I like the idea of this.
'Though probably none of you will comment.
Via ayrdaomei, and because I just got rid of some old ones and uploaded some new ones.
Have a look at my icons. Comment with the following:
1. One that makes you automatically think of me/one you associate the most with me.
2. One you think I should use more often.
3. One you don't get/needs more explanation/you have no idea why I have it.
and just for the hell of it, anything else you'd like to say about my icons. Any particular favorites or whatever, anything. I'm such an icon fanatic, I love talking about this shit.
Aaand a bit of little pointless Red Sox fic for no good reason at all.
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.
To hit a batter
Matt Clement can always tell, the second it leaves his hand, when a ball is going to cut in and hit the batter. It's not an intentional thing, no, far from it, it's really a thing he hates to have happen, a sign that all is not right in the whirling world of his hands and arms and shoulders and legs and all the pinwheeling joints that make him twirl through his pitching motion.
He can feel it coming off his fingers, see, the tiny cracks and indentations that texture the white leather slipping across his fingertips a little funny, the seams catching wrong on the outsides of his nails. He feels that slide, that catch, and he knows the ball is going to break in farther than he meant, and if the batter can't contort himself out of the way, well. If he's lucky it'll stay low. He knows what it's like to get hit with a baseball travelling that fast, the scaryquick sensation of numb explosion somewhere on your body, be it side or leg or temple, that immediate burst of freezing cold deadness that holds for a second before blossoming into wild, blinding pain, the kind of pain that sears behind your eyes and leaves you breathless, writhing on the ground. He knows that, and he hates to think he's causing it in anyone else.
When he hits the batter in the meat of the thigh, sees the batter hop up in surprise (numb), then fall down, mouth open in a soundless yawp (pain), the trainers racing out of the visitor's dugout with neatly turned-out dark blue polo shirts and thin shell jackets, crisp like potato chip bags, clustering around the plate and forming a wall of muttering heads close together, his heart sinks down so low that it must be under the mound, must be beating sluggishly in the red red mud deep under Fenway. He hangs his head and scuffs his cleats in front of the rubber, drawing thin lines in the dirt, careful to not disturb his heart down there.
Bad enough that he hit the guy, unintentionally, and now there'll be retaliation too, a matter of course, a matter of form, and one of his own teammates will get hit, it won't even be him. He's in the American League now, and his teammates take hits for his mistakes while he sits on the bench, wrapped in a jacket and worry, fingers combing nervously through his thick goatee, trying to guess who will get hit, which of his friends it will be. He took his own lumps on the Cubs, he isn't used to this.
Jason Varitek trots out from behind the plate, partly to get out of the way of the busybeehivemind trainers clustered there, partly to wrap his free arm around Clement's waist, reeling him in close, wide catcher's mitt coming up to shield both their mouths, heads close together. It's OK, Varitek mutters, voice low and smooth, the kind of voice you would use to gentle a skittish horse, no raised tones or emphasis, everything firm and even, it wasn't your fault, you didn't mean it, the ball just slipped, I know it, you know it, Tito knows it, they know it, no hard feelings anywhere on this field or off of it.
Clement shutters his eyes and breathes deeply, inhaling the creaky leather scent of Varitek's glove, inhaling the low rumble of his voice, inhaling the humid warmth of his body, that close. He hardly believes the words, feels no better for them, but feels better for the speaking of them, for the fact that Varitek is here, curled around him like a protective apostrophe in white and red.
Varitek lowers his mitt, pats Clement on the waist with it, rounded soft leather pressing into Clement's jersey, his stomach. Varitek looks at him with concerned eyes, blue like the sky is reflected in them, turned into something quicker and brighter somewhere in that agile catcher's mind.
Clement takes a deep breath through his nose, sucks courage into his heart and his heart back up through the mound, back where it belongs. It comes up with Fenway caked around it, comes up through earth so old Babe Ruth might have trod it, comes up through his socks, red and bright.
A pinch hitter digs in behind the plate, tapping his bat to ready it, and Clement nods, lightly taps Varitek in the chest with all five fingers on his right hand. Varitek releases his waist, nods, crinkles up the corners of his eyes so that the blue thins out into little pools of smiling sky. He flips down his mask and steps off the mound, crouches back behind the plate. The umpire hands him a baseball and he flicks it easily to Clement, everything neat and in its place, like nothing's different, like no one got hit (although they did) and no one will get hit next inning (although they will).
Clement catches it up and rolls it quickly through his hand. The little texturemarks in the leather move easily past his fingertips, and he won't let this one slide.
