~Stanley's Concerned Friend~

As the boys argued and showed off the mods to their airsoft weapons and tactical gear one of them was not as into the conversation/argument as the others. For Jamie this was par for the course since his personality was more laid back and by his own admission he wasn't as passionate about airsoft like the others seem to be. His silence however had less to do with the topic of conversation and more to do with his introspective thoughts on the only man he knew to be shorter than his perfectly average 5'4" stature without being an actual dwarf.

It's been well over an hour since Stan busted into the house like the Kool-Aid man spouting the Rick Sanchez catchphrase showing off his new look and new girlfriend and Jamie was still in a mild state of disbelief. On the surface he was accepting of Stan's change if only because he didn't want to be that guy and make a big deal out of it. Plus it's not as if he disproved of the changes either. By far and large Stan seemed to be in a much better place than he was when they last met. He honestly looked a lot healthier, was less intense and considerably less grumpy overall.

If it was someone else Jamie wouldn't have thought the changes as being anything more than someone getting a new lease on life and working towards bettering themselves. With Stan on the other hand Jamie couldn't help but feel like there was something more going on. See Jamie knew Stan for far longer than the others and would like to think he had a fairly accurate read on the man's personality. So this change he's going through or rather went through raised a bunch of red flags for him.

First was the timeframe, it has only been a couple of months since the last time he met Stan in person. Back then he was a chubby, greasy and unkempt mess of a midget and now he was suddenly Chad Manlet. The timeframe itself wasn't impossible since it's almost been a year but it has almost been a year with no heads up, mentions or virtually any change to his upload schedule.

Jamie knew the kind of work it took to get like that because he went through a similar evolution himself. Long story short it took a lot of time, effort and personal investment for him to consistently maintain his physique and health. Stan was in a much more let's say dire situation than he was back then so it would absolutely eat into his content creation time if nothing else yet he was able to maintain his upload schedule without a single dip in quality or meaningful deviation.

Then there was the big elephant in the room, his girlfriend and to that Jamie will say there is no fucking way that Stan under normal circumstances could ever score with a woman like Ezraphel. To say that Stan had the odds stacked against him would be an understatement and he's not just talking about his appearance. But let's say for argument's sake that Stan was already the Chad Manlet when he went looking for girlfriend. Jamie could guarantee that any woman who would be interested would instantly run for the hills after a five minute conversation with him.

Jamie was genuinely one of the few people who could deal with Stan off the rip for long periods without getting offended, disgusted, argumentative or exasperated. This was because he had a weird sense of humor and didn't really get offended by anything. Seriously a big part of why people avoid Stan is because he can say the most offensive and outlandish shit as easy as someone would look up at the sky and say it was blue. It is only once you get pass his creative use of offensive words and naturally antagonistic personality that you will find Stan to be surprisingly insightful and funny.

Another huge aspect of Stan's overall nature was the fact that the guy was very self aware of his flaws but was at peace with them. He knew that his lifestyle was mentally and physically unhealthy and he even once said that he'd be lucky to live through his 30s. As fatalistic as it sounded he described his situation as 'make your bed and lay in it' and Stan was laying in it with no complaints. He didn't change because he couldn't but because he was content and didn't see a particular reason why he should.

Finally, and this may be the most important barrier for him to have an intimate relationship, Stan had a particular aversion towards relationships in general. In his own words girlfriends are a terrible investment, weddings are a scam and marriage is just a gateway to an existence of misery and despair. Personally Jamie thought he was being melodramatic but he genuinely believes this and openly mocks Liam and Amelia's relationship even going so far as to laugh at them when they announce their engagement.

With such an attitude towards relationship and in general one, that hasn't necessarily changed even now, Jamie found it hard to believe that Stan went out of his way to look for a girlfriend which brings up the question when did Ezraphel come into the picture?

An argument to be made about whether Ezraphel came in the picture because of Stan's change or was the reason for his change. It couldn't be before since Jamie was pretty certain that Stan would have mentioned her in all those months. He was definitely the type of guy to brag about getting a girlfriend especially a woman looking like Ezraphel did. So it would have to be fairly recent but that brings a whole other plethora of questions.

While Stan's changes were physically drastic as mentioned before personality-wise the man was the same. Even now while he was arguing with Kendrick he was tossing out the type of sentences that would make most women not want to deal with him let alone be in a relationship with him. The more time he spent in Stan's presence the more Jamie realized that the most drastic changes to his friend were almost purely superficial. The guy was the same as he was the last time they met, the same guy he's been exchanging DMs and voice chat with on Discord.

Stan changed but at the same time he hadn't which begs the ultimate question: does this woman actually like Stan or is there an alternate motive?

And this is where the first red flag was raised as the more Jamie thought of it the more he could see this woman being in it for the money. A common misconception about the career of content creating especially those who primarily do gaming content like Jamie and Stan was the state of their finances among other things. There are some people who still use the term 'virgins living in their mom's basement' unironically as insults for the modern gaming content creator/streamer as if this was still the mid to late 2000s.

Unfortunately for those ignoramus times have changed with the blow up of YouTube, Twitch and social media. There's a reason why people who gain a decent following on any of these sites quit their regular jobs and in some cases drop out of school to invest their full time in content creating. Stan has been doing content creating the longest out of all of everyone in the group and was a (in)famous and respected name in the online gaming sphere and this transfers to a lot of followers and thus revenue through views, donations and sponsorships. As someone with a similar number of followers to Stan Jamie can attest that Stan was earning a lot just from the sponsored videos and streams but the thing is Stan wasn't just a content creator he was also a businessman.

