"If monsters can live for long, long periods of time, I have to wonder how that affects their relationships. Do they stay the same? Do they change? I wonder how it affects their conversations about grown-up things like love and… and, um- *cough, muttering* other… stuff…" -Francine I. Kane, 201X-

Chapter 13: Pretty Little Boxes

Sans stepped into his office. It'd been a few days since his prank barrage, so it was probably safe to see Pristina again. After all, her threat to roll him into a snow poff only applied to that day. She was bound to be calm enough by now to update him on how the case against Frisk's uncle was proceeding.

Hopefully.

He found his cousin hard at work, as usual. She spared him a glance, taking in his usual lack of formal judge's garb before refocusing on her papers. The fact that she didn't get up to rattle his gourd was a good sign, although the coolness of her reception could be a bad one…

*yup, the cold shoulder. definitely on thin ice, Sans thought to himself. Aloud, he said, "heya cuz!"

"Good afternoon, Your Honor."

Sans mentally sighed. Pristina took after Granddad, always so serious about everything with a pickle tied to her coccyx over formalities and when they applied. It was why he liked pranking her so much, to get her to loosen up a little. Although this time he might've gone a little bit too far by bringing Dante in on it.

He dragged one of the chairs in the small waiting area before her desk, straddling it so he could cross his arms on the back and rest his mandible there. Pristina continued to ignore him. Wanting to break the stalemate, Sans asked, "so… have you and dante settled on a date for your date?"

Still not looking at him, Pristina replied. "We had the date last night. "

A smothered exclamation left Sans' non-existent throat, bursting through his teeth. He stared at her for a full, silent minute before saying, "that's, uh, a bit unexpected. eager much?"

She scoffed elegantly. "Hardly. I just wanted it over with and out of the way as soon as possible."

Sans let some exasperation show. "y'know… dante's not a bad guy. you've known him your whole life, just like paps. you know he doesn't deserve that 'horny drake' crap the rumor mill hung around his neck."

"That's what makes it so weird!" Pristina threw her hands, and the pen she'd been holding, into the air. The suddenness of it and her outburst made Sans jerk back from her.

Slamming both metacarpus onto her desk, she leaned forward in an attempt to drive her glare through Sans' thick skull. "Do you have ANY idea how awkward it is to date someone you've known since childhood? Someone whose tail you teethed on a baby?" (Sans snorted, grinning as he remembered that incident. He was ignored.) "He even gave me drakey-back rides and played silly games with me!"

She covered her face, eye sockets dark. "Damn it all, Sans, I still remember the first time you brought me and Papy to Snowdin. How Dante and Talia came with us and your grandparents, and it was just one big family trip. All the fun we had playing in the snow. How you and Dante teamed up for the most epic bedtime story ever…"

Pristina cherished those memories. Though her affection for him wasn't quite as brotherly as it was with Sans and Papyrus, she still saw Dante as a member of her extended family. So imagine her shock when, after not being able to see him for years, they started running in the same circles again and his playful flirting became a little more serious.

Dante was always a perfect gentleman about it, respecting her boundaries and never pushing them, but the interest in his eyes was hard to ignore. And there was something he said on their date last night that was even harder to ignore.

"I only really know the little girl you used to be," he'd said. "We rarely saw each other once you started high school. Then you went to college and neither of us had the time to hang out. Even after you graduated, we only started seeing each other regularly once you became Sansy's secretary! I'd like to know the woman you've become, if you'll let me."

Violet magic crept across her cheekbones at the memory, though her orbits remained dark. He was so earnest when he said that, and sincere. It was part of the charm that let him cut a swathe through so much of the adult population, monsters swooning left and right with just a wink or a smile. To have that charm focused on her, when she still remembered draping flower crowns on his horns and drawing on his face with crayons, left her feeling confused.

She didn't hate him, despite how obnoxious the flirting could be and how awkward it made her feel. But it did bother her, how he could never seem to commit to any one person in particular. He was a master of dating… but she'd never seen him in a relationship lasting more than two months, and the list of people he'd dated was as long as his tail. Pretty much the only people on his "nope list" (his list of people he absolutely would NOT date) were his family members, Sans (whom he only wanted to fluster, not date), Papyrus, Roman, and anyone under the age of eighteen.

But everyone grew up, eventually. He'd never do anything before someone turned eighteen, but it didn't stop him from platonically flirting (which only he seemed to be capable of pulling off.) Thinking of that reminded Pristina of something.

"The rumor mill is acting up again," she said aloud, her pupils returning as she brought her hands down from her face.

Her seemingly sudden change of topic made Sans blink. "what about it? there's always grist for the mill, even if they have to make it up."

"This new rumor has to do with Dante and the princess."

Sans rolled his eyes. "if it's about the fact that he's gonna wanna date her once she's legal, there's nothin' new about that."

