I blame Crazydiamondsue and Secondverse. All. Their. Fault.

Well, okay, and ladycat777 bears some blame, too, with her Alex and Will's Excellent Adventure.
And also reremouse cause she is the Best Worst Enabler Ever!
This? This is time-travel fic. Spike and Xander and Vikings! And Viking!Spike and Viking!Xander.
Oooh, yes.
crazydiamondsue is responsible for the name, too
I also credit blame reremouse for the - resemblance of a certain item to an item created by Terry Pratchett.
Well, okay, i didn't have to do it. But it was too perfect.

Hope you enjoy!

Bloody Odin

by
Tabaqui

Part One

"Recessim, recessim, recessim!"

The swirling, sparkling cloud of dark energies flared - slowed - faded. Willow let out a huge sigh and swayed drunkenly. Tara and Buffy each got a hand under an arm and guided Willow to a chair.

"You okay, sweetie?" Tara asked, dabbing at Willow's bloody nose.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Willow said - closed her eyes for a moment and then sniffed, grimacing. "Except for this really bad headache -"

"Oh good Lord," Giles said suddenly, and all three women looked over at him.

"It's really not that bad, Giles. I mean - a couple or six Extra-Strength Tylenols and -"

"No, no, not your head. That." Giles was staring fixedly at the center of the chalk-drawn circle on the Magic Box floor. The slightly scorched, smudged circle where only moments before Xander and Spike had been standing. Staring at the abandoned satchel, the still-laced boots - the empty, crumpled clothing and the very definite lack of Alexander L. Harris, Esquire and William the Bloody.

"Oh - damn -"

"Bloody - fucking - Christ."

"I'm naked! Why am I naked? Oh my god, it's like the Terminator!" Xander flailed, wincing as bits of - stuff - poked him in parts of his anatomy that normally shouldn't be getting poked by bristly, poky - things. And there was a strong smell of - manure. He rolled away from a particularly spiny bit and rolled onto Spike, who grunted and heaved him away.

"For fuck's sake, keep your knees out of my goolies. Bloody witch and her bloody spells and her bloody not knowing what the bloody hell she's doing." There was a crescendo of crackling and rustling and then a thump. Xander felt carefully and found an edge - peered over. Moonlight hazily lit the dirt below, gleaming off of Spike who was spread-eagled and motionless.

"Spike! Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay. I'm naked in a sodding byre, lying on a damn dirt floor that stinks of cow shite with dead bracken jammed in my arse. Never been fucking better."

"Oh. Then - wait. You're saying you're actually not okay."

"I'm not hurt." Spike continued to lay there like a bleached and dying starfish and Xander looked around. There were strips of wood - what looked liked split tree branches - fastened somehow to the stone wall to his left and he crawled over the crackling straw and swung carefully out, bare toes clinging to the rough bark. Once he reached the ground he went to Spike and stood over him, looking down. Spike looked up.

"Since you're not hurt are you gonna get up?"

"You're so bloody sympathetic to my plight."

"You don't have a plight." Spike shot Xander a filthy look. "Okay, okay, you do have a plight but we're sharing the plight. So get up, already. We need to -"

"Need to wind Red's entrails out on a stick and make her dance," Spike growled, but he got up, brushing distastefully at the dirt that clung to him. "Give me a hand, why don't you?"

"It's just dirt," Xander muttered. "Oh, eww, it's not just dirt. Water. We need water, right now, and lots of soap!"

"Can hear the ocean - care to go for a dip?"

"There are supposed to be people - they'll have soap and hot water!"

"And they'll be so happy to welcome two naked, shite-covered strangers into their homes and offer them soap!"

"Hey! I'm not - oh - crap." Xander looked down in disgust at the seed-flecked mound he'd inadvertently put his foot into.

"Are so. Right." Spike suddenly seemed more cheerful and Xander glared at him. "Let's see where the witch dropped us, then. And it's not like the sodding Terminator. I got through, didn't I? So it's not 'nothing dead'."