That's not to say that everyone else wasn't, they were all wise enough to realize that content creating wasn't a stable long term source of revenue and branched out to include more stable sources of passive income. Stan however was a completely different beast and over the course of their friendship Jamie learned that Stan stuck his fingers in a lot of pies so to speak. He's an affiliate marketer for several gaming companies whose products he promotes on his own website which sees a lot of traffic, he co-founded a successful independent clothing brand, he's a minority shareholder in a custom PC building company, he sponsors a successful e-sports team and he owns stock in several businesses.

Stan's business acumen was completely nuts and a good example of this was two years back when Jamie convinced Stan to get into crypto trading. The plan was for the two of them to invest in a bunch of random shitcoins as a stunt. It wasn't a big deal since they both had money to throw away and generally it was meant to be an ironic joke. Well the joke was on Jamie because fast forward a couple of months and he lost damn near all his investments.

Stan on the other hand hit him with the plot twist that he's been dabbling in crypto for years now. He invested a good chunk of his time and energy into understanding the market even going so far as to hire a financial advisor. So while Jamie was losing money Stan was able to sift through the shitcoin scams to find legitimate crypto currency to invest in and managed to make a profit from the stunt. As for Jamie he recouped all his looses through the revenue off his videos dunking on crypto bros and just making fun of crypto in general.

Now those were just the things Jamie managed to find out but he was pretty sure Stan got up to more than just those. The point of all this is to say that Stan was pretty freaking rich. He's a multimillionaire earning millions every year yet you'd never be able to tell with how frugal he was with money, like Mr. Krabs levels of cheap. There is no doubt that if Stan ever for some inexplicable reason decided to flex and show the full scope of his wealth it would put most Douchetubers showing off their luxury lifestyles to shame.

So with that said there was a pretty good precedence for Ezraphel being a gold digger. How she found out Stan was rich was up in the air but Jamie could believe his boy fucked up somehow and she found out about it. Now Stan's natural personality and appearance pre-chad manlet may repel most women on paper but Jamie knew better. Some women can be very determined when money was involved and while Stan being vocal in his opinion about relationships being a waste of time or that he wouldn't be bothered putting in the emotional and monetary investment into one seems like an ironclad oath Jamie also knew that such words were born of a place of ignorance.

Stan has never been in a relationship before, he's never had a woman pursue him before and he made the assumption that any woman in their right mind wouldn't go for him. He had a point as between his former appearance which he himself compared to a greasy troll and his let's say 'difficult' personality no woman in their right mind would put up with him. But what if there was a woman who was able to ignore all that and still show seeming interest? What if that woman was very beautiful and charming to a fault?

Taking another look at Ezraphel Jamie could admit to himself that if she tossed out bait even he might just risk being hooked which was saying something. Jamie has been in relationships before and he agreed with Stan to certain degree that it would take a special kind of woman for him to bother with that old song and dance again. Jamie didn't think Stan actually had a defense for a beautiful and charming woman aggressively pursuing him with no care for his appearance and personality.

If Jamie really thought about it then he could see Stan folding to a woman like that (with daily interactions) within a month or two tops. And if that's the case and Ezraphel was able to get past Stan's defenses and put up with his bullshit all for the sake of money then she might just be the most dangerous woman he's ever met. Or he could be making a mountain over a molehill and Stan has more game than Jamie gave him credit for.

Ultimately all of this was just conjecture on his part but Jamie was willing to at least investigate this theory after all Stan was his friend and he felt obligated to look out for him.

~Girl Talk~

'How did it end up like this?'

Amelia had practically accosted Stan's girlfriend (something she was still getting used to) and brought her to their little corner to have a little girl's talk. She took the single seat sofa nearby leaving Amelia and Ezraphel to share the three-seater. Make no mistake Kendall was just an unwitting third party observer at this point. The talk had started out well enough with Amelia more than willing to ask all the pertinent questions that Kendall herself was curious about. Questions like who she was and where she came from?

Turns out Ezraphel came from an isolated community similar to the Amish and was raised in a traditionalist family which explained a lot about the woman. Even her name 'Ezraphel' had a distinct Shakespearean quality to it. It also explained why she wasn't on any kind of social media platform and didn't even have any form of ID. That was weird but you know what was even weirder? It essentially meant that Ezraphel's appearance was literally the result of good breeding and an 18th century lifestyle. Apparently a woman can look like Ezraphel without plastic surgery, skin care products, dieting or even an exercise regimen.

Kendall wasn't jealous.

No really, she wasn't jealous at all!

Now that her origins were out of the way the conversation switched gears to how she met Stan and this was where she lost Kendall. So apparently Ezraphel ran away from home then roamed the countryside eventually reaching the city where she wound up in a club, got drunk and somehow found her way into Stan's yard where she passed out to be discovered by him the following morning.

…and despite how ridiculous that sounded it somehow paled in comparison to how she formed a relationship with Stan himself.

