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One thing was absolutely certain - life had never been sweeter for Charlie Bucket; coming from humble origins, he grew up in a rundown shack on the edge of East London with very little money flowing into the home, a limited diet consisting mostly of cabbage soup nearly stunted his growth, and the automation of modern industry almost shut off their only source of household income forever. But despite all that, he was one of the happiest children in the world. Charlie had the most wonderful family, two hardworking parents and all four of his loving grandparents. While he always dreamed of a better life, even at a young age, deep down he knew there was little chance his family would ever make it out of grinding poverty. As Charlie grew up and became more aware of his social standing, or lack thereof, it was nothing short of a miracle that the man who would change his and his family's lives forever made a rare public proclamation. The world's greatest confectioner, the reclusive Willy Wonka announced a contest where five lucky winners would get a tour of his massive factory. Of those five winners, Charlie was the only one not to get himself into trouble in Wonka's factory, leaving him as the last-man-standing and marking him as the person Wonka wanted by his side. Apart from ginning publicity for his brand of candies, Wonka initiated this contest in hopes of finding an heir to his empire as he had no natural kin of his own, and while there were a few hick-ups along the way Charlie inevitably accepted Wonka's invitation to come live and work with him.

Charlie spent his teenage years learning the tricks of the candy trade from Wonka, and by the time of his 18th birthday Wonka was ready to bestow Charlie half of the companies' shares and the title of Chief Operating Officer of Wonka Candies, Ltd. and Wonka Worldwide, Inc. Despite a knack for coming up with new candy ideas, Wonka delegated many business responsibilities to Charlie, primarily anything dealing with the outside world, and he had a good reason for doing so. As a hermit, Wonka did not wish Charlie to mature into a clone of him and often urged him to venture out of the factory for both business and personal reasons. Like his extremely fair skin, Wonka noticed that his years of solitude resulted in him being far from sociable and extremely awkward, and he too noticed these traits forming in Charlie throughout his adolescence. In an attempt to curtail this, Wonka often sent Charlie out to speaking events and business forums across the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, North America and Asia, along with promotional events in those areas as well as emerging markets like Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Despite a lack of education in economics, business administration, or any other related fields, Charlie unintentionally made a name for himself in business circles as a creative young entrepreneur with an uplifting backstory screaming to be made into a major motion picture.

Notwithstanding the accolades of his peers, Charlie often felt out of place with the world's elite businessmen, he was not a business genius, just a former kid who knew how to behave himself. Now, at the age of twenty-four, Charlie had been to every continent and beyond as a representative of his mentor's business, yet he still felt empty inside. While he was grateful for the life that had been granted to him, Charlie often contemplated a life greater than spending all his time with Wonka coming up with new candies, attending business functions or giving interviews to the media. Following his designation as an official player in Wonka's empire and his trips outside the factory, Charlie made it routine to get a few drinks before returning home in hopes of meeting someone. That was the case one May night following a conference on the future of British businesses with Brexit on the horizon, Charlie walked out of the hotel convention center and made his way to the closest pub he could spot. The bar, Fenston's, was your run-of-the-mill tavern in the economic heart of the British capital, the City of London, with small tables spread around and a mostly empty bar. He headed towards the bar and ordered an ale beer as he unbuttoned his suit, along with the top buttons of his shirt and loosened the tie that brought the look together.

Charlie had grown up to be a cute but awkward young man, dubbed cute by countless women commenting on the soft features of his face and his meekly personality, evoking an almost boyish image in many of them. His full head of brown hair was rather nerdishly combed on the sides while the top remained uncombed in a fashion that did not qualify to be considered too-cool-to-care. The area around his mouth and jaw were covered in a faint stubble as a result of shaving since facial hair would not be practical for someone who works in factory that produces an edible product, as well as to partially masquerade a quasi-weak jawline. His eyes only appeared large and bright when he accentuated them and his lips were rather thin, just like the rest of his slender, unmuscular body. Unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt and loosening his tie also exposed the length of his neck, leaving his almost lightbulb-shaped head towering above many people. Apart from his social ineptitude and lack of beauty-standards-appropriate physical features, Charlie also had one other handicap when it came to meeting someone, his extensive wealth. 

He was one of the farthest things from a Casanova on the dating scene, but whenever he was around women who knew he was the heir to the Wonka empire any observer would easily mark him as a Don Juan. Gold diggers made it hard for Charlie to find love but the moment he realized many women were only after his money he concluded that he better get used to this reality. It would not be so bad if he could find women through other means, but with less-than-desirable features and a shy personality the dating pool was rather shallow. Charlie often pondered if his only hope for finding love would be to find an heiress with equally or even more socially repulsive traits. While this seemed a bit odd and reeked of desperation, to be honest he really did not care what his potential life partner looked like. In fact, he did not know why he said this, but Charlie often told himself he would not mind if she had the soles of her feet covered in warts. All that mattered was that she had at least a shred of goodness in her heart as even a single shred of that rare quality would be worth cultivating with unconditional love.

