Disclaimer: I can hope, wish and dream that I own SpongeBob, but it's just wishful thinking. Stephen Hilenburg is the owner.

Title: Vanilla

The befuddling sight of his struggles halted her tongue's descent into the ice cream. Him was the sponge. The sponge was her friend. Roughly for about four years the squirrel had engaged in a rather stimulating and satisfying friendship with this particular sponge. She knew quite much about him and vice versa. He, the sponge was not like most people and the squirrel had come to realise that fact in the thirtieth day of their friendship. Him being abnormal was okay, it made him entertaining as she had thought. To her, it meant that she'd get many surprises from him, despite some of them being incredibly befuddling like now.

Instead of sighing pitifully as most would, she breathed out a laugh and continued her tongue's descent down into her frozen dessert. It would melt otherwise.

Hearing a laugh which obviously came from his friend, the sponge looks up at the squirrel, stiffening up at the sight before him. He blinks once and then conceivably twice. What was once a glance at her, turned into a gawk. If the perceptive squirrel felt scrutinised about his gawking then she wasn't showing it. To the sponge, the knitting kit paled in comparison to the squirrel, so it soundlessly fell on grass unimportantly, uninterestingly.

His blue eyes closely examined in the struggle she was in. They vigilantly drinked in the way her trained tongue rounded the cone like a base, eliminating any defiant drips that ran down the ice cream cone. His eyes observed the routine she placed herself in, by the way she seemed to work her way up to smooth the surface of the ice cream and construct it into a purposeful mound. For some reason, the sponge found it captivating how the ice cream gradually began to disappear by the way her tongue persistently licked and licked and licked. Pondering what flavour it was, his mind answered, 'Vanilla.' the said flavour happened to be his favourite. His favourite ice cream of all time, absent-mindedly, he licks his own lips. Regardless of what their relationship is, the sponge can't help the need to help her out. Perhaps this explains why he promptly raised out of his seat and purposely walked over to her side.

Hearing a squeaky sound of footstep which obviously came from her friend, the squirrel looks up at the sponge, titling her head up at the sight before her. His eyes seemed hypnotised almost in a trance.

"You okay, Sp-"

His name dies down in her throat. With the sponge's yellow index finger and thumb positioned naturally nearly causally on her chin, she can only look at him to wonder what the heck is going on.

When she glimpsed up at him, he wasn't looking at her any more. His eyes were on her face, lips she corrected in her mind. Neither thinks or speaks with the strangle lull in the air. His thumb moves itself advances and with a mind of its own, lightly traces her bottom lip, sliding deliberately to wipe away the vanilla that coats them. Her cheeks warm at a high temperature.

The squirrel grip on her cone slackens slightly, as the sponge's ascends up to trace her top lip, still with his thumb. Her mind is barely working at the moment because his actions are so out of character, incredibly incongruous. She's always managed to predict his motives despite him being a spontaneous type of guy. Yet, she still can declare his intentions seemingly being gentle, his movements gentle and his touch too and calming, possibly sensual. She wonders if his tenderness towards her is the felon that's controlling her breath to hitch and her heart to beat dangerously against her ribcage. Shaking away such irrational thoughts, she reasons that it's the circumstance she's in now. An intimate circumstance with a friend. Her entertaining friend.

There's a sense of loss and confusion within her when his thumb withdraws from her lips. She doesn't question it, she listens to him speak, surprised to hear his voice.

"You were so preoccupied with your ice cream," he whispers. "that you forgot all about your unprotected lips."

If she was befuddled before, she's utterly befuddled now. She's stares at him trying to analyse what is going or what went through his mind when he did what he did, but instead she witnesses him gawking at his own thumb in amazement. 'Does he wanna...he is thinking of...' she stops her thought. A thought provoking thought that if the sponge did not require a bubble helmet in her tree dome then maybe he'd have disposed of the vanilla flavouring on his thumb in another way, other than rub it off.

The squirrel gulps when his gawking turns to her. His blue orbs penetrating her is not something he's done before. He rarely stated intensely focused on one scene, so why her? He not looking at her lips any more. She feels so vulnerable and she can't explain way, but she gawks back at him trying to find out what is wrong with her friend. She likes surprises from him but his action today was more of a shock.

His childish watch, strapped around his wrist, chimes out a ridiculous song which manages to break out whatever trance, or spell he was in. His eyes comically widen to the size of saucers.

"Jumping Jellyfish!" he exclaims in worry. "Sandy, I-I...I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, Honest to Neptune. I'm not sure why I did what I did."

"I-It's okay, no need to throw yerself in a conniption'." she stutters slightly. She clears her throat, because she is not one to stutter. She's been in more embarrassing situations than this. "We all lose our head in tumble weeds sometimes."

Her reassurance lifts him up, nevertheless he bows his head in shame.

"No, what I did was not right. It was too, too..." he trails off, not really sure of what adjective can be used. The squirrel can certainty think of a few, but she rather not voice them out. "All I know was that I just had to help you, it looks like that flavour even, I mean you've even got a little over..."

Very behindhand, her face flushes. To herself, she wonders if he'll re-enact his sensual action again. She wonders to herself if she'll stop him him before from re-enacting his actions. Most importantly, she wonders to herself what it possibly mean, if she doesn't put a stop from him re-enacting his sensual action. All this wondering makes her not notice that the sticky sweetness of the ice cream running down her cone, melting as warm as her cheeks.

Whatever he could say or was about to do again is too late, as his watch profoundly plays again music of urgency.

"Barnacles! I'm two minutes late for Gary's dance recital, I've gotta go."

She sees him run half way down to the exit, frantically shouting and waving a goodbye, somehow she calls out a farewell too, but her mouth asks a question her mind hasn't approved of yet.

"Hey, SpongeBob!" she yells. "What is ya favourite ice cream?"

Even though he replies in a rush, she still gets it. Deeply bemused the squirrel raises her own brown-furred index finger towards her lips, but she stops, the reminiscence coming back and restarting. Her eye close in memory. Seconds later they open. It dawns on her that his effect, his thumb; his touch; his gentle touch, was irrevocably titillating and strangely much more evocative than her own finger could ever be. Perhaps that's why she's made no attempt to notice the sticky sweetness of the ice cream running down her cone, because...well because, it wouldn't be the same would it?

A small smile stretches across her face. She doesn't question it. "Vanilla," she murmurs, "his favourite ice cream." she shakes her head, and chuckles quietly. "I ain't never thought he'd like the unsurprising flavour."

A/N: So...how was this chapter? Vanilla factually is SpongeBob SquarePants favourite ice cream flavour-I researched it. I don't know Sandy's unfortunately, but I know my is a cross tie between cookies and cream & Vanilla of course.

Criticism and advice helps me learn from mistake and improve. If you've got a personal response to give me, I don't mind that too!