Meowth heard a faint sniffle and snapped out of his inner monologue. He looked to his side to see Lumpy, sitting next to him on the couch. The idiotic moose raised his hand to his nostrils and rubbed them as he sniffled a couple more times. It didn't appear to help much, however, as his snout was twitching slightly. Meowth sighed to himself and spoke.
"Hey. Sniffles McItchy-nose. Can't ya see I'm thinkin' about some serious stuff right here?" Meowth asked.
Lumpy looked over at Meowth, sniffled again and apologized. "I'm sorry, Meowth."
"What's wrong with ya? Oh, don't tell me ya got some problems of your own, too."
"Actually, I kind of do," Lumpy replied. "You see, my nose is pretty itchy, and I think I might need to sneeze, but it just won't come out."
"Oh, really?" Meowth asked and crossed his arms. "And why's that? Ya catchin' a cold, or are ya allergic to cats?"
"I don't think it's either of those things," Lumpy said with another sniffle. "But I really don't know what it is, and the only way to stop my nose from itching would be to sneeze." He sighed to himself. "I really wish I could..."
Meowth rolled his eyes and stopped paying attention for a few seconds. As he did, he absentmindedly flicked his tail around, but then he took a quick glance at it, and a thought occurred to him. Then, for a few seconds, he looked back over at Lumpy, who rubbed his nose again and sniffled. His nose did seem to be pretty irritated, but not enough for him to sneeze. Meowth could see Lumpy's nostrils flaring up about as frequently as his snout twitched.
"Maybe I should make him sneeze," Meowth thought to himself, and looked down at his tail with an evil smile. "And I think I know just what to use."
Meowth moved closer to Lumpy, lightly grabbed his tail with his forepaw and looked at him.
"Hey, Lumpy, I bet I can help ya get your sneeze out!" Meowth said.
"Wait, what?" Lumpy immediately responded before he turned to Meowth. "Really?"
"Yeah," Meowth said as he held his tail up for Lumpy to view. "Why do ya ask? Is your nose ticklish?"
"Well, actually... um..."
Before Lumpy could think of anything else to say, Meowth stood up on the couch, brought his tail to the end of the moose's snout and started to brush it against his nose.
"Heh heh! Tickle-tickle!"
Rather than immediately needing to sneeze, however, Lumpy started giggling. He couldn't help it, it really tickled, but in the "laughing" way.
"Hee hee hee! Hey! Hee hee hee! Stop that!"
"What's the matter, Lumpy?" Meowth asked in a teasing voice. "Does it tickle?" He knew that it did, but he was asking that just for the heck of it.
"Hee hee hee! Yes, it does! Hee hee hee!"
"Well, it's about to tickle a whole lot more..."
Meowth briefly removed his tail from Lumpy's nose, and unrolled the end of his tail so that it would be straight, as opposed to its usual curl. He then shoved the end of his tail into one of Lumpy's nostrils, and began to wiggle it around.
Lumpy cringed in apparent surprise as he felt Meowth's tail entering and tickling his nostril. He could feel a good amount of fine hair on Meowth's tail caressing the walls of his nostril, and as Meowth had implied, it really tickled, but this was a completely different kind of tickle. His snout began to twitch, and his nostrils started to flare up, but the nostril that the tail was in flared up even more. He needed to sneeze.
"Aaaah..." Lumpy inhaled once, and then sniffled, trying to stop his nose from itching. However, a small amount of cat hair from Meowth's tail got sucked deeper into his nostril. "Aaaaaahhhh..."
"Aw, sounds like somebody's gettin' sneezy!" Meowth said, sarcastically. He didn't feel bad for Lumpy; he was actually amused that he needed to sneeze. And he was going to make this upcoming sneeze as large and loud as possible. He moved his tail deeper into Lumpy's nose and continued maneuvering his tail around and tickling the already-sensitive insides.
"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh... Me... Meowth..." Lumpy tried to say as he inhaled and tilted his neck backward. He could almost feel his nose reddening, but it was nothing compared to the tickling feeling. "I... Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh... I think I-I... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh... I'm gonna... AaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHH..."