After finishing his tall glass, Charlie signaled the bartender for another ale which the middle-aged man acknowledged and brought the important businessman another drink. After taking a sip from his second glass of beer, Charlie turned around and examined the other patrons in the bar, especially the women. For the most part they were good-looking, but the aforementioned problems were still present. Some of the women were above-average looking, meaning Charlie's appearance and social abilities would be a turn-off for them, whereas the average-looking women would not necessarily be averse to those traits, but they would still only notice his wallet. Even with the first beer in his system, the constant reminder of this paradigm ate away at Charlie's soul, leaving him no option but to continue drinking. Now with half of his second drink gone and a sense of dread and despair coming over him, Charlie knew that it was almost time to call it quits for the night, the last thing the Wonka legacy needed was a depressed drunk responsible for bringing joy to kids around the world through his confections. He decided to stay for a bit and finish the remainder of his second ale before heading back to Wonka's factory, and it was that direction which set him on a course that would alter his life forever.

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Charlie had tried his hand at dating throughout various settings and formats, but none those methods fit his needs. When you are a world-renowned businessman, the new trend of online dating goes completely out window as it would be too easy for the tabloids to turn his honest attempt at a biographical description into some sort of pathetic scribble worth being mocked, and thus he would become the ire of the world for wearing his heart on his sleeve. No, if he wanted to get a girlfriend, he would have to get one the old fashion way, by walking up to one and asking her out, but that was easier said than done. Even though he lived in one of the most populated cities in the world, finding a place where both he and the women he would approach would be comfortable was a serious obstacle the heir could not always overcome. People said nightclubs were a great place to meet women but the Good Boy could not handle the anxiety the loud music and the flashing lights caused him, and the women he would meet in the places he would visit when he left the factory, like those in conference halls were not women who you could ask out as they were not in a place where you could ask a woman out. The only solution to this problem was by meeting somewhere in the middle, like at a bar, but trying to find someone at a bar is like playing a game of Russian Roulette, with the extra element, in this case alcohol, making everything much more dangerous as you never knew who you would meet, and that's exactly the issue what Charlie faced this time around.

A couple of minutes after Charlie told himself he would leave once he finished his second drink the door of the bar swung open and in entered a woman, clearly drunk, exclaiming, "Joel, I want a Gin Gimlet! Now!"

The entrance of this woman into the tavern did not faze Joel the bartender as she was a regular, and as long as her money was good, he would prepare any drink she demanded, despite the fact that she was clearly inebriated and needed to quit drinking for her own safety. This woman sat a few stools to the right of Charlie, but he still had a good view to study her. In fact, his years of business functions had fostered an ability in Charlie to create a rough profile of any person just by studying their appearance. The woman wore elaborate accessories such as a pair of diamond earrings, black designer shoes, and a pink luxury clutch purse, all of which indicated wealth and high status. However, her lack of business attire and choosing to instead double down on luxury accessories like her white fox fur coat were good indicators that her money was in fact not the fruit of her own labor. The woman sported no wedding ring or any other accessory indicating she was in a relationship, meaning that the large sums of money needed to keep up her appearance most likely came from her parents or other familiar figures.

She quickly finished her first Gimlet and slammed her fist with the bottom of the glass sticking out the bottom on the counter, nearly shattering the glass in her hand, and proceeding to scream, "Joel! Another one this instant!"

Joel was already preparing another Gimlet for her as he had picked up on her drinking habits over the years of her patronizing his business, but after he poured the Gin into the glass, the woman lunged over the counter to grab the Gin bottle being stored, and proclaimed, "No! I'm taking the bottle!"

Charlie watched in awe as this woman called the shots in the tavern, expressing dominance over everyone, including the bartender himself. Charlie found this to be an extremely attractive quality as he often found himself gravitating towards bold women, but never someone whose personality was as strong as hers. He didn't know if this was a result of the only potential romantic partners he encountered being focused businesswomen eyeing a deal with Wonka or reporters determined to get a comment from the traveling business representative, or perhaps his reserved personality yearned for a firm-willed counterpart in order to complete some sort of cosmic puzzle. Either way, there was no easier way for Charlie to develop a crush on a woman than for her to start barking orders and helm the ship. Apart from the fact that she was beautiful, it seemed that the woman cleared off Charlie's self-recommendation of finding an heiress and the fact that she seemed to be single could be attributed to her brash personality, something that could draw many suitors away. Now, all that was missing for Charlie to become infatuated with this woman would be for him to discover that underneath her coarse exterior lied a soft, sweet center, to use a candy metaphor as he often did.

Approaching women did not come naturally to Charlie but alcohol sure helped loosen him up, he took a gulp of his beer and approached the stool where the woman was sitting and said the first thing that came into his nervous mind, "You know, if you don't get more lime juice, you'll just be drinking straight Gin."

