“Are you still disinfecting yourself over there Jay?” Nick asked. They were both in Nick’s hotel room yet again, sorting through the lots of suggestions that continued to pour in from all their fans all over the world. Nick was seated at the desk, in front of his laptop, reading through the suggestions while AJ was in the bathroom.

AJ walked out, a large bottle of Listerine in hand, “What do you mean am I still disinfecting? OF COURSE I AM!!”

“Dude, the dare was done freaking years ago.”

“It was NOT done freaking years ago, it was the other night! I can still taste your funky little lips Carter.” and with that, AJ disappeared back into the bathroom so that he could swash the burning liquid around in his mouth.

Nick chuckled as he continued going through the feedback the fans were leaving them, “Man, these fans just want more and more. They gotta understand that we can’t be posting a video like everyday… we need to throw in a little break every once in a while so Brian and Howie won’t catch on to what we’re doing, not to mention the time that’s needed to edit the video and edit out all your vulgarity!” his voice rose with the last word, hoping AJ had heard him.

AJ emerged from the bathroom once more, “Our fans aren’t 12 anymore Nick, they know and use the big kid words now, believe me.”

“Man, some of these dares are truly off the wall.” Nick cringed as he continued scrolling through, leaning in closer to his laptop. All of a sudden, he busted out laughing. “Oh my god, this one is freaking great!”

AJ made his way over and stood behind Nick, glancing over his shoulder at the laptop. “Oh god, you wouldn’t!”

Nick nodded, grinning evilly, “Oh yes, I would!”

“He’d fucking kill you if he ever found out dude!”

“That’s why our whole… operation is a secret, they will never find out.”

AJ continued to stare at the screen, seriously contemplating how the dare would go over. “You’re really gonna do this, aren’t you?”

Nick nodded, “Hey man, we said that we’d do anything.”

~*~*~*~

“Annnnndddd… action!”

The camera came on, showing Nick who was standing behind a table. Not long after, AJ came into view, situating himself beside Nick. “Hey, we’re two of the sexiest Backstreet Boys!” they both greeted in unison. “AJ had wanted us to introduce ourselves like that.” Nick pointed out. “I don’t know why.”

AJ shot a look over at Nick, “You didn’t sound so against it when I had suggested it and we were rehearsing it.”

“It’s just, I think these people already know that we’re Backstreet Boys, but to go on and say two of the SEXIEST Backstreet Boys? I just feel all sorts of gay now.”

“Says the one who actually fucking kissed me during our last dare!”

“It was an accident!”

“How do you accidentally fucking kiss someone?”

“I didn’t know we really weren’t…” Nick stopped in the middle of his sentence, looking back over towards the camera. “Anyway, we appreciate the massive feedback we have been receiving from all of you guys out there, and we encourage you guys to keep it coming!”

AJ stepped out of sight real quick and had returned with a laptop. He placed it down on the table, “Our next dare comes from yorkielover88... oh dude.”

Nick shot a look over at AJ, who had suddenly sounded somber. “What is it?”

“She’s a fellow yorkie lover.”

“Okay.”

“It’s just refreshing to see another fellow dog lover… and now I’m thinking about JD.”

Nick cocked an eyebrow, “Uh, how do you even know she’s talking about the yorkie dog? She could be talking about the place Yorkshire in England.”

“I miss my Jack Daniels.” AJ replied with a little pout.

Nick sighed, “Are you gonna read the dare or not?”

Shaking himself slightly, AJ looked back up at the camera, “As I was saying, our next dare comes from yorkielover88 where Nick will try to make a bet with Brian, that he can’t drink a bottle of hot sauce faster than him.”

“But there’s a catch!” Nick added enthusiastically. “Go on and tell them the catch Jay.”

AJ cringed, knowing that if Brian were to ever find out, he’d probably kill them, and then send Kevin to kill them again. “The catch is Nick’s bottle will contain tomato juice while Brian will be drinking… the real… thing.”