Stan being the gentleman that he was literally dragged her into his house. After she woke up they got into an argument in which he 'politely' told her to leave his house or else he'll call the police to 'assist' her she somehow managed to not only persuade him not to do that but convinced him to let her stay. How she did this? By explaining her situation after which he took pity on her allowing her to stay at his house for a few days which eventually turned into six months where the two formed a relationship.

Kendall's first thoughts upon hearing this story was 'that can't be real.'

What Ezraphel just explained sounded like the summary of a TV show complete with the appropriate plot holes, leaps in real world logic and suspension of disbelief to boot. And yet despite this fact and Kendall's suspicions she still believed her. Not because the story made sense but by how the woman herself spoke about it. Either Ezraphel was delusional to a fault or she was the greatest actress Kendall has ever seen because even when Kendall and Amelia called out the inconsistencies/bullshit Ezraphel calmly explained it in a way that seemed logical.

By the end of it Kendall totally bought the ridiculous story and so did Amelia who quickly segued into a topic that Kendall had no interest in, the actual relationship. Now this is the part where Kendall completely checked out of the conversation and it was all because of Amelia. Kendall had a problem with Amelia. The redhead was a gossip, a self proclaimed gamer and an 'otaku' but that wasn't Kendall's issue with the woman. Kendall's issue with Amelia was that she was a shameless pervert. Quite shocking seeing as how she looks, speaks and acts in a generally normal manner for the most part.

Thing is Amelia as a content creator has amassed a large following by making primarily risqué age restricted content to the point where her community has crowned her the Queen of Degeneracy. Some of the more outlandish things she does as a content creator include but are not limited to: being a professional anime and hentai cosplayer, doing livestreams in lacy lingerie, reviewing hentai, visiting sex shops to peruse their wares, reviewing said bought wares and doing interviews with porn stars.

She also has an OnlyFans account that basically features the explicit versions of her videos and cosplay. You'd think it was an act for the simps that comprise her community but no Amelia was just really lewd. In fact she once confided in her that the reason why she hadn't gone into porn or even having nudity in her explicit content was because Liam was not cool with that and she was genuinely in love with the guy. Plus as it is she makes more profit from teasing nudity rather than doing blatant nudity.

Kendall thought Amelia would be the only oddity of her kind that she would meet but never before would Kendall imagine she would meet Amelia's kindred spirit. It turns out that Ezraphel too was a pervert but at the same time it was hard to just call her that. Any brave woman can explain how they fucked their boyfriend but with Ezraphel it felt like she was weaving an intricate tale of pleasure, orgasms and giant dicks which apparently Stan has.

This was not the kind of thing Kendall would ever enjoy hearing but she like Amelia found herself enraptured by Ezraphel's passionate storytelling. The portrait painted by her words was so vivid that for a brief moment it felt like she was there in Ezraphel's place getting teased, squeezed and dicked down by Stan.

Wait, WHAT!?

And that's when she realized that this tale, sounding like it was coming straight out of an erotic novel, was basically detailing the sexual escapades of Stan-fucking-Berkowitz. The same Stan Berkowitz who was doing a League of Legend ranked match style trash talk round over fucking Airsoft mods. And just like that the bubble was popped, the fantasy was gone and Kendall was left feeling a conflicted mess of arousal and shame.

Pulling down the beanie on her head to where it covered her face and dropping her head back on the sofa back Kendall gave a long suffering groan 'oh my god~'

Her groan naturally attracted the attention of the other two women who look at her in confusion.

"Are you okay?" Amelia asked with some concern.

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Were you imagining yourself having sex with my Stanley?"

Kendall's head snapped up, the beanie was pulled from her wide eyes to see the other woman looking at her with a cheeky grin.

'She knows' a part of her mind supplied.

"W-what!?"

'How!?'

Amelia looked between the two of them before her gaze settled on Kendall "is it true?"

"No!"

"Yep~"

Kendall glared at the taller woman who only laughed with Amelia joining "oh my god, it's true!"

Kendall felther cheeks burning "shut up!"

"It's okay Kendall" Ezraphel said between laughs "you wouldn't be the first woman to have such thoughts about my Stanley."

Amelia gave her a look "really?"

Ezraphel nodded "oh yes, Stanley doesn't notice it himself but he does turn quite the number of heads when we go out in public."

Amelia looked to the man himself "I mean" she paused while shaking her head from side to side as if thinking how to phrase her words "he's not bad looking, at least not like the last time we met."

"By the way what's up with that?" Kendall jumped in happy to change the subject from her erotic thoughts "did you do that or was he like that when you met?"

At the question Ezraphel's smiled dimmed a bit "ah, when we first met Stanley and I were in a…let's say worse place than we currently are."

"Well Stan I can figure" Amelia commented "no offense girl but that man was unpleasantto be around even at the best of times" she paused for a moment giving a surreptitious glance to the man in question before continuing "he still is actually."

Kendall could agree and she out of everyone owed Stan a great deal. At a time in her life when everything seemed to be going wrong and she was in danger of forever being a wage slave Stan put her up with the most unlikeliest of jobs and basically foot the bill for her life for a whole year. Yet despite her eternal gratitude to the man she was also aware that he was hard to get along with. Kendall has enough experience with navigating the dark trenches of the internet to not be totally bothered by him but Amelia wasn't.

Being a pervert does not make one immune to all forms of degeneracy.

