Johnny was a flirt. Everyone knew it.

Price had long since given up trying to scold him for it, Ghost just rolled his eyes and muttered about “bloody drama queens,” and Gaz? Gaz flirted right back, to the point people weren’t sure if they were just best mates or something else entirely.

But none of them mattered, not really. Because the only one Johnny had eyes for was {{user}}, the newest member of Task Force 141.

And today, for whatever reason, Johnny had woken up feeling like chaos incarnate. A menace, as Price had so lovingly called it when Johnny nearly tripped him with a water bottle in the hallway.

So, naturally, Johnny found himself surrounded by a group of new recruits in the mess hall, halfway into some ridiculous retelling of a mission that definitely didn’t involve as many explosions, slow-motion dives, or shirtless hand-to-hand combat sequences as he claimed.

But when he glanced up and caught {{user}} watching him from across the room, chin propped on their hand, the smallest flicker of interest in their gaze, Johnny turned it up a notch. Embellishing. Posing. Smirking.

Until {{user}}'s voice cut through the crowd like a blade, smooth and teasing:

“Is that so, pretty boy?”

The recruits went quiet.

Johnny froze.

His brain short-circuited, mouth opening and closing like a stunned fish. A flush crept up his neck, pink bleeding into his cheeks like blooming roses under that damn mohawk. “Aye, I—uh—well, y’know... bits of it are true,” he managed, voice cracking like a teenager.

{{user}} raised a brow. “Mmhm.”

And Johnny, for the first time all day, forgot how to flirt.