#until one of them breaks the truce and then they hightail it to kill the twin first thing in the round even if it gets them caught | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dramaticviolincrescendo · 4 years

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(How to Break the) Alibi Armistice

So, @gallavictorious and I were talking about the logistic problems with Mickey and Terry (a) wanting to brutally murder one other and (b) frequenting the same places. (Read: The Alibi Room.) Could be sorted by Terry just going the hell away, of course, but where's the fun in that? (Okay, sure, there's some fun in Mickey murdering the shit out of Terry, but that's such a simplistic solution and we're sophisticated women. Also, you can only kill him once, but you can make his life miserable forever.)

Anyway. We're thinking it might go down a little like this:

The first time they see Terry after the wedding is at the Alibi. He isn’t alone, but he’s the only one that matters considering the whole burning-down-their-venue debacle. And yeah, they could probably have played it cool, ignored him — not like he’d do something with a whole bar full of witnesses, right? But Ian still suggests they go home or come back later, which Mickey is not having.

“I’ve been drinking here since I was fourteen. I’m not fucking leaving. He tries to start shit, I will sink his teeth so deep into that bar that he’ll be shitting splinters for weeks.”

So that’s that.

Mickey heads to the bar, but before he can order, Terry does indeed step in to start shit. Mickey doesn’t really pay attention to what he says — something about not serving pansies here or whatever the fuck. He’s too busy cataloguing the various ways he can get Terry alone for a few minutes in the alley before Ian wises up. Then he realizes that oh, they’re already in each other’s faces and oh, they’ve got each other by the collar. The fuck did that happen?

Things would have turned bloody then – which would have suited Mickey just fine – had Kev not stepped in and calmly declared that if either of them started whaling on the other, they'd both be banned from the bar. Forever.

That actually gives them pause. The Alibi's a shit hole, but it's their shit hole and has been for a long time.

Terry's blood-shot eyes turn from Mickey to Kev; the malevolence remains. “You try to stop me from coming here, I'll come back with a goddamn flame-thrower.”

If Kev is unnerved, he doesn't show it. “I don't wanna stop anybody from coming here. But if you do, you have to play nice. No murdering each other. No violence.”

And of course, Mickey is far from amused because, “You came to our fucking wedding, but you won't take sides when the asshole who tried to murder us picks a fight?” Deep down, though, he gets it. The Alibi Room has always been neutral ground. Besides, it's not like Terry's fucking joking about burning the thing down, so. It is what it is.

And maybe no one likes it, maybe no one is totally happy in the end, but they both reluctantly agree, to everyone else's great relief. Kev doesn't try anything as stupid as making them shake hands; he just waits until Terry has retreated to the pool table before pouring Mickey a beer and a shot and asking Ian how's work.

That’s how the truce is born.

It even lasts for a while, to the utter bafflement of everyone on the South Side, from the transplanted gentrifying assholes to the lifers. Truth be told, it’s mostly due to neither party having much opportunity, or reason, to break the rules. When Ian and Mickey are at the Alibi, Terry generally isn’t; they assume that he visits during their longer stints drinking at home when the money is tighter and Kev less free with the booze.

Sometimes, Ian will see him there when he stops in on his own, and they ignore each other like they always have whenever Terry isn’t suspecting Ian of sleeping with one of his kids—or catching him at it. Other times, Mickey’s the one who spots him, but Terry doesn’t seem very interested in forcing a confrontation when Mickey’s husband isn’t standing beside him like the tallest, orangest fucking pride flag in Chicago. Doesn’t mean Mickey isn’t occasionally tempted to stick his foot up the bastard’s ass, but Kev always manages to shoot him a glance in silent reminder and he grudgingly downs his glass before hightailing it out every time.

It works. They drink, and nobody leaves in a body bag. All in all, the ceasefire is a success: Kev gets to run his business in peace, and while nobody really wins, nobody really loses either.

At least not until peace gets boring as hell.

It happens on a Thursday, and the evening starts off just like any other night they've managed to ditch their responsibilities at the house: they meet up at the Alibi after work for drinks and a chance to be just Ian and Mickey rather than uncles/brothers/responsible adults. Like any other night, they're talking and laughing and Ian has one beer, Mickey three.

It's not very exciting, maybe, but it's theirs and it's nice – until Terry steps through the door with Uncle Ronnie in tow. It takes the evil fucker all of two seconds to spot Mickey, then spot his husband too, seated in one of the booths at the far side of the room. For a moment, father and son simply stare at each other, and had anyone else dared to look for more than the briefest of moments, they'd have seen the cold rage slowly give way to cunning malevolence on Terry's face. He doesn't say anything; he orders a beer and heads straight for the pool table and tells Uncle Ronnie to rack up.

