monster snz thought of the evening:

a dragonborn person or similar monster that has an immense lung capacity, always trying their hardest to get their sneezes out as fast as they can when they feel them coming, because if they were to just let them build and build and build, the gargantuan amount of air they sucked in would result in an absoltey catastrophic sneeze.

Bonus points if they have to frantically ask for help getting the sneeze out before it gets t-too bihhh...hiiiig!!

😺 snz prompt #2

for snz fics/wavs/drawing • feel free to like/reblog/use (snz kink blogs & 18+ please)

character A ask character B to watch his/her cat and character B immediately saying yes bc they have a crush on character A even tough their deeply allergic to it / when character A is coming back they are really surprised of the investment of character B who is fighting an gigantic snz fit

and : what about giving character A have the snz kink ??

SICKFIC TIME!!!! kinda

this isn’t snz, it’s not even fully a sickfic, just the doctor being a massive nerd and donna being done with it

also this is fully inspired by my nursing major ass being an absolute nerd. like tonsils are drained with an 18 gauge needle??? that’s HUGE…. anyway…..

——

“Oh! Yes! Great! You’re awake!” Donna heard The Doctor shout as she trudged towards him. She winced slightly as she came closer. His childlike energy certainly wasn’t helping her pounding headache.

“Come on! I figured out exactly where we’re going today!” he said, practically bouncing off the walls.

“The only place I’m going today is my bed, Spaceman,” she croaked. “Right after I make my tea.” The Doctor stared at her for a moment, and Donna could’ve sworn she could see the cogs turning in his brain.

“What happened to your voice?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Oh, I just decided to switch it up,” she said sarcastically. “What do you think?”

He stared at her blankly, clearly struggling to understand what she was getting at. She rolled her eyes in annoyance. 900 year old, supposedly genius alien, and he couldn’t even pick up on illness.

“I’m sick, Dumbo,” she said with an eye roll.

“Oh…. oh….. interesting,” he said as he thought it over.

“What? None of the other dozens of humans you’ve traveled with ever got ill?”

“No, no, they did. Of course they did. Just not like this.”

“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously. If he was about to tell her this was some weird alien disease, she was going to kick his ass all the way back to Mars.

“When the others were sick it was the sneezing and the coughing and maybe the voice would start to go after a few days, but you don’t have any of that. You’re completely fine! I mean… minus the voice, of course.”

“Ha! I wish it was that simple, mate,” she said, voice fading in and out between words. “I can barely swallow.”

"Hmm,” he hummed, thinking it over. Without warning, he walked up to Donna and placed his hands on her neck. She jumped in surprise but didn’t pull away.

“Oh….oh…wow…this is quite interesting,” he said as he pressed lightly with his fingers. “Your anterior cervical lymph nodes are huge. Seriously, gigantic. Some major lymphadenitis going on.”

“Lovely,” she said dryly. She didn’t even bother to ask him what any of that means. Suddenly, his eyes lit up with… excitement?

“The tonsils! Oh, the tonsils! Human tonsils are really so interesting, and with illness?” He whipped out the sonic screwdriver with extreme enthusiasm. “Mind if I take a look?”

She shot him a distrustful glare, and he seemed to pick up on the message.

“Relax, I’m not going to scan you. I’m just using it as a flashlight,” he explained.

“So you’re using my misery as a fun little science experiment?”

“Um…. yes?” he said innocently.

“Ugh, fine,” she groaned. “But you’re making my tea.”

“Deal. Now open up.”

She obliged, and The Doctor, as promised, only used the screwdriver as a flashlight. His eyes grew wider and a smile spread across his face.

“Oh, this is just brilliant,” he whispered. “Who knew human tonsils could get this big? I mean… I knew, of course. These are grade 3, by the way, but I’ve never seen it in person!”

“Really? In the hundreds of years you’ve been alive, you’ve never seen a single other pair of human tonsils look like this?” she asked, slightly annoyed.

“I don’t exactly go around asking people to show me their tonsils,” he shrugged. “Now open back up! I’m not done looking.” She gave him a dirty look but did as he asked.

“Absolutely fascinating,” he said in awe. “You know, I bet I could drain a ton of lymphatic fluid from these. Go in with a syringe, probably an 18 gauge nee-“

“Okay, we’re done!” Donna snapped. “I am tired of being a zoo animal. You’ve had your fun, now go make my tea.”

“But-“

“Now.”

“Yes, Earth Girl.”

The King’s New Allergy (1-3/5ish I think?)

Okay this is the last one I’m gonna post for a bit I think. Male, Mer/lin fanfic if  you squint maybe, not quite gigantic sneezes but also WILDLY unrealistic in volume.

---

I. The Night Watch

“Ha-ehhhh… ehhhhhh… hHHEEEEHHHHHhhh…”

I could practically see the castle walls shaking. I was on the king’s watch, posted just outside his bedchamber. Ordinarily the night’s watch over the king’s chamber was an uneventful, easy enough job. But that was ordinarily. And these were hardly ordinary circumstances.

“hheeeEEHHH! EEEHH! HEH! HEHH! HEHHH!”

“ ‘ere he goes again…” complained Caspian, the guard assigned the watch with me, rolling his eyes, and covering his ears, for all the good it’d do. “Whole castle’ll be wakin’ up five hours early in three… two…”

I did likewise, covering my ears in preparation for the explosion.

“HUUUUUUUHHHHHH…”

“…one…”

“HUUURRRRRRRRRSSSSCCCCHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” The king fairly roared.

I heard more than one started yelp in the aftermath of the king’s sneeze. But those were faint, only perceptible to an elite guard like myself, trained to notice all manner of slight, subtle noises. The king’s sneeze, however, was neither slight, nor subtle. It was a veritable war-cry. Worse than a war-cry, I myself had heard the king’s war-cry and it had nothing on his all-consuming, castle-awakening, sleep-destroying…

“HHHHHAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRSSCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEYYYYYY!!!” Our Vesuvial monarch erupted again, adding an involuntary—surely involuntary, he SWORE up and down it was involuntary—scream to the end, in case the body of the noise hadn’t been sufficient.

“How long y’think ‘e goes on this time, Damien?” Caspian asked, nodding towards me.

Frankly, on the strength of that first wall-rattling sneeze, he was either going to blast the irritation out in four or five full-strength sneezes, or else…

“Sounds like ‘is nose is tickled right good, my friend.” I confessed, shaking my head, “I’m afraid it’ll be a long night for all of us. We’re in for more fits tonight. And he’ll be in a right mood in the morning. It don’t let him sleep anymore than it does the rest of us. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this allergy of the King’s was more than an allergy…”

“AAAAAAAAEEEERRRRRRRRRRSSCCCCHHHHHHHHUUUUHHHHHHHH!!” The nasal bombardments continued, that one less vocal, more nasal, still a wall of sound that surely awoke what precious-few castlefolk had managed to cling to sleep through his first two sneezes.

“Arrrggghhhhh… and you know if ‘e sneezes all nigh’, ‘e’ll prob’ly sneeze half the day too… that’ll be no sleep for us either.”

“Says you,” I replied, “I sleep down in the lower town.”

“You’re telling me, you can’t hear those great big galumphing—“

“AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

“That. You’re telling me you can’t hear that down in the lower town?”

“Well, of course you can. But you know my brother does a bit of the…” I wiggled my fingers a bit, to indicate the forbidden: magic.

“Warded the house ‘ave you? Smart one.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Caspian, you can still hear ‘im if it’s a really big one. But it’s faint, an’ I’m a plenty heavy sleeper when I want to be.”

“HaahHHH… AHHH-HHOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRSSCCCHHHHHHHH!!”

“Gods, that was a big one!” Caspian exclaimed, “Even after all this time, ‘e still shocks me with how big they are. I know it’s a whole ‘thing’ with the royals, the whole sneezing like the thunder thing. Lord knows the princess could rattle the walls good before they married ‘er off to whatever kingdom she’s gone to, but…”

“EEEEHHHHHHTTTSSSSSHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“But even Princess Eleanor couldn’t compare to this,” I finished for him. And it was true, she couldn’t. None of them could. In fact, before this whole… thing started happening, I’d personally thought the whole “descended of Jupiter with sneezes of the thunder” thing was a great crock of shite. Not that I blamed them of course; royals had to have some mystique to maintain their legitimacy, and the gods know I’d worked under worse kings as a sell-sword, before I found my place here. But still, seemed like another load of royal horseshit. Until a fortnight prior, when the king had been plagued with the most terrible allergy that seized upon him and wrung out of him sneezes that seemed fit to wake the dead… or perhaps to rival the thunder in their volume and violence. It hadn’t been so bad, the first few days. But after that first night, when the allergy refused to leave him, even in his sleep, awaking the king with the most awful irritations—who subsequently woke the entire castle with the most awful sternutations—the people of the castle had been less than enthusiastic, turning to barely-concealed rage. Lack of sleep did that to a castle. It wasn’t every night, of course, and it wasn’t as though the king sneezed constantly through the night, but… it was certainly enough to set the entire castle on edge. And this, the third night in a row? Well, blessed be the gods for gainful employment solely at night.

“AAAAARRRRRCCCHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” The king thundered again.

“That one sounded tuckered out!” Caspian exclaimed, “y’think that means he’ll taper off soon?”

I shook my head. “It was a bit smaller than his usual but… mark me, we’ve got plenty left in this fit of his. If the gods are kind—“

“HHEEEEEEAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR-CCCHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” And there was the loudest sneeze yet, perhaps the loudest I’d heard from him since the whole business began. I nearly jumped in fright, and poor Caspian leapt fully into the air. He was only lucky he stifled his squeal of shock—more than one guard had already been replaced for reacting too noisily to the king’s eruptions. Poor thing. I think it embarrassed the king. He was already suffering, he didn’t need the reminder of how much he was inconveniencing everybody else with his inability to get a hold of his accursed, enormous, explosive, seizing sinuses…

“AAAAAAEEEEEEEEESSSSSCCCCCHHHHHHHHUUUHHHHHH!!”

“If the gods are kind, we’re halfway through. If not… for all we know this fit’ll go straight into the second and we’ll barely get a reprieve for thirty minutes.”

“Gods, I don’t know how you do it.” Caspian said, shaking his head at me, and clutching at his chest, trying to recover from the fright the king had given him. “They really weren’t this bad, during the war? I know you fought in his unit, back when ‘e was just the prince.”

“Oh, well… ‘e sneezed plenty big back then too. Woke us up more than once, tho half the time I think it was on purpose. It was always suspiciously close to time to march. But that…” I shook my head, “that was a bunch of soldiers, sleeping light and sleeping rough, ready for action at any time—you know he had us on the dangerous route, aroun’ through that forest—and sure, ‘e was loud but this is—“

“HHAAAAAAAAA-SHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“This is different. This is worse than I’ve ever heard ‘im, by far. I heard tell in the old days, if ‘e caught cold, you could hear him, real faint, down in the kitchens. But not like… you know old Caliphrea said it sounded to her like he was right next to her bedside. First night she woke up all ready to curtsey and ask what the king was doin’ in ‘er bedchambers!” I chuckled.

“You don’t think…?” Caspian said, looking at me meaningfully and giving a little wiggle to his fingers.

At last he’d got it. I’d been hinting around at it for a while, but. It wasn’t wise to speak too openly about these things. A little enchantment of a bungalow in the lower town, sure. The occasional herbal pick-me-up, a little help with the chores… that much was fine to speak about. That much had changed, since the bad old days, where magic was concerned. But this? Speculating that the king had been ensorcelled? Especially with something like this, something so close to the mythology that had always surrounded the crown? To attribute it to anything other than the king’s royal blood and manly fortitude (at least in earshot of any of the nobility) was unwise, to say the least. But now that he’d said it, I could reveal a bit more of my thoughts.

“HAAAEEEESSSSHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!! AEEEEESSCCCCHHHOOOOOOOOO!! HUUHHH… AAAATTTTTTTTTT-CCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!”

Or, at least, I could if the king stopped sneezing long enough for me to be heard over the din. And to think this was only his first fit of the night…

— II. The Head Cook

“EEEEEEAAAAAACCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Thank the gods I hadn’t bothered to attempt sleep. Five nights running, and my old bones, and my bad health, I think the king’s sneeze might have shocked me into an early grave! Saints and heavens, louder than ever! And the gods know the king would never forgive himself for that, would probably set that sorcerer of his—not that the king’s manservant was to be referred to as a sorcerer, and wasn’t that peculiar, though it’s hardly the first not-entire-secret-secret that’s gone around this old castle, including the nasty business about the king’s own mother… oh dear me I’m rambling. Well in any case, I’d die of fright, he’d send down the sorcerer to save me and before I knew it I’d find myself an undead cook, cursed to make the king’s favorite pastries for all eternity. Which, after some consideration, doesn’t sound all that bad, especially if the sorcerer fixed my aching hip. I quite like making pastries.

“Ms Caliphrea… ’e’s off again!” Tarran said, as she shuffled into the kitchen, still in her nightgown, looking harried and upset. I should never have told that girl she was my favorite of the maids—she was always seeking me out, more and more since the King’s booming sneezes had started up. She was a sweet girl, but somehow in the evenings she never had the energy to help me mix dough and cut tarts.

“Worse ’n last night!” I said, commiserating as I poured the milk and sugar in with the flour, shortly before the king proved me right with a great thundering

“HHHHHHHAAAEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSHHHHH!!!”

You really could hear him just as clear as bell, as if he’d been right next to me. Though clear as a bell might’ve been something of an understatement. The king’s sneezes—

“HHHERRRRRRRRAAAAAAASSSCCCCHHHHHEEEWWWWW!!!”

