[C][AU] No Harm In Camping

Lucas threw his hands up in the air as another person poped up from the cliff and shoved past the flower sketchbook guy.

Amr scrambled up to follow his brother.

"They do? Wow, they do!" He exclaimed, reaching out to touch them.

The cave lit up under his touch. More of the markings becoming apparent under the dirt and vines - leading a path all the way into the cave.

Amr's mouth stretched into a large grin as he looked between the markings and his brother.

"Aliens."

Tik gave his brother a side-line glare.

He just reached out and shoved Amr backwards by his face, so his brother ended up lying in the dirt.

"Fuck off."

The inside of the cave went dark when Amr's hand slipped form the markings, but Tik paid that no mind and ducked into the cave, walking along in the dark.

When Amr followed after his brother, Fleck shrugged and, hoisting his backpack higher up on his shoulder, followed after the two of them.

Amr was laughing as he was shoved into the dirt.

"Don't be like that - we both know you are thinking the same thing too."

Lucas was left a little dumbfounded. He has never seen anything like that before. This was too strange. Too weird. With a few Italian curses huffed under his breath he followed.

Amr experimentally touched the wall again as he walked, watching it light up in bright blue again. Then taking his hand off and watching the cave submerge into darkness.

"Tik check this out!"

He kept repeating the movement again and again in quick succession, laughing.

Tik snorted. "Please, like you fucking know how to think."

He continued down through the cave, fingers skimming over the wall.

But when Amr pleased his small mind lighting the wall up over and over again, Tik turned around and slugged his brothers arm. "This is a creepy fucking alien cave, not a toy. Stop fucking around."

"Hey," Fleck called out. He wasn't too impressed with how aggressive Tik was being.

Amr was still grinning even as he rubbed his arm as they were submerged into darkness. So his brother did agree with him. Aliens!

He was surprised by the more gentle Italian interrupting him and his brother. He almost forgot about them both with the distraction of the cave markings.

"Oh, it's fine. We're brothers."

He touched the wall again - this time leaving it there so they didn't have to walk in darkness.

"I'm Amr by the way. The meaner and older one is Tik."

Oh.

And that actually made all the difference to Fleck. He lived in a pretty rough and tumble family of lots of siblings himself, so he knew how sibling violence went.

"I'm Fleck," he introduced himself.

Then his gaze turned to the last of the group. "You?" Might as well get everyone's name.

Lucas pulled his hand away from the wall. He experimentally had it on there when they were plunged into darkness from Tik slapped Amr's arm away. He didn't seem to have the same effect on the cave.

"Lucas."

He frowned at Amr.

"How are you doing that?"

Amr just shrugged.

"Maybe I'm an alien? Tik, do you think I am an alien?"

Fleck smiled and shook his head. This was certainly a lively bunch.

So much for a simple camping trip.

"I think you're a fucking idiot," Tik shot back at his younger brother.

Amr huffed.

"Tik said yeah - I'm probably an alien. The coolest one ever."

Sometimes the language barrier his brother had was great.

Tik didn't know the words Amr were speaking, but he knew that tone.

It was the tone he had when he was speaking absolute shit. So he reached back to slap his brother's head.

He stopped dead, though, when the glowing blue marks started looking different.

"These aren't hieroglyphs. They're from another culture." How could there be different cultures depicting the same lion, in the same cave? It made no sense.

Amr yelped. The cave momentarily going into darkness then lighting back up again. He used his other hand to rub his head instead.

"They are? They look pretty much the same to me."

He squinted and looked closer. Okay, maybe they did look a little different.

He turned over his shoulder to update the Italians with his brother's findings.

"Basically, these look like the same as the hieroglyphs back home. But they are not. Or something like that..."

He looked at Tik helplessly. These were the times he hated the language barrier.

Lucas took a step forward to inspect the markings closer again, frowning as he tried to remember the odd dreams he has been having. They seemed to reenact the same set of events...

"Let's keep going to the end."

He shoved past them all as he kept moving deeper into the cave.

"Yeah, and when you have a degree in Egyptology, you can decide whether they look the same or not, deal?"

