12/2/19: Hey, guys. You are SO lucky that this got updated! xD Seriously, I hardly ever add second chapters. But there's something about this story that keeps me writing. There's so much potential for drama, tragedy, romance, plot-twists, and everything in between. Hope you guys enjoy. This is rated T for a reason, I'll say that.
Oh, boy. Tonight was gonna suck.
Squidward wasn't very fond of these "second breaks" that SpongeBob was receiving, and later in the week, he had reached his breaking point (pun intended). Of course, his lack of cooperation ultimately earned him a night with SpongeBob, and needless to say, that was going to be nothing but trouble.
"Hey, SpongeBob, could ya keep it down? I'm trying to read."
"Read what, Bikini Bottom's Hottest Men Alive?" SpongeBob teased from the kitchen. "I bet there's a page with me in there."
"Ew, no! Stop making the creepy remarks. You're making me uncomfortable," his voice trailed off. "I can report this as harassment, you know. Not that anyone would even read my complaint letter, but still," he mumbled the last part.
"You know you like it when I mess with you Squidward."
Squidward slammed down his magazine and whipped his head around towards the kitchen window. "I-I'm not into that kinda stuff, I don't swing that way. Maybe you get turned on by all this stuff, but- Stop laughing, it's NOT THAT NEP-DAMN FUNNY!"
"Oo, insecure much?"
His face turned beat red. "Neptune, you're unbearable! You get so full of yourself and then you think it's funny to go around mocking those around you."
"Sounds a lot like you, Squidward."
The octopus sighed. "Y-y'know, SpongeBob. Just stop."
"Stop what, being a better employee than you? Stop working so that I can laze around and gaze at cute men with you?" He crawled up onto the grill (it wasn't on) and peered down at the book in the boat. There was a picture of Squilliam on the cover, a rose between his teeth. A gasp escaped the sponge's lips.
"HEY!"
"Dahahaha!" the laugh echoed throughout the empty restaurant. "Oh, barnacles, that's rich. Wait'll Mr. Krabs gets a load of this."
"If you don't shut your damn mouth, you'll get a load of my fist."
Jabbing the octopus' jingle-jangly nose, he retorted snidely, "Is that a threat, Squidward?"
"No, it's a promise!" He swung hard, landing a punch right between his legs.
SpongeBob stared, wide-eyed. Squidward had hit 'em right in the groin, right smack dab in the center, where his bits would be if he had any. It was, admittedly, a nice hit, but did no damage, as the sponge's spongy body was immune to simple blows.
"Mmm, Squiddy, do it again," he teased. His eyelashes batted in such a way, giving them the illusion that they were two times longer than they actually were.
Squidward practically gagged. He had intended to inflict pain, not initiate pleasure. "You sick f-ck."
"Woah, watch it, I'm only joking."
"Y'know, you're a lot gayer when you're haughty. All that pride is getting to your head."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Resting a sincere hand on his coworker's shoulder, he said, "Look, Squid, joking aside, I really do like you."
"Oh my god, really? I never would've guessed," he dropped his jaw in mock surprise, before immediately retaining his callous tone. "You know, telling me time and time again isn't gonna change anything."
"Yeah, but… I dunno, seeing you flip through that magazine… I thought maybe I had a chance."
"Yeah, well, any chance you had you blew it the moment you opened your mouth. Soon as that shrill voice left your body I was like, 'Oh no, SpongeBob'." A chuckle escaped his lips.
SpongeBob thought about this for a second, and gasped. "W-wait, you're saying I may have had a chance way back when?"
"...Maybe, but that was a long time ago. I know how you act now. I know what it's like to spend whole weeks in your presence...It's hell."
SpongeBob frowned. "What about this personality? This me is different from the version of me you grew to hate."
"This 'version' of you" -he made air quotes with his tentacles- "is just another reason why I could never love you. No matter how much you alter yourself, you're still an idiot in my eyes." He sighed. "Get back to washing the dishes. We're done here."
"Squidward, I-"
"Shut it."
"But-"
"Go be the saint Krabs thinks you are and get back to work."
"Fine, but," he said as he lowered himself back down to the ground in front of the grill, "I don't think Mr. Krabs thinks I'm a saint."
Squidward raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he said, forcing the emotion of surprise for the second time since this conversation had started. "And what makes you think that?"
"Well," he replied, whipping out his giant dictionary, "according to this ol' book right here, a saint is, in a very general sense, a 'very virtuous, kind, or patient person'."
"Yeah, so? In a 'very general sense', that sounds a lot like you."
"Okay, sure. I am amazing, Mr. Krabs knows it well, but he… Uh..."
"What?" Squidward demanded, growing impatient.
"He s-said he thought I was just trying to impress."
"So… either you are just trying to impress, or that cheap-ass bastard is really inconsiderate."