He immediately regretted saying such a stupid, uninspiring thing, he was not quick on his feet or mind, and coupled with the fact that he had very few experiences simply chatting with someone from outside the factory really made the woman's response even more gut-punching. Without uttering a word, the woman, slouched over the counter with her glass in her left hand and the bottle of Gin she pulled away from Joel in her right hand, simply turned her head ninety degrees to the left and gave Charlie a dead, serious stare. The woman's disdain with Charlie's sad excuse of a pickup line went far beyond a displeasing look; the eyes of her stare bulged out of their sockets, exposing more of the whites and emphasizing her crystalline blue irides. Her thin eyebrows were raised upwards on the sides as they came together at the bridge of her nose, a thin structure while the nostrils were notably wider, and currently flaring. Just as the eyebrows drew attention to her nose, her nose drew attention to her lips; they appeared to be sucked into her mouth as she seemed to scrunch all of the muscles around her mouth up towards her nose. And tying the entire look together, despite wearing her princess-curled brown hair straight down, her notably sized forehead was exposed enough that a noticeable throbbing vein could be spotted palpitating on her left temple. In short, she was in no mood for Charlie's attempts at a game and proceeded to turn her attention back down to her drink.

This was not the first time that Charlie's attempt at flirting failed miserably, nor was this the first time that the woman Charlie was attempting to court reacted with contempt for the awkward chocolatier. With a litany of embarrassing rejections under his belt, Charlie knew all the signs that a woman was simply not into him, and this woman was demonstrating all of them and then some. And while he would typically apologize for even speaking to the woman and flee the scene half-embarrassed-half-crying, he did not do that this time. For some unknown reason Charlie did not cower like he usually did in this type of situation; despite the fact that this woman was not even acknowledging him, he sat down two stools left of her in hopes of getting her to acknowledge him. This bravery was out of the ordinary for the shy confectioner, but even Charlie told himself that he would not be doing this if it were not for this strange feeling telling him to do so. If he did not know any better, Charlie would have said that fate had brought him to this particular spot and was now pushing him to continue engaging this woman. There was also something else at play, the fact that Charlie sensed something familiar about the woman. He could have sworn he had met this woman before, but he could not put his finger on where he did.

He studied the visibly upset woman finish the remainder of her Gimlet and begin to refill her glass with pure Gin, but instead of leaving as he usually did in these situations, Charlie summoned the courage produced by this strange feeling he had, and asked, "I'm sorry, but I have to ask, do I know you from somewhere? You look so familiar."

The woman stopped drinking and listened to Charlie's question only to chug the Gin in her glass, serve herself some more Gin for the conversation she was about to have, turned to her left, and replied in an indignant tone as if it were offensive that this perceived stranger did not know who she was, "Of course you recognize me, why wouldn't you?!"

"I should?" Charlie replied in shock as the woman continued to drink Gin. The suggestion that his gut feeling was correct was not enough for him to hang his hat on the theory he knew her, so he proceeded to stare at the woman as if he was examining a diamond so that she may reveal a bit more information.

Still sensing Charlie's focus on her, she turned around to face him one more time, and slurred as she lunged forward with rage, "Yes, I'm famous! I am a SwiftyPic model and a preeminent influencer! I'm 'V_Salty!' Now, leave me aloooone!"

While Charlie, frightened by the woman's scream, did not recognize this name for its online fame, partially because his only experiences with internet personalities were with self-obsessed twenty-something-year-olds sucking up to him at business events in hopes of making a deal to promote Wonka Candies, the name did mean something for him, which he discovered as he mumbled, "V_Salty? Okay, V_Salty...Salty? Could it...Salt? It's...V. Salt!"

It all made sense now. It was her after all these years.

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Those strange feelings Charlie sensed, urging him to engage with the distraught woman on the other end of the bar, turned out to be onto something. The woman who had captivated Charlie ever since she barged into the tavern was none other than The Bad Nut herself, Veruca Salt. Apart from growing up, Veruca had not changed much since the last time Charlie saw her. She was still as ill-tempered, brash and demanding as when she maneuvered her way onto the floor of the Nut Sorting Room and got attacked by an army of squirrels. But time ages and thus changes everyone, and now that she had discovered alcohol but continued to lack impulse control, the bratty girl who threw a fit until her father found her one of Wonka's Golden Ticket was just one comment or look away from getting into a bar fight and injuring someone, or more likely herself. This was truly a historic moment for Charlie, this was the first time he had ever met one of his fellow Golden Ticket winners after the tour of Wonka's Factory. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event that brought five lucky children and their guardians together for an unforgettable experience that inevitably would have formed a bond between all of them, a bond that deserved to be commemorated by having all the parties involved reuniting at some point following the tour, such as what was now happening between Charlie and Veruca. The only problem was that this first encounter was not like how Charlie had imagined it going, in fact, this encounter was much more hostile than situations that he typically found himself in, and truthfully, no one would blame him if he got up and headed out the door instead of interacting with his fellow winner.

Yet, despite all the red flags and Charlie's own history of risk-aversion, he leaned in towards his fellow contest winner, and said, "Hold on, you're Veruca, Veruca Salt, from Wonka's factory!"