"Ah Stanley has a tendency to push people away" Ezraphel spoke with a sad note "he tried his very best to do the same with me" and at this point she smiled "but he quickly found that I am not so easily deterred."

With a declaration like that done with a straight face both woman were hard pressed to deny that she was anything but genuine.

"…huh." was Kendall's succinct comment.

Amelia was more articulate however "you actually like him…like really like him?"

"Amelia, I love him."

"But why though?" Amelia seemed to realize how that question would come and backtracked "not that there's anything wrong with liking him…" she trailed off.

"But why though?" Kendall reiterated bluntly with no regrets.

Ezraphel chuckled at their antics "it is alright. I am not oblivious to how we may look to most people. It is hard for me to articulate my feelings to you in a way that you would appreciate and understand."

"No need to go all Shakespeare" Kendall commented while resting a cheek on her hand.

The Amelia added "and we promise not to make fun of you for it."

Ezraphel looked between the two of them for a moment before beginning "then I guess the easiest way to explain it is that I felt a connection with Stanley the first time I laid eyes on him. Even though he was rude, mean and didn't want me to stay I made myself enough of a useful nuisance to him that he had no other choice."

Kendall raised an eyebrow "what do you mean by 'useful'?"

"I cook for him and do all the chores around the house" the woman elaborated.

Amelia's eyes narrow a bit "he's making you do domestic stuff?"

"He didn't make me. Stanley doesn't really care what I got up to so long as I didn't disturb him. I just noticed the house could use some cleaning so I did just that. I also noted that Stanley wasn't eating right so I started cooking his meals."

"Oh" Amelia nodded "so you are responsible for turning him into that?"

"Well…yes."

"Nice."

"But" she added "Stanley put in his own efforts as well."

"Sure, sure 'you can lead a horse to water' and all that" Amelia waved off.

"So what about you two?" Ezraphel asked.

"Us?"

"How did you become friends with Stanley? I was under the impression that he had no friends."

"Wow" Kendall drawled "didn't even mention us."

"Just to be clear" Amelia butted in "Stan and I are not friends."

Ezraphel blinked "you're not?"

"Oh no, Liam, my fiancé over there" she pointed at the man attempting to mitigate an ongoing argument between Stan and Kendrick "he's friends with Stan. As for me I tolerate him."

"Oh."

"No offense Ez, I like you but your boyfriend is a troll. Like a literal troll."

Ezraphel didn't take that as an insult not really. She understood that the word 'troll' had negative connotations but she couldn't divorce them from the rather pleasant Mamono species of her home.

"Don't take what she says too personally" Kendall "they have this weird hate/respect relationship."

"I don't understand."

"We don't like each other but we don't actually like hate each other" Amelia attempted to explain.

"It's like what he's doing with Kendrick over there" she hooked a thumb over to the argument which was still going strong "except instead of taking out their gripes in airsoft or videogames they try to one up each other with insults."

"Ah" Ezraphel nods "so it is a battle of wits then?"

"Yeah, I call him a greasy virgin troll of a midget and he calls me a low tier wannabe porn star degenerate" Amelia finished off easily.

"Except he's not greasy or a virgin anymore" Kendall reminded.

"Oh yeah and come to think of it did he get taller?" Amelia scratched her chin "shit thanks for that by the way" she sent a faux glare to Ezraphel.

The woman gave a beatific smile in return "you are most welcome~"

After a long moment of scrutinizing the woman Amelia shook her head "I can't be mad at you."

"Stanley said the same thing" Ezraphel observed before stretching.

The display did a good job of showing off her prominent assets and making Amelia question her sexuality. Kendall didn't have that problem as she was a proud bisexual. No, her problem was that she found the perfect woman but said woman was already taken and by the most unlikely of men she knew. Never before would Kendall ever think that she would be jealous of Stan in such a way yet here she was lusting after his girlfriend like an old school nerd does for the cheerleader.

Kendall would like to think that she wasn't being so obvious about it however the knowing looks Ezraphel gave her said that she failed in that regard. Even more damning was the smirk! She knew exactly what she was doing to Kendall and was encouraging it.

What could it mean?

'Is…is she into girls too?'

"I'm hungry" Amelia's words luckily saved her from dwelling on these thoughts.

Ezraphel's gaze darted to the clock "I should get started preparing the meals."

"Babe what are we doing for food?" Amelia called out to Liam getting the other boys' attention.

Almost immediately places for takeout were loudly suggested however one voice rose above them all.

"No" all eyes turned to Ezraphel who continued "no takeout."

"Ez-" began an exasperated Stan only to be silenced with a glare.

"No Stanley, you are not eating takeout. I won't allow it."

"Whipped" Kendrick snickered with the appropriate sound effect.

"What the hell are you laughing about? None of you idiots are getting takeout either. Right Ez?"

"Of course not" said woman agreed standing with her hands on her hips. Sharp blue eyes panned across the room daring any brave soul to disagree with her statement. Wisely they all acquiesced in their silence.

Liam after a moment decided to break the silence "so, what's on the menu then?"

~How I Met Your Stan~

'Goddammit Ez.'

Things were going so well, they were really managing to get through this with only negligible problems. His friends weren't suspicious so much as they were curious and both he and Ezraphel managed to field the hard questions. At least he assumed as much, the story of her coming from an isolated village reminiscent of the Amish was last minute (as most of his brilliant ideas usually are). The problem Stanley had with thinking of a background for Ezraphel before was that he thought she would have to be part of modern society.

