For a moment he wonders if he's doing something wrong - if all of this that he's doing here is wrong. Maybe he's just too out of his mind to know it? Papyrus's near indifference to whether or not Sans tells him the truth feel simultaneously appropriate and awful. So much of his life in this place has been based around secrets - keeping them safe from the labels and sharing what you can with a select group of others - that it's hard to believe that it was ever intended to be the natural way of things. He didn't talk to anyone about his problems before meeting people like Greg and Rarity... but surely that was because he hadn't really had any friends and not because he was just like that, forever?

Except... maybe he was. Maybe he is? He doesn't remember how he learned to keep it inside of himself. He doesn't remember how to be okay with feeling so alone and so trapped. Maybe it never was okay. But he was resigned to it, because of everything that happened.

His confusion and anxiety over the topic has become thick all over again. He feels like he can't move, except now it's on a emotionally and intellectual level. He doesn't want to hurt Papyrus. There's nothing he wants to do less.

He chokes on his breath, his shoulder shaking tensely with a fresh sob of dismay. It takes him a little while before he can talk, his face still hidden.

"Are... are you happy with that?" he asks, his voice strained and disorientated. "Is it what you wanted?"