A National Tray-shure Fanfiction

I don't own National Treasure, or any of the characters featured in the films.

This is just a two part little character-relation piece, I guess.

Please comment! I've not posted any fanfiction before, and would love to know what you think. :3

Dogs and Glasses

"It's 20,000 leagues, Riley, c'mon." I insisted.

"I've always known it as 2000, Ben, you c'mon." Riley Poole insisted otherwise.

"I'll come on? What does that even mean?" I asked, unable to stop myself laughing at this point. "You know I'm right when you'll look it up online as soon as we're back at my place."

"And I'll print off the page and wave it in your face." He said, folding his arms dramatically to make it clear he was positive.

I looked over to him sat beside me in my passenger seat and chuckled: he was fighting back laughter and it was all over his face. We were driving home after a (long) afternoon hunting for some sort of birthday gift for Abigail, which took almost as much work as treasure hunting. The back seat of my car was covered in fancy bags from various stores, and they were filled with various presents from those stores, but we hadn't found anything big-- the main present –yet. As usual, Riley had brought up a random conversation topic, and that had led to other random topics until we landed on Captain Nemo and the story title that was causing my younger friend some confusion.

"Heh, I have a feeling you won't mention it at all when you find out. You probably read it wrong as a kid and it stuck... and that was what-- four years ago?" I added the last part to get a reaction and it worked, he frowned at me and shifted to lift a leg up in the air, waving his Converse shoe wincingly close to my beautiful Japanese oak dashboard.

"Riley... let's not take anything too far..."

"Maybe you shouldn't--Ben, STOP!" His shout caused me to jump and almost swerve the car, but I managed to break when I saw what he was staring at through the windscreen. I realised even as the car was screeching to a halt that I had just put myself, my best friend and everyone driving behind me in serious danger over something you're specifically told not to do so for while learning to drive: a dog in the road.

But blessedly, we were on the less busy sub-urban outskirts of town and there were no other cars to crash into the back of us (though plenty of shopping bags had hit the back of our seats.) There were cars on the opposite side though, and I caught a confused expression of a woman whirring by.

I barely noticed that Riley was already out of the vehicle, as my heart tried to escape my ribcage and I flicked on the hazard lights, trying to recover from the shock for a few seconds. I blinked and recovered enough to jump out after him, calling.

"Riley, be careful!" He was displaying a rare lack of self-preservation, trying to catch a little white and brown Jack Russell terrier that darted to and fro across both lanes. A few cars were now showing up from the direction we had came in and I had to shout at them in anger as they pulled out across the other lane to drive around mine, ignoring the risk they were causing to the young man in glasses and the canine he was chasing.

More aware of the danger than Riley apparently was, I ran to him in the centre of the road, on the white lines and grabbed him by the back of his hoodie, jerking him sharply to get his attention.

"Just let me--" He didn't look at me, trying to dive down on the confused animal that had run near us in fear of a honking taxi. I let go for a fraction of a second to move my grip up to his collar, but he managed to get away within the gap and duck, somehow scooping up the dog his both arms.

"H-hey, got you, chief, alright."

"IDIOTS!" A jerk in a pick-up going a ridiculous speed snapped Riley back to the situation and he looked at me with the same 'what now, Ben?' expression he always did in heated times on our treasure quests, though he was obviously also revealed at the dog's safety. I didn't speak, and just pulled him by an elbow over to the pavement, away from the road and only then waved my arms about in disbelief and concerned anger.

"WHAT? What—what was that?! Riley! You—what is wrong with you?!"

He flinched at my yelling at him, but clutched the animal defensively and tried to justify his madness.

"He's too much like my grandma's little dog, Starry, Ben-- I couldn't let him be smashed by a car--"

"Starry II is worth almost dying for?" I lowered my voice, I hadn't meant to shout and Riley knew that. I wasn't apologising yet, though. I continued.

"After everything we've survived...You didn't even look if there were cars coming--"

"I could see out of the corners of my eyes! I'm not--"

"Just get in the car." I stalked down the path to my car and around to the driver's seat, climbing in and clicking on my seatbelt. I watched Riley sigh and stroke the dog as he hugged it to his chest, muttering something to it, or himself. He looked up at me through the windscreen and smiled thinly before walking over and climbing through the passenger door he had left open.

We sat breathing for a moment, then I switched off the hazard lights and focused on the mirrors to see if I could start moving the vehicle. Riley Poole spoke as I started to drive, at the same moment I did.

"I'm sorry I--"

"Ben, I didn't mean to--"

We both burst out laughing, crazy laughter that made the dog bark. I didn't take my eyes off the road at all, though.

"Hey, shush." He said, to the dog, I assumed.

"Is the dog alright? Does the collar have an address?" I asked, hiccuping once or twice.

"Yeah."

"Yes to what?"

"Both."

"Is it close-- the uh, dog's address?"

I dared to take my eyes from the road to glance at Riley, and he smiled at me. The dog looked like it was smiling too, actually.

"If we pull over we can walk."

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This story is very loosely inspired on me once finding a little lost dog with my friends. Are there oak trees in Japan? Do they make fine dashboards? I actually visited a wooden dashboard maintenance site and still don't know.