When Stanley retreated to his office it was with the impression that he wouldn't be dealing with anyone for at least a couple more hours depending on how long he'd last before a bathroom break was warranted or get peckish. So you can imagine his surprise when his sister from out of nowhere literally started banging on his door.
"Stan, open up we need to talk!"
Part of him desperately wanted to ignore her but unfortunately Natalie was the type of person who only got like this when things were serious. And when things were serious enough for Natalie to vehemently want to talk that meant he actually needed to pay attention lest he be blindsided by something.
"Dammit" he groaned before pushing off his game chair before yelling "I'm coming woman!"
He opened the door and immediately sidestepped the Wight as she stormed inside. He opened his mouth to make a snarky comment but the words died on his tongue as he saw the expression on her face. Natalie actually looked worried and that made him concerned.
"It's happening Stan" she spoke while pacing the room.
"What's happening?"
She paused to look directly in his eyes and say "mom wants to meet."
"Oh" was his reflexive reply before his eyes widened as the implications settled in "ooh, well shit."
"Exactly" Natalie nodded.
"Did she say what she wanted to talk about?"
"No, she just wants to catch up like usual."
"Like usual?" he repeated questioningly.
"We meet up sometimes to talk about stuff going on in our lives like any new developments, maybe share some juicy gossip" she paused to stare at him "and lament about our belligerent estranged family members we don't communicate with but still love."
"…I can't be the only one in that category."
"Sad to say you're not" she sighed before dropping into his game chair "oh wow this is very comfortable. No wonder you sit your ass down all day in here."
"Nat" he folded his arms waiting patiently while glaring at her.
"Right so I need to get my story straight about what I've been up to for the past couple of months and to do that I need to know exactly what you told mom about me."
"I mentioned we talked before and you might be going through some stuff. I made sure to be vague about it so it's up to you to fill in those blanks."
"Oh" she calmed down a bit "that's…that's good. I can definitely work with that."
Stanley's expression became one of curiosity before he asked "you really didn't tell mom you had leukemia?"
"No Stan I did not" Natalie spoke in an exasperated tone.
For a moment Stanley could only stare in something akin to wonder "wow, so that's what it feels like."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing just, this is one of those rare moments when you're the one who makes a stupid ass decision."
Natalie frowned before muttering "it wasn't a stupid decision."
'It was a selfish one' she finished mentally.
"You going to come clean with mom?"
"Doesn't look like I have to?"
"Well you'd save yourself some headache and drama by not telling her" Stanley informed with a shrug "depends on how comfortable you are with lying and omitting important stuff about your life from mom."
His words caused her to slump in the chair not even its odd comfort able to soothe her.
"Ugh"
'And to think thisseemed like such a good idea back then'
Her reasoning for keeping her leukemia diagnoses a secret fluctuates between not wanting to worry her family while leaning all her hopes on chemotherapy to make a recovery in the hopes of turning something harrowing into something more lighthearted. The truth however was that it all came down to her own pride.
Despite being the oldest compared to her younger siblings she was far being special. Stanley turned his hobby into a viable career and became a wealthy multimillionaire whom she herself had to lean on ever so often for (financial) aid. Meanwhile Wendy was a brilliant young woman who despite the recent revelations of her questionable recreational activities could easily leverage her accomplishments both academic and otherwise to be on the fast track to becoming someone important.
Compared to them Natalie didn't really have any kind of marketable skill or distinct achievements. She was in effect the most mundane of the three siblings but that was okay…no really Natalie was not-sarcastically fine with being the 'boring' one of the sibling trio. Sure she has the occasional bout of jealousy but on in specific circumstances when she's in a specific mood but it never really festered.
Because while she might not have the same skills or achievements as her younger siblings for as long as Natalie could take pride that she was always seen as the strong responsible older sibling. Yes for as amazing as her little brother and sister were they were also a hot mess when it came to their personal lives.
