It's Always Sunny in Storybrooke!

CHAPTER 3

Neal frowned at the files in front of him, running his thumb against his lips thoughtfully. Police reports were nauseatingly dull and difficult to read. It didn't help that Hook was lazily reclining in the opposite chair, his feet propped up on the desk, doing absolutely nothing.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He was hard at work, playing with his phone.

"Hmph," he heard Hook chuckle softly. Neal grit his teeth: he'd been doing that all week. At first, Neal had simply thought that pushing the buttons and seeing symbols appear was what amused him so much. He was shocked to discover that Hook was actually reading something off his phone: texts.

It was frustrating because Hook refused to tell him who he was texting; and yet, every five minutes, there would be a ping! and he would have a question.

"What is a lol?" he would ask interestedly.

"Who is Yolo?" he would frown.

"I don't think this is a word," he would say, pointing to a hashtag suspiciously.

"Who are you talking to?" Neal would ask, throwing down his pencil. Hook would only raise an eyebrow and say cryptically, "Who indeed?"

At first, he'd suspected Emma. She always got a kick out of Hook's astonishment over modern devices, and it wouldn't be out of character for them to draw out some bizarre inside joke for a ridiculously long time (they still snickered every time Jamie Lee Curtis appeared onscreen, for God-only-knew-what-reason). But that theory had been shot to hell when Emma had unexpectedly popped her head out of her office and Hook had scrambled to hide his phone, pretending he'd been working the whole time.

"Could one of you guys grab lunch?" she'd asked. "I've got a phone conference with Henry's teacher and—"

"I'll go," Hook offered. Emma had raised her eyebrows as he left the room with only a "see you later" thrown over his shoulder, not even reminding her he loved her once.

Neal stared at him now, narrowing his eyes suspiciously as Hook raised his eyebrows laughingly and muttered, "Bloody hell..."

"You know I don't like it when you speak British," Neal said, leaning back in his chair. Hook dragged his eyes away from his phone to look at Neal innocently.

"Sorry?"

"Who are you talking to? And don't say 'who indeed?'," he added. Hook looked faintly annoyed.

"Not sure that's any of your concern, mate."

"Who's concerned?" Neal shrugged. Hook smiled wryly.

"Not sure that's any of your business, mate."

"Come on," he said, spreading his arms. "What's the big deal? Tell me already. I won't tell Emma," he added in an undertone.

Hook narrowed his eyes, opening his mouth to say something when Emma called from her office, "Neal, could you come in here, please?"

"Yeah," he called back, not moving. Hook stared back stubbornly.

"Neal?"

"Yeah, in a second!" he threw over his shoulder. Hook folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, smirking.

"I've got all day."

"I know. You don't do anything."

"That's not true. I brought you a bagel this morning."

Neal raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Give it up, Jones. You know I'm going to find out."

"Don't call me 'Jones', Baelfire."