The second Veruca heard the words "Wonka's factory" she ceased drinking from her glass and began staring at the wall in front of her, a wall lined with other liquor bottles, with a horrified look in her eyes as the memories of that fateful day came back to her, and so she turned around to ask, "How do you know about that?"

"Well, it was kind of a big deal, an international race to find five Golden Tickets and whatnot. But that doesn't matter. The tour, you were a member of the tour of the factory, so was I. I'm Charlie, Charlie Bucket, remember me?" Charlie responded, giddy at the chance Veruca might still remember him.

All her large blue eyes did was scan Charlie from two stools away, but due to alcohol impairment and a tendency to not remember those who never did anything for her, all Veruca could respond was ask, "Which one were you again, the fat one or the little knobhead?"

Disappointed that Veruca did not recognize him, Charlie chuckled nervously as he tried to shift the conversation back to them, telling her, "Um, I'm the other one, remember Charlie, the last Golden Ticket winner. I was standing right next to you while we waited for the clock to strike ten so that Mr. Wonka could let us in. The media were taking pictures of us, all of us, while we stood there."

Bored by such a sentimental response, all Veruca said before facing forward and returning to drink was, "I don't remember any of that."

Despite Veruca remaining closed off, Charlie continued to prod the grown-up brat, hoping she would contribute more to the conversation, and this time adding, "Well, you must surely remember the tour of the factory. The Chocolate Room, wasn't it beautiful?"

"I told you, I don't remember! All I can recall was that it was one of the worst days of my life," Veruca barked in response, finishing the Gin in her glass and serving herself some more.

"I suppose, falling down that rubbish chute and almost dying," Charlie said, trying to justify Veruca's closed-off-ness on simply choosing not to remember such a horrifying event in her young life.

Yet, Charlie mentioning one of the most traumatic events in Veruca's life was enough to have her freeze up again, only this time Charlie noticed a tear roll down the brat's pronounced cheekbone before she snapped out of her trance and thrusted herself in front of Charlie, screaming, "Don't remind me of that, you twit! Dear God, my life went downhill from that point on!"

"Care to elaborate? I'm all ears," Charlie said, playing the role of the best friend eager to comfort her at lowest point, which unsurprisingly was the only real strategy he had when it came to forming relationships with women.

With the last drops of the Gin from the bottle now in her glass, Veruca continued on with her bender and recalled the events following the mishap in the Nut Sorting Room, "When Daddy and I made it out of the incinerator we were all whiffy and mucky, but we kept our heads held up high as we left Wonka's godforsaken deathtrap, even with those tabloid shutter nutters documenting our undignified departure. So unflattering, those images must never resurface!"

"I suppose that must have been embarrassing, but at least your life went back to normal after that," Charlie suggested, believing that to be the case since Veruca had not changed from when they last saw each other.

Yet apparently, nothing more could be farther from the truth, at least according to Veruca, who barked at Charlie, "What part of life going 'downhill' don't you understand? Everything changed from then on out. Daddy, on the car ride home, he...he...abused me."

All of a sudden, this chance encounter became too much for Charlie, his actions had caused Veruca to open an old wound and he could not bear to be responsible for that, so he reached out to caress Veruca's left arm, and cried, "Oh my, I'm so sorry. I don't want you to suffer, we don't have to keep talking about this if you don't want to."

Surprisingly enough, talking to someone about what happened to her after visiting Wonka's factory who was not being paid to listen was cathartic for Veruca, and after finishing the Gin in her glass, hoping it would ease the pain, she revealed additional information, "He...he called me a spoilt, ungrateful brat just because I asked for a flying glass elevator. I had almost died, and he had the audacity to strike me! He bent me across his lap and smacked my bum, as if I was a common peasant."

Reality immediately hit Charlie like a brick wall, the girl who expected the world to drop everything so that it may tend to her needs was referring to her father disciplining her for sending them falling into a trash-filled incinerator and then asking for something else as an act of abuse, and with a straight face Charlie pulled back from Veruca, and said, "Well, I guess you and I just have two different definitions of abuse."

In true Veruca fashion, she ignored Charlie's damning comment as she was still in her own little world, and continued to say of her father, "And do you know what he did after we got home? He gave away all my pets and told the drivers of the lorries full of Wonka's sweets who came to my home to deliver my first shipment of the lifetime supply I won to take it all back and to never return. And the next time I asked him for something, do you know what he told me? He said no. NO!"

"He tried to break me, ha, but he failed, he didn't break me. I broke him, I doubled-down and I got him to start giving be stuff again…but it was not as much as before," she frustratingly declared as she sucked her glass dry for the last drops of Gin available before lashing out in anger again.

"Bullocks Joel, another bottle! Now!" Veruca screamed across the bar as the bartender was busy attending another client, demanding more liquor as she would not be forced to revisit these traumatizing memories without the only constant in her life, alcohol.

As Veruca continued to scream for more alcohol the rest of the tavern took notice, most notably a departing patron, a large dark-skinned man who rested his right hand on Charlie's left shoulder, and facetiously whispered to him, "Congratulations on the successful fishing expedition, mate. She's a blinding catch, good luck."

