I fished them out using a pair of tongs that I put under hot water in the sink. I went to get some alcohol wipes while I left the tongs under the sun, after drying the AirPods with some bathroom tissue (and throwing out the ear tips).
Once I had the wipes, I cleaned the AirPods multiple times, and wiped them on a microfibre cloth. Now I’m letting them under stay in the sun.
I don’t know what more to do. I plan to let them be under the sun for the rest of the day, and probably wipe them a few more times. I don’t know if that’ll be enough to soothe my worries, though.
Thanks for the tip. A link on Apple's support page said not to use products containing bleach, and to use wipes - https://support.apple.com/en-us/102672
But I'll look around for something that seems to fit both advises.