Chapter Text
Cashina was beautiful, Mr. Krabs had thought.
Not just because she was a seemingly sentient stack of cash with even more money dolled up in the shape of hair on top of her head, already an appealing concept by itself. And not just because she was small and green with accents of red, in lipstick and bows.
Well, maybe she had been beautiful because of all that. But there was something else to it that he felt in his knees, his aging over-the-hill knees. Maybe what made her so beautiful - so appealing to him - was the elegant, demure air to her. Or even the charming, sweet, and delightfully coy way she spoke to him.
Or maybe it was just the promise that he wouldn't be alone anymore, and that someone was actually interested in him.
But being with Cashina made him feel like a younger lad again. The whole relationship in general reminded him of being in high school, just without a majority of the things he hated about high school like the bullies or the constant work. It was fitting enough, seeings how he was naive enough to think that a relationship with someone he thought he knew for only like a week at best could last a lifetime. When in truth, there was nothing but betrayal and drama looming at the horizon the second he met her.
Just like being a high schooler, he was blinded by adoration and couldn’t see the red flags through the rose tint of the hearts in his eyes. But he wanted to impress her, and he wanted to be just as charming as he saw her as. He wanted to be a real gentleman, pulling her chair out for her and holding open doors. He couldn't stop thinking about her, and just wanted to spend every moment he could with her.
Not that any of that even mattered, at least not anymore. It wasn’t real, none of it was. Well, nothing that would have mattered in the greater scheme of things. She wasn't real, and the relationship wasn't real. It was all just a ruse and Krabs got played. Like a song on the world’s smallest violin. Cashina was nothing more than just another machine piloted by the desperate and stubborn Plankton. A ploy to seduce the Krabby Patty secret formula out of Krabs. And of course Krabs would just have to live with that, while Plankton would probably go on to act as if nothing significant had happened between them. Typical.
As Plankton left the hotel room a room service waiter that had been coming up to deliver a platter of food for the would-be couple, had been standing awkwardly in the doorway. After he finished observing the rambling copepod’s departure, the waiter sat next to Krabs on the love-seat as the miserly crustacean wept. This admittedly distracted Krabs from his misery, if only for a brief moment in time.
"Oh, hey buddy. Although your wife just ran out on you..."
Maybe the details were a little... off, Krabs had thought to himself when the waiter initially began to speak, those deceiving words of comfort, but he certainly wasn't one to turn down any gracious words of reassurance and kindness from strangers being given out for free. Especially not from the hapless waiter who just happened to witness his latest heartbreak...
"You still have to tip me."
... And it might have been a bit naive of Krabs to hope for some kind of sympathy from a stranger during work hours, but he was under the opinion that if you're going to work at a place like The Honeymoon Hotel the least you could do is pretend to offer some kind of reassurance in a situation like this one. It's not like it woulda killed ya, and it's not like he couldn't have handled just one more lie tonight.
Still, after he gathered what remained of Cashina - because he'd be a fool to give up a free pile of cash, no matter how broken-hearted he may have been - he had made sure to leave a tip for the waiter. Flipping only a nickel in his direction as tip, out of spite. Not that he would have been extraordinarily more generous under better circumstances but he'd at least briefly think about maybe giving him a bigger tip for five seconds, or even be far more amiable about only tipping a nickel at least.
Krabs hopped down from his side of the love-seat, leaving the waiter alone where he sat with the soup and a nickel. Leaving the hotel room and The Honeymoon Hotel behind him, and everything else that happened that night. And the last few days too. And ideally, forgetting everything that happened. But he understood these things and he knew better than that, he wasn't going to forget that easily. And he'd go home, and live with the memories and the thoughts and the confusing feelings.
"Alone, of course," Krabs thought bitterly to himself.
As soon as Krabs stepped outside of the hotel he saw his boatmobile, parked out front. With all of those stupid decorations to celebrate a ridiculous fake marriage that made him feel sick to look at. Words painted in garish red paint on the back of his boat reading "just married" staring him down, mocking him - what a laugh! He couldn’t do anything about the paint tonight, but with a snip! of his claws he quickly cut the ropes that tied those dreadful, metallic, noise-making decorations to his boat.