They were definitely different. Trust the historian that had gone to University for almost half of his life to figure out how to read these markings.

"Sorry about him," Fleck murmured to Amr and Tik when Lucas pushed past him. "He's a military kid. You now how they are."

Amr stuck a pierced tongue at Amr. He was sure that was another coin for Tik's I'm-going-to-bring-up-my-degree jar.

Amr waved away Fleck's apology.

"You don't seem to be the type to be friends with him."

"We just met a few minutes before you came," Fleck explained.

He shrugged. "He probably knows my brother, though?"

His family were all over the garrison. If Lucas didn't personally know one of his family, then he was sure to know of a good portion of them.

That took Amr by surprise.

"You not in the military too? You're built like a brick!"

Amr had a few inches on Fleck but he wasn't prepared to start a fist fight with him.

"Too many names to live up to in my family." He'd be living in too many shadows.

"I'm an artist. I'd show you, but Lucas confiscated my sketchbook on the grounds that I was drawing military property."

If that was enough to have his sketchbook confiscated, then he should probably have half his other sketchbooks taken away, too.

In the short time he has known Lucas he wasn't surprised.

"Aren't you going to get it back? You look like you could squash him."

Lucas glared over his shoulder.

"I can hear you. And no. He can't."

He turned back to look in front of himself and stormed off into the cave a little faster.

"If he doesn't give it back, Emilia will."

Fleck's broad shoulders shrugged. Lucas was likely to pass it off to the commander, who would pass it to his wife, who would pass it back to him, so he had no worried that it would make its way back to him.

He just had to be patient.

He wasn't going to resort to physical violence for a sketchbook. Where was the sense in that?

He was looking over his shoulder again, frowning at Fleck.

"Whose Emilia-"

With a yell, he dropped out from their sights.

Amr quickly shuffled forward, careful as he peered down the drop.

"Did the cave drawings say anything about alien traps?"

"My-" He blinked when Lucas dropped out of sight. "Sister... Where did he go?"

"Yupp," Tik replied, a deeply amused smirk on his lips.

"Thanks, Tik, great timing right there."

He leaned a little more forwards over the drop, cupping his free hand around his mouth.

"Are you still alive?" He called down. There was a moment. Then a low grown. "Yeah, he's alive."

He shrugged. "if I was lucky, you would have fallen down."

Clearly he wasn't all that lucky.

Fleck crouched by the hole. "Hey, can you put your hand back on the wall for me?" He glanced back up at Amr then leaned forwards a little.

"Okay, Lucas, let's work on getting you up out of that hole." He spoke in Italian then. When he was trying to work with a calm head, he didn't want to have to worry about trying to translate his speech.

Lucas rolled his shoulder, checking to see if he broke or popped a joint out. Luckily it seemed he only ended up bruising himself.

He lifted himself up an peered around in the dark. The only light sauce being the dim glow from above.

"I can get myself out," he called back up in Italian. Fumbling around in the dark for a good notch to pull and push himself up with he came across another opening.

"I think-" He shuffled a little closer, trying to make out what he was seeing in the dark. "I think there is something up ahead. I'm checking it out."

Fleck sighed.

"I'm going down after him," he informed Amr as he slid his backpack off his shoulder. He went rooting around in it, and emerged with a set of walky talkies. Military fmaily taught him to never go anywhere unprepared.

"Keep this, and we'll keep in contact."

He passed one talky over to Amr, clipped a flashlight to his belt, then carefully dropped himself down into the hole. He landed with a grunt, and moved to follow after Lucas.

"We're together," he muttered into the talky.

"Okay," he spoke to Lucas in Italian. "Let's find out what's ahead."

"Huh?"

Amr took the walkie talkie then watched Fleck make his way down. He stayed there for a while before passing the walkie talkie to Tik.

"There is no way I am missing out on whatever is going on down there."

Lucas looked up from where he was as he watched Fleck join him and speak into the walkie talkie. He rolled his eyes. What a boy scout.

"You didn't have to come." He squinted up. "And neither did he."

Amr landed on his ass with a grunt.