Bloody Odin

by
Tabaqui

Part Three

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen."

"It's traditional," Giles said, and Buffy could have sworn he giggled.

"Old suitcases with hooves are traditional?"

"It's the spirit of the thing," Giles mumbled, burying his nose in his tea-cup and giggling again. Buffy sniffed. Yup. That wasn't just Earl Grey.

"I bloody well know what the bloody Luggage is! I'm just - gobsmacked that Rupert does!"

"Maybe it was Tara. She has the whole set." Xander twisted uncomfortably, straining at the ropes around his wrists and slipping a little as they were prodded up the slope and back toward the village.

"Stop that. You'll get rope-burn." Spike was tripped and kicked back sharply, cracking his heel into the - thing - that was following him. "Bugger off, for fuck's sake!" he hissed. The portmanteau stumbled and fell and then righted itself, hurrying to catch up. Its little hooves thudded on the frozen ground. It bumped into Spike's calf, pressing close like a scared dog. Spike was pretty sure it whimpered. "I'll wring her sodding neck."

"Hey! I'll bet they sent us some stuff in there - our clothes and stuff!"

"You think?" Spike looked down at the - Luggage - and bumped it with his foot. "Got any smokes in there?" A strap wiggled, the buckle clinking, but apparently the Luggage couldn't open its own buckles. "Bastards," Spike muttered.

A Viking prodded him with the very tip of a spear and Spike snarled, just barely restraining himself from breaking the rope around his arms and cracking some skulls. Pretending to be human seemed like a really dumb idea in hindsight.

The longhouse was long, and filled with men and women and children and the smell of wet wool and wet cattle and other wet - stuff. There was a big fire in the middle and a hole in the turf roof right above it. And a big chair with a very big man sitting in it, scowling. He looked a lot like -

"Deadboy?" Xander squeaked, and everyone jumped.

"It's not. Can hear his bloody heartbeat from here. But yeah, that's the same damn overbearing forehead, innit? Same bloody look of constipated confusion, too. Oi!"

"Spike! Ix-nay on the oi-way! I don't think - ooof!" A spear-butt made contact with Xander's solar-plexus and he went down, gagging for air.

Spike growled - snapped the ropes and spun on one heel - tripped over the Luggage and ended up on his arse next to Xander, who was a delicate shade of key-lime. "Jesus fucking Christ!" Spike reached over and yanked the knots loose and Xander curled up like a roly-poly.

Deadboy Mark Two snapped out an order and the longhouse cleared rapidly. The Luggage shuffled to one side, looking as shamefaced as something without a face could look. Spike kicked it - contemplated cigarettes and dragged it over by one pistoning hoof. Xander retched feebly into the ashes of the fire.

"Is there anything in there for throwing up?" he mumbled.

"Oh, shut up."

"Ukunnr," DeadboyM2 said. Or something like that. He was still sitting, flanked by seven or eight warriors in leather armor all leaning on long, leaf-bladed spears. They all looked a bit - incredulous.

Falling on your ass, naked, while your Luggage tried to run away didn't exactly make you look like a bad-ass. Spike whapped the Luggage hard and it stopped wiggling. "I just want some fucking smokes and my clothes, you little animate dead cow!" The Luggage creaked, buckles jingling, and Xander stirred and sat up. He wasn't green anymore, at least.

"I don't think it can undo its buckles. Can you, poor thing?" Xander crooned. The Luggage sidled closer to him and Xander reached out and patted it - started working on a buckle. The warriors stirred and tramped down the long-house toward them.

"Traitor," Spike muttered - glanced up at the approaching line of scowling, bearded faces and shiny spears. "Oh, bloody hell, Xan, fuck your trousers; find that bloody dictionary, would you?"

"Yeah, yeah, dictionary - wait - here." Xander held out a sheaf of heavily red-marked paper and Spike snatched it from him - stood up and opened his mouth. Closed his mouth. Stared at the pages for a long, long moment.

