The Line Between Sanity And Madness Is Thin
Dysphasia
Rated: T
Warnings: Dark oneshot, language, implied mature scenes, slash
Theme song: "I Can't Make You Love Me" By Bon Iver
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Finally, it is here. Enjoy. Or not.
The line between sanity and madness is thin. Delicate. Inconsistent.
Within in walls of the chocolate factory, and within the walls of the chocolatier's mind, that line is blurred. Lucidity and insanity coalesce. Fantasy and reality exist in solidarity.
Willy Wonka remained mystery to most. A paradox. An enigma. His polished, painted façade gives the impression of a cold, unsentimental man hiding being a smiling veneer. Despite this, Charlie Bucket knew better. Wonka merely expressed himself differently, using buildings and candy instead of words and emotion. Like an artist, who used paintings and concepts or a writer, who used words and analogies.
The vivid, coruscating fireworks, the bleak, dismal empty rooms that had yet to be filled right down to the twisted shadows in the Chocolate room were all embodiments of the chocolatier's most intimate, hidden feelings and thoughts. Every new room and invention that popped up said something to the heir. It was simply a matter of where to look.
For Charlie, it was simply a matter of where to look. Owing to this newly gained insight, a bond formed between the two, and sprung up from beneath the icy snow that would thaw down to nothing as winter melted into spring.
The heir watched his mentor with bright blue-green eyes as he carefully tipped a small beaker full of bubbling red liquid into another one filled with a clear liquid. His enticingly slim, tall form was bent forward slightly so that he could observe the reaction at a closer distance.
Impossibly, as soon as the two liquids merged, it turned a bright shade of cerulean. It fizzed and bubbled and boiled, gradually become lighter and lighter until it glowed a bright, luminescent silver color, in contrast to the somewhat dark hues of the Inventing Room.
"Whatcha lookin' at, kiddo?" Wonka raised one arched eyebrow, his secretive violet eyes flickering over to Charlie, who jumped slightly.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" The chocolatier spared him having to answer, his eyes wandering back to the liquid that was now fizzing lightly. "But I just can't get it to the right doggone shade yet."
"It looks just right." Charlie assured him.
"Ya think?" His wide eyes flashed back to the youth.
"It's wonderful. It reminds me of the stars."
"Hey, you're right!" Wonka's red mouth shot up into a grin, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth that seemed more like the stars than the formula to Charlie.
Charlie Bucket gazed out of the window, looking up into the darkening sky, rocking slightly as the bus travelled through the snow-covered streets of London. Undirected memories of the chocolatier and his factory played through his head like a movie. Many of them involved Wonka's perfect smile that either seemed to light up the darkness or create the illusion of it being even darker than what it really was, accentuating and exaggerating it.
Like stars.
He recalled how Wonka would stop whatever he was doing to travel up to the highest room in the factory and watch the stars appear. The first time he invited Charlie to come along, he knew Wonka finally trusted him. After knowing him for so long, almost four months to be precise, he was finally beginning to let his guard down and allowing Charlie to take a step into his lonely life.
That night, Wonka showed him the paths through the stars, pulling him along on the travels of long-departed heroes. That night, the heir's eyes were opened to the realities of dreams, to all of the possibilities at hand. It was then, when the great chocolatier shed a piece of his armor that Charlie had begun to feel the first hesitant flutters of a feeling he had not felt before.
With a loud screech, the bus was brought to a stop. The doors opened and an elderly lady got on the bus. He turned his attention back to the window, or what lay beyond it, musings and memories reclaiming his thoughts almost immediately.
He remembered how hard Wonka was to predict at first. How you could never tell what he was feeling. Those lustrous amethystine eyes revealed no secrets.
That being said, the first time they kissed came as a complete surprise to Charlie. It was true, the pair had formed a bond unlike any other, but even then Wonka had always kept him at arm's length. Close enough to care but far enough to keep him from loving.
"Beautiful night out, huh?" Wonka said, a smile on his voice, approaching Charlie from behind. The wind had whipped his cheeks numb, out there on the balcony, but he didn't mind. The young heir jumped a little, not realizing there was anyone behind him.
"It's very beautiful." Charlie agreed, remembering the time his mentor had said the very same words to him during the tour. Just like you, he thought. Wonka looked at him with an eloquent smirk. He didn't miss anything, did he? Unlike Wonka's, Charlie's blue-green eyes revealed everything. Warmth flooded his cheeks and he looked down.
"Just like you." He said quietly, aloud. Wonka didn't say anything, just looked down at the blushing boy before him and bent down to his level, his face only inches away from Charlie's.
