Archive of Our Own ^beta

After every meeting with the Coon and Friends, Captain Diabetes travels to a facility nearby with a frown on his face and a heaviness in his heart. The facility – now funded by Tupperware after they’d sieged it from Professor Chaos’ aluminium fist many moons ago – was planned to roof the workplace scientists, researchers, engineers out of Tupperware’s own pocket, or so The Coon had proposed. It had originally worked, though not to the extent that was intended.

Recently, there has been some discourse amongst the friends on closing the facility and moving the operation to one of the floors in the Coon Headquarters, but Captain Diabetes – Scott – is against it. He’s even offered the idea of moving their headquarters to the facility, but was quickly shot down by The Coon on account of it being stupid , and then Mysterion rationalised that Chaos knows where the facility is, and that it may be a foolish idea to leave themselves so open.

But Scott can’t let himself be okay with the idea of them moving the facility. He can’t bear the thought of moving him . So many things could go fucking wrong.

Scott enters the facility every day like it’s his first time, because it’s never gotten easier. He can sort of gather what to expect from one week to the next, anticipate movements, understand motives with a sympathy that tries to force empathy, but in reality he knows – knows – that the man that was once his friend, the whole team’s friend and trusted teammate, is no more. Clyde is no more. And Scott misses him every day, and every time he looks into his eyes, he’s reminded of who he likes to believe is trapped behind them, capable of seeping through in small, elusive moments.

Even with the loss of his friend’s true self, Scott still finds the deep passion within himself to stick by him and keep him well, keep him safe , and unbothered.

Scott changes into a black top whenever he’s about to enter the holding cell through handprint-scanner and passcode protected sliding doors, because the colours of Captain Diabetes’ uniform startles his friend, and Scott can’t bear that. He had to learn it the hard way back in the early days of the final process of Clyde’s deterioration: how he’d been frenzied and attacked him, after the shreds of Clyde that was still left screamed in crescendo that the colours were giving him a headache, how he didn’t know what to do , and how terrifying the experience had been for both parties involved.

There were still bad days, sort of like that, but if Scott knows the cause he’ll do anything in his power to get rid of it: getting Clyde’s food source delivered on time, silencing the staff, informing them on how to hold themselves when they were in his range of sight, so on . Whatever the reason, it’s never his fault, only the cause’s, and Scott vocalises it every time it happens. Most of the time, though, attacks – especially towards Scott – are unprompted.

And that’s why Scott still hardly knows what to expect.

If the attacks ever get out of hand, there are tasers. Each of the staff is equipped with one, even those outside of the holding cell’s unit, in case he escapes or suddenly no longer finds his current food supply very efficient, being forced to feed on every visitor he can possibly get his scarlet proboscis on. The Coon took some sort of sick humour in it, and had asked for the tasers to assume the appearance of hand-held bug zappers. Toolshed had told him that it was weak, but what was done was done.

Scott hates it. He’s the only one who still visits, the only one that hasn’t already shrugged it off or still pretends to care.

Mosquito’s holding cell isn’t really a cell as it is more so an indoor captivity: a vast white room with the wall opposite the lower entrance being a tinted window, and then to the left when facing said window is an overhanging level with yellow metal bannisters, and a staircase either side. In the near-centre of the upper level: a platform lift with an identical yellow railing and gate, for live prey to be transported. Under the overhang is the lower level’s exit. On the overhang is the room’s third door that allows exit and entrance, but with twice the security. Opposite the balcony level, far above head-height – on a completely different floor, outside of the containment – was a window that allowed overlooking observation, and could be blacked out when necessary. Then, as though only added in an attempt to not appear almost inhumane and like an asylum from its bleak yet bright whiteness alone, a large tree nearly reaching the ceiling, centred in a large square of grassy plantation.