And then Terry starts talking. Keeping his eyes on the game, on Uncle Ronnie, on anything that isn't Ian and Mickey—he talks, loudly and at length, of what he did to this queer and that, in prison and outside.

These...are not nice stories. Not very detailed, true, but...yeah. They're not nice.

There's a hush growing in the bar, as patron after patron falls silent, and their eyes dart between the foulmouthed man by the pool table and his son, still and stone-faced at a table nearby. Behind the counter, Kev stands frozen in the process of wiping down a foggy glass, watching and waiting to see if he should grab the broom now or later.

“He's just trying to provoke you,” Ian says urgently, and his voice is almost steady in spite of it taking damn near everything he has not to get up and run Terry through with the damn cue stick. “He wants you to go for him. Break the truce, get barred.”

His eyes are on Mickey's face, intent and ready to jump into action the second Mickey makes his move.

“Yeah, I know.”

And here's the thing: Mickey sounds calm. This doesn't reassure Ian, because Mickey calm sometimes just means him taking a second to savor the fact that he's about to unleash absolute hell, but then Mickey shifts his gaze from his utter asshole of a father and to Ian. There's a small smile on his lips; it's a sharp thing, true, but a smile all the same. “He wants fucking queer? We'll give him fucking queer.” And he reaches out for Ian and pulls him into a long, hard kiss.

It takes a second for Ian’s brain to reboot enough to break away, hissing, “In front of your dad?!”

“The fuck’s it look like?”

“He’s gonna kill you. Then I’ll be a widower for three seconds until he kills me.”

Mickey’s eyebrows don’t slam into his hairline, but it’s a near miss. “What, are you scared, Gallagher?”

Ian…isn’t. He used to be scared of Terry back when they were kids and he was this dark, shadowy figure who could make Mickey do whatever he wanted simply by virtue of being his father. But they are past that. Terry, like Frank, is old. Terry, like Frank, doesn’t have any power over his kids now. Terry is a blot on their past, but he has no bearing on their future.

Which is exactly what Mickey’s getting at.

So Ian shrugs and Mickey nods like he did at the docks, not having to say uh huh, that’s what I thought.

And he leans back in because hey, if Terry does kill them, at least they’ll make it worth the trouble.

It’s a little awkward, what with the table between them, but they have long been pros at not being kept apart. Leaning over the table, Ian cradles the back of Mickey’s head; Mickey’s hand is on Ian’s neck and the other on his upper arm, clutching at the fabric of his jacket. There's nothing chaste about this, nothing sweet. It's desire and defiance, lips and tongues and teeth, Mickey's fingers digging into Ian's arm, Ian's twisting in Mickey's hair as he pulls him closer, closer, closer.

(It's another thing Ian blames and hates Terry for. Mickey loves to kiss, loves being kissed, and yet he wouldn't allow it, not for their first year and not for much of their second. No matter how often they stop for a playful peck or something more serious and passionate now, they'll never make up for those lost years and all the kisses they should have shared then.

They sure as hell can try, though.)

It goes on and on. The initial frustration shifts into something softer and more real as any thought of Terry – or anyone – fades and becomes a faraway thing. There is Mickey and there is Ian, and the taste and the smell and feel of the other, and they've done this a thousands times and yet –

And yet.

And yet it takes a distant vibration and the sound of glass on wood before they hear Kev clear his throat. “Uh, he’s gone. Been gone for ten minutes.”

Mickey pulls back first and leans over to see past Ian’s shoulder that yeah, Terry’s gone. Nobody appears to be talking about him or them either, so Kev probably isn’t exaggerating about how long they’ve obliviously been at it, especially considering he’s got that dumb smirk on and won’t meet their gazes as he turns back towards the bar.

And speaking of dumb, Ian is still staring at him like he did after their first kiss, all gooey and gross as if they haven’t done this so often that none of the Gallaghers even complain anymore. Jesus. Leave it to Ian not to have learned how to play shit cool after all these years.

But what can a guy do when Mickey’s husband is watching him like he farts rainbows, and like he doesn’t give a shit about why they’d attacked each other’s faces in the first place? Mickey doesn’t blame him; he’s having a hard time remembering too right now.

He dives back in, because why not? Their ceasefire says no violence, so (almost) any and all displays of affection are well within the rules. He puts his hand on the side of Ian’s neck where it’s always fit best and reels Ian in, despite how much easier it would’ve been to get on his side of the booth this time.

“Thought this was about your dad,” Ian mutters into his lips because of course he can’t shut his mouth to save his life.

Mickey shrugs - “Fuck ‘im” - and gives him something better to do with that mouth.

