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

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Chapter 3 - Fans

"Damnit!"

I tapped furiously at the respawn key, even though I knew it wouldn't get me up any faster than if I just waited for the timer to run down. It was better than doing nothing.

"Hey, Ollie! I got flattened. Can you get Marill over to cover aggro while I respawn and try to get back?"

"Sure thing, Sprite," a scratchy voice responded back. "I saw you get hit by that hammer. Pretty brutal."

"Rrrgh." The meter finally filled, letting me re-spawn back at our base camp, but it would be a solid couple of minutes for me to make it back through the dungeon to the raid boss. "I hate this game."

"And yet you've got, what was it, twelve hundred hours logged on stream?"

"Yeah, well, I hate it, but the viewers love it," I countered, hitting the command to activate my wings in the hopes the boost from my hover speed would get me back in the action that little bit faster. Since I had the time anyway, I went ahead and checked on some of the live chat from said viewers. "LittleEvie, thanks for the resub! AlabasterSkye, thanks for three months! And KidClean, thanks for the bits!"

I read a bit more in chat as I made the mindless trek back and frowned.

"Folks, I've already told you, I don't wanna talk about Wednesday's game tonight, so can we drop it?"

More chat, confirming they very much would not.

"Come on guys, anything else we can talk about?"

"How about water?"

"Hmm? Oh, hey Brian. Chat, say hi to Brian! What's up?" I asked, turning around in my chair but keeping one hand on the keyboard to keep my character running the right way.

Brian handed me a bottle of water, then winked at the camera. "Just making sure you stay hydrated." That got the normal and expected flood of heart and swoon emojis from my chat.

"Thanks!" I said, uncapping the bottle and taking a long, greedy sip. "He's right, folks. Hydrate up before we get back to the action. Speaking of which..."

I turned back to my computer and set the water bottle down on the coaster next to my keyboard. Far enough away it was out of camera shot, but close enough I could grab it again when I had a chance.

"Hey Sprite, get yer ass up here. I'm down to my last Rush stack and need to trade out for a bit!"

"On my way!" I called in, hitting the key combo that would activate my character's shields and taking my place at the front of the pack.

I watched my cooldowns closely, making sure to re-up my shields first chance I got. Pixies didn't make the best tanks, but of the three classes introduced in the new Heimdall Online expansion, the Valkyrie was the only one that had really piqued my interest, so there I was, my avatar giving her all as she bashed back at the massive ogre with her own diminutive sword. I couldn't take a hit as well as someone playing a Hill Giant or an elemental, but if I played right, I could leverage my speed and maneuverability to my advantage, keeping aggro on myself while actually tanking through as few connecting hits as possible.

It took us another eight minutes to finally take down the ogre, and I wasn't the only member of the party sweating their ass off as the victory music chimed and the loot shower played on screen, a fountain of blues, greens, and the occasional but much lusted-after gold or pink.

"All right folks, that's raid five for today, and I think that's all I've got in me."

"Yeah, me too," Ollie said, sounding just as tired. "We doing the next round of raids on Monday?"

"I... yeah, I guess," I said, seeing the enthusiasm in the chat and not having the heart to disappoint them. "I think I need something light to cool me down, though. Folks, say good night to Ollie, Marill, and TimSkittles, and why don't we hop over to, I dunno, some Bridge Too Fall?"

The chat seemed to be enthusiastic enough about that, as they generally were, and Bridge Too Fall was casual enough that it'd give me a chance to ease my heart rate down before the end of the stream and keep up a bit more chat engagement too.

"Let's call a ten-minute break while I get things set up. Grab a snack, grab a drink, and stretch a bit, and we'll be right back!"

I turned on the intermission screen and music, closed out of HE, and took a minute to just lean back and breathe.

"A'ight, Leigh. You got another hour on your schedule, then you're free."

I usually enjoyed my gaming streams, chatting with folks and getting in some time playing my favorite games, but with everything else going on it was one of those rare nights that it was really feeling more like a job than a passion.

