Under the Sun

By: Sugar Skulls

Rating: T, for language and themes.

Author's Note: OH MY GOD, I am such a whore. xD This is my first fanfic, and of all fandoms to write for, I choose Spongebob Squarepants. SPONGEBOB! And I completely raped the fandom by—YOU GUESSED IT—turning them into humans. Have I mentioned I'm a whore? Not in the "oh, I sleep with anyone who has a penis and have like 385743 STDs" sense of the word, but…whatever. I suck.

But fear not, anyone who decides to read this. I am taking this story seriously. Sort of. :D I got the idea, I liked the idea, I was ashamed of the idea, got over it, and started to write. It will have humor, action, adventure, possible romance…who knows? Human or not, it's still Spongebob. Who knows what the hell I'll toss out there. As for the possible romance…can you guess the main pairing? ;D And since I'm lazy, I'm going to start the story off when they've been turned into humans. Which means they were TURNED INTO humans. So it's not an AU. :D

Enjoy, if you can stomach it.

The sky was dark indigo, dotted with stars, and just a tinge of pink glowed over the horizon, hinting that morning would arrive soon. Waves crashed on the nearly empty beach in a soothing, never-ending rhythm.

On the beach lay four figures. Three were male, one female, and all of them unconscious. The young female laid on the far left, the waves lapping against her bare ankles over and over. Her dark brown hair fanned out on the white sand, tangled and salty, untamed. About three feet to her right, a young man sprawled out in the sand. His hair was dark black with an odd teal color in it. And beside him lay a male, looking close in age, but nowhere near in appearance. He had a bit of a beer belly, the only sign of poor health, and a shock of pink hair, cropped short. And the fourth person, curled loosely into a ball, was thin and blonde, unconscious as well. All four were alarmingly still.

And then the blonde's hand began to twitch. The others remained motionless, but the fingers on the young blonde man's right hand slowly curled, weakly clutching the sand. He was silent, and he curled a fist three times before a low groan passed his lips. He flexed his fingers once more before his eyelids fluttered open.

His very blue eyes stared straight ahead, at the beach that stretched along the coast, as the pink on the horizon grew brighter. Dawn was about to break.

The young man blinked and his eyes flickered down to the sand his cheek rested in, then up at the sky from the corner of his eye, and then straight forward again. After a pause, he lifted his hand, not looking at it, and grabbed at thin air. Once…twice…three times he swiped at nothing. His brow furrowed, frustrated and confused.

The waves continued to roll in. A pod of dolphins chirped and jumped out further into the water. Their splashes drew the young man's attention, though he still lay unmoving for the most part.

Slowly, uncertainly, he pushed his upper body up and away from the ground. Sand clung to half of his face, but he paid it no mind and did not move to brush it away. The blonde continued to stare out at the beach, puzzled. Then he turned his head to look at the water.

There was a pregnant pause. Suddenly, he gasped, a strangled sort of sound. One arm supported his upper body as the other flew up to his throat as he made a comical choking noise. He sprung to his feet, not even noticing the others beside him, and launched himself into the water. He dunked himself under the waves—and inhaled deeply.

Salt water rushed into his lungs and he spluttered and choked. It was a painful, alien sensation, and he inhaled more in his bewilderment; it took him several seconds to realize that he would die if he kept this up, and resurfaced. It was an unfamiliar movement he'd never previously had to make, and was just as disconcerting as his body's violent refusal of water.

It wasn't over yet. The blonde staggered back to shore, coughing and choking as he fell to his hands and knees. Waterfalls of seawater gushed from his mouth and nose, his eyes watering with pain. His lungs ached, burned, and pricked sharply when he finally got the water out of his system. He gasped for air, shocked that the water had nearly killed him when the air was supposed to be deadly to him. He fell into the sand and rolled onto his back. How could he possibly be so close to drowning like that? Water was his life. Why was the air suddenly what his body craved? What caused this bizarre reversal?

He stared at the gradually lightening sky, chest heaving and spasming occasionally as he coughed a few more times. Air had suddenly become his stimulant instead of his aggressor. Was the deal? Had he evolved out of nowhere and hadn't even noticed until he mysteriously woke up on this beach? Was that even possible? He'd have to ask Sandy…

Sandy. She was an air-breather! So…had he turned into Sandy? Or a squirrel? He doubted it. Things seemed so much smaller than they had the last time he'd been on dry land, going to save King Neptune's crown… Sure, everything was still large, like the sky and the beach and the ocean, but they were suddenly not as big as they had been when he was a normal sponge.

He swallowed nervously, his throat screaming in agonizing protest, making him wince. Was he a sponge anymore? He hadn't looked at himself yet. He was afraid to; he seemed to have gotten much bigger, so who knew what else had changed?

He closed his eyes and raised his arms above him. He counted to three. One…two…three! He tentatively opened one eye, peeking at his hands above his face.

They didn't look so different, but still significantly changed. He opened both eyes and stared at his hands. Where there had previously been four yellow digits on each hand, there were now five. They were an odd color, and definitely not yellow; they were a strange mixture of a peachy, creamy, slightly pink color. Faint lines of blue swirled beneath new skin, standing out noticeable in some areas and fading away in others, disappearing altogether for the most part. Weird, shiny little plates stuck to the end of his fingertips. Mini turtle shells? He couldn't make much out of it.

He stared at the new color of his skin, puzzled. The complexion was vaguely familiar; where had he seen it before? There were so many different colored fish in Bikini Bottom. Red, blue, brown, pink, yellow, orange…this weird fleshy color wasn't as common…it reminded him of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.

Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy…they weren't fish. They were human. But they couldn't have been fully human, he thought rationally, because humans were so big. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy were average height among the fish. Still, they very much resembled humans.

Uncertainly, he drew his gaze away from his hands and observed his arms. They were the same peach-ish creamy color as his hands. His eyes widened. His previous arms had always been stick-thin and limp. Now, his eyes saw strange—but impressive—muscles. They weren't huge and beefy; they were wiry and strong-looking, rather pronounced as he kept them hovering over his head. He couldn't refrain from flexing slightly; he was cheered by the result.

He lowered his arms and slowly sat up. The movement made his lungs spasm again, and he dissolved into a coughing fit. His mouth tasted salty as excess seawater expelled from his windpipe. He grimaced briefly and looked down at his chest. It was bare; his whole body was bare, embarrassingly. He could not determine whether his torso was impressive or not. He was not familiar with human anatomy. His stomach was firm and flat, with prominent abs he hoped were as impressive as his arms.

And from the waist down, he just didn't like to look at that. It looked like evolution had gotten sloppy on a male human halfway through and then got its act back together long enough to make the legs but didn't bother going back and making that any neater.

So he came to a conclusion: somehow, in the past twenty-four hours, something got a hold of him and changed him drastically. Spongebob Squarepants was no longer a little sea sponge. He was very different, and very human.

He turned his head to look up the opposite end of the beach. It was still dark, as dawn had not reached it yet. Spongebob started slightly as he spotted the people beside him. He had not noticed them before. His first instinct was to scramble away, but then he looked closer at the man beside him. The hair, bright pink. The little shredded pieces of fabric scattered around him: purple and green.

"Patrick!" Spongebob cried, his voice raspy and burning from the salt that caked his throat. The pink-haired young man, Patrick, did not stir. "Patrick?" Oh no. He wasn't…dead, was he? Spongebob's heart rate quickened. No, he couldn't be dead; Spongebob woke up alive and unharmed, just drastically changed.

Just then, a loud snore erupted from Patrick's mouth, startling Spongebob. Then he sighed with relief. Patrick was all right; he was just sleeping. Spongebob's eyes wandered away from Patrick to the two others beside him, not as easy to identify. One was a man, Spongebob knew, because he was built the same as Patrick and him. He seemed taller, though Spongebob couldn't be too sure since he wasn't standing up. After a moment of staring, unsure of whom this other man was, he stood up carefully, stepped over Patrick, and crouched beside the young man. He reached out and lifted his right eyelid, revealing a red iris. Spongebob smiled; it was Squidward. He dropped his eyelid and let him sleep.

His eyes rested on the last person, beside Squidward. Like he had before, Spongebob stood and stepped over Squidward to crouch beside this person. This one was significantly different from Patrick, Squidward, and him in body shape. This one must have been a girl, Spongebob guessed, though he'd never seen a human girl. This must have been Sandy. She was on her side, not on her back like the others, so Spongebob reached out and turned her over to look at her face. Freckles splattered across Sandy's nose and her eyelashes were long and dark. Some of her hair, dark brown in color, was plastered to her face, while the rest lay limply in the sand. Spongebob could see the difference in her face; more feminine and delicate than Squidward's or Patrick's and most likely his, too.

His eyes dipped over the rest of her body, out of curiosity. Spongebob had a feeling that a human male shouldn't look at a naked human female any more than a fish male should look at a naked fish female should in Bikini Bottom, but he was curious if Sandy's change had been a bit more smooth-sailing as a girl, since obviously it hadn't gone smoothly for the boys at certain areas.

Sandy was in fact more aesthetically pleasing to eye than the boys were, Spongebob observed. Though she had to have muscles under her new skin, they clearly weren't as prominent as Spongebob's or Squidward's, her figure was shapely and curvy in places, and her chest was very different from the boys', as was "down town." But these differences were all that Spongebob could detect that separated genders between them. She was noticeably smaller than Squidward and Patrick, and Spongebob was pretty sure she was smaller than him, too. He hoped that her karate skills wouldn't be too weakened by this new body of hers; if it had been softened into fragility, she wouldn't be too happy if she couldn't defend herself if need be in this alien world. Spongebob glanced at his own arms. For once, he looked strong. Stronger than Sandy. It would be pretty cool to protect her and save the day, now that he thought about it. But it would be best if they didn't have to face any confrontation…they should figure out how to get back into the sea, back into fish (and squirrel) form. Then they could solve the mystery of the strange change afterwards.

Spongebob stood and looked back at the waves with worry written on his features. How could they turn back into fish if they couldn't even go underwater without drowning? He looked back at his friends, still unconscious, and decided that it would be easier to sort out the dilemma if everyone was awake.

"Hey, guys?" he said loudly, ignoring the searing pain in his throat. "Guys? Wake up. We're in a bit of a pickle, here." He nudged each of them with his new, five-toed foot.

The others began to stir.

Author's Note: DUN DUN DUN. Not really. But whatever. Hahaha, I felt so weird describing everyone naked. I was going to write them naked, then I felt awkward and almost decided to write them still fully clothed, but then I felt like a prude and besides, having them AND their clothes change and-or get bigger? Uh, no, that's a bit TOO farfetched. So I sucked it up and wrote them all nudey. xD It was hard to write about Spongey checking Sandy out. o.o I mean, she IS a girl, and she's gonna look a lot different, but Spongebob's not going to be impressed since he was a sponge and doesn't have any sexual preferences. xD Bah. Whatever.

Next chapter, Plankton and Mr. Krabs show up! Yaaay!