Natalie found herself at a crossroads, between a rock and a hard place and whatever other appropriate metaphor there was to describe a situation where she was caught in an awkward situation and had to make a choice but neither choices were particularly 'good' or 'right' per se.
So what happened?
Well her brother found out about the sentient Golem girl Ezraphel was hiding from him and naturally the two had a fight which wasn't great by any means but they had that fight right in front of her and now she had a Lilim clinging onto her for emotional support. Luckily unlike Stan she wasn't a socially awkward mess and could actually console the woman. No the real problem came afterwards when Ezraphel finally calmed down enough to teleport away in looked to be embarrassment.
Where she ended up was the bedroom and unfortunately she locked the door and wasn't exactly receptive to Natalie's calls.
"Go away!" came the muffled cry from the other side of the door.
Clearly she wasn't going to be getting through the distraught Lilim anytime soon if at all. Her next bright idea was the get Stan to somehow fix this but that went about as well as she'd expect if not worse. The moment she went to knock on the door her newly tuned magical senses picked up the foreboding mana of some dark eldritch beast on the other side of the door visually represented by dark miasma seeping through the cracks underneath the door.
'…that's one way to convey you're not in the mood to talk' a suddenly nervous Natalie thought before backing away before poked the sleeping bear.
It's one thing dealing with a pissed of Stan back in the day because he's still 5ft tall and she could use his head for an arm rest if she wanted. This though, well she didn't want to find out what bullshit a magically augmented Stan could do while pissed off and clearly not in his right mind. At that point Natalie was kinda stumped with the only solution coming to mind being to let them cool off and try again tomorrow.
Then she caught sight of the catalyst for this latest debacle still seated on the couch looking sad and guilty. Natalie sighed as she brushed a hand through her hair before making her way over to sit beside the desponded Golem. She didn't say anything at first, didn't even look at her and neither did the Golem as both sets of gazes were pinned to the TV showing some inconsequential program.
Eventually Natalie ended up breaking the silence after a few minutes "how are you holding up?"
"…my fault…"
It took a moment for Natalie to grasp that the words were said out loud and it was a testament to how emotionally drained she was that the only reaction she exhibited was a mild startle and widening of her eyes followed by a slow turn of the head towards
"What the hell, you can talk now?"
The Golem had the nerve to raise a questioning eyebrow "I did not say I could not."
"You did not say anything at all" the Wight huffed "so what changed?"
"Your brother does not appreciate my usual method of communication."
"Huh" Natalie pondered that for a moment "so is this going to be regular thing now?"
"Only until he calms down."
"Well you're going to be waiting a while then."
"So it seems" A paused "is there nothing you can do?"
"Well Ezraphel locked herself in their bedroom and reinforced it with a barrier and Stan…" she looked in the direction of his office and visibly cringed "I don't know what the fuck is going on behind that door but I ain't gonna be the one to find out."
A also glanced in that direction before immediately looking away while quickly nodding "agreed."
"Right so my plan is to wait for things to blow over. I don't know about Ez but Stan isn't going to stay cooped up in his office indefinitely. He still has to eat and use the bathroom."
"…"
"Right?"
She made a so-so gesture with an uncertain expression on her face and Natalie sighed.
The Next Day…
Natalie could admit that there was definitely a better time she could have picked as her debut back into society. But things at the house were depressing as all hell with neither Ezraphel nor Stan ready to budge from their rooms. Or if they did then they circumvented the means of opening the door since both A and Natalie stood vigil the entire night just in case so they could corner one or both of them. Thankfully by both their natures neither mamono needed sleep as much so they didn't lose anything from the failed stakeout other than time.
Natalie decided to cut her losses because she did not see going out of her way to aid in their pseudo marital issues to be a good time. Especially when she knew that their relationship was not in any real danger of ending. Stan will eventually calm down enough to broach the issue like an adult and forgive Ezraphel while the Lilim in question will see this as a valuable lesson about keeping secrets from her partner.
Will things go to back to normal?
Natalie believed so for whatever counted as normal nowadays.
Will they ever be the same?
Probably not but that might not be such a bad thing. If the last hiccup in their relationship, the so-called 'milk incident,' made Stan actually put effort in their relationship instead of being a passive participant offloading the responsibility onto Ezraphel then she would like to believe that this will further strengthen their relationship.
All they needed was space and time to get their shit together. Eventually cooler heads will prevail but until then she didn't want to stay in that awkward suffocating atmosphere so she decided to take the opportunity to go outside for the first time in weeks and touch some actual non magical grass. Natalie would have liked it if Ezraphel went with her but that wasn't in the cards. That's fine though because Natalie had the next best thing in the form of A.
