Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What do you think of these pants? The girls at the counter say they complement my silhouette, but I wanted your opinion.” SpongeBob turned around to show off his denim clad legs. Squidward’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he looked the sponge up and down – the pants didn’t complement the sponge’s silhouette so much as completely changed it. It looked like SpongeBob had cut the legs of a veteran ballet dancer and stuck them to his square little body, making him about twice his usual height. It looked bizarre.

“Is this why you followed me here?” Squidward had felt uneasy the whole way to the mall, like he was being watched. Finally, once he was in the charcuterie aisle of the fancy food store, the sponge had jumped out of a jar of grainy mustard, scaring the octopus half to death. Before he knew it Squidward had been dragged into this cheap clothes outlet by his annoying neighbor. “You want me to help you pick a pair of pants!?”

SpongeBob nodded vigorously.

“Well, you look ridiculous. I think I prefer seeing your noodle legs.”

“Oh, thank Neptune, these are so uncomfortable!” SpongeBob relaxed back into his usual square shape, which made the pants pool on the ground and burst around his wide hips and no waist. “Whoops!” He smiled sheepishly and folded the ripped pants neatly before hiding them under a pile of t-shirts on sale. Squidward didn’t call him out on it. He would’ve done the same thing. SpongeBob was in his underwear now, which was a sight so usual to Squidward he didn’t even react to it. The woman who had just walked into the store with her small daughter did walk out again immediately, though, fins covering her young child’s eyes.

“Maybe I should go with a suit instead? A nice smoking jacket… oh, but I don’t wanna smoke.”

“You can wear a smoking jacket without smoking. Why are you getting new clothes at all? I assumed you had an endless supply of square pants.”

“I do,” SpongeBob answered, opening his face like a fridge door, and retrieving a new pair from inside and stepping into the cuboid pants and shirt with practiced ease. It was faster and easier than going back into the changing rooms and retrieving the pants he had left in there. “I just wanted to wear something special. For the concert.”

Ah yes, the concert. Being subscribed to the Kelpy G newsletter, Squidward had been one of the first people to know that his favorite musician was on tour again, with a stop planned at Kelp City, only a bus ride away from Bikini Bottom. The concerts happened every few years and Squidward never missed a single one. When he was about to buy his usual ticket for himself, he had gotten two instead, on a whim. It had just felt like the right thing to do. The next time he saw SpongeBob at work, he asked if he wanted to join him.

At the time it had felt like an out-of-body experience, like he wasn’t in charge of what he was doing or saying. Only later did his brain catch up to his actions, and he realized he had basically asked SpongeBob out on a date. He knew why that had happened, and his therapist had agreed. Any time Squidward went out to do something by himself nowadays he would wonder what it would be like if SpongeBob was there with him. Probably loud and annoying, he would think while doing his leg stretches on the ballet barre, and then, I wish SpongeBob was here.

Squidward knew the early stages of being smitten, and it was pretty similar to the symptoms of going insane. Wanting SpongeBob near him was a clear sign of either madness, or attraction. Probably both. When Squidward had intended to buy just one ticket his subconscious had told him, But what if you could hold hands while listening to the song Holding Hands, like all those sickeningly lovestruck couples you always see at the concerts? The ones that make you gag? Squidward had gagged then and the ticket vendor had asked him if he was alright. “Of course not,” Squidward’s voice had a manic edge to it. “I have a crush on a walking water filter!” The fish had looked very scared at that point, so Squidward had plonked the money on the counter and left the ticket booth with his newly acquired tickets crumpled in his fist.

Squidward looked SpongeBob up and down. “Well, I think it is quite special to wear brown shorts with a red tie and gym socks. People will definitely notice you.”

“Yeah?” SpongeBob looked excited at the prospect. He had no ear for sarcasm, even after all these years of knowing Squidward.

“Yeah. Look, it’s an outdoor concert, I’m not going to change into anything, either. Just come as you are. Now can I go back to shopping? Maybe you remember that you dragged me out of the condiment aisle, and I still need to get my grey poupon.”

“Oh no, Squidward. You should go see a doctor if it’s grey!” SpongeBob giggled at his own joke.

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

Squidward picked up the light sponge and threw him into a pile of on-sale clothes. He was already walking away when SpongeBob emerged once more and waved at him, now wearing one of the flowery summer dresses that he fell into. “Bye, Squidward, see you at hooome! Oh, that’s a nice dress, actually…” SpongeBob got distracted looking for the price tag.

The octopus shook his head as he walked away. That’s the guy I’m smitten with. I don’t need mustard; I need to buy a bottle of sane juice.

“That’s a rare one, look, Squidward!”

“Amazing, SpongeBob,” Squidward retorted flatly. SpongeBob was playing his portable game, something about collecting different types of jellyfish and training them to fight other jellyfish? Squidward didn’t really know. All he was concerned with was that it occupied SpongeBob nicely during long bus rides, which this was going to be. The sponge usually got bored very easily and would jump up and down the aisles in no time, embarrassing Squidward when people realized that the sponge was associated with him. “Use your earphones, Sponge.” When SpongeBob was focused on his game and had his earphones in, he was in another world. Squidward sighed happily at the silence.

Squidward looked around the bus as it started moving; most of these people were on their way to the concert, he could tell. The bus was filled to the brim with octopuses in tie dye shirts, opal necklaces and open-tentacled sandals. Your typical Kelpy G fare and very different from his sponge friend. He was going to stick out like a sore thumb, and Squidward with him. Suddenly his whole plan felt silly. Why did he think this was a good idea? This wasn’t romantic, it was awkward. Trying to calm himself down, he closed his eyes; he didn’t want to look at all those cephalopods anymore. He dozed off, rocked to sleep by the movements of the bus, occasionally awoken by SpongeBob, who had to show him every time he won a badge or caught a special jellyfish.

Knowing the route by hearts, Squidward didn’t have to open his eyes to know that they were at the second to last stop, when someone sat down next to him. He was slightly irritated by that, but also counted himself lucky that he and SpongeBob’d had the back of the bus for themselves for so long. He was just going to keep his eyes shut and pretend he was asleep. Just one more stop and they were going to head out.

“We’ve met before, right?” Squidward turned his head to the left and opened his eyes to look at the woman who had joined them at the back of the bus. His hearts were in his stomach before his brain even registered who he was looking at. She was a gorgeous octopus lady and her dark purple skin was instantly recognizable; you didn’t see a cephalopod sporting that skin tone every day. Yeah, they’ve met before. Squidward remembered hiding from her last year.

“Erm yeah,” he stuttered. What was her name again? He had no clue. “Hi! Er. Squ- Squida- Squilla… Squeliza-” She just looked at him, arms crossed and with an amused expression on her face, like she wanted to see were this was going. She was not going to help him out one bit, was she?

“It’s all good, dude” she eventually took pity on him. “We never exchanged names.” She leaned in closer. Now that her arms were uncrossed Squidward noticed the perky nipples under her dress. “We exchanged some other things, though.”

Yep, he remembered her. Years ago he met her at another concert tailgate. He’d been in a pretty manic mood at the time, a single male octopus fresh out of a bad relationship (again). She had noticed his fraught energy, which she’d called a “non-groovy vibe”, and had offered to share her seaweed with him. He had liked her smooth skin, and her colorful dress, and her no bra, so he agreed. First they’d shared by passing it back and forth, then she had the idea to blow the smoke from her mouth into his. They’d fooled around behind a van on the outskirts of the event. When they were done Squidward got in line to get them some lemonade, an awkward attempt to thank her for getting to touch her boobs and letting him finish inside, even though that had been a terrible idea. He’d lost her somewhere in the commotion before he had a chance to hand her the drink. He hadn’t talked to her since.

Last year at another event, he’d recognized her from across the room; her hair different, but her skin just as smooth and purple. He had promptly ducked into the crowd again and for the rest of the night he’d feared that he would bump into her again, or that she’d sit down next to him during the concert; neither happened, but his nerves didn’t settle that night until he was home with the door closed and locked behind him. He was afraid she’d be mad at him, would think he had ditched her on purpose that night. She didn’t look mad now, though.

“We did… exchange things, didn’t we?” Smoke, kisses, fluids. “Sorry I was missing in action,” he couldn’t help but bring it up, he felt bad about it still. “Like some deadbeat,” he joked.

“That’s alright,” she said. “You can start paying alimony now that I’ve found you. Can you believe the little squirt is already school age?”

Squidward’s face turned white. His soul tried to escape his body and ascend to the heavens, but he grabbed it the second before it could escape through the bus ceiling and pulled it back into his body through his mouth, chocking as he swallowed. “Wh- what?” he asked between coughs.

“Mother of pearl, I was joking!” the octopus lady cackled. “Man, your face! I thought you were going to ink yourself!”

He knew there was a reason he had avoided her. To be fair, his humor was also dry and deadpan, like with most octopuses. She had just managed to tap deep into his subconscious and target his biggest fear. His alarm bells had rung so loudly that it had drowned out his sarcasm detector.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she was still laughing but sounded apologetic, too. “Be fair, you said the word deadbeat first! Here, a peace offering.” She dug through her patchwork purse and retrieved a small, hand-rolled cigarette. She still liked to share her seaweed then. “For later, obviously. When you’re done dying.”

He was still clearing his throat, so he took the blunt and lifted his hand and his eyebrows at her to say “Thanks!”, then put it in his backpack.

“My name is Calamartha, by the way. Not Squeesquoo or whatever you guessed.”