Once again, I reminded myself that we just had to make it through the convention and things would calm down a bit. I normally streamed my own content every Saturday and Monday, but I'd already let my stream know I'd be absent the weekend and week after the convention. In fact, all of us were taking the week after off, planning re-runs of the convention sessions for that Wednesday and Friday night so we could all take what I felt was a much deserved vacation.

"Blargh," I said to myself and rolled my neck, then took another slug of water from the bottle Brian had brought me before launching Bridge Too Fall and getting my costume sorted.

One last breath and I dropped the intermission card and eased audio back over to my mic.

"All right, everybody, FireSprite here, and we're back, with a bit of Bridge Too Fall! Let's see, last time I was... oh yeah, I was tackling some of the time trial challenges. How about we continue those, and I can do a bit of chat Q and A while we're going along?"

I picked up my controller and leaned back.

"QuirkyOtter, thanks for the sub and congrats on two years as a Firestarter! Blaze360, welcome to the group too. First question: PleasantPixel asks..." I sighed. "How long have Brian and I been dating? Folks, we're still not dating. We're just roommates."

I hissed, almost missing a jump from a spinning log, but caught the next platform just in time.

"Elderbarry asks, 'what is this con people are chatting about?' Good question, Barry: most of the Wednesday Knights crew is going to be attending LSGC, that's, the Lone Star Gaming Convention, in Austin next month. We've been asked to do a couple special gaming sessions in front of a live audience, and we're all really excited for it! If you want more info, there should be a... yeah, just type hashtag LSGC in chat, and it will give you links to get tickets, but even if you can't make it, we'll be streaming the events on the Wednesday Knights channel the week after while we all take a break. And remember, folks, I won't be streaming here for that week either: all of us are taking a bit of a vacation."

I paused my commentary and grinned as I watched the support rolling in from folks excited for the convention.

"Ice-- damnit! Welp, gotta start this one over, folks. IcicleMoon asks...." I gave the camera a long look. "You and Brian are so cute together, and Lunea and Burg make such a great couple. I, thanks, I guess, but that's not a question? Seriously, folks, there's nothing between Brian and me."

As expected that got the normal smattering of clown and thinking emojis.

"Really. I'm gonna put a moratorium on questions about me and Brian, even donation-boosted ones. Ask me something else. Oh, here's a good one: ToadSux asks, 'Hey Sprite, don't you feel bad about promoting a convention in a state that's, I'm not gonna finish the question because of the language, but I will answer it. Yeah, we thought long and hard about whether we wanted to go, because we had the same reservations about things. If it makes you feel better, we've all agreed to donate the fees the convention offered to pay us to two separate organizations there in Austin, one for LGBT support and the other to help women get life-saving medical help they need, and we're gonna have a lot of our Rainbow Knights merch at the event too, with the profits from those going to the same charities."

I whooped and pumped my fist as I finished the next level. My time was hardly top of the leaderboards, but my friends list showed I'd beaten Aaron's time, so I could at least rub that in his face.

"Oh, hey, congrats WigglyWoo, on getting the gift sub; thanks for that Toad. Hope you stick around; the firestarters have fun, don't we folks? Let's see, here's, nope, not that again, how about, all right. TwoBucketLimit asks -- ooh, Weasel gets the new top donation spot for the month, nice! Thanks, Weasel! Aaah, yeah, TwoBucketLimit asked why I don't do stuff like hot tub streams or anything, since... why is this a promoted question? A couple answers here. One, hot tub streams are stupid. Two, I've not got anything worth showing off, I mean." I sat my controller down on the desk and stood up, turning around so the camera could get a good shot. "Hardly one of the Masters of the Universe, right?"

I rolled my eyes as the pancake stack emojis rolled in.

"Come on, I've... folks? I'm flat up top, I'm... why do I bother?"

I played another few challenge stages and finished up my hour, but kept the rest of my chat interaction to mostly inane responses.

"Thanks again for joining the stream folks, I'm gonna send y'all on a raid of Duckwalker's stream, she's doing some neat stuff in DinoFighter right now, so be sure to give her as much love as you give me! This is FireSprite, signing off!"

