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Tweak says, "RAW"

Rosario Ortiz (reluciente) wrote in nevermore_logs,
@ 2022-03-06 18:29:00

Entry tags:

armaan khatri, rosario ortiz

WHO Rosario and Armaan
WHEN Sunday 6 March, afternoon
WHERE Lyra, Avery and Armaan’s apartment, Crown Heights
WHAT Meeting the roommate
WARNINGS Probably none

It was only a couple hours after Lyra took off, when the buzz of a text yanked her head out of her books and her mind out of the endocrine system, that Rosario made a grab for the phone plugged into the charger and discovered that it wasn’t hers.

It wasn’t a big deal, Lyra was always leaving her phone round here. Not like Rosario had to go far to return it. Except— gah, dammit, that wasn’t true anymore. Crown Heights wasn’t far far, it was only a twenty-five minute bus ride, not even two miles, but when you’d spent most of your life a couple staircases and a stretch of corridor apart, twenty-five minutes seemed like a trek.

Rosario sighed. Welp. Least it’d be a chance to check out Lyra’s new digs, she guessed. Unlike Jocelyn, she wasn’t worried about how they were splitting the rent (Avery was a condescending ass, but Rosario could grudgingly recognise that he always treated Lyra right) or who was doing the lion’s share of the cleaning (Lyra wasn’t gonna be running round picking up after no boys; no diss, but half the time she forgot to pick up after herself), but it’d be reassuring to know her bestie wasn’t breathing in black mould or something.

So a half hour and two buses later, that’s where she was: walking into a Crown Heights apartment block, triple-checking the address on her phone before she rapped on the door.

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fallontheflame
2022-03-09 04:09 am UTC (link)

"Oh med student!" Armaan grinned. "That's so cool! No, I'm actually just studying to be a weather reporter. Someone else can do the science and I'll make up the dumb weather puns while standing in a rain storm, telling people 'by the way it's raining'. I'm doing an internship now at a tiny local station and they're teaching me how to read all the equipment they have which is really awesome." He went a bit quieter before he added, "I might do the meteorology bit part time after I have a job. It just takes more years to finish and I already put off study to raise my sisters." He needed a full time job as soon as possible.

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reluciente
2022-03-09 09:34 am UTC (link)

Boy, did Rosario relate to that. "Kinda why I went for medicine," the admission slipped out of her. "I mean, I know you're s'posed to say 'I wanna save lives' and stuff, and yeah, that's important, but honestly? I want a job that means I can look after my sisters and parents and grandma, and this is a thing I'm good at." Except when you said that out loud, you risked people looking at you like you were some kind of vulture, like every other med student in the world was such a Mother Theresa, so usually she stuck with I wanna save lives and stuff. Crap, she hoped she hadn't read the vibe wrong and Armaan wasn't about to take it that way.

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fallontheflame
2022-03-09 12:37 pm UTC (link)

Rosario had not read the vibe wrong at all. "I mean- I guess I get what other people might be thinking there, but whose lives are more important than our family's? Sounds like that kind of thing comes from people who might not know the feeling of being unstable financially. When everything you work for is just to be stable. Don't get me wrong, saving lives and helping people is great, but it's that 'put your oxygen mask on yourself before helping others thing'. Where 'oxygen mask' means 'the ability to pay bills'."

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reluciente
2022-03-10 12:02 pm UTC (link)

"Exactly." God, it was a relief to talk to somebody else who actually got it. Apollo didn't have a clue; neither did Merlin. Talking about callings and paths opening to her, a couple of old rich white guys who'd probably never had to make a pay check stretch or worry about making rent. Merlin'd told her she was getting in her own way, like she didn't know exactly what way she was going! They were worse than her high school career counsellor and her bullshit motivational slogans. "All that 'follow your bliss' crap, it looks cute on paper, but what about their bliss?"

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fallontheflame
2022-03-10 12:12 pm UTC (link)

"What about their next meal," Armaan added. He agreed wholeheartedly, and how fucking refreshing to talk to someone who understood. "After my dad died, all of a sudden there were four mouths to feed and my mother did laundry for a hotel. Which doesn't exactly pay much. His life insurance paid off his medical bills but that was it. She had to get two more jobs, and I quit school to raise my sisters. Had a part time job at bodega during the day. And that budget I wrote out every week accounted for every single goddamn penny. Try following your bliss with an empty stomach. I want my sisters' lives to be better than mine was. So I get you. Any one who doesn't just hasn't been through it."

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reluciente
2022-03-11 04:38 am UTC (link)

"Damn," Rosario nodded her understanding. Armaan had been through it alright. Her family had gone through some real tight times, 'specially those first few years after the split, but no matter what crap was flying at them, Ma and Abuela had always managed to keep the girls fed and clothed and in school. Ma had never got the option of going to college; like Armaan, she wanted her daughters to have the opportunities she'd never been given. "They lucky they have you. We had my abuela; she and Lyra's grandma used to tag-team it, one took the kids when the other one was working. How we got to be friends."

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fallontheflame
2022-03-11 04:50 am UTC (link)

"I'm lucky I have them," Armaan said, because when he thought of his family, he felt like the luckiest man alive. If only they knew everything about him-

"That sounds really nice. All my friends dropped me after I suddenly wasn't fun any more. They were going to parties and getting drunk and I was reading stories at bedtime and helping with math homework," he chuckled. He didn't say any of it bitterly, because he wasn't bitter about it. He wouldn't trade helping raise his sisters for anything. It wasn't what he had planned, but that time he had had with them was so precious.

"Don't get me wrong, the aunties pitched in! Most of them had kids even younger than my sisters though, so it wasn't easy for them."

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	reluciente 2022-03-13 06:02 am UTC (link)
	Hey, at least the aunties'd had a valid excuse. Rosario's uncles still scarcely acknowledged their brother's kids existed. (Her uncles were also jerks, so, you know, swings and roundabouts.) But her dad's family was way too messy a topic to get into (went for both dad, now she thought of it), so instead she asked, "How old are your sisters now?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

fallontheflame
2022-03-13 08:34 am UTC (link)

Ah, his sisters, a topic he could literally talk about all day long! "Sixteen and nineteen," Armaan grinned brightly. His entire face lit up when he talked about them. "They're amazing. My favourite people in the whole wide world. They've been bossing me around since they were born, the both of them. And I couldn't love it more. What about you, how old are yours?"

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reluciente
2022-03-14 06:01 am UTC (link)

Rosario quirked a small grin. "Ooh, almost a match. Sixteen and twenty. Camino's an apprentice hairdresser, Chicky's still in school. They're both real creative." Rosario didn't have an artistic bone in her body. It was tempting – in an ugly, paranoid way – to imagine it as yet another telltale sign she'd missed, that she wasn't fully a part of the family. Rationally, it was probably just a sign that she took after their mom. "Got all three of us at home, plus my mom and abuela. It can be kinda chaotic."

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fallontheflame
2022-03-14 09:55 am UTC (link)

"We really are so similar," Armaan chuckled. "I'm glad you came over today! And yeah, my house was chaotic too. Chaotic, but the best. I only moved out because I could finally attend college, and Arya - the nineteen year old, though she was seventeen at the time, announced that if I moved out that meant she could have her own room," he laughed. "But it got to the point where they didn't need me looking over their shoulders to keep them safe every second, so it worked out well." Sure he was always on the verge of complete financial disaster, but he managed okay!

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