—were more like standing inside a great cathedral bell as it was being rung, filling your whole head with sound, resounding and resounding til it was all you could even think of. At least, that’s what they were like lately. The good King’s never been a quiet sneezer, that I can say with a great deal of confidence. Even when he was still the Prince and not a crowned and holy King, he’d still sneeze loud enough that I could hear down in the kitchens. Of course, then his chamber was right above the kitchens, even if a few floors of the castle above. And it was loud, true. (Although I might exaggerate the tale a bit, that’s my right as a matriarch of this castle!) But back then he wasn’t being heard in the lower town, I know that; no one sneezes that loud. Or no one did, because these days…

“EEEEEEEAAAACCCCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!! HAAAAAACCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!! HHHHAAAEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Auuggghhh…” Tarran moaned, “I’m just so tiiiiiiired, mum. I don’t mean to complain but…” She flopped down onto the counter, rather dramatically. I must’ve been tired myself because I’d ordinarily scold her for such behavior, but I just nudged her over a bit, so I could get at the rolling pin. The first dough, that I’d made earlier in the night, would be rested and ready to roll out soon.

“But it’s just… does the King have to sneeze so loudly?” she whined, “I’m half-deaf, mum! And my sis, she works in the stables and she says it frights the horses so they’ve got to keep someone to the stables all the time and if his sneezin’ didn’t wake the stablehands as much as it does the horses…”

“He can’t help it, you know that,” I said, giving her a gentle pat on the head. “If he would, he could. The King loves his people. You know he’d do anything to make things better for us. I’ll bet the king has tried five or six times to exile himself til he gets his sneezing under control. But we need him here—”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-EEEERRRRRRRRSSSSCCCHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“MERCY!” I yelped, “that was a loud one even for ‘im! Must’ve been brewing in there for a while… now what was I saying, Tarran?”

“Blah blah blah he’s a good king and he loves us and we need him here. I don’t care, mum, I just wanna sleep!”

“Now Tarran—”

“HHHEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRSSCCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-AAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!”

The king sneezed again, with a scream at the end that rattled like the thunder. In fact, that’s exactly what it sounded like, like the King was a one-man storm, like a clap of thunder…

“Mum?” Tarran asked, tapping at my shoulder. “Mum, you were saying?”

“I was… I was saying…”

“HEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” The King sneezed again.

“Tarran. Tarran, have I ever told you the tale of our royal family and the great gods of Olympus?”

“The great who’s of a-what-ness??”

“The gods of Olympus… Jupiter, the King of the gods. Our royal family is descended from the god of…”

“AAAAAAAAARRRRRREEEEEESSSSSCCCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Louder still. It seemed that the King’s roars were louder than thunder, louder than ever…

“Tarran… in the morning… go and fetch the physician, will you? Tell him that old Caliphrea wants to see em. Tell ‘im it’s important, and to come right away.”

“YYYEEEEEESSSCCCCHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! HEEEESSCCHHOOOOOOOOOO!!! AAAAARRRREEESCCCHHHHH!!! HEESSCCCCHHHH!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYEEEEEESSCCCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

“Oh by the gods!” Tarran exclaimed. “How is he doing that? If I sneezed that loud I’d… I’d blow up! It’s impossible! D’ye hear that mum? How are any of us supposed to sleep with the King storming away up there…”

I put an arm around her, going back to rolling out my dough before cutting it and putting it in the oven. The storm was over for now, you could always tell after a big fit of sneezes like that. “There there child. Run along now and catch some sleep before he starts up again. You know the King’s manservant has been called back to the castle; between him and that old physician of ours, we’ll have the King fixed right up in no time, isn’t that right?”

“Yes mum. I’m sorry… I don’t mean to speak ill of the King I’m just… I’m just so tired…”

“So run along now, and get your rest. Odds are he’ll start up again before the sun rises. Get in your winks while you can.”

“Yes mum. I hope it’s a long time before he starts up again this time. Me poor ears can’t take much more!” She whined, giving one last forlorn look back at me before she slunk back to her chambers for a bit of rest.

For me, I had plotting to do. I knew the old physician knew of the stories, the legend of the power of Jupiter and all that. All us of a certain age knew the fairytale. But not all have been in this castle as long as I have. Not all remember how the stories can come true. And besides, I had baking to do! And he was going to start up again soon. If I needed my rest, I’d take it during the day while the maids spread the food throughout the castle. Of course, the King had taken to sneezing more and more during the day as well… but with any luck, between my old stories and the physician, and the King’s sorcerer heading back this way… hopefully our nightly disruptions—and our exhausted King—would be set right soon enough.

“Sneezin’! Of all things, sneezin’!” I chuckled to myself, “Well, wonders never cease around here. I’ve certainly seen worse.” I murmured as I cut the dough and carried it towards the ovens. — Bugger. Blighter. Codswollop. Addlepate. Nincompoop. Stubborn old never-changing know-it-all arrogant clotpole of a king!

“AAAAEEEEEEEESSSSCCHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

And damn near the most attractive man in the whole history of the planet!

It was enough that he’d lied, said he was fine, said it was just a little allergy, said it was no worry at all if I went out on a quest, said he’d deal with it, said he’d solve the issue just fine on his own… and never even bothered to think that he might keep up the entire kingdom! That was all enough, but that the problem I was now—finally—called upon to solve was so gods damned distracting…

“HHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Bloody hell, they’ve gotten louder! Ohhh, you don’t know how much you’re helping me with this sleeping draught, er, I mean, this sleeping medicine." The old villager assured me. And ordinarily I would be gracious and more than glad to help but right now all I could offer him was a distracted,

“Oh, yes, of course, uh…”

For all I knew, he was nattering on in the background, joking about the draught or magic or the sneezes but oh the sneezes were all I could focus on, all I could think about, waiting for the next one to strike wondering how each one was impossibly louder than the last, standing on edge, hoping I’d be able to hide my reaction to the next gigantic, impossible, ridiculous, practically supernatural:

“WWWWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEYYYYYY!!”

“Bloody hell, he’s putting me on!” The words leapt from my throat before I could contain them but by all the gods if it didn’t seem like he was making them louder, more vocal, more desperate just for me…

I had to get out of here, preferably without visibly adjusting myself.

“Alright, so nice to talk to you but I’m afraid I’ll have to go, of course I’m glad to help you, as the King’s Right Hand it’s my duty to help everyone in the kingdom but especially our beloved capitol citizens and..”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAASSSSHHHH-HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“Oh by all the gods that was a bellow, he’s practically roaring them…” I bit my fist. Apparently whatever cursed robbed him of control of his nose left my mouth similarly uncontrollable. Who would have thought I’d ever have a secret to conceal from the people more than the magic? And yet, here I was shuffling out of a house, grateful for once for the abundance of robes our damned “apothecary” insisted I wear, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could restrain myself from reacting to the constant eruptions coming from the throne room, where I knew he was attempting to hold court, but couldn’t because his nose, his beautiful nose, his itching, twitching, out-of-control, world wonder of a nose wouldn’t let him conduct state business, was more demanding, more powerful even than a king, forcing him to surrender every few moments to another magically-amplified:

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAARRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

He was always a loud sneezer. I wouldn’t say that was the first thing that attracted him to me. No, that wouldn’t even be true. But I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t notice it either. He’d get colds, back when I was his manservent, and I would tend to him and try so hard to pretend every great galumphing roar of a sneeze didn’t make me want to swoon. And the servants, the kitchen staff, even the knights would laugh and joke that he had the sneezes of thunder, that they could hear him all over the castle and into the lower town, well… it might have been a joke then, but it certainly wasn’t now. Neither the range of his boistrous sternutations, nor their thunderous source.

“AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Gods!” I cried out, unable to restrain it. The townsfolk would think, there goes the King’s Right Hand, as annoyed with him as the rest of us are. But annoyance was as far from my mind as the King was from his senses when he sent me away, in the midst of what I knew was not some ordinary ailment. Even before they’d grown to their present titanic scope, I knew there was something unusual about this new allergy of his, something stronger, deeper. I almost felt my magic react—of course, I figured it wasn’t exactly my magic that was pulling me to stay with him, care for him. These things can be hard to tell apart. Apparently it was both.

Was it three? Five? Ten? Twelve? Seventeen? more roaring sneezes he released on my walk from the lower town up to the castle? I couldn’t keep track, distracted by how desperately I wanted  to go either to him, or to my chambers; to comfort him, or to relieve the ever-mounting tension I felt every time he—

“HHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSCCCHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“By the ancient—!” another bitten off curse. It was as though I was walking through a wall of sound. The shockwave of his sneeze felt as though it bodily pushed me back, washed over me like a wave. Was it my magic that was tingling my skin or was it just… me? These things could be hard to tell apart. But no, no time to focus on that. How ironic that this of all things would be the most successful attack on the kingdom in years, practically decades. How could anyone have known between his pride and my predilections, we would find this perhaps the hardest to break of all known curses?

I had trained. Trained ceaselessly, trained til I had control over my magic that I could only have dreamt of as a younger man. (And did, actually). And as such, ordinarily breaking such a curse—powers of the ancient gods notwithstanding—would be… well, if not child’s play, certainly achievable. But as desperately as I focused on the needs of our Kingdom, there was always a tendril, and edge of my dumb desire, that I could not will into the spell. To break a curse like the King’s “allergy,” one bound up in centuries old magics even I knew more by feel than by fact, would take all my concentration, all my will. But I could not bend all my will to the containment of these eruptions he called sneezes, not when there was still a part of me that found nothing in all the world more attractive.

But I had to put that out of my mind as I passed through the castle halls. I was approaching our apothecary’s chambers. My old Druid rival, turned a friend. Still, friend though he might be, I knew better than to trust him with a secret like the real reason I was unable to break this curse—the mockery might literally never end. Still, I had to suppress a shudder when the King sneezed just as I passed by the Audience Chamber, where he was still doing his best to conduct offical business.

“W-we shall not see a rihhHHHH… riiHHHHHHHHHHHH… HIIIIIIIIIIIIHHHHHHHHHHH…”

I couldn’t help my curiosity, couldn’t help but peer in to see a chamber full of petitioners and nobles, scribes and scholars, openly bracing themselves, covering their ears, looking at the King’s working, flaring, twitching nostrils as though they were facing down a lance at a tourney, hunkering down in the hopes that their ears would survive another:

“HHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Oh by the g-gaaaAHHHH… gods I… I’m s-sorryaaaAAHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSSCCCCCHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Damn! No rise in the tahhh… tax… oh…”

He sounded so pitiful, so miserable, so utterly at the mercy of the tickle in his nose. The sneezes sounded as though they were wrenched from him, and I cursed myself for my weakness—surely my love for him ought to be strong enough that all of my being would spare him this suffering. Surely that love ought to outweigh that tendril of silly, foolish desire…

“RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH-EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!”

I couldn’t stand this much longer, caught between the pleasure of the sight and the torment of my powerlessness, not before the King’s new allergy, but before my own stubborn selfishness. Whoever managed to work this curse, to channel the magicks of the King’s bloodline in such a frankly ridiculous way, surely they never could have suspected they would practically grind royal business to a halt, since the king could hardly get through three sentences without succumbing to sneezes that shook the castle to its foundations.

I could only hope that the apothecary had a remedy where I did not. I suspected I was still red in the face when I arrived at his chambers, to see him standing outside, smirking.

“I see you took some time to check on our monarch and his nasal bombardments,” he drawled, smirk never fading.

I could have asked him how precisely he knew I had taken such time, but I knew that was a question I would do decidedly better not to ask. “Yes, I have.” I replied tersely.

“Oh, the King’s Right Hand is too austere and wise for a bit of ribbing from the Court Physician I see. Alright, alright, we’ll play this your way.” He said, as he ushered me into his chambers. I could hear the laugh in his voice, and despite my very firm pledge never to use magic to harm, or for selfish ends, I quite wanted to curse him into silence. Although that would prevent him from telling me about his remedy, assuming he had one.

“Yes, of course, I have a solution. Never thought I’d be the one to solve a magical malady with you around but I suppose this is why it never hurts to have a backup, hm?” He said, mirth still dancing around his eyes. I perhaps would have succumbed to a desire to at least place a mild hex on him but of course, the King intervened with a—

“EEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

It would be undignified, and untrue, to say I had to stifle a moan. It was just surprise.

“Ah, I see the typhoon still rages.” He said, looking up at me under coy eyelashes. “Well, it won’t for much longer, as I have devised a solution!”

I wanted to scream at him to get on with it, but frankly I didn’t trust my voice as another great cracking “HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSCCCCCCCCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” lascerated the air.

“So, we know that you are unable to directly attack this curse. And while there are rituals I could perform—very lengthy and painful rituals which I would not at all enjoy—” his curving lips belied that statement but beyond a raised eyebrow I did not dare comment, “that would separate our King from the ancient Olympian magicks that echo through his bloodline.  Oh, pause for thunder!”

“AAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

I wanted to ask him how he knew that the King was about to sneeze yet again, but so often with the Druid it was better not knowing.

“In any case, while I could accomplish such a ritual, the consequences on our King’s temperament, abilities, and frankly his sheer dumb luck may be unpredictable. Whatever silly hedgewitch stumbled her way into this curse was dealing in forces far beyond her comprehension or abilities. In all likelihood, all of this involves nothing more than an enchantment on some pollenating plant or other that causes the pollen to excite the Olympian magicks with which our King is imbued. All that energy excited, with nowhere to go, what can it do but release. At this point, the King is probably less responding to an allergy than releasing pure Olympian magick in the only way his body knows how. Which I suppose is better than him manifesting lightning bolts, or perhaps the magic itself tearing him in two. Or three. Or five. Or any number of pieces, really, given the nature of wild mag—”

I was about to interrupt him, to demand he get to the point, but of course the King’s nose did it for me: “HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

That one seemed to be the loudest yet. Maybe this theory of magic all riled up with nowhere to go was true. And whatever the magic was, it seemed to be more and more riled by the second.

“So!” he said, either brought back on track by the King’s exp,losion or the impatience he saw on my face, “we could track down the agent causing the reaction, which would presumably involve exposing the King successively to every flower that grows in the nearby region to see which most excites the Olympian allergy, rather than the King’s ordinary sensitivities to pollen, which in turn would involve some sort of measure both of magic and of, well volume…” he continued, his smirk back and wider by the second. He wanted some sort of reaction. I wouldn’t give him one. If I could summon a yawn for myself, I would.

