"Look, Laughing Jack," Sans said, stepping over a pile of rotting organs as he followed the tall clown, "You can't keep me here forever."

"Yes I can!" Laughing Jack said, his feet practically prancing across the floor from joy, "Friends forever!"

"Why don't you come back home with me instead?" Sans asked, "Like I mentioned earlier, I know a lot of people like you. You can make even more friends."

"One friend is good enough for me," Laughing Jack said, letting one of his clawed fingers grazing the side of a pale and rotting face, "I thought they were my friends, too."

"I don't judge for what people do," Sans said, "At least, I try not to. And I am your friend, but you can't keep me here."

"But my potato will leave me if I let him go," Jack said, "Like before. He'll put me on a shelf and forget about his best friend."

"Why would I do that?" Sans asked, "Your my friend. Of course I wouldn't forget about you."

This conversation reminded him of more recent events with his old friend and family, and he didn't like it.

"Friends usually do," The clown said, looking back at him, "But if you keep friends, they won't do that."

Laughing Jack didn't give him a chance to reply before he briskly turned and exited the tent, Sans scrambling to follow him. The monochrome male was dancing a pink and blue lolly pop between his clawed fingers on his right hand as he walked down the gravel trail, Sans struggling to catch up due to his short legs.

"Not all friends are like that," Sans said as he chased after him.

"But you want to leave, little potato," Laughing Jack said, looking back at him for the first time without a smile, "Friends don't leave other friends. Stay, potato, stay here."

"You're right, friends do stick together," Sans said, "That's why you should come back to the other world and live with me."

He didn't like how this was relating to recent activities he had dealt with after escaping the underground.

And so, he decided it was time to say it out loud for once.

"My old friends had left me," Sans told the clown, "I know how you feel, to be abandoned."

Sans didn't know why, but he felt like he needed to say this to help Laughing Jack. It was weird, in a sense, because he just had this natural talent to dealing with serial killers. He just seemed to connect with them on a level others couldn't, and that had led to where he was currently in life, sitting down next to a clown who was delicately weaving a wrapper onto a piece of candy.

Laughing Jack had asked for five more minutes in his world before he took the two back into the real world, so that's why Sans was still there, helping him weave wrappers onto candies.

"It's so much more personal when you wrap the candy itself before you put it into the bodies," He explained, setting another down into the corpse in front of them, it so mutilated that Sans could thankfully not see the genitalia, "It makes me feel like I've worked more for my pinatas."

"It does give it more of a personal touch," Sans said, "Aw, shoot, I think I messed this one up. I'm real bad at wrapping things, at Christmas I can't wrap presents for anything."

Wrinkling of a wrapper was heard as it crinkled in his grasp, Sans not able to get it fully around the purple candy in his grasp. Laughing Jack had downed over one hundred candy pieces in a minute flat, while Sans was still stuck on his first one. And it was done improperly, so the candy remained completely unwrapped.

"Silly potato," Laughing Jack said, poking his forehead gently before he turned towards him, "You are a silly skeleton."

"My jokes are pretty Sans-sational," Sans said, winking at the clown.

"You are a silly friend alright," Laughing Jack said, grabbing his hands, "Now you start by rolling the candy along the wrapper."

The clown led him through the motions of wrapping a piece of candy, using his hands to hold Sans' to help lead him. His hands were surprisingly warmer than Sans thought they would be, but they were massive too, practically engulfing his smaller hands. Laughing Jack could probably hug him and accidentally smother him from his height alone, luckily Sans didn't need to breath, since Laughing Jack had hugged him about three times already.

Once you got past the whole murderer thing, the dead bodies and organ piles everywhere, and the fact that he had kind of kidnapped Sans, he was just some lonely guy who wanted some company. In a sense, he was like a teddy bear. Covered in blood, candy wrappers, guts, but still very huggable and soft.

Oh, and with claws, too. Very sharp claws.

"Wow, that was easier than I thought," Sans said, holding the now wrapped candy in his hands, "Yeah, I definitely have to keep you around now. Since Christmas is coming up soon and you'll have to help me wrap my presents."

"I'll come into the real world with you now," Laughing Jack said, not letting go of Sans' hands, "And you'll be my friend forever, right?"

"Of course," Sans said.

~~~~~~

"What do you mean about Sans killing someone?" Jeff snapped.

"Ask him," Frisk said, "I think it'll help if he finally tells someone about it."

"So that means you don't know who or why either, doesn't it?" Jane asked.

"I don't," Frisk said.

"You guys can do whatever, but I'm not listening to this pipsqueak," Ben said, "Who cares if he's killed or not? We all murder."

"It just caught me off guard," Jeff said, "But I'm agreeing with Ben. I'm not going to listen to this kid."

"But don't you guys want to know?" Frisk pressed.

"I think Jane noticed this too, but I think you aren't telling us about this because you think it'll bring us closer together," Jack said.

"Are you trying to turn us against Sans?" Sally said, "That's mean!"

"No, not that," Jane said, "Frisk wouldn't have gone from that angle if she intended it. It would be too stupid, even for an old friend of Sans."

"To settle your own curiosity," Jane said, looking down at the brown haired human, "You want to know who he killed, and you're using us as an angle to find out."

"It's a happy side effect," Frisk mumbled.

"You said earlier that you were sorry," Jeff growled at her, "But you still aren't if you're doing stuff like that. This is why Sans is at the point where he is, because of jacka*s' like you who care more about themselves than him!"

"It wasn't intended to hurt him!" Frisk said, "I feel like Sans should tell his friends the truth, about everything of his past."

"Yeah, his friends," Jeff said, "You don't qualify for that position."

"Go away," Sally told her bluntly, "Go away and don't come back. I don't think I'll care enough if Sans sees or not when I kill you."

"What?" Frisk asked.

"You said you knew earlier that we all care about Sans," Jack said, "And we do. A lot. That's why we won't hold back with protecting him."

"If he feels like telling us, he will tell us," Ben said, flicking the girls forehead, "But you won't ever find out about it, so don't bother even looking at him again."

"But-" Frisk started, getting stopped by Jeff slipping out his knife to flash her with it, no one else at the carnival noticing.

"I know where you all live," Jeff said, "Go back to the other a*ses and stay where you belong."

Frisk had no choice but to turn around and leave, and not a moment too soon, because once she was gone into the crowd Sans stepped out of the tent, now holding a gray and white old music box.

"I got a new friend!" Sans told them all, holding it up.