Summary: Sans discovers that not everyone else thinks that Papyrus is the greatest person ever.

Timeline: Post True Pacifist ending

Brother's Keeper

Who Your Real Friends Are

The sun was starting to set, casting an array of shadows over the parking lot Papyrus's car was occupying. The owner slurped the remains of his milkshake he had received from a nearby food truck, humming to himself as he surveyed the passersby. Sans didn't bother to remove the sunshades from his eyes despite the shrinking sunlight, continuing to flip lazily through a comic book he'd found discarded in a trash bin. His feet were propped up on the dash in front of the passenger seat, mostly because it was simply his nature to do so but also because it was fun to make his brother scream at him to put his feet back down.

He didn't even flinch when Papyrus suddenly and enthusiastically stood up from his driver's seat. "Oooh, look, Sans!" He extended his pointer out ahead of the car and leaned out over the top of the windshield like a large dog might have done. "A whole group of humans just begging to be friends with The Great Papryus! And they look so cool!"

"I don't see how that's possible in this heat."

"Oh my God, Sans, you know what I mean! Now watch as your amazing brother wows these humans with my own coolness!" Papyrus bragged with a flip of his red scarf, which he still wore regardless of the fact it was summertime above ground. "Maybe they will even appreciate my spaghetti!"

"Go for it," Sans told him with an encouraging thumbs-up, taking a brief moment to look up from his comic and grin at him.

"I will! And get your feet off my dash, you're leaving dirty little marks all over it!"

Sans chuckled and took his feet out of his shoes, but left the shoes on the dashboard.

"Sans!"

"What? You said take my feet off, not my shoes."

"You knew what I meant!" Papyrus fussed at him, stomping his own foot down. "When I come back here after making friends with those cool humans, you better have those shoes off of there! And not have anything else up there either!"

Night had fallen, the moon out and stars twinkling overhead. Sans couldn't see them because, one, the street light that Papyrus's car was parked under wasn't exactly ideal for star viewing and, two, he was asleep anyway. He lay sprawled out in the passenger seat, his comic half opened across his chest. His feet were still kicked up on the dash despite what his brother had said to him earlier. Sans snorted awake suddenly, wiping the drool from his face before stretching his arms up. He glanced at his wristwatch and saw that it had been several hours since Papyrus had disappeared on his mission to befriend the humans he had seen.

Something was wrong.

Sans crawled over the top of the door and dropped down, never having bothered with the task of opening and closing it instead. He picked up on the sounds of laughter not too far away and decided that was as good as start as any to begin his hunt.

The sounds led him to a nearby junkyard, which instantly made him think of Undyne and Alphys. He briefly thought that perhaps he and Papyrus should give them a call soon.

Speaking of Papyrus, Sans finally spotted him. He shook his head at himself for having been so worried. His brother was doing his usual bout of showing off and performing "amazing" acts for the group of what looked like teenagers he had found. At the moment, Papyrus was attempting a cartwheel, only for his tibia to go flying off. The group erupted into laughter, as if they were watching a highly rated comedy skit.

"Do it again!" a girl called out between bouts of giggles.

"Anything for my new friends!" the caped skeleton decreed as he fetched his leg back, popping it into place before preparing to perform the stunt again.

Sans grinned in amusement at how ridiculous his brother could be when he wanted attention. However, the closer he approached, the more his smile faded. Sans might have been lazy, but he wasn't stupid. He knew the difference between people laughing with him as opposed to being laughed at. And these people were definitely laughing at Papyrus, as if he were the biggest joke they'd ever seen.

"That's even better than when we had him juggling his own feet!" he heard someone say.

"That's great, Papyrus, really, the greatest we've ever seen!"

Suddenly, Sans didn't feel so good. Maybe he should listen to his gut instincts more.

"Sans!" Papyrus's voice followed by a (almost literally) bone-crunching hug snapped Sans out of his thoughts. "There you are, lazy bones! It's about time you came over here to meet all my new friends! And get this...they think I'm funny! Isn't that great? They must really like me!"

Any other time, Papyrus being so downright gleeful would have filled Sans with joy. He loved seeing his brother happy. Heck, he even set aside his former bigotry towards humans to see Papyrus get more excited than Lesser Dog getting petted by some multi-armed creature for hours on end. (Appeasing a lady friend may have also had something to do with it but don't go spreading that around.)

Seeing Papyrus so happy and rattling off about how "great" his new "friends" were only served to make Sans feel more conflicted than he ever had before. He couldn't very well tell Papyrus to his face that these humans were only keeping him around as a court jester to laugh at. He also couldn't let his brother continue hanging out with people who didn't truly care about him.

Sans gave his brother a smile. "That's great, it really is, bro. Hey, why don't you go get some of that spaghetti you cooked earlier and bring it here? We can all have a party to celebrate."