There’s a constriction in Scott’s throat as he enters the room, long before the centre tree, and waits for some sort of sighting. There’ll be some visits, though typically rare, where all Mosquito will grant him is a flitter of opaque wings, or a silhouette, or just some high-pitched buzzing. Scott hates those types of visits – he’s glad they’re not often.

Mosquito is typically more active – vocal, handsy, ‘whizzy’ – during full moons, and while Scott views that as a positive (he always wants to see him, even in his current state) it means he can also seem more on edge, perhaps more unpredictable. Predatory. Hostile .

Being diabetic and on the cusp of anaemia isn’t exactly the most ideal situation of health one would wish to be in. The first time an attack in the facility had happened, Scott was sure he was going to die. The morsel of Clyde left that was full of profuse apologies and glistening eyes could hardly be heard over Mosquito’s high-pitched buzzing.

Scott has been through it all with Mosquito. Scars litter his neck and arms. There’s one on his thigh, too, which had particularly hurt because it was in a spur of anger instead of hunger, and Mosquito’s proboscis had stabbed right down to the bone. There’s scar tissue on his cheek from when he’d been startled in Scott’s tussle for freedom by entering guards, piercing straight through the flesh and managing to prick the inner gum on the opposite side, killing the nerve. It was a horrible affair, with Scott’s remorse being a greater pain than his physical injury, for he’d watched Mosquito be tasered and confined in time for everyone to escape. An act of brutality.

Scott will always prefer being sucked dry.

Clyde has never been as muscular as Scott, but by god is he a glass canon. Especially in the air, where he’s both agile and speedy, with quick aerial attacks and piercing stings. Scott’s seen photos: Clyde was once a little chubby, average height for a male of his age and background, and then his metamorphosis into a mutant made him leggier, made him shed a few pounds. But such a transformation didn’t compare to what he went through when he lost himself completely to the takeover: Scott was forced to watch as his best friend lost so much weight in the fight, his posture worsening, his voice retreating, his orange eyes compounding from those of a half-human’s to those of an insect’s.

When all of his hair fell out, patch by patch, Scott watched as Clyde covered it up with a striped beanie, and when his ribs started to jut out and his stomach started to bloat, he watched as Clyde covered it up with thick jackets, even during the zenith of summer.

Through his own selfish pain, Scott stuck by and told Clyde every day that he still looked great. Neither of them believed it.

Clyde was lost long ago, but he’s not completely gone, or so Scott likes to tell himself.

Mosquito is now before him, hovering, and so Scott sits on the floor near the grassy square of the room. He’s brought a fruit basket of grapefruit, passionfruit, and oranges today (though, really, it’s more like a big bucket, because Mosquito’s appetite is deeper than the sea). It normally minimises the chance of an attack. The only thing that really hurts about those is the fact that Scott knows that Clyde doesn’t really mean it.

“Hey, bugaboo,” Scott greets, tossing a grapefruit with an easy underarm up at Mosquito, who snatches it immediately in both hands. “I got these in the marketplace from downtown – they’re in season.”

Oranges grow on the tree in Mosquito’s confinement, but not in flush, and Mosquito only rarely touches them. Scott has to wonder if they’re any good. He’s been tempted a few times to try one, but he can’t chance it, because as well as along some of the walls and corners of the room, Mosquito has nests in the tree that Scott really doesn’t want to threaten or alarm him over.

He doesn’t want to scare him.

Scott takes a grapefruit from the basket and starts to peel it with his thumbs. He looks up, absently, in time to watch Mosquito’s mouthpiece pierce into his own, chest expanding greatly as he sucks up the juices. Mosquito, with that nasally overtone of his, exhales loudly, mouth open in a wide grin, and Scott can see the juices pour like a waterfall from his nasopharynx down into his mouth, ready for swallowing. It’s a disgusting dare-he-call party trick (it used to be a party trick, back when Clyde could still decide how he wanted to eat) that Scott has gotten used to by now. It’s even more harrowing with blood.

