Part 2 of a commissioned series about a Big Bad Wolf with a cold. Enjoy.
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Having departed from his friend Kevin's recently aerated home, Reggie the giant wolf realized that Kev had been right. It really had been quite a bad idea to come here just to say goodbye... his nose was throwing a fit, the invading illness making him stuffy, while simultaneously feeling a crawling, constant tingle in his enormous nose. His hand was kept firmly attached, rubbing up and down and in circles, kneading his itchy nostrils to try and prevent another one of his gigantic sneezes from sneaking out. He blinked through bleary eyes as he tried to carefully pick his way through the city, quite slow going due to his size, huffing and gasping as he went.
“Hh-h... Nnh... H-hah.. U-uh-oh... Ah... nghhk...!” people who saw him coming immediately turned and walked, jogged, or sprinted away, their eyes wide. All in all, it was safe to say he was causing quite a ruckus. The most worried were the ones who couldn't escape... anyone who was at work, such as a construction site. Now normally one would think that if one were a giant wolf with quite a set of lungs on him, one might ignore everything else and try to escape city limits when one had a cold, and one's giant nose was twitching, flaring, and huffing all over the place.
But not Rej. No, he saw that construction up ahead, and he stopped to gape in wonder, looking at the machines. With his size, he'd never need to use something like that. Crouching down with his head close to the ground, he watched them work, a finger rubbing back and forth underneath his nose, making his nostrils wiggle from side to side and making all the staff on site quite nervous.
A crane operator in particular took poorly to the sight of a huge wolf's maw in front of his window, letting out a shriek before passing out on the spot, the pig's hand still moving the heavy machinery, a load of steel and concrete going up to a higher level. The sight of that cavernous nose, nostrils flaring and gasping breaths fogging up the glass of his pilot seat was just too much. Perhaps he'd suffered from a macro sneeze before.
An alarm went up, folks shouting and running around, trying to make sure they weren't underneath that load when it inevitably fell, everyone expecting a huge disaster and a setback of many weeks, perhaps even months if the damage was severe enough.
“Oop.” Reaching out easily, Rej caught the crane, the pressure it applied to his palm almost nonexistent to the incredibly strong wolf. He held the bundle carefully in his right hand, the left tapping on the crane. “Excuse me? You need to stop moving the arm. It's... it's gonna hit... hello?” Peering in, he couldn't make out much. Unfortunately his hitching breaths had fogged up the windows far too much, and now his hands were occupied.
“Hnnmhh... HH-hfff...” He snorted and snuffed, twisting his muzzle as he felt that tingling itch spread outward, caressing the deepest reaches of his muzzle with a seductive urge to let loose a big blast of a sneeze, to rid his nose of the tickles that his developing cold were spreading. He fought hard, trying to gently press his snout against the crane, using the hard edges of the equipment to scratch his nose as he left glistening trails of slime across it, a few droplets pattering to the ground below. Droplets to him, but more like puddles to anyone else.
His lids grew heavy, vision fluttering as his mouth dropped open, breathy 'Hah... hhh-hahh... aa-Ah!...' gasps escaping him. “Oh... my nose is so itchy... I h-have to sneeze... no, I can't... c-can't sneeze... I'll... M-make all these people sick, give them my cold...” he was muttering to himself, and thankfully quietly enough that the workers couldn't hear him. As the foreman approached, he found the distraction helped him not think about that deep, tingling itch crawling its way through the sensitive passages of his nose, making his whole body quiver with the deep-seated need to release a massive sneeze...
“Excuse me, sir? Thank you for that,” Not taking off his hard hat, it was difficult for Rej to see the squirrel's face, but he could hear just fine.
“Oh n-n-nuh-not at all, an-na-h—h- anyone... would have done the same!” The big wolf was really struggling to speak and still maintain control over his nose, a sneeze brewing larger and more fierce in his long snout as the vibrations from his voice made his extra-sensitive sniffer tingle.
“We're gonna get that unhooked as soon as we can – please, just keep holding it.” They looked extremely nervous, and even Rej understood why. The man was unclear about what, exactly, the big wolf should be holding... he was carefully holding both the crane and the load it had been hauling in his hands, but of course he was also holding in a huge, site-shattering sneeze...
“I... I c-ca-can't h-hold it much longeuuhhh...” He repositioned, lowering his snout even more until it was within their reach, his warm breath rustling their hard hats as it blew through their fur, flared nostrils stretching wide. “Caeh... Can you r-rub muh-my no-nose? I... I need to sn-snee-sneeeeeeeze!” He drew the word out into a whine, muzzle scrunching and wriggling, eliciting a primal terror in the construction workers, who hesitantly stepped forward, scootching as though he were approaching a bomb and wincing as he reached out, touching the wet, sniffling nostrils of the giant wolf.
“Pleeee... Pleee-heeeehheeeeeze...” He whimpered, breath huffing over the workers as more started to edge in, their foreman shouting, “Don't just stand there! Get in there! Quick!” and motivating them to help assuage the wolf's big tickle before their site was totally demolished. They had to buy enough time for the other team up top to unhitch that load and allow Rej to get his hands back where they belonged – clamped onto his sniffling, twitching schnozz before it exploded.
He got caught in a hitching loop as he felt a multitude of hands touching his sensitive sniffer, tickling intensifying a bit before they all began to rub, some stretching, some pushing, some squeezing and massaging his tingling nares, all of them feeling they were staring down the barrel of a gun as they peered into the dark, slimy depths within the wolf's nose. It seemed to go on forever, his muzzle so long and deep and dark... snottier than usual thanks to his cold, and his previous sneezes had made him build up a bit of moisture in there, threatening to spill over the edge where pink gave way to black, constant sniffles keeping it contained.
