After entering his office, Stanley closed the door behind him, making sure to turn the lock, and for a moment, he simply stood there. Suddenly, the rigid tension in his body and the calm façade of his face collapsed like a demolished building as he slumped forward, bracing himself against the door with one hand while holding his hip with the other. For the next several seconds, Stanley took deep, calming breaths, looking as if he had just run a marathon.
'That fucking Lich' he seethed mentally.
He almost got fucked over by an oversight that could have led Natalie to gaining unfettered access to magic and an insatiable lust for research and experimentation. That right there is a nightmare scenario that must be avoided at all costs.
'I dodged a fucking bullet there.'
Yet he pondered whether or not it was worth it in the end.
Stanley was always hesitant to involve himself in other people's personal business in any way, shape, or form. He certainly didn't like other people putting their noses up in his businass, but hey, it's not as if it's a niche take or anything. The fact of the matter is that for him, there is a certain level of discomfort that comes with involving himself in someone else's personal affairs.
This kind of thinking wasn't limited to just strangers and was among several reasons why he wanted to have as little to do with the actual decision-making process for his sister's Mamono transformation as possible. Case in point: the act of going through that Mamono list with Ezraphel and Natalie was akin to some cruel and unusual psychological torture.
Why is that?
Because in order to weigh the pros and cons of each Mamono, he had to basically visualize Natalie as said Mamono, which inevitably led to him picturing what she would get up with some poor faceless schmuck.
*Insert Retching Noises*
"Haa~" Stanley let loose a sigh before pushing off the wall and making his way to his PC system, where he plopped down on his comfy gaming chair, leaned back enough to look at the ceiling, and rubbed his eyes with both palms and groaned.
The second reason was far less practical for him in that it had something to do with his stupid conscience pinning some level of responsibility for her on him. It doesn't make any logical sense since it's totally out of his hands at this point. Even Natalie agreed that there wasn't much of a choice between becoming a Mamono and dying in a few months. Yet to him it still felt like he essentially facilitated a Faustian bargain between her and Ezraphel.
Still, as much as he wanted to spare his mental faculties, Stanley just could not, in good conscience, leave Natalie to make that decision with just Ezraphel for a second opinion. And what do you know? His involvement ended up aborting what would have been a terrible final decision on Natalie's part.
Stanley would like to think that he knew his sister better than anyone, but that's not necessarily true. He might have at one point, but that was years ago, and unlike him, who made it a point to live his life with the least amount of change possible, Natalie is someone who embraces change in her day-to-day life. By the time she started living with them, he only had a tentative grasp on the kind of person she was. He had to basically get reacquainted with her over the course of her stay and was glad to know that she hadn't changed too much in their time apart that she became virtually unrecognizable as a person.
At least he can take solace in knowing that her wanting to learn magic came off as more of a passing fancy and that she wasn't the kind of person who would want power for power's sake. He sort of knew that to be the case even before Ezraphel mentioned it since she didn't so much as bat an eye at all the supernatural benefits that came with becoming a Mamono. Her reaction gave the distinct impression that if her life wasn't on the line, Natalie would have declined to become a Mamono altogether.
Natalie seemed to not care for the benefits of being a Mamono the same way he didn't really give a shit about the benefits of being an Incubus. Given how he's enjoying the benefits of the transformation one might charitably say that he's full of shit but keep in mind that Stanley's reasoning for becoming an Incubus never really strayed beyond wanting to keep up with and appease Ezraphel. He would have rather stayed as he was but there wasn't much of an option when you have a voracious Lilim involved.
You think he's being hyperbolic but if he took Ezraphel out of the picture then there is legitimately a case for being an Incubus not really granting that much value to his life. For instance he's incredibly handsome now and has a natural charm that draws people to him but Stanley never cared about his appearance in the first place. As an introvert he has no inclination towards interacting with actual people or receiving unwanted attention.
Being Captain America levels of physically enhanced doesn't amount to much for someone who only ever exerts himself every once in a while playing airsoft. Frankly, his being unfit is the perfect handicap equalizer because, as recent events have revealed, it would be unfair for his opponents otherwise and he wouldn't have any fun.
