She had never liked earwigs.

They looked to her like they would do as their name claimed and crawl into her ear, scritching and scratching their way inside. Whispering doubts and insecurities; falsehoods and misleadings. She was sure earwigs were the weasels of the insect world. Conniving, manipulative earwigs.

He was a lot like an earwig. A scuttling sort of a man; she didn't think he'd ever been particularly good at anything except aligning himself with people who were. She felt bogged down by the earwig's latest alignment - a person of consequence in her life. The fact that earwig's schemings were clumsy and transparent didn't make them any less dangerous and she was feeling her position was becoming more and more perilous.