Xander's leg started to bounce on the dirt-and-reed-and-animal-waste floor. "Well? Tell them! Explain! We come in peace and all that!" Xander scrambled up from his sprawl by the luggage and Spike wordlessly shoved the pages at him. Xander recoiled. "I can't read Giles' handwriting!" he yelped. "Or Viking!"

"Doesn't matter, it's not Viking. It's - bloody hell." Spike looked at the ring of grim-faced Vikings who had surrounded them - looked down at the Luggage, who was trailing a Construction Workers Do It With Tools t-shirt and a pair of gym-socks out of its - edges. "Got any whiskey in there?"

The Luggage creaked open - snapped shut - and huddled into Xander's shins, looking crestfallen.

"I didn't think so."

"That's his notes. From when the Council came!" Xander snatched the papers out of Spike's hand, goggling. "That's the jelly-doughnut stain from when I dropped that box of African fetishes and this - this -" Xander rattled the papers, pointing. "This is where he said that he wouldn't mind feeding that Quentin guy to Glorificus! See? In the special red ink!"

Spike peered at the paper. "I don't think that's ink -"

"Glorificus?" Xander and Spike both turned slowly at the new voice.

"Christ. Even the Vikings had Watchers."

Part Four

"Giles? What's this?"

"That? That is...lemme...see -" Giles leaned way over and his tea - which had gone from hot and dark to room temperature and clear amber - sloshed over the lip of his cup. Onto Tara's cleavage. Tara yelped and Giles gazed owlishly at her.

"Oh, bloody hell. Sorry 'bout that! Lemme -" Giles clumsily pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swiped at Tara's shirt-front.

"Giles! Stop feeling up my girlfriend!" Willow squeaked.

"M'not feeling up your -" Giles said hotly, then he looked down and froze, his hand on Tara's breast. Tara was edging away. "Oh, umm..."

"Giles! Sit down." Buffy pushed her tipsy Watcher into a chair and gave Tara a sympathetic look. Tara held out the sheaf of whisky-spotted paper she'd been holding.

"I don't think we sent them the dictionary."

"I don't think you need anymore of that," Willow said, taking Giles' tea cup and getting between him and Tara. Tara pulled her shirt out from her body and wrinkled her nose.

"This stinks. How can you drink this?"

"Quite bloody easily," Giles muttered, and made a grab for his cup. Willow levitated it over to the counter.

Buffy tossed the papers to the table. "Tara's right. We didn't send the dictionary. How are they gonna tell the Vikings what we need? How are we gonna get this box? Glory's out there, stalking my friends and my Watcher's getting -"

"Squiffed!" Giles crowed and then giggled. "Not to worry Buff-fee. Sounds like a poodle, don't you think? Spike'll - fig'ger it all out."

"And how do you 'figger' that?" Buffy growled, Slayer-scowl that didn't seem to be intimidating Giles at all.

Giles leaned back in his chair, staring blearily up at the ceiling. "Knew a minute ago," he said and then toppled bonelessly out of the chair to the floor. The three women stared at him. He started to snore.

"He's been under a l-lot of stress," Tara said. Buffy picked up the bottle of whiskey that had rolled under the table and uncapped it.

"Me too." Buffy held her nose, lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a long drink. "Bleauughh!"

"This isn't so bad. Don't you think? I mean - could be worse. Right?"

"Yeah, we could be dead. Well, you could be dead and I could be trying to fend off an entire village full of blood-crazed Vikings who just realized I'm not human."

Xander stared at Spike, who stared back. "You're such a Pollyanna, Spike."

"Insufferable git," Spike huffed, but it was hard to be pissed off when a giggly teen-age girl in nothing but a water-soaked linen smock was scrubbing cow-shite off your back. Spike leaned into the rough, sudsy rag and purred, and the girl giggled again.

"Hey! You're not supposed to be enjoying that! You're gay!" Xander obligingly lifted his arm so his bath-girl could get at his ribs.

"So're you, you wanker," Spike said, glancing slyly at Xander's semi-erection. Xander hastily covered up.

"She wouldn't stop with the scrubbing! I was clean. It's just a - an involuntary physical reaction!"

