Blargh.
I don't much like it, but what can you do. For offspeed cause she bugged me for it. Um, it's dirty baseball porn (shocker!), so don't read if you don't like that. Also heavy religious angst, and dumb writing. Maroth/Farns, ha ha, everyone involved will go to Hell for this one.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
Keep from Sin
Thirty steps from his locker to the showers. Head down, counting the tips of his sandals as they rolled into view, step by step. Fifteen minutes to wash the game from his back, eyes closed, soap found by questing fingers. Thirty steps back, head down, head down. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and raucous laughter disturbs his count and catches his head, pulls it up on invisible strings, unwilling. The count wasted, and now he's looking at the lockerroom, at the source of the laughter, which is 10 steps away wearing a towel slung low on defined hips and nothing else. Farnsworth gestures again, demonstrating how it was, how the deer just fell over, just so, and his audience of bullpen pitchers laughs appreciatively again.
Maroth watches the way the muscles of Farnsworth's bare back twist and tumble as he gestures. Farnsworth's spine starts at his neck and arches down, down between broad shoulders and sharp muscles and down down down into a dip and the towel. It's like Lucifer's fall from Heaven into Hell, writ large in living flesh, and Maroth's hands tremble as he fastens his cross around his neck. He drags his eyes to the inside of his own locker, to the photo of his wife, pretty and blonde and clean. He presses the cross between his fingers until he can feel the spiderthin lettering on the back, To my Beloved Husband, To Love and To Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Farnsworth laughs again, a rough bark, and Maroth closes his eyes. The cross is cold on his fingers and the engraving sharp like crystalline ice. Sin, he thinks, is when you're losing count.
Thirty steps from his locker to the showers, head down and eyes forward and out of trouble, but the best laid plans of mice and men are never meant to be, Maroth is undone at twenty-eight.
-----------
Dear Lord.
Keep Brooke and Nolan safe. Keep them comforted and happy. Let them be well fed and well rested and secure in the knowledge of Your love.
Keep my mother and father safe. Keep them healthy and active and alert. Let them never know frailty in the goodness of Your love.
Keep my teammates safe. Keep them sound of body and strong of will. Let them come back to this hotel from wherever they may be unharmed by those with ill intentions and untempted by unclean wantons. Though they may not know it, they are deserving of your Love.
Dear Lord.
Keep me strong. Give me will and fortitude. Lend me your strength and your resolve, O Lord, for this is too sore a trial you have set.
Dear Lord.
Keep me from sin.
-----------
The plane ride between two cities that are not home is a long one, and the team wavers between tired and restless, a gray static in the air between the aisles fuzzing brains and dampening sound. Maroth has a scouting report but the pages lie limp on his lap, his hands up by his neck. He feels the chain on which his cross hangs, cold metal edges, runs the links through his fingers. Lips moving silently like a rosary prayer, but he's only counting, one, two, three, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
Across the aisle Farnsworth sprawls, asleep and limbs awry, legs too long for airplane seats, arms too long for airplane armrests. One leg extends out into the aisle, and one hand dangles down nearly to the floor. His head is tilted to one side, his neck smooth with sinew.
Maroth follows the seam of Farnsworth's jeans up his leg, counting stitches, forty-two, forty-three, running the chain of his cross along the tips of his fingers, forward and back. He cannot look away, but it is better to look at stitching than at the forms straining the fabric. Better to keep count, to keep the mind occupied, to concentrate on the one-two-three progression to keep the mind from wandering where it will.
Farnsworth shifts, legs sprawling slightly more open, and no counting will stop the mind, which will wander when it has its way.
Stitches in a baseball, laces on a glove, familiar accountings all, but the trial is too hard.
Maroth closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of twinging airplane air. He holds it until it burns at his lungs, until his head is swelling and separating from his shoulders and floating off into space, red flashbulbs popping in front of his eyes, unclean mind freed from pure body.
He lets out his breath in a slow, slow whistle, so high he only feels it, cannot hear. Probably only dogs can hear it, dogs and the Lord, the moment when he breaks.
-----------
Three unearned runs, but six overall, so three truly earned, and one inning, two outs are all it takes. Spurling glances at him with limpid, wet eyes, ever disunited and gazing at separate things. Maroth does not want to see the ball handed over, his back is turned to the mound and the field, but he is so angry that he cannot remember how many steps it is in this foreign park from mound to dugout steps. He glances back, Soddom and Gomorrah, a flash and he'll be turned to salt right here, a pile of white and crumbling grains.