“But then again, the exposure might excite the Olympian magicks too much and well we’ve already discussed the possibilities there… in any case, after much thought, I have finally come to the correct conclusion! It will require your assistance, of course, although in a roundabout way, as you seem to experience some sort of… disability… when it comes to this particular magical circumstance. Our issue is that the King’s wild magick needs somewhere to go. So we shall simply tell it to go to you!”

“To me?!” I couldn’t help but blurt. I had done my best to stay stoic during his explanation—any reaction risked revealing too much—but this was too much. “You mean, when the King sneezes… forever, it will… send ancient Olympian magic into me?”

“Well, not forever. Over time it will… hm… it will establish a flow with your magic. A sort of… channel for the magic to travel. So rather than release in a sort of uncontrollable, violent…”

“HHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“…that,” he chuckled, “rather than that, if his magic is excited, it will simply flow into your infinite supply of magic, of which it is already, in some sense, a part. And presumably if you are in regular and close contact with the King, which, as his Right Hand you must be, the magic will naturally flow back to him, in gradual, manageable amounts, which shouldn’t cause such a—”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!”

“--dramatic reaction.”

I couldn’t help but lean against the counter for a moment, as I felt my knees give a bit with that last sneeze. I still had reason to doubt the Druid, although his plan made sense. And he truly was an ally, he’d proven that a thousand times over. Still, his alliegence—as he regularly made plain—was not to our King, much less to our Kingdom, and still less to me, in any real way. His alliegance was to prophecies, to the Old Religion, and some role that my magic—not me, but my magic—supposedly played in their Grand Design. But at present I could have given a flying codswollop about a grand design. All I wanted was to be at the King’s side, and sooner rather than later. And I wanted this problem solved. So…

“Alright. How soon can the remedy be prepared?”

“I’ll need a list of herbs…” he said, brandishing a rather long scroll, “how would you like to relive your former days are the physician’s apprentice, and help me gather these? I couldn’t possibly entrust it to anyone else, and it will help the spell for you to have as much proximity to the ingredients as poss—”

I did indulge myself in a bit of magic to summon the scroll from his hand. I may or may not have also indulged myself in sticking my tongue out at him. Which of course only promptly caused me to bite said tongue when another great rushing

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCCCHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

—resounded through the castle. The Druid’s face remained placid, smirk constant, but I could tell inside he was quaking with laughter.

“Alright, alright, I’ll gather your ingredients. Just… help him. Please.”

“Of course I shall. I am ever at your service.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” I muttered, as I turned to go, already scanning the scroll for the list of elements needed for this remedy.

“Hm, what was that?”

“HHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

“Sorry, couldn’t hear you over all that, gotta go!”

And with that I rushed from the Druid’s chambers. I suspected I heard a chortle through the closed door.

I find myself craving something to do with gigantic/power snz, but I'm also still wholly incapable of focusing on anything fetishy for any prolonged length of time these days.

Okay at this point I think people just want to have their hands all over him, because that sneeze is coming out one way or another 🤨

(marked as mature due to some 🌶️spicy🌶️ details)

Part 2 of the sneezy trunk hunk saga~

Looks like more helping hands are required to properly contain this big sneeze that's brewing, but is it going to be enough??

I can't take credit for this because I saw it described this way elsewhere but

I am dying for the idea of a gigantic sneeze having "aftershocks", as in smaller (but still relatively large!) sneezes that come rapid fire after the first, explosive one 🤤

anonymous comm of a BIG boy gearing up for an even BIGGER sneeze!!

this week on “I’m not a furry, BUT......!” 👀

Just woke up and already had three hot macro sneeze posts on my timeline. Today's gonna be a good day

presented with no context.

Dave

Lmao this shit is so weird don’t read it. I am choosing not to feel bad about it bc I wrote it a literal decade ago.

The sneezatoriums were erected, all across the world, shortly after 2025, when the mutation first appeared. At first, of course, it was only a few men that suffered from nasus magnificus, but the damage caused by those few thousands was more than sufficient to warrant the construction. The enlarged noses and lung capacity that marked nasus or simply The Sneeze Syndrome for short had at first been seen only among a few men, marked S-class for their ability to sneeze with such tremendous force that they blew away fences, small pets, plants, and even, in one well-documented case, a large door. But the disorder proved congenital. Between the S-classers reproducing and spreading the disorder to their sons along Y-chromosomes, and the high incidence of the mutation occurring elsewhere, by the year 2075, fully half of the male population suffered from the condition. Worse, the sneezes only grew in size. One particularly nasally-endowed young man had actually blown down several large trees in a forest after a particularly bad run in with a very fluffy white cat and a grandma far too eager to have her cat petted, and far too set-in-her-ways to accept the modern dangers of such behavior. Thankfully, his own father had been one of the first to teach his sons the techniques of sneeze-control that had become practically universal by 2112, and he managed to control the sneeze long enough to run to a nearby forest; otherwise, the damage could have been much more serious.

Nowadays, of course, nasus was simply a fact of growing up for young men. It was just a part of puberty, of “becoming a man”. One’s sneezes went from a young boy’s  simple “achooo!” no more powerful than any standard sneeze from a woman, to a man’s mighty roar of a sneeze, and the attendant responsibility to control that sneeze and only direct it towards the proper circumstances, i.e., sneezatoriums. In fact, men with bigger and stronger sneezes were considered more masculine, not only because massive sneezes were a sex-linked trait, but because stronger sneezes were seen as contributions to society; the sneezatoriums, over the years, had also become generators for wind power. A town with a lot of big sneezers in it could provide a good deal of the city’s energy needs with sneeze-power alone, saving the town and the government lots of money. Thus big sneezes had become a point of pride among most cultures by 2112. Young men were taught techniques for controlling their nasal tickles and itches until the opportune moment, and shamed when they were unable to control their massive sneezes. However, great praise and even increased attentions from the opposite sex (as well as the same sex) resulted when a man had extremely powerful sneezes that he also controlled extremely well.

This brings us to the story of young David Herbert Crane. Dave was one of the most popular boys in school, not least because he was known as one of the biggest sneezers in his city. The local webnews broadcasting service had even done a story on his sneezes, which were of record-breaking power for a man of his age, and he looked forward to seeing how powerful his sneezes would grow, as usually a man’s sneeze power increased until around age 30. At just eighteen, he could outsneeze many grown men.

Of course, he hadn’t discovered this without accident. Bigger sneezes were harder to control, and when he was younger, Dave had accidentally blown around everything in a guest room in his uncle’s house with an uncontrolled sneeze, before he had even really begun sneeze training. Dave had felt so ashamed after that incident that he had practiced nose-control even harder than all the other boys his age. He was disciplined, focused, always fearful that he’d let another monster loose and ruin another room, or, as his sneezes got even bigger, and bigger, blow away fences, small trees, maybe even walls and cars. Motivated by his uncle’s destroyed guest room, Dave learned to control his nose with flawless skill, almost obsession. Even then, throughout his late teens, there were times when Dave nearly lost it while running to the nearest sneezatorium, squeezing his nose shut, praying that he could control his nose, barely holding off the colossal explosion until he could get into an empty cubicle in the sneezatorium and fire off sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, each one with enough power to blow down trees, uproot gardens and destroy classrooms. He was truly a super-sneezer. Even when he thought he had his sneezes under control, they had undergone sudden “growth spurts” in power, making them even more difficult to manage, even more impossible to stop.

Now, however, Dave’s control was flawless. He could hold off a sneeze for two days if he had to, although such behavior was highly discouraged, not just because of the danger of holding back already tremendous sneezes, but because of the money it lost the city. He would even get a little cocky with it, teasing the other boys about their ‘weak’ sneezes, or letting himself start the breath-hitching buildup to a big sneeze to intimidate or impress his peers, before suddenly and skillfully calming his nose down and continuing with whatever he was doing. It was even a party trick!

In fact, he was performing just such a party trick before class on this particular Tuesday afternoon. He was sitting in a desk towards the back of the room, as a very pretty girl, named Marianne, leaned over to him, and asked, very softly, “can you really do those great big sneezes? Or did they just put that on the web to fool me?”

“Can I?” he said rhetorically. “Baby, I can blow the house down.” And then at once, he launched into a build up. His eyes went unfocused. He felt the big sneeze welling up from his toes. His head started to tilt back, as his eyes fell half-closed. He sucked in a small breath, nothing big, and let it out. Then he sucked in a slightly bigger breath, and the paper on his desk wafted slightly. He started sucking in an even bigger breath, vocalizing slightly this time, “Heehhhhh… ahhhhh... ahhhHHHH… AHHHHHHH.” As his breaths got louder and louder, he started sucking in air to his lungs in much more massive quantities. His exhales began to disturb not only his own papers, but the ones on nearby desks. Marianne smiled as she felt her hair rise and fall with Dave’s biggest breath of all, which was starting to get loud, loud enough to be heard in the next classroom even. “AHHHHHHH…” his final exhale not only blew around any papers that his classmates didn’t bother to hold down with their hands, but also moved the desk ahead of him slightly, almost tipping it over… and then all at once, he completely stopped. His head tipped forward, and he hunched over. He gently massaged his nose, and took in shallow breaths through his mouth. He began to massage his nostrils, one after the other, more roughly, and then began to exhale softly through his mouth. After about thirty seconds of this, his head popped back up, and except for his slightly bleary eyes, no one could have guessed that just a few seconds ago, he was building up towards a sneeze that could power a computerminal for a month!

“Wow…” Marianne said flirtily.

Suddenly, the teacher from the next classroom over, a stern elderly man named Mr. Wallace, peeked his head into the door. “Is everything alright here?” He inquired, “I believe that I might have heard some sneezy breaths. I just want to remind all you young men that if you even feel slightest inkling that you might need to give the ol’ schnoz some room, you head right over to the sternatorium, no delay. Why, I remember in my day…”

“Thank you very much, Ezra,” said Mrs. Stevens, as she strode into the room, “but I believe I know exactly what was going on here, and all of our young men are well under control. Their noses, anyway.” She said, staring straight at Dave. She muttered under her breath, “Their hormones, I can’t vouch for.” As Ezra Wallace existed, Mrs. Stevens, who scrupulously avoided students calling her by her first name, Hilda, because she hated its antiquated, 21st century quality, rounded on her class. “Mr. Crane, I presume? You wouldn’t happen to be putting on exhibitions that jeopardize my classroom, would you?”

Dave casually shook his head no.

“Good, because if you were, I might have to refer your file to the district principals’ terminal, and they might even prevent you from playing in this Friday’s holoball game, and you wouldn’t want that, now would you? I thought not.”

As Mrs. Stevens harassed David, the student who had nearly been toppled by Dave’s little “exhibitions” fumed. His name was Eliot Stearns, and he was not a big sneezer. In fact, his sneezes were barely big enough to topple a few of the desks in the classroom, much less blow out a wall, like Dave’s sneezes probably would have done, if he’d let them out. He was still tall, attractive, smart. But he couldn’t sneeze to save his life, and all the girls knew it. Especially after Dave had exposed him earlier that year. He’d been on his way to the sternatorium before class after foolishly walking through the area of his neighborhood marked for bi-weekly lawn cuttings (everyone in a specific radius had to cut their lawn at a specific time and post very clearly on the neighborhood information terminal, or the NIT, when and where, so that those with poor nose control would be able to avoid the powerful sneeze-inducing effect of freshly-cut grass). Dave had strode up, fresh from rocking the sternatorium with a fit of ten earth-shattering sneezes that probably kicked up more wind than Eliot did in a month, and noticed Eliot, twitching his nose around and trying his best to hold back some very itchy sneezes. For whatever reason, Dave had been in a pissy mood that morning, and decided to have a little “fun” with Eliot.

“Hey, shrimp, where you headed?” Dave had asked, in a bullying manner.

Eliot hardly trusted himself to speak he felt so sneezy, so he just kept walking along. However, Dave kept moving into his path, slowing him down. Despite the fact that Eliot was obviously massaging his nose in such a way as to control his sneezy tickles, he tried to talk.

“I-I-I’m ohhhh… on my way to the sneehhh…. Sneezahhhhh… AHHHHH! Sneezatorium!” Eliot quickly and firmly clamped his right hand around his nose, doing his best to control the quickly forming sneezes. Opening his mouth had been a huge mistake; it had set off tickling vibrations all through his sinuses, and he felt the telltale signs of a long and messy sneezing fit.

“Oh, whatcha doing that for? You’ve got a tiny little sneeze, just let out here. It’s not like it’ll do any damage!”

“Juh… just let me through, jerk!” Eliot said through his stuffed up nose. He knew he could only control his sneezes for a few more seconds. Suddenly, he made a break for the sneezatorium, but for some inexplicable reason, Dave just grabbed him and held him up. A few of Dave’s friends (probably people who had gone to hear Dave rock the sneezatorium) had gathered around in a small crowd, and Dave spoke to them. “Hey everybody, you wanna see this kid sneeze? It won’t compare to mine, but look at him! He can’t even control those little sneezes. What would he do with great big monsters like mine, eh?” “Lemme… lemme… go…” Eliot tried to say, but suddenly he felt the sneezes grow too much for him. He was paralyzed by the gale-force gust he felt in his nose, so that even when Dave let him go, he was helpless to move. He started drawing in huge gusts that rustled the skirts of all the nearby girls and shook the leaves on the trees. His nostrils swelled until they were huge, round openings for his sneeze. He took in a few more huge breaths before

“ACCCCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He sneezed a wet, explosive sneeze. He managed to turn his head away from the crowd, but everyone saw the sneeze nonetheless. It was big enough to kick up a nice sized breeze and uproot some grasses. It was still a very powerful sneeze, and Eliot felt several more on the way. But Dave was right; it was a far below-average sneeze, and certainly didn’t compare to Dave’s gargantuan blows.

“ACCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Eliot sneezed again, “ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! REEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” Those sneezes were slightly bigger, and as one girl accidentally walked in the way of the blow, she was hit by the huge gusting wind from Eliot’s disdended nostrils and nearly fell over. But the same sneeze from Dave probably would have blown her five feet away, if not farther. As it was, her clothes got rumpled and damp, but not wrecked, as even a normal-sized sneeze would have done. “Ugh!” she said as she walked by, “can’t you even control those tiny things?”