Surprise flashing across his features at the proximity, he dared to meet his mentor's eyes, which twinkled just like the stars.
Wonka pressed his red lips against Charlie's pink ones for the briefest second and then it was over. The chocolatier stood up suddenly, running a gloved hand over the left side of his bob to ensure that it was still perfectly in place.
"So, about that new invention I was talkin' about, the rocket ships, what do you think about…" And just like that, the moment was forgotten.
Charlie sighed wistfully, regretfully, snapping back into reality once again as they passed under the great bridge not too far away from the prior location of his family's old, dilapidated shack. It had been almost exactly ten years ago that Wonka repeated his offer to Charlie and the house was transported into the factory.
A familiar painful ache spread out through his chest at the thought of that ramshackle house along with all its memories. Every last one of his grandparents was dead before his fifteenth birthday. It had come as no surprise as they were all above eighty years old, but that didn't stop the pain. The thing that he didn't expect, however, was the death of both his parents three weeks before his sixteenth. It had happened over five years ago, and yet it seemed so much longer to Charlie. Mr. Wonka had given them tickets to Bali as a surprise gift. The plane's engine malfunctioned and the plane was plucked from the sky and shoved into the ocean. All forty-three passengers died.
Sometimes Charlie would wonder what life would be like if Wonka hadn't come into his life. Maybe his parents would still be alive. Mrs. Bucket would be serving up dinner. Mr. Bucket would have been sitting at the table, absorbed in today's newspaper. But they were in the ground. Or at least their coffins were. Not all of the bodies were recovered.
The night after the funeral, Charlie was summoned to Wonka's quarters to stay the night. Nervous, but glad, he obeyed. He couldn't stand being in the old cottage anymore. Couldn't stand the deafening silence and that permeated the air even through his loud sobs.
"Charlie," Wonka called his name softly, somewhere behind him. He looked up into the bathroom mirror, seeing his mentor's tall, slender frame leaning against the doorway. He was wearing his pajamas under an elaborately stitched silk nightgown with a paisley pattern; just like the shirt he was so fond of wearing.
"Ready for bed?"
Charlie switched the tap off, wiping his hands on his flannel pants. He nodded, not saying anything and passed by him.
He walked towards the bed, but was stopped by a gloved hand, which gripped his arm gently from behind.
"You haven't looked me in the eye for days, Charlie." Wonka said in a low, smooth voice. "Look at me."
The heir twisted his head around, focused on the line underneath his mentor's eye.
"I know you're lonely." His hand slid up Charlie's arm slowly, caressed his shoulder briefly before moving down his back and around his waist. He pulled him closer, against him. Charlie gasped, shocked at the sudden contact. "Let me make it better." He whispered into his ear.
He felt lips against his neck and shivered. Wonka's tongue flicked the exposed skin, savoring the sweet taste of him, which was mixed with the salty flavor of the tears that had dripped down onto his collarbone.
"Give yourself to me Charlie, and I'll make you forget all about them." He promised.
"This is a… a sin." Charlie managed to choke out, but made no move to escape his hold.
"What is?"
"This. Us."
"Jesus died for our sins. Dare we make his sacrifice meaningless by not committing them?" Wonka's hand slipped under the waistband, and continued, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Dissolved in the acids of addicting lust."
That night, Willy Wonka took the very last piece of the young boy Charlie had once been. His innocence had been stolen by a man whose heart was as cold as his eyes and yet, under the veil of tears and shame and guilt, the boy found that he had given his own heart to him.
Most nights, Charlie would return to Wonka's quarters at his request and he would sleep with him. Other times, he would simply ignore the request and go to his room, lock the door and whisper frantic apologies to heaven with clasped hands. Wonka didn't like that, the rejection. He would often be punished the next day.
During the day, however, the chocolatier acted like nothing had ever happened. Any physical contact was forbidden and the mask was up again. How Charlie longed for his chimerical, loving touch. But, it was just that. A chimera. A thing that is hoped and wished for but is in fact illusory and impossible to achieve.
The first time Charlie left Wonka was almost a year later, when he realized it was hopeless to want something more from him. When the suspicion of his family's coincidental deaths began to turn to the chocolatier. When he'd had enough of him. Wait, scratch that. Reverse it. He could never have enough of him, and that was the problem. Charlie remembered how pathetic his return had been, begging for forgiveness. Pitiful. He took the initial, welcoming slap from Wonka and the punishments later that night gratefully and everything fell back into routine.
Seven times, he'd left. Seven times and every single one of them he had returned.
Charlie watched his reflection on the window, watched the expression slowly turn into one of disgust.
