Make A Killing • •

[esme verity stapleton]

This was the whole reason why Esme had moved to New York. She had wanted to connect with her biological sister, if said sister was interested. She didn’t think for one second that Blake might contact her first. It had been something Esme was pushing further down her to-do list. Work took up a great deal of her time, left her drained physically, mentally and emotionally. Then there were the demons that lurked beneath the hanging sheets in her home. She could just throw the hidden mirrors away, but she needed them sometimes when she was getting ready, as much as they made her uncomfortable. She supposed now that there was no perfect time to meet part of the family that had given her away when she was born. Esme harboured no disdain for her biological parents. She had ended up in a good home and lived a life in a built-up city where conversations about unwanted pregnancies happened a little too candidly. If they weren’t overheard between friends, then they were on the evening soaps her mother had watched when she was growing up. Esme herself had thought about what choice she would make if she had faced being a mother before she felt ready for it. And then there was her life now, where she wasn’t sure if she could ever be ready for it.

At least Blake’s message at the ER reception took some of the work off from Esme. All she had to do was send a text message and wait for a reply now. That had taken some time though. Since no one at the hospital had pulled her or Oakley into a too-nice office to reprimand them, and no one was looking at her more than usual, she had to assume Blake had been the blur in the doorway when their fight had turned unpredictable physical. However, that was not a conversation opener – and Esme wouldn’t even know where to begin apologising for something she had yet to explain to herself, let alone anyone else! Instead she kept it short, simple, and somewhat neutral; “Hey, I got your message. Let’s grab coffee on Friday if you’re free?” She didn’t know if her sister wanted a relationship, just wanted to look at her, or hell, maybe she wanted to scream at her. Esme knew almost nothing about her biological family. She didn’t know what kind of life Blake had or if the mystery of her own existence had caused some kind of rift in that life. Esme still was unsure if she wanted to know. She didn’t want to meet this girl and then have her life spiral because it was all some terrible mistake.

Esme was not a coward though. She was thick skinned, probably a little reckless, and strict about seeing things through to the end. She wanted some idea of an answer from Blake about what this was going to be. If it was nothing, then fine. If there was going to be some sisterly bond, then great. Esme just didn’t want to sit around and spend her life wondering. Which was why she was curled up in a big armchair in Starbucks, nursing a large mocha. She had arrived a little earlier than intended after her day off errands finished faster than she expected. One thing about New York was that there was absolutely no judging the queues. The morning had flown by, and since she wasn’t back in the hospital until Saturday night, she was starting to wonder why she hadn’t suggested a place with more hard liquor and less caffeinated wannabe writers.

• • •

TAGGED! Constance Ruslana Blake
WORDS! 603!
LYRICS! High Hopes - - - Panic At The Disco
NOTES! <3

[Constance Ruslana Blake]

Blake had been waiting a long time to meet the woman she was biologically a sister of. It was a little weird knowing that her mother had another child in the world that she didn't raise. Blake wasn't sure how she would feel if she'd been the child given up but she knew that she had been really upset by the knowledge that she wasn't actually an only child and could have potentially had an older sister growing up. But the older she got, she also understood where her mother was coming from as well. It was a weird place to be for Blake. She loved her mother but she also couldn't seem to get over the fact that she'd given a child up. It was almost survivor's guilt that she'd been kept and this other woman was given up for adoption. Whatever it was, Blake had known from the time that she'd found that secret box in her mother's cupboard that she would like to meet this woman if she was interested in that meeting as well. Blake might have been a little robotic with her emotions sometimes but even she knew not to push if someone wasn't interested.

She had rehearsals all morning so that kept her mind from wandering too far away from her steps, though she could do the entire routine in her sleep or blindfolded but keeping the timing in her head helped the growing excitement or anxiety in the pit of her stomach. She almost wished she knew someone else in the city well enough to ask them to go with her but that wouldn't be fair to any of them. Blake wouldn't want to feel like this sister was ganging up on her, even if it was just for emotional support. Blake was a strong girl, she could handle going to this meeting alone. Hell, she moved from Russia to New York alone, for the most part. If she could live a world away from her family, she could meet up with a single person in a coffee shop in the middle of the damn day. She was made of tough stuff.

