Next to Normal

By: Riley

Summary - "There's people that figure if they hang out with you, all of a sudden they're going to be successes. I've had two or three stalkers in my life." –Dustin Diamond. Dak/OC WayneWayne/OC

Chapter 1

Contradicting Human Nature

"Are you bringing soda?" Dak Zevon asked as he tilted his head to the side, keeping his phone between his ear and his shoulder, his hands dipped in soapy water as he cleaned some dishes in the sink. "Who cares if it's Diet? We'd drink it anyway."

"Ok, I cleaned my room," Lizzie Zevon, Dak's little sister said as she walked into the kitchen, rolling her eyes. "Anything else that you need, Dad?" She added with a bit of an attitude as she walked over to the pantry and opened the door. "Don't you think we have enough chips?" She asked, her green eyes scanning over the nine different chip bags that were sitting in front of her face.

"Hold on," Dak, very carefully, removed his hands from the water and shook them off before taking his phone from his shoulder and setting it on the counter behind him. He turned around, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at his sister. "Go back upstairs and change," he commented after looking her over.

"Why?" Lizzie frowned as she turned around, her blonde ponytail hitting her in the face. She looked down at her clothes. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"I could tell you about 20 things that are wrong with it, all of which being that your skirt is too short," Dak said.

Lizzie stuck out her tongue before turning back to the pantry, loading up all the bags of chips in her arms. She turned around and dropped them onto the counter, being sure to make as much noise as possible, knowing that it was getting on her older brother's nerves. Dak gave her a warning look before turning back around and grabbing his phone. He put it up to his ear before jerking it back, looking at it, and then put it up to his ear again.

"No, dude, it doesn't matter, just grab whatever you want and get your ass over here!" Dak said and hung up the phone. He set it aside before pulling the plug out of the sink and turning on the faucet so he could do a final rinse of the dishes.

"You know you don't have to do that," Lizzie pointed out, noticing that he was actually hand washing dishes.

"Unlike mom, I don't want to be lazy." Dak replied under his breath.

Dak Zevon, on the outside, looks like he has everything. He's the teen icon with a following of girls from 5-14 years old, and had been on a lot of PopTiger magazine covers as well as having page spreads inside it. But after his auditions for TV musicals started to slow down, he moved onto bigger and better things and had gotten some work done on Broadway. Having moved from Wisconsin to LA to work on his career, he would say that he was really blessed as well as lucky. He has a little sister that was, somewhat, following in his footsteps by going to a Dance Academy and booking some small music video job, and his parents were casting directors.

But what many people don't know about LA was that it looked so glamorous and unattainable on the outside. Everyone looked perfect; they had the perfect jobs, hair styles, clothes, families, lives. They went to movie premiers, booked casting jobs, were friends with so many celebrities, and had the money to buy as many cars as they wanted. But that wasn't how LA really was, and Dak was one of the few people that could vouch for that first hand.

"Trust me, Bro, you're anything but lazy." Lizzie reassured him. She perked up as the doorbell rang and she raced through the massive kitchen and to the foyer. "I got it!" She called.

Dak smiled to himself as he grabbed his baseball cap off of the island and stuck it on his head backwards, sliding his phone into his cargo shorts pockets as he followed after her. He grinned when he spotted his best friend, Wally 'WayneWayne' Dooley standing in the foyer next to Lizzie. He looked somewhat annoyed as Lizzie seemed to be going on and on about something that he probably could care less about.

"Dude," Dak grinned as he walked over to his friend. "What took you so long?"

"You won't believe how many types of sodas there are out there," WayneWayne replied as he took the bag and shoved it into Dak's hands. "It's even harder to concentrate on remember which one a group of people likes when you have your sisters screeching in your ears about not knowing where your car is." He shrugged as he shook his head. "Just be glad that Lizzie is sane."