Opening the door and climbing in, he just sat in the driver's seat and took a deep and pitiful breath. He didn't bother turning the ignition key, just sat and thought.
Plankton was always trying to steal the formula, and coming up with the most desperate of schemes to meet that end. It's not like it was the first time anyone had fallen for one of those schemes in his efforts to get the formula, even though someone would always figure it out or he'd expose himself before it was too late. And it's not like it isn't the first time Plankton's tried seducing someone for the formula, either.
But this was different. This wasn't dating someone's mother in hopes of getting the formula, this wasn't building a robot duplicate that was somehow convincing enough to fool his employees, it wasn't winning employment of SpongeBob in a game of poker, or manipulating him through friendship, or any of Plankton's hundreds of other schemes. This was Plankton himself seducing Krabs with an obsession he's had for years. An obsession that Plankton himself introduced him to!
No, it was more than that; This was fabricating an entire new identity and relationship. And Krabs fell for it; hook, line and sinker.
Even though Cashina couldn't have possibly loved him, because she wasn't real, some part of him hoped that at least the one controlling her might have. The one behind every action, every line... the vows and the I Dos... Krabs felt a twist in his gut thinking about it. He thought about how Plankton was behind that tiny little microphone, saying every word he had once thought had belonged to Cashina. He thought about Plankton being the one behind all the flirting. And it was pathetic, he thought, but there was a part of him wanted Plankton to be sincere. That he wanted Plankton to...
... That he wanted Plankton to feel that way about him?
To be loved, to be desired, as himself and not as the holder of the formula. By Plankton, of all the people under the sea...
What had he hoped for when he asked Plankton if he felt anything? And what did he honestly expect to happen? Did he think Plankton would suddenly announce that he'd fallen in love with Krabs? Or that Plankton would forget all about his marriage with Karen, his precious computer wife, and run away with him? File for divorce, just like his parents did when they were kids? Or give up on trying to get the formula from him? Did Krabs honestly think that he could live happily ever after with Plankton?
... What would it have even been like, anyway?
He tried to picture it. He'd wake up in the morning, he'd look over and Plankton would... would he be sleeping in the same bed as him or would he have his own, smaller, bed on the nightstand? He'd be the first thing he saw in the morning, either way. They'd sit at the table in the dining room and eat breakfast together, the two of them... and Pearl, his darling daughter. Like a real family. They'd ask each other how the other slept, maybe show a little PDA... maybe in the form of a little kiss, and Pearl would exclaim that they're embarrassing her even though it would be just the three of them... Then Pearl would head off to school while Krabs and Plankton... would go to work. At the Krusty Krab and Chum Bucket, respectively. Right? Or maybe Plankton would stay home and... and ...
Feeling another twist in his gut, Krabs slouched, bumping his head against the steering wheel repetitively. There's no way it could have worked out. How can he be so naive and... and... and stupid , sitting here, fantasizing about a life with Plankton that is just... just impossible, after everything that's been said and done in their lives. He needed to get home, anyways. He could feel sorry for himself and fantasize about how things could have been once he was home.
Taking another deep breath to center himself, he finally turned the key in the ignition and as the boat rumbled to life he shifted gears to make that inevitable drive home. The drive was quiet, with very little other drivers out so late and the cool currents of the water nipped at his face in a way that only served to make the night feel all the more dramatic and unforgiving. Really, it felt like a scene in some cheesy romantic comedy film he wouldn't care to admit he would enjoy, but in real life.
The difference is that he is not as certain he would get that same kind of happy ending in the climax of the film - and he was in just the right state of mind to believe he wouldn't have deserved one, either.
"Hi, Daddy!!"
