Bleed Chapter 2

Second chapter of my Patreon series: Bleed. Bleed is the ongoing adventures of Role Players both in and out of the games they play in. Bleed is currently ongoing, if you'd like to read more, consider Pledging. You'd be helping a writer make a name and keep him writing. Thanks.

The cleanup after game was more somber than usual. Of course, no one liked to stay and clean after six hours of running around playing pretend. But it needed to be done. Trash was put in to bins. Floors were swept, cups and dishes were washed and dried and put back in the studio’s communal pantry. The studio liked the troupe, and the troupe liked them back. And it was precisely because they cleaned up and paid their rentals on time that the relationship kept being mutually friendly. 

When the cleaning was done, Callie made the call. “Okay folks, you don’t have to go home but—“

“Get the hell out.” Most of the group intoned, some more cheerily than others. 

“Yep,” She said. Her short-cut strawberry blonde hair was slick with sweat and she looked ready to pass out. It’s hard running around a packed studio in the summer wearing black clothes. Where most of the other dark costumed players were some degree of extravagant, eccentric, or both, Callie’s was utilitarian. A button down black shirt that hung loose and a pair of black cargos. She had the exhaustion of someone who had run a marathon.

Such was the life of a storyteller. 

Tom thought that, compared to CJ, Callie was holding up well. CJ looked practically hungover. The color was drained out of his cheeks and his eyes were sunken. There was no real mirth left in the man. And Tom could sympathize with him on that. 

For Tom’s part, he very quietly and slowly cleaned the dishes and cups. Glasses of wine, juice, soda. Most of the plates used were paper and could be thrown out, and most of the stains on the not paper plates were pizza or something easier. 

He was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the crash was settling in. The rush of an intense scene started to come down. His movements were slow, he didn’t really notice anyone as he worked, until Callie made for final call. He was day dreaming, he just wasn’t able to respond well. Everything felt slower, the lights brighter. 

When it was time to roll out of the studio, he sidled up next to Mara and Sam.

“You want to go home,” Mara asked Tom. “Or do you want to stay for afters?”

“Afters,” Tom said, though even he could hear the tone in his voice that screamed ‘bed please’. “I’m owed a drink, anyways.”

The couple nodded and the three housemates made their way in to the elevator. 

“Tom!” Someone cried. “Wait!”

The doors closed just in time to see CJ’s face rush up to the doors. They heard a muffled ‘Damn it’ from behind the door as it descended down.

“Meet you in the lobby!” Tom yelled, but probably didn’t make it as the elevator lowered them down the sixteen floors. He rested his head against the door, closing his eyes. Closing his eyes was good. 

He heard a rattle from behind him and saw Sam with a bottle of water in one hand and opening up a bottle of aleve in the other. 

“Take these,” they said. Tom was about to ask why and they answered. “The lights are too bright for you, aren’t they?”

Tom blinked, and realized he was right. “Yeah.” He took both without resisting. Even if it wasn’t the onset of a migraine, he didn’t want to deal with it. Sam, who often had migraines of their own, always had a bottle of aspirin or something on them at all times. 

“You okay?” Mara asked Tom.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile. “Just tired.”

“Wanna talk about Curve?”

“Not yet,” He said, continuing his use of the elevator doors as a head rest. “It’s slowly hitting me that he’s gone.” 

“Yeah,” Mara said. “That’s a lot of psychic real-estate you two shared.”

“I have an idea for what I’m going to do for his last act though,” Tom said. Both Mara and Sam quirked an eyebrow at him. “Nope, saving it as a surprise. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean I don’t get one last hurrah.”

The elevator opened. A large section of the troupe was already outside, most of them grabbing a smoke. Tom immediately saw Lisa in the throng, talking idly with Rachel and Dinah. Simon came out of the elevator next to them, and kept walking. 

“One of these days,” Mara said. “CJ is going to kill him.”

“And then his character,” Sam added.

