...fuck! I'm going to kill him...

Being Chris Kirkpatrick wasn't as fun as Nick had thought it would be.

               In fact, it was a lot more difficult.

               Early on the second day, he had faked to twist his ankle, effectively avoiding the embarrassing moment that would have occurred when everyone realized he didn't knew the dance routines.

               Or the songs.

               His injury gave him a little time to learn them both.

               Joey was a great help, especially when dealing with Dani.

               Dani, who called day and night, who was Chris's girlfriend, and who, on top of everything, expected Nick to handle decisions about a new clothing line or company or something… And Nick shuddered to
think what would happen when Dani choose to come to visit.

               Easy cake.

               Not at all.

               And the braids were getting on his nerves. To put it bluntly, they pissed him off.

               Not to mention that he simply couldn't get used to the range his new voice had.

               Still, he was near Justin. Which meant he had the better part of the deal.

* * *

               Being Nick Carter was a living hell. Or at least, for Chris it was.

               Learning the songs the Backstreet Boys sang wasn't an easy task. Especially since Nick had a fucking solo in every single one of them, and his range wasn't as high as Chris.

               Thankfully, the choreographies weren't as complicated as what Wade did, and Howie helped him to get up to date quickly.

               To make things worse, all sugary desserts and candies were off limits for him. Every time he tried to eat something, Kevin, or AJ or Brian would drag him off somewhere else. And Brian kept inviting him to
play basketball, and the guys had told him to stop playing because Brian had a heart condition, and Brian kept insisting, and truth to be told, Chris wasn't a bad player, but since he couldn't get used to Nick's height he sucked on the court. It was too much effort.

               Still, he was near him. And that made everything ok.

* * *

"What's wrong with Chris?" Lance asked pretty much 0nonchalantly as he sat next to Joey in the rehearsal room. They were watching how Justin kept going trough the steps for Bye Bye Bye, while Chris watched him intently.

"He twisted his ankle." Joey answered, not taking his eyes away from the other two.

"That was two weeks ago." Lance counterattacked. "I've never seen Chris this calm before."

"Maybe the night meeting with Dani tired him up." Joey attempted to change the subject, but Lance didn't seem convinced. "C'mon Lance, you know how it is."

"I know how it used to be." Lance shook his head, looking sad for a moment before setting his clear gaze on Joey. "They fought last night."

"What?!" Joey almost spit the juice he was drinking. Last time he had seen 'Chris' talk to Dani, everything seemed fine.

"I got the room next to theirs. Dani was pretty upset. I would be too if my boyfriend only spoke about Justin all the time."

"Chris doesn't talk about Justin all the time." Joey protested, feeling a black pit of despair forming on the base of his stomach.

"He didn't." Lance agreed. "But two weeks ago, he started to do it. Or haven't you noticed?"

               And Joey had to stay silent, because he didn't want to admit that his answer was going to be yes.

* * *

"What's wrong with Nick?" Brian asked, pretty much nonchalantly as he sat next to Howie in the quiet room. It was five minutes before the concert and Nick was reading a newspaper not too far away from
them, frowning.

"What do you mean, B-rok?" Howie chocked in his juice. He knew Chris wasn't doing a great job as 'Nick' but he didn't think someone would notice so fast.

"Well, he seems to have energy to make up for all of us lately." Brian explained, watching how Nick's frown deepened and then how his eyes bulged out as he kept reading. "Not to mention he's been having weird mood swings and getting worse at Bball."

"He might just be tired," Howie suggested, shaking his head. He just wanted to leave Brian and go and see what was wrong with Chris. But Brian wasn't going to let it go lightly. When Howie got to his feet,
Brian grabbed the shorter man's arm and forced him to turn around.

"D, you know what's wrong, right?" When Howie nodded, Brian closed his eyes. "It's… It's not drugs, is it? I mean…"

"Of course, not Brian! He…" But anything Howie might say was silenced by Nick's enraged yell.

"That little fuck!" He yelled, as he trashed the newspaper in a tiny ball and pulled out his cell phone.

               It was then when Howie knew nothing was going to be all right.

* * *

               It took all of Joey's will power to stop himself from killing Nick when he saw him enter the room where the cd cover photo shot was being done.