"WOAH!" SpongeBob said, crawling up on the grill again to face Squidward. He frowned, his eyebrows fiercely slanted in opposite directions. "Don't."
"Don't what, insult your freaking idol?"
"He's not my idol."
"Then why do you kiss his ass like you do, serving him like he's some sort of king? He's Eugene Krabs, he's literally just our boss."
"I am not a kiss-ass."
"Yeah, okay, I didn't say that, smart-ass. I said why do you kiss Krabs' ass like you do, always trying to please him and shit?"
"Because, Squidward," SpongeBob said firmly, looking him right between the eyes. "I wanted this job so bad. I can't afford to let my guard down and lose it."
The octopus seethed and slammed his fist down upon the bench of the cashier boat. His nose flared, his face plastered with frustrated confusion. "SpongeBob, you have seriously got to be kidding me! Nearly FIFTEEN YEARS as fry cook and you're just now becoming concerned with the quality of your work? Mr. Krabs is always saying you're the best damn fry cook he's ever had, and this I can confirm (albeit begrudgingly) because I've been working here longer than you, a whopping seventeen years. So, please SpongeBob, what's this all about? Please help me to understand!"
SpongeBob sat criss-cross on the grill, his face buried in his palms. He shook his head, at a loss for words. Only faint sniffles were heard coming from the boy.
Two tentacles yanked his arms from his face. "Pull yourself together, SpongeBob!"
"For what?" he snapped. He looked up, his face tainted red.
"I want to understand what's going on with you. One minute you're all high and mighty, and the next you're back to your old self, crying. Are you bipolar or something?"
"No," SpongeBob scoffed, sounding offended. "I've been checked up for that before, and the doctors agreed that wasn't the case. Why are you all up in my business anyway?" He wiped a hurt tear from his eye.
"Do you honestly think you have the right to ask that? With all the crap you've put me through? All the trespassing and harassment and bullshit…"
SpongeBob lowered his head, again shaking it.
Squidward sucked a breath through his teeth, eyeing the sponge with a glazed look in his eye. He claimed to hate SpongeBob, everybody knew that, but he had recently come to the conclusion that he really only hated the kid's behaviors. Watching his coworker mewl like that (in that genuinely upset way), something like concern came over him, and he rubbed his temples. Get a grip, Squidward. He's accountable for his actions. He's his own person. He's smarter now, he can figure this out for himself.
"Look, SpongeBob," he sighed, his cynicism returning to him after it's brief vacation. "If you're gonna sit around griping and groaning, then you seriously don't need to work the night shift. Really."
The fry cook sat up, glowering at Squidward, before silently returning to his place behind the grill.
"Oh, and by the way, if you even think about telling Mr. Krabs about that magazine you saw earlier, I'll have you kicked off the night shift quicker than you know. Plankton was very specific."
*Creak!* The door of the pineapple swung open, and the glow of the moonlight lit up the interior with a pale white luminosity. A lock clicked and the door returned to its frame, the room immediately encompassed by darkness. A gravelly meow echoed from the hallway. Gary was hungry.
SpongeBob pressed his hands against his ear holes (lol, ew), his bloodshot eyes creased together. He almost wanted to fall on his knees and praise Neptune that it was Friday, but the more awake part of him reminded himself that it was now Saturday. Five in the morning on a Saturday.
The night shift had been an excruciatingly long one. I went soft, the voice screamed inside his head. I let Squidward see me weak. I let Squidward see the old me. SpongeBob had once again let the world have its way with his vulnerability, and it was eating him up inside. He was different now, he was changed. Why couldn't people accept that?
Squidward hated the old me, he pondered, settling into his inflatable living room chair. He sunk down into it, kicking at Gary who tried to nip at his toes through his socks. And yet, I become a smarter, harder-working person, and that still isn't-
"Gary, I swear to god!" He leapt up from his seat.
Gary shrunk back.
"I fed you plenty before I left, AND I poured two other bowls to serve as lunch and dinner. If you're still hungry, that's your problem. I fed you."
Gary hissed, and snapped at his big toe.
"What the heck...?" SpongeBob groaned, facepalming. "I-I'm sorry, okay. I haven't gotten a good amount of sleep in days. I keep forgetting what time it is. Follow me, I'll get you breakfast. Why are you up this early anyway?"
"Meow, m-meow meow."
"Concerned? About… me?" He was tempted to awww like a mother would at a baby passing by in a stroller, but he bit his tongue. "I don't know why the heck you would be. Just get in the kitchen, quit whining."
The tired sponge reached for the handle of one of the kitchen cabinets and opened it, his fingers dancing around in blind search for a can of snail food. He pulled out a can that had already been opened and poured the small remainder of its contents into his pet snail's bowl.
"Eat up, Gary. I'm going to bed."
