Summary: "I've got a package for a Smoken' Oliver Oken." AU.
It's raining when he gets to UCLA which he takes as a bad sign. He never liked rain, it usually meant him being excluded from some primitive Miley and Lilly sun dance or watching the darker haired one make out with her boyfriend in her driveway pretending she was part of the Notebook. He'd laughed when Miley'd gotten pneumonia. Not to her face, of course, that would have been rude. Later though he cracked up with Lilly while they watched Transformers on the couch of her living room wrapped in warm fuzzy blankets.
Now he could go back to Lilly's living room in this rainstorm but it probably wouldn't make him feel any better because the Transformers DVD would be gone and so would she. Miley and Lilly had gone to NYU all the way across the country, Miley as a drama major and Lilly for English. They'd both stated their parents as the reasons. Yet he knew it resulted from completely different struggles. Miley couldn't watch her father drink secretly and pretend not to notice anymore, and she couldn't stop blaming her mother for his unhappiness. Lilly couldn't live with either of her parents anymore the way they were fighting and pulling her into the middle, so she did the next best thing, took their money and hung up the phone when they tried to instigate her during a call.
Oliver, on the other hand, would miss his parents too much if he moved across the country. He'd miss his little brother Owen and his dog, Bandit, if he left too quickly. Sitting in his dorm room cross legged on his tiny little bed and waiting for his roommate he realizes he probably was wrong when he weighed saying goodbye to his best friends easier than parting with his family. In all honesty, how much time has he spent at home in the last few years anyways?
- - -
Over the next three days it doesn't get any easier. His roommate comes, along with a suitcase full of pio Oliver is amazed he was able to smuggle in. Oliver smokes with him, he's not very good at it and he ends up coughing a lot more than anything else. He calls Lilly in New York the first night, she and Miley are giggling. Vaguely he overhears Miley say something about water balloons and the guy Lilly thinks is hot down the hall. She "EEP"s over the phone and shouts a hurried goodbye. Oliver is lonely again. So he curls up under his covers and tries not to smell the drug stink.
Classes suck too. He's unsure as to why the hell he needs to take Concepts in Biology as a Political Science student but he doesn't ask. No one talks in this class, and the cute blond girl with dark brown roots he sits behind doesn't even look back and smile at him. The others are slightly better, not much. When he gets back to the dorm the scholarship jocks are woofing and chanting in the halls. One of them offers him some kind of drink. He takes it, plugging his nose, and hoping that it's like beer. It isn't. Some girl in a pink tube top and shorts so teeny that they barely seem to cover her ass asks him what he plays. He says water polo, in an attempted joke. She thinks it's sexy, and he is torn between the urge to fuck her and being mad that she's too stupid to recognize such things as sarcasm.
Eventually it doesn't matter anyways, she forgets his name, calls him Ollivander. He tells her that's a wand maker from Harry Potter. She wrinkles her nose in disgust, asks him if he's ever played World of Warcraft. He answers honestly. She runs off to find a football player she knows, and probably has already found to be good in bed. Oliver goes back to his dorm room and tries to call his girls. No one picks up. He rolls over onto his back and thinks of the person who introduced him to the game, a certain floppy blond haired TV personality. She would have screwed him if he'd mentioned that.
- - -
The forth day is a Saturday. He's awakened by a rap, rap, rapping on his door. He groans and gets out of bed. One of the dumb jocks from the other night is standing there smirking with a huge box in his arms. "I've got a package for a Smoken' Oliver Oken," He announces loudly. The other boys in the hall turn to stare at the underdeveloped freshman who is getting the attention. Suddenly a chorus of "Whoops" and "Hell yeah"s arises. Oliver takes their praises and a couple slaps on the back smoothly, acting nonchalant and too cool for all the fuss. He knows immediately that it's not what they think, and he knows just as quickly who sent it.