"Wait, let me guess. You're gonna sneeze?"
Lumpy could barely even nod in response, since he was feeling so sneezy.
"AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH... AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH...!"
The evil grin on Meowth's face only grew wider as he sent his tail even further into the moose's nostril, and this time, it managed to reach the most ticklish spot: the very back of Lumpy's nose.
"I think I've reached it!" Meowth said to himself. "Now let's see if this can't make him explode!" He then proceeded to wiggle his tail as fast as possible and with as much movement as he could afford. "Tickle-tickle-tickle!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!"
Lumpy couldn't take any more tickling. His snout was twitching and shaking constantly, his nostrils were flaring up like crazy, most of his nose had turned a bright red, and his eyes were watering. He absolutely needed to sneeze, and he didn't just need to, he wanted to. His entire body was begging and pleading for him to release the sneeze, and he was going to let it happen whether Meowth wanted him to or not. As he tilted his neck as far back as it could go, Meowth also knew that Lumpy couldn't take it anymore. With a single quick movement, the Cat Pokemon pulled his tail right out of his nostril. However, the urge to sneeze was just too strong for this to ease it in the slightest; almost a split second afterward, Lumpy released a sneeze unlike any that Meowth had ever heard before.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Lumpy shot his head and neck forwards as he unleashed the sneeze that Meowth had induced. True to both of their expectations, the sneeze was extremely large, loud and powerful, and lasted a good five seconds. It was undeniably one of the biggest sneezes Lumpy had ever released. In fact, it was so loud that Meowth had to put both of his paws over his ears, but it wasn't much help at all. The sneeze also fired a large amount of mucus out of Lumpy's nostrils; a pretty good amount of mucus landed directly on Meowth's face and upper body, but some of it landed on the couch, too.
After a few seconds, Lumpy managed to catch his breath, but his reddened nose was now running, with mucus oozing out of both of his nostrils. Lumpy sniffled wetly and brought up a forefinger to rub his nostrils, deliberately rubbing them for much longer than he was used to. Meowth sat where he was, with his eyes widened and pupils dilated from the amount of mucus that Lumpy had sneezed onto him. He probably would have been mad at Lumpy for sneezing on him, but the sneeze had left him astonished. He just couldn't believe that anybody could sneeze like that.
"Oh, my goodness! Did... did you just... did you just sneeze like that?!" Meowth asked, completely baffled.
"Yeah," Lumpy said as he sniffled again and kept rubbing his nose on his finger. He then realized that Meowth's face was covered in his mucus. "Oh, my gosh. I am so sorry..."
"Sorry about what?" Meowth asked, and then put a paw on his face for a moment. He then removed his paw and saw a trail of mucus connecting from his face to his paw. "Oh. Uh, hang on, hang on." He reached over to grab the tissue box next to the couch and brought it over to him and Lumpy. He started wiping his face with a tissue until all of the mucus had been cleaned off. "It's all right, Lumpy, I ain't mad. Especially not after that sneeze."
"You're not?" Lumpy asked, still having his finger under his nose. He had actually expected Meowth to be mad at him for sneezing on him.
"Nope. And I gotta say, that was a pretty darn big sneeze ya did there." Meowth pulled out a couple of tissues from the tissue box and offered them to Lumpy. "Ya want some tissues?"
Lumpy accepted the tissues and blew his nose loudly into them. He then started wiping his nose on them.
"Thanks..." Lumpy said. "And thanks for getting my sneeze out for me. It actually felt pretty good."
"Yeah, sure," Meowth responded. "No problem."
Lumpy continued to wipe his nose for a while. Meowth, on the other hand, simply sat where he was, thinking about what had happened. He didn't have a sneezing fetish, but he was honestly impressed with Lumpy's epic sneeze, even though he couldn't believe it had happened. He wondered if there were any ways to get him to sneeze like that again...
This day, especially that sneeze, was the start of an unlikely friendship.