Up until recently Stanley was a bitter cantankerous anti-social incel-lite who modeled his lifestyle as if he were perpetually a college dropout living in his parent's basement. Meanwhile despite successfully living her life under her father as a brilliant overachieving student Wendy turned to drug use as a means of coping with societal pressure. Sure its just a bit of weed smoking now but something about her situation had Natalie thinking there was more going with her little sister and none of it was good.
Compared to those two Natalie's life was a beacon of stability. She wasn't rich, she didn't have a high position job working at some big company or starting one of her own nor did she have dreams of making it big. She worked through highschool with a slightly above average GPA, managed to eke out of college with bachelor's degree, got a respectable job working at a middling company that paid well enough for her to rent a modest apartment, pay her bills and have enough leftover to save up.
Natalie was content with her lot in life while also leaving room for explorations so as not to become stagnant. Her parents, even her bastard of a father could recognize this and her siblings certainly did. As it stood Natalie was the typical dependable older sister both of her younger siblings could turn to whenever they needed a friend, advice or wanted to be bailed out of trouble. It wasn't easy getting to this point and it certainly wasn't necessarily deliberate on her part.
She didn't do anything as petty as lord her perceived position over them. It was something that came naturally through a combination of her hard work, choices made and personality influence. Still she was aware of her position and despite her efforts she could admit that she did put in extra work to maintain said position on the occasions when it was warranted.
Case in point: the leukemia diagnoses.
Now as much as she hated to admit it Natalie did not take the diagnoses with grace. Actually it would be accurate to say that she had the mother of all crash outs when it eventually settled in that she might not live to see thirty. By the end of it the situation got to her enough that when she looked in the mirror afterwards she didn't see the strong, dependable eldest sister and daughter who managed to carve out a good life of her own in spite of her mediocrity.
No what she saw was a woman in her late twenties with no boyfriend and no kids working a dead end job. Then she realized she had under a year left to live and she hasn't achieved nearly as much as she wanted out of life. That kind of thing had never really mattered to her before but suddenly faced with an estimated deadline to her life magnified her inadequacies and she knew for a fact that it was too late to change that.
Was it stupid to keep her diagnoses a secret?
In hindsight sure but in the moment all she could think about were the 'consequences' for revealing such a thing to her family. The 'consequence' being the carefully cultivated image she managed to maintain with her family even at their most antagonistic. As time went by that image became one of the few things she could say she truly took pride in. Natalie just couldn't bring herself to taint that image, especially not when it could very well be the last impression her family might have of her before the end.
But now that the danger has passed and she could say with some level of certainty that death was less a looming specter and more a respectable roommate in her life the question now is, was it worth it?
And honestly?
She wasn't sure.
In an ironic twist her brother found out about it and rightfully ripped into her but the backlash was somewhat muted by two factors. First was the reveal of Ezraphel's true nature which ultimately led to the provision of the solution to her problem. Second was that her brother wasn't the type to dwell on these things so aside from the initial reaction all she really had to deal with going forward was the occasional jab at her expense which was easy enough to accept.
All things considered she got off easy with Stan but her mother was an entirely different. The ripples this would cause in their relationship will echo for years to come and that made the woman very apprehensive. If it were up to her she would go with Stan's suggestion and keep the secret buried under a pile of omittance.
"I can see the gears turning Nat, what are you thinking about?"
"Just how I'm to explain my current living situation" she replied.
"Midlife crisis?"
"…"
"What? You'd be surprised how many people crash out in their late twenties and do some questionable shit that could be charitably be called 'poor life decisions.'"
…he's not wrong but obviously she wasn't about to do that.
"Try again."
"Okay, how about telling her the truth then? You got diagnosed with cancer and did Chemo in secret. Things weren't looking good so anticipating failure you quit your job, moved out of your old apartment and started selling some stuff to fund some extravagant vacation but it ended up working and you went into remission. From there you've been spending the last couple of months recovering and picking up the pieces of your life."
For a moment Natalie could only look at her brother with something akin to awe "wow that was actually a pretty convincing little story. Very dramatic if I do say so."
