A/N: I love love loved Night at the Museum 3, and all the others! Ahk is my favorite, hands down. This is just a cute, funny one shot that popped into my head and here it is! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I wish this was mine, because if it was, then I would live in the museum. Just saying.
There was a modern saying, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty," which essentially meant that if you knew the future outcome of a choice, you may at that present moment make a different choice to prevent the future outcome you've just seen.
And truly, Ahkmenrah wondered if he had seen the outcome of this plan, hindsight would have had him come clean to Larry and tell him about the others accompanying them to London and then maybe he'd have gotten his own box.
He didn't have a problem with the miniatures size-wise because they took up the space of a small mouse, it was the incessant bickering between the Roman and cowboy, who were friends for the gods sakes. Dexter the monkey was also small, and not particularly irritating, although he never seemed to stop moving.
And President Theodore Roosevelt had no trouble sharing with the lovely Sacagawea, but the two were dating so that was to be expected. The box fit two, if need be, but three grew crowded. And then there was Attila. Ahkmenrah had no qualms with the mostly -now- docile hun, but he was by no means small and was made larger, what with his muscle and armor. And he grumbled quite a lot.
The last occupant of the overly crowded crate was the caveman Laa, who may or may not have been made to look like Larry the night guard, and now called him "Da." It was in a moment of pity that Ahkmenrah allowed the man to join them, knowing he had no particular value to their cause of fixing the tablet, but the poor man just wanted to see Larry.
So, in a crate suited to hold the Pharaoh's son and his tablet for approximately six to seven hours on a nonstop flight to London with not the intended one passenger but eight, was doing nothing for his claustrophobia. He'd been stuck in a sarcophagus for nearly fifty years before Larry let him out, and was not overly fond of his stone prison.
Luckily, the tablet only brought them to life at night. So he only had to have his nerves frayed and ward off a panic attack for a short while. Unfortunately, the flight was non stop and traveled through the time zones just so, so that throughout the entire flight it was sundown.
He was going to kill someone by the end of this. And he could not be blamed.
"If I may," he began, cutting off the bickering and the monkey chattering and the grumbling, "I will admit I am not the biggest fan of enclosed spaces and this is not helping."
Jedediah, the little cowboy who instigated most fights between he and Octavius the Roman, climbed up onto his crown and stared at him upside down, "Well why didn' ya say so Ahk? We can have this box open faster than you can say 'manifest destiny!'"
Ahk, as they referred to him, had no idea why he would want to say "manifest destiny" anyway but if it got him out of this box, well that was fine with him.
"Come on Ocky!" Octavius joined Jedediah and they both pushed on the wood barely brushing their respective helmet or hat, "One, two, three!"
Nothing happened -surprise- and they tried a good three or four more times for good measure. "Allow me," Teddy said, shifting in the packing peanuts to stab his sword between the slats of the lid and box sides, attempting to open it as though he was using a crowbar.
It wouldn't budge and Attila attempted to push the sides of the box open but this was also in vain. Ahk closed his eyes, taking deep breaths in through his nose and out his mouth. This was not helping.
"Laa!"
The caveman practically attempted to stand in the two-foot tall space and Ahk found himself under the packing peanuts with his back on the bottom of the crate. He pushed himself up a bit as Laa slammed his head into the crate lid. It creaked and he repeated this until the screws loosened enough for it to be pried off.
Much like how he'd opened his sarcophagus for the first time in fifty years, Ahk slammed the lid across the room, or airplane luggage compartment. It hit the side and fell to the floor as he clambered out of the wooden death trap, followed by the others.
"Deep breaths," Sacagawea said soothingly and he obeyed with a slightly questioning look. She smiled, "The boys in my village found it amusing to trap their friends under canoes on the river bank. I knew many who did not like small spaces."
Teddy clapped him on the back, "Alright then lad?" Ahk nodded. Jed and Octavius wandered around the maze of luggage, pausing at a small carrier with criss-crossing metal bars.
"What'dya reckons in there?" Octavius shrugged and the two shared a smile, "Let us find out." It wasn't easy to balance on Jed's shoulders while the plane rocked slightly beneath them but he managed to grasp the latch and open it. The door swung open, knocking the two miniatures back.
A shadow appeared in the doorway of the cage and it growled. Both yelled and scrambled to their feet as the beast gave chase, ushering them back to where their friends were.
The others looked up as the miniatures appeared, yelling for their lives. They dove behind Teddy's shoe, trembling, "There's a beast around that corner! Fifty feet tall!"
A shadow appeared on the floor and everyone waited in apprehension as the owner came around the corner revealing…
A small, fluffy white puppy.
It yipped and ran in circles and Jed and Octavius peered from behind the former president's shoe, "Wait just a minute. That was a terryfin' beast not two seconds ago." The puppy yipped again, tongue lolling out of its mouth as it surveyed them with the sweet innocent of, well, a puppy.
"Perhaps this small lion scared it off," Octavius offered to his friend. Teddy chuckled as he scooped the puppy up, "It's nothing but a pup. This is the least frightening thing I believe we will encounter this entire adventure."
The puppy squirmed in his arms as Teddy read the collar, "He goes by the name Sirius, a reference to the constellation." Octavius nodded, "Or the character in that novel Nicholas read us once," he said, calling up the memory of Larry's son Nick reading them a book about wizards and magic.
Dexter hopped onto Teddy's shoulder and the little dog began to bark -not at all fiercely- until the monkey pat his head to calm him. The puppy yipped happily, glad to have made a friend, and then leapt from Teddy's arms. Sirius ran to the seated pharaoh, jumping over his ankles like they were great hurdles and yipping all the way, spinning in circles and flopping on his stomach, rolling onto his back.
"I believe he wants to play," Sacagawea stated, her tone amused. The puppy looked to her excitedly at the word "play" and she followed Jed and Octavius' directions, finding the puppy's crate, in which lay a rope knot similar to the one the giant T-Rex skeleton in the museum played with.
Except smaller, puppy sized.
She returned and held it out to the puppy and he happily grabbed it, tugging and growling as though he thought he was terribly fierce.
"Where did you find him?" Ahk asked, taking the toy from Sacagawea to play tug with the energetic ball of fluff.
"In a large cage for a lion though I suppose it was… rather small. He was locked within for the journey, I suppose."
The dog crate was brought by Attila and Sirius dropped the chew knot to hide behind Ahk and growl at the inanimate prison. "You do not like enclosed spaces either little friend?" The puppy climbed into his lap and tugged gently on the toy still in his hand.
"We have this in common, though we must return sometime."
Despite this knowledge, play continued for quite some time, while Jed and Octavius continued exploring. It was not until they accidentally toppled a suitcase, spilling all the clothes within including a watch, that they knew they must return to their respective crates.
Sirius unhappily let Ahk put him in his crate and close the lock, whimpering and giving him literal puppy dog-eyes. He gave up quickly, setting his little head on his paws and licking the pharaoh's hand sadly. Ahk gave him one last pat on the head before joining his friends in the claustrophobic box, a bit more relaxed knowing it was only for about an hour.
When Larry met them in the British Museum, he ran a critical eye over the lid of the box. "A bit excited to get out?" Ahk shrugged, "Less so the second time than the first." He left Larry gaping and Nick snickering, holding back chuckles -as did the others though Jed and Octavius failed greatly- as the night guard caught up to them with a stream of frantic questions.
"You guys opened the crate in the plane? What if something happened? What if someone saw? What if- Is that dog hair?"