Dierk knocked and then walked right in.
"Day off. You know the drill."
"Nngh," agreed Kip, blinking sleepily at him (in reality, he had been lying awake for half an hour.)
"Breakfast is ready, wake the skeleton."

The skeleton gradually removed himself from the bed in stages while Kip picked out an outfit for him. First he pulled the covers off his shoulders. Then he curled his body up so he was surrounded but not covered by the covers. Then he scooted to the edge of the bed. Then he shifted to a crouching position, from which he lay back down again, groaning sleepily. Kip gently pulled him back up and put his shirt in his lap.
"See you outside."
"Thh." Gaster yawned. "Thanks."
"I get to go out again today."
"Oh, OK."
Kip walked out and closed the door, but didn't step away from it because Gaster was saying something.
"Kip?"
"Yes?"
"What do you do?"
"Oh. Walk around, enjoy the sunshine," said Kip cheerfully. "Look at the—"
"Kip?"
"—City?"
"Do you talk to someone?"
"...I... don't really talk to people that much, no—"
"No I mean, is there someone from the organization that you meet?"
...Oh.
Congratulations, Gaster, on not actually being stupid.
...Well fuck. Fuck? Fuuuuck. OK, how to play this? Gaster was pretty certain already or he probably wouldn't have brought it up, knowing Gaster. Kip could lie but, paradoxically, telling the truth would probably make Gaster trust him more. Gaster seemed to view him as a victim. If Kip showed that his loyalties were shifting from Snowflower to Gaster himself (presumably as an unintended effect of Snowflower conditioning, but whatever) he'd probably believe it.
The split-second of analyzing left Kip mentally reeling, with a pleasant spike of adrenaline, and he chose his words carefully.
"I... might... yes. How did you know?"
"Just a guess," said Gaster darkly, and he heard him dressing.
"We don't talk about you—much—well... all good things," said Kip, with an uncomfortable laugh.
"Thank you," said Gaster. A moment the later the door opened, and he stood holding it, looking up at him. "...You're going to tell them I said that, aren't you?"
Ah good. Show the conflicting loyalties.
"I... should..."
"Well don't let it bother you," said Gaster, letting the door go. Kip stepped to the side for him and they walked to the stairs.
"Don't...?"
"I mean, just do what you think you should. That's all anyone can do. That's hard enough," he muttered, staring at the carpet through his phalanges.
He stopped.
"...I'm not wearing shoes again am I."
"...You are not."
"Huh. Excuse me." Gaster went back into his room and returned shortly after, wearing shoes.

This time the meeting was different. The Grandfather stared beadily at Kip while he gave his report, then said "Hm" and sat tapping his fingers on the tabletop. Kip waited, on edge.
"Very shy," Said the Grandfather after a moment. Kip nodded, smiling.
"He is, sir."
"Have you considered there is something you're doing wrong?"
"I... yes. But I don't think.."
"Do you talk to him? I think you might be too quiet. It's charming enough in moderation, but it can make you seem distant, and we wouldn't want that."
"No! I do talk to him."
The beady glance fastened upon him and the Grandfather gave an unimpressed "Good."
"I'll try harder."
"Good, good."
The Grandfather sipped his coffee and Kip lifted his own cup.
"You've put on weight, haven't you?" he said, and Kip looked over the top of his cup in surprise.
"..um."
"Nothing to be ashamed of, especially these days." He patted his own stomach with a chuckle. Kip wondered why he had to imply that it might be something to be ashamed of. "But boys usually prefer a slimmer build, at least among humans, I believe. Though there's no accounting for personal taste. Has Gaster said anything?"
"I am not sure he's noticed, sir, he's a skeleton."
"Quite right. Well, good to see you healthy, but don't enjoy your food too much."
"Yes sir."
The Grandfather winked and ate another cookie.

Had he just been threatened
For being a reasonable weight?