Squidward nodded and outstretched his hand. A proper introduction was years overdue. “Squid-”

“WHOOOO! Look at this!” Squidward suddenly had a gaming console in his face. “That’s a royal blue King Jellyfish! And I only had to use one super jellyfish net to get him!” The jellyfish looked like every other one SpongeBob had shown him so far. “Isn’t that amazing? I’m going to call him-” He stopped talking when he saw Calamartha looking at him. The sponge hadn’t noticed her until now. He looked down at her hand in Squidward’s hand, frozen in the middle of a greeting. Squidward noticed the sponge’s gaze and snatched his hand back like he had touched a hot stove.

SpongeBob smiled, joyful as ever. “Hi, I’m SpongeBob!” He didn’t offer his hand to her, though. Instead, he entangled it with Squidward’s.

“Hi, SpongeBob. Er…” Calamartha awkwardly adjusted her hair with her tentacle, now that it was hanging in the air from the abandoned handshake. At that moment, the bus stopped.

“Kelp City Concert Hall. This is the end of the line. Please exit the vehicle,” the bus driver announced.

“Alright,” Calamartha got up quickly. “See you around, dudes.” She nodded at the two “SpongeBob. Squid.”

“It’s Squidward…” the octopus said, but she was already gone, lost in the commotion.

“That was quite rude,” SpongeBob said. “To disappear like that.” It was unusual how judgmental he sounded. Since when did the sponge have any bile in him?

“It’s a thing she does,” Squidward said without thinking. “Vanishing in crowds.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me doing that!” SpongeBob squeezed his tentacle. Squidward looked at their entangled hands and frowned; he had wanted to hold hands, in fact it had been one of his plans for tonight. But not like this. Not out of spite, not because SpongeBob wanted to hold Squidward’s hand better than other people. Is SpongeBob jealous? Just because I talked to someone else? Squidward was getting seriously annoyed. He doesn’t trust me. I bought him a kelping ticket to come here, and he thinks I’m going to run off with some lady?

“I know, SpongeBob. You’re stuck to me like a barnacle to a ship’s hull.” Squidward wrestled his tentacle out of SpongeBob’s grip. “But that doesn’t mean I have to guide you by the hand like you’re a toddler. Let’s go.”

Squidward picked up his backpack and marched past the other concert goers, decidedly not looking at SpongeBob. He had looked too hurt for Squidward to dare stare into those big, round, watery eyes one second longer. A few more steps out of the bus, and Squidward’s sudden anger had vanished as fast as it had appeared. He stopped dead in his tracks and sighed, defeated.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’ll go get you an ice cream co-” when the octopus turned around, there was only the crowd rushing past him, with no sponge in sight.

Fish paste.

Chapter Text

Squidward ran past the crowd back to the bus; maybe SpongeBob was still inside. He had to get him before the bus left.

But when he made it back inside the bus was empty. “This is the last stop, you should get out.” The bus driver talked to him in an unusually soft tone. Squidward must’ve looked pretty pathetic, that he made a bus driver feel bad for him.

He was ushered back out and the bus drove off. Squidward looked around him. Hundreds of people walked from the bus stop or drove in their cars down the path to meet up with the thousands of people inside the arena. SpongeBob was in there somewhere, presumably.

“Ah, fish paste!” Squidward started running through the crowd, shoving people with no concern who he moved out of the way and with what body part, trying to find a flash of yellow in this sea of blue and green and lilac octopuses.

Squidward was in a panic, but not for SpongeBob’s safety. The sponge was an adult and this was a concert, not a drug trafficking ring. Though there always were a lot of substances going around at the tailgates.

No, the person Squidward was concerned about was Squidward. The last thing he had said to SpongeBob was mean and bitter, and the octopus had to know which of two things happened: did SpongeBob get lost in the crowd by mistake, or did he leave on purpose because Squidward acted like a seahorse’s behind? The longer he didn’t know, the more the question would fester in his head. Which would lead to an aneurysm and sudden death, naturally.

“SpongeBob!” he yelled, and it felt like everybody, except SpongeBob, had heard him and was now looking at him with either surprise or annoyance. “SpongeBob…” he whispered, and then gave up, because now nobody heard it and he looked like a lunatic. For a moment he saw a glimpse of yellow sponge from the corner of his eyes. When he turned his head though, it was just an octopus in a tie-dye shirt and sunglasses sponging down the side of his van with a regular cleaning sponge.

“Okay, think, Squidward…” He closed his eyes and held his tentacles to his temples. “Where would I go if I was a sponge?”

Squidward looked around; there was a gaggle of octopuses around a gramophone, listening to old school jazz. Nope, the sponge would not enjoy that. Further away, he saw a lemonade stand. SpongeBob would stand in line for him if Squidward asked, but the line was too long for the sponge, he would get distracted and walk away. Then there were various “shops”, which were just private people not-so-legally selling shirts and bootleg CD’s and necklaces and crystals – and other, more illegal things – out of their vans. The more Squidward looked, the more he wanted to join in; he wanted to listen to jazz, and get fresh, ice cold lemonade, and yeah, maybe even buy a mumbo-jumbo mood crystal for his coffee table. But no, the sponge had to throw a spatula into the cogs and ruin all of Squidward’s plans.

“Sir, please!” Squidward heard a nearby vendor utter in a desperate voice. The octopus knew that tone all too well. Any time he had a particularly dumb customer stand in front of him, he would be driven to sound the same way. “You’re holding up the line.” Yep, sure sounded like his job at the Krusty Krab.

“Alright, I’ll just have a Krabby Patty to go, then.”

“Sir, for the last time, I don’t know what that is!”

Squidward’s eyes widened and he turned around to look where the voices were coming from. That sounded a bit too much like work. There aren’t many people who would order a Krabby Patty at a tailgate in Kelp City.

“Will this cover it?”

“No, a used band-aid and what looks like the cap of a toothpaste tube will not cover it.”

“It was a mayonnaise tube, actually.”

Squidward spotted the food cart the voices were coming from and ran past the line towards the front. There was only one person who would order a Krabby Patty at a tailgate and try to pay with trash.

“Patrick! What are you doing here?” He realized he hadn’t seen Patrick in days.

Patrick was not at all surprised that Squidward was there, too incensed about the poor vendor’s failure to appease him. “What I’m trying to do here, Squidward, is to procure nourishment from this here food establishment, which is proving to be quite impossible.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Squidward wanted to get Patrick away from the food as fast as possible so he could talk to him. “He’ll have the regular chowder. Here.” Squidward threw down the money as the tired looking octopus behind the counter handed him a bowl. “Keep the change.”

“Oh boy!” Patrick stuck his “money” back in his belly button and grabbed the bowl from Squidward. He was mollified and Squidward ushered him to the nearest free seat. “Who eats chowder at a concert?” Patrick wondered, but gulped the whole thing down in one go, anyway.

“Octopuses do.” But he didn’t pay for Patrick’s food to chat about cephalopod cuisine. “Have you seen SpongeBob?”

“No. Is he here? He should come backstage with me.” Patrick licked the bowl clean with a giant tongue and the least appetizing sounds Squidward wished he didn’t hear every single day at his job.

“Backstage!? You have backstage passes!?” At that moment, for the first time since he exited the bus, Squidward’s mind was SpongeBob-free.

“Uh, no. But my buddy is a roadie for that Kelpy Rogers guy.” Squidward’s eye twitched when Patrick said the name wrong, but he didn’t interrupt. “He always lets me in through the back entrance, to get to the buffet.”

Of course. Patrick was only in it for the food. He wondered about this buddy of Patrick’s, though. Squidward assumed that when he wasn’t looking at Patrick, the sea star was probably asleep under his rock. He wondered how often he had been wrong about that and Patrick had walked away to go on his own adventures. He knew so many people from so many walks of life. Like he had this whole life outside of hanging out with SpongeBob and annoying the carp out of Squidward.

“You should come with me. It’s fun!”

Squidward’s hearts skipped a bit. A shot to go backstage? A possible opportunity to meet the Great Kelpy himself? And when Big G would hear a perfect rendition of his famous clarinet solo from the song Two Lovers, he would invite him on stage, and the crowd would cheer for him. Oh boy, he couldn’t wait to see SpongeBob’s face when that happened.

SpongeBob.

“I… can’t. I have to find SpongeBob first.”

Patrick shrugged. “Okay. I’m going now. Say hi to SpongeBob for me!”

“W-wait. Can we join you when I’ve found him?” But the sea star was already gone. That’s the thanks he got for buying him chowder. He even had to bring the empty bowl back to the food cart himself.

He threaded his tentacles through the loops of his backpack and kept searching for the missing sponge. It was fine. Totally fine. He wasn’t going to meet Kelpy G anyway. And even if he did, he’d be too nervous to play the clarinet in front of him. If anything, he was glad he didn’t get to go backstage. It would’ve been an embarrassing mess, like every other moment in his life. And he was glad SpongeBob wasn’t there to see it.

“Where the fish is he!?” Squidward yelled, drawing the eyes of all the octopuses around him. When he noticed he had yelled out loud, not just in his head, he smiled meekly and ducked away, everyone’s eyes following him.

Where was that sponge? Would he find him? Squidward had the tickets, he couldn’t go to his seat without the octopus. What if he had to ride home on the bus alone? What if the next day, SpongeBob was still not home? What if SpongeBob was gone forever?

Squidward could feel his breath go shallow. Oh no, he thought. He felt like there was a sea elephant standing on his chest. It wasn’t the first time Squidward had felt that way. Usually when it happened, he was at home, alone, and could ride it out until the panic subsided. He didn’t have that luxury right now.

He quickly dove behind a van and curled himself up into a tiny ball, screwing his eyes shut, trying to even out his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In…

At home he would have gotten himself a glass of water by now. He opened his backpack and searched for his water bottle, but it was hard to find anything in the dark. His tentacle searched blindly and fell on something else that could help him calm down. He grabbed it and pulled it out of the backpack.