#shameless us #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #gallavich #meta ficlet #terry milkovich #kevin ball #this has been a Kee and Noelle production

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youngster-monster · 7 years

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In which Kael’thas is small — that’s it, that’s the joke

Read on AO3

Sin’dorei aren’t really on the small side of the height spectrum. They’re not on the tall side either: they stay on a nice, comfortable medium, somewhere around six feet high. Their average is average. If nothing else, it’s a nice change from their usual eccentricity.

Bus Kael’thas just can’t be like everyone else, now, can he? Royalty, member of the Kirin Tor, blood mage, savior of the sin’dorei. 5′5′‘ tall.

It’s been something of an issue in the past.

(“Chieftain Bloodhoof,” He greets, and the Tauren looks around in puzzlement. “No— Urgh. Down there, Chieftain.”)

But there’s a difference between off-hands comment on your height by members of allied nations — which he has come to see as an annoying but apparently necessary part of life — and deliberate offense from some half-demon, hero-wannabe asshole with a savior complexe.

(Demon hunters, as a rule, are unpleasant to work with. A consequence, he supposes, of the gruesome ritual responsible for their powers and demonic appendages. Or maybe their difficult personnality is a requirement for the role? Both are equally likely.)

“Come again?” Kael’thas says, too shocked to come up with anything smarter at the sheer audacity of it.

“What, do I need to speak up to be heard from down there?” The seven-foot-tall purple dick says and smile.

Anger simmers just under Kael’thas’s skin and his cold, polite smile freezes and twists into something sharper, crueller. And then he kicks his leg up as hard as he can in the stranger’s crotch.

The man is surprised enough by the attack that he bends forward with a pained grunt. Kael’thas uses the distraction to close his hand around one of his horn and pull him down to eye level, a whopping two feet lower than he usually stands. Kael’thas, because of his apparently natural inability to be average, is stronger than most mages, and the demon hunter is in too awkward a position to break his grip.

Kael’thas narrows his eyes and hisses, low enough that nobody else would hear his rather un-kingly manners, “Call me small one more time and I’ll shove my flaming, magical sword up your ass, are we clear?”

His magic answers to his irritation with small, golden flames that curl around his fingers and lick at the horn in their grip. The demon hunter flinches.

“Are we clear?” Kael’thas repeats, tightening his hold.

“Y-Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

Kael’thas lets him go. Footsteps echoes in the corridors, an odd hooves-life sound on the dark stones. Another Illidari, he suspects.

He could probably take on two of those nuisances if he had to: he’s one of the most powerful mage on the continent, if not the world, and even without that his status as the king of the kingdom of Quel’thalas gives him absolute diplomatic immunity. That doesn’t mean he want to test his chance; he turns around and walk away before it comes to that.

Kael’thas is stopped by a voice.

“What have you done this time, Eltarel,” The voice says, perfectly deadpan, like it’s a common occurence.

The demon hunter — Eltarel, apparently — must think Kael’thas far enough not to overhear, or maybe he doesn’t care, because he immediately starts to rant. “I was just talking to this elf and he freaked out on me, my lord! Threatened me, even!”

“And that cowed you into submission?”

“Well, no, but he seemed important and I wouldn’t want to risk our alliance by maiming a diplomat or something.”

“And yet, knowing this, you still decided to insult him?” The voice sounds profoundly unimpressed now.

“I—”

There’s a sound like someone getting hit in the head hard enough to stumble and the voice grumbles something Kael’thas doesn’t catch before saying, louder, “I knew most of you went a bit mad with the transformation but I didn’t expect you to get stupid as well."

Satisfied — and a bit curious now—, he walks away as quietly as he can, toward the council chambers, in which Kael’thas was supposed to be ten minutes ago. Well, nothing like being fashionably late.

An hour later Kael’thas is tired, irritated, and feeling like stabbing someone in the throat. The truce between the Horde and the Alliance is fragile on a good day and if it’ll be a miracle in itself if it’s still holding by the end of the day, given how this meeting is going.

As what appears to be the most rational one of the lot, Kael’thas wishes for the good old days of the all-out war between the two factions. At least then he didn’t have to listen to Sylvanas and Anduin bicker (or, as it is, throw threats of death on each others’ loved ones).

Lorewalker Cho — wonderful, impartial, calm Cho — has called for a break in the negotiations. Most leader have basically fled the room but Kael’thas doesn’t have the energy for it. He kind of just— slumps on his uncomfortable chair and lets his head fall on the table in front of him. Maybe he could just pretend to be deathly sick and go back home — maybe magical addiction is making its comeback in the blood elves’ ranks, what would they know about it.

He wishes he had delegated this particular duty to Lor’themar instead. Last time he saw him, his second-in-command seemed awfully happy to be alive and eager to help: he ought to change that. Misery loves company and diplomatic misery most of all.

A steaming cup is put next to his elbow. He lifts his head wearily, sees it’s green tea, and offers a grateful and rather pathetic smile to the lovely pandaren who brought it. She rolls her eyes and pats his shoulder in silent support.