The Golem opted to accompany her on this impromptu road trip for a few reasons. First being that for as much as she was loyal to Ezraphel and willing stick by her Stan genuinely scared her. Natalie noticed the woman's stoic façade break ever so slightly whenever the man was so much as mentioned. She practically kept the farthest distance away from his office and hasn't crossed it since.
Her behavior towards her brother made Natalie curious about what exactly happened when he picked her up but clearly A didn't want to talk about it so she let her be, for now. She was also smart enough to realize how ill advised it was to stay in the vicinity of the couple especially given her unwitting involvement in the matter.
On that note Natalie wished the only feelings affecting A was the fear of Stan but she also recognize another emotion, guilt. It was frustrating seeing the Golem silently lamenting the fiction that she's the one responsible for Ezraphel and Stan's current falling out. Natalie strongly disagreed with this take because if anything really it was Ezraphel's fault for not telling Stan about her existence in the first place.
He was bound to find out sooner or later and their relationship was in a good enough spot that the fallout from the deception would have been minimal if she properly explained herself. Natalie would have definitely had her back providing yet another avenue for mitigating the fallout of the information. Alas Ezraphel never revealed A's existence and Natalie never got an explanation for this frankly baffling move when she asked only receiving a non committal answer.
To her it seemed as if the Lilim was procrastinating which was a shame because this whole thing was totally avoidable. It was also the main source of frustration Natalie felt towards the situation and a major reason why she wasn't invested in immediately trying to fix the problem. Magically locked doors and Stan being super pissed off enough for the feeling to be tangible to her senses could only hold her back for so long if she was putting her best foot forward to helping those two.
Unfortunately she just could not put her best foot forward, not when the root cause of all of this was something as basic as 'lack of communication.' Considering what they went through to get to this point in their relationship they or at least Ezraphel should be above such things.
You know it's ironic that the situation invoked memories of Stan mentioning how his life has effectively become like a TV show. He actually said 'anime' but the point still stands and in this instance Natalie couldn't help but see it. The more she thought about the situation the more it dredged up memories of the numerous CW melodramas she used to watch as a teenager. That's bad, you don't ever want to compare your relationship to something seen in a poorly written teen melodrama but Natalie did and now a part of her just couldn't take the situation as seriously as she should.
If it wasn't mentioned before Natalie needed to get out of that place before she did or say something she would regret.
Having A with her served a purpose outside of just having someone to share the moment with. The Golem was also taught a few spells and among them was the illusion spell giving her the appearance of a human. With her there she'd not only have someone to monitor her use of the spell but a safety net just in the unlikely situation her spell fails her.
Of course she couldn't leave without the appropriate clothing to match her new sensibilities and luckily Ezraphel had completed some of her new wardrobe before all this so Natalie had decent clothes worthy of her new appearance. Though her clothing of choice wasn't anything special design wise just her general appearance and supernatural allure (muted as it was) turned heads.
The attention worked like a balm for her magically inflated ego and self worth. Not that she had low self esteem or anything beforehand. Natalie actually had a decent opinion of herself and after a transitional phase in her life developed the habit of not comparing herself to other women for her own peace of mind if nothing else. Due to this even despite preening under the attention she garnered it actually took a while for her to get used to both the idea that she could literally get any man (and some women) she wanted with minimal effort but also the feeling it invoked with her mamono sensibilities.
She could literally feel the attention from their gaze in a way that was hard to describe and it made the ever present cravings flare up. Luckily for Natalie as both an individual and a Wight she had enough willpower and pride not to allow herself to devolve into some sexually wanton woman. It helped that she wasn't looking for a hookup in the first place which was for the best as she wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to capitalize on her popularity at the moment.
As for what the two got up to Natalie didn't exactly have a plan beyond exploration. They went to the city spending the entire day simply wandering around enjoying the sights, sounds, smell and feel of the outside world. They went to a park, hung out at a café, visited clothing stores, perused some novelty shops and even watched a movie.
It was as she exited the theater with A carrying a mostly eaten bucket of popcorn that Natalie spoke "that was the worst thing I've ever seen in a long time."
She said this all the while laughing because even though she felt cheated out of her time and money she enjoyed the experience nonetheless.
"…"
Even A enjoyed herself with her boyfriend apparently liking bad movies in an ironic sense and the Golem adapting to his tastes. This was her first time watching one in theaters though, but not the first time she went to a theater having gone twice in just as much dates. From how A tells it the guy she's dating sounds like a nice person which is unfortunate because at some point he's going to have to meet Ezraphel and Stan.
'Godspeed man.'
Fishing out her phone which she put on silent Natalie found several missed calls but they weren't from Stan but instead they were from her mother.
"Crap"
"…?"
A paused to glance at her questioningly to which she answered "mom was calling" her lips pursed "think I can put off calling her back?"