That’s right. He had haphazardly thrown the joint into the backpack earlier when woman on the bus had given it to him. It might help. It did years earlier, when he and the same woman had relations behind a van not dissimilar to the one he was hiding behind now. He already felt calmer just looking at the seaweed, crinkling the paper in his hand.

He needed a light.

Taking a few deep breaths and coming back out from his hiding spot, he quickly spotted the group of octopuses sitting on the ground listening to jazz records. They could help him for sure.

“Everything smooth, my cats?” Squidward asked into the group. His voice was deep and melodic, like it always was when he talked to fellow jazz heads.

“Everything’s Jake, man,” one of the men, a mellow fellow with a ponytail, volunteered.

“Good to hear. You guys wanna trade a light for some loco?” He held up the joint.

“Nice! Come, sit down. We got a light.”

Squidward sat down and someone already had lit the blunt in his hand. These were good people; they probably had their own seaweed but were happy to have him. He took a deep inhale, then passed it to the next person. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the music.

It had been ages since he last smoked regularly. Not just seaweed, but regular smokes, too! He had started stress smoking when he was in college and turned into a chimney by the time he and Squilliam became official boyfriends. After they broke it off (after he left, Squidward thought), he only got worse, and Mister Krabs’ disapproval did nothing to stop him from taking frequent smoke breaks, either.

He didn’t even consider stopping when the sponge moved in next to him. It wasn’t the plan. But he saw his neighbor walk out of his house in the morning, taking a deep breath with his whole body, pores and all – and immediately start coughing. SpongeBob was just that, a sponge, and he filtered everything in the surrounding water through his body, including Squidward’s smoke. Even when he smoked in his own home, soon after he could hear the sponge coughing outside. The octopus wasn’t a monster, so he stopped smoking at home entirely, only smoking at work. Then, the sponge got a job at the Krusty Krab. One day Squidward found himself sneaking a cigarette for the first time in weeks, when SpongeBob and Patrick were gone for the weekend, and realized he didn’t even want it anymore.

The blunt had come around again, wet with the spittle of other people. Squidward didn’t care; the first drag had made him too relaxed to care, and this second one made him melt into the ground. He passed it back into the round. He looked at the woman to his right, the one who had handed him the blunt just now. Squidward noted her formidable height, and her huge breasts.

As a young man Squidward had known quite a few lads who would be straight as a surfboard until they had a few drinks in them. Squidward was the opposite; two drags of seaweed and he wanted to bury his face in boobs. The female octopus was about twice as tall as Squidward and three times as large, and he wanted to drown in her.

“Oh, are you looking at my necklace?” she said, pointing at the pendant between her breasts.

“That’s exactly what I’m looking at.” Squidward was grateful for the excuse, he had no idea if his brain was capable of fabricating one at that moment. She started talking about what kind of stone the pendant was made from and what healing properties it had, but he didn’t really listen. He wasn’t trying to start a conversation; he hadn’t planned on attempting anything with this woman regarding his sudden attraction to her. He was a man on a mission. He didn’t remember what the mission was, but it probably wasn’t to seduce a giantess and see how many sucker marks they could leave on each other’s bodies. Actually, that sounded like a worthy challenge.

Her dress kept changing colors. Is that a thing? Squidward thought. Or am I just incredibly high?  His tentacles had now fully melted into the ground and he couldn’t lift them, so he kept watching the changing colors and patterns on her dress.

“My boyfriend gave it to me,” she was talking about the necklace still. The word “boyfriend” triggered a memory in Squidward. The mission! He jumped up suddenly, immediately regretting it as he fell back down, and got up again, more slowly this time. “Have you seen a sponge?”

The woman with the ever changing dress stared at him, then, “What, like, for doing dishes?”

Squidward’s foggy brain tried to make sense of that question. “I guess he does do the dishes.” He shook his head. That’s not what she was asking. “No, a guy sponge. A man that is a sponge? A Spongeboy. Yellow, square?” He indicated the shape with his tentacles. “Very cute laugh, I mean, super annoying laugh?”

She shook her head. He was sure he looked like a madman to her and the rest of the group. Or was he paranoid? It was a common side effect of seaweed.

Someone was talking into his left ear, and Squidward was alarmed that it sounded like they were right next to his face. When he turned around, though, the fellow octopus was a normal, casual distance away. “What did you say?” Squidward had heard nothing but trombone sounds when the guy had talked.

“Your turn, man!” The guy tried to give him the lit blunt, which was now almost gone. He looked at it for a long time; he knew there was something he was supposed to do with it, but he couldn’t remember. The lady to his right and the other people were laughing, but it sounded like an army of frogs croaking.

“Are you okay, my dude?” The guy took another drag from the seaweed, since Squidward took such a long time and wouldn’t take it. That stuff is way stronger than I remember, Squidward thought.

“Excuse me,” Squidward answered. “I’m inconsolably high.” The frogs croaked loudly at that.

Okay, enough, Squidward thought. He stood up and walked away without saying another single word to the people he shared his time and his drugs with, vanishing into the crowd like the Abominable Snow Crab behind a snow bank. Luckily he still had his backpack on; had he taken it off, he would’ve lost it for sure.

He was stumbling around now, forgetting every few minutes where he was and what he was doing. The people around him didn’t pay much attention to his aimless wandering; he was far from the only person who was walking around with red eyes and a parched throat.

Squidward walked away backwards from a suspiciously innocent looking child holding a lollipop (probably a recording device in there, Squidward thought) when he bumped butt-first into something. The something let out a gasp and Squidward realized that the something was a person. “What the fish? I almost spilled my drink!” He turned around to apologize or yell his defense, it depended on the size of the other person which one.

It was the woman from the bus. The gorgeous, dark purple lady.

“Hi! Er…” Fish sticks, Squidward thought. “Sq-Squaroli-Squali-Squidney?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Her voice was flat and nasal, like the demeanor of a certain cashier, but she looked amused. She raised her glass to an imaginary toast and brought the drink she was holding to her smirking lips. His eyes wandered down; still no bra.

Then, she put her hand on his cheek and lifted his head back up to meet her eyes, with such familiarity, like they weren’t strangers at all. “Man, I was gonna ask what’s wrong with you, but your eyes say it all! You look as baked as oven-fried calamari.”

What a morbid image. But Squidward didn’t care, the tentacle on his cheek felt too warm and inviting for him to think about anything else. He leaned into it. “I’m sorry. I just… I know you told me your name. But then you ran away, and a million things have been happening since then.”

Now it was her turn to look embarrassed. She removed her hand from his face and held the glass in both tentacles, rolling it back and forth between her suckers, fidgeting. “Ah, yeah. When your little friend started yelling about jellyfish, I kind of felt like I’d been intruding on… something. Especially when he looked at me. So I left quickly.”

“Looked at you?”

“Yeah, you know. Stared at me, like he was a sea bear and I was trying to steal his lunch.”

“SpongeBob did?” Squidward couldn’t comprehend what he was hearing. He’d never seen such an expression on SpongeBob’s face. He wasn’t even sure what that would look like.

“I didn’t know you were with someone, is all. Or I wouldn’t have talked to you the way I did.” She was back to being her relaxed self, taking another sip.

“I’m not with him,” Squidward said without thinking. It was an automatic response.

“Oh. You’re not?” She sounded confused.

That gave Squidward pause. Apparently to a stranger, which this woman was despite the face-holding, he and SpongeBob looked like they were… together. Huh.

He looked down at himself, looking for signs. Something that would indicate that he liked the sponge. Could everybody just see inside his head? They all knew, didn’t they? That he had slept with SpongeBob. That he had gotten cold tentacles afterward and had avoided the poor guy for weeks. That he’d broken down in front of the sponge and told him about his embarrassing sleeping-around problems. The fact he’d told his Mama that they were boyfriends when he couldn’t even say it to the sponge, just to test out how it would feel (like a bolder being lifted from his three hearts, it turns out). That he took SpongeBob to this concert in hopes of getting to hold his squeaky little sponge hand.

They all knew and they were laughing at him behind his back.

“What the cuttlefish… are you crying?” she asked.

Squidward sniffed and put his tentacles over his eyes. They came off wet. He really was crying.

“I’m on drugs,” he said by way of explanation. He said it more to himself than to her, though, to remind himself why he was being so paranoid. Nobody could really see inside his head and see all his feelings for the sponge, even if it felt like they could. “You gave me some strong stuff.”

“Aw, man…” she looked around, like she was trying to find a way out of this conversation, but too polite to just leave. Maybe she felt a little bit responsible, for giving him the seaweed. “Let’s sit down over there.” She turned around and handed her drink to another woman, “I’ll be back.” That was the first time Squidward noticed that someone else had been there as well, listening to the whole conversation. His weed-stupid mind tried to get a look at her chest. The purple lady turned him around before he could get a look at the other woman, just seeing a blur of green. “This way, yeah? Squid?”

Oh, fantastic, she remembered his name. Or what she was able to hear of it before SpongeBob had so rudely cut him off. SpongeBob…

“SpongeBob!” Now Squidward was bawling.

“Dude, chill!” She ushered him to a rock and had him sit down, away from all the other concert goers, and unceremoniously took his backpack, looking through it. “Ah, there you go…” she found the bottle of water he had trouble finding earlier and handed it to Squidward. “Stay hydrated.”

Squidward held onto the bottle for dear life and stuck his face in it to drown out the involuntary sniffs and hiccups. He was so embarrassed about the whole thing. And it was all that blasted sponge’s fault.

“He tricked me into liking him!”

“Tricked you? What did he do?” She sounded alarmed.

Squidward mumbled to himself more than he answered her question. “Always comes over all cute and friendly and asks me how I’m doing. Kisses my face and tells me he loves me, like some annoying moron. Leans against me while we’re watching my soaps and makes my hearts flutter.”

