A group of friends streams their gaming on Wednesday nights. But not all the action is on the dining room table.

-==-

Chapter 10 -- Bitties

"ShitshitshitshitSHIT! YES!" I let out a whoop as my kart crossed the finish line, narrowly bumping TimSkittles' own out of the way and granting me victory.

"Well, monkeyfarts," Tim said, his voice tinny and scratchy over his cheaper headset.

I duplicated the dance my avatar was doing as she stood atop the podium, waving her trophy and smiling.

It was a hard-won victory, too. Tim was an expert at PlumberKart Ultra, and usually creamed the rest of us when we would play, but we were playing the new downloadable course pack, and for once, he didn't have hundreds of hours more practice than the rest of us. My victory was narrow but earned.

"Folks wanna do another round?" I asked my streaming companions, only to get a round of reasons they couldn't. "How about you, Tim?"

"I think I want more practice first," he said, laughing a bit on the other end of the call. "But thanks, Sprite. I'll be sure to take you more serious in the future."

"That's ominous," I said, getting another laugh before Tim hung up. "Well, folks, I guess that's it for PlumberKart for tonight. We have at long last proven Queen Apple's superiority as a kart racer and must now depart for more adventures! But how about some chat questions while I figure out what we'll play next, hmm?" I asked, leaving the Queen to dance as I half-scanned chat and my list of installed games.

I had the new Radical Amphibian Fighters collection, that could be fun, and I hadn't played any of them since I was a kid. The remaster of We Are Left Alone was finished installing, too: I'd skipped the original when it came out, so wasn't sure I wanted my first experience with such a story-driven game to be on-stream. Hmmm....

A quick look at chat gave me more pause. "Two Fiddy sent eight hundred bits. Thanks a bunch! Eli_Engarde says 'lots of love for Queen Apple, wish she got another game of her own.' Same, Eli, same," I said, spotting another highlighted post and frowning. "IntoTheAether, this is your last warning. I will have the mods ban you." I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "For the last time, folks. It was just a suit worn for the game, and I'm not actually pregnant. See?" I asked, standing up and pulling my tee shirt tight. "No baby bump."

I sat back down and perused my game list again. I could play some Colonizers, but that didn't tend to keep my audience's interest much. I had Hoe Warrior installed, but folks had gotten tired of the combination platformer/gardening sim pretty fast. Hmmm.

"BigCh33se asks, 'Hey Sprite! Was wondering why you don't... *sigh.* Was wondering why you don't wear makeup on stream.' I only wear makeup when I'm in costume, Cheese. Otherwise, it's au naturel for me." I looked at my game list and smiled. "All right, folks, how'sabout we relax with some classic Crystal Adventurers? I haven't played the remake yet, so let's check it out!"

I booted the game and tried to relax a bit as I watched the revamped intro cinematics.

The truth was, I was more on edge than usual, and it was entirely that stupid body suit's fault.

After our late lunch/early dinner Thursday, we'd returned to the apartment, and things had mostly been pretty normal. *Mostly.* We'd gone about our normal routines, games and projects and phone calls and socials, but....

I dunno. It was different somehow. It seemed like every time we were in the same room, we'd catch each other just watching. Was he looking at me different, or was it just my imagination?

Was I looking at him differently? Or was the whole day out and the way people had treated us just getting to my head?

Brian was out of the apartment most of Friday -- the stream brought in enough that he didn't have to work full-time, but he still liked to put his engineering degree to use with the occasional consulting gig -- so I'd spent the day alone up until it was time to head to the studio and turn the body suit back in to Carmen. It hadn't taken long for me to get a bit bored, and I'd found myself trying on different clothes I had, to see how they looked with the bodysuit.

It was... weird how not-weird it looked, if that makes sense. And the more I saw myself in it, the less odd it felt to do so.

"Okay, let's see. Party members... we'll go with the classic lineup, Fighter, Monk, Cleric, Wizard. Oh, hey, they included female sprite sets this time, neat! Fighter can be Brian. Monk is gonna be Syd, of course. I'll be the Cleric, and we'll make the wizard Aaron. Deedee and Maria, you're sitting this one out, sorry!" I glanced at chat again. "Fartastic, thank you for the donation! Oh, and it looks like my mods have put up a poll?" I looked and frowned. "Guys, no. I don't care what the poll says, I'm not gonna do makeup for a stream."

I shook my head and turned my attention back to the game. "I will, however, fireball some gobbos. Sound good? Good."

