AN: This soft-punk Tessa is one of those tumblr things. She's also deeply influenced by who I imagined I could be when I grew up. Instead I grew up to be a daycare teacher who writes fanfic and knits. I am not exactly breaking into art labs and kissing strangers but still it was funn to pull this fantasy out again.
Art Supply Theft
AH Wessa Part 1
"Have you tried hitting it repeatedly?" the girl asked.
Will looked up from the ereader already glaring. He had been fussing with it, fighting with the buttons and nothing was making the screen unfreeze. The girl sat at the next table over, facing him. She had her foot up on the chair across from her. Heavy black boots, a pair of shorts that showed off a pair of legs that distracted Will's gaze. She raised her eyebrows at him and he realized he had been leering. He hadn't mean to leer but the remains of her shirt slipped off her shoulder and her dark brown hair was twisted back from her face in a messy bun. Between the dilapidated jacket and the blue streaks in her hair and the entire ensemble left him star struck for a moment. She did not belong in a place like this.
"No," he said.
"I've heard that's quite effective," she said.
"I am not going to smash my kindle," he said.
"Not smash, hit, they're very different. Here," she said and she held out a hand. She leaned out across the tables between them and against his better judgement Will got up and sat down across from her and put the device in her hand. She smirked at him. Beneath the eyeliner and the leather, she was younger than he had thought, even younger than he was.
She tapped at his little device, doing things he couldn't see and watching him over it with eyes that might have been blue and might have been gray and were full of mischief. She handed it back a moment later. He realized he had been watching her face and she hadn't broken eye contact.
"Are you a student here?" he asked.
"No," she said, "Are you?"
"No," he admitted.
"So we're both trespassers then," she said.
"I'm here to see my sister," Will said.
"Ah but I, on the other hand, am actually trespassing," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"After hours the art labs are open to students to work on their projects," she said.
"I thought you said that you aren't a student," he said.
"No but I look like one don't I?" she said.
"You look like you should be on tour with one of those bands my mother wouldn't let me listen to when I was thirteen because they would corrupt me," he said and he had meant it as a joke but it had come out making him sound like a hopelessly sheltered little boy. He told himself not to care what she thought of him. All he needed was his ereader back. She didn't give it to him but she smiled again.
"Are you in need of corrupting?" she asked.
"I am perfectly corrupt all on my own," he said and she laughed. It was a bright musical sound. Friendly and warm and it distracted him all over again. He didn't ask for the device back and she still held it in one hand. She gestured with it as she leaned forward. Her boots hit the ground under the table and she was closer. Her eyeliner was just a little bit smudged around her one eye and an escaping bit of blue hair made Will want to reach out and push it back behind her ear.
"Want to help me requisition resources from the university through improper channels?" she asked.
"That's a very technical term," he said.
"It's what the sign on the door of the print lab said, all students must requisition their resources though proper channels. No stealing paint allowed and that is what I am going to do," she said.
"Why?" Will finally asked. He was leaning into her. She had her own field of gravity.
"I produce a zine, an indie magazine. Mostly poetry. We can't afford it. Any of it. So we print it where we can. I'm doing covers. One of the girls in the art program here taught me how to use the screen printer. I'm going to make my fifty covers and then sneak out again," she said.
"You're a guerrilla poet," Will said grinning widely.
"I am not a poet, I am a zine editor," she said.
"A guerrilla editor," Will corrected.
"That's me," she said. "Your sister is here."
The comment threw him. He had forgotten about Cecily who had finally arrived and was standing behind looking at his new friend with curiosity. She looked so perfectly normal and collegiate that it seemed impossible that she could stand there in the same room as the guerrilla poetry editor with the blue hair. It was like they should have existed in different worlds.
"256 after 8," the girl said and flashed him a smile then she gathered up her shoulder bag and walked away with a little wave at Cecily. Will watched legs and had to tear his eyes back to look at Cecily who had sat down in the seat she had just vacated.
"Who was that?" Cecily asked.
"I don't know," Will said and then he looked at the table and realized what was missing. He stood up and looked down the long cafeteria but couldn't see any blue hair. He sat down with a sigh and said, "But she just stole my kindle."
Will went with Cecily to dinner. He listened to her tell him about her classes and her roommate and how much she loved being a student. He bit his tongue hard enough he thought it might bleed as she told him about the TA in her class that she was pretty sure was flirting with her. It was 8:45 by the time he escaped.
He went back to the cafeteria where he had met Cecily and followed the signs to the art building and then hunted around until he found room 256. It was locked and when he knocked a girl with red hair answered.
"Yeah?" she said.
"Blue haired friend said I should meet her here," Will tried.
"Tess?" the red head called out, "Did you invite a boy?"
"He didn't really come," he heard the familiar voice say and she showed up beside her friend. There was yellow paint smear on her cheek and her hair was pulled back tighter than it had been before but she looked otherwise the same.
"I had figured you too much of a good boy for stealing art supplies," she said.
"You have my kindle," he said.
"Well come in and get it then," she said.
Will followed the girls into the print lab. It smelled like paint and solvents and Tess led him past long tables to where she had a complicated set up. The table was covered in the drying covers for her project. The first layer of colour was already laid down on them. She was setting up the next layer. Will didn't entirely understand what she was doing but it was obvious that while the red head working on the next press was an artist, Tess wasn't.
Tess did not give him his kindle. She went back to her screen and painstakingly applied her designs to it. He leaned a hip on the table and watched. Not an artist. Dedicated and careful as she worked, but not an artist. It made her more endearing. He found himself smiling at her as the long tail of her pony tail fell over her shoulder. This time he didn't stop himself, he pushed it back away from her work. She gave him a grateful smile and her friend pointedly ignored them.
"Pass me that one there," she said pointing at a version of her cover that was even worse than the usual ones. Her test copy. She put it in place and he watched as she printed on the next colour. Her jacket was gone and she leaned out over the press and smoothed down the colour and he found himself staring again at the way the tank top she wore hugged her curves.
"How does it look?" she asked and he looked at the result. It looked like an amateur with an inability to draw had made it but he said something vaguely encouraging, "I'm aware that I suck but it's part of the charm of the whole thing. People love my terrible covers."
Will laughed and suddenly he was a part of the project. His sweater tossed over table with her battered jacket. He had paint up to his elbows as they passed them back and forth and added in all three colours to each of her fifty copies and she taught him the basics of print making. They were still there after the other girl left with an order that Tessa lock up the door when she was finished.
Tessa sat on the table beside her drying project and Will swung himself up to sit beside her. She swung her legs and her heavy boots drummed against the cabinet below the table.
"William Herondale," he finally introduced himself.
"Tessa Gray," she said shaking his hand.
"You're a criminal now, a trespasser and a paint thief," she said.
"I don't think any one will notice," he said.
"Still a crime," she said.
"Am I sufficiently corrupted yet?" he asked.
"No, not even close," she said. They were both paint splattered and he grinned at her. She picked up a marker off the table behind her and scrawled something onto the ruined test cover and handed it to him. She leaned in a little closer to him and he got lost in those eyes again, the make up more smudged and the yellow paint streak had been joined by a bit of green too. She was very close when she said, "It's going to take a little while to corrupt you entirely, don't tell your mother."
"Our secret," he said and then he kissed her.