In the comfort of his locked, marijuana reeking room he uses a pair of scissors to tear the tape from the cardboard. He opens it excitedly, with much more enthusiasm then if it had been from a girl who wanted to jump his bones. The first thing he sees brings him immense comfort. Sitting atop the box is Transformers Collector's Edition. He wants to hug Lilly so badly it physically hurts. He sees a sticky note attached to the top, So you can simultaneously ogle that Megan Fox chick while I squeal over the utter hotness that it Shia LeBouef. P.S. Miley will be ogling too, though not while Jake is in range. He laughed and threw it on the floor next to him, although carefully enough not to bend the sticky note.
The next thing he pulls out is a coaster from TGI Fridays with Miley, Lilly, and Jake's signatures on it. So you could be part of our first meal in New York, the yellow paper says. He smiles imagining himself at a table eating potato skins while Lilly chowed down on a cheeseburger and Miley and Jake shared some kind of cutesy dinner/dessert combo. He laughs as Jake accidentally drops some whipped cream on Miley's new designer top and she yells. Lilly laughs too. It takes him a second to realize she really isn't there. He finds a sweatshirt Lilly bought him at the Hard Rock Café, a mug from the campus bookstore, and a pack of candy cigarettes under this.
The last thing in the box is a package of mini-gummy bears. He knows this is Miley's gift to him before he looks at the note. It's something they both love that Lilly just doesn't understand. She likes either solid or chewy, not somewhere in between. I'm beary sad without you, the note reads simply. And he laughs, it's cheesy and classically Miley.
He calls them as soon as he's done. Lilly picks up, and squeals to Miley that he got it. He hears Mr. Teen Bighead's voice in the background goading her to tell him to be careful with the coaster, it's worth real money. He, Lilly, and Miley laugh in unison.
- - -
The next care package comes two weeks later, although slightly smaller this time. This time it's addressed to Oliver "The Ollie Trolley" Oken. Lilly got a kick out of the fact that his dorm mates congratulated him for the last one and now was going to send him one with something equally embarrassing written on it each time. Someone in charge of his building's mailroom hands him a pack of condoms as he signs for this one. The guys are starting to think of him as something of a legend. Oliver basks in the glory despite having done absolutely nothing to earn his title.
This time the present on top is from Jake. It's a signed version of the first season of his TV show. To the second most popular guy at Seaview, the dedication says. There's a note from Miley on the back, With apologies. He chuckles and shelves it next to Transformers.
There is a long thin velvet box in the middle of the cardboard one. For a second he panics about which one of his friend's is proposing to him, then he realizes that it's roughly three times the size of an engagement ring's box. He laughs at himself and pulls it open. A necklace sits there, a bright yellow smiley face sitting in the middle of it. There's a little tube filled with water that seems pointless, but then he sees it. Smoken Oken, emblazoned on a grain of rice. He knows it's from Lilly. In third grade he'd gotten a necklace almost identical to this from a balding Asian man at a kiosk in the mall except it had said Ollie. Then he sees her note, TURN IT OVER!!! It tells him excitedly. And then he sees it, Our doughnut.
- - -
After this the boxes come exactly once a month, one say "Big O" and another "Daddy Oken" and a few more new silly nicknames they must have giggled to death coming up with. Among his favorites from them include an annoying birthday card with a singing pink cat and green bunny, a bag of cookie dough bites from the candy store down the street from the girl's dorm, a fuzzy black and red striped bathrobe complete with matching face mask, and three Christmas snow globes. One features Hannah Montana and plays Rock Star, one has Jake Ryan doing his stupid "Slayed you once, I'll slay you again" pose, and the last one is of Rudolph and the dentist elf. He smiles as he winds it up, hoping and then the Misfits song fills his ears. He immediately calls Lilly and tells her that he'll buy her whatever she wants, in great quantities, when she arrives home.
- - -
In February he receives no box. He ignores phone calls from Miley that day, Jake that night, and is so angry when Lilly doesn't call to the next morning he calls her. Miley picks up her phone. Lilly is in the hospital, the most insanely expensive one in the city courtesy of Hannah. For the first time that he can remember, Oliver cries.