It was only when they were listening to a pair of radio hosts talking about one of his favorite comedians Dave Chappelle being attacked at one of his shows that the idea eventually struck him. In one of his recent Netflix special Dave did a joke about the Amish and how they didn't use technology. That's when the idea struck him: Ezraphel didn't have to be part of modern society in the first place. So pulling over the side of the road for a bit he started doing some last minute research into the Amish and other communities like them.

He ended up coming across the term 'Plain People' which is a term used to describe communities that are characterized by their simple living and nonconformity to the modern world. Think 19th century farmers in the modern era. The most recognized of these groups are the Amish but there are a bunch of other communities like that all over and they are something of a protected group as well. Some of them don't even use national IDs and the government has to pass special inclusive policies just for them that don't infringe on their rights.

It was freaking perfect and the more he thought about it the more it would make sense for Ezraphel to be part of this kind of community. Not necessarily the Amish but an isolated community of 'Plain People' so far off the grid it would be like M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Ezraphel had gotten acclimated to modern earth well enough to point where she doesn't look at everything like it's foreign but Stanley can admit that there was something about the way she acted, spoke and generally interact with people in public that was a little uncanny.

Her values, attitude, speech pattern and overall behavior were still at odds with most people's modern sensibilities making her seem strange or eccentric at best and suspicious at worst like someone putting on an act. At least the latter would be true if people assumed she was a person raised in normal society. But if she came from some random community isolated and separated from modern society then her quirks would be more easily accepted.

Now crafting Ezraphel's background from this was the easy part, the hard part was getting Ezraphel from this hypothetical place to his backyard. And it had to be this way because his friends know him too well to think that he would willingly bring some random woman into his house. Stan knew for a fact that if Ezraphel hadn't been passed out in his backyard she wouldn't have made it into his house without strong opposition.

This was where the cracks started to show in the story.

Ezraphel running away from home to explore the wider world was plausible as well as her getting to Stanley's city. The sequence of events that led her to stumbling drunk into his yard was less plausible but conveniently she didn't have to know how she stumbled into his yard since she was blackout drunk. All that mattered was that when she woke up she was in his living room and the rest was an abridged history.

…does it need to be mentioned that Ezraphel was using her charm magic to make them believe the story?

Stanley still felt a bit skeevy about it but at least they had a good enough foundation for it to work on even if said foundation was essentially the plot to a TV show. The point was that everything was going great so naturally the universe decided to balance the karmic scales. Ezraphel in true Ezraphel fashion went and ruined it by prioritizing his health over the plan.

Why? Why would she do this?

Because she's a decent person who cares for his well being?

As flattering and adorable as that is it was also creating unnecessary drama. Plus it's not like a single weekend of having takeout meals was going to do anything to him. Ezraphel once boasted that he could literally chug a bottle of deadly poison and it wouldn't affect him in the slightest. He wasn't just an Incubus he was a Lilim's Incubus and that meant something. In addition to being the perfect embodiment of the male form in a compact package Stan was functionally immortal and virtually invincible with Ezraphel around.

Fucking takeout food wasn't going to crack that!

Of course Ezraphel was very much aware of this and it took a single sentence for Stanley to realize what her play was and he didn't like it. Part of the reason why was because of the aforementioned unnecessary drama but the other part was because it brought more attention to them (her in particular) than needed. Most importantly now they had to drive to the local Walmart to shop for ingredients. Since it was Ezraphel's idea and she was the only quasi-professional chef among them she had to go with. Stanley was unfortunately the only one with a car plus he didn't trust Ezraphel alone in any shopping center so he too had to go.

That should have been it but shockingly Jamie and Kendall volunteered to go as well.

Why?

He had no idea but it was both a blessing and a curse because while the two were the closest to him out of everyone in the group now he couldn't properly scold Ezraphel. It was a problem that wasn't being helped by the 'innocent' self satisfied smile she was sporting.

How dare she smile like that while creating problems for him!?

"So how long have you two known my Stanley?"

If he wasn't currently driving Stanley's head would have hit the steering wheel in exasperation.

'This woman is determined to fuck everything up isn't she?'

"About four years now. Jamie's known him longer, he introduced us."

"Oh?" Ezraphel positioned herself to look over the back of the car seat to Jamie who met her gaze blandly "and how did you meet my Stanley?"


Technically Jamie knew Stan for far longer than they've interacted with each other. Specifically he's known Stan for over a decade now through his YouTube channel AwesomeEpicGaming. Stan is one of the most prolific gaming content creators on YouTube having started uploading since the early years of the site and is one of the few lucky ones from that early generation to maintain their relevancy in these modern times. Jamie has been a fan of Stan's channel since middle school, in fact Stan was one of the major inspirations for him starting his own channel. Of course things have changed and he's grown from a fledgling gaming channel to a variety channel that offers more than just gaming content in general.

As for how he got to actually meet Stan it was a funny story actually.

As a content creator Jamie has differentiated himself from most by putting out some truly niche content and was always looking out for things that caught his eye. One day while playing an old FPS shooter on Twitch he got into conversation with his audience through chat as he always did and something was brought to his attention. See aside from this particular game being very popular and a major part of the childhood for a lot of gamers as well as being an important part of gaming history it was also notorious for its difficulty.