But there is no flash, only the huddle around the mound, and in the middle of it Spurling looking back at him, ball held loose in his hand. One eye focuses dreamily on Maroth, the other seems to gaze towards the bullpen, where gray jerseys lean on the railing and peer out at the bleeding they can only try to stop. One unfolds, shoulders a broad broad horizontal in the distance, and Maroth turns on his heel.
Screw the count. Screw the count and hit the showers. Brooke is beautiful and pure and loving and he only ever needs her, her love. And the love of Jesus, who loves him despite his little failures and fallings.
He pulls his shirt over his head and reaches for his belt. "Maroth," a voice says, rumble and warm, behind and above, and a hand rests on his shoulder, fingernails short and neat.
"Maroth. You OK?"
-----------
Dear Lord. If You did not see fit to give me my fastball this day, please give me strength to keep from sin.
-----------
Twenty-eight, says his mind. A whistle only dogs can hear. His cross is cold on his bare chest and there's warmth behind him, great steaming warmth like Hellfire and damnation behind a thick velvet curtain, behind an embroidered away jersey.
Fifteen faced and only five outs.
OK?
Maroth shakes his head and leans back into the flames.
-----------
Back to the wall and it's cold on his shoulder blades but warm warm warm on his front, covered in nothing but Farnsworth and his gold cross, still and forever his gold cross, bouncing, glinting. Teeth on his shoulder and he moans, strings cut at his neck so his head falls back, clunks against the wall. Powerful legs force his open and Farnsworth leans in close, covering Maroth with shoulder and chest and hip and thigh. Teeth worry at his lower lip and Maroth runs his tongue out to taste blood right after, iron and hot and richly his.
There's a moment when it's just moment, pure anticipation and not a thought more, not a worry more. Just proximity heat and more proximity heat and for just one moment he thinks something like I am about to rub cocks with my teammate. Just one moment when it's all moment.
Then they meet, fencing, dueling, working in concert, and it's a hot brand into Maroth, where he feels it burn crisply at the edges of the things he believes in.
Farnsworth snakes a big hand between their abdomens, gets a fistful of them both, fingers splaying and stretching to accomodate, palm and finger tips forcing them into pefect contact, top to bottom. Maroth is shaking as Farnsworth begins to move his hand, up and down, slow and steady, fingers sliding as much as they can without loosening their grip.
He has to reach up and hold on about Farnsworth's shoulders, anchoring himself, he's shaking so badly. He feels shoulder muscles twitching under his forearms as Farnsworth moves the hand between them faster, heated rub and sparking along length.
Farnsworth's free hand comes up and gets under Maroth's chin, cradles with deceptive gentleness and forces up with no discussion. There is no break in the movements of his other hand, and Maroth wonders how many, and when, and where, and who, because this is hard and bright and not a first time for half of them. Farnsworth holds his chin steady and stares into his face. Maroth does not know what he sees there, but Farnsworth adds a twist to his motions and Maroth begins to pant.
"Look at you," Farnsworth rumbles, words caught deep in his chest and Maroth can feel them vibrate against his collarbone, or maybe that's him shaking, because he's close, it's close, one, two, three, four.
"God, look at you," Farnsworth breathes, heavy and low, and there's the flash of light, the burst of incadesence in the center of his mind that will spread outwards until he's nothing more than a pile of white white salt, a sinful soul who looked back and turned into a shining and crumbling pillar.
-----------
Dear Lord, keep Brooke and Nolan safe and happy. Keep them free from taint and let me not taint them with my sin.
Dear Lord, keep my mother and father safe and happy. Keep them free from worry and knowledge of my sin.
Dear Lord, keep my teammates safe and happy. Keep them careless and unsuspecting of my sin.
Dear Lord, keep Kyle safe and happy.
Dear Lord, he does not worry about what is done under cover of night or flimsy excuse. He does not feel remorse or shame. Dear Lord, I am not even certain it is sin for him.
The Lord is good and the Lord is just, and You died for our sins and watch over us with Your love.
He does not lose count.
He never was keeping count in the first place.
