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 Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 3:56 pm
Andesine didn’t particularly think of herself as a snitch, but she had to admit: Niter’s concern wasn’t unwarranted. There were notes all over the Negaverse’s training manuals that keeping an eye on one’s fellow officers and the Negaverse’s senshi could prove both useful and incredibly important. If someone wanted to defect away from the Negaverse, then there would likely be signs of such inclinations and as such, Negaverse operatives had a duty to report anything that could be noticed to prevent such desertions.
But whatever was going on with Niter, it didn’t really seem like that. For one thing, defecting from the Negaverse sounded like it would’ve required more active effort than Niter seemed to enjoy putting in. Maybe Andesine had the wrong read on him from the mission into the Rift, but for all he’d done his job and handled his assigned tasks well, he’d also given her the impression of someone who didn’t enjoy being noticed for good work because that might give him higher expectations to live up to later. (Not her personal way of being, most of the time, but she couldn’t deny that, if he did feel that way, Niter certainly had a point.)
Pressing him on anything during the debrief wasn’t likely to go well, and understandably so. Chatting too much about anything personal right now would get both of them noticed in distinctly negative fashions. So, she waited. After the meeting wrapped, she even gave Niter a couple moments to breathe—but Andesine still felt the need to catch him before he could wander too far.
“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice down in case anyone felt inclined to eavesdrop. “I’m sorry for startling you back in the meeting. And I didn’t mean to imply that I’d rat on you for checking your phone. You’d just…seemed distracted? Everything I could think of that would distract someone like that during a mission debrief was pretty unpleasant, so…I just thought I’d ask if you were okay.”
That much concern about colleagues or work-friends wasn’t something Andesine usually did. But in addition to him being pretty young to begin with, something about Niter reminded her of a kid who’d gotten lost at the mall. And really, it didn’t cost anything to just not be a heinous b***h to a fellow Negaverse operative who hadn’t done anything to earn that.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 4:48 am
Niter hoped that, when he left the debrief, he would go back to being unnoticed. He didn't like it when people took notice of him — it was distracting and anxiety-inducing in a time when he needed to be less distracted and anxious. He followed the crowd out, tucked toward the back, but not at the very tail. The last person got noticed, just like the first person got noticed. People made judgments about where one was in a crowd, after all.
So Niter nearly jumped out of his skin again when Andesine called to him, then sidestepped out of the crowd before someone could give him a weird look or start wondering what was wrong with 'senshi these days'.
At least she didn't sound like she was going to throw him under a bus. That was — that was good. Like a change of pace, almost, except it didn't really do anything about the circumstances that were currently crushing the life out of him. It didn't do anything but render him less likely to make up an excuse on the spot and fast walk down the hallway to Jet's office for a ride home.
"… Oh. Um." Niter sighed, feeling embarrassed to even say it. He fidgeted with the triangle ends of his top. "It's, um, just, my parents cut me off and my job doesn't make very much money, so I was. Looking for something new. You know. With the Negaverse WiFi." Because LTE sucked, and Laike had to downgrade his plan so he couldn't stream anymore. He certainly couldn't live without internet, that was preposterous, but he could absolutely live without the steep cost that he now had to shoulder, courtesy of his parents (and instigating grandmother).
"So, um," Niter hung his head. "Don't tell anyone I'm a failure, please and thank you." He'd send her an emoji if their conversation was happening virtually, but it wasn't, and his face wasn't very good at emoji, so he let it be.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 10:00 pm
……Well, that definitely had not been high on the list of answers that Andesine expected to hear. Especially not with the tacked-on parts about Niter feeling like a “failure” for the situation his parents had put him in. Not wanting her to go spreading that around made sense. No matter who your commanding officer was, gossip and reputation mattered in the Negaverse, and there were probably plenty of people who’d willingly use information like that against Niter somehow. While Andesine understood the drive to be at the top of the heap, there had to be limits to it, even if only for the sake of workplace efficiency.
Part of Andesine tried to remind her that getting too close to coworkers was never a good idea, never mind doing it too quickly. But at the same time, Niter seemed like a sensitive kid and like he might appreciate having someone on his side. Maybe there was a good balance to be found here.
“I won’t tell anybody,” Andesine promised, “and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I haven’t been there with my parents, but…that’s where I was a year-and-a-half ago. Getting abruptly cut off and trying to figure everything out.” Granted, “the woman I’d been sleeping with, or in so many words, my sugar mama” was really about as far a cry from parents as you could get. But—Andesine had had at least one advantage that Niter hadn’t had, and maybe she could offer him something similar now, like the theater had done for her.
“You were doing the tech stuff on General Faustite’s mission, right? How skilled are you at normie tech stuff? I don’t know all the details about that you’d need but……” She shrugged, as if this offer wasn’t a big deal for her to make. “I work at a theater in town, and I know they’re looking for a new tech person. Our old guy started some joke app that gives you a conspiracy theory-themed zodiac sign or something, and I guess enough people liked it? But I know my boss has been complaining about the website not working anymore, and the lighting techs have had a Hell of a time getting the computers backstage to play nicely with their lighting cues in the latest production. Plus, if the wifi issues get more complicated than ‘unplug the router and plug it back in again,’ we’re all kind of lost.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 6:12 pm
Niter never expected anybody to commiserate. It was a lot, coming down to someone else's level, and he didn't really wish any ills on other people, so it was both sad and surprising whenever someone else could say 'I know what that's like'. When Andesine admitted to experiencing something similar, Niter wasn't sure whether he should start by thanking her for seeing where he was coming from, apologizing that he got her thinking about it again, or trying to flee the conversation (mainly because it was a conversation and that was Niter's typical response to them).
Instead, all he could do was nod quietly. He didn't want to interrupt. He kept his shoulders slumped and his arms curled about himself because his senshi outfit didn't offer him any pockets. He couldn't even stick his hands into his subspace pockets, it was the worst.
Of all the things he could've expected to hear next, Niter wasn't thinking a job tip would come out of it. He hadn't seen any postings about a theater looking for tech people, but he hadn't been looking at that sector at all. He didn't know what that kind of job entailed — it might've been a lot of physical work, which he couldn't do. But what she mentioned? Sounded doable enough.
He stared at her, blankly, for a hot minute before he processed enough of it to respond coherently. "Um, I think I'm okay with normie tech stuff. I did my own streaming setup, and I haven't met a piece of software that I couldn't figure out? The only thing I can't really do is programming, but I think they offer that at the community college." He didn't know which language it was, but he did know they were all online.
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