"Afternoon, everyone!" Graham called out cheerfully as he strode into the station, back from his lunch break. Neal and Hook rolled their eyes at each other, while Emma called out a, "Hey, Graham," from her office.

He had only been working with Graham for a couple days now, but it was already more than Neal could stand. He was always smiling or humming or saying nice things—it wasn't normal.

"Neal. Hook." Graham nodded a greeting at each of them before going to his makeshift desk (a foldout table that had several stacks of old paperwork he was working his way through). He would sit there for hours, a frown etched on his face as he tried to make sense of their incomplete notes and doodles in the margins.

Every so often, Emma would come out with another stack of papers she found in the filing cabinet, pause to make polite small talk, and disappear back into her office. She'd been taking the "carefully neutral" approach recently; Neal didn't know the whole story, but according to Hook, she and Henry had had a massive argument a few nights ago that ended in slamming doors and a few tears. Since then, she'd retreated into a polite aloofness around him and Graham.

Graham, on the other hand, was ridiculously friendly to everyone. Hook didn't bother trying to play nice with him, although he kept his insults and quips to a muttered undertone; Neal tried to avoid talking to him whenever possible, giving one-word responses and shrugs.

Probably the worst thing about Graham working at the station was that they could no longer wile away the hours with online gladiator games and YouTube. Now they had to pretend to be struggling through paperwork. And sometimes, he got so bored, Neal actually did the paperwork. It was horrible. It was like…having a job. The station had never been such a miserable place.

And it was all Graham's fault. That bitch.

Neal rubbed his eyes, and tried to find the report on Leroy's broken window interesting. The words had already started to blur together into meaningless smudges of ink, but now that Graham had returned from his break, he had to at least pretend to be working, or he would find some infuriatingly diplomatic way of showing his disapproval. Hook, meanwhile, was pretending to be studying something very important on the computer, even though he was really focusing on the small window of Solitaire open beside the spreadsheet.

Neal's eyes lost focus on the report; a nap wouldn't be out of order right now. He hadn't slept well for a while, and Leroy's grievances were so dull (and no one even liked Leroy anyway, so what did he care about his broken window?).

His phone buzzed, startling him awake. Neal blinked a few times, and swiped his screen to open the text message from… Hook?

He's irritating me.

Neal glanced up. Hook turned his head, grimacing as he ever so slightly jutted his head toward Graham, who was humming as he read through an old report. Neal rolled his eyes in agreement and typed back: I feel like he has small rodents living in his hair.

Hook snorted loudly, making Graham look up.

"Something funny?"

Hook's smile faded into a sour line. "No."

Graham raised his eyebrows, but went back to his papers silently. Hook curled his lip, exchanging a look with Neal, before turning back to his non-work.

He got another text a minute later: We should kill him.

Neal frowned. That got dark pretty quickly.

I'll do it. I've still got my sword somewhere in my room.

Murder is against the law, and you work in law enforcement.

I'll quit my job.

It's still illegal in this world.

Goddamn it.

Hook tossed his phone on the desk, and went back to Solitaire. Neal went back to Leroy's report, and tried to drift off to sleep.

"Hi!"

Neal's eyes flew open, his head swiveling toward the door to see Ruby walking in, a bright smile on his face. Instantly, he look back at Hook, who was staring at her, the blood drained from his face.

"Ruby?" Graham rose out of his seat, a confused smile on his face. "What's wrong? Did I forget something at the diner."

"No…" she said, beaming as she put her hands behind her back.

"Then… why are you here?" Graham asked, still smiling vaguely.

Ruby's smile widened. "Granny decided to give me a little vacation out of nowhere, so I thought I'd drop by and see if I could, you know, help you out or something here."

"Oh!" Graham's eyebrows flew up. "Uh…o-okay."

"Great!" she said enthusiastically, sliding her coat off and hanging it up. Neal snorted, wondering how long she'd labored over that outfit before "dropping by": shiny black leggings with a strategically-cut black top, the blood red pendant of her necklace nestled right…there.

"Subtle, Ruby. Really subtle," Neal muttered, shaking his head. She pretended not to hear him, going over to Graham's workspace and picking up a random file.

Hook managed to recover a minute later, going back to his usual snarky self: he lazily spun around his chair, propping his feet up on the desk and folding his arms.

"Don't you look lovely today," he drawled, looking her up and down. Ruby glanced over, raising her eyebrows coolly.

"Thanks."

"Yes, you pull off that Cat-Woman look ten times better than Halle Berry," Hook said, smiling spitefully.