Charlie watched the stranger head out the door, but as he watched Joel bring Veruca another bottle of liquor, this time Vodka, and see her chug it straight out of the bottle, he knew he could not heed the stranger's implied advice. He could not leave Veruca alone at a bar in the condition she was in, even if she hated his guts for even daring approaching her. There was also the issue of the reason he approached her in the first place, Charlie felt a strange feeling that drove him to get closer to Veruca and he was not going to turn back on that feeling now.

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Within a half hour, Veruca had finished the bottle of Vodka Joel gave her and the effects were in full force, she was swinging side to side on the bar stool she sat on and began mumbling nonsense every once and a while. The little brute who always made her demands known as clear as possible was now more incomprehensible than a Glaswegian. Charlie had finished his second ale a long time ago and instead decided to focus his attention on deciphering what Veruca was complaining about, but he could not construe much apart from something about her Daddy and a prune. The alcohol she had consumed had also made the little brute more emotional, or at least more emotional than she typically was. During her incomprehensible rambling sessions, Veruca fluctuated between screaming and banging her fists on the counter out of frustration and anger and bouts of crying when violent venting methods were not enough to release the pain that had built up inside of her. While most people would not have thought twice of getting off the barstool, getting on up out of the bar and never turning back, Charlie could not turn his back on someone in need, especially not his fellow Golden Ticket winner. The Good Boy could not look at himself in the mirror if he left someone alone when they were at their lowest point, he had to be there at their side and do whatever he could to make sure they made it to the other side. However, this was easier said than done, and not because the little brute's personality made it difficult to care about her, but because her slurred speech made it near incomprehensible to understand what she needed help with. In fact, the clearest thing Veruca said that Charlie could understand was her repeated claim that her father daring to put restrictions on her life following their disastrous visit to Wonka's factory was somehow resulting in her being abused.

Such claims, in what, at the moment, Charlie interpreted as to be made in the misleading, out-of-touch glory Veruca was best known for, could best be summarized by the repeated statement she kept crying out amid actual tears of sorrow pouring out of her eyes, "I never got my other pony!"

Yet despite the pain alcohol put her through, Veruca kept on drinking from the bottle of Vodka until she finished the last drop. She let the bottle roll onto its side, without a care if it fell and shattered, and proclaimed for everyone at the bar to hear, "I'm bored now…going home!"

"Are you sure you're in the right condition to do that by yourself?" Charlie asked as he was already feeling tipsy after just two beers and Veruca had drank two bottles of hard liquor and who knows what else and how much before coming down here.

But, this kind of concern for her well-being did not sit well with Veruca, no one had the right to tell her how to live her life and she made this known, responding, "Agh, I can do what I waaan...!"

Charlie immediately swooped down and caught Veruca from falling to the floor, and then, emphasizing her inebriated state, said, "Ooh, got you. Look at you, you are literally legless."

Despite developing a high alcohol tolerance, even Veruca was not immune to the effects of inebriation. Simply watching her struggle to get off the bar stool was enough to set off Charlie's caregiving instincts, causing him to get stern and declare, "That's it, I can't let you leave alone, you're out of it. Where do you live? I'm taking you home."

"Check...driving...in clutch bag," Veruca drowsily mumbled as she tried pointing to her pink designer clutch purse.

"All right, let's have a gander," Charlie responded as he searched the brat's clutch purse for her driver's license.

Charlie found the pink card located in a pocket on the side of the clutch purse, next to a series of credit cards, and when he held it up to his eyes he noticed that her home address was here in the City of London. This would make it much easier to get her home as the longest the drive would take would be over half-an-hour. All that was left to do before departing the tavern was to pay, and so Charlie began calculating the cost of two ales and Veruca's Gimlets and bottles of liquor. Yet, since he felt it was wrong to take money from Veruca's purse, he started rummaging through his own wallet for two £50 banknotes. All the while, the bartender noticed him doing this and propping up Veruca at the same time.

Joel immediately gestured at Charlie to put his wallet away, telling him, "No, no, no, it's fine, you can leave, you're doing us all a service by taking her home."

"I can't leave without paying," Charlie replied in a very innocent sounding tone, similar to that of a good child being peer pressured into shoplifting.

Luckily, Joel assured him that he was insisting he did not have to pay, explaining, "It's alright, Daddy receives the bill, I'll just add your ales to the bill. Don't tell her this, but there are often additional 'service charges' on her bills because of how disruptive she gets. She's the only reason this establishment turns a profit, but eventually her imp-like behaviour becomes too much to handle and it disturbs the other clients."

