Finally, it looked like everything would be alright.

Sans had successfully removed and then tamed the Corruption in Papyrus's Soul. He had woken up a few hours ago. Papyrus was already showing signs of awareness, he had been dreaming for the past few hours.

And Gaster had finally gotten his clothes back.

All in all, despite the circumstances, things were looking up.

~o0o~

Had Papyrus been anyone other than Papyrus, when he woke up, he would've been content to just go back to sleep.

He was lying in a bed, snuggled up against what he assumed to be Sans' side. Sans had an arm wrapped around his shoulders, and was gently rubbing his back. He had a number of soft blankets on top of him, and was reasonably warm. He could hear Gaster and Sans talking, back and forth, both of their voices too quiet to understand, but their tones carried to Papyrus a soft contentment.

Papyrus was comfortable.

But, he was also Papyrus, and he was fairly certain he had already been asleep for some time. So he stirred a bit, uncurling under the blankets and lifting his hands to rub at his eyesockets.

"papyrus!" Sans exclaimed. Moments later as Papyrus opened his eyes, Sans pulled him to sit up, settling Papyrus to lean against his side.

Papyrus smiled up at his brother. Then he turned to look at Gaster who had just walked over to the bed where the brothers were sitting.

"How do you feel?"

Despite not having a throat or vocal cords to be sore, his voice was still hoarse with disuse. "Pretty good." He grinned at them, intent on showing them he was okay.

They both looked on, happiness mixed with loving concern.

Gaster nodded a bit, reaching out to take Papyrus's hand. "That's good. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

Papyrus nodded. "Uh-huh. A little bit."

Gaster smiled. "That's good, too. I'll go get some food." He gave Papyrus's hand a squeeze, then swept away to go do just as he had said.

Sans, meanwhile, tightened his grip on Papyrus's shoulders, hugging him tightly. "pap, are you sure you're okay?"

Papyrus snuggled happily against Sans' side, nodding. "Mmhm! My chest hurts a little bit, but I hardly even notice it!"

Sans relaxed just a bit. "well, if you're sure..."

"I am!"

"well, okay, then." Sans flashed Papyrus a quick grin, but made no move to let go of his younger brother.

Personally, Papyrus didn't really mind.

For a moment, Papyrus just leaned against Sans, content. Then something occurred to him.

"Hey, Sans?"

"hmm?"

"What-... What happened?"

Sans was quiet for a minute. "... they tried to corrupt you." He said simply. "but i wouldn't let them."

"Oh. Thank you."

Sans just hugged Papyrus a little tighter in response.

Truth be told, Papyrus was pretty sure it was a little more complicated than that. He had the vaguest recollection of an impossible weight pinning him down, a crushing pain in every bone... and Sans, coming and pulling it off him. Taking it up himself.

But, he was perfectly alright with Sans' answer.

A couple seconds later, Gaster returned.

"Alright, I have food. But, uh, apparently, some idiot thought it would be funny to mislabel some of the emergency rations. So, I have canned meat and peaches." He paused a moment, then added, "separately canned, of course."

Papyrus almost laughed, but then, "Emergency rations? Why would we be having emergency rations?"

Sans and Gaster glanced at each other. Papyrus just waited.

"Well, see," Gaster began, sitting down on the side of the bed, handing Papyrus a styrofoam bowl of peaches and Sans a bowl of mysterious meat, "after we escaped the Corrupt base, the Corrupt launched a full-scale attack on us. So we had to draw back to the Lab. And now we're kinda... stuck here. With mislabeled rations." He stabbed his plastic spork into his own styrofoam bowl and withdrew it, a soggy piece of canned meat stuck on the end. Then he just stared at it. "I am having serious second thoughts about eating this."

"oh, come on." Sans snorted. "can't be that bad." He speared a piece of his own meat and shoved it into his mouth. Then he gagged, screwed up his face, and made choking sounds. After a second, he stopped. "see? perfectly fine."

Before Gaster or Papyrus could remark on the definitely not-fine-ness of that, Sans was already shoveling another sporkful into his mouth. This time, though, he got it down a lot more easily, which begged the question: did that mean he had just been joking the first time, or was he just more prepared now?

Nonetheless, Sans' actions gave Papyrus the confidence to scoop up a sporkful of his own meal. Evidently, canned peaches were better than canned meat, as he had no trouble eating it.

~o0o~

It wasn't until the next day that Gaster allowed Papyrus to get up, despite Papyrus's insistence that he felt fine. When Sans argued the hypocrisy of that, Gaster responded that he was a doctor, and therefore could make a reasonable argument as to why he was okay. Papyrus, on the other hand, was not only a child, but his child, and therefore he was the higher authority there.

But, Papyrus was only confined to bed for a single day, and with both Gaster and Sans there to keep him company, things were alright.