Now she looked less alarmed and more peeved. “That sounds like he’s a nice guy. What’s the problem?”

“That’s what he wants you to think! But clearly he’s annoying and I hate him!”

“Okay, dude, whatever!” She raised her hands in defeat. She looked as annoyed with him as Squidward with SpongeBob.

“I’m not usually like this,” Squidward said in lieu of an apology, still holding the bottle tightly, taking another sip.

“I figured. There’s clearly something going on with you and this guy. Your aura is in a state of fluctuation.” She waved her tentacles in Squidward’s direction and all around him, to indicate where his aura was.

“I’m sure it is.” He didn’t believe in stuff like auras, but he was certain he looked rough.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just going from one state into another. It’s messy for a while, but you’ll feel better when it has settled back down.” Squidward took another sip of water and the fog of anxiety and seaweed in his brain lifted slowly. Maybe she was right. Something inside him was undoubtedly changing, and it sure felt messy. He liked her assurance that he would feel better soon.

“Maybe your little friend can help? The one you hate so much.” She looked around again.

Squidward could feel the prickle of tears return, but he had calmed down enough to hold them back. “I lost him in the crowd.”

“Ah, yeah. Sounds like you.” Another little jab, about how he had lost her at the lemonade stand all those years ago. That’s fair, he thought. “We’ll find him. He’s a yellow guy, he’s basically his own highlighter pen. Come on.”

She threw his backpack against his chest and picked him up by the hand. Before he knew it they were back at the front of the chowder cart, in front of a crowd of irate people who didn’t appreciate that they cut in line.

“You again?” the vendor sounded annoyed, which was entirely unfair. It had been Patrick who had caused him grief, not Squidward.

“Oh, you know each other?” the woman said, looking between the vendor and Squidward. “Then you won’t mind if we climb on the truck.” What?, Squidward thought. Everybody was trying to embarrass him in front of this food cart today.

“What?” The vendor said, too. “No way, Calamartha.” Oh, right! That was her name! It became clear to Squidward that they knew each other. The vendor was the same rare shade of dark purple as her, and they bickered like siblings.

“I think that’s only fair since you wouldn’t give me a lift. I had to take the bus here!” – “You can ride on the food truck when you start helping out on the food truck.” – “We’re going to walk up now, okay? It’s in the name of love!”

She dragged a dumbstruck Squidward by the hand to the back of the truck, where the ladder to the roof was located. “Well, if it’s in the name of looove,” he heard the man’s voice yell after them in a sarcastically sweet tone. He didn’t stop them, though.

“He’s mad at me because a friend of mine tried to order a Krabby Patty from him earlier,” Squidward explained as he followed her up the ladder, looking up and getting an eyeful of female butt. He lowered his head again and walked up blindly.

“Oh, Patrick?” she asked as she made it to the roof, giving Squidward a helping hand.

“You know Patrick?” He readjusted his lopsided backpack and dusted off his shirt.

“Who doesn’t know Patrick?” So the sea star really was leading a double life.

She peered down at the crowd, so Squidward followed suit. Now he could really see that he hadn’t even made a dent in the possible places SpongeBob could be; there were thousands of people around, and many more tents, vans, food carts, and group of jazz heads. How was he supposed to fiend his Sponge?

“There he is.” Calamartha pointed at another food truck on the other side of the tailgate. He squinted his eyes and there, in the distance, was a tiny spec of yellow standing in line.

“OH MY NEPTUNE YOU’RE RIGHT!” He jumped with joy that even he didn’t see welling up inside him. The sudden movement made the whole truck wobble, and he heard the voice of the vendor yell up at them. He lost his balance and almost fell, if Calamartha hadn’t caught him at the last second. She was holding him by the waist in both her tentacle arms, and they looked at each other for a while. Like in “Tides That Bind”, Squidward pondered, thinking of the covers of his adult romance novels, where Lord Inkswell would hold Miss Squidsley the same way. Only she was the lord, and he was the shy daughter of a servant who got swept off her feet.

“You’re very un-mellow for a cephalopod,” she remarked. It was true; big displays of joy were not something most tentacled creatures grew up with – even at a Kelpy G concert!

“I am?” Squidward was still smiling, only half listening to her.

“Yeah. It’s… different.” She said that last word with praise, not derision. “Are you sure you’re an octopus?”

“Less and less sure every clam-picking day of my life,” Squidward said. “Thanks, Calamartha!” He kissed her cheek and he jumped off the car, startling the people on the ground. He sprinted into the direction of SpongeBob. Squidward faintly heard her yell after him: “Say hi to Patrick from me!”

Chapter Text

The first thing Squidward saw when he arrived was the back of SpongeBob’s head as he was talking to an angry vendor. “Typical,” Squidward snorted. Today was embarrass-Squidward-in-front-of-fellow-octopuses Day. He ran over to save his friend from the food stand owner’s ire, the suckers on bottoms of his feet making rapid squelching noises on the ocean floor as he sprinted towards them.

“He’ll have the chowder.” Squidward slammed down the money and made ready to walk away with his now retrieved friend. He needed to find out if he had to yell at him for running off or apologize for losing him in the crowd.

“Are you serious!?” What Squidward didn’t expect was the octopus behind the counter starting to yell. He was too stunned to answer right away. “This kelp-for-brains has been standing in front of my shop for ages making no shrimping sense, and then you come over and order chowder? At a lemonade stand?”

Squidward looked up at the sign. Oh. “Sorry, I-”

“Oooh, I’d like some lemonade! Squidward, can we have lemonade? I want the black one.” SpongeBob sounded excited, but he looked strangely tired. Why did he look tired?

“What? Oh, Er, two black lemonades, please.” Squidward was stumped. He didn’t think their conversation right after finding each other again was going to be about lemonade.

That made the guy in the van even angrier. “Merciful Neptune! You’ve been babbling about black lemonade for ages, we don’t have it. I don’t even know what it is.”

Squidward’s eye grew huge. He suddenly realized what SpongeBob was talking about, and he was horrified. The sponge had actually walked up to an octopus and asked to drink his ink.

“Just- just give us two of whatever. What you recommend.” He pushed the money he had dumped on the counter closer to the vendor.

He got an eyeroll for that. “As many holes in your head as that sponge has in his body…” the guy was mumbling to himself as he took the money and turned around to get the glasses. “Bottom feeders,” he scoffed.

“What was that?” Squidward had heard everything.

“Nothing.”

Squidward glared at the vendor as he handed over the lemonade. He took one glass in each hand, and threw both of them in the man's face.

The vendor was incensed, face dripping. “You can’t be serious!?” Squidward answered, "Keep the change," and turned around. Then, Squidward took SpongeBob by the hand and he stomped off like an angry soccer mom at the mall with her son. The people in line stared at them, one of them holding up a phone; probably to record and upload the incident on Fishbook.

“No lemonade?” SpongeBob followed the octopus, there was no way he couldn’t, but his voice was small and sad.

“No,” and he kept dragging SpongeBob away. Away from the angry vendor that had called his friend names, and away from the crowd that had watched the whole thing unfold. It did not escape Squidward’s notice that people were staring at the sponge and whispering to each other when they watched; the octopus didn’t like that one bit. Finally, they made it to a corner were nobody knew what had just happened a few stands away. There were some benefits to huge crowds after all. He took the sponge in his hands and looked down at him, taking a breath to start speaking.

SpongeBob spoke first. “You’ve got bad posture for a dancer.” What the kelp?

“SpongeBob!? Did you leave your manners on the bus?” The sponge could be unknowingly annoying, but he was always polite. “Anyway, if my posture is lacking it’s because I have to always look down at your short tuchis.”

The sponge just giggled, presumably at the word tuchis. His eyes were still half-lidded. “But Squidward, I’m politer than a high noon cowboy on a low tide seahorse.” And he made no sense.

“Sponge… are you alright?”

In lieu of an answer, SpongeBob stuck a finger in Squidward’s mating pouch. “Beebeep!”

Squidward jumped several feet into the air and landed on his face, garnering attention from the crowd again. Right, time to move once more. He dragged SpongeBob into a quiet corner to yell at him, quietly. “Whoa, Sponge! You can’t do that in public.”

For the first time since he’d found him, he really looked into SpongeBob’s eyes. Or he tried to, but they kept wandering. First his pupils would shift away from his gaze, then the eyes themselves started moving around SpongeBob’s body, until they fell off completely. The sponge didn’t even seem to care, but Squidward sure was horrified by the disembodied eyeballs, so he screwed them back in place like lightbulbs, going “Ew, ew, ew” with every turn.

The sponge was a weird guy, but Squidward did not like this creepy brand of weird. His pupils were huge and unfocused and even though he stood upright he didn’t respond to any poking or prodding.

“What are you on?” It sounded like an insult, but he suspected SpongeBob really was on something. How did that happen? SpongeBob didn’t seem the type. He’d only ever seen him binge on food. Oh. “Sponge? Did you eat something? Drink something?”

At the question SpongeBob turned back on; the last sentence brought him back to life. “Oh, Squidward, I’d love something to drink, I’m so thirsty. Can we have black lemonade?”

A woman walking past them started to pick up the pace away from them, blushing when she heard the words and realized what the sponge was saying. Squidward was too concerned with his friend to move them yet again. SpongeBob wanted to move, though. “Let’s go back to the lemonade stand!” He tugged Squidward’s hand.

“You don’t want lemonade from that guy. Come here.” He still had a little bit to drink in his water bottle, he fished ot out of his backpack and handed it to SpongeBob. “Stay hydrated.”

“Thank you so much!” The sponge sat down and started suckling on the bottle like a baby. He was also crying, like Squidward had just reunited him with his long-lost twin brother or something. SpongeBob sat on the ground gulping down water and looking at all the passing cephalopods.