Mosquito tosses the grapefruit’s husk and lands beside Scott and his fruit basket on all fours, fingers gripping into the dirt before he backs up into a crouching position, a hand snaking out to snatch another piece of fruit from the top. A hungry grin is on Mosquito’s face – triumphant, starving – as always, and as he inspects the new grapefruit like it’s a spectacular orb, there’s a moment of satisfaction like warm sun in Scott’s chest. But then Mosquito freezes and his grin fades, and Scott’s very heart clenches in a cold anticipation.

Mosquito flinches; a terseness sticks between them like a barrier, it’s asphyxiating. There’s tears pricking in Scott’s eyes as he sees the animalistic nature of what was once his best friend, how he’s never too sure if Mosquito can even recognise him, let alone remember everything they’d been through. It’s like this most days: he should be used to it. However, there’s a matter about the way Mosquito now stances himself, and Scott soon realises that his attention has been placed on the section of revealed flesh on his own grapefruit.

“There we go, my little ladybug,” he says, very gingerly, extending an arm with the open side of the fruit facing Mosquito’s face. Scott never calls Mosquito ‘ Mosquito ’ to his face anymore. It feels like a taunt if he does.

Mosquito’s human tongue takes upon itself to lap at the exposed juices. There’s a glimmer of hope in Scott’s chest as he watches. Mosquito never uses his human mouth anymore. It was rendered obsolete so long ago.

But all hope is destroyed so quickly, when Mosquito swipes the grapefruit out of Scott’s hand with his proboscis, nicking the face of his thumb in the process. As he watches Mosquito guzzle down the fluids of both Scott’s grapefruit and his own in a primal, messy display with unfathomably famished buzzes, his heart lurches.

When Clyde was still with Bebe – the days when he could still control which side of himself he presented as – Bebe would often buy grapefruits as a centrepiece to their apartment’s kitchen table, which she would always try to entice him to eat because they were her favourite and she assumably wanted him to eat healthier, because Clyde was never really a fruit person before his mind was fully taken over. When Clyde’s diet reduced to only fruit and blood, his intake of the particular fruit had increased. Scott supposed it reminded him of Bebe, and he didn’t really need Clyde to tell him that to surmise.

Clyde had always teetered back and forth on the edge of telling Bebe about his powers, but the biggest part of him chickened him out. When the days came where he found his ability to change forms was diminishing, so did the greater fear. Scott, Human Kite, and Toolshed had always told him it was for the best if he did (Toolshed’s input not without being considered ironic, of course, given his own relationship with a woman called Wendy), even before, whereas The Coon and Mysterion took a far more humanist, perhaps disinterested, approach, and Tupperware and Doctor Timothy worked on the logistical side alone.

By the time the takeover and terrifying episodes started happening in clutch thereafter, Clyde had stopped going home.

Scott often wonders, especially now, how Bebe had dealt with it, and he can only hope that she’s found peace and happiness without Clyde. He also has to wonder if she ever knew, or at least suspected, about Clyde’s double-life, because even as a human there were things he could never hide: things that Scott had grown over the years to find remarkable, like his striking mustard-orange eyes that – when the light hit just right – you could see the lens and sclera hold the insectoid angles of compound eyes; like his spindly limbs and fingers and nasally voice, all partnering the tip of his pretty pointed nose always being a pinkish sort of colour that made the rest of his complexion look rather diaphanous. Like moonlight.

During the days of heartbreak and suffering, Scott and Clyde seemed to grow closer than before. The numbers of comforters surrounding Clyde’s cries of anguish and physical pains started to wane as attacks became more frequent and breakdowns became more expected, so it was down to just Clyde and Scott, letting amicable pats on the back during spells of dry heaving and sobbing to go Scott cupping Clyde’s soft cheeks and wiping away dwindling tears in artful comfort.

Cupped cheeks led to succouring, loving kisses, Scott’s left cheek resting gently against Clyde’s tube-like mouthpieces as he angled himself. Scott would be trailed on walks or patrols through the city by buggish eyes, a watchful entourage of mosquitoes that only increased the closer he and Clyde continued to be.

