Work Text:
Oh where could that little boy be? One could look up, one could look down, one could look left and right and superleft and diagonally, and one could not find little, tiny, itsy bitsy Charlie Bucket. No, not in one single spot in the factory could he be seen, and that was just not right, not right at all! He’d been missing for nearly two hours and that was just bad for business. He was needed, oh so very much so. How could Willy Wonka do much of anything without the child’s help? He couldn’t! Simple as pie!
So he sets about his office, gripping and slamming every drawer and every cabinet, pulling drawers all the way out, leaving a terrible mess of papers and pens and staplers and chocolate over the floor.
“Oh dear, well, it certainly has to be somewhere. Somewhere, somewhere,- There we are!” he kneels down to one of the drawers he had thrown to the floor on his quest and picks up a Willy Wonka™ brand megaphone. (Functionally identical if not superior to most megaphones, but if one were to bite very, very hard on the plastic of the little thing, they’d find it tasted exactly like what was last said into it.)
And off he goes, yelling into the megaphone as he trots around the factory, “Oh dear workers, friends of mine, Little Boy Bucket has up and disappeared! This is very, very bad for our profits, very bad indeed, and bad profits mean wage cuts, so I would be so very pleased if you informed me as soon as you found him!” Willy speaks Verily, perhaps overusing the word very, if just a very small amount.
And off the Oompa Loompas go as well, running here and there and everywhere, as Wonka rambles into the megaphone.
And the rambling turns to brief sentences, and the running turns to walking and knocking and eventually, back to work, because one could not cease production oh so long. It is still concerning, oh yes, is concerning indeed that Charlie was missing, but what was there to do? A few Oompa Loompas assigned themselves to look for him, and Willy Wonka paced and micromanaged and waited and, unfortunately, chewed on his nails when no one was looking.
At around 6 in the afternoon an Oompa Loompa walks up to Willy Wonka as he’s pacing near the Jellied Jellyfish Machine. He is so busy pacing that he only notices when they tug on his coattail.
He turns on his heel immediately. “Oh, hello, hello, how grand it is to see you. Have you found Charlie yet? Have you? Don’t keep me waiting.”
The Oompa Loompa speaks, solemnly, seriously. Uncomfortably.
“Oh, I see, I see.. Which? The inquisitive bathroom? The tired bathroom? The Extra Suspicious No Good Bathroom? …..The incinerator?”
The Oompa Loompa makes a face at the last one, continuing on.
“The Gum Room? Nasty! Terrible, awful. I’ll get the good doctor as soon as I find Charlie Bucket. Go on now, thank you very dearly for your help but this is private, I hope you understand.”
There’s a huff, and a sniffle, when they walk away. Understandably so, many of the Oompas and quite a few of the Loompas had become very fond of Charlie- of course they did.
Willy Wonka strides cane in hand and megaphone abandoned, up and down and into the glass elevator.
Of course they were fond of Charlie, Willy Wonka thinks, how could they not be? Charlie was bright and animated about candy and happiness and all things sweet and silly, and when he talked about such things he could flap his hands so quickly one would think he’d fly away like a bird, and it was very sweet, sweeter than candy, even, to see the child so happy.
Wonka presses a button and down the glass elevator zooms, down and down into the basement, and then the sub-basement, and then the sub, sub, sub basement, and all the way down further.
And Ding! To the gum room. Oh, the gum room. What a horrible little place. Gum was for children who would steal experiments and ignore warnings and blow up like a balloon and chew, and chew, and chew, and that chewing noise was terrible. So Wonka avoids gum and the gum room like the plague.
And of course Charlie knows that, the sneaky child that he is.
And with a swing the door opens before Wonka has the chance to open it himself. An Oompa Loompa with a face somewhere between white as a sheet and green as radium strolls out, a bucket and a mop in hand.
Wonka looks behind the Oompa Loompa and can see that Charlie is holding onto his knees. The child's face is pale- or is his face red? and he doesn't look good at all. And then the door slams shut of it's own accord, as Wonka hadn’t actually thought to walk through it. Charlie hadn’t noticed Wonka at all.
Which, honestly, was a bit of a relief. This was just bound to be an awkward, feely, personal sort of conversation, and that is just not appealing. He could already hear himself. ‘Well, Charles, your nutritionist is just missing you so dearly. Oh, I think my oven is on, terribly sorry but I simply must go, goodbye.”
He could just avoid all that uncomfortableness by turning the other way. Charlie got sick, children get sick sometimes, it’s not something worth worrying over.