Tom nodded, numbly. Sam had made the right call, he could feel the migraine set in. The Aleve had a few more minutes to kick in and chase it down. 

The next elevator opened, revealing CJ and Callie. 

“Oh, thank God.” CJ said. “You waited.” He seemed out of breath, the run had not been easy on him and he’d been doing enough running.

“Siege,” Mara said. “Can you please drink a bottle of water.”

“Why?”

“You look like like dried out shit,” She said. 

“Don’t take it personal,” Tom said. “These two have been mothering me the entire ride down.” 

CJ nodded at that, and Callie spoke up. “I’ll make sure he Hails Hyrdrate before bed tonight.” She smiled, and then flinched a little. 

Tom felt bad for her. Callie never knew where she stood with CJ’s friends. “Appreciated,” he said. 

CJ fished something out of one of his pockets, an index card with his big blocky handwriting in sharpie on it. “I have something for you. A character concept, if you’re up for it. Consider it my contribution to combatting the mourning process.”

Tom looked at the card, cupping it so the others didn’t see.

“Oh,” he said. And then he read it again. Then he got it. “Oh.”

Tom looked back up to see a big smile on CJ’s face. This wasn’t forced, and the exhaustion he previously showed seemed to abate for a time. “If the party is over, I’m making sure I bring the fireworks. Wanna help me set them up?”

“Player or Non-Player?” Tom asked.

“Player,” CJ answered. “But with some guiding notes from me, at least at the beginning.”

Tom looked at the card again, and then pocketed it. “You’re a bad man,” he said.

“I know,” CJ said with a dramatic bow. He opened his arms and hugged Tom, who returned it openly. “That was a great scene.”

“Thanks,” Tom said they broke apart. “That was a great game.”

CJ shrugged at that, and then went on to hug Mara and Sam.

“Siege,” Sam said as they hugged. “Are you sure you want to do this? End the game?”

CJ didn’t answer at first, then he said. “Yes. Yes, I do. This sounds dramatic but this is one of the first game nights in a long time where I feel like I’m leaving clean. If that makes any sense.”

No one responded to that, no one really knew how to. At least, Tom felt that he didn’t know how to respond to that. 

Mara cut through the silence, “You coming to afters?”

CJ opened his mouth, and then closed it. Then he shook his head. “No. I’m beat. Besides the trains are fucked and we need to get back uptown.”

“I don’t know why you moved to the Bronx.” Mara said, accepting the answer as much as Tom knew she was capable of. 

Callie poked over CJ’s shoulder in answer. “Hi!”

“Oh,” Mara said in a forced deadpan. She broke out in to a wry smile. “I suppose you’re a good enough reason.”

“Thanks Mara,” Callie said, breaking out in to a yawn at the end of Mara’s name. 

CJ kissed Callie on the side of her cheek. “Yeah, we’re both beat. Night all.”

The all said their goodnights. By then, mostly everyone outside made their way to afters. CJ and Callie turned left as the exited, towards the trains. 

“You lied,” Sam said.

“I know,” Mara replied. “I’m still not sure she’s good enough for him.”

They all started moving, turning right towards the diner. 

“Come on,” Tom said. The air was muggy and Tom could already feel the sweat coming down as they got down the block. “CJ clearly loves her. And she loves him.”

“Siege is…” Mara stopped for a second, clearly finding the words. “Forget it. I worry about him.”

“We all do,” Sam said.

“Especially now,” Tom added. “This game is his pride and joy. He’s been toying with it since college.”

“Before that,” Mara said. “He came up with Moonlight in High School. He shared it with me. He got in trouble when Sister Catherine saw his notes, because she thought he was a Satan worshipper.”

“Little did she know,” Tom said. He was just getting used to the absence of paintings that CJ had done. Paintings of mystical tableaus and hand drawn signs and sigils littered their friend’s former room and parts of the living room. What became research also became a hobby and part of his life. It was something the four of them all appreciated. 

And, Tom thought with a smirk, is something that can be brought back in to game.