Ten minutes later I collapsed on the couch in our sitting room, a fresh bottle of water in my hand.

"Good stream?" Brian asked me, sparing me only a moment's glance before turning his attention back to the demon he was trying to turn into mincemeat on the TV.

"Same old, same old," I complained, slouching further down. "Hype for the convention, folks wanting to spend the entire stream talking about the last Knights session and last night's recap stream. Questions about you."

"They still think we're a couple?"

I huffed in answer.

"I've given up on reminding them I'm a guy. The new members don't buy it, and the older ones who should know better keep acting like it's a running joke or something."

"Your streamer tag is FireSprite and your channel icon is a fairy with flaming wings."

"It's not a fairy, it's a sprite! Like the name. And it's clearly a boy."

"It's wearing pasties and a bikini bottom."

"The pasties are only because he got flagged as pornographic without them."

Brian gave me a Look.

"Don't even--"

"Pizza for dinner?"

"...Fine."

"Cool, there's a couple frozen ones in the top of the fridge."

"I...you...."

I glared at Brian, but all I got was a mirth-filled smirk in response.

"Fine, but you'll have to come get your own when they're done."

"Some girlfriend you are."

"Pssht."

By the time the oven was pre-heated, and the pizzas were in, a lot of my head of steam had boiled off, so I once again settled down on the couch to watch Brian play some more, this time with a wine cooler in place of water.

"Hey, you didn't-- thanks," he said, taking the beer I'd brought him and toasting me with it before going back to his game, giving me my space.

I watched him play and just basked in the companionable calm.

It always baffled me how Brian took the constant rumors and speculation about our relationship in stride, but then again, Brian took most things in stride.

I'd been nervous about who my roomie would be when I'd first headed off to college, but it had taken all of five minutes for me to feel comfortable around him. Yes, he was tall and good-looking in a sort of angular way, and all these things I wasn't, but we'd bonded over the one passion almost every young adult in the world seemed to share anymore: video games. Before two hours had passed, we'd bunked our beds and turned half our dorm into as much of a gaming nest as we could manage, and for the rest of the year, we'd been *the* gaming hot-spot on our floor.

When it came time to prep for the next year, we made sure we were rooming together and did the same thing. Then we decided to share an off-campus apartment, giving me room to start streaming on my own. When graduation rolled around we had the group stream, and we were still getting along great, so when Brian asked if I wanted to get another apartment with him closer to his work I'd happily accepted.

Throughout all of it Brian had always been Brian. Cool-headed, easily amused, and just about the most likeable guy I'd ever met, while I'd been... me, the short boy with the big, angled eyes that always got me comments about being Asian even though, as far as I was aware my mom was French Creole and my dad was full-blooded Black Irish.

I blamed my eyes for why so many folks mistook me for a girl. I was a bit on the short side, but not THAT short, and yeah, I'd always been pretty skinny -- I tended to forget to eat if I didn't have someone around to remind me -- but I kept my hair short, usually in a fauxhawk style that was easy to manage, and the only time I wore makeup was for cosplay.

The ding told me it was time to pull the pizzas out, so I made one last check of Brian's game progress before getting up and heading that way; the hot grease and meat smells reminding me I hadn't eaten anything since the live chat stream recap the night before. Pizza then, too, funnily enough.

Pans up on the stovetop. Slice slice. I grabbed a plate from the cabinet and two slices of pie for myself, then after a short pause, grabbed another plate and two more slices, carefully balancing the dishes on one arm as I made my way back to the living room.

Brian looked up when I entered and, on seeing the two plates, gave me another grin. "I could kiss you, you know."

"Ugh, don't. That's the last thing the rumor mill needs."

"So you're sayin' to wait 'til next time we need to trend, then do it on camera."

"I'll kill you," I said, handing him his plate of pizza.

"Well, that'd probably get us trending too."

Okay, that got a laugh out of me and helped to calm the last of my post-stream jitters.

With my meal in hand, I curled back up on my corner of the couch and went back to watching Brian eat and play.

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NOTES:

All comments appreciated. :)