He jumped up with determination, dropping the bottle on the ground. “There are a lot of legs to go around,” SpongeBob said, giggling. “Leggy leggy leggy legs.” He thought for a second. “Maybe I can blend in.”

SpongeBob started straining in the middle of the field, like he had to go visit the little squid’s room. Now people stopped in their tracks to stare at the two of them, not just glancing at their weirdness in passing. “Sponge, what are you doing?” Squidward looked around and awkwardly smiled at the onlookers.

With two pops, SpongeBob doubled his leg quantity. This was followed by a succession of pops that added to his legginess. The sponge looked down at himself, then at Squidward’s legs. “Ten legs, right?” He mumbled to himself, trying to count Squidward’s legs, losing where he was, and starting over.

Squidward looked down at his four legs and wondered if he should be offended. SpongeBob imitated him all the time and Squidward didn’t think twice about it; but now he was in front of all these other octopuses.

He was more curious than offended, though. “Can you grow hair, too?” He probably could, adding another thing SpongeBob would be better at than Squidward.

SpongeBob strained again until big, bushy, black eyebrows sprouted out of his forehead. Squidward smiled. “That’s not what I had in mind.” He started giggling, maybe it was a second wave of seaweed giddiness, now that his adrenaline rush had died down. The sponge giggled with him.

Tensions had calmed, so he tried to ask again. “SpongeBob. Look at me. No, not that part of me, look at my face.” He took SpongeBob’s hand and put it on his own cheek, which made the sponge look up at him. “Yes, good. Listen to me now. You have to tell me if you took something that a stranger offered you, like a drink, or a brownie, or a-”

“OH MY GOD SQUIDWARD, LOOK!” his yellow partner suddenly screamed. All his hair and extra legs fell out at the shock of whatever he was seeing, landing in a pile on the ground. Squidward was very aware of all the other concert goers staring at them. And now they all know my name because SpongeBob yelled it.

“What is it!?”, Squidward whispered through his teeth. The sponge really had to keep it down.

SpongeBob heard the whispering and imitated Squidward. There must be a reason why they were talking in hushed voices, after all. “It’s us.” He pointed across the fair ground towards a black boat. “But we look like boyfriends.”

Squidward looked at the RV for a while – another stand full of shiny beads and trinkets – then realized what SpongeBob was pointing at. There was an ornate mirror displayed in the little pop-up shop, and he could see SpongeBob’s and his reflection in it. We do look like boyfriends, Squidward thought, looking at his hand on SpongeBob’s hand.

“Oh no! Other SpongeBob is pointing at us. What’s he saying? Squidward, I’m scared.”

Yeah, the sponge had absolutely taken something he shouldn’t have. “Think, SpongeBob. You must remember something!” Squidward was holding SpongeBob upright with both arms now, and the sponge thought so hard that he honked Squidward’s nose only five times and only giggled occasionally. But then SpongeBob gasped, recognition in his eyes. “Yes, SpongeBob, what was it? Tell me.”

“Those people have cotton candy!” the sponge exclaimed. “I didn’t eat anything… can we go eat something? I’m sooooo hungry!” Squidward sighed and shook his head. His interrogation wasn’t going anywhere. Then SpongeBob asked, “Can we go to the bubble tent? I think they had food there.”

Bubble tent. “What did you do in there? Did you blow bubbles?” If SpongeBob had been near bubblers that would confirm Squidward’s fear that SpongeBob was on something his body couldn’t tolerate. The boy loved to blow regular bubbles, but Squidward suspected he was too innocent to know that some bubbles weren’t made out of soap.

The sponge shook his head vigorously, until his whole face was scrambled, mouth over eyes next to eyebrows. He shook his head again to get his features back into their normal position. Squidward helped him rearrange his eyebrows, so they wouldn’t look permanently cocked. “I could hardly breathe in there from all the mist! I left after ten seconds.”

The acrid stench of bubble mist was loosely hanging in the water all around them, so he didn’t notice it came directly from SpongeBob, too. People at the bubble tent were blowing bubbles inside their pipes until they burst, creating a mist in the bowl that they would inhale. But some of the mist and smell made it out, hence the tent, in an attempt to at least contain some of it. Squidward was an adult, so unlike the teenagers who hung around outside of the tent trying to catch a few whiffs any time someone entered or exited, he knew that inhaling second-hand mist did nothing. But… SpongeBob wasn’t an octopus. He’d seen the sponge absorb all kinds of trash into his body. Just like when Squidward used to smoke, the sponge must’ve filtered enough water through his pores for the mist to have an effect on him.

“Your hair is so pretty,” SpongeBob said while massaging Squidward’s bald head. Yep. That sponge was on bubbles.

“How did you even get in the tent?” He doubted the octopuses inside were thrilled to let a sponge in. He wasn’t a child, but he looked kind of ageless, to an octopus, anyway, and it wasn’t like he had a driver’s license to flash at them.

“I showed them my bubble blowing license!” And sure enough, SpongeBob had one in his hand. Squidward wanted to laugh; the idea that SpongeBob had shown this to the people at the door, and they let him in because they thought he was licensed in taking hallucinogens, like some hippy drug guru.

“Come on, let’s get you something to eat.” SpongeBob was slightly disappointed when the cotton candy was made out of strands of cheese - octopus cuisine was so strange - but ultimately deemed it the best thing he had ever had. That was the drugs talking, but Squidward was happy. He’d already had to deal with Patrick calling fair chowder weird, and he didn’t appreciate people criticizing cephalopod culinary tradition.

The noises SpongeBob made when Squidward finally handed him a cold glass of lemonade – made from lemons! With no hint of black – were positively lewd. At that point in the evening Squidward didn’t even care about the stares anymore, too happy to have found his friend, who didn’t seem to be mad at him at all, and was an amusing sight to behold when he was on bubbles.

He was so relaxed that when SpongeBob tried to prod his mating pouch again, he just waved it off laughing and told him, “Maybe later.”

“Get up, Sponge. It’s time for the concert.” People had already started to file in, and they had front row seats to get to.

They spent quite a while crowded together waiting to get in, finally flashing the tickets before they made it from the crowded line to the other side, the bowl of the auditorium stretching out in front of them. Squidward knew the Kelp City Concert Hall well. He’d seen many shows there, not just Kelpy. He went there with his mom when once when he was a kid. He had his first kiss in first row. This was a special place to him, and he brought a special person with him to share it. He looked at SpongeBob, who looked less than thrilled. Water was visibly rushing in and out of his pores in time with his breath.

“Wow, that’s, heh, that’s a lot of people.” The sponge looked nervous. “What is it, like, a billion?”

That was the second time SpongeBob failed to count correctly, after the leg incident. Usually, SpongeBob was great at counting. “About thirty thousand, actually.”

“Oh. Oh, okay.” SpongeBob pushed himself hard against Squidward and they walked down the aisle to get to the front row. Squidward was starting to get worried. Usually the sponge thrived in crowds.

As they walked down Squidward spotted a dark purple spec among the seats. It was Calamartha, but she couldn’t see him. She was too far away, and busy making out with her friend. The green one Squidward had only known as a blur. Huh.

Well, at least love was in the air for someone. As they made it to their seats, SpongeBob sat next to him stiff as a board. When Squidward prodded him to ask if he was okay, he fell out of his seat like a plank of wood and the octopus had to set him back up in his chair.

Squidward petted his friend’s head, trying to calm the stupid sponge who had so stupidly inhaled stupid bubbles. That calmed him down, his stiff edges softening a little. Squidward sighed. Maybe it would all be okay.

Two bars into the first song of the warm-up band, SpongeBob was moaning. Not in an excited way, but like an animal in distress. He instinctively put his head between his knees and started shaking.

Nope, this was not going to work.

Squidward knew better than anybody what SpongeBob was going through. Merciful Neptune, he spent a lot of his teenage years with his head between his knees, trying to catch his panicked breath. They had to get out of here, fast. Kelpy be damned.

“Come on, Sponge.” He picked up his light friend, feeling his body tense with his touch. “We’re getting you outta here.” He threw him over his shoulder and didn’t even acknowledge the murmurs of the other concert goers around them anymore.

When he walked up to the exit, Calamartha was one of the people who saw him. The music too loud for her to talk, she mouthed in his direction, ‘You okay?’ He pointed at the gasping sponge in his arms, like, ‘What do you think?’ She made a ‘That poor dude’ face and waved goodbye. Squidward turned away and kept walking. Maybe one day he could ask Patrick for her number. They could meet up as friends. Let her see SpongeBob when he wasn’t yelling about video games or having a panic attack.

Squidward winced as he walked past the security guard and out the door; they just announced that Kelpy was about to come on. He didn’t turn around, though.

By the time they made it back into the now mostly empty tailgate, he could hear the sponge sob. His shoulder was wet were SpongeBob’s face touched him. He sat his friend down in front of him; he looked pitiful, his eyes red and wet.

After a while SpongeBob had regained his breath. “I’m so sorry, Squidward. We should go back in now.” His voice was still shakey.

“Be honest with me, Sponge. Can you handle going back in there, right now?”

The sponge tilted his head down at the ocean floor and closed his eyes. His head shook no. “I’m sorry…” It made Squidward think of his youth, and all the times he apologized to Mama when he’d had a meltdown.

“Hey, SpongeBob. Listen to me carefully now. You have nothing to apologize for. These things happen, and it’s normal, and sometimes they happen at a bad time. But that’s not your fault, and I will never blame you for it. Okay?”

The sponge sniffed up his tears and nodded.

“You’re the nicest octopus in the sea, Squidward.”

That warmed Squidward’s hearts. “Let’s go home, okay?”