               He knew Nick was upset at Chris for the news that had been in every paparazzi of the world the day before, but that was no reason to do what Nick had done. It wasn't as if Nick had loved his girlfriend Mandy.

"You look good, Bro!" Justin was the first to recover from the shock, smiling at Nick in Chris' body. Nick beamed, a Carter kiddie smile in Chris' face, and suddenly everything clicked in Joey's mind. So he stepped forward and grabbed Nick / Chris' elbow and pulled him away from the others.

"What the fuck are you doing, Carter?" He growled, pointing at Chris' now short and boring hair.

"Simple." Nick answered, making Chris' voice sound cruel and cunning. "Your friend fucks up my life, I fuck his."

* * *

               Howie could understand Chris' rage when they saw *N Sync's latest photos. While AJ and Brian commented on how nice it was to see that Kirkpatrick was finally acting his age, Howie could only think about how much the braids meant to Chris, how they used to be his pride and joy.

               But as comprehensive as he was about hair matters, he couldn't agree with Chris' unsettling desire to make things 'even'.

               Not when it meant seeing 'Nick' eating 24/7, pumping his body full of sugar.

"Is Nick all right, Howie?" Kevin asked him, after an interview where Nick boldly declared that it would be 'cool' to swap members with Limp Biskit just for the hell of it. "He seems out of it lately."

"I'm sure it's just because of the breakup, Kevin." Howie answered, wondering where Chris was at that precise moment. "It'll pass."

               And he prayed that he was right.

* * *

"This is getting out of hand." Joey said to the phone, after making sure no one could listen to his conversation. "Nick has just put Chris on 'diet'. He says he's going to make him look like a 'fucking ballon'."

"More or less Chris' plan for Nick's body." Howie answered, sullenly. "Only that he seems to burn energy with the same speed as he eats it. He's going to kill Brian from a heart attack."

"Any luck on your side of research?"

"No. No ancient inca skulls on our mail lately, no weird puertoriccean curses. Nothing. And you?"

"Well, my grandma said something about wishes and true love. But I couldn't make a lot of sense from her Italian. And no, no eclipses, planet alignments or government created diseases."

               Both singers sighed and, half a country between them, both turned on MTV.

               Only to wince at the news of Nick Carter's latest announcement: making comics with Stan Lee.

"He's making us look like losers. " Howie complained, closing his eyes.

"Hey!" Joey protested. "Chris is talented! Just look at the Fu-man line!"

"Chris might be a good artist, but Nick isn't!" Howie pointed out. "And we need to…"

               Any words he might have thought of saying were drown by MTV's next news segment where Chris Kirkpatrick boldly declared that Pop was dead.

* * *

               To say that the atmosphere at the 2000 VMA was tense was an understatement.

               Lance, Jc, and Justin didn't quite understood the hatefull looks Nick Carter was sending their way. Or why Chris looked as if he wished the Backstreet Boys would die the most painful and slow death possible.

               Joey, on the other hand, knew.

               Knew that Chris was pissed because Nick had broken up with Dani, chopped up his braids, gained 20 pounds, almost wrecked Fuman skeeto, purposely sabotaged *N Sync's Making the Video by making faces at JC's back, making him look like and idiot in Larry King Live, Rossie O'Donnel and Hollywood Squares, dressing him worse than JC,
and conveniently forgetting to summit Chris' songs for No Strings Attached.

               Knew that Nick was pissed because Chris had broken up with Mandy, Dani, Sherry and Sussane, made him look like a teenage slut, gained 20 pounds, lost 30 pounds, chopped his blond hair in an array of disheveled spikes, creating and destroying Backstreet Project, and submitting Nick's songs for Black and Blue.

               Even so, he wasn't ready to stop disaster from happening.

               Because he couldn't stop Nick from wearing enough makeup to form his own glam rock band, and couldn't warn Howie of Chris' utter hate for makeup.

               So, he shouldn't have been surprised at all when Chris / Nick took one look at Nick / Chris and, growling, turned around and planted a big, sloppy, Kirkpatrick kiss on AJ's lips.

               In front of the cameras of every single network in America.

"Fuck!"