"Yeah, but you're not exactly dead dead. I mean, if you get hurt you heal up, and you eat, and everybody including Dawn knows you come, which you are still not forgiven for -"

"Oh, shut up," Spike muttered, and turned around. Face to face with a small, shaggy cow. "Bloody hell."

Part Two

"Right. Okay. Wait - not that -" Willow pushed a book away as Giles tried to push it toward her and they both glared at each other, Giles doing his best 'Ripper' and Willow doing something that was reminiscent of a kitten pinned under a fluffy towel. It was the hat, really.

"Yes, that, that is the Codex -"

"That we already checked. We need the - the Seminal Theories of - of - time-space - thingy."

"Thingy? Thingy? Yes, and let's look up the What-sis of Magical Stuff next, shall we?"

As they squared off, bristling like cats and waving choice volumes of Eldridge's Encyclopedia of Cross-Magical Physics ( Theory and Practice, Volumes One through Seventeen), Buffy and Tara exchanged looks. Buffy made a sort of head-twitch-eye-roll gesture and Tara made a sort of head-and-shoulder wiggle in response. They both got up.

"Tara! Tell him! Eldridge is -"

"Buffy, have I or have I not successfully -"

"Bathroom!" Buffy and Tara chorused and escaped to the back room, slamming the door between them. There was a moment of silence and then Willow's voice snarked something and Giles' came back with 'superior old guy' tone and Buffy and Tara flopped down on the worn-out couch by the windows, sighing.

"This is - insane. It's more than insane; it's like - Passions insane!" Buffy kicked idly at a padded glove, sending it across the floor.

"I was th-thinking more along the lines of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," Tara muttered.

"Yeah, but which one's Nurse Ratched and which one's McMurphy?" Buffy muttered back. Tara stared at her and Buffy sent a wide-eyed look back. "Hey, I watch Turner Classic Movies, too!" Tara stared a moment more and then giggled and they both ended up laughing for the next few minutes, sprawled out on the couch and kicking at each other.

"Okay, okay." Tara wiped her eyes on the hem of her shirt and sat up a little straighter. "It's s-still insane but they're not g-getting anywhere. I mean - Xander and Spike's s-stuff is still here so it's like -"

"The Terminator!" Buffy sat up, too, bouncing a little. "Which means Spike and Xander are naked in the middle of some Viking village right now!" Tara started to say something - stopped - clapped her hand over her mouth and snorted hysterically.

"Oh - oh - oh, you're r-right! Oh! You don't think - Spike -"

"Oh, crap." Buffy stood up and started to pace back and forth. Tara twisted her hands together into her lap. "No. I mean - demon inside, he drinks beer and eats wings and stuff - he's not really dead. Is he?" Tara shrugged miserably.

"He's not. Okay." Buffy spun on one foot and kicked the heavy bag - watched it swing. "Okay, in the movie they had to put Arnold around the cyborg skeleton thing so it could go through. So - maybe we could wrap the translation and some - some clothes and stuff up in - like - meat?"

"That's really - g-gross," Tara said, but she was smiling.

"Yup. But most of the magical stuff Giles does is pretty icky with the rat's eyes and stuff, so - I bet it'll work."

"Me too."

"Cold! Cold! C-c-cold!"

"Shut up!" Spike squatted down in the surf, scrubbing at his legs with a handful of sand. Xander was hunched and shivering on the edge, his toes curling up away from the water. Spike glared at them. "Want the whole village to hear? Come pelting down here to see who in hell is invading them in the middle of the sodding night?"

"We're not invading!" Xander snapped, shocked, and Spike twisted, trying to reach between his shoulder-blades.

"Tell that to them. Except we can't, because Red and Rupert bollocksed it all up, didn't they? We don't have our dictionary -"

"How were they supposed to know? It's - magic!" Xander said, waving his arms. He squinted at Spike. "You missed some."

