The Comedy Aisle (Warehouse 13, Myka and Claudia)

[zneeze]

Hey! Remember my first W13 fic? Yeah, this one has 4x the sneezing and a quarter of the plot. The fluffiest fetish fuel fathomable. I just miss the show xD This would take place sometime during Season 4, for those keeping score at home.

And if you're new to W13, I just want to clarify that Steve and Jinks are the same person. Steve Jinks. Other than that, you're on your own.

(And we need a sneezing powder tag cough cough just saying)

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Claudia blew at a particularly dusty shelf in the Comedy Aisle. “Jeeze, has nobody been funny in the last eighty years?”

“No, there are some more contemporary artifacts in this section,” Myka replied, pointing out a microphone labeled as Bill Cosby’s. “It’s probably just on the bottom of the cleaning list, geographically.”

Spring cleaning time at Warehouse 13 was not a matter of dusting or sprucing up shelves, of course, but about making sure no artifacts were missing, out of place, or throwing other artifacts off. Every artifact had an energy, a kind of soul. The job of keeping them from interfering with each other used to belong to Leena, the bed and breakfast owner in conjunction with the Regents, until her passing. This spring, Artie put Pete, Myka, Claudia and Steve to work inspecting the aisles every second they weren’t working on a case.

The Comedy Aisle was really a small section of aisles toward the far end of the warehouse – the very, very far end. Myka and Claudia were sent out some thousands of yards away to give it a once-over while Pete and Steve cleaned the Aisle of Noel.

“I’m not laughing yet. Just like any other section to me,” Claudia frowned, pushing back strands of her red hair (currently sporting a baby blue stripe). “Can we do this quick?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard, right? Nothing seems out of whack,” said Myka. “If we’re worried about the artifacts’ energy – they should all have happy energy in this aisle, I would think.”

“Oh,” she added, “and we can skip the Monty Python aisle.”

“Why not?”

“Just trust me. The last time I went in there, it just creeped me out, like everything in the aisle had a mind of its own. Everywhere you turned, there was –

“Something completely different?” Claudia grinned.

The women worked their ways down the hall, taking inventory while hardly adjusting a thing. Claudia reached the end of the aisle, where several shelves were dedicated to S.S. Adams.

“Whoa, I’ve read about this guy. The O.P. Original Prankster.”

Myka walked up to Claudia’s shelf. “Yeah, S.S. Adams. He invented itching powder, the dribble glass and the joy buzzer. Pete would love this aisle, now that I think about it.”

“That’s probably why Artie didn’t send him here,” Claudia replied. “But is anything in here really dangerous? What’s so artifacty about a dribble glass?”

“I don’t know, but these are all original prototypes of his inventions…”

“So they’re special snowflakes. Got it.”

Claudia was definitely ready to go, not taking the Comedy Aisle seriously, believe it or not. But as she backed away from the counter so abruptly, a small tin at about eye level with Claudia fell over and its lid popped off. The contents of the tin burst out as if it had been full beyond capacity, waiting for release.

It was the finest white powder you could imagine, and it sprayed out into the air in front of Claudia. At least half of what had burst out found its way, almost demonically, right into Claudia’s nose.

Myka had jumped back a few steps as soon as she saw the tin fall. “Oh God, what is that? Itching powder?”

Claudia could hardly formulate a thought before sneezing the first three of many, many sneezes to come.

“AHSHOOO! I – Hah-SHOOO! No, sneeahhCHOOO!”

“Sneezing powder,” Myka stated as if it weren’t obvious. A light cloud of powder still hung between them; now Myka had to figure out how to help Claudia without getting caught in it.

“Claudia!” Myka shouted, as Claudia’s sneezes were always unrestrained and booming. “Move – move – that way.” She made a motion with both her arms for Claudia to move out of the aisle and to her left. But the younger girl was incapacitated by her sneezing fit.

“EH-CHYOO! Hah-SHYOOO! Alri – alright I – I’m moving ASCHOO!”

Claudia stumbled out of the aisle, and Myka instinctively followed her – but in her rush, forgot to step around the remaining powder in the air. The strongest, fastest itch burrowed into Myka’s nostrils.

“Oh no, no no no – hahmp-CHOO! Ha’SHOO!” Myka loved order and control and so was normally a stifler. Artifact-powered sneezes proved to be unstifleable, she found.

“Crap, youhoraAHH-CHOOO! You’re sneezing too!”

“Ah’SCHOO! It’s fine, everything’s gonna beeheh-CHEW!”

Almost a mile away, Pete was checking on the star of a particularly tall artifact Christmas tree in the Aisle of Noel. He heard a faint echo.

“Was that – someone sneezing? Jinks, did you hear anything?”

“No,” he called up from the floor.

“…huh.” Pete started to descend the tree.

Myka tore into a pack of tissues she had in her pocket, but it wasn’t a new pack. She had only two tissues left.

“Hah-SHOO!” she sneezed into her shoulder. “One – one for each of us thehenn Eh-CHOO! we’re stuck. Call the guys, quick, call the guys! IHTschuu!”

Claudia struggled to pull out her Farnsworth through her own sneezing.

“HA-EHHSHOOO! Damn it, trying toooah, AH-SHYOOO! HUH-EHSHOOO!” She dialed Jinks’s Farnsworth and took Myka’s tissue at the same time. “HA-SHHH!” she sneezed more tiredly. “He’s not picking up, he probably didn’t bring his Fahh, huh – huh-ASHUH!”

