Disclaimer: If I owned Hannah Montana, the storylines would be very different, so, obviously, I'm not one of the writers, and I'm not writing fan fiction to make any money.
A/N: I'm not entirely sure how this ended up so long, but it did. It's a completely random story idea that came to me because I noticed that near the end of the first season, Miley and Lilly have lockers next to one another, even though the introduction of Jake Ryan had Miley's moved to "Locker One" next to the boiler room.
The Doctor Is In
"Lilly, come on! Please, please, please! If I wasn't already your best friend, I would promise to be your best friend forever! Miley was hopping on her toes, her brown curls bouncing with each step.
"I don't think it's a good idea." Lilly pulled out her Spanish book and turned to face the other girl.
The two of them were standing next to Lilly's locker after their lunch period. Miley, unfortunately, no longer had a locker in the same hallway, and did not want to make the trek to the school's boiler room again to put her math book away. If stupid Jake Ryan had never come to their school, she would not be in this position.
The janitor decided that Jake needed a larger storage space for all of his TV star needs. Miley still wanted to know what exactly he was keeping in his locker since he rarely even used his textbooks. Maybe he kept a giant stack of headshots in there for quick autograph signing or something. It just was not fair that Tony, Jakes new favorite janitor, moved her locker to the same room that housed the rat traps.
""Rat traps, Lilly. He asked me to reset the traps!" Miley's voice turned to a slight growl at the last word, and Lilly really did feel badly, even though she heard the story four times over the last few days.
"Just request to have your locker moved. Tell the guidance counselor it's too far from your classes." The petite blond shrugged her shoulders as the two began their walk down the hallway. She may have already made the same suggestion four times as well.
"I put in a request. It's behind seven other ones. Two of their lockers were taken over by the fathead too, but they don't care. I won't even know 'til tomorrow if I can get a new one." Miley trudged along next to Lilly, but the two paused when a flock of girls walked right across their path. In the midst of the heavily applied perfume and short skirts a blond head stood above the rest. Of course, that particular head was male, and a part time zombie slayer on TV. Miley scowled.
"'Sup Jake?" Lilly called to him lightly. She smiled when he nodded in her direction, then sighed when he turned away.
"Great," came a voice from Miley's left. "She's got her flirty face on." Oliver looked as though he was trying to get a bad taste out of his mouth.
"I know. If it was aimed at anyone else, it would be cute," Miley grumbled to him.
"I do not have a flirty face!" Lilly protested. She turned to look at her two friends and her hands found their way to her hips.
"Yes, you do." Oliver and Miley spoke in unison, a rarity for them.
"Oliver, show her." Miley smacked him in the arm to propel him forward.
"Why do I have to show her?" Oliver asked rubbing his arm. Miley glared at him, so he clasped his hands in front of him, tilted his head to one side, opened his eyes a little wider, and spoke in a voice higher than his normal pitch, "'Sup Jake?" Miley giggled at his imitation, but Lilly's lips pursed in annoyance.
Waving her arms in front of Oliver, she snapped, "I do not do all of that!"
"Yeah, you do," he responded. He pushed some of his brown hair back in frustration. Usually, he would be glad to spend the time between classes arguing with Lilly, but he knew this was something she was never going to budge on.
"Whatever." Lilly turned back to gaze at the boy she kept telling herself she did not put on a flirty face for.
Miley sighed and made up her mind to drop the subject for now. It was a harmless crush; Lilly could ogle Jake Ryan with the rest of the girls in school all she wanted. To Oliver, she bitterly remarked, "So, I'm thinking of giving up cheese."
"What?" Although his tone voiced surprise, his eyes continued to flick back and forth between the blond girl on Miley's right and the boy in the center of the hall.
"I don't want to attract the rats."
"Are there really rats, 'cause that's disgusting."
"I haven't seen any yet, but I ain't takin' any chances." Miley shook her head and watched the crowd of girls follow their resident star down the hall and into an open classroom. "I've been trying to get Lilly to let me keep my stuff in her locker, but she just keeps telling me it's not a good idea."
"Well, the lockers are pretty small, and you guys have a lot of stuff," Oliver told her carefully. He did not want to be the one to point out that anytime they tried to share something for an extended amount of time, it went very badly.
By this time, Lilly was listening again. She sighed and said, "If they don't give you a new locker by tomorrow afternoon, I guess you can put some stuff in mine."
"Thank you! My back is killing me. I've been carrying everything the last three days and my bag is heavier than a dairy cow before her morning milkin'." There was a pause in which Lilly and Oliver just looked at Miley, their faces puzzled.