The same can be said for having perfect health and immunity to virtually all natural diseases. Stanley cultivated a lifestyle where he didn't need perfect health to live a life of contentment. His life as a modern hermit might not be glamorous by most metrics or even fulfilling according to modern public standards, but he's satisfied, and anyone with a problem with that can suck a fat one.
And it's not as if being an Incubus is all good. He can't step out in public without his passive charm effect making him occupy people's attention. As if the stares weren't annoying enough, people somehow gather the courage to start a conversation with him, which is just... painful. Then there's his raging libido that demands he stick his dick in a certain someone multiple times every other day, lest blue balls literally drive him insane.
His only saving grace is that Ezraphel is ready and willing to satisfy his urges and act as a bigger distraction for him. Truly, if it weren't for her, then being an Incubus would just be too much of a hassle to be viable in any other circumstance. But he has Ezraphel, and Stanley did not at all regret becoming an Incubus, nor would he change his current self.
'I really hope Natalie feels the same way a year from now.'
As much as he would like to say that he could empathize with his sister's circumstance of being corrupted, the fact of the matter is that an Incubus transformation is significantly less severe than a Mamono transformation. Stanley might say that he is no longer human; however, he can acknowledge that said belief is a bit on the hyperbole side. He's still human in all the ways that count, and should he actually meet a natural MGE Incubus, its his belief that the contrast would be more apparent.
He knew that Ezraphel would try her best to make it so that the change wouldn't incur any intense psychological changes in the same vein as his own, but Natalie would have to deal with way more than just that. She would basically be waking up in a new body, all things considered. The implication made him frown in mild concern as thoughts of body dysmorphia came to mind, something he hadn't even thought about until literally just now.
'Shit.'
He didn't even have a defense for the lack of thought since he did go through a phase of adapting to the changes of his own transformation. There is a level of discomfort and uncanniness that came with the transformation. He'd equate it to like getting used to a pair of new shoes, except it's his entire body and certain things just couldn't be ignored. At least that was the case for a while until he overcame it for which Ezraphel was of great help in that aspect.
It wasn't so much that she acted as a guiding hand to aid in his transition but more that she provided ample distraction that left him little room to ponder the implications. By the end of the first week after they were done fucking, he was left too tired and satisfied to sweat the details beyond a cursory observation. It also helped that their week long sex marathon saw him thoroughly adapted to his body to the point where he never looked any deeper into the topic of how his transformation affected him beyond some surface level observations.
Now that the subject has come up however, Stanley did find himself posing a question.
'How did it change me?'
Specifically, how has becoming an Incubus changed him?
It's not a question that's easy to answer due to how heavily intertwined the transformation is with the effect of Ezraphel's overall presence on his life. It's easy for him to conflate what she's managed to accomplish in making him a changed man with the role the transformation itself played in shaping him.
'Shit, is there even a difference?' He thought while scratching the top of his head in aggravation.
In a way, he understood that to be the point and a success in Ezraphel's efforts to appease him. He didn't want to suffer the mental effects brought on by corruption, so he charged her to make it so that the transformation wouldn't affect his mind, making for as seamless a transition as could be. It obviously worked, maybe a bit too well, and now he's finding himself struggling to parse the differences between Stanley the human and Stanley the Incubus beyond the obvious physical aspects.
He could say that his being an Incubus made him more pliable to Ezraphel's advances, but that would be a bold-faced lie. Stanley didn't think himself any more special than the average Joe when it came to reigning in his urges. Withstanding Ezraphel's seduction attempts the first time around was more his fear, uncertainty, and stubbornness overriding his arousal. Even if it did take surprisingly longer than it should he still caved to her in the end.
Yet by that point even as they crossed that threshold, it became standard for him to resist her, if nothing else, for sheer stubbornness. Ezraphel herself finds his stubbornness to be charming (God knows why), and he's convinced she gets a kick out of whittling down his resistance through the use of more subtle methods of seduction.
As far as other changes go…
'I guess I'm not as socially awkward...?'
