"I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed today."

Here's another quote-inspired fanfic of mine! :)

Fanfics that dive deep into the thoughts of characters have been everywhere in this fandom lately, so I thought I'd contribute. I had so much fun with the wording, and I tried to be as metaphoric and poetic as possible. Enjoy!

More chapters to come.

Squidward watched the clock on his nightstand. Midnight. It would be time to get up and get ready for work before he knew it. That thought was gnawing at him. It was freezing in his room, as his tight budget didn't allow for overnight heating. It was the dead of winter, but blankets would have to suffice. Outside was cold, his body was cold, and his bedsheets hardly did anything to better the situation, simply mocking him with its cruel thinness. He shivered beneath his blankets, his body craving sleep, but the thought of the morning arriving sooner while he slept caused him to dread drifting off to dreamland.

Tears were spilled. Beads formed at his eyes, falling from his eyelids onto the satin pillow below. His face was crinkled into an expression of anguish. He hated this way of living. It was so repetitive, every day. So draining. So... drained. Unlike his emotions, which spoke buckets full of tears. Even with all this swirling emotion, however, his dry eyes only produced droplets. How he wanted to just collapse and sink into his bed, and to be swallowed by the bedding. How he wanted to curl up and pity himself for hours. He wanted to, but he just couldn't. He was tired and angry and distraught. Were his tears even real if they were this hard coming? He was beginning to question it.

Squidward sniffled and pulled up the blankets around his head, so that his nose protruded into the open air. He breathed in. During hot weather, this breath would've been quite refreshing, but on this particular day it only caused Squidward a nasty hacking fit. Violent exhales noisily exited his mouth, his throat tightening. His eyes watered a bit throughout. When the coughs had finally subsided, he sighed. He couldn't enjoy life during the day, and nothing good came from the night, either. Sure, one could say at least he was away from SpongeBob, but occasionally still the yellow nuisance could be found stalking him at night. Well, perhaps stalking wasn't the right word... Rather, keeping a watchful and protective eye over his beloved. Yes, that's what SpongeBob did. He was a sort of guardian angel, but to Squidward, a demon in disguise.

It had been a long day of work. Customers demanding food, SpongeBob doing the usual, and Mr. Krabs' unforgiving lack of sympathy irking his soul... How the poor octopus wished it was Friday. Sadly, he could only wish, because he had just suffered through a miserable Monday. It was like he was wearing an "I really wish I weren't here right now" button on his heart each day, and its pin had punctured him, creating a significant wound, a gaping void. A void that could not even be filled by the pride he took is his "talents". Sometimes —although he wouldn't dare think to say it aloud— the harsh words of criticism towards his art and his music, it got to him. The words would take that button and shove it deeper into his heart, as if to kill him. Sometimes he thought perhaps he wouldn't mind if it did.

Sometimes Squidward pondered why he even allowed himself to live in such a fashion, in such an uncultured and unsophisticated, shameful way of life. Pitiful, deserving of pity, sad. It was unfair, but such is life. Well, for some at least. Not for SpongeBob, the naive bastard. He went about life as if he were an insentient being, like he was immune to every hardship, every wicked act against him, every gibe Squidward shot like a bullet in his direction. "SpongeBob, you incompetent bubble-brain!", though the insults he hurled at him inwardly were a bit beyond what one would call "choice words". And yet, even though Squidward thought considerably highly of himself, sometimes he'd subconsciously curse even himself like he did SpongeBob. "Squidward, you son of a bivalve, pull yourself together!" Evidently that didn't help, because if he was pulled together, perhaps he'd be living a better life. Perhaps.

If he could, Squidward would quit his job and pursue a career in the arts. But he couldn't. He couldn't because he was terrible at the things that he loved. SpongeBob, on the other hand, was a Nep-damn master at everything he poured his heart into. Even what SpongeBob was new to, he aced! His art was better than Squidward's, his music was better than Squidward's, and arguably even his dance. And this hurt the octopus. It angered him, and it hurt him. He'd studied the arts for years and years, and practiced as often as he got the chance, yet lil' ol' SpongeBob is able to just waltz in, a complete amateur, and with some out-of-this-world beginner's luck manages to nail whatever he sets his mind to. And the fact that he willingly chose to work at the Krusty Krab despite this, oh it caused Squidward some serious bitterness towards the sponge. SpongeBob could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars with his skill set, but the boy was too ignorant to realize, and too juvenile to care.

Squidward yanked some blankets between his legs, for warmth. His normally tidy bedding was a jumbled mess of sheets, a metaphorical picture that represented how he was feeling on the inside. Squidward felt as though he was wandering through the world aimlessly, sometimes. He wasn't sure what he wanted in life anymore, yet he knew exactly what he wished he had. He desired a life of fame, but would settle for a peaceful life where he could go about things in a simple manner, in a manner that at least had some class to it. Tea in the morning, some quality television, exotic home-cooked meals, and the soothing sounds of his prized clarinet. Sure, he already had these things in his life, but here was the problem: he could never truly get to enjoy them. Such things were only temporarily enjoyable. There was the constant presence of SpongeBob causing him to lose his mind, and Patrick wasn't any better. On top of that, work was unpredictable. Nowadays, he wasn't able to plan vacations, because Mr. Krabs was always docking his pay or forcing him to work overtime. This meant Squidward's only choice was to just go with the flow. The flow of blood, sweat, and tears that were drained from the flesh of his being each day.

Squidward tossed and turned at the thought of work being less than half a day away. He gritted his teeth in frustration. As much as he hated the idea of time slipping away from the grasp of his conscious, ration told him to call it a night. (Well, technically morning at such an early hour, but you know.) He would rather get some sleep then lose some crying over the inevitable. Icy walls and floors would greet him, er, coldly in the morning, but he found himself unable to resist the beckoning of his satin pillow, telling him to let his eyes close.

Beep beep beep!

And so began another miserable day. Miserable, but usual. Every day was miserable for Squidward. Just when things would start looking up for him, boom!, shit came crashing down. Things stopped looking up, and so did Squidward himself. He used to cry out to Poseidon when he was feeling an emotional high, but after so many lows, he decided he had no soul. He never did, never will. Because without a soul, you don't have to be held to standards, to morals. Squidward didn't have to care. He didn't have a soul, so why should he? He shouldn't. Sometimes Squidward wished he cared about certain things, but try as he might, he was so used to not being cared about that displaying the same treatment he got to the world didn't phase him in the slightest. He didn't care. Not unless the matter affected him in some negative way. Okay, so maybe he cared just a smidgen about selective things, but he still lacked soul!

He was a lifeless body. His life was so repetitive, so torturous. His daily life constricted him, bounded him to a chair called routine, and the droplets of water, that longing for change, dripped onto his forehead. He couldn't move, couldn't change. He was strapped to the chair. He would lose his sanity. Drip! Work. Drip! SpongeBob. Drip! His unrecognized talents. Drip! Maybe that's why he was claustrophobic. He felt trapped. He was stuck. There was no other way. He had to do what he was doing to survive: he had to get up because it was morning. He had to take a shower to keep good hygiene. He had to work in order to make a living.

Living.

But was he?