Dak laughed to himself as he nodded, dropping the bag onto the floor. He became friends with WayneWayne pretty quickly after WayneWayne had been put onto the show the Ziggle Zaggles. After moving from Texas to LA with his family; WayneWayne had become desperate to find an acting job, especially since his father was a famous TV producer that worked in LA and Vancouver. Having a bit of a singing background, he went to Arthur Griffin in Rocque Records to get a spot in Big Time Rush. But he was so desperate for the position as well as shedding his old part of 'Towel Boy' on Magic Middle School, that he adopted the persona WayneWayne, a gangster from Detroit. Alienating Big Time Rush and almost getting Kendall kicked out of the band; WayneWayne was kicked out and then placed onto the Ziggle Zaggles. Dak had met him one day when they both went to audition for a small roll on a TV show and they had become best friends ever since.

"So where's the car that they were looking for?" Lizzie asked, jumping into the conversation.

"Apparently Natalie and Jaycee both didn't realize that Mom took it so she could get some errands done and drop me off here, while Dad was at work," WayneWayne replied with a slight smirk. "Although she had left a note in plain sight."

"Your sisters are funny." Lizzie laughed to herself.

"If you think so, you can have them."

"I'll trade you for Dak!"

"Gee, thanks," Dak rolled his eyes. He heard a car door slam and some voices from outside and headed over towards the door once more. "Oh, I think the Jacksons are here." He commented as he grabbed the doorknob and opened the front door.

The Jacksons, now the Jackson-McGuires, Dak had met a few days after they had come out to LA to try and break into the music industry in the US. Originally from Sydney, Australia, they're the band the very famous band the DarkElements. With five CDs originally under their belt, they came over to the US to try and work on re-releasing them there, while they continued to work on new ones. Dak was the first friend that they had met in LA as he had been hired by their music producer and their manager (at the time) Ronan McGuire and Robert Jackson, to help them break into the music industry as well as the media there as it was different from the industry and media back in Sydney. After working with them for a couple of years, they decided to return the favor and had been hired by Gustavo Rocque to help Big Time Rush as they came to LA to start working on their CDs. Now Big Time Rush having two CDs released and planning on working on a third one.

"Hey guys!" Dak waved as he quickly hopped down the porch steps and the sidewalk, down the driveway. The ground was hotter than he had expected, and he didn't want to get blisters on his feet. "How's it going? How's Ronan?"

"Not bad," Riley Jackson-McGuire, the oldest of them at 18 commented as she carefully balanced a cake plate on her right hand as she held tightly onto a dog's leash in her left. She handed the cake plate to her twin sister, Rhuben, so she could hold onto the leash with both hands.

"He has meetings all day, so he was glad that we had something to do." Rhuben added as she turned her blue eyes to him. "He says to thank you for inviting us over."

"Eh," Dak shrugged as he took the plate from her hands. "I was bored anyway," he looked right into her eyes as he gave her a warm smile.

"I'll bet." She commented, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I hope you don't mind that we brought our dogs along," Patrick Jackson-McGuire, 16 years old, commented as let go of a leash that he was carrying to let a black and white husky puppy run around the front lawn, sniffing the ground as it went. Noah, Patrick's twin, let go of the leash he was carrying, allowing his own mostly black husky puppy to follow it. "Ronan didn't want them in the apartment for a while if we were going to be gone all day."

"Its fine," Dak replied as he turned around and led the way back up the long driveway. "Our backyard is big enough for them to run around carefully." He shifted the cake plate in his hands. "What kind of a cake is this?"

"It's a cheesecake!" Sydney Jackson-McGuire, the youngest at 11 said with a smile. "Chocolate Peanut Butter," he licked his lips. "Our favorite!" He then ran over to Lizzie and threw his arms around her waist in a hug. "Hi Lizzie, how are you?"

"I'm great Syd, how are you doing today?" Lizzie asked as she hugged him back.

"Good."

Lizzie looked up and turned her attention to Patrick and Noah, a toothy smile working its way onto her face. "Hey guys, how's it going?" she asked two of her best friends. She became friends with them VERY quickly, as Dak would say it; it's because of the fact that she's a flirt. And after Katie, her brother, and their friends moved to LA, the four of them became their own little group of friends as the older teenagers became a group of friends.

