Chapter 2
Her blue lips, so perfect yet so vile in the words they spewed. Squidward had to keep his knees from buckling beneath him, so he focused on what insult to throw next. That was, until he realized where he'd seen those lovely lips before.
If I could just have a moment of your time. Realization must have dawned on his face.
"Yeah, remember me, asshole?" She narrowed her almond-shaped, green eyes at him. Something was different about her; her face, the way it pulled up into high peaks on either side of her head, where small fin-like pieces of skin met her hairline and disappeared within the swirls of teal. Then he felt a familiarity start to creep into the back of his mind.
"You're..." He began and took in another look of her entire body, noticing the length of her arms and how skinny they were. "...a fuckin squid."
That earned him a surprisingly hard fist to the face and it wasn't the squid who did it... It was Spongebob. The blow knocked him flat on his back. Squidward looked up at the gasping yellow sponge, stunned by what his own fist had done. Spongebob shook his hand out and looked down at his friend reproachfully.
"I'm sorry, Squidward, but that was a terrible thing to say to a lady and such foul language needs punching."
Squidward stood up and brushed himself off for the second time that day, except this time he felt a black eye forming. "Well! I hadn't realized you were so poetic!" He yelled down at one of the only creatures left in his life that gave two shits about him.
"It isn't about that, Squidward!" Spongebob yelled back, taking a step toward the octopus. "I always try to stick up for you and you... All you do is bully everyone else!"
Rubbing the left side of his face, Squidward pushed past the little sponge again and headed for the house. "That's right. I do." He grumbled back. "I'm a bully and I'm glad! Why don't you take a hint and just stop sticking up for me? Stay out of the life that you have no use in!" Then he went inside and slammed the door behind him. Another frame slid off the wall and shattered on the living room floor. Squidward slumped down to his butt and sat there against the wood.
"Fleh," he stuck his tongue out at the wall. "Take that you little, yellow fuck. Runaway and cry, MOVE away, hate me forever, never speak to me again and DO US BOTH A FAVOR!" Squidward's chest heaved with each lung full of oxygen he took in. All he did was say "squid" and "fuckin". Where's the harm in that? Especially if you did it in that order... He suddenly felt a tug deep inside his stomach. Oh, he wasn't even going to go there. Squidward shook his head vigorously. She was horrific anyway. Especially since Spongebob was involved. Any friend of Spongebob's was a lunatic. Still...
He couldn't believe he'd cast away such a beautiful creature from his doorstep. Probably for the best, since she turned out to be a raving bitch. What was even more unbelievable was that Spongebob had actually HIT him. That was reason enough to never speak to the little twerp again. Well, praise Neptune and goodbye Spongebob. He'd never again have to deal with him and that was fine by the octopus.
Squidward peered out the window and was surprised to see no one was out there at all. Good. No noise. Maybe he could finally go to bed. It was the middle of the day, but who cares? He didn't have to be at work until tomorrow morn-
"Ah shit!" he slapped his forehead and then winced at the tenderness of the flesh. "Work. I forgot about work. I have to warn Spongebob."
Just when he thought the nightmares of his life would end...
Well, I'll try talking to him after I get some sleep, he thought honestly. There's plenty of time before work begins tomorrow...
x-x-x
But there wasn't plenty of time. He would have known this if he'd checked his shirt pocket before climbing into bed that afternoon. For, when he awoke and realized it was missing-
"NOOOOO!"
A scream was heard from next door as Spongebob was just setting out his pet snail's dinner. He looked over at his guest, sitting on the couch. She rolled her eyes.
"Somebody probably showed him a mirror," she shrugged her bony shoulders.
"I'm gonna go check on him," Spongebob said quickly and put on his coat. "Wait here, Octavia and I'll be right back."
"Spongebob, wait!" Said the pretty, blue squid. "You just clocked that guy a few hours ago. Don't go 'check on him'. He doesn't deserve it!"
"I can't not go," he replied seriously, opening the door. "He's my friend."
"What kind of a friend treats other people that way?" she asked, getting up from the couch. "I couldn't even get a full sentence out before he slammed the door in my face!"
"I'll be right back," Spongebob repeated and then left. Octavia sat back down and stared at the door.
"But he doesn't care about you," she said to the empty room.
x-x-x
Spongebob walked into Squidward's house without knocking, because friends had special privileges of doing so sometimes. The first thing he saw was the upturned couch in the living room and his friend's round head bobbing around behind it.
