded through the crowd, trying not to step on anyone's feet but not really caring if he did. He just wanted to get home.

The crowd, eventually realizing they weren't going to be getting any answers from him, or responses at all for that matter, began to dissipate.

As it was, the normally eight-minute walk from lab to house took nearly twenty minutes, and when he finally shut the door to the house, he almost sat down right then and there, in front of the door.

But, he walked on, down the hall. His arms were full with Sans, so he kicked the door to Papyrus's room open as quietly as he could. He was quite happy to see Papyrus in his bed, nestled under the blankets, sleeping peacefully.

Gaster neared the bed, then tucked Sans in next to his brother. Even asleep, the pair instantly cuddled together, hugging each other tightly. They both made quiet, contented sounds.

Gaster started to pull away to go flop down on his own bed, but something tugged on his sleeve. Looking down, he saw that Sans had caught hold of the sleeve of his coat, and was still holding on.

He pulled gently at Sans' hand, but Sans still didn't let go.

He blew out a breathy sigh. "Fine. Fine, you win." Then he flopped down onto Papyrus's bed, and pulled his sons close.

It was only a matter of time before all three were snuggled together, sound asleep.

§

A/N

OKAY LONG AUTHORS NOT BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MUCH TO SAY!

First, if any of you were interested in what the Corrupt Gaster Blasters looked like, they look something like this \/

I feel like now would also be a good time to tell you that in Latin, "simulo" means to copy, imitate, or look like, and "admoenio" typically meant to bring a siege engine or similar device into motion, or to besiege.

...Also, this ends the Simulum Admoenium story arc, the first complete arc in the UnderCorrupt series. I'd like to thank you all, for encouraging me and my silly little idea. Because suddenly, this story has over 130 votes, and every single one of them is important to me. Because I wouldn't have been able to write this story without the motivation you guys give me. Seriously. Like, at the very least, 60% of this only exists because you people said it was good and wanted me to write more, to which I happily oblige.

...

Anyway, assuming you guys don't want to stick with the happy fluff ending I've left off with here, I do have a few more story arcs planned.

..,We haven't even yet gotten to the b͝͝͡é̶̡̢̛s͏̴̷̨̀t̴̡҉͠҉ ̴̨̛̕p͏́á͟͏r̴̷̸ţ̶...

Anyway, thank you again so much for reading this story, and voting and commenting! You have no idea how much it means to me.