An audible gasp of delight accompanied by an ever wider grin from Papyrus (if that was even possible) was the direct answer Sans received. "That's a great idea! I can't believe I didn't think of it! I'll go do that right now!" He turned to wave at the group of teenagers who were still poorly hiding their laughter. "I'll be right back, friends! The Great Papyrus has to go get his award-winning pasta to share with you!"

He practically galloped away, leaving Sans alone in the junkyard with the humans. Sans stood there silently, waiting until he couldn't see his brother anymore. The laughter only grew louder in this time, Sans slowly turning his head to face the group, his fists clenched inside his jacket pockets.

"Oh man, can you believe that loser?" one young man said as he wiped a tear from his eye.

"He really thinks he's cool enough to hang with the likes of us!"

"Guess we'll just keep around for a good laugh. Poor sap doesn't even have enough brains to know any different!"

Sans walked closer to them, standing before them silent as a grave. He kept his head down, composing himself as he listened to the hateful things they were saying.

"Hey, look, there's another skeleton guy!" So they finally noticed him. "Hey, you with that Papyrus guy or whatever?"

"You have a 'great' nickname too?"

"You do funny tricks like he does?"

Sans smirked at the ground, chuckling deeply. "Yeah, I know a few tricks." He raised his head up, his left eyesocket glowing a bright blue color. "This one's a real scream."

His arm raised up, his hand in a clawed formation, and the teens cried out in shock as they levitated off the pile of junk they were sitting on. Sans let his hand go flying out to the right of him, the humans fearfully screaming as they tried to hang on to each other for dear life as they were tossed around in various directions.

Sans basked in the sounds of their begging for mercy for about a good ten minutes. All things considered, he went easier on them than he could have, but they weren't worth the effort. He released his grip on the humans, all of them crashing down into a nearby cess pool near the fence. For a split second, he considered throwing them against the cold, hard ground, but he decided he only wanted to scare them, not kill them.

Besides, Papyrus would hate him if he came back to all his new "friends" dead before Sans could bury them all.

"Ah, who am I kidding? I'm too lazy to dig graves," Sans thought with a chuckle as the now cess-covered humans ran off screaming and running over each other trying to race each other to the back of the junkyard.

He patted his hands together as if to dust them off, sticking them back in his pockets and turning around just in time to see Papyrus running up to him. The taller skeleton was panting as if he had been running hard, one hand holding a plastic container with spaghetti. "The Great Papyrus is back!" he tiredly announced himself, using his other hand to prop up on his knee as he caught his breath.

"Please tell me you didn't run the entire way to the apartment."

"Of course I did, how else was I going to get there!" Papyrus huffed at him as he straightened his spine, the vertebrae cracking as he did so.

"By...driving?" Sans suggested with a confused shrug.

"And give up that really great parking spot? No way!"

"It's a couple hours short of midnight, I don't think anyone would have-"

"Hey!" Papyrus shouted in a disappointed tone as he surveyed the junkyard. "What happened to all my friends! Didn't you tell them about the spaghetti party?" he asked, looking like a sad puppy.

"Yeah, sorry, they had to run." It wasn't a lie.

All the energy looked like it got sucked right out of Papyrus, looking at the ground and scuffing his shoe against the dirt. "Oh...I see..."

Sans felt awful. "Hey, it's cool," he said, nudging his brother with an elbow to try to cheer him up. "I know, how's about you and me call up Undyne and Alphys? I bet they'd love a spaghetti party."

"I guess so...I really wanted some new friends though."

"I know you did. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be with those guys. And maybe you'll remember bring spaghetti with you next time you meet people. It'll be im-pasta-ble to not be friends with you," he winked.

Papyrus normally would've acted annoyed with one of his brother's puns, but he let out a little chuckle. "Thanks, Sans, I feel better now!" He gave him a one-armed hug as tight as he could without dropping his container. "You're the best brother ever!"

"You are too," Sans said in a strained voice. Even one-armed hugs by Papyrus were enough to feel like your life was getting squeezed out of you. He didn't mind though. "I love you, Papyrus," he said quietly as he hugged him back.

Papyrus was a little taken aback at his brother being so suddenly affectionate, but he wasn't going to complain about it. "I love you too, Sans," he said back, not sure what brought this on. Maybe he should spend more quality time with Sans instead of chasing after strangers to hang out with.

"Please tell me we're not going to walk back home just so you can keep your parking spot." Sans said after pulling out of the hug.

Papyrus rubbed his chin. "Hmm...well I suppose I can drive us home. Only because I'm still kinda tired from running earlier. Don't tell anyone that. And because I don't want to spend all night yelling at you to hurry up."

"That's thoughtful of you."

"It is, isn't it!" Papyrus beamed. "And just this one time, I'll even let you put your feet up on the dash if you want."

Sans chuckled. "Thanks, bro."

They started back towards the car, Papyrus speaking up again. "Hey, Sans?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for being my brother," he grinned down at Sans. "I'd really miss you if you weren't always hanging out with me. Since you're my best friend too."

Sans gave him a big grin back. "Ditto for me. You know I always got your backbone," he winked.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."