Ruby copied his smile. "And you pull it off even better than me."

If that was meant to faze him, it didn't. "Well, I appreciate the effort, darling, but you didn't have to get all dolled up just for me."

"I didn't," she said witheringly.

"Well, you were getting dolled up for someone. A woman dressed like that—" Hook gave her outfit a meaningful look—"does so with a purpose. Don't you agree, Graham?"

Graham looked startled at being pulled into the conversation. "Erm…"

"Kind of like how a guy who won't spring for the third button even in the middle of November does so with a purpose?" Ruby returned sweetly.

Hook raised his eyebrows smugly. "You never complained."

"How would you know?" Ruby said scathingly, folding her arms. "You never listened to me."

"That's not true," he frowned. "Ruby, your voice carries clear across town. Everyone listens to you."

Ruby glared at him. "I'm going to start spitting in your order."

Hook laughed. "Well, I'm sure when you finally deliver it to me an hour later, I'll be very upset."

"Anyway," Graham said loudly as Ruby opened her mouth to retort. "This paperwork is piling up, maybe we should get back to work."

Hook flashed Ruby a sardonic smile before turning back to his computer, sliding his feet lazily off the desk. Ruby rolled her eyes disdainfully, and turned back to the paperwork. Neal wondered if she actually knew what she was doing, or if she was just looking for an excuse to perch herself strategically on Graham's desk (his money was on the latter).

The door opened, and Emma came out with another box. "So, Graham, here's the stuff from…" She frowned at Ruby looking through files, and continued walking more slowly toward the desk. "From last December," she finished, still giving Ruby a strange look.

"Thanks, Emma," Graham said, taking the box in his hands. "Hope these ones are a little more thorough."

"Don't count on it," Neal said absently, giving up on the pretense of working to play on his phone.

"Ruby, what are you doing here?" Emma frowned. "Shouldn't you be back at the diner?"

"Granny gave me a break, I'm hanging out with Graham," Ruby said, not looking up from the file. "Maybe if we work together, we can get this done faster and get out of here," she added, nudging Graham with her boot.

"That's a euphemism, Graham," Hook said. Graham smiled uncomfortably.

"I don't know if we'll be able to get out of here any time soon, Ruby," he said, ignoring Hook's comment as well as he could. "I've got so much to get through."

"Hmm," she sighed, setting down her papers to toss her hair over her shoulder. Hook's head turned a fraction of an inch. "Well, if you want to stay late…maybe I could bring something by."

"Ahem," Emma said, giving Ruby an icy smile. Ruby flicked her eyes up, her smile souring.

"Yeah?" she said, her voice suddenly void of the breathy quality it had when she was talking to Graham.

"Do you think you could discuss your plans later? Graham's got a lot of work to do."

Ruby frowned. "We're talking about work plans."

Neal coughed into his elbow to mask his laughter. "Sorry," he rasped when Ruby shot him a dirty look. "Allergies."

"Do you want me to get you a chair, Ruby?" Emma asked tensely. "Since you insist on staying here?"

"I'm fine, thanks, Emma," she said lightly. "Graham doesn't mind, do you, Graham?"

"Lots of paperwork," Graham murmured noncommittally, though his ears turned bright red.

"Oh!" Ruby clapped her hands together. "I forgot, I wanted to ask you…" She trailed off, waiting for Graham to prod her on.

He obliged. "Yes?"

"Um…" Ruby suddenly became very shy, smiling up at him from under her eyelashes. "Do you have plans for Thanksgiving? I was going to invite you to have it with me and Granny, if you weren't doing anything. I mean, I wouldn't want you to be alone on Thanksgiving…." And then Neal swore he heard her add in a low voice, "Or in general."

Graham smiled awkwardly. "Um—"

"Actually, I was going to invite him over," Emma said, narrowing her eyes at Ruby. "You know, he and my mom were such great friends, and I'm sure he'd love a chance to catch up with her, wouldn't you, Graham?"

"Well—"

"But we never had a chance to bond like he did with 'your mom'," Ruby said, using her fingers to make air-quotes, so that everyone knew she was actually talking about Emma. "And some of us might like to bond in that way with him."

"Be more obvious. I dare you," Hook said, leaning back in his chair as he swiveled toward them. Ruby spared him a look of disgust, but otherwise didn't acknowledge him.

"I think Graham should decide where he wants to spend Thanksgiving," Emma said, taking a threatening step toward Ruby.

"Yes," Ruby agreed, her eyes glittering coldly. "I think he should, too."

