Work Text:
Whatever Jonny expected to wake up to, it was not this.
Lyfrassir and the Toy Soldier sat on the floor of the engine room. This wasn't too irregular for Lyfrassir, the bosun often spent a lot of time making sure the engine was in proper working order. Something about it being “important”, “delicate” and “Jonny, I can't let us get derailed!”
…. That last comment had been made in a panic and set them both a full minute back in the conversation.
No, the weird thing was that the Toy Soldier had its fingers gleefully threaded through Lyfrassir’s hair, twisting it into braids. Now that Jonny thought about it, he'd never seen their hair untied from the messy bun they kept it in. They always had it styled with some braids, a New Midgardian fashion, but Lyfrassir's hair pooling up around their shoulders was… New.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Jonny snapped.
The Toy Soldier grinned up at him. “The inspector is letting me play with their hair!”
“It was interested in my braids so I told it that it could make some,” Lyfrassir explained. “Is this bad?”
“No, it's just… Fucking strange, alright?”
They frowned. “Why is it so weird?”
‘Because we don't do that around here?’ Jonny thought. ‘Because usually the only time we touch each other on purpose is to kill someone?’
"I don't know," is what Jonny ends up saying.
"Do you want to join?"
"Fuck no." Jonny was a fucking murderer, he ate people on occasion. He did not participate in playing with other people's hair like some school girl.
Brian walked into the engine room to check on thrust to find Lyfrassir, the Toy Soldier and Jonny sitting on the floor. Jonny, for his part, looked absolutely mortified.
"This isn't what it looks like," he said.
Brian nodded. "Okay, so, what it looks like to me is that you guys are braiding Lyfrassir's hair."
"That's exactly what's happening!" The Toy Soldier said brightly. Jonny punched its shoulder.
Brian noticed the little bits of colorful rubber poking out of the plaits. "Did you put wires in the braids?"
"We didn't have any ribbon!" It explained. "I thought they needed a colorful touch to match their personality!"
Lyfrassir glanced over to Brian, the bags they always carried under their eyes providing an ironic underscore to the Toy Soldier's words. "I had extra grounding and neutral wires for repairs."
"Okay, but Jonny…"
"No one will believe you," Jonny snapped.
"People believe what they want to be true," Lyfrassir hummed.
"And I'm pretty sure that most of the crew would love the mental image of this." Brian shrugged. "I mean theoretically I couldn't tell them, but the Toy Soldier is bound to spill its guts sometimes."
The automaton nodded in agreement. "It's true! I like to share!"
"It's best to just get the shame over with, Jonny," Lyfrassir said solemnly.
He turned from Brian to face the inspector. "You did this to me."
"I didn't do anything except sit here, fix the ship and let you mess with my hair."
"You're a dead man, Edda."
When Jonny lunged for Lyfrassir's throat they were cackling. It was always nice to see good will among the crew members.