"That reminds me," Dak turned to Riley and Rhuben. "Do you think her skirt is too short?"

Rhuben tilted her head to the side and looked at her friend before looking over at Riley, who raised her eyebrows in reply. Rhuben placed her hands on her hips and gave a gentle smile. "Maybe a little," she commented.

"It'll probably be better if you wore shorts or leggings underneath it," Riley added helpfully as she was dragged forward by the large St. Bernard that was straining at his leash. "At least, the next time you want to wear it, at least."

"Alright," Lizzie replied as she led the way back into the house.

"So you give me a lot of grief about you changing your skirt, but you barely bat an eye when they suggest it?" Dak asked incredulously as he closed the door behind them and locked it before following them towards the kitchen.

"They're girls," Lizzie replied pointedly. "They know what they're talking about."

"She's right though," Patrick agreed as he placed a hand on Dak's shoulder. His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. "They're the ones that make us guys look good, by being right about our clothing, but in exchange, we're right about everything else." He laughed as Noah rolled his eyes and slapped him on the back of the head.

"So pool's that way, we're gonna eat out there before we start to watch movies," Dak said, motioning with his foot. He turned to WayneWayne as the others headed into the backyard. "D'you mind helping me with this stuff?" He asked WayneWayne. He tilted his head back. "The sodas are still in the foyer, I have a cooler you can put them in."

"No problem," WayneWayne replied and he jogged back over to the foyer to grab the bag that he had brought.

Dak dropped the cake plate onto the counter and started to gather all of the bags of chips when the phone rang. He dropped everything that was in his arms before sliding over the linoleum to the phone that sat on the wall by the refrigerator. Grabbing it off of its cradle, Dak looked at the Caller ID, seeing that it said UNKNOWN before answering it.

"Hello?" he asked, putting the phone to his ear. Not getting a response, he pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the connection. Seeing that they were still connected, he put it back up to his ear. "Hello? Hello?" Shrugging, Dak replaced the phone on its cradle and gathered the food once more.

"Wrong number?" WayneWayne guessed as he walked back into the kitchen, the large grocery bag in his arms.

"I guess," Dak shrugged as he walked through the kitchen to the open den and out the back door onto the deck. He placed the cake plate and chip bags onto the table and looked around the backyard. Lizzie was skimming the large pool, Patrick and Noah were setting up some pool chairs, and Rhuben was helping Sydney put on some sunscreen.

"Riles, what are you doing?" WayneWayne called when he spotted Riley back the back corner of the backyard, kneeling by a bush.

Riley turned, holding her hand up over her face to shield herself from the sun. "Rugby's growling at something," she replied, motioning to her St. Bernard, who had his head shoved into the bushes. "Rugby, stop that!" She snapped.

"Do you see anything?" Dak asked as he walked down the steps of the deck and across the backyard over to her. He grabbed the dog's collar and pulled him back before kneeling down and pushing the bushes aside himself. He shuffled forward a few steps as he continued to look through the foliage. He shrugged as he backed up. "I don't see anything."

"Sorry about that," Riley apologized as she bent down to rub Rugby's head, flopping his ears back and forth. "He doesn't usually growl like that unless something's there." She added, patting him on the head before giving the motion for him to lie down. Rugby quickly did as he was told.

"Well, whatever it was, it's not there anymore," Dak commented as he walked back over to his friends. "I wouldn't worry too much about it."

A/N: Meh, my first chapters are always kind of short and uneventful. Anyways, I had the idea for this for a while, but it wasn't until History class this morning that I figured out EVERYTHING that was going to happen in this story. So this is a story where the only characters that are there are Dak, WayneWayne, their families, and my OCs. Big Time Rush, Mrs. Knight, Katie, Kelly, Jo, Camille, and Stephanie will show up once, but other than that, they will be mentioned from time to time.

So this will be a long(ish) story, anywhere from 20-40 chapters, and the chapters are going to be longer than my normal ones, except for this one, so you can look forward to that.

I hope you guys liked this first chapter.

Cheers,

-Riles