While Ezraphel was doing her own thing Stanley had locked himself in his office but it wasn’t to do any work. Rather he was thinking over the fact that in a few days he would be introducing Ezraphel to his associates. You’d think that given Stanley’s lifestyle, beliefs and temperament that he would not have much of a social life but contrary to popular belief Stanley Berkowitz does in fact have one.

Though ultimately it depended on what one’s definition of a ‘social life’ is. For instance if your definition of a social life involves going out and meeting with people in person to converse or do activities together then obviously Stanley wouldn’t have much of a social life. However if you’re going by Webster’s definition of it just being the part of a person's time spent doing enjoyable things with others, then you will be shocked to find that Stanley has a surprisingly healthy social life.

The beauty of modern technology and how it enables long distance communication for convenience.

In the case of the average social introvert it was a means of gaining a social life without the hassle and anxiety that comes with meeting new people. It basically cuts out the dickhead middleman trying to screw you over and fucking up your deals. Moving on, a few might be curious as to how someone like Stanley who was a previously surly, short tempered asshole with a chip on his shoulder ever managed to make friends even through an online medium.

Well first of all, you meet all kinds of people on internet and if one thing is true it is that there are always people online who share your interest no matter what. If racists, fascists and furries have an online following then Stanley can find like minded people whom he has shared interests with. And no it’s wasn’t an Incel group because fuck those guys. Stanley might have been an asshole with a chip on his shoulder but he owned that shit. If he wanted to change he would make the effort but since he didn’t give a fuck he didn’t bother to try.

No his making online friends started with his original passion, gaming. Stanley loved games and not just videogames. He played board games, arcade games, he had all the noteworthy console systems throughout the ages, played a fuck ton of videogames and was not at all ashamed to call himself an Epic Gamer. He liked them so much he was probably one of the first people to record gaming walkthroughs and post them on the internet.

Why?

Because he’s a fuck mothering Epic Gamer and he has done a lot to earn that title, as self proclaimed as it was. And so as an Epic Gamer who was business conscious with an enmity for public social interactions, a loathing for college life and not at all looking forward to the grind of the real world Stanley figured the next logical step in his life was to figure out a way to monetize his skills through the then growing online media landscape of the late 2000s/early 2010s.

Things didn’t really pick up for him until the universe decided to spit in his direction. That’s how he explained receiving some unexpected funds through sheer luck and a literal gamble. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth he invested in himself and went all out on his platform which up to that point was moderately successful. Afterwards through his hard work and innate capabilities Stanley built up his presence online whilst also keeping his face and identity hidden from the public.

Passionate about this he may be but Stanley was not in the business of making a clown out of himself for millions of people to watch. He had his fucking dignity plus with his personality he’d probably get shut down even back then let alone in today’s climate.

In any case after almost a decade Stanley has become a fully realized content creator and tentative influencer. His follower count collected through various social media outlets now number in the millions. All of this was accomplished through his ‘job’ which consists of creating timely and high quality educational videogame walkthroughs, the occasional live streams on Twitch and his special brand of online interaction with his community on Discord.

His Facebook account was deleted and Twitter is only used for announcements and nothing more.

Of course being online for so long and gaining such a large following came with its own set of problems. Said problems revolved around maintaining the success of his platform and unfortunately for all his passion and dedication Stanley just didn’t have the social and technical skills necessary to operate on such an expansive front.

No man is an island and despite trying his best Stanley could not achieve his full potential as a content creator without help. And so he began to actively search for help online and found a few people over the years. Not all of them stuck around, he didn’t have a good interpersonal relationship with most of them and he can even admit to getting screwed on a deal multiple times but he still he kept at it eventually he wised up and learned how to navigate the online space until he managed to assemble a proper team. It just so happens that in addition to having the necessary technical and social skills he lacked, they also share the same interests as him, namely their taste in videogames, anime, manga, light novels, TV shows, movies, etc.

You know, weeaboo shit.

Usually their interactions would take place online or at the very least Stanley wouldn’t need to be there in person however this all changed during a private Discord chat. It was then that Stanley found among the various interests they shared one of them happened to be Airsoft.

For those who are unaware ‘Airsoft, according to Wikipedia, is a team game in which participants eliminate opposing players by tagging them out of play with spherical plastic projectiles shot with mock air weapons called airsoft guns.

In fact they were all Airsoft enthusiasts and this opened up the gateway for an eventual face to face meeting. Now every once in a while when they have the time they get together to participate in Airsoft battles that last all weekend long. He found that despite his own feelings they were all good people who don’t mind his prickly attitude and in a way actually get him. Unlike him however they actually have lives outside the internet. They go out, have social interactions and develop relationships with real people without a screen in between.

