Welcome to chapter three, my lovelies! :D Harvey's life is pretty unsuitable by this point. Clown-babies don't sound like too much fun. And, for the record, ala Teenage.Anomaly (just to get back to you, my friend, figured I'd answer your query), the vomiting is a concussion symptom, but Harvey's a jump-the-gun kind of girl and Cleave's not the brightest light bulb in the box. Hence, they're both chickens without heads. And Dancing-Pinky-Flower wins the grand prize for catching my Young Frankenstein reference! I love, love, love that movie…musical. Anyway! On with the show!

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I sit at the kitchen table and Cleave tells me I look like a zombie. From where my inner self lies, Cleave behind a window tells me I look like a zombie, and the reflection of Cleave tells me I look like a zombie. It's some Alice and Wonderland shit goin' on. My brain warps painfully.

"You look like a zombie, Harv-uh-cakes."

"You don't have to say it twice, Cleave."

His face screws into this pouty confusion, his nose wrinkled. He just says slowly, like I'm the one weirding him out, "Only said it—ah…once."

"Well, I don't think you need to say it at all."

I drop my hand to my forehead and feel at the cloth bandaging wrapped around there. For someone who commonly prefers to slit people's throats, he's surprisingly precise when it comes to clean-up. I somehow assume that, if he hadn't turned to his dastardly career, he'd make a pretty dandy doctor.

"Ya know, you—" he pauses, and presses a finger into my nose. He makes the bicycle-horn-beep he mimics so well, like that guy from Police Academy, "—you shouldn't be outta the sack, missy."

I swat the hand off and scowl. When I smack, it leaves a trail of psychedelic colors where my hand motioned, "You shouldn't be touching me."

"Wasn't what you were a-sayin' last night, Har-vuh-ee."

For a reason I can't quite understand, I slam my fist at the table, but I don't really focus on it. It's just kind of an angry gesture without a purpose behind it. I stare at my hand for a few passing moments. The clock on the wall (circa Felix the cat, with the swinging tail) sounds abnormally loud.

I work all day out in the hot sun…stay with me now 'til the mornin' comes…come on now try to understand, the way I feel when I'm in your hands…take me now as the sun descends, they can't hurt you now…

I point accusingly at the iPod speakers and shriek out at the very tippy-top of my lungs, "YOU'RE SO FUCKING WRONG!"

The iPod doesn't answer me. Cleveland doesn't say a word. My own electronic device has turned against me. Even that is on his side.

"Oooo-kay. Someone's goin' back to nani nani, I think." He wraps a hand around my shoulder, and when I jerk he applies enough pressure to make me squirm and squeal pitifully. I'm too busy flailing to care, but he whirls the chair so I'm facing him and squeezes both my shoulders at once, "Lookie here, tex, either you go—ah, nap-nap, or I introduce you to Mister Five Milligram Valium. And he's just so plain eager to meet ya."

So apparently he's now threatening me with pharmaceuticals.

Isn't this just the most wonderful relationship?

I feel like a prisoner when he takes me by the wrists and hoists me up from the chair, walking me backward (slowly, slowly, so slowly) into the next room to set me on the bed. I wonder if I'm suffering from the world's most severe case of Stockholm syndrome.

In literary terms, I feel like a small version of big, dumb Lennie and Cleave's the big version of scrawny, smart George. Our roles are reversed, but he's still bright and I'm still so terribly dim.

"Look, toots, I'll even bring ya din-din—that is, providing I do not create a cat-ee-oh-stroh-phic fire of epic proportions in the kitchen. Or does the queen have some other request? Keep in mind, some requests can be filled by my little buddies."

I think I imagine the sound of a knife flick, but my blank stare doesn't register the threat. They're all vacant ones, anyway.

Empty-headed and zombified, I mutter, "Chicken katchitori will do fine."