Playful bug bites would litter Scott’s neck. Tear stains would place themselves on Scott’s shirt further and further away from just his shoulder. Scott’s bedroom in Coon Headquarters would remain more and more unvisited, and sometimes Clyde’s bedside cabinet would shelve some flowers all because Scott thought it was a nice gesture. Clyde called it gay the first time around, like it wasn’t a label applicable to the both of them. Like it was nothing more than a playful insult.

Fervour increased between them, but as soon as it had, it was gone, because Clyde’s condition only ever got worse. The first couple of times, Clyde had taken Scott in his greater moments of health, but roles soon reversed with impending weakness, and then suddenly attacks started happening during it. One moment, Scott was tuned into the needy whining-turned-buzzing that kept pace with every one of his movements, and then next he was shocked out of his own reverie as fingers no longer gripped and rhythmic buzzing turned into a feral, aggressing drone. When he looked, Clyde’s bulging compound eyes were staring at him, expression empty, and in a flash he was on the floor clasping the gory injury on the side of his neck, near his shoulder, bleeding out on the bedroom carpet.

The change back had been instantaneous, and Clyde was immediately in tears, bawling, so distraught he couldn’t even think of helping. After an insulin shot to steady his blood sugars, he was quick to comfort Clyde through the indescribably sad whimpering buzzes he was feeding into the front of his own wrists as he shielded his face. Even when the sobbing settled, the buzzy whimpers still persisted, and Scott wanted to tear his own skin up for daring to be so fragile against Mosquito’s proboscis.

After Wonder Tweek and Tupperware bandaged Scott’s wound up and medicated him with some painkillers, the two nestled by Clyde’s window and looked at the full moon in a quiet solace.

The full moon is starting to rise. Scott can see it from out the tinted glass wall as he hastily sticks his thumb into his mouth to prevent Mosquito slipping into a feeding frenzy at the sight or smell of the fat bead of blood dripping out.

When Clyde lost a drastic amount of weight, it was when he was starting to crave blood and reject anything but, and then all of a sudden he was laying eggs by the time he’d finally gotten it. The blood seemed to help, seemed to curb his starvation, and just for that alone Scott would be willing to let Clyde feed on him for as long as he desired, even if it fucking killed him. Scott believes that Clyde – Mosquito – deserves access to as much resources as he could possibly need. He’s already suffered way too much to go without.

Scott had always figured Clyde was like the Mosquito Queen, with how his powers worked. He could conduct every mosquito as he pleased, and they would protect him upon natural instinct. But laying eggs of his own was so new at the time that it was perhaps the most harrowing out of every possible symptom the change could have thrown their way. Clyde was scared, Scott was scared, but it was Clyde who decided to swallow his fears in a manner which Scott had never expected, and took it in stride. The last batch Clyde had been able to think of naming was Scott Jr. .

The mosquitoes didn’t have names anymore.

It took humanity to name things.

Mosquito is ashy, his cheekbones pallid, sharpish, shadowy. It’s a sorry sight in comparison to what once was; his face is hardly recognisable as Clyde’s anymore. His eyes aren’t even human.

With a grandiose buzz, Mosquito seems to pounce back as though something has tugged him by his very wings. Scott watches only in bewilderment, withdrawing his thumb from his mouth momentarily to inspect his wound. After a moment, more blood buds, and so he returns it to his mouth.

Mosquitoes are more active in the dark , Scott recounts, eyeing the outside moon, bright and spherical. Especially during a full moon . He wonders why Mosquito isn’t acting as he typically would on such a night. Of course, he’s as flighty as ever: starving, wordless, nippy . But there’s… something .

Something off.

Scott can tell. He can always tell.