"If we don't start moving, we're going to be late for class," Oliver finally said.
***
The following day after school, Oliver found the two girls at Lilly's locker again. This time, they were trying to make all of their textbooks fit into the very small space.
"No locker?" Oliver asked the unnecessary question.
"No." Miley groaned and put her last book on the top of the stack. "The counselor thinks everyone is just tryin' to get a locker closer to Jake's, and she thinks he needs his space. Stupid zombie slayer." Miley slammed the locker shut with such force that Lilly took a step back.
"You taking the bus home? Cause Oliver and I have to go to practice." Lilly said this cautiously, afraid that Miley was in need of yet another venting session.
"Or you could come with us and watch the cheerleaders work on their routines and complain about not being on the squad along with how much you hate Jake," Oliver muttered, clearly sick of Miley's new favorite topic as well. At her answering glare, he took a step behind Lilly and said, "okay, bye then." He hurried down the hall toward the gym, not looking back. Lilly started to laugh, more at Oliver than Miley, but had to run off after him when she saw the look on Miley's face.
"Oliver, wait up," she called. He slowed his pace when they made it into the next hall.
"You're really going to let Miley keep her stuff in your locker?" Oliver asked.
"It's temporary. Once Jake's been here a while, Mrs. Cohen'll be easier on locker assignments. Give it a couple of weeks and Miley'll get a new one… unless there really aren't any empty ones left." Lilly swung the duffel bag that would no longer fit in her locker over her shoulder.
"What are you going to do with your cheer stuff?"
"I think Mr. Correlli will let me leave it in his room on practice days."
They reached the gym and the two parted ways, Lilly to the girls locker room to change, and Oliver to teach the school's newest sports announcer, a seventh grader who offered to take the job when Oliver decided to give it up, how to set up the new sound board.
Twenty minutes in to practice, and Oliver was able to leave the younger boy alone with the complicated piece of technology and retrieve Pirate Pete's tricycle from the equipment room. It took him a while to get used to riding around on something made for a seven-year-old, but after a few crashes, which earned Lilly a tongue lashing from the cheerleading coach because she was too busy watching the mascot to focus on learning the routine, he managed to make a full circle around the gym with the head of Pirate Pete firmly in place.
"I never realized being the pirate would be so much hard work," Oliver told Lilly when they were finally able to leave the gym.
"Yeah, you smell like you were working hard." She wrinkled her nose a took a small step away from him.
"Hey, you don't smell so hot either."
"Contrary to popular belief, cheerleaders sweat too. Besides, you're the one who told me to hurry up, that we shouldn't keep your mom waiting." After her statement, Lilly's eyes widened and she grabbed Oliver so she could pull him to stand in front of her.
"What are you doing?" Oliver tried to twist around to look at her, but she placed her hands on his shoulders, keeping him facing the other direction.
Cautiously, Lilly brought her head to Oliver's left shoulder and whispered, "Jake's at the other end of the hall. He can't see me like this. I'm all sweaty and gross."
Oliver tried to ignore the feel of her breath on his neck and grit his teeth, then said, "How is this different from him seeing you after you skateboard?"
"It just is," she hissed. "Don't let him see me." Instead of replying, Oliver just stood there glowering at the blond boy at the end of the hall for no apparent reason. When the actor and his entourage left, Oliver shook Lilly's hands from his shoulders and they resumed their walk, neither talking about what just happened.
***
It only took until the following Wednesday for one of the girls to crack. Unsurprisingly, at least to Oliver, it was Miley who cracked first.
She cornered him after History one day. Lilly was talking to Mr. Correlli, and Oliver, leaning against the wall, was waiting for her just outside the door.
"Smell this!" Miley shoved a blue button down sweater in his face.
"Why am I… oh, avocado." Oliver smiled, then realized maybe an avocado scented sweater was not a great thing for a girl to be wearing. "Why am I smelling avocado?"
The sweater swung back down to Miley's side. "Lilly brought her leftover half of a California club sandwich for lunch today." Miley did not sound particularly happy about this.
"I love those. You think I could get some of it?"
"Not the point." Her jaw was clenched and Oliver knew he was on thin ice.
"Right."
"The paper around it came loose, and now, there's avocado spread all over the sleeve of my sweater." The blue cotton sleeve was again shoved in Oliver's face for inspection. He started to laugh, knowing it was a bad idea, and earned a smack to his shoulder.
"Ow! Miley, it's not that bad. It's not like Lilly brings her lunch everyday." She still looked like she was going to bite his head off. "If it bothers you so much, talk to her."