“Hyeeghh—hii... Heegh.... hhh... hHA... HAAA- – pphew... hhuuh... oh r-right... right there... I gah... I gah sneeeeeze... h-higher-- Higher...! I... IH... IHHHH...” One of the workers slapped his friend, barking out, 'You heard him! HIGHER!' and began pressing both hands into the wolf's septum with gusto, squishing his hands into the pliant, surprisingly giving flesh and getting rewarded with another sigh of relief from the wolf. He wasn't going to blow, just yet.
“Hhhhhh thank you, guys, I h-have to sneeze so bad and I just don't want to knock down your building! It... It would probably be a really big sneeze. The tickle's just so deep... I don't think I can hold it in much longer. I can f-fuh feel my lungs screaming at me to gasp in a big breath and just... nnnfh, I h-have to hang on...”
The construction crew was now quite worried, and there were calls to hurry it the hell up in getting that load unhitched. Unfortunately it was a long process, and they had to unload everything by hand up onto some girders and scaffolding, so it was slow going for sure. This big cold-laden nose wasn't going to stay under control much longer.
One enterprising soul had the idea to climb up the crane and leap onto the wolf's muzzle, grabbing hold and squeezing as tightly as he could with his arms and legs, trying to smooth out wrinkles that were forming and rub away the itch that was deep inside. A for effort, but it wasn't really working – not with his cold so set in and deep inside, those insidious viruses working to irritate and multiply so they could spread in a massive spraying cloud across all these poor people. That was how Rej imagined it, anyway – that he was fighting against them, trying to keep from spreading this cold to others, never mind the damage his sneeze alone would cause. At this point, after his sneezes destroyed his friend's room, he was feeling pretty moist, and he thought it would likely get pretty messy from this point onward.
“Haaah...” His eyes started to swim, unfocusing as his brow scrunched, muzzle rippling with irritation. The crew was only about seventy, maybe eighty percent finished with the job, but poor Reggie just couldn't hold on any longer. He had to sneeze so badly he thought his nostrils were vibrating!
“Aaaaaaah...!” the wolf gave another gasp, his grip on the crane starting to slip as his maw fell open, terrifying the crew, who cried, “N-no, wait, please, please don't sneeze! You can hold it! Turn your head, turn your head!” They called out various things, that he should tuck his snout into his shirt or that he should stifle it. None of these were going to work, none were a realistic option. Not with such a big wolf and such a boisterous sneeze.
The crewman riding his muzzle tried to slide off, the long snout with the bulbous, widely-flared tip tilting upwards, teeth and tongue visible to all as he gasped again.
“HAAAAAAAAAAAAH...” Rej's eyes squeezed shut and he let go of the crane, the rest of the load crashing and clattering to the ground as men dived out of the way, rolling into piping or beneath the kneeling wolf to get clear.
The wolf's hand came up to squeeze his snout, nostrils fighting against his pinching fingers and struggling to stay open, squelching as he kneaded them. Everyone stopped and stared at him, wondering if he had done it, if he was able to suppress the enormous sneeze that was doubtlessly building inside him.
“GhhhEEEH... GNNnhhhgnnkkhhh... Hhgggeeehh... aaAAeEeeeeh!” Rej struggled, his long nose high in the air, ready to snap down and unleash a wave of destruction that would surely level this site. Crew taking cover stared at him with bated breath, each of them praying, 'Don't sneeze, please don't let him sneeze.'
But the wolf couldn't contain it any longer. Snapping down with a spray that was propelled by an absolutely massive gust of wind, his nose exploded like a bomb.
“EEEEEEHHHHHHH-SSSSCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!” metal creaked, wood was blown to splinters, and machinery rolled back as the site was doused in a forceful mist... but everything was still standing. They breathed a sigh of relief.
At least until Rej sneezed again.
“Guh... Gunna... B-be... a bih—bii---EEEEEH- EEEEEEKKKKTTTTTTTTTCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFF!” a second sneeze blasted over everything, blowing like a hurricane along with a thick rope of snot that burst out of him, gumming up the crane treads as the half-built structure came tumbling down with a huge cloud of dust and debris, luckily blown away from the wolf by his own explosive sneezes. The crew were hanging on for dear life, some of them blown away out of sight by the burst of gale-force winds.
“Wuh... Wuhhnn muh... muh-more... I'm... S-so sorr... sorreh... sor—rrrruuuh... RUUU-UUH...” The wolf looked dazed, kneeling as he sneezed and sneezed, rubbing at his dripping nose as he let it all loose, blasting what was probably billions of germs all over the people here, doubtlessly igniting an epidemic as he infected everyone nearby with his massive cold sneezes.
“RRRUUHHEETTTSCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUU!” This final sneeze splattered what was left of the site with big gobbets of snot, fairly small to the wolf but to the normal sized folks, as big as beach balls. That sneeze, concentrated, might have been able to fill a swimming pool – of course, a pool wasn't even as big as Rej's huge nose, not with all that space in his muzzle, so it made sense.
Panting, gasping for breath, Rej clutched his nose with both hands, blushing, ears folded back as he saw the destruction he had caused, and heard the jeers and screams of the workmen, enraged at all their hard work being lost, echoing up to him.
“Um... Sorry. I'm... I'm s-so sorry.” Snuffling, he stood and tried to scuttle away as fast as possible, wondering where he could go to deal with this cold... his eyes scanned the horizon, and then he saw it.
That factory. The smog from that factory was what had irritated his nose so much – it was awful. All the pollution around here... it wasn't just him getting sick. It was affecting everyone's health.
“Maybe... I can do some good after all...” The big wolf started to make his way toward it, gears turning in his head, and a tickle brewing in his snout.