He rolled his eyes "that's the story I came up with if mom ever found out you were staying here."
"You must have been thinking about that a lot."
"Ever since I first talked to mom over the phone."
"Damn."
"More importantly I'm freaking flabbergasted that you haven't thought about a scenario like that."
"I do" she refuted "but unlike you I'm not a pessimist who spends my days thinking about and agonizing over different worst case scenarios. I prefer to enjoy my life not dread it."
"And where did that kind of thinking bring you?" he mocked "oh yeah, groveling at my feet for advice."
"I'm not exactly groveling here" she gestured to the fact that she was literally lounging in his game chair "and I'm not actually worried about the meeting. I was always gonna tell mom about the leukemia."
"If you already made up your mind then why are you even here?"
"I dunno" she sighed "guess I just wanted a second opinion."
"Well now you have it so do you have any other issue you'd like to consult your younger brother for advice?"
Natalie took a moment to consider this before answering "yeah, I'm gonna need to borrow your car again."
Stanley scowled "no."
Natalie rolled her eyes "I don't want to drive it I just need a lift."
"Oh, in that case-hell no. Knowing my luck she'll end up seeing me dropping you off or something."
"You're being ridiculous."
"Am I? Can you really look at our life right now and believe something like that wouldn't happen?"
"…you're being a paranoid idiot again."
"You hesitated" he noted still not looking at her "and I don't hear a denial. Besides why do you need to borrow my car anyway?"
"Because mom lives far away and I don't want to pay for an Uber" she answered.
"Then just use your own damn car."
That gave Natalie pause "my car?"
"Yeah you know the one that you swindled me into getting, the one that I had Ez stash in a pocket dimension."
"…oh yeah."
Back when she got hospitalized Natalie's car had unfortunately been impounded during her stay. Following that she eventually managed to convince Stan to retrieve it while she was still getting used to her transformation. Her plan had been to put it in a rental garage however he decided to instead have Ezraphel store it in a pocket dimension where it stayed for the duration of her time spent at the house.
As the realization hit Stanley pinched the bridge of his nose "for the love of God please tell me you didn't actually forget your car was stashed in one of Ez's pocket dimensions."
"Yeah well in my defense it's not as if I've gotten much use out of the damn thing recently."
She literally only left the house once in the past two months and before that she had to handle a lot of different crap. Between finding out her brother found a girlfriend who turned out to be super succubus princess from another dimension, her own transformation into an undead, coming to terms with said transformation, learning about the culture she was now part of, learning magic to better blend in with human society when she inevitably leaves and dealing with the daily drama of the household it didn't leave much room to think about things that weren't of immediate concern.
"Riiight" was Stanley's sarcastic reply "well anyway as fun as this conversation has been I believe we are done here" he gave her thumbs up before hiking it towards the door "so can you get the fuck out?"
"But I'm so comfortable~" she whined sinking further into the chair.
"Natalie if you don't take your ass outta my chair I will literally pick you up and toss you out the door Uncle Phil style."
That only caused her to straighten up in her chair "brave of you to threaten me when I'm literally sitting next to your PC."
And with those words the tension ratcheted up as both siblings narrowed their eyes. Within that room a battle of wills between siblings takes place.
Moments Later…
*Door Creaks Open*
Natalie flies out the room
"AAH!"
*Thud*
*Door Slams Shut*
For a moment Natalie laid on the carpeted ground staring at the ceiling with bewilderment before a look of indignation overcame her.
"He actually did it" she stated with a dumbfounded look before a scowl marred her pretty face.
Natalie rose to her feet with supernatural dignity and with an air of grace. After brushing herself off she looked to the door with narrowed eyes and spoke up loudly.
"Just so that we're clear that was uncalled for and I will get you back for that Stanley."
Naturally there was no reply and she could imagine he had his headphones on with the volume cranked up in a deliberate attempt to ignore her. The thought caused her red eyes to flash but she calmed herself.
"No Natalie revenge is a dish best served cold."
And her brother deserves only the best prepackaged frozen meals.