Nick gave a big, bright smile. “So, what you’re gonna need is two bottles of hot sauce.” he turned to the side and had reached for something that was off camera; he turned back and situated a bowl and two bottles of hot sauce down on the table. “You’re gonna break the seal off of both bottles and then take one bottle and pour it’s contents down a sink or whatever.”

He unscrewed the cap of one of the bottles and began to pour the hot sauce into the bowl. “Now, what you’re gonna wanna do is clean the hell out of the bottle, soak it in something so that you’ll have no remnants whatsoever of hot sauce. And since we don’t have enough time on our show today, I have an already done one on hand.” he reached off camera again and had set down an empty, clean bottle and a can of V8 tomato juice. “So, now that we’ve got our clean bottle, we’re gonna go ahead and pour the tomato juice inside. Now, since hot sauce comes in all different colors and whatnot, you wanna make sure you get one that’s really close to the color of tomato juice.”

He popped open the can of V8 tomato juice and began to slowly pour it into the empty hot sauce bottle. He glanced over towards AJ, who had been quiet for quite some time. “Why you so quiet man?”

AJ looked over at him and shrugged, “I don’t know, there’s nothing for me to say.”

“You can say whatever man.”

“Whatever man.”

Nick rolled his eyes, “Not what I meant.”

“Okay ladies and gents, since Nick was the one so adamant about doing this specific dare, lets talk about all the lovely things he gets to look forward to if Brian were to ever find out. First one being Brian would not hesitate to kill his best friend. He may be a good ole Christian, but the man is from Kentucky, the good ole country place where cowboys would have showdowns and have no mercy. Secondly, Brian doesn’t know how to get even, he only knows how to get you back and make sure you’ll never fuck with him again. And last but not least, Brian has a cousin… I don’t know if you guys remember him, but his name is Kevin Richardson, and his name speaks for itself.”

Nick stared at AJ after his little outburst. “You’re afraid of Brian, aren’t you? You’re afraid of our bible-thumping brother!”

“You have a knack for learning things the hard way Carter. You’ve learned not to fuck with a Latino, and now you’ll learn not to fuck with a Kentuckian.”

That was the last thing that was heard before the camera cut off.

~*~*~*~

“Okay, are you rolling?”

“Yup… and… go.”

The camera came back on, showing AJ, who was standing outside. “Alright, so here we are outside of the venue, where in less than three hours we’ll be going into our soundcheck. Today, I have a really good friend here with me to help us, he’s gonna be our cameraman for today’s dare, and that’s Chris. I’m sure you all remember my good friend Chris.”

The camera turned and had shown Chris’ face up close. “I’m the guy he wrote ‘Fuck Marsha In The Eye’ for!”

The camera focused back on AJ, who was nodded, “Yeah, that’s the guy I wrote ‘Fuck Marsha In The Eye’ for. Anyway, we’ll have Chris our cameraman here be in some hidden places, recording the dare and Brian’s reaction to it all. And perhaps even recording Nick’s untimely demise.”

A voice was heard off in the distance, “Hey AJ!”

AJ looked into the camera, “Speaking of the devil…”

Nick jogged up and came into view, holding the two hot sauce bottles, “Okay, so this is what‘s gonna happen… the bottle I’m gonna hand to you, in your right hand is the bottle with the tomato juice. The bottle I place in your left hand is the bottle with the actual hot sauce. You’re gonna hand me the bottle with the hot sauce and hand Brian the bottle with the tomato juice.”

AJ gave a puzzled look, “Why the hell am I gonna give you the bottle with the hot sauce?”

“Because knowing Brian, he’s gonna probably want to switch our bottles around, just to make sure it’s legit. Just make sure you don’t screw it up.”

AJ cocked an eyebrow, “You… Nick fucking Carter, is telling ME not to screw up?”

“You know what I mean! Just, wait for my cue and then bring it out.”

“Oh yeah, because I just so happen to be walking around our venue with two bottles of hot sauce.”

Nick rolled his eyes and jogged away, out of sight of the camera. AJ shook his head as he shoved the two bottles in his pocket. “Lets go see how Nick planned this out.” he said as he led Chris and the camera over towards the direction Nick had jogged off in.

“Okay, stay right here.” AJ whispered as he ushered Chris to remain behind a bush. Once he was settled, AJ hid off elsewhere, situating himself so that he could watch everything from a distance.

The camera zoomed in on Brian and Howie who were talking to a few people from management. In the back you could clearly see Nick walking about, looking around aimlessly until he finally sauntered up to Brian. He pulled out his cell phone from his back pocket and pretended to be looking at it for a while. “Hey Brian.” he said as he nudged his best friend, “Look what I found on that site you told us about.”

Brian turned to try and look at what Nick was showing him, but put his hand up, “Hold on real quick Nick…” he said as he focused back on the people from management they were talking to.

The camera turned to where AJ was hiding, which showed him shrugged, “I’d love to see how this goes over.” AJ said before the camera turned back onto Nick, Brian and Howie.

Nick nudged Brian again, “C’mon dude, what they’re talking about is boring, just look at this shit dude.”

Brian found a way to quickly end the conversation between them and finally turned his attention on the youngest member, “What?”

“Someone sent this text in to that site you told us about. Says here ‘I bet if Brian and Nick were to go into a contest with each other in who can drink the bottle of hot sauce the fastest, Nick would win.’”

“I’m sure Nick.”

“I ain’t bullshittin’ you Rok.”

“Yeah, and how do you know that they’re talking about us?”

Nick just handed his cell phone to Brian. He remained silent as he read over what Nick was showing him, “Wow, so much irony in this. They’ve managed to clearly state which Nick and Brian they’re talking about, their grammar sucks, they vouch that you would win and oh, look at that, ironically it’s your area code.”

The camera quickly panned back over to where AJ was, where he just gave a dumbfounded look, “What… the… fuck.” he mouthed before the camera panned over to Nick and Brian.

“Dude, do you know how much people have that same area code? That’s besides the point! The point is that they’ve posted for the world to see that you would lose, and I gotta say that I agree.”

Brian chuckled, “You think if you and I were to race each other in drinking a bottle of hot sauce the fastest, you’d win?” when Nick nodded, he chuckled even harder. “Okay. Then I agree too.” and he was ready to leave it at that.

When he noticed Brian wasn’t going to argue back with him, Nick quickly spoke up in hopes to get him to accept the challenge. “Well, c’mon dude… lets see who would drink it the fastest. Don’t you want to prove this person, me and even yourself wrong?”

Brian gave him a weird look, “Now why would I wanna do that?”

“Because someone betted against you and said you’re gonna lose… and not just lose to anyone, but your best friend, Nick Carter. And the Brian Thomas Littrell I know doesn’t like to lose.”

“Why do you want me to do this so bad dude?”

“C’mon, lets just do it. I sent AJ to our rider already to grab us two bottles of hot sauce.”

“We have two bottles of hot sauce on our rider?”

Nick rolled his eyes, as if that was the dumbest question he had ever heard, trying to keep a straight face all the while. “Duh! We do have a Latino in the group.”

They stood there a while in awkward silence, Brian looking around while Nick waited for AJ to pop out and respond to his cue.

Nick gave a small cough, “Yup… I had told AJ to GRAB us two bottles of HOT SAUCE from the RIDER so that we could CHALLENGE each other.” he said louder, clearly annunciating specific words.

Brian flinched, “Dude, why the hell are you shouting.”

“Oh shit.” AJ whispered, realizing he missed the cue. He pulled the bottles out from his pocket and quickly sprung up from where he was hiding, casually making his way over towards Nick and Brian. “Here ya go Nick… two bottles of hot sauce… that you asked me to get… from our rider… thank God we have a Latino in our group… or else I wouldn’t have known where else to look for bottles of hot sauce.” he handed one bottle to Nick and the other to Brian.

“Alright, are we ready?” Nick asked, getting ready to twist the cap off.

Brian simply shrugged, “I’m not the one that wants to do this. But whatever.”

Nick awaited for Brian to demand them to switch bottles, just to make sure what they’d be drinking was legit, but he was ready to just down it. “Do you wanna switch bottles?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know… in case you think something’s wrong with my bottle or something?”

“Why would I think that?”

“Just, lets switch bottles so I can prove to you that we’re both drinking the real thing.”

Brian gave him a weird look, but then shrugged, “Whatever dude.” he said as he handed his bottle to Nick and took his in exchange.

Nick ripped the cap off the bottle, “Alright, Jay you got the timer ready?”

AJ pulled out his cell phone and brought the timer up, “Yup.”

“Okay, are we ready?” Nick asked once more as he glanced off in the direction of where the camera was hidden.

Brian tried to follow Nick’s eyes, to see what he was looking at, “What are you looking at?”

Nick quickly looked back at Brian, “Okay, on the count of three… one…”

Brian unscrewed the cap off his bottle.

“Two…”

The both placed the bottles close to their lips.

“Three!”

Simultaneously, they both tilted their heads back and began to down the burning liquid. Surprisingly, Brian seemed to be drinking the hot sauce fairly well after a slight hesitation. Nick, on the other hand, was puzzled. For some reason, his tomato sauce tasted hot. Extremely hot. Perhaps he didn’t clean the bottle out as well as he thought? As he continued downing it, he noticed that it was becoming excruciatingly spicy.

Brian continued to chug his bottle, noticing the hot sauce actually wasn’t hot but tasted a lot like… V8 tomato juice. Nevertheless, Brian tried to give off pained expressions, as if he were drinking the hottest thing ever.

About a minute into drinking the hot sauce, Nick finally ripped the bottle away from his lips, his face flush and sweaty. His mouth was on fire. It was only when he looked over at Brian and saw him finish off the bottle did he realize what had happened.

“AJ…” he drawled out slowly in a warning tone before he screamed out in pain. “FUCK!!!” and with that, he darted off, in search for the nearest source of water, or anything cold for him to drink.

Eyes wide, AJ watched as Nick ran off, and then slowly looked over towards Brian, who was screwing the cap back on the empty bottle. “Man that was hot.” he muttered as he tossed the empty bottle in the nearest trash can. “Time?”

Eyes still wide, AJ looked down at his cell phone, “One minute and fifty four seconds.”

Brian nodded, seemingly satisfied. “When he comes back, let him know that I won. Oh, and you might want to tell him to stay away from cold water… it’ll make it worse.”

As Brian walked out of sight, the camera zoomed in on AJ, who stood there rooted to the spot, eyes wide in shock and realization that Nick would probably kill him for accidentally giving him the bottle of hot sauce and Brian the bottle of tomato juice. The camera cut off, AJ’s expression being the last image to be seen.

~*~*~*~

The camera came back on, showing the Backstreet Boys seated on stools up on stage during their sound check. The person filming was out in the audience, and was showcasing a segment of the fans asking questions and the boys’ answering them.

The girls eagerly rose their hands, waving it around back and forth, hoping that one of the boys would pick them to ask a question.

“Um, this lovely lady right here.” Howie said as he pointed out a fan who was up front. He made his way towards her and handed her his microphone.

“Hello boys, my name is Samantha and I just wanted to say that I love you guys sooo much! I’ve been a fan since day one and I really appreciate all your music and all that you guys do for your fans.”

“Thank you Samantha.” they all echoed into their mics.

Samantha smiled brightly, “Okay, my question is… where’s Nick?”

Howie grabbed the microphone back and looked over towards Brian and AJ. Both Brian and AJ looked at each other. “AJ, you wanna answer this?” Brian asked, “Since, you had to tend to him and all.”

“Unfortunately, Nick had complained of stomach pains before we had came on to do our soundcheck party. He was… throwing up, couldn’t really hold anything down in his stomach, so he’s back at the hotel, resting up. We’re hoping it’s just some twenty-four hour stomach bug and not the stomach flu or something. He is running a slight fever, but luckily we were able to bring that down.”

“He’s burning up, burning up for you baby!” Brian sang out, making his voice sound like Nick Jonas.