In fact the game was so difficult there existed to date not a single online documentation of a person that was able to beat the game at its highest difficulty in a single playthrough. That did not sit right with Jamie and so using the power of his clout and bank account he issued a challenge to gamers far and wide: complete the campaign of this game at the highest difficulty in a single playthrough without anydeaths. It has to be live streamed, there can be no third party cheats implemented only glitches and bugs already present in the game and you can't abuse the autosave feature.

The prize for this challenge was initially $5000 however it soon became clear that he underestimated just how difficult the challenge really was. No one could get past the first level, Jamie himself couldn't even get past the second area of the first level. So he quadrupled the bounty to $20,000 both as an acknowledgement of the difficulty as well as to get more people interested. It turned out to be the best decision he's made that year as hundreds of people doing thousands of streams attempted the challenge.

It even got media attention with articles written in game journals, small news coverage and was the hot topic for a week on the internet. The game franchise saw a resurgence with sales increasing as people bought digital copies to try their hand at winning $20,000. Most of them amounted to nothing but the real content came from the speed running circuit. It was less about the money for them and more about proving who was the best and cement themselves as legends.

Funny thing about it was none of the big YouTube and Twitch gamers counted among the top contenders. Almost everyone who made significant progress were speed runners and glitch hunters relatively unknown to mainstream. Amusingly enough there were quite a few people who have never even done live streams until just then rising to prominence based on the skill shown in their attempts at the game.

This wasn't shocking to Jamie in fact it was totally expected because he knew that most big gaming content creators and streamers weren't prominent because of their gaming skills as much as their ability to entertain the masses. So imagine his surprise when a familiar name came up in conversation in regards to the challenge. The channel was AwesomeEpicGaming and it made an announcement that it would be attempting the challenge.

Now this was actually a pretty big deal for Jamie not just because he's been a fan of AwesomeEpicGaming since he was in middle school but because it was also the first time the person behind the channel was doing a livestream. Needless to say he wasn't the only 'old head' to watch it and the man didn't disappoint. Sure he didn't show his face and made a bunch of mistakes expected of a first time streamer but it was all made up by his playthrough.

Stan didn't just beat the challenge he slaughtered it, paraded its corpse across the internet like a trophy and hung it up as a monument to further cement his greatness. It was absolutely nuts and it left Jamie near speechless with how beautifully he completed the challenge. Of course given the seeming ease with which he did it there were naysayers. So for the rest of the stream and in the coming days he proceeded to beat it on each available platform to him going so far as to crank out ye old X-Box 360 doing both the original and remastered versions.

It was the greatest thing Jamie has ever witnessed and gameplay aside the man himself despite keeping his face hidden with masks and blind camera angles was quite entertaining. He explained each and every method of approach, every known and unknown bugs and every exploitable glitch than can be utilized to complete the challenge as smoothly and quickly as possible. When he wasn't being a gaming god he entertained chat with his clever wit that has been deliberately censored due to him not wanting to be banned before he could get the job done.

Jamie knew from the first stream he wanted to be friends with him and it just so happened that Stan was a fan of Jamie's content and dry wit. After Jamie forked over his money AEG proceeded to donate it all in installments to the streamers who completed the challenge after him. That only increased Jamie's respect and after reaching out the two would continue communications through private Discord chats. Before long Jamie learned his real name and the two would do collaborations together every once in a while. Stan even made some guest appearances on Jamie's podcast.

"…and we've been friends ever since" Jamie finished his tale.

Immediately after Jamie finished Ezraphel swatted at Stan.

"Ow?"

"Why didn't you tell me you had a friend?" she accused.

"Why did you assume I didn't?" he shot back.

Her eyes narrowed "you know why."

He rolled his eyes "I didn't say anything because you'd want to meet him and you wouldn't be satisfied with face time so you'd pester me about an irl meeting and I did not want to bother Jamie about."

"I wouldn't mind" Jamie shrugged.

"Shut up Jamie you're not involved in this."

"I'm feeling pretty involved."

"Oh look at that we're here" Kendall informed as they turned into the Walmart parking lot.

"This conversation isn't over Stanley" Ezraphel huffed.

"It never is" he muttered in response.

Jamie and Kendall shared a look with the former commenting "I think we might be witnesses to a domestic incident."

"Uh huh" Kendall muttered before they left the car.

~How I Met Your Stan Part Deux~

The two friends awkwardly trailed behind the couple who kept up their argument until they entered the Walmart. At that point Ezraphel got the cart and dragged Kendall off leaving Stan and Jamie alone together.

As they followed behind the two women Stan turned to his friend "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"It's fine" Jamie shrugged "quick question how did you manage to get her as a girlfriend?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I woke and found her passed out in my backyard?"

"It would be more believable than you going outside to form meaningful relationships with total strangers."

"What am I, a normie?" Stan scoffed.

"That still doesn't explain how youmanaged to get her to be your girlfriend."

"Not that it's any of your business James but Ididn't get shit. She's the one who propositioned me in the first place."

That got Jamie's eyes to widen "you're joking."

"Do I look like I'm joking right now?"

"…no" Jamie answered before making a perplexed expression.