They walked the rest of the way talking of small things. Jake’s moving in, a possible game night at their place the next week or so. Neither Mara nor Sam asked Tom about the index card CJ slipped him. They knew better, and they wanted to be surprised. 

The diner was right down the street from Penn Station, and was open very much in to the early hours. Mara, Sam and Tom all walked in to the harried looks of the staff and the loud chatter of the diner. It was empty in the front of the diner, but the closed off back was a bustle of noise and motion.

“I think our party is in the back,” Mara said.

The hostess at the front nodded wearily. Poor thing. The diner had a love/hate relationship with the troupe. Sure, they loved the business of two or three dozen people coming in every month. The problem came with these were gamers talking over each other, moving around. That’s a lot of orders getting confused, or doubled, or lost. That’s a lot of tips. It’s in instant rush hour for the staff of the diner, and it’s usually very difficult for them. 

And the gamers aren’t usually in the best of headspaces. They’ve played at least six hours of games. They are tired, hungry, and probably in need of a drink. Often, most of them need a shower too. They’re busy focusing on getting their makeup off, or changing in to more comfortable clothes. When he did go to afters, CJ was usually the last to arrive because he had to pack up Siege’s armor. 

CJ once explained the concept of Afters to Tom as a form of ritual. “Look,” he said to him one night many years ago, back when Tom was just getting started in his first game. CJ spoke to him like the mages he often played. “We just spent hours as other people. We lived their lives, we shared their challenges, their successes, their failures. We lived, learned, loved and loathed. But eventually, sooner or later, we must leave that world. We must come back to the Really Real. We can take what we learned, but there are times when the masquerade ends.”

“Afters,” he said. “Afters is where people go to the diner or bar and be people. They get to tell war stories, they get to reminisce about other scenes or games they take part in. They get to destress from the tensions of the evening. Mostly though, it reminds us that the people we’re around are not wholly the people we’ve been with the past few hours.”

“Peter and Chopper aren’t the same per---okay, that’s a bad example. Sam and Penbroke aren’t always the same person. They have overlaps, and while there may be some people who may disagree with what Penbroke did in game, afters reminds us that Sam is just a nerd like us who is playing pretend.  Some games, like the ones at conventions prefer to Debrief people before heading out, which is a bit more formal. We don’t have the time at the studio afterwards. So we stick to what we know. We leave the town of Moonlight and we go back to a greasy spoon in Chelsea. We step out of the magic circle and we go back to the waking world.”

The memory had a bitter note to Tom tonight. CJ, who once espoused the virtues of afters, shying away from it. Mara was eying Callie for being the deterrent, but it wasn’t just her if at all. CJ was burnt out, and they all knew it. He was burnt out on the game he built, and on the troupe that formed around it. But CJ had this world and his game in his head. Afters doesn’t really apply when you’re the Storyteller, when you’re expected to bring the world with you so you can prep for the next month.

Mara and Sam found an empty table. Tom looked around and saw only members of the troupe. He remembered when a group of off duty cops were in the corner and giving the group of weirdly dressed nerds the side eye as they discussed attacks, feeding on people, drugs, and a million other things that probably had most of them on watchlists for terrorism or the terminally pathetic. 

The cops were nice, and while they didn’t get what these guys did, they realized they were just people. That was key, really.

As Tom sat down, Tyler stood up. The thin, scraggly man spoke clearly with a received pronunciation. “Gentleman, Ladies, Amorphous and Non-Binary,” he raised his beer to the air. “To Curve, and Tommy Flint.”

“Curve!” Most of the people cheered. And then applauded. One voice cut through, “Any clues on whodunit?”

Tom smiled, “Find out in game.”

“No!” Rachel said. “Come on, tell us.”

Tom shrugged, “Nope. Because you all finding out what the fuck just happened is one of the reasons I’m rolling up a character for next month and not taking a month off from you weirdos and have some kind of a social life that allows me to be me.”