"Pffft. I am not going to tell my best friend I don't want her to put food in her own locker. She's letting me borrow it. I can't do that. She could kick me out."
"Do you really think Lilly would do that?" Before Miley could form a response, the blond in question exited the classroom, and Oliver moved from his position as wall support to walk with the two of them to their locker.
It was a mess. Oliver could see Miley's make up bag, Lilly's hoodie (not covered in avocado, he noticed), and notebooks and textbooks shoved in every which way. Oliver was sure this was only going to lead to trouble.
He was, however, a little impressed. Lilly managed to keep her complaints in check for an entire additional day. Miley had left school early for a "Hannah" appointment, and they were sitting at lunch, just the two of them, when Lilly's outburst came.
"Oliver, I can't take it anymore!" Her voice was heard over the clanging of silverware and the squeak of sneakers on the tiled floor.
He paused with a French fry half way to his mouth and noticed several eyes turned to their table. Oliver laughed nervously and said, "She's rehearsing for a play" to a couple of passing girls.
"Can I borrow your math book tonight?' Lilly asked him in her normal voice, waiting for people to stop staring before she went on.
"What?" The sudden shift was hard for Oliver to keep up with. "Why can't you use yours?"
"Oh, you mean the one that's now covered in bright pink spillage?" Lilly's voice rose again, but this time they both ignored the heads turned in their direction.
"Bright pink what?"
"Spillage. Miley decided it was a good idea to paint her nails before school this morning, and she left the nail polish open in my locker!"
"I knew this was going to be bad," Oliver sighed.
"I don't need your I told you so's. I need to get her out of my locker."
"How do you plan on doing that?"
"I was hoping you would have a plan."
"Why me?"
"Aren't you the locker man?" Lilly was now glaring at Oliver as though this were his fault.
"I open lockers. I don't get people new ones."
"Can't you just bang on them and find an empty one for Miley?"
"If there was an empty one, don't you think she would have been able to get a new one? Just talk to her. Tell her to be more careful." Oliver tried to go back to eating his food, but Lilly was having none of that.
"Oliver, it's my locker or the rat traps. I'm not going to make her feel worse."
"What? It's not like it's your fault."
"Oliver!"
"Lilly!"
They stared at each other across the table for a minute.
"You're the locker doctor," Lilly whined, "just help me fix this."
"You need something fixed? Maybe I can help." The arrogant male voice came from next to their table. "I've been known to fix a few things." The zombie slayer winked at Lilly, and Oliver's eyes narrowed. Really? He had been known to fix a few things? For an actor, Jake's lines were worse than his own.
"Oh, hi Jake." Lilly's voice was a little breathless and her eyes were a little wider than they had been. The anger and frustration had all but vanished from her face. It was enough to make Oliver want to vomit. He told himself it was only because Lilly was making a fool of herself, acting like all of the other girls in their classes. He was not jealous. "I was just saying…"
"She's just having a problem with her locker," Oliver cut in shortly. "It's no big deal. I've got it under control."
"Right, cause you're the locker man," Jake said understandingly. "If I'd known that before, I'd have asked you to look at my locker before Tony. Then maybe Miley wouldn't be so mad at me."
"So, you are fixing it?" Lilly's bright blue eyes and pink cheeks were now focused on Oliver.
He squirmed in the plastic seat before saying, "Yeah, I'll see what I can do." He had no idea what exactly he was going to do about this now, but he would rather it be him trying to solve Lilly's problem than Jake.
"Cool." Jake nodded his head, but Oliver was busy staring at his food, avoiding Lilly's eyes, and Lilly was trying to figure out what changed Oliver's mind. "Have either of you seen Miley?"
"She left early. Family thing," Oliver mumbled, swallowing a hiccup, his eyes still on his food.
Jake probably said goodbye before wandering off to one of the eight seats being saved for him, but neither Lilly nor Oliver really seemed to notice.
"What was that about?" She asked him.
"What do you mean?" He finally looked up, but still did not look her in the eye. Instead, he reached for the salt shaker in the middle of the table.
"You didn't seem like you wanted to help before."
Oliver rolled his eyes and cockily said, "Well, I am the locker doctor. I have a reputation to keep up."
"Oh, please."
"I'm not making any promises though."
"Thanks, Oliver." Lilly beamed at him and they resumed their lunch. She was now in a much better mood.