Nowhere was this apparent than when he tentatively accepted an invitation to meet up together and hang out like a bunch of normies. He felt really out of place and uncomfortable the whole time but he stuck it out for as long as he could. Despite this he still ended up making some excuse to leave the first chance he got. After that he never really joined them for regular social gatherings. He thought that would be the end of their relationship right there but having explained, ranted his situation they were pretty chill about it.

Well they certainly gave him some amount of grief for it but it was all in good fun. From then on it was generally understood that Stanley would only attend certain gatherings. Thankfully standoffishness did not negatively impact their relationship and they continued to keep in contact and meet up every now and then.

Now he faced a dilemma, two actually with the first being that Stanley never told any of them about Ezraphel at any point during their online chats. There were a bunch of reasons for this. First off that first month Ezraphel didn’t have access to her magic and thus no disguise. Second, even with said disguise she had to be thoroughly trained and vetted so as to not oust herself or bring undo attention unto them in public.

So far he only succeeded in one of these.

Beyond that, his second reason was that there was just so much crap happening to him lately that he genuinely forgot about having to meet with them. Then just earlier today during group chat the date was set for a meet up and Airsoft match he automatically agreed to it. Now he was faced with the prospect of having to introduce his inhuman girlfriend from another dimension to his friends.

Just another day in the life of Stanley Berkowitz.

*Cue Seinfeld ending jingle*

“What the fuck am I doing?” he mumbled “this isn’t the end of the world.”

He knew the reason. He was nervous and maybe just a little self conscious.

…okay not a little bit but a whole lot.

He was very nervous and very self conscious about the whole thing!

“I hate feeling like this.”

The anxiety, the pressure of having eyes on him by people whose opinions he actually gave a damn about was disgustingly familiar. He absolutely hated it but what can he do?

‘Absolutely nothing.’

Well that’s not true but then it becomes a question of whether he could or should do. This was happening for better or for worse.  So until then he would have to deal with it. It was as if the anxiety was a small wound covered by a band-aid and itching something fierce. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t scratch at it because then it would make the wound worse so he had no choice but to tough it out until the weekend where he could just rip the metaphorical band-aid off.

“I guess it could be worse.”

Ezraphel could have been interested in playing with them.

He cringed just thinking about it…wait no, that wasn’t a cringe from the thought but something else.

‘What the…’ were his thoughts before two slender arms wrapped around his game chair to entwine over his shoulder.

“Stanley~” were the words whispered in his ears.

He hated when she teleports into his office unannounced like this however his mind was momentarily taken by surprise at a simple fact.

‘I actually felt that’ he thought looking up into her eyes.

“Hm, what’s wrong?”

“I think I actually felt you coming.”

“Really?” the Lilim’s red eyes practically lit up “do you know what that means?”

He felt the chair reclining back and elevating in a way that was definitely not a part of its design.

“Pretty sure you’re about to tell me” he mumbled still staring into her lit up eyes.

Now his and her faces were parallel to each other with her standing over him.

“That means our bond is getting deeper~”

As she says this her eyes glowed brighter, the lids lowered, the ever present red tinge of her cheeks grew brighter and her face came closer.

‘Hmm, what to do…?’

On one hand he could just let her do her thing and engage in a make out session that has a pretty high chance of escalating into something more but on the other hand…

*Flick*

“Ow!”

Ezraphel’s head jerked back as a comical yelp escaped her lips.

“Stanley why~?” she whined pressing a finger to the bruised spot between her forehead.

Said forehead flicker gave her a bored look “Ez, how many times have I told you not to teleport in my office out of nowhere?”

“267 times” she answered dutifully.

“…”

“What?”

“You actually kept count?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“…”

“…”

*FLICK*

“OW!”

“Anyways, putting that aside did you want something?”

The Lilim who had been rubbing her forehead with a comically forlorn look immediately perked up. As she did he noted that the more pronounced bruise from his second forehead flick using the full measure of his superhuman strength immediately healed up.

“Oh, I have a surprise for you.”

“Uh-oh.”

Rolling her eyes she pulled him off the chair which realigned itself back to normal “oh relax, it is nothing to fret over.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“I’m counting on it” she winked before the two of them disappeared in a flash.

They reappeared before the bedroom door and even though he had no idea what was happening he could feel there was something off about the area.

“What did you do?”

The Lilim smiled widely with a hand on the doorknob “why don’t you see for yourself, presenting our refurbished love nest.”

She opened the door and Stanley’s jaw dropped.

“What. The. Fuck!?”