"Their job, innit? Missed where? Come and help, for Christ's sake." Spike slipped a little, splashing. "Watch your step here," he added, edging away from the sharp underwater drop-off.

"It's cold," Xander whined, but he slogged gingerly into the water, sucking in a sharp breath as a wavelet splashed over his shins. The moonlight shone whitely off snow-crusts and broken shells and Spike's skin and Xander was pretty sure he could read by the glow. "You're like some kind of damn glow-in-the-dark action figure out here." He crouched down to get a handful of sand.

"Not like I can help that -"

"Ever heard of fake tanning lotion? Look into it next time we get sent back in time to - Jesus Christ!" Xander bolted to his feet as an unexpected wavelet broke over his back and - other parts.

"Shut up!" Spike snarled. Xander subsided, glaring - scooped up a double handful of sand and shell-shards and plopped it onto Spike's back. "Bloody hell! Ow - ow - ow!"

"Now who's gonna get us captured?" Xander scrubbed gleefully and Spike flung a handful of sea-water and silt at him. Xander dodged.

"You git - oh, fuck."

There was a hollow sort of noise - a wood-on-wood sort of thunking followed by a splash, and then silence.

"What was that?" Xander squeaked - cleared his throat. "Spike? What was -?"

"Quiet, for fuck's sake!" Spike grabbed Xander and yanked him down, hand clamped over Xander's mouth. Ignoring the panicked struggles as sea-water went up Xander's nose and his tackle went for a swim.

There was another splash and then the scritch of pebble on pebble from somewhere up the trail. Xander flailed, pushing at Spike and Spike hissed, resisting the urge to choke him into unconsciousness. Then there were voices. They both froze.

The voices were low, teasing - flirting - voices. Spike and Xander exchanged eye-rolls as the voices took on a definite cadence. Something along the lines of: 'Oh, la! Sir, you are too bold!' and 'T'is your beauty that makes me so bold, you vixen!'

Except both voices were male and coming closer. Xander was snuffling and muttering behind Spike's hand and Spike twisted, trying to get lower in the water. Xander resisted with a muffled shriek and they both fell over, a wavelet rushing up and drenching them. Then the moon came out from behind the clouds.

After that, things - happened.

Two men - locked in a passionate clinch halfway between trail-head and surf - sprang apart, bellowing. A boat - leaf-shaped and low on the sides - was drifting toward the shore and the group of men inside froze as well, poles or oars half in and half out of the water and the moon-light glittering off of spears and swords and the bossing on shields and helmets.

Mouths - at least fifteen in the boat, Spike noted with a sort of fatalistic gloom - opened. Challenges or cries for help or blood-thirsty oaths were about to emerge when the air directly over the boat seemed to shatter apart, pale green light flaring out. Something dropped heavily into the boat with a crack of splitting timbers and then there was shouting as the boat listed and began to sink.

The two men on the trail started yelling and Xander finally bit Spike's hand hard enough to get him to let go of his jaw.

"Fuck me!"

"Not for weeks, buddy," Xander growled, lunging for the shore. Something surged in the water near his feet and he flopped onto his back like a landed carp, shouting. The din was incredible. Spike sat down, grimacing as sand oozed into the crack of his ass.

"Never trust a witch. What'd I say? Never. Trust. A. Witch. And whatever the hell Rupert is. Bloody ex-Watcher ex-demon-raising poufter."

"Spike! Help! It's got me!" Xander floundered, kicking at something. The boat began to go under with a hiss, water bubbling up and several casks floating to the surface, spinning lazily in the current. The crew shouted and splashed toward the shore and the two men up the trail ran down, dashing into the water and hauling at their sodden, leather-and-fur-clad friends.

"Oh, of course they're all bloody mates, aren't they? Why can't they just slaughter each other, give a fellow a break?" Spike watched as Xander scuttled up the shelf, plowing a furrow with his arse. Something followed him - something with four little black hooves and four - corners and - buckles. Something uneasily familiar. "It's - it's -"

"Luggage."

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