There's a difference between being socially awkward and being antisocial. For Stanley, it wasn't always like that; he remembered being pretty outgoing as a kid, but at some point he just stopped. Actually, he remembered it being around middle school when he didn't hit that growth spurt he thought he would, and people started making fun of him for it. He tried to shrug off the taunts and name-calling, but they kept persisting, and he got self-conscious about it.
A bunch of stuff happened afterwards that had him slowly becoming distant from his friends and people in general. Mainly, he discovered the internet and found interest in it. Of course, during that time period, internet culture was considered nerdy shit and didn't endear him to his former friends. At that point, he had a choice, and unknowingly, he made the tactical decision not to hang out with people who routinely made fun of him and to focus on things that he liked.
By high school, he was fully into videogames, anime, and this website called YouTube, among other things that formed the basis for mid-late 2000s nerd culture. He did so at the cost of forgetting how to interact with real people his age, but frankly, there was nothing lost there, in his opinion. He did remember making a few genuine attempts to form a social relationship, but that didn't work, to say the least, so he just avoided trying for the foreseeable future.
And so ends the tale of teenage Stanley Berkowitz's social life.
The lesson he took from that was like most things he applied to his current life, and it's making sure that things are worth his time before making the effort to invest in them. He never tried to go out of his way to make friends with strangers in real life. It's the reason why all his current irl friends he met through the internet and had extensive dealings with in one form or another. Even then, it was still a struggle to interact with them outside of certain topics.
That isn't the case nowadays, as while the supernatural charm effect of being an Incubus does encourage other people to take notice and even interact with him (especially when he's alone), it isn't as painful or awkward as it could have been. Somehow, through what he can only excuse as 'magical bullshit', Stanley can actually navigate a conversation without accidentally putting his foot in his mouth.
He noticed that during the nth time he got forced into a conversation with people that he really didn't want to have. Even at his most dismissive, where he doesn't put any effort into the conversation, he is able to seamlessly navigate a path out of it without coming off as an asshole. Now, given everything that's known about him, you'd think his coming off as a dismissive asshole during conversation is by design, but it really isn't, well, not off rip anyways.
Would you believe that Stanley has cultivated his unique conversation skills purely by accident? Years of self-appointed isolation with only the internet (and social media) to use as communication channels have deteriorated his irl conversational skills and tolerance for people. It's so severe that any unwanted conversation with strangers outside of a formal/business-like setting has a 90% chance of him getting fed up and defaulting to what he refers to as 'online troll speak.'
The way how it goes is like this…
Stanley attempts to have a conversation -> fucks up -> panics -> tries to salvage -> gives up trying -> attempts to leave the conversation at all costs.
Since he's used to trawling the trenches of the internet, his go-to means of leaving a conversation is to be an asshole. It also doesn't help that he's used to leaning into that type of energy since it often gets him the result he wants—being left alone.
As an Incubus, however, he has the real-life equivalent of getting 100 in the speech skill. It wasn't just the charm effect of being an Incubus either. Stanley might actually have some supernatural empathy ability that allows him to read people in a way that is straight out of fiction. Plus, being in a relationship with Ezraphel has instilled in him a confidence he didn't even recognize until recently, enabling him to utilize this newfound skill without collapsing under the weight of social pressure.
So yeah, if he wanted to, Stanley could definitely be that guy those alpha male influencers pretend to be. It would actually be pretty freaking easy for him to go down that route actually, but like many seeming opportunities in his life, Stanley didn't see the point in trying. He already has the sexiest and best woman in the world so why the fuck would he want to appear desirable to strangers?
.
.
.
Wait, what was he thinking about?
His thoughts veered off to the point that he almost forgot the reason why he was even thinking about—
'Oh shit, Natalie!'
Right, he was thinking about how becoming a Mamono would influence Natalie and how he could help.
"…I got nothing."
And that's the truth.
For all that he can ponder and speculate about it, the truth is that Stanley won't really know what to expect. This includes both the full scope of changes Natalie will incur and her reactions to them. All he can do is hunker down to weather the storm as it passes, no matter what form it takes. In any case, if there was one thing he could say for certain, it would be that nothing would be the same.
And maybe this time he can be the reliable sibling for once.