"W-where could I have put it?!" He was saying to himself, flipping cushions frantically across the room. One almost hit Spongebob and he had to duck to miss getting pelted. "I'm dead! I'm so dead! I can't even hold onto a STU-PID-KEY!"
Spongebob stepped forward into the room a little more, taking caution to the fact that Squidward was probably going to throttle him in the emotional state he was in. "Um... Squidward?" He said quietly.
"Not now, Spongebob," he replied back instantly without looking up. "Can't you see I'm busy?" He then ran right past the obvious sponge in the room, like he really didn't see him at all. His yellow eyes were scanning every inch of every wall, every floor tile, and yet he still didn't seem to see him.
"Squidward, are you looking for a key?" Spongebob asked naively, watching the other one pace quickly from room to room.
"I said not NOW!" Squidward whipped around, finally laying true eyes on the sponge. The first thing he saw was the golden key resting in his outstretched hand.
"Is this what you're looking for?" The yellow one asked innocently.
Squidward stared from the key, back up to Spongebob's face, then back at the key again. "Where..." He said, grabbing for it.
It was pulled behind the sponge's back. "I found it in your driveway," Spongebob said defensively, keeping it from the octopus's reach.
"Spongebob, give it back."
"Why do you have it?" He asked instantly. "Mr. Krabs never lets anyone touch this key. Why did you take it?"
"I don't like your TONE," Squidward snapped back, reaching both arms around the boy and grabbing for the key again.
Spongebob wriggled away from him and ran behind the upturned couch. "No! I can't believe you stole it!"
"SpongeBOB!" Squidward yelled incredulously. "What the hell is wrong with you?! Like I would steal the damn key to the DAMN Krusty Ass Krab!"
"Don't talk about the Krusty Krab like that!" Spongebob fumed back. His face was getting red.
"I'm having an argument with a child," he mumbled to himself. "You know, you've got a lot of nerve. You already HIT me today and now you're adding insult to injury! I DIDN'T STEAL THE FUCKING KEY!" And then he launched himself over the couch and tackled the key-holder.
"AHHHH HELP! SQUIDWARD'S TRYING TO KILL ME!"
Squidward clamped a tentacle over his mouth. "Would you be quiet!" He hissed, pulling the gold from the sponge's tight fist. "They'll think I really am!" Once the key was retrieved, Squidward pushed himself up off of Spongebob and stood over him.
Spongebob looked up at him pitifully.
"Ah come on," he sighed. "You know I hate that place. I wouldn't steal the KEY to it... Mr. Krabs gave it to me."
Spongebob's face turned to confusion. "Gave it to you?" He questioned, holding his hand out to be helped up. "Why, did he make a copy or something?"
"No, at least I'm pretty sure he didn't," said Squidward, looking down at the tiny, yellow hand. "Mr. Krabs just left it with me for a while."
When Squidward didn't make a move to take his hand, Spongebob dropped it back to his side. "Is he going somewhere?" The boy asked, his voice just a bit crestfallen.
"Yeah, he just needed to take a vacation," Squidward answered coolly and lifted the couch back to its original position. Then he began gathering the cushions from around the room. He picked one up and smacked the side of it with his tentacle, knocking the dust off. Then he turned to place it back where it belonged and almost ran into Spongebob.
"What are you hiding, Squidward?"
"Aiiee!" The octopus jumped a foot in the air. "What's with everyone sneaking up on me today?!" Spongebob stared hard into his eyes, looking capable of hitting him again, maybe intent on blackening his other eye. This made him instinctively reach a tentacle up and touch the tender spot.
Spongebob's face softened at this motion and he looked away from his friend. "I'm sorry I hit you."
Squidward rolled his eyes. "Oh puh-leez. You caught me off guard, you little prick." He walked to the couch and placed the cushion on it. He stood there for a moment with his back to his guest and swallowed down the hard lump forming in his throat. Who knew if Mr. Krabs was ever even coming back? He made it sound like the possibility was slim to none... Still, Spongebob needed to know that tomorrow morning they were entering into the restaurant, not as colleagues, but as employer and employee. "Spongebob, I need to tell you something..." He began, clenching his fists atop the back of the couch. "But I want you to know that I had nothing to do with this decision." Squidward turned around. "Mr. Krabs made me the- huh!"
The first thing that hit him was the cool breeze of the night, drifting through the open front door. The second was that Spongebob had also left out that door, before he'd even had a chance to explain himself.
