One

Josh

I pushed Lara's door open, stepping into the cabin with my camera held at the ready and saw her with her head bent over a dusty looking book at her desk. It was quite surprising that my older sister was more of a slob than I was, but it's also surprising that not every seventeen year old agreed to spend their summer holidays on a ship in search of a mysterious island in the western part of Japan. This expedition did sound awesome and because I was studying Media at LCU, I was apart of Sam's filming crew for Doc Whitman's documentary. Everyone was seriously hyped about this, I mean we were looking for an ancient city that was ruled by a powerful Sun Goddess… okay, a woman controlling storms and harnessing the power of the sun couldn't be true, but myths are sort of based on some parts of the truth.

"Here's the soon to be world famous archaeologist, Lara Croft," I announced dramatically and Lara grimaced awkwardly as I turned the camera to the mirror, so my face was n view "she's on the hunt for the lost city of Yamatai, home to the fabulous Hmiko and I will be capturing the whole experience alongside my co-director Sam."

You could tell that Lara and I were related, we had the same shade of dark brown eyes, but my hair was cut short (obviously) and my hair was a lighter brown. Loads of people said I looked a lot like my Mum, but I only had family photos to go from - she died when I was a baby and I had no memories of her or my Dad. Actually, Roth was more of a father figure and even though he was a foulmouthed Scottish old git… he was a great guy. Lara turned from her book, giving a reluctant smile.

"Come on, Josh." Lara sighed, shaking her head before turning back to the book she was reading "this is serious."

So much for trying to lighten the mood, but unfortunately everyone on the Endurance looked and acted like they had a metal pole shoved up their arses. This expedition was big and if it didn't go well, a lot of people were going to be seriously out of pocket.

"Yeah, I know." I said, trying to give a reassuring smile "everyone's so on edge, it's kind of depressing. What's been keeping you in here anyway?"

"I'm close to something, I'm sure of it." Lara muttered, leaning her back against the chair and brushing a stray of brown hair behind her ear "I'm just not sure if the others will listen… or even if they should."

One of the weird things about my big sister was that she had the most amazing ideas, but her uncertainty that it was stupid made her seriously doubt herself.

"Lara, you know this stuff better than anyone." I told her confidently "I trust you, Sam trusts you, Roth trusts you. You got this. Now come on, you're having a break."

Lara nodded and a small smile fought its way on her lips.

"Okay, okay!" Lara laughed, shaking her head "and thanks, Josh…"

"No problem," I told her coolly, grinning as I headed out of the room and turned the camera to my face "she's not always this like this, you know. She actually knows how to smile sometimes."

For the last year, I had been living in London attending university, but Lara had graduated the year I started and spent the last few months living in America with her friend Sam and this was the first time I had seen my sister in ages. A Croft family reunion on a ship headed for uncharted waters in Japan, sounds like the plot of a really bad movie and it wasn't exactly what I would call family time. Regardless, it was great to see Lara and Roth, but it was even better to see Trevor. Trevor and I had known each other since we were kids and we were seriously close, but you wouldn't have paired us up as friends - while I was bookish and a film fanatic, Todd worked out at the gym 24/7 and was a really good cook. He was actually really sweet as well, he always knew what to say to make me smile and was a lot more easy going - even though his mum, Reyes was a tough ex-cop and a hard-faced mechanic.

Walking into the canteen area, my face broke into a wide grin when I saw Trevor standing next to Jonah as they cooked some deliciously smelling soup. His tight t-shirt shoved his muscles as they flexed with his slightest movement, his eyes focused on stirring the food to the right consistency and I couldn't help but blush when Trevor looked up and grinned at me.

"Hey, man." Trevor greeted, gesturing towards me and holding up the wooden spoon with the steaming red soup on it "do you mind trying this?"

"Sure," I said as I walked over, Trevor closing the distance between us as he held up the spoon and grinned at me. His eyes were focused on mine as I opened my mouth and Trevor moved the spoon closer to my lips. The taste of the soup was spicy, but the variety of fruity textures was mouth-watering and I closed my eyes to savour the tastes for a moment.

"That's really good," I told Trevor, grinning as I noticed his dark complexion darkening slightly as he blushed and grinned back "did you make that?"

"It's my Grams old recipe," Trevor told me, looking proud of himself as Sam and Whitman settled down at the large table with Alex and Reyes "you Brits need to get some more culture when it comes to food, mix it up a bit."

"Really?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, smirking as I shoved against his chest which made little impact as his chest was pure muscle and he swayed only an inch backwards.

