Lover's Curse: A SquidBob Fanfiction

Chapter 2: Symptoms

Monday 3:00 PM:

Our break was well over so people stared. Someone giggled at the fact that we were holding hands. I replied passive aggressively, "Oh, get over yourselves!" Once I realized what they were laughing at, I immediately let go of his hand and kept walking. A few minutes out on our walk home, he tried to bring up a conversation again, except he just sounded tired and a little scared this time, "I-I'm not going to get sick or something, right? It's not a curse? W-What do you think it means?" I spoke calmly in reply, "I'm sure you will be fine. Even if it was a curse or something like that, you can always break it. I don't know what it means, but determining from the shape of the heart and the color, it could have something to do with love? Who am I kidding, who would you be in love with anyway?" SpongeBob blushed frantically and covered his face with his hands as he sped up slightly. His mark was glowing.. I stopped him, "SpongeBob! Stop going so fast and look at your hand! It's.. glowing?" Once he put his hands down to look, I noticed his eyes were the same shade of pink, his pupils formed hearts and his hair was pink at the roots. I was at a lack of words, "I-I.. Your eyes.. hair.. SpongeBob, you should really look in a mirror.. Wow, what got you so worked up?" He questions me, nervous, "W-What? What's wrong with my hair?" I sigh and hand him my phone, he opens up the camera and gasps. The pink color in his hair begins to spread as he blushes more intensely. I try to calm him down, beginning to understand what's happening, "Hey, calm it, Sponge. You're okay, I'm pretty sure you've got a crush, don't you? Maybe thinking about them or just being flustered is causing this to get worse? If you try to calm down, we can sort this out. Now, let's get moving. I don't have all day." He smiled gently and took a deep breath, beginning to head home again. As we walked, the pink began to fade from his hair and his eyes went back to normal. Even the mark stopped glowing. I asked a question, "Did anyone else notice your mark?" SpongeBob looked at me, "I don't think so. Should we keep it a secret?" I sighed, "Of course we need to keep this a secret! We don't want the whole town finding out about how you've been cursed or something!" I saw him begin to feel bad again and apologized, "I didn't mean to shout.. I'm sorry." He took a deep breath, "It's okay, it wasn't that. I'm just worried about what we're going to have to do now.. I mean to make this go away?" Before I could answer, we had arrived at my house, I invited him in while we tried to figure out what was going on.

Monday 3:30 PM:

SpongeBob took a seat on my couch while I shut the door. I sat next to him and noticed his mark glow slightly. Weird.. I ignored it and pulled out my phone, trying to figure out what was causing this. After a little digging, I found an article about it. I let him know, "I found something about this whole.. situation. It's called "Lover's Curse". Says it's a curse typically cast on a person when the caster noticed the person has been holding back love for too long. Ha, guess you really must have needed to know this girl for a long time huh?" He interrupted me, "A-Actually he's a guy.." The mark started to glow brighter as he blushed. My voice shook for a moment, "O-Oh. I should have known, my bad. Anyways, the article mentions basically all your symptoms, the mark, the eyes, and the hair color thing. Says the only way to break the curse is 'true love's kiss'. Well how convenient, guess you're just gonna go kiss every guy in Bikini Bottom. Are you even sure you know who it is?" SpongeBob blushed at the thought, his eyes and hair faded into pink, along with the mark glowing brighter. He took a deep breath, "I-I think I know... B-But I can't tell him, not to mention k-kiss him!?" I spoke, "Sure you can. Continuing on, it says once the symptoms appear, you have five days to kiss the person you love or else you will fall out of love and never be able to feel love again.. That's harsh. Oh, it also says that when a person with Lover's Curse is embarrassed, flustered, or more commonly, falling deeper in love, their symptoms may get worse. Not only are the symptoms physical, but there are mental and emotional side effects too. Such as, acting impulsively, being more emotionally sensitive than usual, shaking, breathing heavily, headaches, increased heart rate, or anxiety. However a person with this curse may also need heavy amounts of physical attention or they may begin to feel out of control of their own body and emotions and therefore panic." I looked over to see SpongeBob having a small freakout. His hair had turned completely pink, as well as his eyes, and his mark continued to glow. He muttered, "A-About the 'p-physical attention thing..'? Can I h-hold your hand for a minute, p-please?" I blushed a little, and took his hand, "Whatever." Avoiding eye contact helped the embarrassment go away. I noticed SpongeBob taking deep breaths. Each time he took one, the pink faded little by little and the mark glowed less and less. After he had calmed about halfway down, he said, "Thank you.. S-Sorry, I don't know why I need to hold your hand so badly. I-I.. I just feel.. strange and warm inside, but if it got out of hand, and I don't have much control left? Like a good feeling, but scary at the same time.. Do you think the curse is making me this needy?" I was still holding his hand and for some reason, it was nice.. and I sort of wanted more. I want to help him, and hold him, and k- What..? Why did I just think that.. Pull yourself together Squidward! I tried to keep my cool, "What else could it be, SpongeBob? You should try and get some sleep, we have work tomorrow." He asked, "Can I stay the night here, with y-you?" There is no way I'm going to admit I tolerate him, if I let him stay he might catch on, but if I don't I'll just push him away and he might freak out again. I sighed and gave in, "Okay, fine. You can take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch." He smiled warmly, "Mhm, thank you."