I finished my shopping in the first town of the game and began the standard round of grinding, filling the space between fights with inane chatter as I continued to think about how weird the last few days had been.

Carmen had, of course, been super happy to see me show up at the studio still wearing the bodysuit, and had immediately pulled me into the bathroom and asked me to strip down so she could check some stress points while I was still wearing it. It was embarrassing, but it was far from the most nude I'd ever been in front of her and had seemed to go well. She'd marked a few spots with the weird pen thing she used to label alterations, then stepped outside so I could take the suit off for the final time, at least until we got ready for the con.

I'd expected to feel relief at finally being rid of the suit, free of the weight and the heat and the alterations to my appearance.

Instead, I'd felt... exposed? Putting on my tee shirt and the athletic shorts I'd worn to the studio, it didn't feel like I was free of a burden, but instead like something was missing. I'd place a hand where the bump should be, and it was absent, and the lack of constriction around my back and my not-boobs was almost more unsettling than its presence had been when I'd first donned the suit.

I hadn't stuck around at the studio long after changing out of things, lest I got roped into sitting in on the restream (it had happened before,) and as soon as I'd gotten home, I'd stripped down and put a tank on under my tee, just for some sense of similarity to how I'd felt the prior two days.

"Yeek! That was close. Let's go back to town and heal up. Then I think we're high enough level now to tackle the first dungeon and take on the Dark Knight Tinsel. Chat says... thanks for the bits Donovenn! And thanks for the follow! Don't forget, folks, our goal for the month is twenty-five hundred subs. If we can reach that, then I'll go for a hardcore run through Living Undead 3! Anyway, chat chat chat," I frowned. "I already said 'no' to the makeup thing, guys." I rolled my eyes and stood up again. "Seriously, look at me. I'm not a girl," I said, plopping down in my chair. "Even if I play one in games."

I turned my attention back to the game at hand, knowing full well that my statement would be ignored. It wasn't the first time I'd told them flat-out that I wasn't a girl, and I doubted it would be the last.

"All right, healed up, re-stocked on healing items from the shop just in case. Let's head toward the castle." I looked at chat again and groaned. "No, I don't mean I'm a full-grown woman. LarryT, you've been subbed since I was at like 20 subs. You're not helping. Folks, I'm..." I sighed and set my controller down on my desk.

It wasn't anything I wasn't used to. This was just Chat being Chat, and I knew it. But sat there in my tee with another tank top underneath, still feeling strangely incomplete and confused over the last two days, knowing that didn't help.

I sniffled, and realized, to my surprise, that I was crying.

I was crying on stream.

I sniffled again and sat up, wiping my eyes. "Guys... y'know what? I can't deal with this right now." I saved my game and closed it, then gave chat one last look before clicking the sign-off button in the stream window.

Chat, of course, was going wild. There were people defending me, people laughing, and people complaining. My mod team was trying to wrangle them, but it wasn't helping any.

"Did she quit?"

"She can't quit. I just donated 20 USD, ripoff!"

"Haha little baby crying 'cause chat was mean, loser."

"Is she okay?"

I shook my head and tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob. Even my mod team were calling me 'she' and 'her' in their responses.

Why did I even bother?

I ignored all the pings and PM requests I was getting and sent one final message in mod chat, letting them know I wouldn't be talking to anyone for a couple of days. On impulse, I added that I was canceling Monday's stream too.

I hesitated before hitting send, wondering if what I was doing was a bad idea, but shook my head and hit the button anyway.

I shut down my computer, and once more leaned back in my seat, and this time, simply let myself cry.

I don't know how long I was sitting there, just softly crying and feeling sorry for myself, but I let out an embarrassingly shrill "Eep!" when I felt someone grab my shoulders. I looked up, and there was Brian's upside-down face, looking back with a sad smile.

"You okay?" he asked, squeezing my shoulders gently as he kept my chair in its leaned-back position.

"Yeah?" I reached up and wiped some of the tears off my cheek and couldn't help but laugh. "No. Just being stupid," I said, tapping his hand until he let me go. I sat up and spun around to face him right side up.

"Wanna talk about it?" He asked, pulling over my guest chair and plopping down across from me.

"Not really, but yeah." I let out a long, slow breath and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Just stressed. The convention, and Jonah, and streaming, and... we're down five percent in merch sales over the last month compared to the previous one. What does that mean? And Syd sent me some screenshots of a troll who's causing issues in the community forums, and Maria's annoyed because the folks at ATG asked her not to use some homebrew monster she's been working on for our campaign, and...."

