A/N: All quotes are from Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. It's one of my favorites, and I think it fits Will and Tessa quite well. Modern AU in which the Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments gang are in college together.
"What! My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?" Will asked, a horrified tone in his voice and a twinkle in his eye.
"Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence," Tessa retorted, folding her arms over her chest.
"Then is Courtesy a turncoat," Will declared. "For it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only yourself excepted, and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly, I love none."
"A dear happiness to women; they would have else been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood I am of your humour for that - I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me," Tessa replied haughtily.
"God keep your ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face!" Will laughed, turning away triumphantly.
"Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were," Tessa said sweetly. Will whipped around.
"Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher," he snapped.
"A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours," she shot back.
"I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer," Will said, covering his dismay with a rather forced laugh. "But keep your way - i' God's name, I have done."
"You always end with a jade's trick," Tessa called after him. Then she added, more quietly, "I know you of old."
"Do the scene after the accusation," Clary told them, laughing. "You guys are great!" Will glanced over at Tessa, then said,
"I do love nothing so well as you. Is not that strange?"
"As - as strange as the thing I know not," Tessa stammered, caught off guard by starting in the middle of the scene but also by how seriously Will had said the line. "It - it were as possible for me to say I love nothing as well as you. But believe me not - and yet I lie not - " Tessa broke off. "That wasn't right. I can't remember the rest. Can we switch scenes?" she pleaded.
"Fine," Clary said, with a tiny pout. Will shrugged. "Do the final scene," Clary ordered, flipping to the back of the script.
"Soft and fair, friar," said Will, grinning. "Which is Beatrice?"
"I answer to that name," Tessa said coolly. "What is your will?"
"Donotyouloveme?" he asked, running all his words together.
"Why, no - no more than - reason," Tessa replied, clearly scrambling for a response. Her eyes were wide.
"Then your uncle and the prince and Claudio have been deceived; they swore you did," Will said with a frown, brows drawing together.
"Do not you love me?" she asked, a bit hesitantly.
"Troth, no - no more than reason," Will blustered.
"Then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula are much deceived, for they did swear you did," Tessa said, frowning also.
"They swore you were almost sick for me," Will snapped.
"They swore you were well-nigh dead for me!" Tessa shouted.
" 'Tis no such matter," Will scoffed. "Then - you do not love me?" he asked, a faintly pleading note in his voice.
"No, truly, but in friendly recompense," Tessa said firmly, sticking her hand out. Will took it, and they shook, once, quickly and abruptly. Then they both burst out laughing. Gideon Lightwood was standing behind Clary with a bewildered expression on his face.
"I assume you are practicing for the school play," he said, glancing down at the marked-up script Clary held in her hands, "and not for when you two are an old married couple."
Will laughed.
Tessa turned bright red.
Clary gave Gideon a high five.
o0o
"Look," said Will, sounding exasperated, "what is your problem with this scene? You do perfectly all right until we get to that last bit."
Tessa flushed and tried to stammer out an excuse. The real reason she could never get through the scene was because she had to kiss Will at the end of it, and she'd never kissed anyone in her life. And Mr. Bane, the drama teacher, was partial to making his plays as realistic as possible, and had already told them that he'd have "none of that back-turned-to-the-audience-faces-close nonsense."
But it was the only scene with the two of them in it that they hadn't rehearsed fully. Tess kept flubbing her lines - sometimes intentionally - and they'd have to start the scene over from the top, as that was one of the few rehearsal requirements Mr. Bane had. She could see Will's irritation growing, but her shyness had, at this point, become a sort of mental block.
Finally, Will's patience ran out. "All right, Tess," he said firmly, pulling her to the side. "You are going to run through all your lines for this scene with me. No acting. Just lines. And if you can't get your lines, I'm telling Mr. Bane to let Jessamine take your spot. Understand?"
Mutely, Tessa nodded. Just lines. She could do just lines; she knew the play inside and out. They made it through the scene with no trouble whatever, and Will smiled at her when they finished. "See?" he said. "You know the lines. What's the big deal?"
Tessa glanced down and away, embarrassed. "It's nothing, really," she said. She could feel her cheeks heating up again.
Will sighed. "We'll do this scene all the way through at the dress rehearsal, all right? You've got three days to get it together. If you can't do it then, well…" He trailed off ominously. "Got it?"
"Yes," Tessa said, making her voice sound as confident as possible.
"Good," said Will, and walked away.
Tessa swallowed. She had to find Clary.
o0o
"What's the problem?" Clary asked. "It's not like you don't like him or something. Just go for it. Who knows, you might actually like it," she added slyly.
"I've never kissed anyone before, much less Will Herondale," Tessa said, giving Clary a stern look. "It's not a matter of liking it, it's a matter of being able to do it!"
"Tessa," Clary said firmly. "You can do it. It's just once for the dress rehearsal and then four times for the performances, that's all."
"Not helping," Tessa growled.
"Oh, come on! Don't be so shy. Beatrice is not shy," Clary told her, naming Tessa's character in a flash of inspiration.
Tessa had to laugh. "No, she is not."
"And she's really been in love with Benedick the whole time," Clary continued. "So she wants to kiss him."
"I suppose so," Tessa conceded.
"So just be Beatrice!" Clary finished. "You have her brains - now get her boldness."
Tessa set her jaw. "I can do that."
"That's my girl," said Clary with a smile.
o0o
"Are dress rehearsals always like this?" Tessa asked Jem, who was a veteran of Idris College's performing arts programs. Backstage was silent chaos, everyone putting the set in place, getting props, putting on costumes - it was like a strange dance, people weaving around each other but everything getting done.
"Pretty much," Jem laughed as he buttoned up his coat.
"Goodness," Tessa remarked, smoothing a loose hair back off her forehead.
o0o
"Then - you do not love me?" asked Will.
"No, truly, but in friendly recompense," Tessa replied, and they shook hands firmly, as if neither of them really cared for the other.
"Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman," called Gideon Lightwood, who was playing Beatrice's uncle, Leonato.
"And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her," Simon (playing Claudio, Will's best friend in the play) laughed, "for here's a paper written in his hand, a halting sonnet of his own pure brain, fashion'd to Beatrice." He pulled a piece of paper out of a frantic-looking Will's pocket and handed it to Tessa, who snatched it up triumphantly.
"And here's another," said Isabelle (playing Hero, Beatrice's cousin and Claudio's wife), "writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedick."
Will grabbed the paper from Isabelle and unfolded it, as Tessa glared daggers at her. There was a moment of silence as Will and Tessa read the letters, cringed at the exact same time, then turned to each other with reluctant - but slowly growing - smiles.
"A miracle!" Will pronounced, turning back to face the audience and holding up the the paper. "Here's our own hands against our hearts." He turned to Tessa. "Come, I will have thee," he said, then added hastily, "But, by this light, I take thee for pity."
"I would not deny you," Tessa said slowly, taking a step closer to him. "But, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion - " here she turned and glared at Isabelle again, who was openly laughing at them - "and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption."
"Peace!" cried Will, laughing. Here it comes, thought Tessa, bracing herself ever so subtly. "I will stop your mouth." Then he took her face in his hands and kissed her.
All Tessa could think was, That was quite nice, actually.
"How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?" asked Jem, laughing. But there was a special smile for Tessa, too - Jem knew she'd been having trouble working up the courage for that scene. She smiled back as Will gave his comeback and finished out the play.
"Prince, thou art sad," Will said, throwing his free arm around Jem's shoulders and pulling Tessa closer to his side. "Get thee a wife, get thee wife! There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn."