lb_heartland | Fic: Big Time Cowboys 13/16

Big Time Cowboys
Chapter Thirteen
Word Count: 2,618
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Kendall/Jo, Logan/Camille, Ty/Amy, Lou/Scott, and possibly a bit of Jack/Lisa. As scary as that list might seem, this story is mostly about humorous antics and none of the pairings are a big focus of it, I promise. I just like to cover all the bases.
Disclaimer: I'm never going to grow up. That means... I'm not legally responsible for anything, right?
Summary: Four teenage boys. Two weeks. One ranch. Who will survive?
Spoilers: Nothing past Eye of the Wolf for Heartland, season 2 of Big Time Rush, with a very minor one from Big Time Moms. I couldn't resist.
Author's Note: I really struggled with getting this section written. It's been so hard to get myself back into this story because the other stuff I have been doing has been so much darker, and this is supposed to be just humorous fun. It keeps getting dramatic, but it's still a whole lot lighter, which is hard for me to pull off right now. I do like writing Jack, so that helps. :)

Negotiations

"For the last time, no," Amy repeated. She was getting really frustrated, and she didn't know what she was going to do. She'd been saying the same thing since last night. First it had just been Kendall and his girlfriend trying to change her mind. Logan and Camille had been pulled into it, and the boys' manager had joined them with Carlos. Then James and Soraya showed up, and Soraya had even tried to convince her to do it. They'd driven everyone at the house crazy by giving her a nighttime serenade, too. She was not going to change her mind about this. She didn't care what they did or said. They would never get her to agree, especially not this way. "Now get on the horse."

Kendall looked at her and shook his head. "Nope. Not going to do it. Also not going to do any chores or cooperate in any way in our cowboy camp until you change your mind."

"You have to be kidding me," she protested. "I'm not a singer. All I want is to get you guys trained to ride a horse and send you back to LA. Really. I don't want fame or fortune or anything like that. I don't. I already have more than I could ever want, and that's from doing what I love to do. Taking care of horses."

"And if you would listen to me, I would be able to explain that this isn't about fame or fortune. This is about keeping the big, grouchy fat man—"

"—Giant turd—"

"—also known as our giant turd producer, thank you, James, from coming here and ruining everyone's lives," Kendall finished. "We convince Gustavo that you're completely unwilling to do this, and you are. Then we tell him we can get you to do one song, just one, your grandmother's song, and that's it. We get some shots of you riding your horse around here, and then we put together a crappy music video and convince Gustavo and the director of this movie that nothing needs to happen here. Ever. And that way Heartland goes back to being your ranch, taking in rescue horses, and we go back to Hollywood. Everyone's happy, Gustavo doesn't win, and it's over."

Amy shook her head. "I don't think it's that simple. And why would this Gustavo of yours want me to sing, anyway?"

"Because he's always looking for someone new to torture."

"What?"

"Did I say that out loud?" Logan asked. "Sorry. Um... He's not that bad, not really. It's just..."

"You don't want Gustavo bugging you to take the deal, trust us. I mean, if you wanted to help the horses, you could... set up a foundation and donate all of your share of the proceeds to helping injured horses and provide you and Heartland with a steady, long term income from royalties."

Amy frowned. "Have you talked to Lou about this?"

"No, but we could if that would help."

"No," she said, trying to stop them before they went and convinced Lou that this was a good idea. She thought her sister would agree just by the words "steady income," but the guys had also said "long term," and that would put Lou in seventh heaven, now wouldn't it? Amy didn't want to do it, but she saw the grin on the boys' face as James and Carlos blocked her and Kendall pushed Logan off towards the house.

"I'll get on the horse," Carlos offered. "I want to ride again. Can I?"

"Carlos," she began, not sure what to do now. Once Lou was on their side, it was as good as over, wasn't it? She caught Ty coming out of the barn and waved him over. She was feeling crowded and desperate. She wouldn't normally have expected her to rescue her or even thought of asking him. She was used to handling things on her own. "Ty, I need your help."

"No, we need your help," James said, putting his arm around the older boy. He didn't seem to notice the glare Ty gave his arm. "Convince your very lovely, very talented girlfriend here to go along with the plan so that we can get Gustavo out of here before he gets here and make a tidy profit for your little ranch here."

Ty lifted James' arm off of him and looked at Amy. "What's going on? I thought you were taking them on a trail ride."

"They're still trying to get me to agree to record a song with them and do a music video, and I'm not kidding when I say no, but no one is listening, and the other two are in there two minutes away from convincing Lou to do it because of some long-term income thing, and... I don't know what I'm doing. It's not like you can make it go away by snapping your fingers or something."

"Hey," he said, taking her hand and then pulling her into his arms. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, even if they get Lou on their side. Just relax, take these two on a trail ride, and leave the other ones to me."

"You're not going to hurt them, are you?" she asked suspiciously, mostly for James and Carlos' benefit. Ty just grinned, and the two boys exchanged a look.

"Great, they ditched us."

"I think I can get you two up on a horse and in the direction they were headed if you'd like," Lou offered, and her guests forced a smile for her as they shook their heads.

"I don't want to ride at all, actually," Logan admitted.

His friend rolled his eyes, but turned away before the shorter one caught him doing it. He gave Lou and apologetic smile. "And I have to go find your grandfather and convince him to agree to the music video idea, which I have a pretty good feeling he's going to hate because he's still pissed about our documentary—and that is so Katie's fault because she's the one that posted it online when we hadn't had a chance to edit, along with the wonderful video of all of us learning to ride."

"Yeah, now the whole world thinks I'm an idiot for being afraid of horses," Logan muttered, annoyed. Kendall tried to say something, but Logan clearly wasn't in the mood.

Lou looked at him. "You know, this is probably going to be hard to believe. You'll look around the house and the barn, and there are plenty of pictures of me on horses or ponies. I bonded with a little pony named Sugarfoot when I was barely able to walk. I've lived here most of my life, and I created an equestrian retreat that focuses on how to empower a person by teaching them to bond with a horse. Still, only a couple of years ago, you couldn't have gotten me on one for all the money in the world."

"You're kidding."

She shook her head. "Absolutely not. I was watching in the audience when my father had his accident. I know you know about the accident."

Kendall looked guilty for a moment, and both boys nodded. She wasn't going to get involved in the mess between Kendall, his sister, his mother, and Lou's father. That was something she didn't care to touch. She wasn't entirely on her dad's side, even if maybe she should be because he was her father. The truth was that it still really hurt, him walking away from them. Not calling. She'd only managed to have a real relationship with him again after her mother died, and Amy hadn't even known him before that. It was easy to see why Kendall would want to protect his family from something like that. His father had probably left when he was younger and never looked back. Tim was doing the right thing now, but his track record in the past wasn't good. Maybe he genuinely liked Mrs. Knight. That was fine, but he'd have an awful lot to prove, and not just to her.

"Anyway, I saw my dad get hurt. I saw him go down and never get up. I saw him in the hospital. I saw him get addicted to painkillers. I didn't see him leave because he didn't say goodbye. Still, that was enough of a reason for me never to want to get near another horse again," Lou finished.

"Really? But... We saw you riding."

"My father came back into my life, and I wasn't about to admit that I was afraid of them, not to him. I worshiped that man. So I got Amy to teach me the basics again to adjust, and I worked with her from the ground up like you guys did. I guess I was her guinea pig," Lou said with a slight laugh. "It's not as hard as you think. Around here, though, everyone's a horse person. The way it works is, if you fall off, you get right back on. Makes for some strong people."

"Or some stubborn idiots," Kendall muttered. He held up his hands in surrender. "Not that I meant any of you. I just—I see Jack, so I'm going to go ask him about the video now."

Lou folded her arms over her chest and shook her head. Logan watched his friend run off and looked back at her. "Were you making that up for my sake?"

She shook her head. "Ask anyone. It's a true story."

"What if you fell off again? And doesn't it bother you every time your sister's in with a horse? Like... that Dark Dancer one?" Logan asked. "That one seems... dangerous."

