This story was inspired by Season 2, Episode 12 of Quantum Leap: "Animal Frat."
This story is titled from the The Troggs song "Wild Thing."
Beta: Grammarly.
Any mistakes found are my own.
I do not own these beautiful characters.
October 20, 1967
The first notes of Ritchie Valens' rock and roll flavored "La Bamba" ricocheted through thin walls, much to the delight of the already enthused young women of Katherine Beckett's dorm. Their youthful voices came in waves, rising and falling as hallway doors were intermittently opened and then closed; they sang off-key, gossiped about their crushes, and tittered over roaring hairdryers and the staticky notes of blaring music.
Katherine, Kate to all who knew her, grinned down at her bare calves, hands working in her favorite cherry-scented lotion into pale skin as her roommate massacred the fast-paced lyrics into the wooden handle of a hairbrush.
"Lanie," she chuckled as the other woman rocked her hips, the thin fabric of her skirt brushing against Kate's face. The material tickled her cheek as she ducked her head, batting the stylish mini skirt away with a not unkind, "Would you quit it, already?"
"C'mon, Kate," the tawny-skinned woman cajoled with a lip-biting grin. "It's Friday night, honey, and I'm just gettin' my groove on!" The black-haired beauty twirled about the cramped space, alternating between butchering the Spanish words into her impromptu microphone and swiping another stripe of blush across her round cheeks.
"Well," Kate drawled jokingly, "Groove your way onto your side of the room, will ya?" She squeezed a dollop of pink creamy solution into her palm before slathering it into her other leg, working the excess into her hands, pulling and splaying her slender fingers, easing kinks from hours of pen-gripping, note-taking.
Halfway through the brisk song, Lanie plopped down on the edge of her mattress with a winded gasp. Amused, Kate looked askance and took in her friend's pinked face; she couldn't tell if her cheeks were rosy from the heavy makeup or her exuberant dance routine.
"Are you sure you don't wanna hit the town with us tonight?"
Kate scoffed as she moved to pull a green elastic band from her wrist; she gathered up her damp hair, pulling the mousy brown strands into a loose ponytail. "Are you sure you can?"
"Girl," Lanie breathed, placing a manicured hand over her heaving bosom, "That is a very good point," she joshed with an out-of-breath laugh, "But I'm serious. You should come out with us."
Kate shook her head, pulling her long legs in, drawing her knees to her chest so she could wrap her robe-covered arms around her chilled calves. "I have to study for McGiven's test."
"That's not for another two weeks," Lanie protested before carefully pursing her painted lips in disappointment. "You always have to study for a test." She kicked out a stockinged leg, the sheer fabric pulling at the movement, as she toed at Kate's shoulder. "When you gonna live a little?" At Kate's half-hearted shrug, she sighed dramatically before alternating to another tried and true tactic: "Well, Javi says there's a Harvard transfer being inducted into TKB tonight. They call him Wild Thing."
Kate snorted and unfurled her right leg, pointing her toes up so she could absentmindedly look at her toenails; they shone blood red in the harsh light of their room. It wasn't something she would have picked out herself or even done herself, but Lanie had insisted after finally forcing Kate to put down her workbooks for an evening in favor of a Girl's Night.
She smiled fondly at the memory before tucking her leg back in. "Yeah, no thanks," she declined dryly.
"Javier said he's smart and funny and ruggedly handsome-" At Kate's pointedly flat expression, Lanie flapped a hand at her and caved. "Okay, okay, so he obviously didn't say any of that, but I met the guy, and I think he'd be just the right amount of fun for you to take your mind off things."
Kate closed her eyes and sighed, "Lanie." She was not up for having this conversation for the umpteenth time. "I'm not here for fun," she reminded her best friend, "And I'm with Tom-"
A raucous explosion pitched her forward; Lanie slipped to the ground with wide, dark eyes. Instinct had Kate scrambling to her bare feet, subconsciously cinching her robe tighter against her abdomen as she reached the bedroom door. She had just managed to pull it open when another explosion rattled the walls; the shrieks of her dorm mates were more apparent without the closed door between them, as were the deep, distinctly masculine guffaws and the telltale sound of water splattering against vinyl tiles.
Another explosion caused the shrieks to turn into full-fledged screams as a multitude of women spilled from their rooms and into the hall; the unmistakable smell of gunpowder was nearly overwhelmed by the reek of cheap perfume and hairspray from the half-gussied girls ready for a Friday night out.
With an ever-deepening scowl, Kate listened as ceramic shards were kicked about, rubber-soled sneakers struggling to gain purchase of what Kate assumed was the bathroom floor. There was a loud rumble, the carpeted floor shaking beneath her feet as a stampede of brutish, black-clad men flooded the halls; wisps of white smoke billowing at their backs as they drowned out the last of "La Bamba" with loud whoops and hollers of: "Go! Go! Go!"
The hollers erupted into full-fledged hoots of laughter as the members of Tau Kappa Beta jockeyed to be the first one down the hall and out of the open window they had, apparently, snuck through. They whistled at the half-dressed women, earning jeers and some coltish giggles in return, just as the smoke alarms began to pierce the charged air with their cacophony.
Kate stepped back, pulling herself into her dorm to avoid being flattened by the burly stampede; she growled and poked her head out when the last of the group whizzed by her with cheeky grins.
"Javier Esposito, I'm gonna kill you!" Lanie screeched from just behind Kate's head. She made sure to point and add: "You too, Kevin Ryan!"
"Love you, baby!" the Hispanic man cried back with unrepentant joy as he took the ladder after Kevin.
Kate had opened her mouth to admonish the boys herself. They were idiots, but somehow, they had become her idiots. Before she could, the last TKB member raced down the hallway, the sizable form stumbling over a loose shoelace as he clambered over the windowsill and onto the rungs of the wooden ladder.
The scalding words dried up in her throat as she took in the increasingly familiar face; she recognized that floppy brown hair, broad nose, and dimpled grin anywhere.
And, wow, he grew up since seventh grade.
He had managed to pull his expansive shoulders through the window, wrapping large palms around the side rails, when he finally glanced up: his face was flushed, leonine eyes wide and blue, the fringe of his hair hanging limply over his raised brows as he met her eyes.
She sputtered: "Rodgers?"
Stunned, he managed to blurt, "Beckett?" before a precarious wobble and a lurch to overcorrect sent him tipping backward into the darkness below.
Kate raced to the window, a riotous hurricane of emotions swirling in her chest as she looked down into the inky black night; she only dared breathe a sigh of relief when her former childhood best friend scrambled, largely unharmed, from a mess of thorny bushes.
He looked up, hair adorned with a smattering of foliage, mouth open, and eyes just as wide and dazed as when their eyes met before he was forcefully tugged backward and berated by his fraternity brothers and disappearing into the night.
Lanie appeared at Kate's shoulder with a tsked hum of disapproval.
"Welp," she smacked her lips, "I see you've met Wild Thing."
The End.
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