He ignored the protesting meows from his snail telling him that the chunks of meat in the can had not been enough, and turned on his heal to leave.
"Meow meow."
"No, Gary, I'm not going to have breakfast." He ignored the growling in his stomach. "I'm a sponge, in case you've forgotten. I'll just filter feed."
More meows were hurled in his direction, the noise pounding in his head like a drum.
"Just STOP IT!" SpongeBob screamed, turning around to face the source of his ever-worsening headache. "Leave me the hell alone. I can't deal with this right now!" Tears threatened to spill from his eyes.
He spun around and ran upstairs, his footsteps echoing throughout the house, leaving Gary to whimper alone.
SpongeBob sat in the middle of his bedroom floor, clothed in nothing but his underpants, his upper body drooped over and his legs crossed. He wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, but something was keeping him from it. His body was tired, but his emotions were wide awake. There was something mildly appealing about pitying himself on the floor in a position of meditation. (He's a weirdo.) He struggled to keep his head up, his arms weakly pressing against the floor. He breathed a sharply through his nose, cursing himself and his situation.
His pores opened and closed profusely, straining to pull in the surrounding water. He groaned. This shouldn't be a difficult process. What was he forgetting? Oh, yeah, he remembered. The thing with my mouth. He opened his mouth wide and sucked in. He sounded like a broken vacuum or an old person struggling to breathe with the way he was attempting to filter feed. "Oooo, wha-wha-wha," came the sounds from his mouth. (Like how he sounded in "I Had An Accident", if you'll recall.)
He stopped.
I feel like an idiot, he thought. Well, he did look like one, with his mouth agape and that cross-eyed look on his face. But the face was quickly replaced with one of… ecstasy? No, that wasn't quite right. One of strained pleasure, however, might have been the appropriate description. Oh, this is interesting.
SpongeBob's face began to heat up, his eyes widening. His pores were still expanding and contracting, but now a small bit of slime (for lack of a better word) was oozing from the crevices. He touched his finger to one of the holes on the left side of his face, coiling back in mild disgust at his discovery. "Neptune, not this again," the words came tumbling out of his mouth.
What had initially started as a feeding process, his body was slowly beginning to change into an act of self-pleasure. He hadn't had much time to himself in a while, he felt, thus he hadn't really… touched himself in quite some time. And the thoughts of teasing Squidward began to surface as vivid memories in his mind.
Squidward had a magazine, he thought, fingering one of the pores on his hip. It was a magazine with men in it. Squilliam was on the cover. His breath hitched. Oh gosh, what if he was getting off in the boat while I was cleaning? He rubbed harder, this time attending to two pores. He even said he might have liked me at one point. He rubbed harder still. What if he thinks of me doing this sometimes? The goo coated his middle and index finger, and began thrusting them into the holes. What if he thinks of me when he gets off? His eyes creased shut, and he bit his lip.
But wait.
SpongeBob sucked in a breath, his stomach dropping a bit. Squidward said he doesn't like the new me. He didn't like the old me either. Slime pooled around the pores left unattended, begging him for the attention that they craved, but his hand fell limp at his side. Squidward was looking at the picture of Squillium, most likely. He wouldn't have been thinking of me. He drew his legs up to his chest. And… didn't he say something about Plankton? I-I can't even feel comfortable around him now. A sick feeling came upon him, and he felt it in both his stomach and his throat.
He just sat there, face red, completely unfinished. Unfortunately, the build-up was still there. His pores were still contracting rapidly, causing the sponge a blend of physical pain and pleasure that he now just wished would go away.
A sudden wave of emotions came upon him, and tears flooded from his eyes. Curses fell from his trembling lips, his whole body spasming in a mix of wracking sobs and failed orgasm. He folded himself into a fetal position, moaning.
Look at me, he lamented. Now I'm the derisory little scum.
Allow me two address two things:
1. Wow, um... this story got super gay. And it will only get more gay from here!
2. In a more recent season of SpongeBob ("Goodbye, Krabby Patty", I think) Squidward states that he has had seventeen years of experience behind the cash register. In another recent season, Mr. Krabs and Mrs. Puff claim to have been dating for sixteen years, and we know that SpongeBob is the one who got them hooked up. This means that SpongeBob has been at the Krusty Krab for at least fifteen years. I put in a year's gap from what should be considered the canon amount of years he's been at the Krusty Krab (around sixteen) and said at least FIFTEEN in my fanfic in order to put emphasis on the fact that Squidward has worked at the Krusty Krab longer. I hope this makes sense.
So, I want to know your thoughts. Do you feel bad for SpongeBob, or do you think the pain he's experiencing is what he deserves? What would you like to see go down in the next chapter? Usually I'm not super interactive with my audiences, but in this story, a heck of a lot can happen. :)