You never made him need to keep count, for he does not count this, not as sin or any other kind of accounting.
Dear Lord, keep me from sin.
Whatever that may be.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
Keep from Sin
Thirty steps from his locker to the showers. Head down, counting the tips of his sandals as they rolled into view, step by step. Fifteen minutes to wash the game from his back, eyes closed, soap found by questing fingers. Thirty steps back, head down, head down. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and raucous laughter disturbs his count and catches his head, pulls it up on invisible strings, unwilling. The count wasted, and now he's looking at the lockerroom, at the source of the laughter, which is 10 steps away wearing a towel slung low on defined hips and nothing else. Farnsworth gestures again, demonstrating how it was, how the deer just fell over, just so, and his audience of bullpen pitchers laughs appreciatively again.
Maroth watches the way the muscles of Farnsworth's bare back twist and tumble as he gestures. Farnsworth's spine starts at his neck and arches down, down between broad shoulders and sharp muscles and down down down into a dip and the towel. It's like Lucifer's fall from Heaven into Hell, writ large in living flesh, and Maroth's hands tremble as he fastens his cross around his neck. He drags his eyes to the inside of his own locker, to the photo of his wife, pretty and blonde and clean. He presses the cross between his fingers until he can feel the spiderthin lettering on the back, To my Beloved Husband, To Love and To Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Farnsworth laughs again, a rough bark, and Maroth closes his eyes. The cross is cold on his fingers and the engraving sharp like crystalline ice. Sin, he thinks, is when you're losing count.
Thirty steps from his locker to the showers, head down and eyes forward and out of trouble, but the best laid plans of mice and men are never meant to be, Maroth is undone at twenty-eight.
-----------
Dear Lord.
Keep Brooke and Nolan safe. Keep them comforted and happy. Let them be well fed and well rested and secure in the knowledge of Your love.
Keep my mother and father safe. Keep them healthy and active and alert. Let them never know frailty in the goodness of Your love.
Keep my teammates safe. Keep them sound of body and strong of will. Let them come back to this hotel from wherever they may be unharmed by those with ill intentions and untempted by unclean wantons. Though they may not know it, they are deserving of your Love.
Dear Lord.
Keep me strong. Give me will and fortitude. Lend me your strength and your resolve, O Lord, for this is too sore a trial you have set.
Dear Lord.
Keep me from sin.
-----------
The plane ride between two cities that are not home is a long one, and the team wavers between tired and restless, a gray static in the air between the aisles fuzzing brains and dampening sound. Maroth has a scouting report but the pages lie limp on his lap, his hands up by his neck. He feels the chain on which his cross hangs, cold metal edges, runs the links through his fingers. Lips moving silently like a rosary prayer, but he's only counting, one, two, three, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
Across the aisle Farnsworth sprawls, asleep and limbs awry, legs too long for airplane seats, arms too long for airplane armrests. One leg extends out into the aisle, and one hand dangles down nearly to the floor. His head is tilted to one side, his neck smooth with sinew.
Maroth follows the seam of Farnsworth's jeans up his leg, counting stitches, forty-two, forty-three, running the chain of his cross along the tips of his fingers, forward and back. He cannot look away, but it is better to look at stitching than at the forms straining the fabric. Better to keep count, to keep the mind occupied, to concentrate on the one-two-three progression to keep the mind from wandering where it will.
Farnsworth shifts, legs sprawling slightly more open, and no counting will stop the mind, which will wander when it has its way.
Stitches in a baseball, laces on a glove, familiar accountings all, but the trial is too hard.
Maroth closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of twinging airplane air. He holds it until it burns at his lungs, until his head is swelling and separating from his shoulders and floating off into space, red flashbulbs popping in front of his eyes, unclean mind freed from pure body.
He lets out his breath in a slow, slow whistle, so high he only feels it, cannot hear. Probably only dogs can hear it, dogs and the Lord, the moment when he breaks.
-----------
Three unearned runs, but six overall, so three truly earned, and one inning, two outs are all it takes. Spurling glances at him with limpid, wet eyes, ever disunited and gazing at separate things. Maroth does not want to see the ball handed over, his back is turned to the mound and the field, but he is so angry that he cannot remember how many steps it is in this foreign park from mound to dugout steps. He glances back, Soddom and Gomorrah, a flash and he'll be turned to salt right here, a pile of white and crumbling grains.