“Call Pete’s! Hah’CHOO!” Myka started to blow her nose, but it did nothing to relieve the incredible itch.

Pete’s face zapped up onto the Farnsworth screen. “What’s going on?”

All Pete could hear was Claudia sneezing and Myka blowing her nose, then sneezing.

“That was you I heard, then!”

“Oh my God you HEARD us?!” Myka yelled before sneezing again, now trying her absolute hardest to hold it in or at least muffle it. “Haehh-mpfSHAH!”

Jinks entered the frame. “What’s going on?”

“S.S. Ahhdams… sn-sneezing powder…” Claudia panted as she fended off her next sneeze. “Co-homedy AiiAHH-SCHOOO!”

“Did you bag the powder?” Pete asked.

“We don’t have any bags!” Myka said as quickly as she could before sneezing twice more, also failed stifles. Her face turned a deeper shade of red than Pete had ever seen.

“Never mind bagging the artifact, you’re never going to stop sneezing until we get the powder out of your noses,” said Jinks.

“Do we have a vacuum cleaner aisle?” Pete asked Jinks.

“Just do something quick!” Claudia shouted before signing off with another sneeze. “EH-CHOOO!”

The normally spunky computer whiz sank to the ground as she dealt with another triple, aiming for her still-fresh tissue. “Hah-ESHH! Hah-ESHH! HAH-SHEWW! Ungh…” Her head started to pound from the constant sneezing. Her one and only tissue was already drenched. Trying to blow her nose didn’t help matters, for her nose or for the tissue.

“We didn’t tell the guys to bring tissues…” Claudia groaned.

She looked up and realized Myka hadn’t been listening to her – she was returning to the aisle, the scene of the crime, sneezing every few yards.

The remaining powder cloud had dissipated, but the tin was still open. With extra care, Myka closed it up and set it aside to be deactivated later. But as she set it down on the shelf, a particularly surprising sneeze overtook her.

“Ha’SHOO!”

Her hand jerked up to cover her mouth, but hit the bottom of a different shelf instead. A brightly-painted can toppled over and opened, but no powder flew out of it. A orange-and-yellow striped serpent did instead, flying right over Myka’s head.

“Ahh! What the frack was that, Myka?” Claudia shouted.

“Ha’ISHOO! That was probably S.S. Adams’s prototype snake in a can.”

“With a real snake in it?! HEH-CHOOO!”

The devilish creature was zipping back and forth in the air. Presently, Pete and Steve were rounding the corner clutching bags to deactivate artifacts, as well as what looked like a mask.

“Nothing about this aisle has been funny so far!” Claudia shouted. “HAH-SHOOO!” Throughout all of it, her sneezes had remained as forceful as ever.

“What the hell is that up there?” Pete opened an artifact bag as he watched the zigzagging snake fly around the aisle. It hadn’t been threatening so far, just a distraction, but as the four agents well knew, there was always a downside to every artifact.

Sure enough, the snake made a sudden dive at the crew, but Pete caught it in the bag with no lack of dramatic flair. He shoved in the other half of the artifact, the can, and one problem was solved.

“Look, this is Mrs. Claus’s facial mask,” Steve explained. “We found it right in the Aisle of Noel where we were. It’s how she’s managed to look the same age for however many hundreds of years. It’s clay, and clay draws out dirt, so we think if you hold it over your nostrils, it might draw out the powder.”

“HUH-ESHOOO!” Claudia sneezed. “What? She reused the same mask every time and it stayed intact?”

“You’re less surprised that Mrs. Claus exists? It’s an artifact! Do you ever want to stop sneezing?”

“Give me it!” Myka demanded. She held the clay right over her nostrils – and she felt the powder, the awful, terrible powder, finally leave her nose. “It worked! My nose doesn’t itch anymore.”

Claudia followed suit, and Pete bagged the powder tin to finish the rescue mission.

“And what about this mask now?” Claudia asked.

“Might as well bag it too, to be safe,” said Pete. “I don’t think Mrs. Claus will come looking for it soon.”

The four agents decided to call it a day and head back to the bed and breakfast.

“Guys,” said Claudia, rubbing her nose one more time for good measure. “How about we don’t tell Artie about this one?”

S.S. Adams’s original sneezing powder. Soren Sorensen Adams was a Danish-American migrant who became famous for inventing a series of practical jokes, most of the original versions of which are housed in the Warehouse. Adams launched this career when he was a dye salesman and figured out how to formulate a sneezing powder from a derivative in the dye. Sales of the original formula dropped dramatically when the derivative was found to be cancerous, so while this artifact is a perfect prank as the most potent sneezing powder in the world, it is also deadlier as a result.

Edited June 17, 2014 by zneeze

[Blah!?]

Incredible, simply incredible. It takes a lot to get me to read fanfiction and really enjoy it, but you managed to pull it off with ease. It's funny, interesting, and I found it easy to understand and relate to the characters even though I have very limited experience with Warehouse 13, though I have seen a bit here and there.

Also, I just have to say the idea of (seemingly) sentient sneezing powder is brilliant. I feel very tempted to steal it for my own future endeavors.

[zneeze]

Thank you, Blah! Means a lot coming from you!

[AngelEyes]

Funny. I love the Monty Python pun!