Veruca's frivolous spending of money did not come as a surprise to Charlie, nor did the fact she or her father never caught on to the fact that Joel was overcharging her simply because he could. In fact, this encounter reminded Charlie of an important learning moment for him, the first time he ventured into the city after receiving his first paycheck from the master chocolatier a month following his 18th birthday. After growing up in crippling poverty, the moment Charlie received his first monthly paycheck of about £8,000, he went out and bought all the stuff he and his family could only dream of having when he was a child. And even though he nearly spent all his money on his family, including a new top hat for his mentor, Wonka sat him down afterwards and lectured him about his terrible money management skills and how he should not blow through his paycheck every month. In fact, the more Charlie remembered that talk, the more he came to believe Wonka invoked Veruca when he explained that spending your whole paycheck at once was unwise. It seemed to the Good Boy that Veruca's father never explained to her where money came from and that she would have to spend his money reasonably, but knowing what he knew about her, such a conversation would have been futile.

As the two former Golden Ticket winners stood on the sidewalk outside Fenston's, with Veruca leaning against Charlie while being held up by his embrace, Charlie hailed one of London's famous Black Cabs, a hackney carriage, and helped Veruca inside as the driver turned around, and asked, "Good evening lady and gent, where is it you wish to go?"

"I'm taking her back home, the address is on her driving license," Charlie told the driver as he stepped inside the vehicle and handed him the card.

The driver looked at the information on the eighth section, the category which listed a home address on British driver's licenses, and input the data into his GPS, and once he saw where their destination was, he replied, "Ah, Stourton, we're not that far, this shouldn't take too long."

The driver handed Charlie the driver's license back, got back on the road and drove towards their destination when all of a sudden Veruca got very agitated and began tossing and turning herself in the backseat, as well as nonsensically screaming, "Daddy, I want Turkey Twizzlers, now!"

"Don't scream, don't scream, we have some at home," Charlie whispered into her ear as he patted her forehead and simply lied to her as the breaded processed meat spirals she begged for were discontinued years ago, not so long after their tour of Wonka's factory, actually.

The drive to Veruca's home took about 15 minutes with all the traffic and throughout the drive all Charlie could think about was what could have transpired in his responsibility's life since the last time they had seen each other. It was Charlie's observation that she was still highly demanding and ungrateful, but at the same time she did seem to possess above-average intelligence; after all, it would take much intelligence to convince her parents to give her everything she desired, Charlie thought. Veruca was also very observant when she was not blacked-out, for as funny as her demand for Turkey Twizzlers were, those breaded staples of millions of British childhoods would have gone a long way in counteracting the high levels of alcohol coursing through her system. But now, instead of squeezing through a gate to get the squirrel she wanted, she could no longer do as much as half-asleep-stare at the passenger seat in front of her. Charlie meanwhile twirled his right index finger through her slinky curls as she lied semi-conscious on his chest, the ebb and flow of her breathing on Charlie's chest being the only thing keeping him from frantically screaming at the driver to redirect to a hospital. Once the driver reached Veruca's home, a high-end apartment complex on the banks of the River Thames, The Stourton Block as the large sign above the entrance proclaimed it to be, Charlie pulled out his wallet and handed the driver a £20 note and told him to keep the change as an apology for the commotion Veruca caused. That is not even mentioning the fact that Charlie's hands were not available to receive and count change at the moment as he now had to carry a limp Veruca all the way indoors. Thankfully, a doorman was present outside this late at night and he opened the door for Charlie, who gave him a nod thanking him, and Veruca, who the doorman rolled his eyes at once she passed him as this had not been the first time he had seen this scene of the brat being dragged home after a night out drinking played out before.

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As the Good Boy dragged the little brute's limp, half-conscious body into the lobby of the apartment complex where she lived, all he could think about was just how wrong what he was doing would look like to other people. Here they had a man dragging an inebriated woman who was clearly passed out up towards a private residence. Being that it was already well past sundown, Charlie did not see any people outside the apartment building or inside the apartment's lobby, but the fact that it was dark made his actions look ten-times worse to anyone who might be watching him, Charlie thought. But, when it came to the less uncomfortable aspects of what he had gotten himself into, Charlie could also see the irony that he too was partaking in the tradition of sorts where a guy takes a girl back home from the bar, the only difference was that Charlie would not do anything near the thing he was so paranoid of being accused of conspiring to do with his actions. However, Charlie did feel a bit more relaxed once he entered the lobby of the apartment building for there was no one in there to judge him apart from the doorman, who seemed to be judging Veruca instead of him, and a single person who sat behind the main desk. Once inside the elaborate lobby, decorated in marble and gold while crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, Charlie made his way to the main desk manned by the concierge typing something on the computer.

The concierge then quickly looked up a bit, and proceeded to ask, "Good evening, Sir. How may I be of assistance?"

"Yes, good evening, I am escorting Miss Salt home, but she seems to be out of it. Could you please tell me in which flat she lives in so that I may take her up and put her down to rest," Charlie replied, struggling to keep Veruca standing up as he asked for help.

The concierge gave Veruca a stare of pity as he too was also not surprised she arrived home in such a condition, and then turned back to Charlie, replying, "Oh yes, she lives in the Penthouse flat, the lift is on your right."

As Charlie moved in the direction of the concierge's extended arm, pulling a half-conscious Veruca alongside him, he turned his head around, and responded, "Thank you."

