"They hate me, Duchess," James Moriarty announced, propping his chin against his fist as he surveyed the chess board in front of him. He and Flynn knew each other's methods too well to continue playing two-player chess, so Flynn had instead produced a four-man chess set and proposed they play it instead. It was proving to be a delightful challenge, but his mind was designed to multitask.

Their beautiful Guardian looked up from the files she had been absently organizing. "Who hates you?"

"Your 'children,' as you so quaintly call them, they hate me." All three of the LITs, as Flynn liked to address them, had been giving him the metaphorical cold shoulder since Eve and Flynn announced that he was going to stay in the Library.

"They do not hate you, James," Eve reassured, walking over to stand behind his chair, resting her chin atop his head, and stroking his shoulders. "They're just...initiating you into the family, that's all. Giving you a hard time."

He scoffed and moved his black queen, taking one of Flynn's knights. "The Australian one threatened to feed me to the Loch Ness Monster."

"Well, it'd probably help if you used their names, first of all," Flynn remarked, taking one of James's pawns with his white bishop. "Secondly, Nessie doesn't eat anything bigger than a salmon. Thirdly, them giving you a hard time is a rite of passage. They did it to me, too."

Eve raised her eyebrows. "They did?" She hadn't known that.

Flynn nodded, frowning a little as James moved his silver knight. "Yep. Stone said that if I ever ran out on you again, he'd break both my knees with a baseball bat so I couldn't run anywhere. Cassandra mostly just gave me pointed silences and disappointed looks. And Jones said he'd feed me to Nessie too. Not all of me, just...a certain part of me," he recalled, not having to fake his little shudder of fear.

"There, see? They're just giving you the runaround. They'll warm up to you," Eve said, planting a kiss atop his head.

"I see," James murmured softly, moving his silver rook. "Check white."

Oddly enough, he did not feel terribly reassured.

Despite Eve's reassurances that they would 'warm up' to him, James got little more than a cool tolerance from the other Librarians. Eve had offered once to speak to them about it, but James declined. He didn't need it to seem like he was some child, going to hide behind his mother's skirts because other children were unkind to him. He supposed he would eventually get used to it. After all, he was only a villain. Why should he expect them to so easily let him into their home and lives?

Which was largely why it surprised him so much when Stone stopped him in the kitchen when James was fixing himself a fresh cup of tea.

"Where you goin', book boy?" the American one—Stone, that was his name, Stone—asked gruffly. He was the one that James was most uncertain about. At times he seemed little more than a coarse and uneducated ruffian, but the Library did not send its letters to imbeciles. And from the calluses on his hands, he had a great deal of experience in handling and using firearms.

"I was just going to—" He gestured towards the reading room, which was where he usually had his tea.

"It's dinnertime. That means you come eat." Though their schedules rarely lined up satisfactorily, the others always made sure they had at least one meal together a week. Sometimes it was that cheap fare that came in Styrofoam containers, and sometimes it was a full homemade meal. Apparently, this time it was the latter, as he could see Cassandra setting the large table in the adjacent dining room.

Tucking his book more securely beneath his arm, he replied, "As a Fictional, I do not need to eat."

"Neither does Jenkins. Neither do Flynn and Eve anymore, but they're still havin' dinner." At James's blank look, he rolled his eyes. "C'mon, man, just sit down and eat with us. Cassie set a place for you."

She had? He followed Stone into the dining room and saw that there was indeed a seventh place set at the large table. The Caretaker sat at the head of the table, with the LITs sitting on one side, Eve and Flynn sitting on the other. The extra place was set at Eve's other side, across from Stone. "Oh. Of course." He set down his book and went over to the table. The others were already sitting down, playfully elbowing at each other as they took their seats. "May I ask what we're having?" he asked.

"I made crawfish étouffée," Stone replied. "Flynn's pick."

"Loved it ever since I visited New Orleans," Flynn remarked happily as he ladled rice and stew into his bowl from the dishes on the table before passing the ladle to the Caretaker. "I could've made it, by the way."

"No, you couldn't," Eve and Stone said in unison. Smiling, Eve patted Flynn's arm. "Sorry, babe, but I have tasted your cooking—"

"And I have watched you cook," Stone added.

"—and no, you cannot make dinner anymore unless under strict supervision. Them's the breaks."

James fought a smile at the indignant look Flynn sported. The ladle was passed to him, and he spooned a small portion of rice and stew into his bowl. It smelled quite delicious, if somewhat foreign to him. He wondered if they would say some sort of prayer; he had no idea whether or not they all followed any kind of religion at all. Instead, Eve raised her glass in a toast, "To another week of saving the world."

"Twice before Fridays," the others chorused, touching glasses.

They fell into a comfortable chatter as they ate, exchanging anecdotes and tales of the various escapades they got into. James largely kept quiet, not wanting to break whatever delicate bit of peace he'd apparently earned, until Stone turned towards him and said, "Alright, Jim, spill. I'm sure you know more about these two than we do. What's one of the most ridiculous things you've seen Flynn do?"

James stared for a moment, stunned both by the fact that Stone was addressing him so casually, without a hint of animosity, and that Stone had just addressed him as Jim. It wasn't until he felt Eve's leg nudge his under the table that he remembered it was polite to answer a question. "Aside from the time I saw him try to solve a word puzzle and put his shoes on at the same time and managed to tie his laces together and fall flat on his face?"

Flynn sputtered indignantly, looking at James in betrayal as the others howled with laughter. "You promised you'd never mention that again!"

"Oh, my God, is that why you wear Velcro shoes all the time now?" Jones laughed. "Oh, God, that's brilliant!"

Just like that, he was part of the conversation, unquestionably included; Eve patted his knee under the table, and he laid his hand over hers.

Later on, when they were sprawled out lazily on their bed, Flynn already snoring softly, Eve toyed with James's hair and smiled at him. "Told you they didn't hate you," she murmured.

James smiled back. "Indeed you did, Duchess."