They were holding hands as they made their way back to the bus stop. It would be a while before the next one arrived, so they walked slowly.

“You were right, Squidward.”

“I know. But what are we talking about?”

“You said some octopodes can be really mean about other sea creatures.”

Octopodes? Squidward hadn’t heard that word in a while. It was an old and rare way of saying “octopuses”, plural, and it was used almost exclusively by cephalopods who thought they were better than other aquatic lifeforms. Squidward’s Mama always said “There’s a reason that word rhymes with ‘Don’t say that, please’!”

“Don’t say that, please,” it was a well-worn response for Squidward, it came out without even thinking about it. “Who said that word to you, anyway?” He absolutely hated the idea that one of the people at this tailgate had used that word while talking to SpongeBob. He held his friend a little bit closer.

“Mmmmh.” The sponge was humming with no melody in his voice, but sounded very content. He didn’t answer Squidward’s question, but that was just as well. What would he have done if the sponge had answered? Defend his honor like a knight in shining white armor? It was over and done with. They waited for the bus together.

The ride home was quiet. The bus was almost empty; most people wouldn’t be taking the bus from Kelp City to Bikini Bottom until after the concert was over, naturally. But Squidward hadn’t wanted to stay another minute.

It was strange; the more time Squidward spent among his own kind, the more he felt like an alien. Like those other cephalopods were watching his every move to determine in what way he was out of the ordinary. The sponges and sea stars and crabs in his life never questioned whether he behaved like a proper octopus.

He looked down at the sponge leaning against him, snoring, a small trail of drool trickling down his face. SpongeBob was out cold. Squidward took the sponge’s tiny hand in his and hummed the first few bars of the song Holding Hands. After a while he felt the sponge squeeze his tentacle and hum along. He clearly didn’t know the song, just going by what he heard from Squidward. But turtles and tortoises, the boy was trying.

“I’m sorry,” SpongeBob uttered suddenly. “For getting too close.” It took Squidward a few moments to understand what the sponge was talking about. He was apologizing for the incident on the bus.

“Oh, Sponge, no! You were fine. I mean, you were your usual clingy self, but I should be used to that by now.” And yet, it still sent Squidward into a panic every now and again, when the sponge showed him so much affection. “I’m the one who brought you there, and then ran off.” Now that he said it out loud, he really felt the guilt. Man, he sucked.

“Did you mate the purple girl?” SpongeBob was clearly trying to give Squidward a heart attack or three with his non sequiturs. He didn’t call him out on it, though, as the sponge was operating on a different wavelength. The mist was still coursing through his body, making him more blunt. Hah, blunt.

“I did, years ago,” Squidward answered, truthfully. What would be the point in lying? “Don’t worry, there’s no little Squidwards running around anywhere.” He didn’t know if SpongeBob was worried about that as much as he was. Maybe I’m the only one who has that nightmare regularly.

“Your babies would be adorable.” Did the sponge sound jealous? There was nothing to be jealous of. The last thing Squidward wants to do with his life is run off with a woman and make more octopuses.

“Trust me, it’s not going to happen.”

”I like babies,” was all SpongeBob said to that.

“I’m painfully aware of that fact!” His coworker would always coo over those little poop factories whenever a customer had the audacity to bring one to their place of work. He had almost exploded with joy when Squidward’s Mama had dusted off the baby pictures. Personally, he thought that babies looked ugly, but SpongeBob’s voice had gotten  higher and higher when he praised baby Squidward in the pictures for his chubby cheeks, and his enormous head, and his giant red eyes looking in two directions at the same time. He even convinced Mama to lend him one of the photos, to make a copy.

Well, if the sponge liked the adult Squidward he would have to be okay with there being no babies in their future. That was impossible anyway. Right?

Squidward realized he still didn’t know how sponges worked, and that was after he had stuck his mating arm inside of one. I’m going to end up with a sponge baby somehow, won’t I?

“How do sponges reproduce anyway?” He might as well ask now. Best case scenario, the sponge would answer his question and then forget he ever asked, since he was under the influence of bubbles right now.

“Reproduce? You mean budding?” When he said that last word, he emphasized it by growing a second, much smaller head out of the side of his head at an angle. That head then grew another, smaller head, followed by a third one. All four mouths said the word “budding” at different pitches, making them sound like a bizarre barbershop quartet.

“Ew!” Squidward waved the tiny naked sponges away as they popped off SpongeBob’s body and started running circles around him. After an entirely too long interlude of watching them dance around, SpongeBob whistled through his buck teeth like an owner calling to his pet worms. Two little mini-me’s jumped back into the sponge’s holes, where they were reabsorbed. The smallest sponge disappeared into SpongeBob’s pants pocket. Squidward could hear tiny snores coming out of the pocket almost immediately.

“I meant, how do sponges make babies. Not copies.”

“Oh!” SpongeBob’s eyes grew big then and his voice soft, like he was about to talk to a small child. “When a mama sponge and a papa sponge love each other very much…”

“You know what, never mind.” Squidward realized how silly his question was, coming from an adult. He’ll read a book about sponge anatomy or something. Anything but getting The Talk from a high-as-a-flying-fish SpongeBob. “This is our stop.”

They walked the last nautical mile to their homes. SpongeBob seemed fine to walk, but Squidward slung a guiding tentacle over his shoulder anyway, just to be sure. SpongeBob leaned in heavily, making Squidward having to constantly fight gravity, but that didn’t necessarily mean the sponge was still under the influence. His friend was clingy even when perfectly sober, after all.

They arrived at SpongeBob’s place first. “Well, this is you.” Squidward opened the door and ushered in his neighbor, turning on the light and helping SpongeBob out of his jacket. He probably could’ve done all of this by himself. But the octopus felt awkward and didn’t know how or when to say goodbye.

He tried to make it quick. “I’m off!”

But the sponge had already grabbed him by the tentacle before he could turn around to leave. He looked down at the little guy – his irises were still blown out, but the alert glimmer in his eyes had returned. The bubbles were still coursing through his body; he looked very determined, though.

“Would you like to come upstairs with me, Squidward?”

Squidward couldn’t pin that question on mind altering substances. It was no secret that the sponge had been interested to take their relationship to the next level. Or, bring it back up to level, after they had already mated once, before Squidward’s messed-up reaction had brought them back to square one.

His first thought was to make a sly remark and leave the sponge’s house post haste. But that would hurt the SpongeBob’s feelings for sure. Squidward had seen enough octopuses today being mean to his friend, it had made him lose his taste for sarcasm, at least for today. Just let him down gently and tell him maybe another time, Squidward thought. Yes, that’s a good plan. Another time.

“I would love to come upstairs with you,” he said instead. The sponge smiled.

Chapter Text

Before Squidward knew it, SpongeBob had guided him to his bedroom, making it perfectly clear that he could walk without aid. He just likes pressing his whole body against mine, I guess. Once in the bedroom, Squidward scaled the ridiculous setup that was SpongeBob’s triple-mattress bed while the sponge kicked out the snail (“Sorry, Gare-bear. You get an extra treat tomorrow.”). The sponge then proceeded to take off all his clothes, which meant Squidward had guessed correctly and SpongeBob had wanted Squidward to come upstairs for a reason.

The octopus took off his shirt and threw it on the ground. He would never do such a thing at home, but he was not going to climb out of this bed version of a highchair to fold his clothes and climb back in. He was already lying on his back on top of the sheets when SpongeBob joined him. The guy still looked more languid than usual, like he wasn’t looking at Squidward but somewhere far away just past Squidward’s shoulder. It made Squidward uneasy and want to look behind himself to see what was up. Whatever SpongeBob sees, it’s not really there. The sponge was breathing deeply, and there was a redness to his face that accented the freckles on his cheeks beautifully. Now that the sponge was naked, Squidward could see the blush wander down his whole body, and even between his legs. In kind, it put a dark blue blush to Squidward’s face.

“I wanna touch you,” the sponge said matter-of-factly, and bit his bottom lip with his buck teeth. Squidward just nodded in agreement. I’ll let him set the pace, Squidward thought. Have him do what he wants, in his own time.

He closed his eyes and felt the sponge’s hands trace over his head. Unusual start, but it was quite nice. The fingers traced over his cranium again and again, for what seemed like ages, and he heard the sponge mumbling. What is he saying? When Squidward opened his eyes, he saw that the sponge was counting the dark blue spots on Squidward’s bald head.

“Twenty four, twenty five…”

“SpongeBob, what are you doing?” That startled the sponge out of his trance, and he blushed.

“Sorry, Squidward. I got distracted.” So the mist was still affecting him.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. You’re still spacey.”

“No!” Squidward was pushed back onto the bed with more force than he had anticipated. “I want this. I don’t care that we’re floating in space right now,” SpongeBob quoted him incorrectly, making the octopus wonder what exactly the sponge was seeing.

SpongeBob wanted this, and Squidward wanted this as well, so he wasn’t going to argue. “Okay, then. I’m yours,” Squidward lay his tentacles flat on the mattress, but kept a keen eye on the sponge this time. Or he’s going to start counting my nose hairs next.

But the sponge went with a more familiar habit, his favorite past time after hugging Squidward; kissing him. The sponge’s lips started with his nose – naturally – then his cheek, followed by his neck, which was where the unexplored territory started, and down the octopus’ body.

Squidward sighed. He didn’t like kissing all that much, but that was mostly because of expectations. As an adult your kisses were supposed to be passionate and lustful, with tongues from both parties in the mix, and to him that just sounded off-putting. But SpongeBob’s kisses were little pecks on Squidward’s skin, a small declaration of “I like this part of you” with each “Muah!”, on every inch of his body. It made him feel special.