***
Another day went by, and it was Lilly who was nearing her breaking point, not Miley. As far as she knew, Oliver had no luck in finding an empty locker, and that half a day without having to worry about Miley being in her locker had made her realize just how much she needed Oliver to find one. She was trying to carry all of her notes with her, and she had decided to share Oliver's books in Math and Spanish, without telling him until they were actually seated in class. When Miley asked, Lilly told her she left the books at home rather than explain that nail polish had made the pages she needed difficult to read. Miley was trying to be a courteous locker-mate by attempting to keep all of their books organized, but each time one of the girls needed to find something, all of the books quickly became part of a haphazard pile of school supplies. Highlighters, pencils, a few tubes of lip gloss, all stuck out from the books and folders at odd angles.
"Oliver," Lilly whispered from her seat behind him in their Spanish class. He moved to hand her his text book, but she pushed it back. "Not that. Do you know what I have all over my hoodie?"
"Nailpolish?"
"No."
"Lip gloss?"
"No."
"Highlighter?" He tried again.
"No!" She was growing impatient and Oliver struggled to suppress a smirk.
"Avocado?"
"No! Why would I have avocado… never mind. Would you just let me tell you?" She hissed.
"You asked if I knew!" Oliver hissed back.
"Eyeshadow."
"That was my next guess," Oliver said, trying his best not to start laughing. Lilly poked him in the back of the neck with her pen and his hand automatically reached back to take the writing utensil from her. When he missed it, he covered the exposed portion of his skin instead. Lilly had been known to doodle when she was not paying attention, and he did not want to find out later that he had "I heart Jake" written on his neck or something like that.
"Not funny. There are sparkly purple smudges all over my white sweatshirt. I don't think that's going to come out." Lilly's whispers were growing louder, and Oliver decided to risk getting caught not listening to the lecture.
He turned quickly in his seat and muttered, "You have to calm down. You're going to get us in trouble. We'll talk after class." When he turned back to the front, he found the teacher next to his desk. Miley was now facing Oliver as well, and her eyes were wide in the desk in front of him. In fact, everyone in the class had their eyes on Lilly and Oliver.
"I think we will be talking after class. All three of us," the teacher informed Oliver coldly.
"Sorry," Lilly whispered in his ear when their instructor moved back to her place in the front of the room. Oliver was too frustrated to respond.
***
"You guys didn't get detention, did you?" Miley was waiting when Lilly and Oliver emerged from the classroom, both looking annoyed.
"No, she just said that if Oliver was incapable of staying out of his girlfriend's personal space for an entire class period, she might have to switch one of us to another class." Lilly crossed her arms and shook her head.
"You interrupt one Cinco de Mayo speech in the seventh grade and she holds a grudge forever," Oliver muttered. "That woman hates me."
"So, she thought…" Miley started.
"Yeah, she thought we were having a 'relationship issue' and wants us to work it out on our own time. Psssh. Ridiculous." Lilly was now glaring at Oliver.
"You started it," he told her, not about to let her blame him for this one.
"What were you guys talking about, anyway?" Miley asked curiously, amused at their annoyance.
"You didn't hear us?" Lilly asked. When Miley shook her head, Lilly opened her mouth to give an answer, but no sound came out. Luckily, Oliver came to her aid.
"My brother. He stole her skateboard yesterday. She's a little mad." The statement was followed by a hiccup.
"Sounds like you need some water there," Lilly told Oliver as she patted him on the back. "Miley and I'll see you after gym." She grabbed Miley's hand to drag her down the hall, mouthing a quick "thanks" to Oliver as she went.
***
Miley and Lilly spent the entire weekend apart, Miley blaming her father, Lilly blaming an English essay. Oliver, however, heard from both of them six times. Each. Just on Saturday. There seemed to be some unspoken rule that neither of them wanted to upset the other, but they had no problem calling to drive him crazy.
"No, Miley, I don't know if orange juice stains."
"Lilly, just tell her not to keep make-up in your locker."
"No, I don't know if she borrowed your purple haze eyeshadow."
"I don't have history notes for you. I didn't take any, I was hoping I could borrow yours!"
"I know it's Lilly's locker, but I'm sure if you tell her about the food thing, she'd understand."
"I know she's your friend, but you don't have to share your locker forever."
Sunday afternoon, Oliver was sick of being a secret go-between and decided to really fix this. He had made half hearted attempts the last few days, but enough was enough. If he did not find Miley a new locker, he was going to strangle one of his best friends. After getting yet another phone call from Miley where she did not allow him to get a word in, he knew which one he would prefer quit talking to him right now.
***
"Let's see, make-up bag, brush, Math book, oh, hey, I think that's my mascara…"
"What are you doing?" Lilly came around the corner on Monday morning to find Miley transferring all of her belongings from Lilly's locker to the one next to it. "Isn't that Becky's locker?"
