Son of The Cramp
Squilliam Fancyson likes to think he's up with the trends. But being fashionable isn't everything – the successor to The Cramp taught him that the hard way. One-shot Squidill. Slimy Dancing spoilers.

1) The Atlantis SquarePantis DVD can give you a multitude of fan-fiction ideas, not all of them necessarily canon.
2) American glazed donuts do tend to release the creative juices a touch more than usual.
3) Writing things a little differently from what you do normally (i.e., Squilliam with a much harsher character) can sometimes be an advantage.
I learnt these the hard way.
Dedicated to DeterminedX2, who has been a big source of inspiration for the past few months. T for language atypical to the show.
Disclaimer: Who do you think would own SpongeBob more – a millionaire man egomaniac who doesn't give Sponge/Sandy fans their kicks (according to said Sponge/Sandy fans), or a teenage fan-author who celebrates in slash and whose every please-don't-squee-over-this-pairing instinct is wiped away with one little "eh, old chum"?

Even if there's nothing else that can be said for the residents of the lost city of Atlantis (which is hardly ever the case), it can be said that they enjoy a bit of dark humor. Or any humor in fact.

In fact, this sentiment can be echoed pretty much anywhere, not just in the ancient relic city. Bikini Bottomites, for example, live off the sentiment of laughing about nickels and garbage trucks. "Why couldn't the 11-yr-old get into the pirate movie? It was rated Arrr!"
The seemingly civilized town of Ukulele Bottom takes pride in the wit of their double-entendres. "…'If you poke that damn thing near me one more time I'll cut it off with a saw and shove it up your tailfin!'"
Even the so-called "stuck-up tight-wads" that make Tentacle Acres a community can't get away from the occasional snide insult that constitutes as a joke. "Could you keep it down over there, Iron Lung?"

But sometimes, the humor can get too much for them, and the quip in question stops being funny and starts getting annoying until it reaches a point of unbearability.

Even if the joke wasn't really a joke to begin with.

Arthur Birling, assistant of multi-millionaire Squilliam Fancyson, was learning this lesson good and hard.

"Arthur, understand me – once is funny, twice is a maybe, but fifteen times?"
"I'm serious, your Lordship." (Arthur had a tendency to address his superiors as such.)
Squilliam sighed. Ten minutes into the morning and already he was in a bad mood. "Arthur, you're a great assistant, you really are. But there's no need to keep singing after the music has stopped. I laughed the first time, but – really, this is just getting too much."
"But sir - "

"Don't get me wrong here, I enjoy a good crack at my enemies as much as the next rich guy." (Squilliam quickly made a mental note to put this under the underestimation pile.) "But hearing the same joke does kind of get boring after a while, know what I mean?"
"Your Lordship –"
Squilliam slammed the table at this point. "Birling, please. You're on thin ice as it is after that restaurant scandal; pushing a bad gag now will only --"

"Sir. This. Isn't. A. Joke."

It was only when Arthur finally put it that way that Squilliam finally stopped getting angry (at him, that is). Quite literally, he went blank.

"… Wait. Hang on. Whoa. Little red flag going up."
"It's true, your Lordship."
"…So what you're saying is, that my arch nemesis from high school-"
"Yes."
"You're saying that he…he co-created the most popular dance in youth culture. The dance that we've been pushing kids to learn in order to get into Squilliam Fancyson's Dance Community College."
"Yes."
"We've been drawing our customers in using -"
"Yes."

Squilliam paused to let it sink in. "Squiddy really did co-create the Cramp?"

"Yes, your Lordship, he did."

When his boss didn't explode in frustration, Arthur risked coming out of his cowering position. Maybe Squilliam wasn't angry at this news after all.

"You're shitting me."
Futile hopes.

"Sir, watch your language," he said on impulse.
"Arthur Birling, you are shitting me."
"No, sir, I'm not."
"You're not kidding."
"No. Squidward Tentacles co-created the Cramp."
"You saw the whole thing."
"Yes. I was number 54, in fact."
"And he co-created it."
"Well, he made it popular."
"But he was involved in its creation."
"Yes."
"Shit."
"Yeah."