Pathetic, he thought, the world echoing and undulating through his head, you're so weak.
He remembered the time when everything was safe and everything was perfect. Before, when they'd been starving and freezing to death in a dilapidated house. That was when everything was right. When there was no confusion and when he was loved. He missed his mother's embrace.
But then he'd won the ticket. Wonka seemed great at first, if not a little strange. But underneath the painted façade, he was cruel.
The clues were all there in front of them. His contempt as Augustus was sucked up into the pipes. His half-hearted warnings to Violet. How he left the key in the gate when the squirrels were judging Veruca, even though he had more than enough time to open it and rescue her. The way he leaned forward, eagerly and almost hungrily before Mr. Salt was pushed down into the garbage chute. How he smiled as Mike asked to pick a room, easily anticipating the one he would pick and how it would be his downfall. It was there, right in front of them, but they were blinded by his light.
Charlie noticed he was now nearing his destination. He pressed the bell and stood up, grabbing his bags and walking carefully to the door. The bus stopped at the next stop and let him off. He was greeted by a gust of freezing air that made him gasp slightly. He watched the bus drive off and he set off down the street, a bag on each arm
Within a few minutes, he found himself standing outside the factory gates once again, closing his eyes and breathing in the sickly sweet scent that emanated from the imposing building, which towered over him and everything around it.
He unlocked the gate with the key and crossed the courtyard, using the key once again to unlock the large, metal doors. Head hung; he entered the factory for the first time in two weeks.
"I'm back." Charlie announced in a weak voice, standing at the door that stood ajar to Wonka's office.
The chocolatier didn't lift his head, didn't even acknowledge that he'd heard him. He continued filling out his paperwork and when he was done, he opened the desk drawer and placed it inside without any rush.
He turned to Charlie with a small smirk fixed on his face.
"And what, pray, is the reason this time?" He asked, feigning apathy. The way his eyes roamed greedily over the young man, however, painted a different picture.
Charlie looked down, pursing his lips.
"I hate you. I abhor you. I think you're a horrible person. You're manipulative, controlling, calculating. Every move has a purpose and every smile has a motive. You're like a cat toying with a mouse. You're folding me into origami, a paper crane, controlling me and making me into what you want me to be. I'm just a toy to you. Something to put on your shelf and take out when you please. Just another thing to entertain you. You know you drive me insane and that's what gets you off. You're twisted. You're sick. I'm trying to be strong, but every moment I'm with you I grow weaker. I'm drowning in your beauty, you're magnificence, your fucking charm. You're like a star. Everything about you glows; your teeth, your skin, your eyes, your everything. How can someone so wonderful be so cruel? God knows. And me? I am a moth. Messy and disordered and confused. Helplessly attracted to your light, your brilliance. My will is crumbling and soon I won't have enough strength to keep leaving you. Some day, I will give in to you and surrender completely. I will be defeated and you will be victorious. You will claim me and I will wither. Another autumn leaf rustling in the wind. I hate you so much, but I love you so much more. I want you throw you off a cliff and then run down to catch you. I love you, despite everything you've done, but I hate you because of what you can't do. You don't love me back. You can't love me back. You've locked your heart away and you've lost the key. You're poison, you're toxic. You're like a drug. Intoxicating and addicting, yet detrimental and destructive. You've fucked me up. I don't know what's real and what's not anymore. Your insanity is contagious. I gave my heart to you and you locked it in a cage. You've broken me, Willy, just like your puppets, melted me down to nothing. You want so much from me but I don't have anything more to give. The only thing I want from you is your love. I want your heart. I want you to hold me in your arms and tell me it'll be okay instead of offering me promises you'll never keep just to get me into bed. I want you to make love to me for real. To kiss me, to hold my hand, to embrace me. I want to see the ice in your heart melt and when you look at me, you'll get that fluttering sensation right in your gut. That one I get every time I look at you. I want to explode painfully into a thousands pieces and become a star, just so every night you'll drop everything just to see me. I'm giving in, Willy. I can't keep away anymore. Your acid has corroded me. I know your love is too much to ask but it doesn't matter anymore as long as I'm with you. I surrender. I'll be your toy. Your moth. Your puppet. I'll close my eyes to your coldness, but I want you to promise never to leave me. Maybe one day I'll stop hoping I can be your star. You're going to be the death of me one day, Willy, but I can't quite bring myself to care. At least then I'll get some relief." He wanted to say. But he didn't.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"I'm giving up." He whispered instead, voice shaking, shame saturating his words.
"Good boy. I knew you'd come around sooner or later." Wonka smiled, satisfied.