But there is no flash, only the huddle around the mound, and in the middle of it Spurling looking back at him, ball held loose in his hand. One eye focuses dreamily on Maroth, the other seems to gaze towards the bullpen, where gray jerseys lean on the railing and peer out at the bleeding they can only try to stop. One unfolds, shoulders a broad broad horizontal in the distance, and Maroth turns on his heel.
Screw the count. Screw the count and hit the showers. Brooke is beautiful and pure and loving and he only ever needs her, her love. And the love of Jesus, who loves him despite his little failures and fallings.
He pulls his shirt over his head and reaches for his belt. "Maroth," a voice says, rumble and warm, behind and above, and a hand rests on his shoulder, fingernails short and neat.
"Maroth. You OK?"
-----------
Dear Lord. If You did not see fit to give me my fastball this day, please give me strength to keep from sin.
-----------
Twenty-eight, says his mind. A whistle only dogs can hear. His cross is cold on his bare chest and there's warmth behind him, great steaming warmth like Hellfire and damnation behind a thick velvet curtain, behind an embroidered away jersey.
Fifteen faced and only five outs.
OK?
Maroth shakes his head and leans back into the flames.
-----------
Back to the wall and it's cold on his shoulder blades but warm warm warm on his front, covered in nothing but Farnsworth and his gold cross, still and forever his gold cross, bouncing, glinting. Teeth on his shoulder and he moans, strings cut at his neck so his head falls back, clunks against the wall. Powerful legs force his open and Farnsworth leans in close, covering Maroth with shoulder and chest and hip and thigh. Teeth worry at his lower lip and Maroth runs his tongue out to taste blood right after, iron and hot and richly his.
There's a moment when it's just moment, pure anticipation and not a thought more, not a worry more. Just proximity heat and more proximity heat and for just one moment he thinks something like I am about to rub cocks with my teammate. Just one moment when it's all moment.
Then they meet, fencing, dueling, working in concert, and it's a hot brand into Maroth, where he feels it burn crisply at the edges of the things he believes in.
Farnsworth snakes a big hand between their abdomens, gets a fistful of them both, fingers splaying and stretching to accomodate, palm and finger tips forcing them into pefect contact, top to bottom. Maroth is shaking as Farnsworth begins to move his hand, up and down, slow and steady, fingers sliding as much as they can without loosening their grip.
He has to reach up and hold on about Farnsworth's shoulders, anchoring himself, he's shaking so badly. He feels shoulder muscles twitching under his forearms as Farnsworth moves the hand between them faster, heated rub and sparking along length.
Farnsworth's free hand comes up and gets under Maroth's chin, cradles with deceptive gentleness and forces up with no discussion. There is no break in the movements of his other hand, and Maroth wonders how many, and when, and where, and who, because this is hard and bright and not a first time for half of them. Farnsworth holds his chin steady and stares into his face. Maroth does not know what he sees there, but Farnsworth adds a twist to his motions and Maroth begins to pant.
"Look at you," Farnsworth rumbles, words caught deep in his chest and Maroth can feel them vibrate against his collarbone, or maybe that's him shaking, because he's close, it's close, one, two, three, four.
"God, look at you," Farnsworth breathes, heavy and low, and there's the flash of light, the burst of incadesence in the center of his mind that will spread outwards until he's nothing more than a pile of white white salt, a sinful soul who looked back and turned into a shining and crumbling pillar.
-----------
Dear Lord, keep Brooke and Nolan safe and happy. Keep them free from taint and let me not taint them with my sin.
Dear Lord, keep my mother and father safe and happy. Keep them free from worry and knowledge of my sin.
Dear Lord, keep my teammates safe and happy. Keep them careless and unsuspecting of my sin.
Dear Lord, keep Kyle safe and happy.
Dear Lord, he does not worry about what is done under cover of night or flimsy excuse. He does not feel remorse or shame. Dear Lord, I am not even certain it is sin for him.
The Lord is good and the Lord is just, and You died for our sins and watch over us with Your love.
He does not lose count.
He never was keeping count in the first place.
You never made him need to keep count, for he does not count this, not as sin or any other kind of accounting.
Dear Lord, keep me from sin.
Whatever that may be.