When they finally called an end to rehearsals, Blake really started to feel the butterflies. For so long before she'd found that box, she'd wanted a sibling to talk to, to play with, someone she could look up to or protect. She'd hated being an only child because it meant that all her parents' focus was on her and it made her squirm. When she'd preferred dance over gymnastics, her mother's disappointment had been palpable. She'd been too young to really understand what was going on, just that her mum was sad and angry, though she promised a dozen times that it wasn't directed at her. It was and she knew it. But she'd grown up since then and knew that no matter what, it really wasn't her fault that she'd taken to dance easier than gymnastics. It was just the way it went and Blake wouldn't change that for anything. She loved to dance. She put her sweats on, slipped her feet into the ugg boots and rushed home to change into something less sweaty and more presentable. Her face might not have been so well known around the world because dance was a niche area but she was still her mother's daughter and that meant looking professional, or at least put together, whenever she wasn't dancing.

She was quick to shower and then rush to the chosen Starbucks. She used her phone to order her drink so she wouldn't have to even try to say some of the names of the drinks, which always seemed to twist her tongue into knots. She added a tip to the jar when she got there and received her pre-ordered drink and thanked the barista before tuning and scanning the spacious area for a woman that looked similar to the most recent photograph she'd seen, which was more than a few years old at this point. A couple of scans had Blake spotting a woman curled up in a chair that might be right. She was a little older than the picture but that was to be expected. She took a deep breath in and worked her way around the tables and chairs and people to the woman in the chair. "Excuse me, Esme?" She asked, when she reached her, hoping that she wasn't wrong simply because she wasn't fond of being embarrassed and it would be if she were wrong.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; esme verity stapleton
WORDS; 758
LYRICS; Seasons of Love --RENT Cast
NOTES; <3

[esme verity stapleton]

Esme had never been bothered by her adoption. She didn’t know about it until she was sixteen, and sure, it had shocked the hell out of her when she had stumbled upon the adoption paperwork, but she figured life could have been worse. She hadn’t known life as an unwanted child, so why should she have felt that way when she was almost an adult and making plans for her future? Her parents had loved her, given her almost everything she had ever asked for. There had been some tension in the immediate aftermath, but she had still been processing the information, coming to understand what it meant for her to only be a Stapleton by name and never by blood. Esme had spent many a night in front of the mirror after that wondering who she looked like, if she had her mother’s eyes or her father’s jaw. It had taken her a little while to realise that none of it mattered. She was who she was and appearances, names, nothing changed that. Twelve years later she had never been more confident about that, but she still wanted to meet her sister, to see just if she might have a place in her life.

Esme felt like she had lost something leaving the army. There was a sense of comradery and family that she had been forced to sacrifice after her heart had been broken. Nothing could replace that and so maybe finding her sister could at least help to fill that space and give Esme some sense of belonging again. She was an outsider at the hospital and not just because of her uncommon accent and strange treatments when certain emergencies came rushing through the door. She distanced herself, found it hard to befriend the other nurses, and then Oakley got under her skin and made her blood boil. No, she needed to try and connect with someone who she might already have something in common with. Someone who could, perhaps, remind her of who she was supposed to be without the fatigues and the dog tags. Even if Blake didn’t know anything about her yet.

Looking up at the sound of her name, Esme blinked up at the woman, frozen for a moment as she realised this was happening. She didn’t know why, but for a second, she couldn’t quite believe it. Then she found her voice, pulling the words from wherever it was they had been trying to hide. “Yes. That’s me. You must be Blake, right?” She didn’t know if she should stand up, offer a handshake or a hug. Instead, she ended up just gesturing to the chair opposite. Esme had never been one for physical affection anyway, and she didn’t know much about her sister yet. Besides, if this meeting went to hell in a handbasket then at least there would be a little less awkwardness at the end of it if Esme kept some distance now. If it went better than that…well, there was always next time for hugs and affection if Blake was so inclined.

• • •

TAGGED! Constance Ruslana Blake
WORDS! 516!
LYRICS! High Hopes - - - Panic At The Disco
NOTES! <3