Kip had always been fairly trim, despite his preference for naps over physical exertion. He'd visibly lost weight over the past three months, much of it muscle mass, from a combination of little and poor food and constant stress. He'd been glad to feel that he was slowly returning to normal. For some reason it hadn't really occurred to him that he would be expected to stay underweight. Especially since Gaster, the only person (supposedly) who did have the right to micromanage his weight if he so desired, was a skeleton. Who had no flesh.
Well. That didn't mean he couldn't have opinions on it.
And, moving on from Gaster himself, it seemed Snowflower was getting impatient. They'd wasted three months working with monsters they'd much rather have exterminated on sight to get him to Gaster so he could earn his trust and be their informant. And Gaster, so it seemed, wasn't taking the bait. Kip understood the indignation. He felt a little of it himself. ...Maybe more than a little. This was also why he was here. Anyway, nothing any of them could do but wait.
...He thought. But, now that he really thought about it, would the humans have kept only one of the monster Companions they'd spent so much time on alive? It made sense they'd have at least one backup, in case he failed. Perhaps Kip's group hadn't even been the only one—it could be one of the monsters he'd known, or someone else entirely. In any case, if it seemed this approach wasn't going to work in general, then they would get rid of him, and/or whomever else they were keeping in reserve. No reason to keep live monsters around, even tamed, supposedly docile ones. Snowflower, and ultimately human intelligence, was only risking failure; Kip was risking his life. It didn't bother him as much as it might have bothered another monster, but he resented the feeling; and more, hated to think that he'd come this far only to fail at his mission.
Alright. Time to be a little more aggressive. Passive-aggressive, anyway, because he was a Companion, he wasn't supposed to be assertive, even if Gaster utterly failed to be. But he knew Gaster liked him. He just needed proof. He wasn't going to lie to Snowflower—not yet, not about something so basic, especially not with Dierk in the house and probably filing his own reports.
But he had excluded the detail of Gaster's suspicions, which would count for him, once he brought it up with Gaster.

Kip had lost the inner calm he'd maintained on the trip over. He didn't let it show until he was leaving, then, letting himself relax a little, adopted a pensive look, eyes low. So he almost didn't see the curly-haired kid on the opposite side of the street. When he did glimpse him over the top of the car as he was getting in Sans was giving him a panicked look. Kip tried to shoot him a reassuring smile. Great. Now Sans was worried about him. Well, more than usual. Why on earth did Sans have to get himself involved in this?