"And?"

"And I just..." I wrapped my arms around myself and sat back up, looking anywhere but at Brian. "What am I doing, Brian? Everyone in chat was going on about the bodysuit, and my mods are doing polls for makeup, and it's all--I know it's meant to be fun, but."

I was sniffling again and didn't even flinch when Brian crouched in front of me and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug I didn't want to want. Nevertheless, I found myself relaxing as he held on.

"It sounds like a lot to take in," he said, his voice rumbling through his chest.

"Yeah," I said in muffled agreement, headbutting his shoulder gently to get him to let me up. He did so but stayed crouched in front of me instead of sitting back in his chair, his face only inches from mine as he watched me.

"But?" he asked gently, with just the slightest hint of amusement.

“But," I agreed. "It's always a lot. But that's part of the whole streaming business, y'know?" I sighed and sat back, closing my eyes.

I heard the sound of a shifting chair, and then Brian had his arm around me again, this time from the side. I let him pull me over until my head was on his shoulder, but only let it stay there for a second before sitting up again and giving a harrumph.

"And this," I said, glaring at him and waving down at us. "Like, what is this? Are we…? And your cousin?"

Brian actually had the nerve to laugh. "Hey, I said sorry about Lorne, but what was I supposed to tell him?"

"That I'm a guy? And your roommate, not your…" I paused, trying to decide how to continue.

"My girlfriend?" Brian asked, somehow still smiling.

"That."

Brian chuckled, then moved into a full-on laugh when I glared at him. "Leigh, do you think he would have believed me?" he asked, then before I could answer, he continued. "Or what about that lady at the gas station on the way home? Or the ladies at the grocery store? Or," he pointed at my computer. "Do they believe it?" Brian moved back a bit, until only his hand remained on my shoulder, and gave me a long look.

I shook my head but said nothing.

Brian was right, after all. People would believe what they wanted. I knew that: I'd known it for a long time. Even when we were in college, we'd gotten comments about being a couple, sometimes from Brian's actual girlfriends.

Maybe I could have helped that a bit if I'd been more prone to dating too, but... why? I had my friends, both guys and girls, and that kept my social calendar full on its own. Like, I hadn't *not* dated, mostly girls, but out of curiosity, I'd gone out with a couple guys too, and it'd been fun, but not anything I couldn't do with Brian, or Maria, or Syd or Deedee or even Aaron.

You could argue that sex was more an option with someone I was dating than one of my friends, but if that was all I was dating someone for, then I might as well just go on a date with my hand.

As far as my streaming audience was concerned, me and Brian might as well be married. He'd been part of the background since the beginning, and I'd had him on for local multiplayer games a couple times every year since. He was always bringing me water or popping in to make sure I didn't need anything, because that's just Brian, looking out for others.

What were they supposed to think?

I sighed. "I did something stupid," I said, staring at my hands.

"Oh?"

I nodded. "I sent my mods a message saying I was canceling Monday's stream. I just, I know I shouldn't have, but--"

"Yeah, you should've."

"What?" I asked, turning to face him again.

Brian squeezed my shoulder again and nodded. "If things have you this stressed, then taking some time off is the right decision. You were already planning on taking next weekend off anyway; just call this starting your vacation early."

"But the metrics."

Brian chuckled. "Yeah, you'll lose some subs. But you didn't really wanna play Living Undead anyway, and the hype train for the convention is gonna make up for some of that too."

"True," I agreed, finally smiling.

Brian looked away for a moment, then nodded to himself. "Monday off and keep it open. I think... yeah."

"What?"

"It's a surprise," he said, now grinning from ear to ear.

"Brian...."

"Nope! A surprise," he said again, standing up from his seat and pulling me up in the process. "So, just relax. Turn off your phone, call it an early night, and then you can spend all day tomorrow fretting about what I've got planned for us."

"I don't fret!" I said, only a little fretfully.

Brian just gave me another hug, and this one, I returned with yet another sigh.

"There's plenty of time to worry about everyone else later, 'kay?"

"...Okay," I agreed, pulling back and looking up at him. "Just promise me no dirt roads this time, all right?"

"No dirt roads," Brian agreed. "And come on out to the kitchen. I was just about to nuke some frozen lasagna."

Oh joy.

-==-

NOTES:

Kudos and comments appreciated; I'll do my best to get back to you on them.