Via ayrdaomei, and because I just got rid of some old ones and uploaded some new ones.
Have a look at my icons. Comment with the following:
1. One that makes you automatically think of me/one you associate the most with me.
2. One you think I should use more often.
3. One you don't get/needs more explanation/you have no idea why I have it.
and just for the hell of it, anything else you'd like to say about my icons. Any particular favorites or whatever, anything. I'm such an icon fanatic, I love talking about this shit.
Aaand a bit of little pointless Red Sox fic for no good reason at all.
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.
To hit a batter
Matt Clement can always tell, the second it leaves his hand, when a ball is going to cut in and hit the batter. It's not an intentional thing, no, far from it, it's really a thing he hates to have happen, a sign that all is not right in the whirling world of his hands and arms and shoulders and legs and all the pinwheeling joints that make him twirl through his pitching motion.
He can feel it coming off his fingers, see, the tiny cracks and indentations that texture the white leather slipping across his fingertips a little funny, the seams catching wrong on the outsides of his nails. He feels that slide, that catch, and he knows the ball is going to break in farther than he meant, and if the batter can't contort himself out of the way, well. If he's lucky it'll stay low. He knows what it's like to get hit with a baseball travelling that fast, the scaryquick sensation of numb explosion somewhere on your body, be it side or leg or temple, that immediate burst of freezing cold deadness that holds for a second before blossoming into wild, blinding pain, the kind of pain that sears behind your eyes and leaves you breathless, writhing on the ground. He knows that, and he hates to think he's causing it in anyone else.
When he hits the batter in the meat of the thigh, sees the batter hop up in surprise (numb), then fall down, mouth open in a soundless yawp (pain), the trainers racing out of the visitor's dugout with neatly turned-out dark blue polo shirts and thin shell jackets, crisp like potato chip bags, clustering around the plate and forming a wall of muttering heads close together, his heart sinks down so low that it must be under the mound, must be beating sluggishly in the red red mud deep under Fenway. He hangs his head and scuffs his cleats in front of the rubber, drawing thin lines in the dirt, careful to not disturb his heart down there.
Bad enough that he hit the guy, unintentionally, and now there'll be retaliation too, a matter of course, a matter of form, and one of his own teammates will get hit, it won't even be him. He's in the American League now, and his teammates take hits for his mistakes while he sits on the bench, wrapped in a jacket and worry, fingers combing nervously through his thick goatee, trying to guess who will get hit, which of his friends it will be. He took his own lumps on the Cubs, he isn't used to this.
Jason Varitek trots out from behind the plate, partly to get out of the way of the busybeehivemind trainers clustered there, partly to wrap his free arm around Clement's waist, reeling him in close, wide catcher's mitt coming up to shield both their mouths, heads close together. It's OK, Varitek mutters, voice low and smooth, the kind of voice you would use to gentle a skittish horse, no raised tones or emphasis, everything firm and even, it wasn't your fault, you didn't mean it, the ball just slipped, I know it, you know it, Tito knows it, they know it, no hard feelings anywhere on this field or off of it.
Clement shutters his eyes and breathes deeply, inhaling the creaky leather scent of Varitek's glove, inhaling the low rumble of his voice, inhaling the humid warmth of his body, that close. He hardly believes the words, feels no better for them, but feels better for the speaking of them, for the fact that Varitek is here, curled around him like a protective apostrophe in white and red.
Varitek lowers his mitt, pats Clement on the waist with it, rounded soft leather pressing into Clement's jersey, his stomach. Varitek looks at him with concerned eyes, blue like the sky is reflected in them, turned into something quicker and brighter somewhere in that agile catcher's mind.
Clement takes a deep breath through his nose, sucks courage into his heart and his heart back up through the mound, back where it belongs. It comes up with Fenway caked around it, comes up through earth so old Babe Ruth might have trod it, comes up through his socks, red and bright.
A pinch hitter digs in behind the plate, tapping his bat to ready it, and Clement nods, lightly taps Varitek in the chest with all five fingers on his right hand. Varitek releases his waist, nods, crinkles up the corners of his eyes so that the blue thins out into little pools of smiling sky. He flips down his mask and steps off the mound, crouches back behind the plate. The umpire hands him a baseball and he flicks it easily to Clement, everything neat and in its place, like nothing's different, like no one got hit (although they did) and no one will get hit next inning (although they will).
Clement catches it up and rolls it quickly through his hand. The little texturemarks in the leather move easily past his fingertips, and he won't let this one slide.