"It was. She told me I could have it. Apparently, she got a locker next to her boyfriend's or something." Miley was trying not to smile too widely. She did not want Lilly thinking she had not appreciated the shared space.
"That's great," Lilly told her. When she spotted Oliver coming down the hall, she hurriedly added, "I'll be back in a sec."
"I see Miley got a new locker." Oliver remarked when Lilly approached him.
"Yeah, funny thing. Seems Becky just got a locker next to her boyfriend, even though I thought there were no more empty lockers."
"Lucky."
"Right. I'm sure this was just luck, locker man." The sarcasm in Lilly's tone was obvious.
"What are you talking about?"
"Fine. Don't tell me how you did it. I'll figure it out on my own." When she turned to head back to Miley, she heard the unmistakable sound of Oliver hiccupping. She smiled to herself, but kept walking.
Over the course of the school day, Oliver's work was revealed in short bursts.
In homeroom, Lilly discovered that the locker Becky moved in to used to belong to Chad (the chomper). Chad's new locker was closer to the cafeteria.
In second period, she heard Sarah saying she gave her old locker to Chad because the new one she got was closer to the center of the school, a higher traffic area, perfect for advertising her numerous causes to the student body. Sarah liked to tape flyers to her locker so people knew just what cause she was working on that week. Sarah's new locker had belonged to Donny, who gave it to her so he could get one closer to the most popular girls' bathroom. Lilly did not really want to think about that too much.
At lunch, it was revealed that Donny's current location was previously occupied by Ashley. Ashley's trade was the result of her finally getting a locker next to her best friend Amber.
In her last class of the day, Lilly found what she thought was the last piece of the puzzle. The boy who used to house his text books where Ashley's now resided had taken over Miley's old boiler room spot. He claimed he was just happy to be away from the popular crowd, because those girls were crazy.
***
At first, Lilly thought she would not mention what she found out to Oliver. After all, he must have had a reason for not gloating about his work. When she ran into Jake at Rico's later on though, she was able to keep herself focused on the conversation and not how hot Jake looked in his swim wear long enough to hear that Oliver had paid the boy in the boiler room twenty dollars. Her suspicions were finally confirmed, but she did not know if she was happy about this or not.
"Hey, Oliver," she called to him from her spot at Rico's counter when she saw him walking up the beach.
"Lilly, what's up?"
"I'm supposed to meet Miley here to tan. At least, I think we're tanning. You want to split some nachos with me while I'm waiting?" She tried to keep her voice nonchalant, but inside, she was ready to hit him over the head for spending his allowance on getting Miley a place to put her school supplies.
Oliver shrugged and sat down next to Lilly. They chatted while she waited for Miley, and Lilly made sure to let Oliver have more than just his half of the corn chips and cheese. She was trying to think of a way to get him to admit that he orchestrated the great locker swap.
Oliver was not in his most talkative of moods, and she figured he probably had already guessed that she knew, so when they were down to their last few nachos, she finally just blurted out, "it looks like I owe you twenty bucks."
"How'd you find out?" He knew she heard about the trades, but he thought he managed to get away with the money.
"Jake." Lilly shrugged, much like he had earlier, watching his face carefully. His jaw tightened briefly.
"It's not a big deal. You wanted Miley out of your locker, and she's out." Oliver broke a chip in half before popping a piece in his mouth.
"No big deal? Oliver you're out a twenty, and you somehow managed to convince six people, some of them who hate you, to move their lockers. That's kind of impressive." Lilly nudged him in the side and he smiled.
"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome." Oliver nodded his head and Lilly rolled her eyes. She probably should have left the impressive part out. Now, he was just going to be smug about it.
"So," she prompted, "what is this going to cost me? You know I'm not okay with you doing this for free." Her eyes were drawn from Oliver to Miley's form making her way across the sand.
"I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I'm sure I'll come up with something suitable." He saw Lilly's eyes narrow, and he added, "I will definitely collect. Don't worry, you're not getting out of this that easy… Can we not tell Miley about this though? I mean, I did do this because you were miserable, and I don't think you want her to know that." Oliver constructed his reasoning carefully. Lilly did not want Miley to know she hated sharing her locker, and he did not need Miley wondering about his motives. She was more perceptive than Lilly. Lilly did not answer though because Miley had reached them.
"Hey guys. Did you ever get your skateboard back from Oliver's brother?" Miley slid on to another stool and swiped a nacho, careful not to rest her arms on the soda residue on the counter top.
"My what?"