Who Says You're the One in Control?

Snap!

Every time Sans killed Chara, Papyrus would run out and hug him. "i need to rest up." Sans said every time. Papyrus thought it was over each time. How wonderful it must be to be so ignorant.

He took the time between resets to catch his breath a little before the next fight. It was getting harder and harder. Papyrus kept him going. Always cheering him on.

He fought Chara over and over. The more he thought, the more he wondered at his conundrum. Any of even the slightest of injuries he obtained during the fight stayed with him through resets.

He knew why Chara remembered. Chara meant character. That title alone meant that no matter how the world was reset, Chara knew everything. Not Frisk, per say, but definitely Chara.

Why didn't resets affect him at all? Was he too close to obliteration? Perhaps the world thought he was destroyed, and now ignored any code of his entirely. What did the world see his code as? Sans knew the answer. It popped in front of his face any time he tried to examine code. He was an error. He didn't belong here anymore.

That begged a question. If he died, would he stay dead through the resets? The thought should have prompted him to try, but any time he decided to, he would kill them, and Papyrus would cheer him on.

He felt as if he was being pushed to live by Papyrus. Even if it was illogical, or impossible, he wanted to be with Papyrus. He wanted to live and belong in the world again. He had the smallest fragment of hope in his ability to be alive.

He fought on. Over and over Chara died. They really weren't taking it seriously, it was all just a game anyways. They made sloppy mistakes and didn't try to focus much on patterns. They were just here to entertain themself.

Sans was fighting for his life. And he was losing. He was getting more and more tired. He was hardly standing by now. Only his Determination kept him on his feet, and that was waning fast.

Chara noticed. "You get tired easy." They commented. Sans dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Their words gave him enough reprieve that he couldn't stand through it. "This was much more fun before."

Sans felt as if he was dying. His magic was low, and he was starving. "i can't do this." His voice cracked as he saw the teardrops stain the tile.

"That's okay, I'll just have to give you some incentive." Chara walked past him, and headed for Papyrus. Sans didn't move.

"H-Human, what are you..." Papyrus's sentence turned into a ragged gasp. Sans didn't need to turn to know what had happened.

Chara stayed behind Sans for a while longer. Sans was sitting up now, crying. Chara stood in front of him, their hands behind their back. "If you fall again, before I kill you, I'll take him for good."

As they spoke, they brought Papyrus's scarf from behind their back. Chara had scooped up his dust into it and carefully dumped it over Sans' head. Almost as a sick reminder of the monster's burial ritual.

Seeing his loved one's ash cascade off his forehead, Sans felt his horror and pain meld into his soul. It triggered something he didn't know he could feel. It amounted to a sort of rage he couldn't control. He jumped up, infuriated, and snatched Papyrus's scarf from the killer's hands.

His hands were trembling. His soul felt as if it would shatter any second. Sans' eyes flared to life at his distress, causing the error messages to pop over his vision once more.

He felt his code glitching as his magic grew. Constantly trying to correct itself and match the info given by the world around him, but he was an error. There was no way his magic could match when it wasn't supposed to exist in this world. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the pain he felt at his inability to protect Papyrus.

Sans' balance faltered for a second, making him stagger. "i just realized something..." Sans forced himself to relax. He knew exactly what was going on, and how to fix it. "you're the kind of person who won't ever be happy..."

Relaxing made Sans' magic calm down. He looked at Chara to see fear etched into their face. Excitement underneath, but fear for sure.

He looked at his hands to see their color was flickering. He could feel when it changed, as a glitch in his code. The scarf in his left hand was the only consistent color. It was curious to see, but Sans was too preoccupied to care.

"once you get bored of me, you're not gonna leave." He laughed. "you're just gonna find a new toy."

Chara flashed a smirk. Sans flashed one right back. That made Chara step back. "so long as there's a universe to toy with, you won't ever stop."

Sans had watched code be destroyed. He knew how it worked, now. He tested it out. A pillar glitched a little, then disappeared entirely. Sans could do this with the entire world.

Chara took another step back. They had obviously not thought about this. Sans destroyed the code across the floor around them, isolating them to that one spot. Sans knew the code of this world amazingly well. He was confident he could destroy it all.

The world around them fell to pieces. Sans kept Chara's code intact, but any other code was obliterated entirely. Even the scarf in his hand was destroyed. Soon, it was just the two of them.

Sans could feel himself blinking out of consciousness as he got lower on magic. Chara looked horrified to say the least. Sans destroyed her last.

He had wanted her to see the world's destruction. He wanted to show her his defiance, and he had. Chara disappeared into a simple scattering of digits.

There was nothing left. The universe had been destroyed. Finally, he could rest. Sans felt the cold grip of unconsciousness fold around him. His job was finally over. He could give up on the downward spiral this world had become.