"Um…I'm just going to go clear out my office now."
"Yes, Arthur, that might be a good idea."

Squidward Tentacles had rushed out of the restaurant before Mr Krabs had the chance to explain that there would be no lunch break that day. He wasn't in the mood for any of his cheapskatisms.

He wasn't in the mood for pretty much anything, in fact. SpongeBrat had woken him up asking about his toothbrush, which Squidward didn't even have. His organic kelpmeal had been too salty, and his soufflé had hysterics in the kitchen. MermaidBrain had stalled the line in the Krusty Krab for the duration of the morning. He'd even missed his chance to flirt with one of the customers 'coz a certain someone despised socialization during money time.

He growled to himself. If anything else happens to drive me up the doo-hah I'm gonna go nuts.
That was when he spotted Squilliam round the corner.
Well, looky here. One extremely pissed-off rival right on cue.

Squilliam was just as angry as Squidward seemed to be. And he didn't hesitate to show it. "And if the audience will look to the right," he recited to an imaginary crowd, "you will see a sad man who thinks he can take his very brief seconds of fame and rub my nose in them. My as in I, Squilliam Fancyson, the man who became one of the top richest cephalopods in the Pacific doing what said man could only dream--"
"Dude," muttered a citizen next to Squidward, "does he do that all the time?"
"Nah, only when he thinks he's got attention." Squid chewed meditatively on his bubblegum. Hmm, kelp-flavored.

Squilliam quickly realized he was being ignored. "Hello?!" He jostled himself into his rival's line of vision. "Look at me when I'm pretending to talk about you!!"
"Oh, hey there Squilliam. Long time no see." And the longer the better.
"I know you're surprised to see me so--huh?" Squilliam sputtered his insult to a halt. Being treated nonchalantly was a new and bewildering experience. "No, this is all wrong. You're supposed to get shocked at my presence and then feel gullible enough to talk yourself into doing what I want."
"Yeah yeah, the band, the restaurant – kinda gets boring after a while. Can't your coming mean something fun?"

At this gut-shot to his significance in the plot of existence, enough was enough. "Don't change the subject, Squiddy," Squilliam growled. "Think yourself lucky I haven't punched you in that big nose of yours. As far as I'm concerned, you're in such a big pile of shit that your eyes will turn red soon from all the shit stuffed into them."

A pause. "My eyes are already red."

"Good, we're halfway there."

In theatre terms, this portion of Squidward's life would have been marked "In The Town Square Later On".

"Wait…What?"
To say that Squidward was ticked off by the reason his rival was so angry would be like saying that the story of his life was just a little bit sad.
"You threatened me with beatings because I apparently, quote, 'co-created', unquote, a dance that was popular all of, oooh, five months ago? Is that what this is about?"

Squilliam did have to admit that it sounded silly coming out of him. But he had dug his grave, and now he was going to dress it, or whatever that dumb proverb was. "Isn't it enough?! I've been using the Cramp to fuel my dancing community college – what do you think it would do to my reputation if they found that I've used you to get me down with the kids?"
…Squilliam, down with the kids? "I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer."
"Oh yes, you will, Squiddy. You will if you want to make it back to your greasy spoon with less than ten broken--"
Something in Squidward's brain snapped right about then. "Look, I didn't even co-create that stupid dance, if you must know," he cried, tones of bitterness laid on like butter on a cake. "I danced it at the stupid recital in SpongeBob's body by accident. I got cramp in my left toe. I danced it, I got banned from the competition, Number 52 was the one who made it popular, now goodbye."