So if he's telling the truth and Ezraphel was the one to approach him then his theory about Ezraphel being a gold digger just got more weight. Yet at the same time Jamie found himself losing the belief in his own theory. Ezraphel didn't act like someone who was only with Stan for his money, no name brand clothes, no expensive cars, no jewelry and she's not even wearing any makeup apart from lipstick. Also throughout his purposefully long winded and detailed story she paid attention throughout and was rather expressive despite her silence.

Jamie just couldn't picture the woman as some kind of gold digging clout chaser.

'Clout chaser? She's not even on any social media!'

"Why are you so interested in Stan?" Kendall popped the question as she leaned on the shopping cart handle while Ezraphel scoured the isle for ingredients.

"Did I not already give sufficient reasons earlier?" she answered without taking her eyes away from the task at hand.

"Yeah, yeah Stan's a sex god" and wasn't that at the top of a pile labeled 'things she never asked for or needed to know' "but unless the first thing you did after meeting him was to fuck-"

"I wish."

"-then I doubt that's reason enough for you to be so…obsessed(?)" she finished unsurely.

"That sounded like a question" Ezraphel noted.

"I'm trying not to make assumptions here. Usually most normalwomen aren't so devoted to a guy they've only known for a couple of months."

"And you assume I am a 'normal' woman?" Ezraphel spoke with amusement.

"Uh…"

"I'm not so ignorant that I am unaware of the way I am perceived by others. Some find me strange but most find me pleasant to be around. Of course a majority of them find me most desirable~" she winked saucily at Kendall causing the girl's cheeks to flare up before she desperately stomped down the embarrassment "personally I have embraced this a long time ago. I won't be fazed by the opinions of others or get uncomfortable by questions so by all means ask away."

"Um wow okay, so Stan. What's your deal with him?"

"I love him."

"You already said that."

"Yes I did and my answer hasn't changed."

"So you love him. That's it?"

"What were you expecting? Does there need to be some deep underlying and complex motive behind it?"

"Well…"

"I understand" Ezraphel interrupted finally taking her attention away from shopping to give Kendall her full attention "in your society the term 'love' has been watered down and marred with so much superfluous false convictions over the past century to the point where it has become either meaningless to all but the most hopeless of romantics or an abstract concept for some to pick apart or wax lyrical about."

Her words combined with her sudden stern unwavering gaze caused Kendall to shrink in on herself a bit. It was as if she was a child being lectured by a grown adult.

Ezraphel continued "in my home there is a great significance placed on love. You could even say that my culture revolves around the concept of love. To the point where it may seem excessive to the likes of you" at some point Ezraphel had crossed the distance to stand before the frozen Kendall "so when I say that I love Stanley please understand that it is not some superfluous statement to be taken lightly" she leaned in closer "I love Stanley, I adore him and yes Kendall I am obsessed with him. He. Is. Mine."

*Flash*

Kendall felt her heart skip a beat, cold sweat pooled at her brow and she swallowed thickly. For just a very brief instance she swore she saw Ezraphel's eyes flash a bright crimson at her final word.

As the two women stared into each other's eyes, one calm and steady while the other was cowed and wavering Ezraphel suddenly spoke "breadcrumbs."

Blinking in confusion Kendall could only get out a "huh?"

Ezraphel pointed behind her "the breadcrumbs, we're going to need that. Please be a dear and put it in the cart."

"S-sure" Kendall turned away and released a breath she didn't know she was even holding.

It was so bad that she actually took a few moments to compose herself 'what the hell was that!?' her mind screamed while she held a hand to her chest where her heart beat as if she had been running a marathon.

That was the most intense conversation she's ever had and it was about love of all things!

Robotically she picked up the box of breadcrumbs and trudged her way back to the cart where Ezraphel seemed to be picking through spices. Kendall continued to give her weary looks the entire time as if she was a live explosive that could go off at any moment.

"I'm sorry."

Kendall recoiled slightly taking a moment to compose herself an answer "w-what?"

Ezraphel gave her an abashed smile "I'm sorry about what I said earlier. As you can see I am very passionate about this subject."

'That's an understatement' she's never met anyone who would get that intense over love. Not even the person they are in love with but the very concept of love itself.

"It's fine, I'll get over it" she waved off.

"Clearly it's not fine if you need time to 'get over it' Kendall" Ezraphel frowned.

"Just let it go!" the woman snapped with a scowl.

"…very well" Ezraphel acquiesced and the two continued their shopping though with an awkward silence between them.

And despite knowing she didn't do anything wrong Kendall still felt bad.

"Hey-" Kendall began at the same time Ezraphel spoke out "so-"

Both women looked at each other with Ezraphel giggling, it was a pleasant sound.

"Go ahead" Kendall gestured.

"You said that James introduced you to my Stanley?"

"Jamie doesn't like to be called James" Kendall informed.

"Stanley said the same thing about his name" she mused aloud.

"What are the odds" Kendall thought out loud.

"So you were saying about how you met my Stanley?"

"Right, I didn't actually meet 'your Stanley' in person."

Kendall has known Jamie since they were in highschool. At a time when he didn't show his face while making videos due to being self conscious and shy she was one of the few people to know the identity of the person behind the YouTube channel SparrowZ9. Anyways back then Kendall suffered from the very serious illness of being terminally online. Kendall, like many girls in their mid to late teens was into social media a lot.