The whole group had laughed at Eliot then, both for his lack of control and for his weak sneezes. He had run to the sneezatorium then to blow out the last of his tickle, but the damage had been done. He’d been marked as a tiny sneezer with no control, and he’d been ridiculed ever since. And that was why he was constantly annoyed by Dave and his massive, manly a-choos. There was no way he could compete with sneezes like that. But he was going to get revenge. He’d show the world that even Dave Crane didn’t have the perfect control he boasted about. He was going to make Dave huff and puff and blow something down, so he’d be completely humiliated, and then people wouldn’t praise and adore him for those huge sneezes of his. They’d see that Dave was a freak of nature, just like they should!

***

Later that day, David was headed home, when he felt an itch well up in his nose. He knew he could easily control the itch, but he was moderately surprised at the fact that an itch was welling up so quickly. After all, he’d already visited the sternatorium twice that day. Dave knew he had mild allergies, but lately, he’d been getting tickles in his nose with a lot more frequency. He didn’t know if it was a new plant that had been introduced into the area or if he was just developing a new allergy, but he was secretly a little worried. He knew his sneezes tended to undergo sudden leaps in power, and he was afraid he was at the beginning of just such a leap. During his “leap” periods, his nose got much more itchy and harder to control. In fact, that sneeze he’d played with in class had left such a tickle in his nose that he ended up having to go to the sternatorium after class to let loose with a few of his super-powered sneezes. He made a mental note to stop his little ‘exhibitions’ or at least have a moratorium on them until he could figure out just how strong his sneezes were going to get this time. Dave had a fairly stable conception of how powerful his sneezes had been before the leap. Besides the measurements they took for the record, Dave had snuck out to the woods several times to let out a completely unrestrained sneeze, full-power. When he was sixteen, he could blow off branches, maybe knock down a smallish tree if he directed several consecutive sneezes as it. But after his last little nasal growth spurt, he could easily knock down a medium sized tree with one good sneeze, and he knew that by the end of this one, he’d probably have to stop letting the sneezes out, even in the woods; he didn’t want people noticing him leveling giant redwood trees with just one of his superhuman a-choos.

So, just as a precaution, Dave decided to make a nasal pre-emptive strike, and head to the sneezatorium to release just a few sneezes, to take the pressure off. The nearest sneezatorium was a large, cylinder-shaped building with an open run by the government. Upon entrance, men stepped on to one of several small platforms that lined a smaller cylinder at the center of the building. Once someone stepped on a platform, a holopanel would appear in front of them asking for their age, sneezer classification, and sneeze urgency level. There was also an optional input for sneezer ID. Most fathers purchased sneezer ID numbers for their sons on their fifteenth or sixteenth birthday; it was somewhat of a rite of passage. Sneezer ID numbers were used to keep track of the amount of power they generated for their city, and could be eligible for certificates of recognition and even some prizes if they contributed enough. Sneezer classifications were issued by the federal government and measured how strong an individual’s typical sneeze was, in order to make sure they entered a room with sufficient reinforcement to handle their sneezes without breaking. Sneeze urgency level was a feature added in 2095 to all sneezatoriums after a young man demolished a large part of a sneezatorium with a poorly controlled sneeze. If a man was struggling especially hard to keep a sneeze in, he could choose level 10 urgency, in which case he would be transported to a sneezer room immediately. If a man had a lower urgency level, he would wait until all men with higher urgency levels had been sorted into rooms before being carried by the moving platform into one of the many rooms lining the walls of the sneezatorium’s outer cylinder. These rooms were known as the “sneezer rooms” and it was here, and only here, that men were expected to release their sneezes. The rooms were powerfully reinforced with a super-tough plastic that could withstand even the mightiest sneeze. Once a man entered a sneezer room, he was expected, if at all possible, to hold back his sneeze until a large tube, connected to the underground power generator, could attach to the room (high urgency sneezers, of course, were not expected to wait for the generator tube, but were therefore unable to contribute to the wind power generator, or have any power counted towards their sneezer ID total). Men would sneeze into this tube (which was made of the same reinforced super-plastic as the rest of the room), and the wind power generated would be redirected into a wind turbine below ground, and converted to useable energy.

So, as Dave entered the sneezatorium, he followed the normal proceedures, entering his sneezer ID number (his father had purchased his at thirteen, unusually enough, because at thirteen Dave was already producing enough wind with each sneeze to contribute significantly to his totals), confidently putting his sneeze urgency level at 1, and waited for a room to become available for him. While he was waiting, several boys from his high school passed his platform, and waved enthusiastically, or gave him a thumbs up. Everyone was excited to see such a legendary sneezer at the sneezatorium. Dave smiled broadly; he thrived on the attention. Finally, the platform kicked into gear and carried him into a sneezer room. Before the tube had even attached, Dave was launching into an enormous, gasping buildup:

“ehhhh… hehhhhhhh… HEHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHHHHH… HIH! HIH! HIH! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

He released his first colossal sneeze, straight into the tube. Anyone would be able to see that this was a far more powerful sneeze than the tiny ones a guy like Eliot would release. This was a sneeze stronger than many grown men. It was a true twister of a sneeze, and the recoil almost knocked Dave off his feet from the sheer force of it. But Dave knew he wasn’t anywhere near done. In fact, the next one felt ever stronger:

“hehhh…” he hitched, his nostrils flaring widely, “hehhhh… ehhhhh… gonnahhhhh… ahhhhh… b-b-b-beeeee aaaa… bihh… bihhhhhh.. biiiiiiggg… biiiiiiggg… ahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh…. oneahhhhhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhh… HAHHHHHHHHHHH… HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” his head was bobbing up and down with each tickly inhale now. He mentioned how big the upcoming sneeze was, to no one in particular, because the sneeze that was brewing in his nose felt truly gigantic in strength. Had there been any furniture in the sneezer room, Dave’s enormous sneezey breaths would have sent it flying around the room, or, worse yet, hurtling towards his face. This was definitely a super-strength sneeze! “HAAHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! HAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

KAAAAAA-TTTTTCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

That sneeze was easily twice as big as the previous one. Silently, Dave thought to himself that if he had let that one loose in the classroom, it wouldn’t have just blown out a wall, it would have taken out half the classrooms in the hall! And he felt himself gearing up for a last sneeze that would put the other two to shame. “iiiggghhhhiieeee… AGGGGHHHHHHH… AGHHHHHHHHH… AAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH… AHHHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH!

HHHHHHRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYY-SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

He sneezed, with the most titantic force he could muster, hoping to blow the itch so far out of his nose that he wouldn’t have to sneeze again for a week (and possibly to break another record), pressing the air out of his super-sized lungs, channeling the force through his body, blowing and blowing until all of the power in his lungs was spent.

That was a sneeze! Dave thought to himself, as his incredible burst of wind (and, he had to admit, quite a lot of spray), rushed down through the tube into the wind turbines beneath. Checking his nose for further tickles as he had learned as a boy, he felt confident that he didn’t have any more sneezes lurking in there. He was almost glad of this, because those three had taken the wind out of him, quite literally. Not for the first time, Dave thought about how big his sneezes had been lately. That triple, while not his best effort ever, was easily as powerful as the record breaker from the webnews shoot (but then, that hadn’t been his best ever either, though it was close). The last one probably moreso. And his nose hadn’t even felt especially tickly! Dave felt pretty sure then, that his nose was undergoing another spurt in power. And as excited as he felt, he also felt a tiny bit worried; how strong exactly were his sneezes going to get? He still had years of sneeze growth to go!

—-

Dave Crane was on top of the world. When he hit puberty, he thought he was a freak of nature for his colossal sneezes, which were even harder to control than the average boy’s sneeze. He’d had more close calls almost blowing away pets, plants, doors, fences, even other people, than he cared to count, not to mention that one mortifying time when he practically destroyed his uncle’s guest room. But those times were behind him now. Not only did he have those same massive sneezes well under control, but he was using them to ride the popularity wave to the top.

Normally, people just gossiped about the power of the boys’ sneezes, some boys bragging that they were stronger, others keeping quiet about it but occasionally waiting a little too long to go to the sternatorium on purpose, so they could flail about and act like they were worried about causing so much damage with their massive, man-sized sneezes. Dave didn’t have to do any such thing, mostly because if you listened hard enough, you could hear his sneezes through the sternatorium walls.

Dave was truly a super-sneezer, even among boys of his age. Sure, everybody had a big sneeze, infinitely larger than the powerless puffs of air people did at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But Dave had a BIG sneeze.

After visiting the sternatorium for a sneezy work-out (Dave worked on his abs, but they’d probably flat enough with just his incredible sneezes), Dave got on his hoverbike and headed home, careful to avoid the areas marked for grass-cutting. He remembered once, when he was a bit younger, he’d had one of his close calls when he forgot to avoid the grass-cutting areas. Freshly-cut grass was one of his worse triggers, as they were called. All young men went through yearly allergen testing, and older men did the test every five years. The test was held in a very sturdy special sternatorium; folks sometimes had to use transports that took almost fifteen minutes to get to a Testing Sternatorium. The Testers, as they were called, were staffed with plenty of doctors and plenty of protection, as testing often provoked almighty sneezes even from the weakest of noses, much less Dave’s monster honker (complete with his super-powered lungs, of course). The Testing Sternatoriums were often hours away, and every man had a scheduled visit that he could not miss, except in the event of illness that might contaminate the test results, so that the process could run smoothly. Dave remembered his testing session from just a few months before. It was actually a report from the testing session that led to his record-breaking TV appearance.

As he walked up to the building, Dave marveled at how strong its steel walls appeared, and he knew that that was only the outer layer of the building, which was further protected by special carbon polymers, advanced plastics, and sheet rock. The Testing Sternatorium nearest him was—luckily enough—a new model, designed to prevent some of the accidents that had occurred at other Testings, as the Doctor who greeted Dave explained.

“Yeah, there was one guy up in North Albans who had a great big sneeze, off the charts really. I mean, I’m not exactly a lightweight in the sneezing department myself,” the doctor hastened to add, “but this guy was one for the record books. Anyway, they lower in the grass, and he’s OK, does a few big sneezes but that’s all by-the-book. Then they try the cat dander and he’s fine, and the ragweed, and the pepper, of course. You know, he sneezes each time, and their big, I mean, they’re always big, but not, you know, volcanic, not like ‘oh, look out he’s gonna blow,’ you know, normal big sneezes. But then, they try the dog dander. And they’re doing an experiment right—now, why they thought they needed to experiment on this guy, I’ll never know, but hey—and so they show the guy a picture of the dog. Well, the guy must’ve had some sort of psychosomatic something going on, ‘cause even before they released the dander, his irritation levels spiked something fierce. And when they lower the dander, man… it sets him off. Bad.”

Even hearing about a sneeze for such an extended period of time was starting to make Dave’s own titan of a nose long for a good, hard, relieving sneeze, and Dave was glad that the Testing Sneezatoriums were famously efficient—he knew he could hold out for a while, but he was glad he’d be able to fire off in just a few minutes.”

“So the guy starts sucking in air, right? Crazy amounts, like, off the charts. Now, mind you, this is a twenty-nine year old guy, fully grown, in good shape… he’s firing off the biggest sneezes of his life anyway. But this time. Man. He just sucked it in and blasted em out. ‘KA-CHOOEY!” and all that, you know, real loud, insane decibel levels—you know OSHA’ll get you for stuff like that. Anyway, crazy noise levels, crazy wind velocity. And he just keeps going! And they’re getting faster. We’re at like, six or seven sneezes, right? And the building was only using standard Polymer One, plus inward-facing sneezers, right, not fully reinforced rooms. Well, the guy’s an allergic mess, he can’t see straight, much less aim his sneezes at the perfect center of a target, so he’s shootin’ ‘em like fire crackers all over the place. I mean, this is a full blown fit, we’re climbin’ towards nine, ten sneezes, and they’re fast, close together but they’re humongous, like, recording-breaking massive, right? I gotta tell you, I’ve looked at the numbers and I did a double take, I didn’t even really believe it…”

Now Dave’s nose was raring to go. He was really glad that the appointment was soon. Hell, he was even a little scared he wouldn’t be able to make it ‘til then without beginning control procedures. But he knew that he was already on file as a potential Class 2 sneezer, the designation for those who had the potential for truly superhuman explosions, given the right triggers; and so to start control procedures might bring… unnecessary attention. So Dave suffered in silence, not even daring to twitch his nose, while the Doctor—who obviously loved the sound of his own voice—droned on.

“And all of a sudden, they get even bigger! And closer together and he’s just screaming ‘em out and I can hardly blame him, that kind of pressure, it’s unbelievable. And they’re coming closer and closer together, he’s just arching back and letting fly, over and over and over, well, the polymer starts cracking. And mind you, he’s blasting all over the place, towards the ceilings, towards the floor, everywhere. And not everywhere is properly reinforced. And so as he gets toward fifteen, sixteen sneezes, they’re like, ‘SHUT IT OFF! SHUT OFF THE DANDER! SIR, PLEASE CONTROL YOUR SNEEZES,’ the whole routine. But I don’t know if the intercom isn’t working or the guy is just outta control, but he keeps blasting, full-force, just arch back, explode out and the walls can’t take it and soon the guy’s blasted a hole through the building. I wouldn’t think it was possible. Caused I don’t know how much damage, they’re still sorting it out in court whose fault it is, especially after the sneezer statue of ’09… the guy’s saying they dandered him too hard, the technicians are saying they told him to get control, but I gotta say, if MY sneeze were that big, I’d still be in training today, they wouldn’t even give me my sneezer-card, and I can promise you, I wouldn’t have this job!” Technicians, of course, had to have flawless control, as they spent large amounts of time around highly allergenic substances in large quantities, which could easily cause a disaster of tectonic proportions.

Dave, for his part, was longing just to give his nose one twitch, to reach his hand up for one quick squeeze to control the pressure… but he persevered, and kept his cool.