It’s hard to track Mosquito’s eyes unless he actively moves his head. It’s been a while since this haunting development – intimate eye contact has more or less ceased between them, and has for a long damn while now – but Scott likes to think he can sort of guess where his honeybee is looking. He can sort of predict his interest at the time… but it’s hard. So fucking hard.

There are some obvious examples, however: like now; Mosquito is looking at Scott. At his top . There’s nothing new about the black article of clothing. He always wears it to visit. It makes Mosquito less skittish and, or at least he hopes, feel safer.

The reflections in Mosquito’s amber compound eyes seem to dim. Scott takes note immediately, his heart beginning to pound. For a moment he thinks about testing his blood sugars, but the thought is immediately expelled, because something far more consequential is happening . He releases a shaky breath – perhaps a sigh – and all he can think now is how transfixed Mosquito is on him with such a glazed over expression, so silently, so vacuously.

Scott is transfixed on Mosquito, too.

It happens so suddenly, like a flash: Mosquito has pounced, the bucket of fruit is toppled, crashing into Scott’s right bicep. The fruit all cascade in hard rolls across the floor; Scott’s right fist is covered by another hand, halfway between a pull and a push from his mouth. The two are breathing heavily, unmoving. Scott dares not to remove his thumb from his mouth, in case Mosquito accelerates over his shoulder to feed and injures them both.

He doesn’t want to hurt him.

He doesn’t want him hurt.

Mosquito’s buzzy panting skips a note. His rigid figure from behind Scott slacks, and his hand relaxes enough to slip away from Scott’s fist to loosely around his wrist. The firmness of his arm is then used to close the gap between them, chest hitting back. Scott’s heart is pounding , but then there’s those same distressed, buzzy whines from so long ago, and all he can do is soften tremendously with burning eyes.

Scott’s mouth is dry. He wants to call out his lover’s name, or one of his pet names, but he can’t . He can’t decide, he doesn’t… he doesn’t know what to do .

It’s that same helplessness as once before, returning like a sick joke. Taunting him. Drying out even the smallest of his stammers.

Clyde’s whines increase so drastically that they’re practically sobs. No tears, but… Mosquito’s never sobbed before.

Scott can feel Mosquito’s cheek pressed against his shoulder blade, nuzzling, vibrating through his own noises. His hand drags away from Scott’s wrist, catching on his sleeve until it reaches his back. Both of Mosquito’s hands are either side of Scott’s mid-back, now, and they grip . It’s fucking poignant. Scott doesn’t want false hope, but every instinct is telling him to turn around because behind him will be Clyde . And all he wants is Clyde.

He doesn’t move.

“I-I want to go home …” Small, stuttering, scared . Scott’s holding his chest, even as his chest begins to burn. Even as he feels like he’s about to have a heart attack and a panic attack all at once. Clyde used to say that when he still briefly surfaced at the beginning of his stay at the facility. He used to beg Scott, even though they both knew he would eventually concede. “ You need to go home…” – softer, even quieter – “you can’t stay here with me…”

And there it was. The last thing Clyde had ever said to him, repeated, just as painfully as before.

Scott inhales tremblingly through his nose. “ Don’t be ridiculous ,” he says, with so many retained ounces of affection and comfort. “You’re my boo, remember? I’m not going anywhere for as long as I live.”

But like a flooded candle wick, Clyde’s rattling dies out falteringly, soon replaced by the temperate drone of a mosquito the deeper his breathing gets. Scott can hear it right in his ear.

They stay like that for just a moment. That’s all it is, but to Scott it’s like a prolonged purgatory of uncertainty. He doesn’t know what to feel, what to do .

Mosquito’s fingers tighten sharply in Scott’s back as Scott takes a deep breath.

Pain sears into the side of Scott’s neck, and hot tears spring as he’s slammed into the floor on his left side, a hand forcefully on his head and the other digging into his shoulder. Scott can only choke back a cry as he hears the gulping of his own blood.

He just lets Mosquito feed, so he doesn’t go hungry.