"Really, dude…" Trevor grinned, biting his lip as he grabbed my wrist and his eyes travelled to my lips. I found myself unable to breath for a second and suddenly wished we weren't surrounded by several other people, because whenever he looked at me like that… I had the strongest urge to kiss him. No, we're just friends and I didn't want to ruin our relationship by reading too much into a completely innocent situation.

"Trevor," Reyes' voice broke through my train of thoughts and I quickly pulled my hand away as I tried to give a casual smile, but from the frown on her face I knew she had noticed something between her son and I "that food won't cook itself, son."

Trevor nodded and I quickly sat beside Sam as Lara walked in, the heavy leather bound booked tucked under her arm and a determined look on her face.

Trevor

The sounds of the clattering of the saucepans and the sounds of Roth and Grim discussing some lame ass story about their times at sea was always comforting and it always reminded me of home - US or UK… home was home as long as these guys were with me. As I cooked, I couldn't stop myself from glancing at Josh as he listened to Lara's latest theory and I smiled as I realised his serious-thinking face was pretty sexy. Yeah, I fancied Josh and I had for years - that guy was so amazing and I loved everything about him… even his sarcastic British accent. The problem was, I knew he only saw me as a buddy and I wouldn't want to wreck our friendship. Plus, Mom wasn't totally cool with me being gay - I came out when I was fourteen and four years later she still seemed uncomfortable about it, so if I started dating a Croft… that would add fuel to an already dangerous flame. Even though Josh was the sensible one out of the two Croft siblings, Lara was the ambitious one and Mom was always concerned that her ideas might mess up this expedition.

"How can you suggest I'm not serious about this expedition, Lara?" Whitman demanded and I turned to see the old blonde guy glaring at Lara, looking seriously pissed off "it's not just Sam's family funding us, I put my savings on the line too."

"We've all got some kind of stack in this," Mom answered shortly, screwing in a bolt into a piece of equipment and only glanced at Whitman "the funding won't last forever, Whitman."

Never a truer word spoken. Everyone here was shitting bricks at the thought of all this money going into this expedition, finding no Japanese and leaving empty handed. It would be awesome to find this kingdom, but I'm happy enough to spend my summer vacation with Josh and all these guys.

"That's precisely why we should push east," Lara insisted firmly "not west."

"No one believes Yama-!" Whitman began, but Grimm's croaky laughter cut him off and he continued in an irritated voice "no one believes Yamati's that far east, the books simply don't support it!"

I noticed Sam reading through the book Lara brought into the room, a thoughtful look on her face.

"Well… whoever wrote those books never found Yamati." Sam added, which was quite a valid point. Okay I never read those books, but I gathered that much from my talks with Josh in the last couple of weeks.

I moved closer to the table as Lara moved to the maps on the table, resting my forearms on the back of Josh's chair and watched the conversation. Josh glanced at me and I gave a small smile, but I knew this was some serious shit and I turned back to face Lara.

"I've talked to Roth about this." Lara continued, pointing to a section of the map that was circled in red and turned to face him with a determined look "there's no point in following in other people's footsteps, Dr. Whitman."

I looked up at Whitman and was partially agreeing with Lara (the girl knew how to give a good argument), but I knew Roth wasn't buying it.

"I refuse to bet my reputation on your hunch!" Whitman stated, his hands placed on his hip like a man on a mission and I would have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious "I'm the lead archaeologist here!"

Grimm, my favourite old dude from Glasgow chose that moment to speak up and I sniggered as he glared at Whitman.

"And when was the last time you were in the field without a television crew behind you?" Grimm demanded and Whitman's face reddened, clearly embarrassed.

"I've got thirty years experience, two PhDs and one in Asian History." Whitman shot back as Grimm scooped himself a bowel of soup "so why don't you stick to boats, Mr Grimm?"

"Ship. Dr. Whitman, it's a ship." Grimm muttered in annoyance "you don't need a PhD to know that."

"Look, going east will lead us directly into the Dragon's Triangle." Lara said seriously, her eyes burning with some strange excitement "that's where we need to go!"

During this whole conversation, I hadn't heard one factual piece of evidence that Lara was using to fight her case and I think I was seeing what my Mom was talking about. Lara's theories needed some hard evidence, otherwise it could land us into some deep shit.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading guys and I hope you liked the opening of my new story and as always a review to give your thoughts and any feedback you have would be great, I love hearing from you awesome readers. So what were your thoughts on Josh and Trevor (My OCs) and how did I do writing Lara and the other cannon characters.

If this story gets some good response, I'll definitely continue it and post the next chapter ASAP :)

Thanks for reading :)