As soon as he walked through the door, Krabs was greeted by his daughter, who had been sitting in the rocking chair in front of the door. Pearl had looked up at him for a moment while greeting him, only to resume focusing on what she was doing as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She was gently rocking in the chair while knitting, a hobby she had apparently picked up but never mentioned when or how to him. He likely would have assumed that she picked it up from him if not for the fact that she didn't exactly think the fact her dad liked to knit was cool.
"Pearlie?" Krabs mumbled in a quizzical tone before he turned his head to read the wall clock on the other side of the room. "What are ye still doing up so late, sweetheart?"
"Oh, you know. Couldn't really sleep, so I started knitting a little to tire myself out, and then I mighta lost track of the time, so-" Pearl interrupted herself, placing a flipper on her cheek inquisitively- "Hey, hold on a minute, Daddy! Where's Cashina?"
Krabs swallowed nervously. Oh, boy. Words could not describe how excited he was to have to, nay, be able to tell his daughter everything that happened earlier. And by that we mean he's not excited at all. What would he even say? What could he say about this complicated, stressful situation at hand? How would he explain? That what they both thought was to be her stepmother was actually just Plankton in disguise all along?
"Well, I, er... Ye see, Pearl, as it turns out you, um... aren't... getting.. er, don't have a- a stepmother, after all?"
"What do you mean I'm not getting a stepmother? I was there at the wedding and everything, I watched you exchange vows! How could I not have a stepmother after that?" a pause, and a skeptical squint as she tilted her head in thought before continuing her thought process, "Are you trying to tell me she was, like, murdered during your honeymoon or something?"
Krabs paused, a look of confusion and concern clear on his face.
"What, no? Pearlie, what have ye been watching to think- no." Krabs scratched the back of his head, nervously. "It was, um. It turns out it was all just a scheme by Plankton, so... uh..."
Now it was Pearl's turn to pause with a look of confusion and concern.
"Wait, so you married Plankton?"
"I, uh, I suppose so? ... he walked out though so I, I dunno." Krabs rubbed one of his arms with his free claw and looked down at his wooden floor. "Actually, I think it probably wasn't legally binding, since he used a fake identity and everything,"
Groaning, Pearl put her knitting needles and her work in progress - whatever it may eventually become - on the end table next to the rocking chair. She crossed her flippers in indignation and rolled her eyes.
"Great! I finally warm up to the idea of you getting remarried and it turns out you married THAT creep! And he doesn't even want to step up to the plate and be a stepfather, and..."
Pearl paused again.
"Wait a minute," she began with a leap to her feet and immediately pulled her smaller, crustaceous father into a big hug, "Oh, goodness! Daddy, I'm so sorry!"
She held him in her flippers for a few moments, and all Krabs could do was sigh as he leaned into the hug. It was brief, but it did bring him some small comfort. When Pearl set him back down onto the wood floor she took a small step back with one flipper on his shoulder as she looked down with him with sympathy in her eyes.
"Are you going to be okay?"
"I'll probably be fine," Krabs mumbled, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll see ye in the morning, try and get some rest, me wee beluga."
So he turned and started to head up the stairs.
If he were to be more honest about the whole thing, Krabs felt terrible. Maybe the worst he's felt in more than a decade. And it would probably be more than evident if you looked at him for longer than a few seconds. He was tired, his heart ached, and he just did not know where to go from here. But he didn't want to worry Pearl, his sweet darling daughter, any more than he already had tonight. He's done more than enough moping during her lifetime, and he didn't need to subject her to any more of it. So he decided that he was just going to have to tough it out and be a man.
But he was also tired, so very tired.
All he wanted to do now is to lie in bed, sleep for a few days... or maybe a week... or maybe a year... and feel sorry for himself. Okay, maybe he won't sleep for longer than necessary. He has a business to run and a teenage daughter to look after. But maybe while lying in bed he will fantasize a little - or maybe a lot, he wasn't sure yet - about living a life he could probably never have. With a man who definitely would never want to be apart of it. Even if he felt stupid for wanting it, and stupider for even entertaining the idea for more than a few seconds.