Access to this elevator was rather exclusive, in order to even get in you needed a key card to open it, something that Veruca clarified by pointing first at the sensor to the right of the doors and then back at her clutch purse. Charlie scoured her purse until he found the right card to scan so that the elevator doors would open, and once inside Charlie noticed that there were no buttons, just another sensor where he once again scanned the key card so that it would take them up to the penthouse. After a minute of standing in the middle of this contraction in awkward silence apart from the soft music playing on the speakers that was in complete contrast to how the Good Boy felt carrying Veruca, the doors of the elevator swung wide open, exposing an elegant, modern abode truly fit for an heiress. The penthouse was elaborately decorated but Charlie did not begin to study the decorations as he was focused on getting Veruca to bed and then getting back to the factory. Although Charlie then looked around and spotted Veruca's bedroom, he then turned left and walked through the door frame where he found a large white bed full of white and teal throw pillows. Once he reached the bed, he sat Veruca on the foot of the bed as he pulled back the cover and tossed the extra pillows to the side, and after helping her take off her purse, shoes and fur coat, Charlie picked her up and properly placed her in her bed.

Despite her inability to reach her own bedroom by herself, Veruca was surprisingly able to blare out one final coherent message before passing out, an eerie yet easily explainable message, "Why does nobody like me? I'm a princess, Daddy always said so."

"Shh shh shh, go to sleep, Veruca, you need it," Charlie whispered as he caressed her full cheeks with his right index finger, trying to get her to forget whatever caused her to say something so depressing.

Veruca then let out a faint unintelligible grumble, but she appeared to listen to Charlie's advice and fell fast asleep, although as he noted, she probably just passed out now that she was comfortable. With no invitation to be here, Charlie figured it was best for him to leave now, especially since he was also exhausted after a night of listening to speeches on how to overcome new trade hurdles into the European market in case there was a Hard Brexit. However, this might be the only time he could ever see how Veruca lived; even though he knew where she lived, he did not know if sober Veruca would even want him around, so he'd better take in the views now. After exiting Veruca's bedroom, the first thing he noticed was the home bar, which was now just a mess of empty liquor bottles on the counter with an entire library of alcohol behind it just waiting to be consumed. The empty bottles would explain why she entered the bar so intoxicated, but it also made her current condition much more eerie, it seemed as if Veruca was committed to permanently damaging her liver.

Putting this depressing red flag to the side, Charlie turned to face the extended balcony, a perfect space for a small party, especially with its view of the River Thames and South London and the iconic Tower Bridge to the left. Even at night when mostly everyone was already indoors the view from the balcony was still a million times more breathtaking than the bleak, less-maintained neighborhoods that surrounded Wonka's factory that were visible from the central tower, the structure where Charlie, Veruca, and the other winners and their guardians entered the factory with Wonka all those years ago and now Charlie passed through every time he came in and out of the factory. Turning back into the penthouse, Charlie noticed that one of the couch legs was broken and the entire thing was tipping in the direction of the broken led as that side had no support. There was also a wall lined with a large mirror and a ballet barre going through the middle of the mirror, perfect for some sort of exercise routine, Charlie thought. The kitchen and dining room appeared to be fully stocked, not that he believed Veruca cooked all her meals by herself, but it almost looked as if some sort of family lived there. And as Charlie headed back to the elevator to return to the factory, he spotted some framed photos on a table next to the wall. From far away they appeared to be photos of Veruca and her family, but before he could get any closer to better observe and study them, he got distracted by a faint grumbling sound. At first, he was not sure what was making the noise, but when the grumbles turned into noticeable gasps Charlie rushed back over to Veruca's room.

It was just as he had feared, Veruca's mouth was full of vomit, and she was now struggling to breath because her airway was blocked. Charlie ran over to Veruca's bedside and quickly turned her on her side, causing the vomit to slide out of her mouth and allowing her to breathe again. Charlie then rushed over to the kitchen and started looking for cleaning supplies throughout the cabinets until he found a mop, a bucket, and some rags. He filed up the bucket with water from the faucet and rushed back to Veruca's room where he dampened one of the rags and wiped Veruca's face with it. He then proceeded to wipe down the bed sheet, leaving only a brown stain behind and mopped up all the vomit that had fallen on the floor. Charlie then threw all the dirty vomit water into the toilet and flushed it down and tossed the rags and mop into the kitchen sink and rinsed them off only to rush back to Veruca's room with the empty bucket and a glass of water for Veruca to rinse her mouth off with. He helped her get the water into her mouth and then she let it spill out into the bucket where Charlie caught it and flushed it away as well.