But Squidward wasn't getting away that easily. "Hey hey hey, come back here, I'm not through with you yet!"
"Well, I'm through with you. You're acting like a five-year-old."
"You may not have formulated the idea for The Cramp, but you still formed its creation, and you're gonna suffer for that, Squiddy."
Squid almost choked on his bubblegum in exasperation. Why did Squilliam persist in hitting that sore spot over and over? If he wasn't careful, he'd start bleeding all over the sidewalk. "You still pissed off about that?! I can't believe you, Fancyson! You're over-reacting about – what? Absolutely nothing? The Cramp was a fluke; even if I wanted to, I couldn't pull off a dance like that again!"
"I suppose you think that's a challenge, don't you?"
"FANCYSON!"
"No no, Squiddy, I know you, I know what you're like with these things. Always ready to take credit where credit's due."
"Fine – you know what? Fine. If I can sooooomehow soooomeway create another dance like that, I'll quite happily dance it with you like the dancing king I apparently am!"
"OK, deal!"
"Fine!" Squidward attempted to push past his rival, by now fed up to the teeth. Maybe a 50-year vacation will get all this salt out of my wounds.
"Yeah, go ahead, walk away and--"

Freeze.

No one really knows for sure what happened next, and how the bet was lost so quickly.

Some say Squilliam tripped him up on purpose. Hogwarts, as a famous giant put it. For how can the tripper trip backwards while tripping the trippee?

Others reckon that the anger had made them disorientated, and a small piece of coral just happened to make the wrong appearance at the wrong time. Or vice versa.

One person I know would be likely to suggest that Squidward actually fell on top of him because he thought he was tickets to a long nap. 'You really need to get yourself to a psychiatrist,' I'd likely reply.

Well. One person fell on the other, at any rate. And a very uncomfortable position was made. That much can't be denied.

Unfreeze.

"—mmmmph."

Squiddy, what the hell are you doing on my lips?
'Ow. Ow. Squilliam, will you stop squirming around down there?
Eew. Ew ew ew ew. I can taste kelp bubblegum. Gross.
'OK, now how do I go about getting off this – '
Squidward, get off of me, you big lard of –
'Maybe tugging would help. Ow. Ow. The bubblegum's making it stick.'
What if I roll over? -- Oh no, it's only making it worse.
'Squilliam, something tells me you've had one too many coral crunch bars.'
Help, can't get off him.
'Help, can't get off him.'
Ow, my nose.
"Excuse me?"
Come on, you tank of…get the hell off of me -
'Ow. If you stop thrashing around, I might have a better chance - '
OW! That was my eye, you piece of –
'Stop burning down there, pants, and do something productive – '

"Excuse me."
The two silently-bickering calamari finally became aware of their surroundings. They'd somehow transferred themselves into the middle of the street. And the teen couple watching them wasn't getting any younger.

Oh, the humiliation.

They finally managed to separate from their compromising position. This, however, didn't make the atmosphere any calmer; you could cut the tension with a knife and sell it as fish-sticks.
"Um…" Squilliam was the first to speak. "Did we disturb you, ma'am? Um, sir? Oh, is that your handbag, miss? Let me get it for--"
"OK, look," interrupted the teen boy, "we know that people in love can do crazy things, and that's very nice, but if you could just stop shoving your makeout sessions into our faces, we'd really appreciate--"
Squidward managed to gag and splutter "Hell no" simultaneously.
"Oh, we, that wasn't what it looked like. We weren't – I mean, aren't a couple, sir, far from it. We, we were… we were actually…uh… We, um, what were we doing, Squidward? – Oh, you're evidently, um, not in a state to, um… well, we, uh… I, well, we-"
"Stop sputtering all over the sidewalk, man, and leave us out of it."

Surprisingly, it was the girl who managed to cut the tension. "Oh, I think I get it. Is this that Cramp dance we've been hearing so much about?"
"Yes – I mean, no," the two voices synchronized, thankful for the hook.
"It's not the Cramp, it's, it's the, uh, it's, it's the Kissle--"
"Kisset."
"Yes, thank you, Squilliam. It's a hyphenate. Uh, yeah, everybody do the Kissle-Kisset. Hot new dance, made by --"
"Courtesy of Squilliam Fancyson's Dance Community College."
"Yeah, that. It's, uh, it's a work in progress."
"Yeah, a work, wellwegottagonowbyebye."