“Wow… sir…” Dave said, taking as much time between words as he dared, feeling the itch rise just a bit with each word, “that sounds like one big sneeze! Wh-what was the guy's name?”

“Eh... Geoffrey Wal-something, I don't remember. Anyway,” the doctor said, suddenly serious, “if I’m reading your numbers right…” He paused as he poured over the chart he had brought up on his holo-sheet by pressing a button on his belt as they turned the corner towards the Testing Room, “you’re headed in that direction. You practice your sneeze control good, young man. I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble for ‘Failure to Control Nasal Output,’ I don't want to see you on the evening news, standing over some building you blew down, like a fairy-tale wolf, alright? I'll huff and I'll puff... none of that young man.”

“Y-yeah, whatever” Dave snapped, praying that the doctor didn’t notice the quick catch in his breath. He was getting pissed. This was taking way too long, and he had to sneeze. Plus, the guy was doing these ridiculous infant-school jokes. Dave was a Last-Year in Final Form of his schooling. Big Bad Wolf jokes were so First-Year.

Finally, they arrived in the testing room. The Doctor showed David into the room, a clean, white room with a large vent above head from which allergens slowly drizzled, and of course, thick cotton-12 handkerchiefs, for the fashionable set.  Dave knew he’d just have to let his sneezes fly; while he might carry handkerchiefs on dates and such, they were really just for show. He knew one of his small sneezes would rip a handkerchief to shreds in seconds.

Dave walked over to the full-body suit he was to wear during the testing. The suit used tiny sensors all over the body to measure any and all statistics pertinent to the testing. Dave hurried to slide the suit on. He didn’t want to look weak by sneezing before he was supposed to, but if he was going to avoid a big boom, they were going to have to start the testing soon.

“Alright.” He heard a voice from above, coming down from the loudspeaker next to the vent. “David Crane. Age 18 Sneezer Test. You will soon feel an itching sensation in your nose. The name of the trigger will not be revealed to you until after the test is over. Please do not attempt any sneeze control measures. Let the sneezes come naturally and unforced. Do not worry about volume or power, simply let the sneeze come freely and as powerfully as you need. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I do, can we get started so I can get back home?” said Dave, irritably. He was ready to get the test started, and sick of hearing the spiel he’d heard every year since he was a kid.

“Alright. The Allergen Test will now begin.”

—

Dave wasn’t sure exactly what they’d released first—they did the allergens in a random order each time—but it immediately increased the already-strong tickle in his nose threefold, and his breath began to hitch as they continued to release the sneezy substance: “hih! HEEEHH! HEEEEEHH!” The tickle was there, but the sneeze, which had seemed so close just a moment ago, was just out of reach. But the itch was maddening! Dave knew that one of his colossal sneezes would immediately make him feel ten times better, and since this was a safe place to do so, he planned on blasting it out full force. But he couldn’t… quite… get there…

“iihhhh… ihhh… igggghhhiiieee…” He stood for a moment, his face contorting as his nose twitched about, trying, desparately, to coax out the sneeze he so desperately longed for. He took in a big sniff, which almost seemed enough to fuel the sneeze: “Hah! HAHH! HHAAAAAHHH! HAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” But just as his gasping intakes of air reached critical mass, the urge to sneeze died back down again.

“Damn!” He cursed out loud, before saying under his breath, “just… wanna… sneeze…” He knew the technicians were waiting to release the next trigger, waiting to see what would happen with this one, whether it would be strong enough to provoke a sneeze or not. But Dave just wanted them to hurry up so he could sneeze!

“Can you just do the next one naa…n-n-naaaa… now…. Ahhhh… ahhhhhhhh…” the sneeze came back, and Dave was hoping that he’d finally be able to sneeze it out: “ahhhhhh… AAAaaaaaggghhhhhh… AGGGHHhhhhhhhh… AGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH…”

But it disappeared again! “DAMN!” Dave cursed again, louder. “Why won’t ih… it…  j-just cahhh.. ahhhh… come?” The pitch of his voice rose on every word as the ebb and flow of his sneezy tickle refused to leave him alone. His chest heaved in and out, the tight biometrics outfit revealing his strong pecs and hard abs working feverishly to accept the huge weight of air that was slowly but surely accumulating in his super-powered lungs. His eyes, watery, began to slowly close as he felt the itching, tickling sensation that washed over him from his feet to his head, centered in his incredible nose, grow once again… Oh, God, when he finally sneezed he knew it was going to be a monster…

“ehhhh… EHHHHHHH… HEHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” The tickle in his nose was gradually taking over. Dave steadied himself: he’d had this happen before. Usually when one of his sneezes got stuck, the problem wasn’t that the tickle was too small. The problem was that the sneeze was too big.

“AAHHHHHH… AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…” Finally, he knew, he’d be able to sneeze. Keeping himself braced for fear this one would knock him over, he nevertheless felt his back begin to arch uncontrollably as he sucked in three last enormous breaths in preparation… “AHHHH! AHHHH! AAAHHHHH!”

“RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAA-SSSSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Dave erupted, his body flying uncontrollably forward, his long, shaggy hair (quite the fashion in 2112), flinging forward as his whole torso bent into the power of his sneeze, the hot, sneezy air erupting from his nostrils at God-knows-how-fast speeds. It was a truly explosive sneeze, even for Dave. He felt his lungs straining to blast out all the sneezy air, and with it, the dreadful tickle that had plagued his nose. He blasted it out for what seemed like an eternity before the sneeze was finished. But as soon as he finished the first one, as he tried to take in a breath of air, his breath hitched again

“ahhh… oh, no… ehhhhhh… EHHHHHHH… EEEEHHHHHHHHH…” This one felt even bigger! And it was building quickly… “EEEHHHHHHHHHHHHH…EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” The pitch and volume of his colossal inhales increased proportionally to their power, as he sucked in air again for another earth-shattering, tree-felling, fence-smashing tornado of a sneeze, “EEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This one turned out not to have quite as much wind power as the previous, but the volume was unbelieveable. He didn’t know that the sneeze exploding out of his nose could make such a ruckus, but he had no choice but to scream it out in pure release, so terribly did he need the burning, twisting sensation out of his nose. He worried that he might break the scientists’ instruments, especially if they were calibrated for an average teenager. When it came to sneezes, Dave Crane was no average teenager.

"Allergen check one completed. Prepare for allergen two."

—

As Dave headed towards home, after school, and after his terrific fit of sneezing in the sneezatorium, leaning his mind on the remembrance of sneezes past, Eliot was also heading home. He too had stopped by the sneezatorium on his way home; Eliot always took precaution, as his control of his sneezes was genuinely quite weak. It was hereditary; just as Dave’s dad was a champion sneezer in his youth, so Eliot’s father had the same wimpy sneeze Eliot had. So his father had barely learned nose control, always aware that his sneeze was simply not dangerous, except perhaps to unsecured paper items. And how could he pass on to his son what he barely knew himself?

Eliot made sure to check his HoloPad—a product of the Steven Jobs Memorial Technology Company, the nationalized techno-corp of Eliot’s nation—to see where the grass was being cut that day, so as to avoid it. Freshly cut grass set him off like none other. Most men had particular triggers like that, triggers that set them off more than the other allergens. For some men, it was particular flowers. For others, it was a particular breed of dog or cat. Whatever it was, when that scent hit his nose, even the most experienced and controlled sneezer would immediately head to the sneezeatorium, because a true monster was on its way. Except Eliot, of course. He’d run to the sneezatorium, certainly, because he didn’t want to embarrass himself. But even his biggest sneeze produced a blast like a strong gust of wind, not enough to knock down a small child, nothing like the tornadic blasts emitted by folks like Dave. How Eliot wished that he could produce monstrous sneezes like Dave’s! But he was a wimp in the sneeze department, as he was in most areas.

But he was a nice guy, which is more than he could say for Dave most of the time. And it would be hard not to let sneezes like Dave’s go to your head, to be in high school and blatantly out-sneezing college guys, even your dad’s colleagues! Sneezes like that could get you any girl you wanted, even cheerleaders (cheerleading technology had evolved surprisingly little since the ancient days of pom-poms and football fields, perhaps because centuries of technological advancement could provide little to improve the mini-skirt.)

It was these thoughts, and others like them, that succeeded in distracting Eliot from his HoloPad. And that lead, inevitably, to Eliot walking right past a veritable field of freshly cut grass.

His nose noticed it before he did. “H-hih! Hiiiihhh! Hiiihhhh! HIH! HIIIH!” His breath was already hitching; that’s what the grass did to him. It took his already sensitive nasal passages from sensitive to on fire in seconds. His breath hitching, Eliot tried to start sneeze controlling, trying to breathe gently through his mouth, controlling the tickle with his hands, but he knew that he’d have to run to the nearest Sternatorium, because he couldn’t hold back for long…

“hhh-huhhhh… huuuhhhhhh… iiiiigggghhhhiiee… iiiiggghhhhhh….”

---

Dave was still reminiscing about his colossal sneezes during his last test. He recalled how they’d sent allergen after allergen after him, and each time he’d let out a true monster of a sneeze. Heck, he was probably outsneezing grown men with a few of them. The worst of all had been when they lowered in the dog dander.

“Alright, sir, just a few more. We want to assure you that despite the strength of your sneezes, you should continue to produce them freely. This structure can withstand the force.”

Dave had almost smirked at that one. He hadn’t heard that one before. It was still an automated message, but it must be a pretty rare one. He hadn’t heard it mentioned before at any rate. For his part, Dave was enjoying the chance to let his sneezes out full tilt. Not that he held back at the ordinary sternatoriums, but there was just something… liberating about sneezing and sneezing and sneezing, as soon as you felt a tickle, not holding back even for a second, even coaxing a few of them out, and then really blowing for the rafters when you let out your sneezes, letting your lungs fill up with air like a bellows, and then sneezing it all out with all the wind and wetness the tickle in your nose demanded. If normal people sneezed from their chests, Dave sneezed from his toenails, each sneeze a full-body experience, feeling the sheer force of them rippling through his body. He gave a good hard sniff of enjoyment, feeling the incipient stirrings of yet another powerful sneeze.

“Prepare for the next allergen.”

He could tell when it was released. What was just a tickle suddenly tipped over the scale and became a sneeze. He could feel this one building, “hehhh… h-hehhh… heyyyyy-uhhh… heh… heehhhh-uhhhhhh… hhhheeeeeeeeeeeshhhhhh… hehhhhhhhhhhh… HHHHEEEEEEEHHH… HEHHHHHHH… HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY-SCCCCCHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He erupted monstrously. He blasted that hot, sneezy air out of his lungs at truly hurricane=like speeds. This was a long sneeze, perhaps due to the extra-large tickle he had felt, and the whole time he just blasted it out, almost shocked by the end to find that there was still air in his lungs to power the massive sneeze. And oddly enough, he felt another on its way.

This one scarecely required any buildup, just one great, “HHHAAAAAHHHH!” And he was off, with a tremendous, “YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH-AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH-SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” That one was even bigger than the last, and he still felt the huge tickle in his nose. He sucked in two great gusts of breath before blasting out two more sneezes, “AAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! IIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS-CHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Each sneeze bent him double. And oddly enough, he felt another one, even bigger than the previous four. This one would require some coaxing out.

As his nose twitched and seized and tingled, and his chest expanded out to accommodate all the air his lungs were sucking in, Dave couldn’t help but imagine letting out a sneeze like his in public! Imagine the men, trying to scream at him, “Dave! Don’t do it! Don’t let it out, man!” Imagine the women, fleeing the space in front of him, and yet… staying in close enough range to see it, to hear the noise, to find out what a truly cataclysmic sneeze sounded like, how a man’s man sneezed, with such force and power that they’d put the whispering gossip of girls to shame. And as if such thoughts could power his sneezes, Dave’s nose positively exploded with his next sneeze, “HHHHHHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR-CCCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He folded back for one final sneeze, his chest heaving, his eyes watering, his nose tickling unmercifully, his whole body bending back to prepare for one last,

“AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-SSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

And then he was done at last. He heard a technician’s voice come from the speakers in the walls.

“Sir, we usually just send messages for things like this, but I had to say somethin’. Man! Those were some sneezes! Sure are glad we reinforced the plastics on this place, boy howdy! That was a real firecracker there! We’ve got a few more to spray, but I think we’ve seen all we need! And, uh, make sure you come talk to me after we’re done here. I’ve got a cousin that does the holonews and I think he might just wanna see you, young man!” Dave knew it was probably wrong, but as he wiped his nose and gave an almighty sniff, he couldn’t help smirking a bit with pride at how powerfully he sneezed.

--

Dave Crane finally rounded the corner onto his block, mentally telling his hoverbike to stop as he glided into his driveway.

“Up.” He said out loud, and the hoverbike responded, elevating to the third floor of his home, where the hoverbike interfaced with the door to his room, which would only open, of course, for a hoverbike with the correct element signature—the last thing Dave needed was to wake up one morning and groggily walk out of his third-floor door with no hoverbike. Sure, the bike would probably be fast enough to catch him, but there was always the chance that it wouldn’t.

“And what a tragedy that would be, for the ground to injure the beautiful face of the most handsome, superior holoball playing, biggest sneezer in the Northeastern Federation.” Dave crowed to himself, mostly joking, as he slid into his room, and stepped off the bike.

“And don’t forget! The most conceited, superior show-off, biggest head on Planet Prime.”

Oh, god. Nancy was home.

“Naaaaance… I didn’t know you were coming home… it’s… great to see you?” Dave said, with an uncertain lilt to his voice. He jumped over to the far corner of his bed, the corner that faced the wardrobe Nance stood in front of (no doubt she’d be staring at herself in the mirror ‘til she’d heard the holobike).

“Yeah, yeah, and it’s great to see you too, little brother.” Nancy replied, “especially with such a warm welcome.”

“Aw, you know I’m kidding, Nance. It is good to see you,” Dave confessed, smiling brightly at her. Nancy was an astonishingly annoying older sister, bossy, conceited, always “cutting you down to size,” as she put it—and she was also probably one of his three best friends on Planet Prime, or any of the colony planets, for that matter.