"This latest rumor has something to do with that. If true, Her Highness' birthday is very soon."

"is it true?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I can't get a solid number. Some rumors say it's six months from now, others say next week, and all the rest fall somewhere in between. That's a lot of room for error."

"huh… i wonder what got it started." Frisk didn't seem like the type to tell people when her birthday was, unless she was asked. And, if she decided to say something vague, that could account for the disparities between all the rumors.

"I don't know where the rumor came from, for sure. You know how things spread like fire, down here, growing wilder with each telling. But Dante's already trying to become her friend. In fact, he's taken a day off just to 'tour the surface.' He's probably trying to get her used to his company, platonically, before she turns eighteen."

Sans grinned, his tone falling into one he used to use when she was small and using the nickname Dante came up with. "d'awww! is da widdle cinna-bun jeawous?" He tried to pinch Pristina's blushing cheekbone, but was blocked by a finger hold.

"I am NOT jealous!" But even as she said that it almost felt like a lie. In her distraction her hold was reversed, Sans' other hand darting in for a pinch before she could block it.

He winked, his grin growing wider. "it's okay, tina. your secret's safe with me." He laughed when Pristina blushed harder.

"There you go, treating me like I still wear striped shirts! I swear you do that just to grate on my bones."

He just laughed some more. Sans eased his grip on her cheekbone, but his hand moved to gently cup her skull, pulling her closer as he leaned forward. Their foreskulls clacked together and Pristina closed her eye sockets, the familiar warmth of the magic in Sans' bones calming her. It was something he used to do when she and Papyrus were little, whenever they needed a little extra reassurance.

Part of her resented being treated like a baby bones… but the rest was grateful that someone's feelings hadn't changed.

"it's okay if you are. jealous, i mean," Sans said softly. "sometimes feelings change when we least expect it, and not always the way we think they will. it's just what happens when a monster stops aging and they go a long time without taking that big step of having kids. the ones that don't are basically just a bunch of twenty-somethings still figuring life out, no matter how many decades old they are."

"It's just so weird…"

Sans let her go, letting Pristina sit back in her chair as he continued to lean on his. He looked her in the pupils and asked, "what's so weird about it?"

Pristina waved her hands in vague gestures of frustration. "It's just… Dante just started hitting on me, out of the dark! He never indicated he felt that way about me before then. It was such a shock…"

One brow ridge rose. "what d'you mean? he was givin' you hints once you turned eighteen."

"…what?"

Another grin pulled at Sans' mouth. "don't tell me you never noticed…"

Unease drew Pristina's brow ridges downward. "Never noticed what?"

"oh my god…!" Sans tried to hold in his laughter, he really did. But how could she not have noticed, after all these years? For someone so smart, having her be so dense at the same time was too freaking adorable! He started laughing, clutching his ribs and the back of his chair, trying to hold himself together.

"Sans, what didn't I notice? Tell me!"

He wasn't having much luck.

It took nearly ten minutes for Sans to calm down enough to talk again. Whenever it seemed like he'd get ahold of himself, one look at his cousin's exasperated face would set him off again. Pristina leaving her seat to grab him by the front of his alchemy coat and shake him didn't help. Eventually, he spilled his metaphorical guts.

"tina, he started throwin' hints your way as soon as he could! he was trying to be subtle about it, 'cause he was afraid you'd reject him and start hating him… guess he was too subtle."

"…those were hints? Of course I never noticed! I thought he was being his usual flirty self!"

"welp, now you know better. and if you think you're the only one feelin' a little awkward, you should've been there when he told your parents he wanted to date you."

"Oh my god." She could just imagine that meeting. Her mother had always been a battle axe of a manticore, having almost the power of a Boss Monster. Her father actually was a Boss Monster, as most skeletons were, and not afraid to spar with any young whippersnapper he thought needed a spanking. Even now, firmly in their twilight years, they were still a formidable pair. Pristina almost felt sorry for Dante.

Almost.

"If he's had the idea in his head for that long," she said, "then why did our first date only just happen?"

Sans shrugged with hands and shoulders. "you know how he can be. he's willing to be patient for something he really, really wants. and 'til then, it wasn't like you two had a promise to be each other's one-and-only, so of course he'd go on a bunch of other dates while he waited for you to come around!"

Something squeezed behind Pristina's ribs. It wasn't exactly hurt, but… "Then why start buttering up the princess? Why let such a long-term plan go to waste?"

Sans' grin fell, a little. "it's probably a fallback plan. he's more than happy to stay just your friend, if that's how you feel about him. for all his flirting he does care about you, you know."

Pristina muttered, "If it was just flirting, I probably wouldn't feel this way."

Sans had the decency to blush. "oh, um… yeah, well… dante's not as into 'stress relief' as the rumor mill says he is. and he almost never makes the first move when it comes to, uh, that. and he'd never force you to accept his advances! in fact-!"