The octopus walked forward and out of his house. The lights were still on in the pineapple to his left, but that just made it easier to see as the little guy made his way past the squid in his living room without another word. Squidward couldn't see where he'd gone. The girl stood and said something to him and a moment later Spongebob came back into view. He talked animatedly with his hands, waving them around a bit, but his face was drawn down, sad, unfaltering. Squidward leaned his forehead on the doorframe. The girl began to talk and Spongebob walked out of sight again, ignoring her.
"Well, that was kind of rude..." He said to himself.
"Yeah it was."
"AAIIIEEE!" Squidward jumped two feet this time and was snuck up on, once again. He clutched at his rapidly beating heart and turned to see a spacesuit standing just behind him. "SANDY!" He gasped at the squirrel. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I was just about to go and ask that squid the same thing," she replied in a thick, Texan accent. "I didn't know Spongebob had a 'permanent' guest."
Squidward looked from the now dark pineapple, back to the flustered squirrel. "Uhh.. Honestly, I have no idea why she's even over there." Except for the fact that he'd sent the squid over there. "Spongebob's probably just helping her out. Don't get your fur in a bunch."
But Sandy looked as if she didn't hear him. The squirrel took one more frustrated look at the pineapple house and walked away, back into the darkness where she came. Squidward watched her go and then shivered. Man, everyone was so damn emotional lately. It was creepy. He, too, took one more long glance at the house and then went inside his own. Everyone was getting a little too crazy for his taste.
x-x-x
Maybe it was because of that days events, but Squidward's dreams that night were much more intense than they usually were. Well, actually, he didn't usually dream at all, but that night he did.
He didn't even know where he was. It was dark, but he could hear echoey floorboards creak under his feet each time he took a step. The smell of wet seaweed and crystallized salt met his senses. It was cool, yet humid and sticky. Then he tripped over something and went sprawling across the wood flooring. He turned to look and was met face-to-face with a box of patty buns. The whole room came into view then. He was in the storeroom. Boxes and crates and old mops lined the walls. It was still dark, though. The only light was an overglow that seemed to come from one corner of the room and that was it. It was dim and certain further corners were completely black and he couldn't see into them at all. It made him uneasy.
Squidward tried to stand up to move to the exit (and get the hell out of there!), but his leg was stuck on something. He looked down and saw a pair of tentacles wrapped tightly around one of his. They stretched all the way across the room and into one of the dark corners. He couldn't see what was at the other end of them and he didn't want to find out either. Panic set in, as usual, and Squidward freaked the fuck out.
"Help!" He called to anyone who might hear him in his dream or even outside of it. "Help, something- something's got m-!"
"Something?" He heard a voice say, but it came from all over the room, maybe even inside his head. It was livid, frightened and offended all at the same time. "I'm not a something. I'm a someone!"
"Leave me alone!" Squidward yelled back at it cowardly.
"Why don't you want me around?" Someone else spoke. Squidward looked toward the exit door and saw Spongebob standing there. His chest had a gaping, bloody hole in it, where light poured through from the other side. The light was beckoning him to the side of freedom.
"Of course I want you around," Squidward reached a hand out. "But this thing has got me right now. Help me, Spongebob. Help me."
Spongebob looked past him, questioningly. "There's nothing there, Squidinator," he smiled happily. "Don't be a little prick!"
Squidward felt a knot form in his stomach. "Spongebob!" He yelled, but his voice trailed off and then he couldn't speak at all. And all the while, Spongebob was smiling on and on, because what else could he do? That's what he'd say right now. What else can I do, but smile? One of my best friends hates me and calls me a little prick, so I smile and call him one back. Am I as bad as you, Squidward? He could hear his little voice.
"Am I just as bad as you?"
No. Squidward thought. No, you will never be anything that I am.
"Why did you let me break?" Spongebob put his little hands to his face and sobbed. "Why did you let me fall and break? Mr. Krabs warned you."
The hole in his chest began to grow and widen and with it came a blinding light. Squidward shielded his eyes from it, squeezing them shut. Before he knew it, his head was spinning and he closed his eyes tighter. When he opened them again he was awake, but he thought he might still be dreaming. His eyes did not open upon the canopy of his bed, no not even to the ceiling of some other part of his house. His eyes now looked upon the bright, golden sky of dawn. How he ended up outside, he didn't have a clue. But he'd have to figure it out later, because his first order of business of the day was to get down to the Krusty Krab and try to do a job he never ever thought would be burdened on him.
x-x-x
a/n: thanks for reading!