He was still fuming internally as he returned to the house. Walking into his room, he stopped, hands raised in the act of throwing off his coat.
Gaster was asleep on his carpet.
He was curled up on the rectangular rug beside his bed, mouth half-open, breathing raspily through his teeth. Kip cleared his throat. Nothing happened. Well what did he expect, it was Gaster.
Gently he rolled the skeleton into his arms and lifted him. Gaster woke with a twitch as he was standing up.
"Hello," said Kip.
"Oh geez," said Gaster, then sneezed. "Oh hey. Uh I missed you so I was in your room missing you and then I fell asleep I'm sorry I didn't touch anything. Um. I mean, except the door, and the carpet, obviously."
"...I was gone for two hours. You never pay attention to me before lunch anyway."
"Yeah but I know you're in the house."
"You are an odd person," said Kip, rubbing his forehead against Gaster's. "I'm pleased that you missed me."
"Yeah. Uh, you can put me down."
"Here?"
"Sure."
Kip lay Gaster down on his bed and sat next to him, one arm on Gaster's other side.
"...Oh," said Gaster. "Um."
Kip cocked his head. Was he going to say 'that wasn't exactly what I meant?' No...? Nope. He wasn't. He was just lying there, staring up at him, breathing a little quicker than usual. Kip wasn't confident in his ability to interpret skeletal body language yet but he figured that was a good indication across the board of—something, anyway. He stared back. The moment stretched on for several seconds, then Gaster started to say something, then stopped, as Kip was already speaking.
"Can I kiss you?"
"Yngh." Gaster stalled for a moment. "...Why?"
"Why not?"
"I'd rather you didn't actually."
"Oh." Kip did a bad job of not looking hurt and a bit nervous. "Alright." He leaned back and Gaster scrambled up into a sitting position, facing him.
"Um." He bounced. "Heh, I like your bed more than mine."
"Really?"
"Yeah it's less soft."
"Oh. Is that good?"
"Yeah! Well I think so anyway. Maybe we should switch."
"Or you could move down here."
Gaster looked away.
Kip waited for a few moments for him to look back, then shifted his position to face the door and exhaled a sigh.
"There's no reason for me to be here," he muttered. Gaster looked over.
"What?"
"There's no reason to be here." Gaster looked blank so he clarified, "If you don't want me."
"Uh, no? No I really like you! I just, uh, don't, like? I don't uh."
"It's alright," said Kip. "It's fine. They'll find someone else."
Gaster went silent.
Kip got up and walked to the door. Gaster found his voice while he was on his way out.
"KIPNO!" it was all one shout, which he ignored and went out into the garden. He walked to the fountain and stopped beside it, looking out into the garden, a cold, drab, slushy mess in the morning light. Ribs of hard, caked snow crisscrossed the ground under the naked shrubs. He was bitterly proud. He'd never heard Gaster shout before, that was a start.
Behind him the door slammed, then there were rapid footsteps through the snow, ending with a slushy sound and a quiet thud. He turned. Gaster had slipped off the path into a patch of hard, muddy snow and hadn't gotten up. He was on his hands and knees, crying.
...This was going even better than Kip had expected.
He didn't have any use for compassion at the moment, but seeing Gaster on his knees took the edge from his anger. He walked to him, pulled him up and brushed the snow and dirt off.
"Where's your coat?"
Gaster clung to him, mumbling something unintelligible, and Kip pulled him closer and wrapped the front flaps of his coat around him. Gaster nuzzled into his neck.
"I love you," he said. "Ilove you." He might have said it a third time but it was turning into choking sobs. Kip slowly stroked the back of his skull as he recovered.
"Shh. I thought that word was banned."
"Uh-h. It. It's banned for you, I can use it."
"Mh."
Gaster hid his face in the front of Kip's shirt, arms locked around him under the coat.
"What did they do to you?" he whined, and began sobbing again, soundlessly. Kip rested his cheek on the top of Gaster's skull and made soothing noises. "I hate this," he creaked. "You shouldn't be this, you shouldn't have to feel like this. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't be here."
"...I know."
"No, not like that! I like you, OK!" Gaster gave him an exasperated shake, or tried to. He wasn't heavy enough to do more than lightly sway Kip, he ended up shaking himself more. "I just. I just wish we could have met before this. You know, the.. war." He let his forehead rest on Kip's shoulder. "I wish I didn't screw everything up so badly. You shouldn't be here. Because I don't deserve you, OK, not the other way around."
"...Why would you say that?"
"OK listen, why would you want to kiss me? I—? It doesn't make sense."
"Yes it does."
"Yeah? Explain why."
"...I like you. I think you're cute."
Gaster choked, then laughed.
"You, uh. No. I don't, uh. Um. I've, ah. I've never been called cute before? Ever? I've been called things like 'retard' and 'please stop talking'."
"...Then you've had terrible friends."
"Huh. Mostly nonexistent. Uh, no. No that's not true. I mean. I guess I've had some pretty good friends, but uh, none of them stuck around."
"I know what you mean."
Kip flipped up his collar to shield both of them from the wind and began buttoning his coat over Gaster, which meant pulling him closer at the waist. Gaster obligingly pressed closer against him.
"Huh. So, uh. What's your story. I don't. Think I've, uh, heard."
"...My story. I don't... really have a story."
"Everyone has a story."
"Tell me yours? I'll tell you mine."
"Uhh, alright. I, uh, was left in a sweater box near the front door of an orphanage sometime in winter I'm not sure the exact date anymore actually. Winter birthdays or... arrivals were all just celebrated together at Christmas, so. I kind of forgot what the date was. Um. I was good at science? That's, that's a thing I can do. So eventually people noticed and sent me to school. Since then to now it's basically just been me being good at science. And kind of bad at everything else. Oh, I was Royal Scientist for a couple years, before the uh, the stuff happened. And. Yeah. The war. I... Kind of hoped someone would try to contact me after that, since my picture was in all the papers and... stuff. But I mean if they had wanted to be able to find me they wouldn't have left me outside and run away like that so I guess it makes sense. I just... I dunno, it was a weird hope, you know how you sometimes get? Like you know, you know it's not going to happen, but then when it doesn't happen it crushes you. That's stupid. I hate it." He took a shaky breath. "Your turn."
"..." Kip tightened his arms comfortingly around Gaster. "I.. really don't have much of a story. Born to a middle-class family not far from here. Bit bookish, but too lazy to apply myself to anything in particular. I had a few different jobs, never really stuck with anything. I had a few special friends but none of them... stayed. You know."
"Y-yeah. Sorry."
"It's OK. What else... I had a sister. Younger, beautiful, loved to play the piano. ...She also severely injured me when we were kids by tossing a cat directly at my face, but I forgive her."
"What happened to her...?"
"I'm not sure. I... lost track of her, when all this started."
Gaster said nothing for several moments, then said "oh" in a small voice and made a sort of patting-stroking motion on Kip's back with one hand.
"I'm sorry I got upset," said Kip after a few more moments.
"No, it's fine, I should have been taking better care of you."
"That's my job."
"No, actually, it's not, literally no one in the history of.. history, has ever taken care of me before and I've been fine and—well it's not worth the stress, I'll be fine. And I just want you to be OK. Sometimes I don't make a lot of sense, OK, just, uh. Just accept it and don't let it bother you."
"..." Kip tried to process this. "..Alright..."
Gaster sighed. He'd relaxed his body into Kip's. Kip was pretty sure he could feel individual ribs boring into his side when Gaster breathed.
Gaster said nothing for a few moments, attempting to distribute his weight more comfortably and poking Kip with a lot of boney angles, finally tucking his head under Kip's chin and resting his cheek against his shirt. He smelled distinctly of smoker skeleton. Kip hadn't realized that was a smell, but it was.
"Kip," he said after several moments had passed. "I'm never sending you away. OK?"
"..You should. If you think it'd be better for us."
"Do you want to go?"
"...No."
"What happens if you go?"
"I... might be reassigned..."
"Might?"