Frisk also came to see him. Papyrus gladly told the story of his "adventure" to them, especially highlighting how brave he was in his imprisonment alone, and how strong Gaster had been in the initial fight to free Papyrus.

And then he got to the part where the Corrupt lord had dropped their cloak to fight Gaster.

"-dropped their cloak, and they were a human! They had a knife-"

"Wait-" Frisk interrupted, a thing they didn't normally do, "what did they look like?"

"Um." Papyrus paused. "Kind of like you, actually. But they were wearing a green sweater with a yellow stripe, and their hair was kinda more reddish, and their skin was paler, and you don't do the creepy eye thing..."

"Hm. Anyway, go on."

Papyrus nodded and continued. "So they had a knife, and they swung it at Dad, but just in time..."

So it continued, up until the point where Papyrus had blacked out, and Sans and Gaster picked up the story from there, in parts.

Eventually, when Toriel came to find them, Frisk had to go.

~o0o~

As Papyrus was no longer "sick," the room that he, along with Gaster and Sans, had been staying in was once more used for the evacuated monsters, as it had a few actual beds, instead of the cots and piles of blankets in corners that had been most of the monsters' beds. Technically, Gaster and his sons could have stayed in that room, and, being the Royal Scientist, Gaster could have demanded that it be left empty, but in order to keep up his public image of "mostly caring about the people," Gaster and his sons vacated the room.

This meant the three of them ended up all snuggled together on the cot in the containment cell in Gaster's lab. While it wasn't nearly as comfortable as the beds, it was a lot quieter, as the tenth floor was still off-limits to the public.

On top of that, all three of them felt safer, knowing that the others were there in case any of them needed something.

Days were filled simultaneously with frustration and laughter.

They were having difficulty coming up with anything resembling a plan to beat the Corrupters, other than kamikaze runs, literally, to plant explosives and blow up New Home and Hotland entirely.

At the same time, apparently, the ration-mislabeling ran quite deep, and just about every single monster in the True Lab began to realize that the labels were about 99% unreliable.

So it was always a good game to shake the can or vacuum sealed package, and try to guess what tonight's meal was based off the sound.

Sometimes, they got lucky, like the time they got a package of pretzels and a can of sweetened condensed milk on the same night. That was a good dinner- if it wasn't more of a dessert. Other times they got unlucky: one can of spinach, one can of mystery meat, and a package of dried cauliflower. That night had Gaster seriously wondering who the heck packed the emergency rations, and wether or not he could fire them for a more than unsatisfactory meal.

Papyrus convinced him that he could not fire someone for something like that, especially when they were now living on these rations. On the other hand, he probably could fire them for mislabeling things, which is bad anywhere, but can be especially devastating in a lab where dangerous things are used.

But, time went on.

Ideas for escape were discussed, then discarded as useless. Meals were guessed at, and sometimes right, sometimes wrong, always eaten anyway.

At Undyne's request (so that she knew "all our assets"), Sans finally showed off his entire assortment of attacks. And Undyne was fully impressed.

And still, they remained under siege in the True Lab.

~o0o~

It might have been Thursday. Or Friday. Or Saturday.

Sans had honestly stopped caring and lost track some time ago. What mattered was they were coming up with a plan to beat the Corrupters.

Or, rather, trying to. Again. It still wasn't going well. And, for whatever reason, Toriel was late.

They had decided to proceed without her. It wasn't like they were making any progress, anyway.

The current plan-not-really-in-the-works was something along the lines of sending a small task force to go and retrieve the human Souls from the Barrier room.

"But we can't go that way." Gerson was saying as he jabbed a finger at a map laid out on the table. "Tactically speakin', it'll be one'a the most-guarded, easiest ta guard spots there is."

"This way's even worse, though!" Undyne argued.

"Agreed." Gaster agreed. "That way they can set up defenses along the tops of these buildings-"

"But th' likelihood of 'em doin' that is almost nothin'."

Gaster fixed him with a cold look. "We can't risk almost nothing. They will be carrying human Souls, remember. If even one of them gets caught, it's all over for us."

Gerson waved a hand irritably. "Fer all we know, they've already broken inta the Soul containers, an' are jus' lettin' is think we have a chance. We could just be slowly walking into an inevitable trap."

"If that is the case," Asgore said slowly, "then might we at least try to do some damage on our way?"

"We'd be nothing more than a thorn in their hand. Not even their side."

"If we're a thorn," Undyne shouted, "then we might as well be the sharpest, prickliest, most irritating thorn we can possibly be!"

Before anyone could respond, Toriel burst into the lab.

"Ah, your majesty." Gaster said. "We were just-"

Toriel cut him off, breathless, evidently having been running.

"Has anyone seen Frisk?"

§

A/N

The mislabeled cans were a totally impromptu thing.

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