Charlie sniffles, loud enough to be heard from the other side of the door.
Ah, well. Into the darkness. Into the gum room. With a sick, emotionally vulnerable child. Wonderful.
He knocks on the door with his cane before inviting himself in. Charlie’s head slowly turns toward Wonka.
“Hello there, Starshine. You seem to be on the floor.” Wonka’s voice cracks. That's unpleasant.
“‘M sorry.”
“No, no, no. Don’t apologize.” He walks, very slowly, to where Charlie is kneeling. He plasters what he hopes is a disarming smile onto his face.
The Gum Room, getting sick, the way that Oompa Loompa looked leaving… Oh, dear, he sees what’s going on here.
“Charlie, you do know that no one in the factory is allowed to recreationally chew gum?” Not to even mention swallowing it. Eugh.
“Yes.” he says it quietly.
“What happened, Charlie?” Willy Wonka plops down next to Charlie, a hand on the child’s back.
“I was hungry.”
“You haven’t well seemed hungry. I know you’ve been throwing food down the trash chute, you know. I know you know I know, in fact.”
“I wasn’t hungry then.”
“But you were hungry recently?” Wonka gestures towards a pile of discared gum packages.
“Yes.” Guilt..
“Did you.. How much gum did you swallow?”
“I didn’t mean to. I was just… I was so hungry, all of a sudden.”
“You could’ve asked for food.”
Charlie curls up into himself, then.
“Oh, no matter. You don’t even need to worry about it! Truly, truly. When you’re feeling better, when you’re thinking better, we’ll get you a good meal. No soup nor cabbage in sight, I assure you.”
“I don’t think I can eat anymore today.”
“You’ll very much have to! Or else I’ll have to tell your doctors, and your Mother.”
Charlie scrambles. “No! Please, don’t! Don’t, don’t!”
There we are! The response Wonka was hoping for.
“On two conditions.”
“What, what do you want me to do?”
“Eat anything. It doesn’t have to be a meal, but it has to be food. And loathe as I am to say this, it can’t be candy. Secondly... Tell me why you really weren’t eating. You won’t tell your Doctors or your family- but I won’t tell them, either. You know I hate awkward conversations. It’s perfect.” Willy Wonka never lies. No, he extrapolates, and uses smoke and mirrors and twists words, but he never lies. He won’t tell The Doctors or The Bucket Family, since he will be telling an Oompa Loompa to tell The Doctors and The Bucket Family.
“I don’t.. Why? Why do you want me to?”
“How am I to run a chocolate factory if my co-owner is hiding secrets?” It’s a stretch, Wonka knows, but Charlie seems to let it slide. He doesn’t doubt that Charlie sees through him like glass, but it’s enough.
“I don’t.. Why do I deserve it? None of my friends will get a nutritionist or a psy.. Scy.. sci- brain doctor. They don’t get turkey and chocolate and.. And gum. And I don’t- I wasn’t lying, I don’t feel hungry, I don’t, I don’t until I do and then I’m so hungry that I just need to fix it, and fix it and fix it.”
“...Oh.” Wonka says, dumbly.
“There.. There, Charlie.” Wonka haltingly says. He's trying his hardest! Truly!
He pats at Charlie’s back, twice. Slowly. Awkwardly, his mind supplies, and Wonka cringes, very momentarily, before smoothing his face out.
“Why don’t you take the day off? Go home and rest. We have so much time to invent all sorts of candies, one single solitary day won’t hurt us, not at all. It’s good, after all, to recharge when you have been working hard for so long. My dear doctor Spencer says so, you know!”
Any other day, a holiday or a weekend or summer or anytime, Charlie would protest and flap his hands indignantly and say that he was just as capable as Wonka was and didn’t need days off, but today he just nods his head numbly and stands up.
Wonka unfurls himself, standing up and clasping Charlie’s hand, leading him to the glass elevator.
When they’re inside, Wonka presses a few buttons and off the elevator goes- slower than usual, in case Charlie gets nauseous.
Wonka can’t help but feel perplexed. Charlie had been doing so well when it came to food lately. Charlie hadn’t eaten raw ingredients, or forgotten to eat, or fainted, or needed extra appointments with his nutritionist in so very long! Months! He had been warned by the doctors that there would be good days and bad days, but it feels so very unnerving, Wonka thinks, that there doesn’t seem to be a warning at all for which days are bad.
The elevator stops at the crooked little Bucket house, and Charlie steps out. He doesn’t follow Charlie into the little home.
A bad day. He hopes tomorrow will be better.