The Golem gave a shrug before finishing her popcorn and throwing the cup in the nearest garbage.
Natalie clicked her tongue and hit the call back button before putting the phone to her ear. It rang two times before being picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hey mom."
"Natalie?"
"I saw your missed calls" she spoke "sorry I was in the middle of something, had to put my phone on silent."
"Oh"
"Yea, so what's up?"
"I just wanted to tell you that I met with your brother yesterday."
"You did?" Natalie feigned surprise "so he finally decided to call huh?"
She could have also decided to surprise him with a visit but they both know she wouldn't do that.
"He did" she confirmed "that surprised me."
"Well, what happened? What did you two talk about? Tell me everything!"
She didn't even have to fake her eagerness for this with Stan's current mood she wouldn't be able to get anything out of him for a while yet.
"We talked about a lot" she began only to be interrupted by the sound of a truck blowing its horn from the road nearby Natalie.
The disguised Wight glared in the direction of the vehicle 'fucking asshole.'
"Natalie?" she heard her mother's voice "where are you right now?"
"Hold on a sec mom" she spoke as she made it back to the car along with A.
Once inside she placed the phone on a holder mounted on the dashboard before switching to speaker "sorry about that."
"I guess you're still in the middle of something then?"
"Yeah, call you back later?"
"Alright, love you."
"Love you too mom."
Once the line disconnected the Wight shared a look with the usually silent Golem who raised a brow to which Natalie looked at the time displayed on her phone's screensaver. It showed that it was well into the evening approaching 5pm.
"Yeah, it's about time we went home" she paused with a frown as her eyes went to a particular place on the dashboard "but first some gas."
"…"
"You think he's not going to bitch about that? I guarantee you it's the first thing he talks about when he leaves his little man cave."
With that Natalie starts the car and leaves the theater parking lot only to hit the evening traffic.
"Ugh~"
They were going to be here a while.
Later…
An hour later and Natalie pulls into the garage managing to open the automatic doors with remote attached to the key ring which includes the car's keyfob. As the garage door fully closed both Natalie and A dropped their disguises with the former getting out of the vehicle to stretch.
"Remind me never to stick around that part of town so late next time" the Wight grumbled pressing the button on the keyfob to lock the doors and set the alarm.
"…"
A noticed something which caused Natalie to sniff the air.
"I smell it too."
It smelled delicious and while Natalie ate several times during her outings they were all pastries and junk food. She hadn't had a proper meal all day and scent coming from beyond the garage made her stomach rumble. Yes she had a working digestive system despite technically being a corpse which was just one of those things she just rolls with. Once they made it through the garage side door into the house proper A who was a bit in front of her froze. Walking into the room Natalie looked at the Golem to find her expression akin to someone who just encountered a dangerous wild animal and didn't want to make any sudden moves that could potentially set it off.
Taking her eyes off her Natalie found the 'dangerous wild animal' in this case to be Stan sitting on the couch playing a videogame on the TV. A moment later and he glanced over at them to which even Natalie tensed a bit however he said nothing and went back to playing. The Wight and Golem shared a look before the former shrugged and walked away before dropping herself next to him with a sigh.
"Yo bro" Natalie greeted "borrowed your car for a bit, hope you don't mind."
Still not taking his eyes off the TV he spoke "the needle on the gas gauge better be where it was when I came back home yesterday."
Natalie snorted dumping the keys on his lap "check it yourself."
He grunted but said nothing his gaze focused on the game which was Mario Kart.
"Where's the other controller? I want in."
He handed her the controller and exited his game waiting for her to join.
"So…"
"Yeah?"
"You and Ezraphel patched things up while we were gone?"
"Yeah."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"Huh."
"What?"
"Nothing just…feels kind of underwhelming with how much hoopla you caused yesterday."
For the first time since their conversation started he looked to her his head turning slowly to give her a look.
"Hoopla?"
Natalie shrugged "fuss seemed childish and bitching is just inappropriate."
"I didn't think you'd care that much."
"You had a point. Could have been less apoplectic about it but you had a point."
"…thanks."
"Hm, so are you going to tell me how you managed to patch things up with Ez?"
"No, I don't think I will."
As the race started Natalie looked to him but he kept his gaze on the TV.
With a deadpan expression she turned away and spoke "you guys fucked didn't you?"
"Yep."
.
.
.
"You should try it sometime" he added while his character took the lead in the race.
"I hate you so much right now you have no idea" she replied with a calm façade and the same deadpan.
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" he replied with a somewhat smug expression.
Natalie took a deep breath as her character drove into the item box and received a Blue Shell which she promptly used to hit his character wiping the vaguely smug expression off his face. As her character raced past his he gave her a side eyed glare but she kept her eyes on the screen, her expression neutral.
"Fuck you Stan."