“But ah… what are you doing in my room…?” Dave continued, glancing around to where he saw her suitcase parked in the corner… and was the biolum radiating a slightly blue-ish light, wasn’t it always yellow (which complimented Dave’s skin tone the best… not that he’d set it that way on purpose, but…) and did he see…

“Why the hell is your bra in my dresser?”

Nancy looked up at Dave with her most innocent eyes, her brightest smile, “Oh, Dave, didn’t Dad tell you? I’m moving back in for a while!”

Dave was running down the stairs faster than a datapad could uplink. “DAD?! WHAT THE…?!”

--- “haaahhhhhhhhh…. Haaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Eliot wasn't sure if he was panting from the sneeze brewing fitfully in his nose, or from the exertion of running. And once again, there was a crowded sternutorium, with a bunch of guys, old geezers, teens, even kids barely old enough to need the sternutorium, all calmly waiting their turn. And once again, Eliot was frantic.

“I… aahhhhhhhhhh… excuse…. I-I-I-I… iiaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…”

“Hey, guys, we got a loose cannon here! Outta control. Somebody let him up to the front, will yah?”

“Oh by the blue biome, that’s what’s-his-face, Al Stearns’ kid… you might as well just tell him to let it out where he’s standing, won’t be much different.”

Eliot was rubbing his nose frantically, barely keeping control, pressing against the underside of his nose with one hand, tapping at the bridge of his nose… doing anything that seemed like it helped at all… “N-n-n-no! Lehhhhhhh… leeeehhhhhhhhhhh… lemme though!” he managed.

“Calm down, calm down, kid,” a friendly voice said. Not the one who knew his dad. Who knew his family’s lame nosed curse. “Here, take my room, the platform’s ready.”

Blinking through allergic tears, Eliot tried to smile at the man, but all he could manage was a weak grimace before virtually leaping onto the platform, willing it to get to the sneezer room as soon as possible, just so he wouldn’t have to face the shame of blowing out a sneeze in front of everybody.

“, you know that kid’s lame sneezes are going on YOUR sneezer ID, right?”

“Oh, shut up, Tom, he clearly needed to sneeze bad, what did you want him to do embarrass himself…”

But it was already too late. Apparently the kind man’s sneezer room had been one towards the very top of the sternutorium, and as the platform ascended, Eliot’s control gave out: “haaaaaahhhhh…. Hahahhahahahhhhhhh… HAAAAAY-SHHHOOOOOOOAAYY!” he roared, more shout than force, however, as the puff of air blew fitfully from his nose, enough to make him stumble, but not enough to do anything to the plastic-reinforced sneezer rooms, not enough to even richochet down to the floor of the sternutorium, enough to be heard, enough so that everyone could look up and see he’d lost control… but not enough to do anything. He dragged himself into the sneezer room, blinking through tears he wasn’t sure were all allergies anymore.

“WWWWASSSSSSSHOOOOOOO!” He blew. “HAAAAWWWWWWWWSSSHHOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH! HIIIISSSHHH! HAAAASSSSSHHHHHAA! IIIISSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOIE!”

The sneezes came, hard and fast, one after the other, each blowing around in the empty room til the tube attached, spending their small force. Sure, it was enough to blow at Eliot’s clothes and whip up his hair. Sure, it would have thrown around plenty of papers, but… it was practically a kid sneeze. And if his dad’s sneeze was any indication, he didn’t have a much stronger sneeze to look forward to as an adult. He sighed, resigning himself to a small-sneeze fate, as the fit continued.

“ISSSSSSSHHHHOOOO! AAASSSSSSSSSHHHHHHOOOO! Hih… hih… hehhhhh… HAAAASSSSHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The Third Sneeze

And here’s a male giant-sneeze one-shot I have been trying to formulate a sequel to for 1000 years and yet find myself unable. I lowkey think it’s one of the better-written fics I’ve done, although ultimately it’s still just a dude blowing shit away with sneezes. Y’know.

---

The first thing I noticed was his nose. It was one of those the playground kids probably called a beak, probably laughed at when he was growing up. It was one of those noses that was more long than wide, a slope down his face that bulged slightly at the sinuses. The tip was perfect, neither heavily rounded nor hooked, and the nostrils curved out perfectly. I wasn’t so much a connoisseur of noses, but of sneezes. And yet it was impossible not to make an exception for this, frankly, masterpiece: ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly hooked, broad based, ever so gently curved, and yet protruding, unmissable, at the center of his face, inches off his face, it seemed, at the nostrils.

It was the perfect nose. I just didn’t know how perfect.

The man himself had deep red hair, long and messy, swirls and wraps of the stuff hanging carelessly down his head and over his forehead. His eyes, though they were rapt, focused on the book he held out before him, seemed possessed of a permanent bemusement always on the edge of collapse into confusion. I got that sense that he’d be slightly smug, and too insecure to be cocky.

Since he was focused on his book, I allowed my eyes to travel, always returning, with some frequency, to the masterpiece bursting from the center of his face like a monument, organizing the space around it. (I was really into his nose, okay.) His light green sweater made a nice complement to his khaki slacks, which were quite well-fitting to say the least, and which he filled out rather better than expected, with surprisingly wide hips and a nice comfortable seat. He was clearly not a hyper-athletic type, but he must be taking good care of himself somehow. His shoulders were neither broad nor narrow, his body neither shrunken nor massive. To most, he was probably an average-looking guy: nice hair, nice smile, nothing special. To me he might as well have been sculpted from marble.

He was beautiful. All that was missing was…

And then the doors to the train dinged open. I was half-afraid he was going to get up, that this was his stop, but… no, he just slid over, allowing a woman to sit down. The woman appeared to be blind, held the leash on a beautiful black labrador… must have been her guide dog. Meanwhile, He-Of-The-Heaven-Sculpted-Nose seemed to barely notice the woman who sat down, totally engrossed in his book. But another man, sitting on his opposite side, nudged him, whispered something at him that sounded like, “dog alert.”

My big-nosed hypothetical paramour just shook his head at the other man, who I now assumed was his friend or colleague of some sort, and muttered, “I’ll be fine. I took my meds this morning.” Then he turned back to his book.

Now, if I were a normal guy, I would have thought little, nothing of that exchange, but… I may not be a true connoisseur of noses, but when it came to sneezing, to allergies… I was the best of the best. And I knew it was more than just my imagination—that big nose must be sensitive. Very sensitive. And indeed, the friend continued to pester him. I could just make out their conversation: “You sure, man? We’re on the train, it’s not like you can just get out whenever you want.” “Mark, it’s just an allergy, don’t worry about it.” “Yeah, sure, Gabe, it’s ‘just an allergy’… for the first two.”

Big Nose—Gabe, I reminded myself, though I was enjoying referring to him in my head according to his most attractive feature—seemed to pale for a moment at that, but quickly regained his composure. “Mark, man, I got it under control, seriously. I haven’t had an incident in like… almost a week. I’m getting used to it.” “Yeah, yeah, alright, just make sure I’m out of the blast zone, is all I’m saying.”

At this point I was certain I must be imagining things, hallucinating even. Their conversation seemed to imply… but no, they must be talking about something else. There was no way that this beautiful man, with his beautiful nose… But then, if ever there was a nose that seemed to hide something behind it, to hide behind it the sort of storm that seemed possible only in my silent, private fantasies: that was the nose. Thick, powerful, regal. And the nostrils, now flaring delightfully as he sniffed, the book slowly lowering into his lap, his brows beginning to arch up…

I was openly staring now, and I knew it. But how could I help it. Those eyes lapsed into a sort of startled confusion, as he quickly put a hand in his pocket, clearly trying to forestall the mounting sneeze long enough to smother it in something. His breath hitched audibly, “hh-heeaahhh…” and then, tissue or no tissue, the sneeze was coming. “HHHhiiissshhhhhhhuuuuuu!”

What? That was hardly what I’d expected, from such a powerful nose, such a clearly agonized buildup. It hadn’t been a tiny sneeze, but nothing to write home about. A hiss of air and spray, barely audible above the usual commotion of the train. He’d successfully caught it in a handkerchief, nose pressed into the folds, though the broad flare at the top of the nose was still visible above the hankie, and with all that cotton on top of it, it seemed that his nose stuck out even farther from his face. But the sneeze itself had been, frankly, rather disappointing. I allowed my eyes to wander, the luster of his nose fading in the light of his less-than-satisfying sneeze.

My eyes snapped back the second I heard a sneezy “oh god” wavering in his voice, so I caught the last instant of his terrifically itchy pre-sneeze face before: “HAAARRRRRRRSSSSCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!” It was so loud it nearly made me jump, a monstrous roar of a sneeze louder than any I’d heard before, startling half the car, a few nearby people releasing cries of shock, several heads lifting from tablets and magazines and books to determine the epicenter of that blast, which was easily audible above the noise of the train. I heard some muttered “what the hell”s and “oh my god!”s, as the train tried to recover from the shock delivered by Gabriel’s sneeze.

As for me, I was in heaven. Now that was what I expected. That powerful nose, seized with an uncontrollable tickle, forced to blast it out full strength. Clearly it had overwhelmed him, since he’d been able to smother the first sneeze into a hardly remarkable flow of air, easily muffled in a handkerchief. But the hankie had done nothing to muffle the sound and fury of that second sneeze, which must have been several orders of magnitude larger and more powerful than the first. I was dazed, still recovering from the sneeze—though for quite a different reason than the subway-riders all around me—when I heard more of their furtive, whispered conversation, so at odds with the trumpeting blast of the man’s Vesuvius-sized sneeze.

“M-mahhh… M-M-mark I g-got it… I g-got it under control… it j-juhhh… just t-tickled was all, I just had to… I c-couldn’t but I’m not gonna…” “For shit, you’re not gonna, Gabe, you know what dog fur does to that mountain on your face, I’m getting up, I’m not getting blasted again.” “N-nahhh… n-no, Mark, I t-told you I can cahhh… haahhhhHHhhhh…” he pinched his nose at that moment, and I swear his nose seemed like a bucking bronco, the nostrils clearly wanting to flare and twist out of his control. “Jesus, Gabriel, you don’t have a chance of controlling that thing. Just face it, there’s a volcano on your face, and we need to warn these people before you… oh shit…”

Mark trailed off, and staring at Gabriel’s face, I knew why. Clearly whatever control he’d managed to secure had vanished. His hand was dropping from his face, his eyebrows raising again, his head tipping back, the broad architecture of his nose flaring and tickling, his mouth open to take in a colossal breath, an impossible… I swear I felt my hair sway slightly… but no I must be imagining… and yet… another gasp, completely audible: “hheeeEEAAAAHHhhhhh…” Nearby, a woman’s newspaper fluttered in the breeze… the breeze inside a train car… the breeze that must be coming from….

My mind didn’t want to believe it, it was too good, it was too perfect… dimly I worried… who knew how large his sneeze would be? Were we in danger? Would it blow open the train car? Would someone be blasted against the wall? The worry settled in my stomach along with that heavy warmth of anticipation, the two roiling and tangling and mixing, the one heightening the other. I was holding my breath even as his caught, again, on a sneeze, “heeeazzzsss… eeeaaasszzzzhhh…” Clearly Mark had had enough, and through my peripheral vision, I saw him stand, vaguely heard him begin, “Ladies and gentlemen, I…”

But he got no further, before he was drowned out by the greatest sneeze I have ever heard.

“WWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAA—“

It started out an absolute scream, his head falling further back, those nostrils flared impossibly wide, as though in preparation for the storm that was to issue from them. His eyes were shut tightly, tears prickling in the corner, his chest puffed up, full, fat with air. He was less a statue now than a titan, back arched and clearly on the edge of a typhoon…

“HHHHHHEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH—“

He flew forward, the roar of sound increasing, becoming impossibly, ear-drum-burstingly louder. And that was when I felt the first blast of wind, the roar of it against my clothes pushing me back in my seat, blowing back my hair, droplets of spray clinging to my button down shirt, my own eyes wanting desperately to close but staying open, staying open to watch, to take in every glorious image

“—HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!”

The typhoon seemed to go on forever. I saw Mark go down—clearly it was a foolish idea to stand when Gabe was gearing up for a hurricane—as several others clung to the poles, barely staying upright. Skirts were lifted, papers of all kinds went flying from the clutching hands of their owners… books too weren’t safe from the hurricane, and I saw one man’s large messenger bag go sailing across the train car, along with several women’s purses, the contents flying across the train car as at last the fury of Gabriel’s nose abated, concluding with a shriek of a finale that left him bent flat forward, lips pursed and pushed out, eyes squeezed shut, and his nose, his glorious, glorious nose, looking somehow bigger than ever, protruding from his face, the epicenter of his face, the epicenter of the storm, the epicenter of the whole train car.

He seemed unwilling to open his eyes, obviously terrified to see what havoc his nose had wreaked. His nose was still active though, flaring and sniffing in recovery. For one thrilling, terrifying moment I was sure that he would sneeze again… his nose scrunching… but the moment passed. As he opened his eyes, the tell-tale ding sounded from the speakers overhead, and the car doors open. Snatching up his things, leaving behind the book he’d blasted from his own hands, he raced out of the car, a litany of apologies escaping his lips as he fled, clearly afraid of the retribution the subway riders would bring down on him.

In that instant, I made a decision. Snatching my bag (I’d clung to it viciously, having guessed—hoped!—what was about to happen), I flew out of my seat and out of the train doors almost as quickly as Gabriel had. I was dimly aware that Mark too was staggering to his feet, exiting the train, grumbling to himself about his friend and his monstrous sneezes. I hardly cared. I just had to talk to Gabriel, had to meet him, had to say something, though I had no idea what. I was all but chasing him out of the subway as the car doors closed, the appointment I was headed to forgotten, as I pursued the mysterious man with the enormous, overwhelming, powerful and perfect nose.

Michelle At The Theater

Another old fic, since the forum is down. Female giant sneezes, with a very very very very long holdback, lol. Posting the whole thing as one story, rather than in parts bc why not.