"You can stop defending him," Pristina sighed. "It's just… the thought of him entertaining those kinds of thoughts about my person makes me… uncomfortable."

"if it makes you that uncomfortable, tell him so! he's not gonna hold it against you. like i said, he's more than happy to stay just friends."

Pristina was beginning to lose her patience with the entire conversation. "Well, if Lord Allergic-to-Commitment would actually commit, maybe my feelings wouldn't be so ambivalent! Maybe I could trust him not to wander off as soon as I stopped being 'interesting!'"

Sans frowned, brow ridges drawing downward as he stood to face Pristina. She immediately regretted what she said. Despite being five inches taller than Sans, she felt like she was two feet tall as he started scolding her.

"you honestly think dante would cheat on you? i get that he comes across as a shameless flirt, but he DOES have standards."

"I know-!"

"you know as well as i do that when he's in a relationship, no matter how short it is, he would never do anything to hurt the one he's with."

"I know…"

"then what makes you think he'd do such a thing?!"

"I don't! That's not what I meant!" She held his hands, struggling to convey feelings she'd kept inside for too long to share easily. "I just meant… once he learned everything there is to know about me, he'll let me down as gently as he could and go on his merry way. He'd leave me behind with all these wonderful memories of us rattling around in my skull, and then… Then later, I'd see him making more happy memories with someone else and I… I'm not sure my soul is strong enough for that! It'd be proof he didn't care as much as he said he did, or as much as I hoped he would. I would start thinking that, maybe, he never truly cared at all…" And all those precious childhood memories would become tainted by his "callousness," if that was what it was.

She knew Dante better than that, yet her feelings insisted that's what it would be. Her unfairness to someone that was supposedly so important to her only made her feel worse about everything. Her eye sockets burned as tears threatened to fall, pupils fading to nothing.

Sans squeezed the hands holding his. "you know he wouldn't do that to you, right? still, i didn't realize it was tearin' you up that much." He freed a hand from Pristina's grasp, patting one of her shoulders and looking her in the orbits. "you should really talk it out with dante. clear the air, and lay everything on the table. he'll understand."

Pristina didn't respond. He almost thought she didn't hear him, but then she said, "It's not like you to mix metaphors without adding in a pun. I guess you're serious." She closed her eye sockets and rubbed them with her free hand, sniffling just a little. When she opened them again her pupils were lit and she was smiling, even if it was a bit off-center. "Thank you, big brother."

He winked, returning the smile. "don't mention it, kiddo." He gave his honorary little sister a hug, patting her on the back as she took a deep, cleansing breath. Pristina had always been prone to over-thinking things. Maybe once she and Dante had a nice, long talk she'd feel better about the whole situation, no matter what she decided to do.

They parted, Pristina smoothing out her clothing unnecessarily as they retook their seats. In a brisk, business-like tone she said, "So! Since you're here of your own accord, without me having to float you in, I must assume you're here for something. What would that be, Your Honor?"

As it turned out, the other judges were still deliberating amongst themselves. Not so much on what the human man had done, but on what sort of sentence his crimes merited.

Argo Kane would either spend the rest of his natural life in a time-out, or he'd face execution. The fact that he was the son of someone "important" to the humans was worming its way into their decision process. Sans didn't really approve, but he couldn't fault his colleagues for it, either. If a member of the nobility had done something like this they'd be dithering over that the same way, treasonous or not.

As far as Sans was concerned, the law was the law. Maybe there was some room for interpretation, but nobody was above it. Not him, not the king, and DEFINITELY not some deadbeat wanna-be-pimp.

*heh… over my coarse, flaky dust you motherless bastard. The guy might as well have "special case" stamped on his forehead! Even if he never hurt Frisk that way, he sure as hell hurt somebody. Maybe even multiple somebodies! His smile just oozed with the knowledge that he'd gotten away with crap no decent person would ever think of doing, and enjoyed himself while he did. That no-good sack of-!

His thoughts must have shown on his face, despite trying to hide it, because Pristina was giving him The Look. She said, "Dante was right. You are SO biased against that human."

Sans shrugged, train of thought derailed. He couldn't really deny it, but he wasn't going to admit it, either. Not out loud. If he was going to be honest with himself, he was surprised by the intensity of his emotions on the matter.

Maybe it had to do with how many special cases he'd worked on, throughout his legal career? They had to be filtered through the lesser judges before being kicked up to the High Judge. Even before he started wearing the hood he hated seeing how those people had been used and abused. Especially the kids. The saddest thing was that, every now and then, a victim would wind up becoming a special case themselves, later on in life…

He didn't want that for Frisk. The fortunate thing was that her hatred seemed to be… focused, for lack of a better word, on her uncle. She wasn't painting with a broad brush and splashing everyone else with the same feeling. At least, not yet. Or maybe she just wasn't painting monsters with that brush.