"You're a monster, they don't generally... have monster Companions, generally, right?"

"I'm not trying to scare you OK, I'm just. Thinking out loud, I wanna figure this out." He tightened his thin arms around Kip's ribs. "Don't worry. I want you to stay here and I'm gonna take of you."
"..They think I've failed you."
"...Huh." Gaster huffed, and bent his head, pressing the top of it to Kip's shirt. "I, uh. OK. Listen. You're not, you're really not. I just. God I'm sorry, I can't talk right now."
"It's OK."
"But you're fine, I like you and also I love you and I want you to stay, and you haven't failed. And you can kiss me if you want to, I just. I was just. Skeptical, of whether that was actually something you wanted to do or you just felt like you should ask in case I wasn't going to ask but wanted you to—dammit that's confusing."
"I can—"
"Y-yeah."
Kip gave a faint, joyful laugh and pressed their foreheads together.
"I'll be good," he said.
"I know! I know you will, I trust you."
Kip cupped Gaster's face in his hands and ran a thumb across his mouth. The hard membrane was smooth, but not utterly so; more like paper or eggshells than polished stone, and felt cool to the touch. His hands must feel very warm to Gaster.
Do skeletons kiss? Is that not a thing for them? Considering the lack of lips, they probably had other ways of showing affection. Anyway, Kip didn't know what those were at the moment, and one half of them did have lips. This would work.
Gaster did have a tongue, or at least he was assuming that he did, based on the fact that Sans and Papyrus did. The black tongues attached to the weird ectoplasmic insides of their skulls were apparently the single skeletal organ besides the soul. Skeletons were bizarre, but when you got down to it, not much different from other beings in general responses: he told himself this, and hoped it was true.
Kip tilted his head and leaned in, pressed his lips to Gaster's mouth, then waited, lips just brushing his chin, for him to make some motion. He'd almost decided the encounter was over when Gaster hesitantly nuzzled him back. He kissed him again, lightly, and Gaster reciprocated with a gentle nip. They kept on like that for a short while, then both paused, as if coming to an unspoken agreement, and Gaster ducked his head out of reach and nestled against Kip's chest. Kip sighed happily.
"Ready to go in?" he asked. The cold had sunk through his clothes, Gaster was probably feeling it too. Gaster nodded silently. Kip unbuttoned him from his coat and they started back to the house together. Gaster looked dazed.
"Kip?"
"Yes?"
"Did you tell them?"
"That you knew?— No."
Gaster seized his hand.
"Thank you."

A/N:

Kip makes 13 specific statements in his 'story of my life' schtick. 5 of them are true and the rest are BUUUULLSHIIIIIIIITTT

Have fun

Also if this ending does not give you BAD AND WRONG vibes then plz tell me because I'm doing something wrong
...same goes for the entire rest of the work basically?
I like being told when things go right, too, actually. By all means tell me if I wrote effective horror.

Oh another thing! Thanks to the anonymous Robotic Waffle of FFN, your reviews crack me up and thank you for leaving them :D also, you are the first person to leave reviews on the FFN copy of this fic. Interesting. In general, I get more reviews for genfic (especially CORE) from FFN, and more reviews for darker, more mature or more experimental pieces from AO3. You could do a fun little psychology study on that.
Part of the study would mention that people are actually reading this on FFN. I can see your views, people. Just can't see who you are, whether or not you actually like this or why you keep coming back.
:) i see u