Coming Down With A Girl

By RocknVaughn

A/N: I recently rented Hairspray (2007) on video and completely fell in love with it. It was a must have on my Christmas list this year!

This is my first attempt at Hairspray fan fiction, so please be kind and review!

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"I'm a bad, bad girl who needs to be punished!"

Link Larkin just couldn't seem to get that phrase out of his head. There was just something so…appealing about the way the girl had said it…

"Link!" Amber hissed, bringing him out of his reverie. "Pay attention; Mother's showing us a new move."

The day's shooting of the Corny Collins Show was over; this was just practice for the next show…and it was dragging on unmercifully.

Link dutifully tried to follow along with what Mrs. Von Tussle was teaching them, but in only moments, her nasally voice became a drone and he was lost in his thoughts again.

Maybe it wasn't just what she'd said; maybe it was the way the he'd seen her dancing before that, too. It wasn't at all like the way the girls danced on the show. Their movements were all prim, proper…boring.

A sharp pain stung Link's forearm. "Ow, Amber, stop it!" he protested. "You don't have to pinch me."

"I do if you're not dancing, Link. You are my partner after all," she huffed, possessively fingering his class ring, which she wore on a chain around her neck.

On the surface, Amber's comment sounded like something a girlfriend would say about her guy. But what was it about the way she'd said it that made him feel more like a piece of meat to her instead of her boyfriend? Link couldn't put his finger on it, but it left him with a bad taste in his mouth. Did she always talk to him that way and he'd just never noticed? For the first time, he wondered.

"All right, all right," said Velma Von Tussle, clapping twice in quick succession, trying to get everyone's attention. "Let's take it from the top."

Link fell in line with the other dancers, and followed along seamlessly. After all, it was just the same old recycled dance moves jumbled up in a different order. He could do this in his sleep.

Not that girl, though. Nothing about the way she'd been dancing could be labeled as boring. All of her moves were smooth, and flowing, and rhythmic, and—dare he think it?—sexy.

Smack!

She'd actually wiggled and smacked her own behind right in front of him. He could still hear the way it sounded as it reverberated around the otherwise suddenly silent room.

Granted, she hadn't known he was there, watching her. And it was obvious from her immediate embarrassment upon finding that she had an audience that she wasn't exactly the kind of girl to engage in things like that for real.

Yet, her tantalizing dance had unnerved him. Him, Link Larkin, Mr. Cool…affected by a girl…

"Link!" It was amazing how much Amber could sound like a spitting cat when she got angry. "What is the matter with you?"

"What?" he replied, roughly torn out of his thoughts once more. "I…don't know…" His voice trailed off uncertainly because he suddenly felt…

…flushed; definitely hot under the collar. And that wasn't all. Link felt his breath catch, stick in his throat. A fleeting feeling of lightheadedness engulfed him as his heart skipped a crazy beat before drumming double-time against his ribcage.

"Mr. Larkin…"

Velma Von Tussle's frosty tone shivered through him, bringing him back to the present with a resounding thud…and right into Amber as he startled and stumbled sideways.

"Y..Y..Yes?" Link stammered, still feeling strangely out of sorts.

"Are you quite all right? That's the third time you've missed your cue. Amber can't learn the dance properly with you standing there like a post."

Velma was glowering at him, and Link noticed that the rest of the council kids were giving him curious looks as well. Suddenly, he felt as if he was less teenaged heartthrob and more trapped animal. Link needed to escape all those probing eyes…fast.

"I…think maybe I'm coming down with something, Ma'am," he fibbed. "I'm feeling a little sick." Well, at least that much was true…

Velma gave him a dismissive wave of her hand. "Well, then…by all means you may be excused, Mr. Larkin. I don't need you giving my daughter any of your germs…"

Link didn't need to be told twice. He hurried off the dance floor and over to his dressing table to retrieve his sport coat, not even pausing to check out his 'do in the mirror.

"See ya tomorrow, Link," Brad called after him, and Link waved back absentmindedly in reply as he shoved against the door that led to freedom.

A light breeze off the bay whispered around Link as he walked across the parking lot to his car. It brought to mind the soft, sweet voice as it stammered…

"L...Link!"

Link Larkin had been a regular on the Corny Collins show for three years now; he was used to girls mooning over him. But this girl's voice was different somehow from the fawning masses. It had a depth and a substance to it; it made him feel as if she thought he had depth and substance when she said his name…as if she'd seen inside him; seen past his swagger and bravado, seen straight through to his very soul.

The world seemed to slip slightly off its axis. Link felt nervous, he figured he was just absorbing tension from the girl. Now he wasn't so sure. Because for some inexplicable reason, he found he'd been suddenly desperate to put her at ease.

"Hey…you know…Corny's hosting the hop tomorrow." He heard the "cool" in his voice falter as he stepped into the room to stand next to the plump girl with the big 'do. "If he saw you dancing like that, he'd put you on the show…"

A placating compliment it might have been, but it was still true. Corny had been dying to get some R&B dance moves onto the show for ages, but hadn't been able to get around the Ice Queen to do it…yet. So to find a white girl who could dance like that? Corny would flip for her for sure.

She just nodded, still clearly mortified at having been caught dancing with such abandon…and perhaps for having been seen doing it by Link Larkin from the Corny Collins Show.

And then suddenly he was staring down into the biggest, deepest, darkest molten brown eyes he'd ever seen. Bright warmth spread through him; it was something he'd never experienced before, not even with Amber. Link felt off kilter, suddenly unsure of himself…

He cleared his throat, trying to muster his signature suaveness. Luckily, the bell ending the period rang, saving him. "Well, see ya," he said, suddenly eager to be out of the room and back on firmer ground, where he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted…back to a world that didn't include getting lost in this girl's eyes.

Yet, in his haste, he bumped square into her as she was trying to get to the row of desks beyond him. He spun around, protectively throwing out a hand, ready to catch her if she fell…but the girl was too graceful and steady on her feet for that.

"Uh, whoa…" Link breathed as an electric shock blazed up his shoulder from the spot where they had collided. Pushing the distracting feeling aside, he mustered up the patented Link Larkin charm and drawled, "Sorry, lil' Darlin'…hope I didn't dent your 'do."

Link rested his forehead against the cool vinyl convertible top of his '57 Ford Thunderbird, trying to force his mind back to the present.

He didn't understand; at the time, the encounter didn't seem like that big of a deal. But ever since he'd left the detention room…he'd had to keep pushing thoughts of the pleasantly curvy girl with the ratted 'do out of his head, only to find they just kept roaring back when he least expected them.

For the first time in his life, Link felt as if he had lost control…that he was the passenger instead of the driver. And while he didn't know exactly how or when it had happened, he knew it was something about the girl that did it. Link wasn't sure that he liked the feeling.

"Maybe I really am coming down with something," Link groaned as he pulled open the driver's side door and plunked down into the seat.

Little did Link know that he wasn't coming down with a cold or even the flu. He was coming down with a girl…a girl who had turned his life upside down with just a hip shake and a slap.