A cheer of laughter. Tom raised a glass of water. “Thank you all. I will give you a small hint though and just say that I’d like to thank my killer and CJ, both of whom are bastards who have made me happy with Curve’s end.”

Applause from the group, but hesitant, stunted. He took his seat. Mara and Sam smiling.

“You’re a bastard,” she replied. 

“My father would agree,” Tom said, which got a snort from Sam.

“You kept them focused on CJ to keep them off your back.” Tom nodded enthusiastically. “Well, I’m glad all those years of being a vampire actually taught you something.”

“Yes,” Tom said. “Being a blood sucking fiend.”

A glass of soda landed down in front of Tom. Holding it was Lisa. The black wig and dress was gone, replaced by a greyish blue dye job and a black and white t-shirt and jeans. A pair of glasses on her face. 

“I owed you,” she said. “May I sit.”

“Of course!” Mara said cheerily. Tom eyed his roommate. Mara just accused Tom of being sneaky, but everything he learned he learned largely by watching his roommate at work. Mara glanced back at Tom, and flashed a bright smile before Lisa could manage to notice. Only hummingbirds, Sam and sometimes Tom were fast enough to see her at work. 

“So,” Mara said. “Lianne was involved.”

“Love,” Sam called. It wasn’t exactly chiding. 

“Oh, fine.” Mara capitulated. “But that was an awesome way to end the game.”

Lisa pointed to Tom, “He found the ashes.”

“You put them on.” He replied. “You could have told me to go fuck myself.”

“I’d do that anyway,” She said. “But figured you could use the break. You’ve had a busy night.”

Tom shrugged. “I can’t complain.”

“No?” Lisa asked.

“No. I did get strapped down by a beautiful woman.”

Lisa quirked an eye at that. “Why Mr. Flint, I didn’t know you went that way.”

“I am a man of mystery,” he said with confirmation.

Lisa made a noise. “Few men have any mysteries.”

“Amen,” said Mara. Which got a dirty look from Tom and Sam, possibly for multiple reasons. “Sorry.”

Tom looked back to Lisa. “Anyway, it’s been a pleasure working with you, Lisa.”

“Same here, Tom. Any chance you want to have ties with Lianne and your next character?”

He shrugged. “Probably not going in. We’ll be running in to each other, I’m sure. But I think having ties in would cause some bleed from Curve. Start fresh, ya know?”

Lisa nodded at that. “That’s fair. You have something in mind, for the character?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “CJ gave me a concept to noodle.”

“Oh,” Lisa said. “Oh, now I’m terrified and excited at the same time.”

“And thus, my work is complete,” Tom said dryly.

“At least until next month.” She reached out, scratching him playfully at the back of his head. The way Lianne did to Curve during their scenes together. “I should go order some food before our waiter forgets me. It’s the guy who looks like he was here when they built the place in the fifties.”

She got up, leaving the two alone. 

“Shut up,” Tom said to the table. 

“I said nothing!” Mara replied. 

He idly took a sip of his soda. “I can hear you thinking.”

“And?”

“No.”

Mara gave him an incredulous look. “Tom. I’m your friend, and I love you. Ask the girl out already.”

“No.”

“Why fucking not?”

He rolled his eyes. “For the tenth or eleventh time. She and I are playing roles. Our characters were in a relationship, we aren’t. We don’t really hang out unless it involves game. And we’ve never really never had a reason to. We’ve gotten together to talk about our characters, or we’ve gone on group things with the rest of the troupe. We’re friends in here, and acquaintances out there.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe she’s waiting for you to ask her out?” Sam asked.

Tom gaped at them. Mara was the usual instigator and designated wingman, Sam kept to themselves.

“I know I’m the only person who identifies exclusively as male in this triumvirate,” Tom said. “So let me know if I’m overstepping a bound. But where the hell is it written that a guy must be the one to initiate? There’s a lot I don’t know in the world, or how women work. But for once, just once, I would like someone else to make the first move.”

Neither Mara nor Sam replied to that. “Besides,” Tom continued. “This is a larp, not a dating service. She’s not looking for love here, and frankly neither am I.”

