Chapter Text
A sharp pain in his back. Knees buckling, the Viking didn't feel the floor as it broke his nose, dead before he hit the ground. Then, cold. Not like the freezing Norwegian winter. Like getting out of a sauna on a partly cloudy summer's day.
He hadn't seen the English boy, hiding from the raid as the Norsemen carried their gold back to the camp. He didn't think his brothers in front noticed as he fell, their drunken singing far too loud.
Ingmar looked down. Bear fur cloak, leather armour, large sword, long reddish hair with a plaited beard, swirling tattoos. Fatal axe wound. As he studied his own corpse, he realised with a small frown that he was dead. Vikings had no fear of death, but there was the nag at the back of his skull. This was no Valhalla. This was the same place as before. Did a child with a war axe not count as a battle? Perhaps it wasn't enough of a battle to permit entrance to Valhalla, but not the dishonourable death that would've sent him to Hel.
"Big man."
Ingmar turned, looking down from his monumental seven feet seven inches tall. The figure was furred and strange, eyes wide. He smiled with crooked teeth and reached out a hand, touching the large palm of the warrior. "My name Robin." He pointed to himself. "Thought I was alone forever. But you, Big Man. You stay."
This strange man must have been dead too. Alone all this time. Ingmar felt for him, giving him a pat on the back so hard it almost winded him. Robin coughed, the splutters turning to laughs as he punched the Viking in the gut, yelping and shaking the pain from his hand. Ingmar smiled. Ingmar never smiled. He let himself be led by Robin, to what he could only suppose was his new home.
oOo
The others didn't like him. That was fine. They never liked to talk to him. That was fine too. Any room he entered was vacated one ghost at a time. This, also, was fine. He had Robin, someone he had relied on for… Ingmar counted on his fingers…1,276 years.
"Funny man." Robin laughed, nudging his tall, silent friend. "Got furry lip."
The Captain cleared his throat as he peered out of the window. "It's called a moustache, Robin. I daresay mine is better."
Ingmar touched his beard, feeling a little superior where facial hair was concerned. He looked down at The Captain with a scowl, purely a way to get him to notice how majestic his beard was, but as they met eyes, The Captain excused himself with a half baked reason and left the room.
Robin suddenly yelped, drawing Ingmar's attention to outside. "Funny man, he's got hit in the neck!" He wailed, clutching at his hair. "Is he okay?!" As Robin ran through the wall to investigate, Ingmar watched, head tilted. The blue thing the man had climbed into smashed into a tree, a low, constant noise coming from it.
It wasn't long before the others rushed toward him, all flapping mouths and pointing fingers. They never wanted to be near him unless they were ushering him away so he didn't startle a new face. That was fine. He didn't mind sitting in the pantry until the new guy was a little more at ease with his own mortality.
"Don't step on me!" Humphrey called as Ingmar trudged down the hallway. "Boots as big as yours, I wouldn't stand a chance."
He supposed he was right. Still, no harm in lending a hand. He lifted Humphrey's head and set him upright on a chair, making sure he wouldn't fall before turning to walk to his time-out corner.
He wasn't sure why the other ghosts were so afraid of him. He'd never done anything to them. Or said anything to them. Perhaps it was the way Robin described his bloodsoaked past, the villages he razed and English folk he'd slaughtered. It could've been the large sword at his hip, that he liked to polish whenever he sat. Was it the bone necklace or the scars all over his skin? Perhaps it was the war axe protruding from his spinal column. Or how he towered over them saying absolutely nothing and glaring. Maybe it was the fact that if he concentrated hard on the living, he could turn their paranoia of the shadows into the mortal fear of what lurks within them. Hm. No, couldn't have been anything like that. Still, it was fine.
When Robin came to get him, it had been a week. A week by himself so the new ghost wouldn't be afraid of him. But it had been that way for most of the others, him cooped up so the transition from life to death was easier for them. But that was fine.
He was so small. Ingmar almost smiled seeing his wide, startled eyes behind stupid glasses, knees together and hands wrung as he stared skyward. This man was no warrior, as The Captain was. No, he was a weakling, the sort that would've been put out to die at birth.
Ingmar expected a whimper, or a scream, or a polite excuse and a swift exit, which would've been fine. He did not expect a hand, held out toward him, with a smile that was so bright that he felt as though it was warming him.
"Hello, I'm Pat! You're tall, aren't you? I like your beard, very fashionable! What can I call you?"
After a small pause, the Viking took the small man's hand in his own, the size difference almost comical, and roughly shook his whole arm, something that seemed to amuse Pat as his glasses were knocked askew. He massaged his shoulder with a wince when he was released, still smiling.
"Ingmar Skaldsson." He rumbled, the others startled at the sound of his voice.
"Ingmar! I like it!" Pat chimed with all the happiness of someone who didn't just have their arm almost ripped out of its socket by a 7'7" Viking ghost. "I was thinking of setting up some nice group activities, so we can all get a chance to know each other. Would you like to speak at the first meeting of Food Club?"
Ingmar shook his head.
"Ah, more of a listener, eh?"
Ingmar nodded.
"That's no problem, mate! No problem at all!" With a clap on the arm that was probably harder than it felt, Pat moved to speak to someone else.
"Hey, Big Man." Ingmar turned toward Robin. "You okay?"
Ingmar's lips tugged into possibly one of the first smiles that century. He'd found a very oddly shaped man who seemed to not mind how intimidating he was. He had someone other than Robin to spend time with.
He was fine.