"Uh huh. Bloody hell -" Spike sputtered as his bath-girl dumped a bucketful of steaming water over his head. Spike spit water out of his mouth and then shook his head like a dog. Both girls giggled this time. "At least it's warm."

"Yeah." Xander closed his eyes as he was rinsed off - opened them again as a blast of cold air whipped around them as someone came inside the bath-house.

"Oi! Oh. It's the Watcher." Spike stared at the tall, older man. The man with sandy-brown hair and a very familiar glint in his eyes. The man stared back, muffled in a heavy leather cloak that seemed to be lined with fox-skins.

"He's not a Watcher."

"Looks like a Watcher. Looks like our Watcher. Uh - your Watcher. Whatever," Spike said, looking shifty.

"I knew you liked Giles," Xander muttered, taking a length of linen from his girl and winding it around his body, toga-like. He went over to the fire in the center of the room and wrung out his hair.

"I do not like Giles. He's just - fellow expat, is all. Have to stick together." Spike got his own towel and rubbed himself down briskly - wrapped up like a mummy and huddled close to the fire as the door opened again.

"Ex what? Hey! Leave it alone!" Xander tripped over the length of linen as he hurried over to the door. The Luggage was struggling to get in while a burly Viking was trying to drag it out. The Luggage snapped at the man's hands and he jumped back. Xander snatched it up by the handle and retreated to the fire, clutching it close.

The Luggage did it's best to snuggle in but only succeeded in kicking Xander in the stomach with a hoof. Xander hastily put it down, giving it a little pat. The Luggage wiggled happily.

"Got my clothes in there, then?" Spike asked. The Luggage gaped obligingly, revealing a sea of tangled clothes and shoes. And something - red - and something shiny that Spike dove for with a happy cry. "Bloody brilliant!" He held up his flask and a carton of smokes and Xander rolled his eyes.

"Oh great. Guess Giles packed."

Spike took a surreptitious sniff. "Nope. Glinda. Bless her heart."

"S-spike," the older man said, tugging at Spike's towel.

"What now, Watcher? Fuck - not Watcher. Skald. Bloody bookkeeper of the gods, is what you are."

"Necesse est nobis colloqui de Bestia."

Spike ran that through his head a few times, translating. 'We must speak about the Beast.' Too bloody right, they must. "Vero," Spike agreed - turned and hastily dug through the Luggage for his clothes, sliding on jeans and stamping happily into his boots. Coat on - fags in his pocket - flask in his hand. He felt like himself again. Xander was looking lost.

"You're gonna go talk in some language I don't know and make plans, aren't you? And I'm gonna be going 'huh?' for hours on end. Why couldn't Willow have magiced up a universal translator or something?"

Spike rolled his eyes - lit a cigarette. "I'll tell 'em to find you a nice serving wench or something, keep you occupied."

"Gay now, Spike, for fuck's sake! And - besides - I didn't bring any condoms - what if she got pregnant? I'd be like - the worst deadbeat dad ever!"

"Might have to get her pregnant, eh?" Spike said, letting the skald drag him towards the door, waving a rune-covered scroll at him. "Might have to make your own great-great-great-sodding-something-or-other."

Xander got a funny look on his face for a moment. "I - what? We're not Vikings! We're - we're Episcopalians!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake -" Spike uncapped his flask and drank deep.

Xander dug into the Luggage, hauling out an armful of clothes. "I'm coming with you. You are not going to be alone with Deadboy's ancestor." Xander dressed fast while Spike smoked in hard little puffs and the skald edged away from the Luggage, who was prowling the edges of the room as if looking for something. When Xander shrugged on a heavy, fleece-lined jacket the Luggage sidled up and nudged him - opened its lid.

"Yeah? What is it? Oh!" Xander bent and snatched something - stood up grinning, a box of Twinkies in his hands. "I think I'm in love with Tara."

"You and me both," Spike said and took a long pull of whiskey. Then they were herded out into the snow, back toward the longhouse. The Luggage skittered behind, hooves slipping in the ice.

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