Michelle wasn’t a theater type of girl. There were a number of reasons for this: for one, Michelle liked rock concerts. She liked moshing, she liked to jump up and down, chug a beer in between songs, she liked the high of the crowd. She wasn’t much for fine, disinterested observation. She wasn’t much for refined ladies and gentlemen in suits. She wasn’t much for culture, the way people pronounced it, with the italics implied. It wasn’t Michelle’s scene. Certainly, she didn’t look the part: tattoos visible even under what her roommate had called “very sensible theatergoing attire.” Her cleavage was still more than obvious under the blouse Michelle—and really, Michelle’s roommate—had chosen for the evening, the tops of her full breasts inviting more than a few glances, most of which at least attempted subtlety. Her wrists and neck were still covered in bracelets and jewelry. She hadn’t bothered to take out the several piercings on her upper ears. A stud accentuated the corner of her broad, protruding nose—in high school, they called it her “beak,” and in typical Michelle fashion, she’d laughed right along with them and taken to using the term herself. And that nose was the other problem with Michelle and theaters. Theaters made Michelle’s nose itch like crazy.

“HhheeeeuuuhhHHHHhhh… huUUUUUUhhhhhh…” Michelle gasped and hitched, doing her best to keep her allergic reaction to an absolute minimum, lest she attract attention. She’d kept it together all through the impossibly long queue to use the restroom, she’d used all the tricks and tips she’d taught herself over the long years of suffering that sneezy sensation anytime an unfamiliar scent tickled her nostrils. And boy was it tickling now, her broad nose flaring and twitching and wriggling with life. Internally, she pleaded with her nose: okay, come on… just one more act… we can make it through, and then as soon as the play is over, we’ll… we’ll make excuses and rush home and you can blast as hard as you want but please… please… PLEASE… not here, not now! But still, despite her best efforts, she felt that uncontrollable desire sinking in, a weakness beginning to fill her lungs with pressure, the twinging, pleading itch working its way through her defenses… soon she would begin to hitch in earnest, and by then, the reaction would be all-but-unstoppable. Even as she dreaded it, she felt her eyes flutter shut, her chest begin to swell with subtle breaths—though they wouldn’t remain subtle for long—her whole body going weak and lax as she submitted to the overwhelming feeling growing in her wide, twitching nose… Suddenly, the lights flashed, shaking Michelle out of her sneezy reverie. Over the loudspeaker was heard “FIVE MINUTES TO ACT TWO. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FIVE MINUTES.” Michelle nearly jumped in surprise, and luckily that surprise was enough to frighten the sneeze away from her nose, the lapse in concentration allowing her to evade, for the moment, the tendrils of itch that wafted through her nasal passages, teasing her with how good it would feel to finally unload. But no… she couldn’t. And that, of course, was the third and by far the most important reason why Michelle wasn’t a theatergoer. Her sneezes were not just noisy explosions that might interrupt a performance or draw unwanted attention. No, her sneezes were… frightening. When Michelle sneezed, she unleashed a power that was more fit for a small explosive device than a sneezy young lady. Somehow, Michelle’s lungs had the capacity to suck in what must be an otherworldly amount of air, to fuel an eruption that had done much more than blast eardrums and frighten passersby. No, Michelle’s sneezes had blown over fences, redecorated living rooms, decimated cookouts, blasted away anything that wasn’t firmly tied down—and sometimes things that were. When Michelle had to sneeze, she was more a force of nature than the pretty, busty woman she generally appeared to be. The hurricanes she could unleash sent her friends and family running for cover on countless occasions, and her frequently-futile attempts to warn passersby were almost never heeded the first time—and always heeded the second. She’d been asked, more times than she could count, why she couldn’t control or tame the almighty force of her nose, and she had no answer except… when that feeling came over her, she was powerless. She could fight it for a while, but eventually, the sensation, the desire to explode, became too great. Michelle became weak before the gale force power that swirled and built in her chest and sooner or later… she had to sneeze. She unlatched the door to the cubicle where she’d hid to try to get her sneezy urges under control. In a situation like this, ordinarily she’d just leave, find a deserted alleyway, or even run to her home, just find somewhere safe for her to give into the urge building in her heaving chest… but, this time, just this once, she couldn’t. She couldn’t escape, she couldn’t leave because… well, because of him. She glanced down at her program as she exited the restroom, beaming at his headshot: Tim Carter. She hadn’t been head over heels like this for a boy since she was seventeen, maybe ever. They’d been seeing each other for a month or two, and she couldn’t turn down his invitations to the show his was performing in anymore, especially given that it was closing. He had been so excited to show her his play, had talked about it endlessly, his character, the cast, the director… she had to see it. So she’d consented to attend the final performance of the play. But she hadn’t anticipated how badly her nose would react to the theater, and especially to… Michelle’s heart dropped as she reached her row and prepared to sit. There was a woman seated next to her who smelled as though she had bathed in perfume, a delicate floral scent that made Michelle want to convulse with sneeze after violent sneeze, not caring if her out-of-control nose took out the whole theater… but no. She had to control herself. Tim wasn’t just about to find out about her, ah, nasal condition by her blasting away in the middle of his play. She would be beyond mortified. So she would just have to keep her nose under control. But as she sat down, the lights dimming in preparation for the second act, hideous floral perfume teasing her nose, her chest beginning to heave again, ever so slightly audible despite her best attempts to keep quiet… she inwardly despaired. It was going to be quite a feat, one she’d never really accomplished before but… for Tim—she snuck one last look at his face in the program before the house went dark—she would have to keep her nose under control.

---

It was only twenty minutes into the second act, and Michelle was ready to despair. She’d never felt an itch like this before. Already, she was eagerly anticipating any loud moment in the show, just so she could allow herself a few torturous gasps. And even then, she knew she’d been audible over the noise of the show, at least once, her high falsetto pre-sneeze shrieks drowning out an actor—though thankfully when Tim himself was off-stage. But it was torture. Michelle had no idea how she would survive another thirty minutes of this. Her whole body wanted nothing more than to give in to the itch and unleash sneeze after sneeze after sneeze. Her control faded in and out—some moments she was confident that she could hold off for a long as she needed to; in others the urge to sneeze was imminent and uncontrollable. She’d brought herself back from the precipice of sneeze after sneeze, her wide nostrils flaring and sniffing, her chest loosening with the power of the oncoming sneeze. She was red-faced with shame at all of the glances and glares she was receiving, most prominently from the perfume-drenched woman to the side of her, who seemed vaguely aware of how her scent was contributing to Michelle’s distress, and, rather than responding sympathetically or at all appropriately, seemed instead to be offended at the notion that her perfume could cause anything but delight. If only she could imagine the eventual result of all of Michelle’s gasping and hitching! But, Michelle reminded herself, no matter how desperately she wanted to sneeze, no one in this audience, or, more importantly, on stage, would be privy to that “result.” No, there was no way Michelle was going to give in and blast out one of her gale-force sneezes in this theater. She would never embarrass Tim that way… And even as she thought it, it seemed that a tendril of perfume snuck its way into the deepest and most sensitive place in the back of her left nostril, igniting that crazy itch that presaged one of Michelle’s thermonuclear sneezes. She tried to ignore it at first, tried to focus on what was happening onstage, but already, her eyes were beginning to tear, her breath become less and less steady. “Hh-hehhh…” a tiny, but audible hitch escaped Michelle. She glanced to the left and right of her, hoping no one had heard her lapse in control. There were no eyes on her yet, everyone—except Michelle—riveted to what was happening on-stage. But her nose still tickled terribly, the itch all but overwhelming her broad nose, the wide tunnels of her nostrils flaring uncontrollably. Her nose was helplessly scrunching, still soundless until… “HAH! HAH!” Michelle rushed a hand to her nose, soothing it as best she could. That had come on so suddenly—her head had tilted back, her breasts pushing against her shirt as her torso arched. The urges were coming more quickly now. Worst of all, eyes all around her turned. Even one of the actors on stage seemed to be eyeing the row where Michelle sat. Venomously, the perfumed woman turned to her and spat: “would you be quiet? We are trying to watch the theater!” It was a whisper, but it was clear that the people nearby had heard, were nodding in agreement, all frustrated by the noisy, gasping woman in 4N… if only they knew the disaster, the chaos Michelle was sparing them, she began to think darkly. If only they knew what a massive explosion she was only barely holding at bay. They wouldn’t be glaring about a few errant gasps if they knew what her real buildup sounded like, let alone her actual sneeze…! As she thought, the itch in her nose receded from her consciousness. She released a breath, audible but even, not distorted with an oncoming sneeze. It attracted a few more glares and whispers, but Michelle ignored them, resisting the urge to flip off a few nearby gossips. She’d endured this torture before, choking back sneezy gasps throughout large college lectures, rushing to one of her safe spots on campus as soon as the lecture let out and erupting with a whole fit of her gale-force sneezes, sometimes terrifying others with their volume, but at least avoiding blasting anything over or sending any articles of clothing flying. Of course, Michelle’s life had included more than her fair share of both of those… “And if I leave now,” a woman called from the stage, “I’m not coming back.” Ugh, theater. Michelle rolled her eyes as the woman onstage stomped offstage, a doorslam sound effect ringing from the speakers. Michelle rolled her eyes as the stage went dark. Quickly, she shut her eyes. She’d learned quite quickly that the sudden burst of light when the stage lights came on at the top of a new scene was hell on the tickle in her nose, had very nearly induced a full-on explosion midway through act one. Michelle had narrowly avoided the worst by squeezing her nose shut and closing her eyes, taking deep, deliberate breaths through her mouth until the itch in her nose receded to a manageable level. She wasn’t going to get caught with another blast of light again. She knew if she did, this time there’d be no stopping the sneeze. And that would be disastrous. Especially because, as she discovered when she opened her eyes, Tim was onstage now. Which meant… oh this was his big scene! She’d made it! She half wished she could leave after this scene, but this meant that she was in the home stretch. It was just his big scene near the end of the play, then one more brief crowd scene to wrap up the story, and she’d be home free. She would bolt from the theater. There was an alleyway nearby where she knew she could unleash her sneezes, and all they would do was upend a few garbage cans, hardly the worst thing that had occurred as a result of Michelle’s super-powered nose. Watching Tim onstage, for the first time all night, she was enraptured. What seemed phony and boring from the other performers seemed like real life from Tim. What seemed dull was suddenly ablaze. Every word he spoke fell like thunder, every glance he gave was like fire. He was gifted, to say the least. Or maybe she was just in love. Whatever it was, she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Couldn’t focus on anything but him. Couldn’t focus on… “hhhhheeeeee-EEEEHHHHHH…” She only awoke from her Tim-centric reverie when she heard her own breath hitch, loud enough to be completely audible. She could have sworn she saw, ever so briefly, Tim’s eyes twitch towards her, which set her cheeks on fire with embarrassment. But she had no time to focus on her embarrassment, not when she’d let the sneeze grow so much, not when she’d let it come so close. She was unable to choke back another sneezy gasp, horribly loud, “HHHAAAAAAAAHHHHH…” She fumbled around in her purse for a tissue… sometimes, when her nose was this far gone, she could placate the tickle with a blow, it would buy her enough time and control to at least hold back until the end of the show… it was only a few more minutes… Another audible “EEEEHHHHHHH…” ruffled the skirts of the women around her, and set off a round of muttering through the theater, as people craned their necks to ascertain the source of the distracting noises, trying to figure out who or what it was that was distracting them from the entertainment of the play. As another sneezy gasp shook the room—thankfully not literally… not yet anyway—she heard an older woman whisper fiercely at her: “Here! Stop fumbling and take this. Get yourself under control right now, young lady!” And then, at her fingertips, blessedly, was a soft, cotton handkerchief. Not so much as taking a moment to think about it, unable to think about it, her mind so clouded with the need to sneeze, Michelle grabbed the handkerchief and smothered her nose in its comforting folds, giving a snuffling, congested hiss of a blow, feeling a moment of blessed comfort and respite. But only a moment. Suddenly, the tickle in her nose increased tenfold… twentyfold… more. She gave a delicate sniff and the tickle only worsened, which is when she realized… She pulled the handkerchief away from her nose, looked at it in a panic, through rapidly-closing eyes, then looked to her side… oh god, the handkerchief had come from that woman whose perfume was causing Michelle’s nose such agony. And the handkerchief was soaked in it. Michelle felt panic settle in her stomach, and yet, at the same time, an odd sense of almost-calm washed over her. The sneeze was inevitable now. Her eyes bulged, looking to the left and the right, her body still going through the motions of panic. She tried dimly to warn someone, anyone but… even Tim had disappeared. The whole world had narrowed to her and her nose, to her and her rapidly-mounthing sneeze. “I… HUUUUUUHHHH… GOTTA… HHHUUUUUUHHHH… SNEEZE… HHHHUUUAAAAAHHHHHHHH… RUN!” That was the last word Michelle was able to speak, a breath, a prayer of warning before she lost all control, and her nose took over. Her breaths were beyond audible now. They were gasps, shouts, roars, as her breath sawed in and out, more air catching in her lungs each time. This was how Michelle built to one of her catastrophic sneezes, a long, final series of ferocious gasped breaths, breaths that grew from stirring skirts to ruffling the enormous curtains at the wings of the stage. The actors tried valiantly to continue over the noise—the show must go on, after all—but the audience’s attention was riveted to the young woman in the front, whose head was tilting back so that her nose was pointed almost to the cavernous ceiling. Some were shouting at her to keep it down, others merely watching shocked and transfixed at this very different kind of performance, this seemingly unending and unstoppable buildup, like a lit fuse that grows brighter and brighter as it reaches towards the explosive climax. An usher marched over to Michelle as though to escort her from the building. But when the usher felt her hair beginning to fly all over, her jacket flapping wildly in the breeze kicked up by Michelle’s breaths, her eyes widened and she thought better of it. In fact, more than a few theatergoers, particularly those nearby, had obeyed Michelle’s injunction to flee, wisely clutching purses, jewelry, various small items that had begun to move as the tidal flow of Michelle’s breath drew in and out, in and out. For Michelle herself, she was utterly given over to the sneeze. This awful pressure. She felt in building in her lungs, she felt it building in her nose, she felt it building in her whole body. Her face was creased and clenched into a grimace of sneezy desperation, tears running down her face, and her nose twitching with every hitched breath. Her mouth hung open to receive more air, her head arched far back, bringing her generous cleavage more and more into view, pressing against her top. After what felt like a solid minute of gasping building—over the course of which the actors had finally stopped speaking, staring in astonishment at the sneezy girl, as everyone else in the theater was—all went silent. Michelle felt like a balloon, full of air and ready to pop. The itch in her nose felt like it had expanded to fill her whole face, her whole body. No matter what else happened, she couldn’t stop. She had to let that maddening tickle OUT. She had to unleash the fury of her nose. Michelle had to sneeze. So she did.

