For the dialogue prompts maybe, 5 "I wish you could tell me what’s going on. I want to help." with Stella and Jesse or maybe 8 “Forever. That’s what we said, right? Friends for life?” with Romeo and Xara? I love your writing ^^
(shoots out of a coffin) I’M ALIVE! I’VE BEEN BUSY!!!!!!
“I wish you could tell me what’s going on. I want to help.”
“Well, I don’t need your help,” Stella snapped at Jesse; tiny, adorable, innocent, helpful, perfect Jesse. Because Notch knows how good they are at everything, how much they love helping everyone, how much–
Stella promptly yanks her hand out of the way, Jesse’s crestfallen expression immediately jumps to an alarmed one. “Shoot, are you okay?”
They reach out and take her hand automatically, glancing over the beads of blood squeezing their way out of the thin cut on Stella’s fingers from Stella’s overzealous attempts at slicing things open with the letter opener.
That’s what she got for snapping at Jesse, she supposed.
Stella snatched her hand back again, scowling at Jesse. “I’m fine. Why don’t you just– go do something else.”
“But there’s nothing else TO do,” Jesse pointed out, sitting back in the visitor chair. “You’re sitting here and doing paperwork in an attempt to sort everything out before you head out and start helping with reconstruction since Notch knows theres a lot of that. I do do paperwork, Stella. I can help.”
Stella slammed the papers onto the table with a little more force than was probably necessary. “Well, I don’t need your help.” Her teeth were slightly gritted, and it was hard to keep from outright shouting at Jesse.
Damn it, damn it, Jesse’s town had been pretty royally screwed up, the trust from the townsfolk had probably hit rock-bottom and they’d have to build it back up, they were probably more tired than Stella was from having to do paperwork and running around and occasionally shuttling Lluna back and forth for co-parenting and dealing with the Admin (Romeo, still such a weird name) and that really intense lady (Zara?) and they still wanted to help Stella.
They weren’t shutting themselves up and solely working on their own town. They weren’t just trying to get trust back. They weren’t wrangling together a bunch of people to help with paperwork. They weren’t shoving Lluna off on Stella. They weren’t refusing to deal with the Underneath.
No, they were juggling a hundred things at once and trying to take on yet another thing.
“I know you don’t need it, you’re a very capable person, but I want to help,” Jesse replied earnestly, large green eyes blinking at Stella–
Jesse’s chair rocked back an inch or two, the short person almost falling off before righting themselves hastily, Stella practically shouting at them with resentment rolling off of her in waves.
“You’ve already got your entire goddamn life to juggle, you’ve gotta juggle worrying about your dad–”
Stella ignored the way Jesse’s cheeks pinked. “– you’ve gotta juggle worrying about your town, you have to work on the Admin and do your own paperwork and help your own people. And you do that! And that’s fine. And that’s fantastic.”
Stella was speaking very loudly and very quickly, and if she hadn’t always been urged to speak clearly (even when ranting) and concisely, she probably would’ve devolved into incoherent angry babbling. As it was, her teeth were starting to squeak.
“But you don’t seem to care that you have all that stuff to work on, you don’t care that you’re already dealing with a million things, you don’t give a crap that you’re going to run yourself into the ground if you’re not careful, no, you help everyone and you do everything to help people and you forgive them without a second thought and you keep people safe and you want to help a–”
Stella’s words stalled in her mouth as her brain caught up, but her mouth finally propelled them out anyway. “– an absolute bitch like me! You’re fucking perfect, you know that?!”
Stella was now leaning across the table, hazel eyes narrowed right at Jesse, her hands crumpling a few of the papers on her desk. “You don’t give a damn about yourself, you seem to not care, why don’t you be selfish for once in your Notchdamned life?!”
The shouting session ended just as abruptly as it had started, Jesse blinking at Stella with their irises not quite fitting in their eyes, a little smaller than usual as Stella’s chest heaved, shoulders rising dramatically as she tried to bring in air.
Jesse finally reaches out and rests their fingers gently on the back of her hand in a comforting way. “Honestly, yeah, I’m busy.” They pause, before letting out an awkward giggle. “Okay, understatement of the year. But yes, I’m very busy already.”
They shrug simply, rubbing their thumb across the back of her hand in a soothing way. “But… I wouldn’t offer to help if I didn’t think you want it. And I wouldn’t offer to talk to you while you work if I didn’t think you wanted company.”
“I don’t need it, though.” Stella’s voice is a little raw from screaming at Jesse, and the comment comes out as a croak. She clears her throat and tries again. “I don’t need it, though.”
Another little shrug. “I know you don’t, and that’s fine.” Jesse gives a little shrug and a smile. “But it’s much better to feel wanted than needed, right?”
Stella met bright green eyes for a moment, before the muted joy in them began to overpower her insistence and she glanced away.
Clearing her throat awkward, she sat down and split the pile of papers without another word, handing Jesse the half of the stack that was actually handleable.
Jesse glanced up from where they were already grabbing a pen and starting in on it.