“We found it here,” Mara said. “So did Peter, Dinah, CJ and Callie and a few others.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. He weighed his next words and his tone, trying to get his point across without trying to sound condescending or rude. “ I’m not any of you. I’m me. I’d rather have the relationship I have with her now than fuck it up just because I think she’s cute.”

“You have chemistry,” Mara said.

“So does dynamite,” Tom retorted. “Let it lie, Hill. Table it for tonight.”

Mara blinked, and then sighed. “Fine.” She said with just a little bite. “Tabled. I think you doth protest too much.”

“Noted,” Tom said. There was no heat or anger between the three of them. They’d seen and done so much together that this was not even a blip on their radar. They loved each other, in their own ways. And Tom was grateful for that in his life. But they all knew the lines they don’t cross unless they thought it completely necessary. This wasn’t one of them. Not tonight. Possibly not ever.

Possibly. 

Tom heard his name being called across the room, he turned to see one of the many Matts in the troupe sitting between two of the many Seans they had. 

“What was that, G?” Tom said.

Matt G. asked again, “You’ve been larping for a while. How have you dealt with closings before?”

Tom thought about it and shrugged. “Depends on the game. There was one game where people tried to get a storyteller to step up and then no one stepping up?”

“Why?” Matt asked. He was one of the newer players, joined maybe a year ago. It was his first larp. 

“Being a storyteller is a job,” Tom said. “Most players don’t think about the amount of time it takes most STs to plan a game each month. There’s plot set up, including challenges and NPCs, getting people to play those NPCs, making sure there are props that can be used for those NPCs. Puzzles, challenges. Then you have managing in game emails, making sure player questions and out of game scenes are taken care of. Then there is the actual running of game which is having your attention diverted in ten different directions to make sure people aren’t too bored or plot isn’t being hogged. People don’t really think about those sorts of things. They just want to play their characters every month, maybe a few scenes in between, and call it a week.”

“In short,” Tyler said, in his crisp English accent. “No one wants to burn out like CJ clearly is.” He looked at me with a lazy English drawl, “No offense. I know he is your friend.”

Tom only bristled slightly. He could feel Mara and Sam next to him tense as well. “No,” Tom said. “You’re right. Siege is burnt toast. And he’s going to end the game on his terms. Now, going back to your other question. That was one situation, people wanting to continue the game after the ST is gone. Then there is the flipside. Everyone quickly and quietly packs their bags, says their goodbyes, and begins looking for the next game.”

“It’s how we got here in the first place,” Tyler said, followed by a few nods and grunts of agreement from Peter, Dinah, Mara, Sam and several others.

Gavin, one of the players who agreed, spoke up. “About a dozen of us, CJ included, were all part of a vampire game a few years back. It was fun.”

“Of course it was fun,” Peter said, Dinah resting her head on his shoulders. “You were Prince and the center of attention. I spent most of the time keeping the assassins off your back.”

Gavin nodded, sniffing the air a little. “Subjectively fun, then. But the backstabbing in the game got bad. It stopped being about the characters fighting each and people started coming in to games trying to out play the other players.” He said this part a little louder, so that the others at the end of the table—which Tom noticed included Simon, who had been arguing with CJ earlier. “The game got toxic, and the ST of that game decided to close up shop. None of us wanted to work with most of the others again, and CJ was so pissed off he took that setting he built years ago and turned it into a game. Most of us have been there ever since.”

“I’m sure someone is going to try and keep the game going,” Tom said. “CJ built a system and a world where even though there is tension, that’s not the focus.” Says the man politically assassinated by his lover, he said internally. “And six months is a long time. I also think that CJ closing up at EmpireCon might mean something more.”

Matt G eyed him, and Tyler took it up. “You think he might market the setting?”

Tom nodded. “I think he’s been toying with it. I think it could work.”

“You lived with him,” Gavin said. “Wouldn’t you guys know?”

