I did say a likely collection of one-shots would come after Dark Side of the Moon, and really, this is the first of what will likely be many separate ideas. Just a cute musing ala Harvey on Cleave and how much damn smarter he is than her. Thanks to all who read Dark Side of the Moon, I owe you guys, I really do.

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He keeps clicking his tongue.

On and off, sporadically changing to the rhythms of separate songs, clicking his tongue and breathing down my neck. Then he'll lick his lips, he'll swallow, and he'll make this terrible purr of a sound to end it off.

"Can you…stop that?"

His eyebrow lifts and, through his cheeky grin, he mutters, "Stop what?"

"Your…extremely distracting sounds of fucking stupidity."

His big, watery eyes glance over at me and his eyebrow perks. The corner of his lips follow suit, and I roll my eyes at what's coming. It's like I've turned the ignition to a car that was idling, and now it's all too eager to kick into drive. I try to avoid this night and day.

"I'm trying to read, Cleave."

"Whatcha readin', girly girl?" I flinch when he drops himself onto the cushion beside me, and I seriously wish he'd remember what the words 'personal space' mean. Okay, so I'm pal-ing around with a violent psychopath who likes to eat Cocoa Puffs out of the box.

I scowl at him, crawl a little further into the corner of the couch and try to curl up into myself before I mutter, "Tale of Two Cities."

Without warning he rips the book from my hands and I watch him throw it carelessly across the room with a half-hearted cackle and another click of the tongue. His head shakes and he springs off the couch by way of the palm of his hand, still laughing. I'm solid as stone, rigid. He knows better than to act that…lively around me.

"My Harley has no taste, it seems!" He's still trying to push down his dying laughter. I want to yell at him, honestly. I really wish I could shut him the fuck up, like I…shut everyone else the fuck up. Is there no way to silence this hyena? "Heeeeere we go. Lookie lookie!"

I roll my eyes as he throws a book and it slams me in the chest. For a second, I remember all those feelings of complete irritation that make me want to slit the remainder of his face open with a sharp object. Coincidentally, I remind myself that he has bestowed a sharp object upon me.

"The fuck is this?" I turn it over in my hands and frown, almost confused. I don't understand the things he reads, nor why he reads them. I haven't been interested in a book in ages and he has such strange choices. Fiction, always fiction.

The couch rumbles with a sudden earth-shattering leap (see: Cleave likes to make a production out of everything he does) and I almost fall off when he throws himself against my shoulder and stares dead at the book. I give him this funny look, and shove at his cheek.

"Can I…uh…help y—"

"Yessssss, ya can, girly. Ya can open it so I can read the wordssssss in them there pages."

"Haven't you read thi—"

"Well , I so happen to want to read it again. So open the book or hock it over, hear me? Or are we outta q-tips already?"

Wicked, whatever this may be, by some guy named Gregory Maguire. As I read the back cover, Cleave's impatient movements become more and more obvious. There's an earthquake under me, because his mantis-legs are jittering like mad. The couch vibrates with the dull, God-like power reserved within his lengthier limbs.

"You gave me a fucking book on the Wizard of Oz, Cleveland." He looks at me, practically tilting his head, and gives a chortle of a sound as he pulls the book free of my grasp. –Without warning he takes a handful of pages and violently shreds them out with some psycho glimmer of delight in his dark green eyes. I don't question it, but I know better than to question him at all. He knows three times more about everything than I do. And he makes sure to tell me it, every five seconds.

"No one reads the prologue, no one likes the prologue." He's muttering in eccentric fascination about it by that point, and I'm still skeptical on his literary choices. "Prologue, prologue, prologue."

I open to page one, and when I roll my eyes and begin to read I feel weight on my shoulder. Grunt. Go away? For just five minutes, it's all I want, just go away?

"Cleveland, what are you doing? Can't you go play with your Barbies or something?"

From my shoulder, he licks his lips, and his eyes sky-rocket to stare at the ceiling, the corners of his lips turning upward to expose his teeth, his words sarcastically matter-of-fact.

"I'm…uh…reading."