---

“AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII…”

Michelle’s head flew forward with a shriek of sound that easily filled the theater as even the actors’ amplified voices could not, a scream of pure uncontrollable release so violent that patrons near her clamped their hands to their ears or jumped in their seats, startled by the almighty burst of sound that overtook Michelle completely as she gave in at last, overwhelmed by the ticklish needs of her large, broad, endlessly itchy nose. It was a sort of preparatory scream, her vocal chords helplessly engaged against the tremendous surge of air that was flying up, up, up, endlessly up from her lungs and irresistibly out of her nose and mouth, a fierce gale that struck the room as Michelle bent double in her seat.

“TTTTTTTTTTCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW!!”

The blast struck the theatergoers in front of her first, those who had been too foolish to move at Michelle’s barely-gasped-out warning. It knocked some clean out of their seats, though most suffered only the loss of their programs, their purses, and any items not tied down firmly to their person or the seat. One could even see a surprising number of wigs and toupees caught in the blast, flying towards the stage. Michelle just kept blasting out air, more and more, unwilling and unable to stop until the sneeze had emptied out her impossibly ample lungs, and her heavy breasts rested on her knees.

When the violent gust Michelle unleashed struck the stage, it bowled at least two actors clean over. Thank God in her bleary-eyed, allergic state, Michelle had no hope of identifying who. Meanwhile props flew everywhere, striking the back wall of the stage  with a great clamor, the wooden flats just barely holding under the strain of her sneeze… at least until a large set piece, a grandfather clock, tipped right over and tore through one of the large wooden backdrops that made up the walls of the play’s drawing room. And beyond that, everything (and everyone) had been sprayed damp, some of the furniture dripping in the aftermath of Michelle’s hurricane.

Everyone stood shocked a moment before the panic set in. Michelle was panting, trying to recover from the explosion she’d just released, praying, hoping against hope that one of her monstrous sneezes would be enough to sate her nose… but after the evening-long torture it had endured, Michelle knew the hope of appeasing her nose with one measly sneeze was slim to say the least. And indeed, her pants of recovery quickly turned into pants of irritation, to hitched breaths, as she vaguely raised one hand, whether in preparation of the sneeze or in the vain hope of warding it off, towards her wide, flaring, red nostrils, towards the protruding bulb of her nose, even as she drew into another sneezy gasp.

By now, everyone knew what to expect, and it was pandemonium, patrons climbing over each other to get out of the way of Michelle’s monstrous sneeze, even the actors trying to get off of the stage before she unleashed, the stage managers obviously torn between saving the set and saving themselves, as random headset-wearing women wandered into view of the audience, obviously wracking their brains for a solution to the typhoon that had walked into their theater.

For Michelle’s part, she knew that if she allowed herself to stay seated, to sneeze it out as she needed to, her nose would all but bring the theater down. No, somehow she would have to move, would have to escape to somewhere else as she unleashed her full fit. But she couldn’t do that caught in the grip of one of her almighty buildups, and so she didn’t even try to stop it as her lungs filled again with air, her back arching, chest pointed towards the sky before she flew forward with a monstrous; “WWWWHHHAAAASSSSSHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” It was another hurricane, this one even stronger than the last, causing one of the wooden flats on the stage to creak and splinter into two under the force of her gale. There were audible gasps as still more hairpieces and jewelry went flying. Had Michelle been able to open her eyes, she would have been treated to the sight of the woman whose horrible perfume precipitated this whole mess, hairless and mortified, literally clutching the pearls around her neck, her small handbag long since lost to Hurricane Michelle.

In the brief moment of calm after her monstrous sneeze, Michelle struggled to get up and get down the aisle, even as she felt her traitorous nose begin to kick into gear yet again… “Pl-pleeeaahhhh… please y-you gaaahhHHHhhhh… you g-gottaahhhhhhh lehhhhHHH…l-let me th-th-thahhhh… let me through…” she said, fighting back the sneeze even as she fought her way towards the exit to the theater. The stage managers, at last seeing something they could do to save what was left of their set, quickly seized on the opportunity to get Michelle out of the building. Just as Michelle’s eyes were closing, her head tipping back with another sneeze, she felt two strong hands on her arms, and she allowed herself to be guided towards a back exit, though as she gave a final sneezy gasp, she felt the hands vanish, clearly unwilling to be caught point blank by one of her hurricanes.

She gave a final monstrous “EEERRRRRUUUUUUSSSSHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” that caused a rather terrifying cracking sound, as she exited the theater and emerged in the bright light of the alley. Looking around, she saw the alley she’d hoped to escape to earlier, nothing but trash cans left to blow away. And even as she looked around, scanning in case she was in danger of blowing away anything (else) important, she was caught full in the face with a blast of sunlight, that made her poor, desperately tickled nose completely give in, and she felt her chest heaving and gasping as she gave into a fusillade of sneezes, a monstrous, violent fit that felt even bigger than the sneezes she’d unleashed inside the theater. She was sure they were clearly audible, not only in the theater she’d just left, but in all the buildings around the block:

“EEEEEEEEEESSSHHHHOOOOOOOOOO! HHHAAAAATTTTTSSSSHHHOOOOOOOOOO!! AAAIIIIIIITTTTCCCCHHHHEEWWWWWWWWWW!!”

And yet she could not stop! If anything, the sneezes seemed to grow in force and violence, as she shut her eyes and whipped back and forth, utterly given over to the all-consuming itch in her nose, her nose seeming to get its revenge for those long hours of delayed and denied sneezes, taking full control and forcing Michelle to erupt with sneeze after sneeze after sneeze.

At last, after what felt like five full minutes of gasping, hitching, and exploding, Michelle was spent. She collapsed, still bent double from her final sneeze, an absolute roar of a  “WWWWWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAASSSSHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAYYYYY!!” that was still echoing against the concrete, still ringing in Michelle’s ears. She rested her hands against one wall of the theater, before easing herself slowly to a seated position, trying to recover from her awe-inspiring fit, probably the worst she’d ever suffered.

The alleyway was wrecked. Explosions of garbage littered the area, a huge metal dumpster overturned by the fury of Michelle’s nose, several trash cans overturned, bags burst when they flew against the concrete walls. It seemed that even the stairs of the fire escapes had shifted in reaction. Michelle was half-convinced she saw tiny cracks forming in the concrete walls.

As she gradually recovered, panting without danger of another eruption, she allowed her worry to fill her mind. What kind of damage had she caused? What would she have to pay? She was sure she could cover it—her parents had long since set up a fund and an insurance policy, as this was hardly the first time Michelle’s nose had created trouble—but she was far more concerned with… Tim.

And as if thinking of him could make him appear, suddenly he burst from the theater, face red and eyes wild. Oh god, not only was he going to dump her, he was going to scream at her first. Michelle could only look up weakly, eyes puffy and red, nostrils still rimmed pink, still flushed from her overwhelming sneeze. She tried to speak but he cut her off:

“No, Michelle, just… let me…” and with that he produced a feather from one hand, clearly stolen from some costume or prop, and inserted it into his nose, wiggling it and tickling until…

“HHHHHAAAAAAAAA-CHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” He unleashed a typhoon to rival one of Michelle’s own. She watch in astonishment as the alleyway, already in complete disarray from Michelle’s blasts, took another explosion, the huge dumpster she’d overturned scooting a few feet farther in the wake of Tim’s sneeze.

She looked up, eyes widening, mouth dropping open, heart in her throat, as he straightened up and recovered from his sneeze, hands on his knees. “I uh…” Michelle said, all she could think to say. As for Tim, he raised his head, walked very slowly towards Michelle and placed one kiss, restrained and yet obviously eager, on her lips. He pulled back, a sombre look on his face, as he said: “No pepper on dates. Ever.”

That dissolved Michelle into peals of laughter, which proved infectious and quickly caught Tim too, until they were both sitting against the building, laughing their heads off, in the wake of the natural disaster that was Michelle’s trip to the theater.

Sneezing Soulmates (1/?)

And this one is a trade that I have taken a zillion years to continue but actually I’ve written a fair amount of the next part and I hope it’ll be done soon. (I also have to hit up the person it’s for lmao. I assume he’s on snezblr but idk his blog name?)

---

“Ugh, no thanks. I don’t need to be set up again.” Derek said, flopping onto the couch, his whole face slumping. He didn’t even like to be reminded of the topic of dating, because it reminded him of the topic of soulmates, because that reminded him of his least favorite topic...

“It’s not like you have to sneeze for every guy on the first date, just cause of some dumb superstition.” Chinaka, his roommate, said, plopping down next to him on the couch. “Slide over, you can be dramatic on half the couch, you don’t need the whole thing.”

Derek rolled his eyes, but scooched over anyway, even as he protested: “no, it’s not just some dumb superstition! It’s real! The nose knows—“

“—what the soul holds, yes yes I know. Like I said, dumb American superstition. Nigerians know better. ‘What good is it to have the same sneeze as somebody if they can’t cook?’” Chin said, jokingly imitating his mother’s accent.

“Oh please Chin, your mom is not even obsessed with cooking like that. She’s not a stereotype she’s just an immigrant.” Derek said, rolling his eyes but brightening somewhat—any topic was better than the whole stupid sneezing soulmate whatever.

“Yeah yeah yeah well you try bringing someone home to her, and then you tell me she’s not every inch the African, immigrant mom... and anyway you’re not getting me off topic. Just because you were brainwashed into believing a certain European superstition about sneezing and soulmates—“

“It’s not a European superstition! It’s popular in many cultures on every continent and just because it’s not super popular with Igbo—“

“Because the Igbo know best! THANK you very much!”

They were both laughing now, having been down this road dozens of times before, about all the ways Igbo people were superior to their “Americanized” cousins—and everyone else on the planet. At first Derek had figured Chinaka’s Pan-African phase was just a phase—after all, they both grew up in PG County, and there weren’t exactly a zillion Nigerian flags flying outside all the houses on their street (though there were plenty of Nigerian folks, along with every other variety of Black). But Chin had dug deep into his family roots, and far be it from Derek to call it a phase now, especially since Chin’s “Igbo are the best at everything” schtick was a source of pride for Chin and laughter for them both.

As their laughter died down, Derek spoke again, “Well, I wish I was Igbo and I wish I hadn’t been inundated with epic love-stories about finding soulmates via sneeze—which by the way is the source of like 65% of relationships, thank you—but I’m not and they do, and so dating is... complicated for me. You know that. My whole sneezing thing...”

“You mean the fact that if you weren’t careful you’d blow out the wall if you get a little tickle in your nose?”

Derek’s face felt hot, and he knew he was flushing, his light golden skin unable to hide a blush nearly as well as Chin’s deep brown. “Geez, do you have to talk about it so much? And it doesn’t help that any time my soulmate gets a tickle in their nose, I’m also scrambling to find somewhere safe to... blast off or whatever.”

Chinaka rolled his eyes, “More superstition if you ask me...”

“Then how do you explain all those couples on reality TV that always sneeze at the same time...”

“Editing.”

“Not to mention couples we know...!”

“They teach themselves to do that, it’s psychosomatic...”

“Well, if nothing else, how do you explain how my nose is always itching, even though we keep this place prihhh... pristine...”

“Speak of the devil...” Chin said, already springing off the couch, lifting Derek with him, even as Derek’s head tipped back, and little fluttering gasps escaped him, causing the curtains to ruffle, and the few magazines on the table to flutter. “Cmon, let’s get you pointed outside before you blow the couch through the wall...”

“I’m suhhh... I’m s-sorry Chihhhhhh.... Chin I... whew it tihhhh... it tickles... r-really gonna sneeze...”

Chin helped Derek up, helped him towards the window, which they barely got open before—

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-SHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

A monster of a sneeze erupted from Derek, conveniently aimed through the window of their high-rise apartment, so it did a minimum of damage. It was TERRIFICALLY loud though, echoing all the way down the street and so loud that quite a few people looked up, startled, trying to deduce where such an almighty sneeze might have come from.

Derek slumped against the wall as he panted his way back to calm. His sneezes were so overwhelming, so all-consuming. Even if they’d mostly figured out how to deal with him sneezing like a small explosive device, it was still exhausting. Satiating the demands of his hurricane-force nose took a lot out of him. And it made him all but certain that he’d never find his soulmate. If they were within a ten-mile radius, he’d have heard them already.

“Well! Another Derek sneeze successfully diverted,” Chin said, as he did the mercifully light straightening up that sneeze required. “High-rise plus window is, as I predicted, an excellent plan. You didn’t even rearrange any furniture this time! You okay?”

Derek stood, still panting a bit but mostly recovered. “Yeah. Wasn’t too bad, huh? Not like the great windstorm of ‘15”

“Or the Fence Flattening of 2012”

“Or the movie theater Incident.”

They both shuddered. The movie theater had been bad.

“Well, since we’ve survived another one of your typhoons... how about it?”

“How about what?” Derek asked, returning to the couch.

“How about going on a date. Seriously. No sneezing necessary. It’s my buddy Jason. I’ve never even seen him sneeze, he’s not big on the whole silly soulmate thing, and he’s a nice guy. You’ve barely dated since college and that was like three years ago.” Chin plopped down on the couch next to Derek, and poked at his shoulder, brotherly. “Just go out with Jason, what can it hurt?”