She has accounts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok and various blog sites. She perused the dark corners of Tumblr, 4Chan, Reddit and Discord without issue and has even made forays onto the Dark Web. So with such a prolific internet background is it a wonder that Jamie came to her for advice on how to establish a proper social media presence?

Luckily when he did ask her this she was coming out of her terminally online phase due to the cold reality of post-graduation life. Arguing with randoms on the internet seemed so inane when you have bills to pay. Kendall was actually jealous of Jamie since his channel was taking off and he could quit his job to do content creating full time. Kendall thought about doing the same but she neither had the time, skill or charisma to make it as a content creator.

What she did have was the skill and expertise to properly advise her friend about how to manage his social media, avoid the pitfalls of drama/controversy and generally stay sanitized or as sanitized as one could be when dealing with the internet. It was just a thing she did to help a friend so she didn't get paid for it or anything but apparently she did such a good job for him that a few years later he ended up recommending her to a friend.

Said friend was a content creator she'd only heard about in passing but didn't really know since she wasn't into gaming. AwesomeEpicGaming or rather Stan needed help after close to a decade of being a content creator he was finally willing to expand his brand through social media. Basically Stan wanted the same help Jamie got with the exception that he was willing to pay her for it.

She accepted it of course and was able to create, develop and manage several social media accounts for his channel. Kendall did her best but otherwise didn't think much of this job but apparently she underestimated just how much of a big deal Stan was to the community because all his social media accounts blew up within a week.

Turns out that Stan was a rather prominent gaming channel on YouTube that found itself stagnating. However after completing a challenge that Jamie issued to the internet at large on what was his very first live stream he was seeing a major resurgence on the internet. She knew about said challenge because it was at the top of trending for a few days but otherwise didn't think much of it. This turned out to be the perfect storm and with fresh social media accounts to take advantage of his spreading popularity Stan reaped a lot of benefits. With thousands of followers gained each day and several new ventures he was attempting Stan wanted to keep the momentum going.

He threw her a curve ball by asking her to work for him full time as his social media manager. She later found that he's been running his gaming channel (which uploads videos every other day), a review website as well as various blogs by himself with no team for the entire near decade of his time as a content creator which was insane. So naturally he might need help if he's planning on expanding or so she thought but the most important reason why he wanted her help was because he (in his own words) was liable to do something really stupid and ruin his brand if left to his own devices.

This wasn't a preemptive thing either as Stan, by his own admission, has been banned from some websites while under different usernames because he ran his mouth and did not want that kind of drama for his channel. Kendall was a bit reluctant to accept…until he sent her the first draft of a contract and saw what he was willing to pay her for being part of his team. After that Kendall quit her job, took up some online courses and became part of the 'AEG' team which was just her and Stan.

"We didn't meet in person until like a year and a half later when Stan visited Jamie's house."

"I take it he left an impression?" Ezraphel commented as they were no in the frozen meat section.

"You can say that" Kendall muttered remembering her first irl meeting with Stan and what a meeting that was.

"Oh, what the fuck!?"

Speak of the devil.

"Why hello Stanley, James."

"It's Jamie."

"That's what I said James."

The man in question glanced at his friend who was pinching the bridge of his nose "just let it go man it'll be easier for your sanity."

"What's your problem?" Kendall asked with a raised eyebrow.

"What's my problem? We leave you two alone for a few minutes and this happens."

Kendall didn't know what he was talking about until she actually looked down at the cart she was pushing and did a double take.

"That's a lot of stuff" Jamie summarized in his usual bland tone.

"It's too much!" Stan yelled.

It's not like the cart was cartoonishly overfull but she had to agree with the boys that this was definitely too much to feed six people.

'When did she even put all this in?'

Kendall didn't think she was so distracted by her retelling that she would ignore the volume of things being placed in the cart she herself was pushing.

"Well it's not as if I'm going to be preparing all of this for tonight's feast" Ezraphel huffed cocking a hip to this side while folding her arms.

"So all of this is for the whole weekend?" Jamie asked.

"Of course."

"Who do you think is paying for all of this?"

'Is he being for real?' Kendall deadpanned.

"How good is she at cooking?" Jamie cut in.

"Uh…"

"Yes Stanley, how good am I at cooking?"

"Very good" Stan admitted reluctantly.

"Then I'll help pay for it" Jamie shrugged.

"Me too" Kendall chimed in.

"You guys…" Stan trailed off only to be interrupted by a reinvigorated Ezraphel.

"Well in that case…"

"Don't even think about it."

"But they said they would help pay for it~" she whined.

"Yeah those two but not everyone else."

"Then why not ask them?" Kendall suggested.

The couple looked to each other.

One Phone Call Later…

The quartet exited the Walmart with an almost full shopping cart worth of groceries to feed six people for the weekend. Unfortunately whatever good mood that could be felt for managing to share the burden of paying for said groceries was ruined by the return of the rain.

"Goddamit Ez."

Kendall had no idea why Stan was blaming Ezraphel for the rain neither did she understand why the woman looked guilty about it. She didn't bother commenting on it if only because she's had enough weirdness for the day.

But little did Kendall know this was only the beginning of the weirdness to come this weekend.

~To Be Continued~

Author's Notes: Late posting I know but a lot was happening this weekend. If you want to see advance chapters or just want to support me and my work then check out my Pa treon.