Mara, Sam and Tom all shook their heads. Sam spoke up for them. “We kept ourselves out of the making of Moonlight when we all moved in. We knew that living with the head storyteller, let alone the creator of the setting, would be seen by many as a conflict of interest.”

“That had to be difficult,” Matt G said. 

“Sometimes,” Mara said. “We’d ask questions on his off time and he’d shoo us off. Or he’d get frustrated because he was worrying at a thought and couldn’t share it with us because it was plot we were going to have to deal with.”

“Sounds rough,” Matt said.

“But yeah,” Tom continued. “We’re going to have to see our options in the next few months. CJ usually has a plan. He set a specific date. He’s up to something.”

“Well,” Simon said from his far spot at the table. “If he’s giving it up, I can always run the game.”

Tom said nothing, though it felt like a lemon was stuck in his throat.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Tyler drawled.

“What?” Simon asked. “You just spent five minutes discussing it, and now we’re going to stop here? I’m saying I can run the game.”

Tom could see Tyler’s jaw clench underneath his scraggly auburn beard. “There’s a difference between talking about the future of the game and throwing your proverbial hat in to the circle. Not tonight.”

Simon shrugged. “I think the game could do with a new direction. If CJ is running out of ideas.”

“Shut up.” Dinah said. The small red head had been napping at Peter’s side so long that Tom had nearly forgotten she was there. “Please, Simon. Just shut up. Because, I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re probably one of the reasons CJ is quitting. Like do you get that?”

Simon blinked. Whether the stunned look on his face was from the realization or just the barefaced calling out was something Tom couldn’t discern. His mannerisms were very well controlled, making him a hard read. But when he did slip, it spoke paragraphs but not necessarily in complete sentences.

“I pay every month to play here.”

“No,” Dinah said. Any signs of sleep or relaxation was gone. She was awake and on. She was a five-foot-tall fireball. “You pay every month to come here and be a snide fuck while waving your sheet around demanding CJ’s attention. You say you pay to be here like that entitles you to something. What does it entitle you to? Do you see the rest of us doing that to him? No. We wait our turn and we work with him. You don’t work with him, or really with any of us. You work against us.”

“Jakis is an antagonistic character,” Simon said. 

“But Simon isn’t.” Dinah spat. “You don’t actually role play with any of us, you just sit there and be smug, and then when you want to do something you mug Siege or Callie for their time to try and get what you want. You don’t take any one with you. You don’t roleplay, you don’t respect that there is a story being told.”

“I’m just trying to be effective,” He said coolly with a smile. 

“The destination is only as important as the journey,” Peter said. “’More matter with less art’ doesn’t mean that shouldn’t be any art.” Peter was an old hand at gaming. He knew the score and knew problem players. Tom had seen him talk to players before when there were conflicts. But he didn’t have Dinah, then, and her snapping off at Simon while just minutes before sleeping in the crook of his arm makes this less moderate than he probably intended.

“You play the game your way,” Simon said, still cool. Tom was worried about that. It wasn’t acting. It was level because he was still level. “I’ll play it mine.”
“But you don’t play,” Dinah snapped. “We’re all here to tell a story. You just want to get to the punchline. There’s no patience, no passion. It’s job-solution. That might work well in other games but this is about The Story. There’s got to be foreplay before we get to the big finish,otherwise it’s forced. What did we earn?”

“I don’t see it that way,” Simon said.

And then Dinah said the words that ended the night.
“God for Rachel’s sake I hope you fuck better than you game,”

And the entire room went dead still. Rachel, who had been sitting with Lisa for most of the evening. Got up and walked out, bag in her hands. Simon, still coolly looking at Dinah and Peter, got up and followed her.

Everyone in the room was still stunned when Peter got up. “I think we should go.”

“Fine,” Dinah said in a huff. “Needed to be said.”

Not tonight, Tom thought. This was fighting at a funeral. This was shouting at a wake.

And then he caught himself. This was just a prelude. Next month was going to be the real funeral. 

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