Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all. Nothing. Not even the pebbles on the ground these people walk on. Not mine. Nope.

I must say: XHeartofaDragonX, I love that you love that I love that you love to review!

Meredith A. Jones, I was not mocking you, and I was, indeed, demanding that people go read The Playwright. If my computer wasn't stupid, I'd review it from the story itself, but since it is, in fact, being stupid...that story is on my favorites list and I've yet to finish it so I can read the sequel! I love it!

"Well, let's just say that one day, you're thinking up ideas for your candy, and all of a sudden, bam! Your ideas are gone. You've come to a thought block. What would you think?"

"I'd think the world was ending, Mr. Barrie."

James laughed and shook his head, finally looking up from his own writing to look at Wonka. "How many times do I have to request that you call me James, Mr. Wonka?"

Willy smiled nervously and fiddled with the purple pen in his hand. The two men were sitting in the park (on a blanket, much to Willy's gratitude), writing different things. Willy had been jotting down notes for potential inventions, and James had been writing short stories left and right. There had been a silence between the two for a while, but then Willy had asked randomly what it was like for an author to have a writer's block. But James was changing the subject.

"I've asked you on a number of occasions to call me Willy."

"Ask me a number and one."

"Can you please call me Willy?"

James tilted his head upwards, smiling. "Say my name, first."

Willy hid his blushing cheeks with his notebook, pulling it off that he was exasperated. "Can you please call me Willy, James?"

"Ay, I might be able to do that, Willy."

Behind the notebook, Willy smiled brightly. After a while, though, he stopped noticeably smiling and lowered the book to write in it some more. The two had fallen silent again, but all of a sudden….

"I'm rather fond of you, Willy."

Willy froze, and his blood ran cold. He stared at the page in horror, hoping to the gods of chocolate that he had either hallucinated the sentence or heard someone else say it to another man named Willy. The silence following had been a pretty painful one.

"I'm not quite sure why," James continued, still writing in his notebook. Willy came to the conclusion that James was so engrossed with his writing that he didn't know what he was saying. "Maybe it's your constant quirkiness. Or perhaps your lack of concern about what people think of you."

Willy looked up at James, his brow furrowed. "What?"

James looked up at Willy in turn and smirked, putting his pen down on the blanket beside him, then closing the notebook and setting that down beside him as well. "I'm going to ask you a personal question, Willy."

Willy was rendered paralyzed, and his hands started shaking. The sirens in his head went off, much louder this time. Personal question…danger zone….

"Yeah?" Willy squeaked.

James leaned forward slightly, yet already he was dangerously close. He smirked and said in a low whisper, "Have you ever been kissed, Willy Wonka?"

Willy stared at James, his brain having shut down quite a bit at this point. He couldn't see anything but James; everything else—the park, the trees, and the people—had ebbed away into nothing. "C-can't say I have," he replied quietly, fully aware of the fact that James had an irresistible scent of cinnamon.

James, however, leaned back and smiled at Willy. "Isn't that a shame. I can imagine all the lasses would be all over you."

Lasses! thought Willy. Does he really think I like women?

James's smile faltered. "Of course, there is the possibility that wouldn't matter to you."

Willy was getting fidgety. He tapped his pen on the notepad in his lap with steadily increasing speed; his eyes roamed the ground for something—anything—that could rescue him from this. His subconscious had been telling him all along to stay away from James because there was something in him that could potentially hurt Willy. Right there, sitting on that blanket, crumbling under the pressure, Willy knew what that characteristic was.

"Oh!" Willy cried, standing up faster than one could say "Whangdoodle," and he barely had time to pick up his hat and cane before he piped, "I…I must go! It's getting late…."

James didn't watch him go; instead, he stared where Willy had previously been. That was the side of James that nobody but his ex-wife had ever seen; the dominating side of him. James loathed that side; he wasn't a dominating type of person. He'd scared Willy off….

And he was scared, himself.

Ooh, that chapter was rather short, wasn't it?