He hops on a flight to New York but not before stopping home to tell his parents and grab a few things. He doesn't sleep on the plane instead he works quickly much to the dismay of the flight attendant. He uses his cell phone to call in an extremely big favor from Jake. When he gets off, he's ready. Jake and another man meet him at the terminal. He hugs Jake, for the first time ever, and shakes the hand of his acquaintance. A limo brings them to the hospital, he feels like a dickhead. They ride the elevator in silence up to floor six. Oliver doesn't ask the room number, he simply feels out the air.
She's sitting up in bed talking in the phone angrily when he comes in. She freezes, shuts it off. He knows it was her mother. He sets the box down in front of her. She grins wide, she loves surprises. She tears it open, and he wishes he had some kind of silly wrapping paper. He knows how she enjoys wrapping paper.
The first thing she pulls out is the necklace from when he was eight. The smiley face is a little darker than she remembers, and she starts to tell him she can't take it. He laughs in her face and says she was the one who made him buy it anyways. They bicker on this point for a while until he's sure she's forgotten about trying to reject the gift and he tells her to continue.
She takes out a sixty-four pack of crayons and groans. She tells him he's annoyingly corny and no wonder he doesn't have a girlfriend. He tells her he thinks there might be another reason. She tells him he's proving her point more every minute.
Next she pulls out a Valentine's card he drew with those crayons on the plane. It depicts a grumpy teenage girl who thinks the holiday is a shame until she is adorned with all the things she claims to hate about it by a "devilishly handsome shaggy haired brunette". She laughs and kicks him the best she can from her bed.
Next is a big plastic horseshoe from Senior Surprise. They'd both stolen one along with a beach towel, and he'd stuck her with a pink one because she's made him take the purple flowered beach towel. This one is light blue. Tradesies? The note offers. She calls him a doughnut, but agreed.
She glares at him when she finds the item on the bottom of the box, "I already have this, Oliver," She tells him holding up the copy of Disturbia.
"I know," He tells her, and then whistles. Shia Lebouef comes walking through the door. Lilly starts to hyper ventilate.
"Oh my god, oh my god," She pants, looking between the two dark haired, dark eyed boys. "EEP!" It finally comes and Oliver grins. Shia looks slightly embarrassed. She turns to him, "I love you so much you have no idea. I've had a crush on you ever since way back in the Even Stevens years. And when you did that movie where you played the girls retarded brother…EEP!" She repeats. He looks even more uncomfortable.
"Um, thanks," He says. "You want a-"
"And I love you," She turns to Oliver. "You gave me all this stupid sentimental crap I love and you gave me him!" She pulls his face to her and engages him in the best kiss of his lifetime.
Shia seems to be getting antsy, he fidgets first. Then he clears his throat. Then he smiles and shrugs before walking out, one less crazy fan girl he has to worry about. "She didn't pull an Orlando Bloom on you, did she?" Jake asks as he comes into the hallway.
"Nah, she might have pulled one on your friend though," He smirks.
"Miley?" He asks, clearly wondering when his girlfriend snuck into the room.
"No, the goofy awkward one from the airport," Shia explains.
Jakes eyes widen evilly and he thrusts open the door, "Lilly and Oliver sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g," He teases. They share a look as he continues on to the baby carriage. Lilly picks up the horseshoe and throws it, hard. It hits him in the forehead. He falls back onto the floor. She grins at her good aim.
"That's my girl," Oliver states proudly. She kisses him again.
AN: I could not figure out how one spells tradsies…is that right? Please tell me if it isn't. And tell me if you love Shia as much as I do. I just watched Eagle Eye. It's completely horrible, and so is that beard of his. I'll probably buy it anyways…sigh. So tell me, too corny? It started off as a Miley/Lilly/Oliver friendship piece but then Jake edged himself in. And I couldn't help it from there.