When SpongeBob found his way down to Squidward’s abdominal slit, he showered that part with kisses, as if to say “This part is my favorite.” It tickled and Squidward put his tentacles over his mouth, lest he started giggling like a school girl fooling around with her crush. His mating arm started stirring in his pouch.

To his surprise, SpongeBob stopped working on his mating arm and his lips made their way down even further, down to his- oh, Neptune.

If Squidward had known that this was going to happen tonight, he would’ve drained his ink sack in the shower before the concert. But how could he have known that this was the night the sponge would go for his siphon? The sponge’s plump lips were touching his sensitive hole, making Squidward shudder and gasp.

Every octopus would discover the joy of playing with their siphon at some point in their life. But even though it felt amazing to touch it, or have a partner touch it for you, pleasure was not its main function. It wasn’t unusual for some spillage to occur when exploring that part of one’s anatomy. That’s why Squidward kept an old towel or two in the bedroom drawers. And why he would wash up real well if he had... plans. He wouldn’t want to be caught by surprise by his partner or-

“Sponge, stop! I’m going to-” He tried to shut his legs but it was too late. Squidward had let the pleasure build up for too long without warning the sponge and now his siphon was no longer bending to his will. With a squirt and a grunt ink shot out of his body, propelled by a gush of water from his funnel, and landed in the sponge’s mouth. Usually such a pleasurable sensation, Squidward was absolutely horrified.

He heard the sponge coughing up ink. Great mother of pearl, this was really, really bad! Pretty much the worst-case scenario. This had only happened once before in his life – and with Squilliam of all people, a fellow cephalopod who knew exactly how embarrassing an accident like that was. And even then, he had just squirted on his partner’s tentacle, not directly into his mouth!

When the coughing stopped SpongeBob looked up from between Squidward’s legs with wide eyes. They stared at each other for a while.

“SpongeBob… don’t move! I’ll go get-” Squidward made to sit up and go get… he didn’t know really. Probably a towel and a glass of water, and some mouthwash, and maybe a toothbrush, or a plane ticket to Great Barrier Reef for himself to start a new life as a street performer under an assumed name.

Squidward couldn’t get up, though. The sponge was holding down his legs. Squidward looked back down to see why SpongeBob wasn’t letting go of him. There, between Squidward’s legs, SpongeBob was looking up at him with a big grin on his face. A big, ink-stained grin. Then, SpongeBob extended a blackened tongue and descended to where Squidward couldn’t see his face anymore. He could feel the tongue on his siphon, lapping up more of his ink.

Squidward’s head fell on the pillow, his back arching with the sensation of a tongue on his opening. He had never felt this before, and it felt heavenly. Of course, he thought, all four legs kicking in pleasure, hands digging into the bed. SpongeBob is a weirdo. How could I forget?

Honestly, it made Squidward feel excited. Mating with a sea creature so different from himself, he never knew what to expect. For example, the sponge could grow his tongue extra long to satisfy his needs, and why not? In turn, Squidward’s body could produce things that the sponge liked… he didn’t really want to think about it too much, but if ink made SpongeBob happy, and he could make ink, then, well… that was dandy, right?

“Mmmhh…” SpongeBob moaned, his mouth still on Squidward’s opening. Then he removed his mouth, which made Squidward look back down. “You taste so good, Squidward.” Before Squidward could say anything, that tongue was inside him again.

I change my mind; tongue kissing is amazing! It just had to be in the right place.  Squidward felt dirty for enjoying his partner’s tongue on his trickling, wet hole, but frankly that just excited him more. His mating arm had now fully revealed itself.

“Hello, Matey.” SpongeBob had noticed it, too, already grabbing it, is thumb playing with the rows of suckers going down its length. His delicate hand didn’t span all the way around Squidward’s girth. The octopus knew it had more to do with how small the sponge’s hands were, and less with how big he was; it still made him feel accomplished. SpongeBob looked at Squidward with hooded eyes, and asked through black teeth, “Can I sit on it?”

Squidward had never heard a more erotic sentence in his life. He could’ve finished right then and there in SpongeBob’s hand, could’ve splattered SpongeBob’s face white like that pollock artist, to contrast his black mouth. Instead he closed his eyes and concentrated hard on not ending things just yet. He wanted to store this moment away for future reference. For next time, when he touched himself in the shower and needed to be done quickly so he wouldn’t be late for work. He nodded at SpongeBob’s question and all he could say was, “Uh-huh.”

The sponge sat up to straddle Squidward’s hips. He lined up the pore between his legs with Squidward’s mating arm and absorbed the tip. The octopus saw that the sponge had screwed his eyes shut now, and his legs were shaking. The little guy looked overwhelmed. “It’s okay, sponge,” Squidward all but moaned. He was feeling weak in the knees, too. “You go at your own pace.”

At that prompt, SpongeBob started moving. Not just moving, but bouncing, like a sea bunny trampling on Squidward’s prized carrots. He’s crushing my prized carrot right now, Squidward thought, and emitted an “Oof!” every time SpongeBob fell back onto him, all the way down to the hilt, pressing tears out of the octopus’ eyes like toothpaste out of a tube. Squidward’s tongue rolled in and out of his mouth like a party blower and made the same noise, too. When he’d said “at your own pace”, he had thought the sponge would be going slow.

What really made it unbearable was the fact that the sponge moved so eagerly that the mating arm kept slipping out of his pore, continually making them lose the build-up of sensation. “Whoops! Let me-” SpongeBob slipped the arm back inside, then after two bounces, “Ah! Excuse me…”, he sat back down on it, lost it again after a single jerk, tried to guide it back in but missed and teasingly rubbed his crack against the shaft instead. “Oh dear, sorry. I’ll just-”

“Oh, for koral’s sake! Do I look like a bouncy castle to you?” For the first time since entering SpongeBob’s bed, Squidward felt like himself; being annoyed with that little irk was second nature to him. He had let the guy do things at his own pace, but his pace was terrible! Time for Squidward to do things right.

Squidward grabbed SpongeBob’s square hips and sat him back down on his mating arm all the way, so that he wouldn’t slip out again. He then flexed his pelvis up and released it - like casting a clam fishing rod - so that the mating arm slapped down on the sponge’s inner wall and attached its suckers firmly inside.

There. Now he couldn’t slip out if he tried. “Slowly,” Squidward commanded.

SpongeBob nodded and started to move. Rocking back and forth a tiny bit, unable to move more than that as the suckers anchored him to his partner. Squidward kept his hold on SpongeBob’s hips, stroking the pores on his sides, and kept murmuring, “Slowly… slowly…”

The sponge had his eyes screwed shut, lost in his own world, trying to find the right movement; back and forth, side to side, moving his hips in circles, changing his angle and trying all over again. With all this pent-up energy inside him, SpongeBob’s lanky arms started to wander, across his own chest, across Squidward’s, squeezing Squidward’s nose, back down his arms, grabbing Squidward’s sides and lying down on top of his partner. “Squid…” he whined into the octopus’ torso while grinding his hips down hard and letting his hands wander all over the place. Squidward took hold of the aimless hands with his tentacles and pressed them to SpongeBob’s side, stilling his arms and making him sit up again. “Shhh, slowly…”

“I, I can’t!” Now that the sponge’s hands were restricted, all his energy went back into his hips, jerkily moving up and down, in random directions, always pulled back into first position by the suckers tugging inside him. “It feels so good!” the sponge yelled. Squidward tried to meet his thrusts with his own, but SpongeBob’s small rattling became faster and faster until his whole body was vibrating, his moans shaky, and the octopus couldn’t keep up. He saw stars but was determined not to expulse yet; If he did so now his suckers would loosen their grip and the sponge would probably fly off the bed and through the ceiling, with the amount of energy he was expending.

“Please, I need… I can’t…” SpongeBob’s eyes were watering. Squidward could see the pores all over SpongeBob’s body shrink. He didn’t let go of him, though, instinctively pressing the sponge’s arms against his body even closer. It seemed like the right thing to do because his partner’s head snapped back and he started moaning even louder.

SpongeBob’s pores grew tighter and tighter, including the one Squidward was currently inside of. This made the sponge’s movements even more constricted and frantic. SpongeBob was screaming nonsense at this point. “Please… holy shrimp… it feels… I have to!”

Squidward couldn’t fault the sponge for being unintelligible. He could feel his own head scramble, too, as the sensation between his legs intensified. Looking up at his partner, the sponge’s eyes screwed shut and his back arched, tears and snot running down his face, moaning random things, Squidward’s hearts warmed as much as his groin. Squidward had one uncontrollable thought repeating over and over in his head, and he had no choice but to declare it out loud in between moans.

“I love- Ugh! I love, I lo- Ah! Love you, I love you-”

Just when Squidward thought his tentacles would lose their hold on SpongeBob’s jerky hips, the sponge went completely still, took a deep breath and opened his mouth in a silent scream. It looked eerie, his ink-stained mouth a black void. His eyes opened, his eyeballs rolled back in his head so that Squidward could only see the whites. His body went limp and the once tight pores all over his body opened wider than Squidward had ever seen.

Oh, Neptune, Squidward thought, still taking shallow breaths of exertion from a moment ago. Now, they were unmoving. Is he breathing? The moment Squidward thought that the sponge exhaled, and tendrils of white fog started flowing from his holes, including his mouth. The sponge had turned a pale yellow. Squidward had never been more frightened in his life and he would’ve inked if his reserve hadn’t been depleted. Is that his spirit leaving his body? Did I kill him?

Moments later, SpongeBob startled him again by taking a loud, gasping breath, like a man drowning in Goo Lagoon. His face regained its lush yellow color, and Squidward could see, and feel, his pores pumping quickly. “Ah- ah- ah!” with each contraction the sponge exclaimed, and more white fog shot out of his pores. “YES!” he yelled following a particularly big cloud. “Yes- ah- ah!” Squidward could hear the immense pleasure in the sponge’s voice and feel each moan correspond with the pore shrinking and releasing around his mating arm.

