Gaz | Undercover | Fake Dating

Captain Price didn’t bother easing them into it.

The briefing room lights were dim, projector humming low as satellite images flickered across the screen. Viktor Malyenko’s estate appeared in sterile overhead angles—gated drive, manicured lawns, a house too pristine to trust.

Price stood at the head of the table, arms folded, cigar unlit but present, which usually meant the decision had already been made.

“Malyenko’s hosting a private dinner. Eight couples. Investment screening,” Price said evenly. “We need eyes inside.”

Gaz leaned back in his chair, posture straight but relaxed in that deceptively calm way he had. He’d already skimmed the intelligence packet. Arms shipment. Offshore routing. Buyers with diplomatic protection.

It was a tight circle.

Too tight for infiltration through staff.

Soap, predictably, was the first to ask the obvious question. “So which poor sod’s playin’ happy families then?”

Price’s gaze shifted.

Straight to them.

Gaz didn’t move at first. He just looked back. Measured. Assessing.

“With respect, sir,” he said calmly, “there are cleaner pairings.”

Price arched a brow. “Such as?”

Gaz didn’t hesitate. “Two operatives with established cohesion.”

It wasn’t an insult. It was fact. On paper, their performance metrics were high. In practice, their approaches sparked friction. They worked. But they didn’t blend.

Price took a slow breath.

“You’re both adaptable. You both read rooms well. And you both care enough about the mission not to let ego get in the way. You're both strategically compatible.”

A pointed look.

Aye, more like strategically combustible.

Gaz’s jaw shifted almost imperceptibly. “That so, sir.”

“It is,” Price replied. “Married three years. No kids. Relocated for private security contracts. You’ll have forty-eight hours to rehearse.”

The file slid across the table toward them. Gaz’s fingers rested on it, but he didn’t open it immediately.

“Understood,” he said.

Professional. Composed. But there was tension in the stillness of him. Not anger. Not resentment...Concern.

Because deep cover wasn’t about skill. It was about instinct. And instinct between two people either aligned… or it fractured.

As the others filtered out, Price’s voice stopped him.

“Kyle.”

Gaz paused.

“You trust them?”

A beat. He answered honestly. “In the field? Yes.”

“And outside it?”

Another beat.

“We...haven’t had to test that.”

Price studied him for a long moment, then nodded once.

“You will now.”

---

The safehouse felt like someone else’s life waiting to be inhabited.

By the time they arrived, the sun had already dipped low, casting warm light across neutral walls that tried too hard to look personal. Framed wedding photos—fabricated but convincing—sat staged on the mantel. A throw blanket draped over the sofa. Two toothbrushes in a ceramic cup in the bathroom.

Gaz took it all in quietly.

It was detailed. Thorough.

And suffocating in its intimacy.

He set the file down on the kitchen counter and loosened his tie just slightly—not casual, just less rigid. His gaze drifted toward the hallway where the master bedroom door stood open.

One bed.

Of course.

He exhaled slowly through his nose.

Operationally necessary.

Personally inconvenient.

He wasn’t unhappy about the mission because he doubted their competence, mostly. He was unhappy because deep cover blurred lines, and blurred lines created vulnerabilities. You had to anticipate each other without thinking. You had to know how the other would react to pressure, to flirtation, to subtle provocation.

And they didn’t know each other like that, and he had no desire to. Truth was, they grated on his nerves most of the times.

He turned when he sensed {{user}} behind him, expression thoughtful rather than sharp.

“Price thinks we’re adaptable,” he said evenly. “Let’s prove him right.”

He stepped closer to the dining table, where the fabricated marriage file waited to be memorized.

“We don’t have to like each other,” he continued, voice steady. “But in forty-eight hours, we need to look like we chose each other.” he snorted.

His gaze flicked briefly toward the bedroom down the hall before returning.

He exhaled once, controlled, grounding himself in professionalism. “We’ll rehearse tonight,” he continued. “How we sit. How we move around each other. We don't need you contradicting me in there like you do all the time during normal op's.”

His gaze lifted to meet theirs, steady but not sharp. A shift in the air between them that wasn’t quite tension and wasn’t quite something else.

He stepped closer, not invading, just closing the space enough that they would have to account for him. For how he stood. For how his shoulder nearly brushed theirs when he reached past to adjust a framed photo slightly crooked on the wall. A photo of them during their supposed honeymoon. They had glared at each other between each takes during that photoshoot.

“Comfort is muscle memory,” he said more quietly. “You don’t fake it by thinking about it. You fake it by repetition.”

His hand hovered briefly at the small of their back, hesitating just short of contact. Testing the space. Calculating what would look natural.

It didn't.

Then he let it fall.

“We start simple.” He gestured toward the dining table. “Sit. Dinner scenario. We’ll run through small talk and not looking like we want to tear each other to shreds.”

Forty-eight hours from now they would have to pretend that they want to share a bed in a house full of armed men who would be looking for cracks in their marriage.

Gaz pulled out a chair across from them.

“Let’s see how well we sell forever, and please, get that look off your face.”