"Actually, I was going to spend Thanksgiving at home, this year," Graham said, talking over Emma before she had a chance to say something else. "But you're all welcome to come by."

Emma and Ruby forgot their stare-down, and looked round at him in surprise. Graham smiled, a bit shyly.

"I, uh… I taught myself to cook over the last few weeks," he said, keeping his eyes down modestly.

Oh, fantastic, Neal thought dryly. He cooks, too.

"You mean…come over to your house for Thanksgiving? As in…" Ruby looked uncomfortable. "Like, Dr. Whale's house?"

"Oh, yeah, Victor won't mind," he reassured her, batting his hand. "You guy are more than welcome to come by, we'd love to have you."

"Uh… wow," Emma said, blinking. "That's really…wow." She laughed a little. "I mean, I'll run it by my parents, they'll probably want to bring you half a feast—"

"Well, that's fine," Graham shrugged, and smiled brightly between the two of them. "What about you, Ruby? Think you and your gran could make it?"

"Yep," she said immediately. "I'll make you my famous…uh…." She frowned at the ceiling, clearly trying to think of a famous something she could make. "Whatever."

Graham raised his eyebrows. "That sounds… delicious."

"Hang on, hang on!" Hook said, affronted. "Emma, you can't go. What about me?"

Emma shook her head, shrugging. "What about you?"

Hook made an indignant noise. "Well, where am I supposed to go?"

"Oh, you and Neal are more than welcome," Graham said, smiling genially. "If you want, that is."

Hook considered Graham for a minute before turning his head to Neal. "What do you think, mate? D'you want to?"

Not even a little bit. Neal scratched his head, trying to think of a nice way to say "hells no". "Uh…"

"Let's discuss for a moment, shall we?" Hook stood up suddenly, and in a matter of seconds, he was grabbing Neal by the elbow and leading him outside to the hall. Neal stumbled after him, startled by the abruptness of it all.

"Jesus, man!" he said once they were outside, trying to slow his rapidly beating heart. "Would it have been too much to wait two seconds for me to get out of my own chair? You didn't have to yank me out like that."

Hook ignored him, frowning as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What say you, Neal?"

"What say me? What are you talking about?"

"Graham!" Hook said impatiently, dropping his hand. "Don't you understand the mind games he's playing?" He didn't wait for Neal to answer before leaning in conspiratorially, looking at him intently. "He's trying to get our women alone, to himself. And inviting us? That was tossing the gauntlet. He's challenging us to fight for them."

Neal stared at him for a moment. "Are you insane?" he hissed. "Tossing the gauntlet? Challenging—? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hook shook his head, frowning. "I don't understand."

"You get so theatrical about everything, can't you ever just act normal?" Neal rubbed his eyes exasperatedly. "Look, I honestly think he was just trying to be polite, okay? We don't have to go over there—"

"Yes, we do!" Hook insisted furiously. "Damn it, Neal, I'm not going to let him steal Ruby from me, and I'm not going to let him steal Emma from you! He's building a bloody harem!"

"Okay, don't say it like that," Neal said, making a face. "That just sounds weird."

"Will you come with me, yes or no?" Hook said, staring him dead in the eye. Neal raised an eyebrow.

"Dude, you just asked me out."

Hook rolled his eyes. "Stop flattering yourself, Neal, this isn't the time."

"I'm not flattering myself. I'm just saying, that was a weird way to phrase it."

"Neal, please!" he snapped. "I'm serious."

Neal groaned, tilting his head back. "No, I really don't want to."

"Oh, please?" Hook whined. "Please, Neal? I can't go by myself, I'll look pathetic."

"I was going to spend the day with Regina and Henry," Neal sighed. "I can't."

"Then bring them!" Hook said, looking at him with wide eyes. "Just bring them, it'll be one great big happy family! Plus, some people who hate the ever-loving shit out of each other," he added, shrugging.

"No, I really don't want to."

"Neal, please. You're the only family I—"

"That's not going to work."

"But you're my best—"

"Neither is that."

Hook huffed, glaring at him. Neal stared back, raising his eyebrows coolly. Hook grimaced, reluctant to utter his next words.

"I'll pay you fifty bucks."

"Done."

Okay, I don't want to seem like a review-whore, but I'm kind of hitting some writer's block. I know WHERE i want to get to, but I'm having trouble finding my way there. REVIEWS SERIOUSLY HELP. THEY COME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL AGAINST WRITER'S BLOCK, AND I AM SO SORRY FOR THAT REFERENCE, I COULD NOT RESIST.

please?