With that, they were gone.

The teen girl turned to her stunned partner. "How come you never Kissle-Kisset me like that, Joey?"
"Don't push me, Marianne."

They finally stopped running when they were at least five meters away from any notable civilization. (Unless the seaweed and the kelp counted as notable; walls do have ears, after all.)

Squidward's head was swimming. Some lunch break this was turning out to be. He came out to leave behind the pandemonium of bad soufflés and stalled lines, and had walked smack into a rival who didn't seem to care if he was dead or dead embarrassed. Out of the shark's teeth and into the killer whale's.

Ah well. At least it can't get any worse.
"I cannot fucking believe this."
Oops too late.

"You've not only humiliated me in front of my prospective college students, but you've managed to create a name for yourself. Again."
Squidward managed to smile (or was it grimace? He wasn't looking). "Look on the bright side, Squilliam. I lost the bet, and it took me less than 11 minutes."
"Shut it."

His head wouldn't stop spinning, no matter how hard Squid shook it. He'd just had a very rough day; it'll go away in a minute. No, wait, it was still there. What was this strange feeling plaguing his head and his stomach…
and his pants?

No.
GOD no.
He shook away the theory as fast as it came. But it kept coming back to him, teeth bared and prepared to tear apart.

No. I don't swing that way. I flirted with a customer today. My bubblegum got stuck. That was the Kissle-Kisset, not a kiss. He batted all the excuses he could at it.
But it just batted back. "Oh no he's hot." "It's big and valuable." "Suck eggs in high school." "Hommina hommina hommina."

Poor Squidward couldn't avoid it – attraction was flashing a fin. And it looked uncannily like Squilliam.

"Squilliam?" he ventured. "Do I still have to dance what I made with you?"
"Hell no. We've already humiliated ourselves once today. In fact, I'm going to avoid further public scandal. I'm going to go home and take a nice long nap."
Well, it was now or never. "Wait!"
"Squidward, what is it?"
"…Can I dance it with you anyway?"
"…What?"
"Oh, you don't have to. It's just…when we did it back there, I…I think I liked it."

If he wasn't already headed in that general direction, Squilliam would have scuttled as far away from his suddenly-very-strange companion. "What the fuck, Tentacles?! I'm not queer, contrary to what you may think."
"Um, I wasn't thinking that. I just – I wanted to –"
"Don't touch me."
In his haste, Squidward hadn't realized he was clutching Squilliam's hands. He quickly pulled away.

"Squiddy, you – go back to your Krusty Karp or whatever the heck it's called. Just – stay the hell away from me. Do whatever you want; just leave me out of it." Finally finished, Squilliam pulled away and stormed off for home, rapidly massaging his unibrow. (For once in his life, he was the one having the migraine.)

"Freak," he muttered.

But he didn't know whether he was saying it to his estranged arch-rival for making the suggestion to which he said "no", or to him and his pants for wanting so badly to say "yes".

Epilogue

Two weeks later.
Riiiiiiing. Riiiiiiing. Riii—
"122 Dank Depression Street. Squidward speaking."
"Hm, that's a new one, Squiddy – usually it's more along the lines of "unrecognized talent" or "the only culture in this backwater community"."
"Cut me the crap, Fancyson. Just tell me what you want and go."
"If you insist. Do you think it would be possible to, um, how do I put this, reserve, yeah that's good, a place in your humble abode this evening? Say, 6? 7?"
"You don't need to mark an appointment for being cruel."
"Flattered, but not what I had in mind. I was merely wondering whether or not you'd be in a dancing mood. You see, Squiddy, there's this new dance on the streets, and I wanted to see how good of a mover and shaker you are when it comes to – what was it called again? Kissle? Kisset?..."