Squidward understood what was going on with his partner now. So that’s how sponges reproduce. No mating arm, all holes.

After the last wisps of white had left his body, the sponge just sat limply on top of Squidward for a while, sniffing away tears of exertion and trying to regain his breath. For several minutes they remained like this, feeling each other’s rapid pulses where they were connected. There were a few unpredictable moments when SpongeBob’s body would suddenly start rocking again for two or three thrusts and his hole would constrict around Squidward’s mating arm in the aftershock. Every time it happened more warm wetness would trickle from SpongeBob’s pore down Squidward’s shaft, making them both gasp and become still again.

A good while later SpongeBob tried to lift off his partner. “Nngh, ah… enough! Enough!” He failed to free himself from Squidward’s suckers still clinging to his inner walls, his jittery arms finding no purchase.

The movements made Squidward squirm as well. He had wanted to finish inside his partner so badly, but he had to comply with SpongeBob’s wishes and dismount. He knew how sensitive one could feel after climax, and SpongeBob just had enough of those to last several matings! He rolled them over so SpongeBob was underneath him, and gripped the base of his mating arm, slowly pulling it out of his partner. He had to press down and go slow to uncouple successfully, each sucker sliding out with a Pop! from his suckers and a yell from the sponge. He thanked the Gods of the Sea that the pore was so slick and soft after their coupling; it would’ve been myriads harder to uncouple otherwise.

Meanwhile the sponge lifted his arms to grab the pillow underneath his head and shouted with each sucker leaving his body. By the time Squidward had pulled out completely, the pillow had been bisected, sea chicken feathers covering the bed, and there were several wet spots wherever a pore had touched the fitted sheet. SpongeBob’s eyes were watery, tear drops caught in his long lashes, pupils wide, and saliva mixed with Squidward’s ink dripped down his mouth, making it look like running mascara.

Looking down at his absolutely ruined partner, it only took a few squeezes of his tentacle to bring Squidward over the edge. “I’m- Ungh!” His fluids splattered on SpongeBob’s chest and face, but the sponge didn’t seem to notice it at all, or notice anything, for that matter. Squidward breathed hard and watched the white liquid slowly absorb into the sponge’s porous skin. Sure, why not?, he thought, but out loud he just moaned. Now that they had changed positions he could see the black stains on the mattress, saw SpongeBob lie in the wet spot Squidward had created. He didn’t seem to mind as his lower half soaked up the ink slowly, while his used pore almost imperceptibly still leaked white vapor. Neptune give me strength…

Squidward had to stop staring, he was completely exhausted. He lay down next to SpongeBob. When he tried to sling his arm over him, SpongeBob squirmed away. “Too much!” was all he said. He turned his back to Squidward and shut his legs tightly, his pores still twitching every now and then.

So that was how you got SpongeBob to leave you alone, Squidward thought. You just had to mate him so thoroughly that he’d want nothing to do with you after.

For a while Squidward drifted in and out of sleep, a passing pillow feather occasionally tickling his nose, and always keenly aware when the sponge made a noise. At one point the mattress dipped down and Squidward noticed the sponge had left the bed and then the bedroom, quiet exclamations of “Ow, ow, ow” with every step. The poor guy was sore. When Squidward had almost fallen back asleep, he heard a toilet flush and footsteps return to the bedroom.

When the sponge entered, the snail wanted to come in with him, but Gary sniffed and turned around with a “Meow!” and an “Urgh!”, leaving the room quickly. SpongeBob also exclaimed “Oof!” and waddled over to the window (“Ow-ow-ow-ow!”) to open it. That made sense, Squidward thought. The scent of mating hung thick in the room.

Then, SpongeBob came back and lay down a towel. Squidward sheepishly lifted his hips so SpongeBob could get the fabric between him and the mattress. He was the reason they needed a towel, to cover up what had remained of the black, wet stain. He saw that SpongeBob’s teeth were white again, he must’ve brushed them. Even though SpongeBob hadn’t said anything bad about his ink, Squidward still felt embarrassed. It seemed appropriate to embarrass SpongeBob a little bit, too.

“Good idea opening the window. You kind of fogged up the place.”

“I did?” SpongeBob blushed, and Squidward immediately felt like the bad guy for pointing it out. The sponge had been so far gone at that point during their mating that he hadn’t even noticed. “That doesn’t happen often outside of mating season,” the sponge said, “but after you said that thing, it did feel very… intense.”

After he'd said that thing... oh. So Squidward had said those three little words, and SpongeBob’s reproductive system had decided then and there that he was a worthy mate. Hence the fog. It was SpongeBob’s body saying “Let’s make babies”. Thanks, SpongeBob’s body. Not gonna happen, but I’m flattered.

“Do you still feel spacey?” Squidward wondered. The sponge’s eyes looked tired but his demeanor was alert as he folded Squidward’s crumpled shirt, put it in a drawer and climbed back into bed.

“Not really. Whatever was in my body got out when I… fogged.”

“And you don’t regret what we did, do ya?” Squidward still wasn’t sure if he hadn’t exploited the sponge’s impaired judgement. Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to put his mouth on his siphon. Maybe bubbles had made him do it.

But the sponge just smiled at him. “What do you think, Squidward?”

Squidward didn’t know what to think, until he felt a finger poke him in his private parts. “Beep beep!” SpongeBob exclaimed.

“Hey!” Squidward yelled at the playful sponge; the boy clearly wasn’t regretting anything. “Is that appropriate, Sponge?”

SpongeBob giggled at that and poked him again. He slapped away SpongeBob’s arm, which he had slung under the bed coming around the other side to surprise Squidward, and the sponge laughed as he retracted his extendable limb.

“You can hug me now. You wanted to, earlier?” SpongeBob blinked his big, blue eyes at Squidward, arms wide open. So the sponge didn’t remember the fog, but the attempt to wrap his tentacle around him had stuck in his mind.

Squidward sighed. “C’mere, you oversized snail toy.” SpongeBob squeaked like one of Gary’s toy balls as Squidward squeezed him against his side. For good measure, Squidward wrapped one of his tentacle legs around SpongeBob’s. That made the sponge emit another happy squeaky-toy sound. They lay like this for a while.

After closing his eyes, Squidward felt something tickling his nose. He looked over at SpongeBob, who was lying next to him motionless, his lips and hands nowhere near his face. The octopus looked down, crossing his eyes to get a good look; there was a tiny, naked SpongeBob straddling the bridge of his nose, giggling and giving it hugs and kisses.

The little guy must’ve escaped the square pants lying on the ground and scaled the mountain that was SpongeBob’s bed just to be with his favorite octopus. Squidward was equal parts horrified and touched. Squidward picked up the little guy, gave him a very cautious peck on his tiny cheek so as not to swallow him by mistake, and waved the guy in front of SpongeBob’s sleeping face. “I believe this is yours.”

SpongeBob opened one of his eyes a tiny fraction, recognized the tiny guy and took him into his own hand, promptly shoving him into one of his holes, becoming one again. “Thanks, Squidward,”he yawned. Sponges were so weird.

A question started to form in Squidward’s head. SpongeBob had mentioned a mating season. And that it wasn’t mating season right now.

“When’s mating season?” he tried to sound casual.

“During the annual particle flux,” SpongeBob answered matter of factly, like it was one of the easy questions during a biology quiz, his words muffled by Squidward’s armpit which he was squeezed into.

“Ah. Naturally.” Squidward had no idea what the sponge was talking about. “So, that is in Jan… Febru… Ma…”

“You know, when the jellyfish migrate.”

Squidward nodded. So right around the time he’d shunned SpongeBob and hadn’t talked to him. If mating season for sponges was anything like springtime for octopuses, that was the time they were most prone to feeling lonely and lovesick. Which was par for the course for any partnerless sea creature out there, but Squidward had made it infinitely worse by mating the sponge and then ignoring him. He had made a promise of partnership with his body, which he’d immediately retracted after.

Squidward had been on the receiving end of this jerk move before, so he knew how horrible it was. A certain someone claiming him for springtime, then changing his mind. “Sorry, Squiddy, but with the upcoming tour and everything… well, I can’t let go of that opportunity. You understand.” Squidward really hadn’t understood. Why couldn’t he have come with Squilliam? Under normal circumstances, Squidward would’ve just been angry and be done with the guy; with the constant flow of mating hormones and no relief provided by a partner however, he’d spent the whole month lying under his bed miserable and depressed, wondering what he’d done wrong. He had to spend a lot of time and money in therapy to accept it hadn’t been his fault. And now I did the same thing to Sponge. Like a certain… soulless, hot jerk.

“You’re good in my book, Squidward,” the sponge patted his chest. He was reading Squidward’s mind again. “You can fog me again in the morning if you like.” That made Squidward laugh. “I would love to,” he said, his hearts unexpectedly skipping when he said the L-word. It felt good to say it.

“It’s a shame we missed the concert, though,” the sponge lamented.

Oh yeah. Squidward had completely forgotten. His plan of holding hands during Holding Hands. Well, they’d ended up doing more than to just hold hands. And there was no Kelpy song called Fogging High. The concert goers would not have appreciated a song with such an unmarketable name. Squidward was going to write that song himself, only for him and SpongeBob to listen to. “It’s okay, Sponge. This was better, anyway.”

“Better than a Kelpy G concert!?” SpongeBob gasped. “Wow. You really do love me!”

Squidward’s face grew hot. He couldn’t argue with that, so he added nothing more and just let SpongeBob put his head on his chest.

“I like sleepovers,” SpongeBob declared.

“Yeah, me, too,” Squidward was already half asleep. “Goodnight.”