Hey there, my fellow readers and writers. I hope you are well.
Here's a new CatCF oneshot I cooked up one day. I like the character of Veruca Salt. Even though she's seen as a spoiled brat, Veruca is and always will be my favorite character. Like Julia Winter, the actress who portrayed her in the 2005 film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and did an awesome job doing so), Veruca inspires me to be a neat writer and write as often as I possibly can (which is usually whenever writer's block permits, of course), just like so many fictional characters who are my favorites.
So with that in mind, I dedicate this CatCF oneshot to the fans of the 2005 film, especially my friend TheLovelyMartian (who was formerly called "Miz-Nu-Booty"). The 2005 film is one I like because Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka is so hot!
Disclaimer: Genius Roald Dahl owns Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the geniuses at Warner Bros own the 2005 film of the book. The lyrics to the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by the band Green Day, which are used in this fic, also belong to their respective owners. I own the fanfics I cook up from time to time.
Darkness and Dreams
It was nighttime at the Salt mansion in Buckinghamshire, England.
Wearing her favorite nightshirt, twelve-year-old Veruca Salt was asleep under the covers of her pink bed, her azure eyes closed.
At the moment, only one name was running through her mind.
Willy Wonka.
Ever since what had happened in the chocolate factory, whenever someone would mention his name or bring it up in a conversation that Veruca would happen to overhear (either intentionally or unintentionally), a shudder would run through her and her blood would race through her veins a little (but sometimes quite possibly a lot) faster than what she considered to be normal. Sometimes, Veruca would close her eyes and remember everything on that fateful first day in the month of February...
Willy Wonka's clothes, especially the W-shaped pin, the large black coat that went down to his knees over a red one, the golden chain (which seemed to be for a pocket watch, although Veruca had never gotten the chance to ask if it was for a pocket watch or not), and the black cowboylike boots...
His eyes... how they seemed to sparkle and laugh, while at the same time they would reveal things to Veruca (namely, things she usually wouldn't dare tell herself, not even when she was in the privacy of her own bedroom). Sometimes they even had this gleam in them – a gleam that seemed so familiar to Veruca, as though she'd seen it before, while at the same time it also seemed to be something she hadn't seen previously...
Something about the famous chocolatier sure intrigued Veruca, and not because of his being a genius either. After all, he had, it seemed, looked into her soul – her mind, to be precise– and basically seen things about Veruca that she wanted to know about, but kept secret deep down inside – so far down that even her own parents never knew or would try to find out for themselves.
Veruca twitched a little in her sleep as she dozed on, and unconsciously pulled the covers up to her chin. Outside the Salt mansion, the night rolled on as usual, the white clouds drifting across the full moon and the wind picking up light objects such as little shreds of paper and blowing them along wherever they happened to be.
I walk a lonely road,
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes,
But it's home to me and I walk alone
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk a...
Ever since the tour at the factory, Veruca had gotten these recurring... dreams, which she would attempt to write off as nightmares. Only that never captured the spirit of the thing – not one bit. So instead she would call them "nighttime visions", except they weren't visions of the future. Instead they were visions of what could've happened had she not brought her father with her on the tour of the factory. Scandalous imagery of unclothed white skin belonging to a silhouette with brown hair pressing her own smaller body into the mattress of the bed. Familiar eyes of a violet color looking into her own sky blue orbs as they seemed to look into her soul and then pluck out the secrets she tried so hard to keep hidden and not share with anybody else. Hands encased in purple gloved latex moving themselves along her skin, as smoothly as a snake's scales. And – now came the best part (at least in Veruca's eyes, to be precise) – the eerily familiar voice that would cause her to turn to its owner and be focused on him, almost as though she was hypnotized, or something along those lines.
In her sleep Veruca rubbed her forehead as though she had a headache, which was quite possible. After all, those mental images were definitely driving her crazy – or totally nutso, to be more precise. (I mean, would you want to have those kinds of mental images driving you crazy from time to time?)
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'til then I walk alone
Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah
This time, as Veruca closed her eyes again and seemed to fall asleep, her mind began to conjure up a new dream, similar to how a magician would conjure up a new spell that he would place upon a new person that would cross his path...
Veruca sighed as she felt his mouth upon her bare – and to him, beautiful – white skin, and then moaned upon the feel of his red lips being pressed against her throat, but never drawing blood. Her body was being pressed into the mattress of the bed. The shadows in the dark room masked Mr. Wonka's face, but was unable to cover up his smile – blinding as the sun – as he ran his purple-gloved hands all over her white flesh.
Feeling reduced to a near swoon by the gentle, rhythmic suckling of his lips against the skin of her throat, Veruca closed her eyes, seemingly giving herself up willingly – or almost gladly; she couldn't tell which. Then she reached up and gently gripped his shoulders. The action pulled him close, and he responded in kind with his kisses that seemed to drug her almost into unconscious, gathering her to him in the similarity of a black-and-yellow garden spider busy with wrapping up a hornet that had gotten caught in its web. A moan escaped from Veruca's throat as Mr. Wonka ran his purple latex-gloved fingers through her chocolate ringlet-styled hair.
Finally, he pulled away. After running a tongue over dry lips, Mr. Wonka then said, "Tell me, Veruca, my little darling, was that your first kiss?"
Veruca didn't answer at first; Mr. Wonka deduced that it was because of the drugged-up effect of his kisses, and decided to wait until she had brought herself back down and the fog in her head had cleared up a little. Soon Veruca blinked a few times, trying to clear her head, and then queried, "What?"
"Was that your first kiss?" Mr. Wonka replied this time.
Veruca paused and thought it over for a moment. At first she thought about lying, but then decided that the truth would be better anyway. It couldn't hurt; and after all, being honest with one's self was a good idea anyway.
"OK, OK. Yes, it was my first kiss."
Mr. Wonka smiled, pleased with her honesty. "Good."
After he pressed his mouth to hers one last time, he redressed himself, and then lingered long enough to blow her a swift kiss. Then the door closed, and Veruca lay in the dark, blushing all over, while dealing with a mixture of emotions that had just started up like a whirlwind inside her...
Veruca sighed as she blinked a little and then opened her eyes. Still not believing that she was having those kinds of dreams (and even though it was after the tour in the chocolate factory, too), she wondered why Mr. Wonka would haunt her dreams the way he did, and in the process twist them into something so... mysterious and... well, odd. Maybe that was the way he was. Or maybe it was something else going on. Whatever it was, Veruca just couldn't make up her mind.
She shook her head and then went back to sleep. However, another dream was on its way – and this dream was far more mysterious than the previous one...
Well, I hope you like this oneshot as much as I did writing it. After all, oneshots such as the ones I've written are so neat, and fun to cook up. :)
~Nightcrawlerlover