It’s nice to know no one’s happy to be there.

Sipping the beverage like it’s not approximatively around the temperature of the sun, Kael’thas looks around the emptied room. Thrall and Vol’jin are talking in low tones at the other side of the room; Sylvanas is leaning back in her chair and appears to be napping — curious, he thought evil never rests.

(She became somewhat of a reluctant friend in the past decades, and on most days he greatly enjoys her company, but by the Light he will strangle her with his two bare hands if she opens her mouth just one other time in this damned meeting.)

He notices movement in the corner of his eyes. He turns around and sees— Malfurion Stormrage, who has the annoying habit to go unnoticed until he decides to come out of the shadows and scare a century off Kael’thas’s lifespan with his sudden apparition. The druid is discussing with a demon hunter; the dark, freakishly tall figure is easily recognisable as Illidan Stormrage, the fabled twin. Kael’thas thinks the can see some kind of family ressemblance in there— the horns-wings combo, maybe? They’re both purple, that’s something.

The room is mostly silent and the brothers aren’t making any effort to be particularily secretive. Really, no one could say it was Kael’thas’s fault for overhearing the discussion.

“You’re late, as always.”

“Well, if ten thousand years of imprisonment didn’t teach me the value of punctuality, those boring meetings sure won’t.” An unintelligible reply from Malfurion to which he replies, “What, too soon?”

A sigh, a lull in the discussion. Illidan breaks the silence by asking, “How’s it going, anyway? Anybody’s killed anyone yet?”

“Fortunately not, thanks Elune.”

“As I said: boring.” He has an oddly charming smile, a mischevious, kind-of cocky grin. “I kind of miss the times when they resolved their issues by throwing punches.”

“trust me, you don’t.”

“Well, at least there weren’t as many peace meetings. What is it the goblins say? ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’?”

Malfurion huffs a laugh. “There is so much wrong about what you just said I don’t know where to start.”

That’s when it hits Kael’thas; the voice in the corridor was Illidan’s. He’s surprised he didn’t recognize it, but then again, the last time Kael’thas saw the Betrayer (or whatever they call him now), Illidan was offering a solution to all of his problems in exchange for his help against the Legion. A nice, straightforward job offer that Kael’thas refused on the spot, because he’s nothing if not a great judge of character and fresh-out-of-immortal-prison Illidan was shady.

Death apparently had a good effect on that, at least. Illidan seems a bit less hellbent on the destruction of all living things now. Not by much, mind you, but a little.

(Kael’thas also remembers why he had to think about it before making the wise choice of saying ‘hell no’ and hightailing it: Illidan is everything a good night elf should be, with a dangerous twist that takes him from ‘handsome’ to ‘mind-numbingly hot’. Apparently, Kael’thas’s type is ‘dreadlord chic’: he has mixed feelings about the knowledge.)

The Stormrage brothers have stopped talking and there’s a distinct feeling of awkwardness lingering between them. Kael’thas decides to put them both out of their misery and, after mustering up the effort for it, drags himself out of his chair and walks to them.

He circles through the druid’s titles before he settles on, “Archdruid Malfurion. Thank you for resisting the urge to join the screaming match,” He dips his head and lets out a weary sigh. “These meetings are hard enough to begin with without us— ‘stuck-up immortal dickheads’ joining in on the verbal violence.”

Malfurion smiles lightly. “You are quite welcome, King Sunstrider.”

Kael’thas then turns toward Illidan. The man, unlike his brother, is standing and he actually has to crane his neck to hold his eyes, or what passes as eyes in a demon hunter. “Lord Illidan,” He greets neutrally, and resists the urge to tell him that all his subordinates are assholes. He probably already knows. “Good of you to join us.”

He’s not sure himself if it’s a barb at Illidan’s lateness of his infamous habit of doing everything alone and mostly against everyone else. Illidan looks down, the tall bastard, and replies, “King Sunstrider. You are— smaller than I expected you to be.”

“I've been made aware of it, yes.” He crosses his arms over his chest and, deciding to abandon all semblance of polite, careful communication, adds, “Multiple times, in fact. Your demon hunters are a bunch of pricks.”

Welp. His mother would be ashamed of him if she knew.

“So I’ve been told,” Illidan agrees.

There’s a beat, and then—

They both smile, amused and sincere in a way that makes Kael’thas’s face relax after an hour straight of politely not tearing out anyone’s throat with his teeth.

“Oh dear,” Malfurion says. “I have the feeling you two should never have met.”

They get along like a house on fire.

#world of warcraft #illidan stormrage #kael'thas sunstrider #an au that's somewhere post mop and definitely before the broken shores but kael never joined illidan #the most unrealistic thing here is that malfurion isn't an asshole #writing #peace talks au

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