Lou nodded. "He is. But underneath all of it, he's just a scared, frightened horse. He deserves a chance as much as anyone else does. He didn't cause the accident that injured him, and he can't help or understand why his owner isn't with him now. He needs someone to understand the fear and pain and help him past the trauma. That's what Amy does. Some call it horse whispering. Some call it a miracle. I think it's a gift."

"A gift," Logan repeated, and Lou really had no idea what he was thinking then, but she hoped that it was good.

"Jack!"

He turned around to see the leader of the boys jogging over to him. He'd seen him and his friend up talking to Lou, but he'd thought they were all supposed to be on a trail ride with Amy. When he saw Ty, he'd asked about it, and Ty told him he didn't want to know. Guess now he was about to find out.

"You need something, kid?" Jack asked, facing him with his hands folded over his chest. "You have something to say about the conversation I had with your sister?"

"Um... I have to ask you about something that I know you're going to like it—wait a minute, what did you say to my sister? If you threatened her or scared her in any way—"

"Easy now, settle down," Jack told him. "I didn't say anything. She and I came to an understanding, like you and I did."

"We... did?" Kendall asked with a frown. "I don't remember any understanding, just me in the middle of a bunch of trees with bark in my hand trying to figure out what you were getting at."

"Trying to deny what you already knew, you mean," Jack corrected, and Kendall shook his head again. "I shouldn't have to explain it. Seems to me you just didn't want to hear it."

"Probably not," the boy admitted with a shrug. "I'm not exactly big on father figures or old cowboys."

Jack shook his head. "You haven't got the sense to quit when you're behind, do you?"

"That's usually when I come up with some kind of crazy plan that shouldn't work but does and gets us out of whatever trouble we were in," Kendall said. He took a deep breath. "Speaking of crazy plans and authority figures, Gustavo wants to come here, and I figured that you wouldn't want anyone else on your land, so I had this idea that if we convinced him that what he wanted wasn't really what he wanted and that he doesn't actually need to try and get Amy to sign with him as a singer—and for the record, none of us had anything to do with her decision to enter the talent contest so that is not our fault—but to keep him from that... We do your wife's song, with Amy doing lead, like when we did the duet with Jordin Sparks. We'd film a little movie with Heartland that would make the director think that this was the last place he wanted to film his movie, and solve all the problems at once."

"This kind of messed up backwards logic work for you often?"

"A lot, actually," the kid agreed. "Okay, admittedly, this is one of my weaker plans, and if Amy went the other route and sang a good version of the song, the royalties from her participation could be set up in some kind of trust or whatever that could provide for rescuing more horses, and the thing about royalties is that they continue to come in over time. It would be kind of rocky at first and get better and slow down again, but it would be money for work that was already done, and what beats that, right?"

"But I'd still have to agree to let you shoot this video and Amy would have to sing."

"No. Well, yes, we need the agreement to film the ranch, but we don't have to have Amy sing. It just seemed to us that Amy's singing would be a better base for the song, like when we all joined in on your wife's record."

"I see."

"She wouldn't have to dance. Just do a lot of riding of horses, which we all know she loves to do anyway, so..."

"Has she said anything about this half-baked idea of yours?"

"She said no. Repeatedly. And I think Ty's supposed to beat me and Logan up if we managed to convince Lou, which we did, but I told Logan it's all about hierarchy."

"What?"

"If you agree to all of this, Ty can't kill me because you outrank him," the boy explained, causing Jack to laugh. Something about these kids... Jack couldn't put his finger on it, but they had a way of getting under a person's skin.

"If I'm even going to consider this, you had better believe there are going to be a lot of terms involved," Jack began, and Kendall nodded.

"Of course. None of them involve me standing in the trees with a piece of wood again, right?"

Jack shook his head. It would be a whole lot simpler just to say no and get it over with. "I have a different sort of lesson in mind this time. Come with me."

The boy gulped, looking back at Ty like maybe he was the lesser of two evils, and Jack had to laugh again. This would be mighty entertaining.