He couldn't get a good read on what she thought of humans as a whole. She she'd shared her opinion on an individual (the Justin Case guy she mentioned before), but all the rest…? Besides cautioning everyone about hunters and bandits on the mountain, and trying to talk about her family, she just didn't talk about humans enough to show how she felt about them as a species.

That… might not be a good sign. Avoiding an issue was the first step in hiding something big. He would know.

"You're really worried about her, aren't you?" Thoughts once again derailed, he looked at Pristina with a raised brow ridge. "I know you've always been a big softie, but… don't you think you're taking this case a bit too personally? You're the High Judge. You can't afford to let your feelings run away from you, no matter what."

"yeah, yeah, i know."

"Sans, I'm serious."

"i know you are. i am, too." The timbre of his voice changed and, although he didn't extinguish his pupils, he sat up straighter with a serious expression on his face. He sounded almost like his grandfather as he said, "Why do you think I'm sitting here, instead of gracing Mister Kane with my presence and having a discussion with him on how to properly treat the members of his family?"

Pristina winced. She suspected any "talk" Sans had with the prisoner would involve bullets as well as some sharp, pointed words. But before she could open her mouth to form another admonishment he was sighing, slumping as his voice went back to normal.

"i want this over soon, for frisk's sake, but i know this has gotta be done right. no matter how long it takes, we can't screw this up. i know all that… but i still wish the others would hurry up and make up their minds."

Pristina grinned. "You're just cranky because all the work you've been doing lately is cutting into your napping time."

"heh! yeah, that too." He managed to smile at his cousin's lighthearted jab, but she was right. For all the good that extra work had done…

He, Alphys and Talia hadn't gotten any closer to figuring out why Frisk was hurt the day her magic manifested. She hadn't displayed those particular abilities since, instead using her memories to fuel different bullets. It was unheard of but, from what he learned after talking with Toriel, that was the only way to describe what Frisk was doing now. Her mother was worried about how many "memories" Frisk had to draw on, and what it cost her to keep them in the forefront of her mind. The biggest worry was what she might dredge up from the darkest recesses of her own psyche.

Papyrus told him about the emotional ride Frisk took him and Toriel on, once he got off-shift that day and came back to their shared tent. The both of them had been worried about Frisk, with good reason. The negative feelings they described shouldn't be able to just up and disappear like that. Just like her intent, Frisk was somehow hiding it too well to detect. But the question was "how?"

She could be compartmentalizing… boxing stuff up and shoving it out of the way so she could function without breaking down into a sobbing mess all the time. But even if that's what she was doing it shouldn't make things disappear. The shadows of those feelings should always be there, lurking and waiting to pounce the minute Frisk was reminded of them. Like the way she was reminded the other day, or even during her Judgement, oh so long ago. But they were hardly present, at all, in her day-to-day life.

Was that just how different humans were from monsters? Or was there something else going on? He still couldn't shake the feeling that someone else had been staring out of Frisk's eyes for that brief moment…

That smile hadn't been Frisk's. As far as he was concerned, the kid that broke down in front of him, telling him how much she wanted to help people she barely knew despite being terrified of going to the surface, would never enjoy hurting somebody like that.

But it raised the question of "who did?"

"….-ke a nap."

Sans startled, trying and failing not to rattle. "huh? sorry, tina, didn't quite catch that."

He was met with a level look. "You've been staring at the wall behind me for the last several minutes, and said nothing for just as long. I can't believe I'm saying this when there's work to be done, but…" She sighed, her expression softening into one of worry. "I think you should go take a nap. You look like you need one."

"…heh. i am pretty bone tired. and i've gotta patell-ya, that's no fib-ula."

His cousin rolled her eyes at him, having heard that series of puns before. She made shooing motions with her hands and he took the hint, standing and rubbing her on the skull (the skeleton equivalent of ruffling a child's hair). He ducked into his office for a pickle and swig of brine before shortcutting to his bedroom in Snowdin.

Even as he fell onto the familiar comfort of his mattress, thoughts and theories swirled through his mind. They chased each other around and around, looping endlessly through all the other mysteries he'd been trying to solve on his own since the Core Incident.

He took a deep breath… and boxed them up. All of them. Every doubt, every dread, every fragile hope went into its very own box. His psyche was probably a bigger mess than his room. The thought made Sans chuckle to himself.

Frisk wasn't the first person with issues to hide. Neither of them would be the last. But the biggest joke was that, sometimes, those boxes were the only way he could get a decent amount of shut-eye. At a guess, it was probably the same for the kid.

For all their differences, he and Frisk had a lot in common. Maybe, just maybe, by helping her out he would find a way to help himself, too? Or maybe not. Sans had no clue. Since he couldn't answer his own question he boxed it up, along with all the rest.