This scare shook Charlie to his core, he has just reunited with his fellow Golden Ticket winner and had he had left right after tucking her in, Veruca most likely would have died of asphyxiation. Charlie could not leave her unattended now, not in this condition, he would not have a death on his conscience. For her safety, Charlie rolled her over on her side and placed her near the end of her bed with the bucket down below to capture any vomit that she might throw up throughout the night. And because he needed to make sure she was safe, Charlie decided to stay a bit longer, the only problem with that was that the "soon" in "I'll leave soon" kept getting pushed with every passing minute. As much as Charlie wanted to return to the factory and fall into a deep sleep, he knew that he could not leave Veruca alone. He sat on a chair in the corner of the dark bedroom, with the only light coming from a lamp on a nightstand on the other side of the bed from where Veruca was and the bit of light coming from outside. Eventually the clock struck 3 AM and Charlie was struggling to stay awake, for the past hour he was locked in a battle with heavy eyes trying to close themselves and a head attempting to fit in between his legs and the duty he swore to, making sure Veruca did not die on his watch. As much as he tried to fight it, drowsiness eventually won and Charlie knew he had to get some sleep, but he also could not leave Veruca alone. Stuck in such a conundrum, his sleep-deprived mind did something that seemed reasonable at the time, he got up and lied down in the bed next to Veruca. Charlie made sure to leave a sizable distance between the two of them and turned his body to face the opposite side of the bed, and as uncomfortable as it felt sharing a bed with the little brute, someone he truthfully had only known for a total of a couple of hours, he promised himself that it would only be for a while, he just needed to rest for a bit and then he would go back to the chair and stay at an appropriate distance away from Veruca.

Charlie never woke up again that night.

Chapter Text

Veruca felt nothing for most of the night as she was so intoxicated she could not even move around on her own, but as time passed she began to regain more and more of her sensations, yet that was not exactly the best thing for her. As the sun rose over London, its rays made their way through the windows of Veruca's bedroom and bounced off her full cheeks. The light did not bother Veruca since she was so out of it, but, like clockwork, when the clock struck 9 AM, the brat began to wake up. While most of the city woke up around 6 or 7 AM, Veruca had a habit of waking up halfway through the morning, in part because she had spent the previous night hitting her own bar, but mostly because her schedule was cleared most of the time as she had no reason to wake up early. Veruca was so privileged that she did not need to earn a living because of how wealthy her family was, but since she had no real job to go to, this resulted in her becoming even more lazy than she already was and the brat now woke up much later than someone her age should be getting up. However, considering the excessive drinking she engaged in the previous night, Veruca found herself with a case of the rare drunkover, partially hungover yet there was still plenty of alcohol coursing through her veins that she was still technically drunk. And all of this made the process of waking up even more perilous for Veruca, perilous but not new to her.

Now that the little brute was awake, she pushed herself up to a halfway sitting position and stared at the entrance to her walk-in closet, observing its mere existence, and then let out a simple but cryptic message, "Eh, still here."

Without elaborating on her comment, the crusty-eyed and messy-haired Veruca turned her attention towards the doorway leading out to the rest of the penthouse, and screamed, "Alice, bring me a cup of coconut water, now!"

"Oh, lord, my head," she whispered to herself as she rubbed the tips of the fingers of her right hand on her right temple, attempting to ease the pain inside her head and wishing she had not screamed, yet deep down aware that voice volume regulation was a skill she lacked.

And while the brat suffered the physical consequences of excessive drinking, a quaint voice replied from the other side of the door, "Coming Miss Veruca."

Alice, a quaint, red-headed 18-year-old and Veruca's domestic servant, had picked up on Veruca's daily routine after having worked for her for months now, and now she made sure to have her patron's hangover cures ready at a moments notice, which she delivered as she walked into the bedroom with a glass, and said, "Here is your cuppa coconut water, Miss Veruca. And I have your dressing gown waiting for you in the bathroom if you wish to shower now."

As usual, Veruca did not say thank you to Alice and instead proceeded to grab the glass out from her servant's hand and began drinking the coconut water without saying a word to her. But Alice did not let this disrespect stand in the way of her work, she instead stood by her patron to ask her a question about something strange that was on her mind ever since she first set foot in Veruca's bedroom that morning, and carefully asked, "Also, should I prepare something for your...friend?"

"Friend?" Veruca asked confused as she had no idea who Alice was talking about, that was until she looked down at her waist.

Even though Charlie tried to stay as far away from Veruca as possible while he slept in the same bed as her, he somehow found himself spooning with the little brute in the morning. Despite being behind Veruca, the slot for the big spoon, Charlie found himself in fetal position under Veruca's left arm, his head nestled under it and his left arm wrapped around her waist. He got a good-night's sleep next to her, but it unfortunately came to an end when he was awakened by Veruca's loud scream directed at her servant. And once Veruca was made aware of someone else's presence in her bed both her and Charlie's eyes locked, hers focused and irritated while Charlie's expressed embarrassment and timidity. He quickly let go of Veruca's waist and sat up straight, but her large blue eyes never stopped following him, nor did they stop projecting anger towards him.

"Oh, bloody hell, did we...," Veruca screamed in anger before Charlie cut her off with a frightened expression on his face and he pulled back the bed sheets, showing that both of them still had their clothes on.

While this seemed to quell the anger Veruca had concerning the possibility that she might have done something she would have regretted the night prior, the irritation caused by Charlie's presence did not vanish all together, leading her to ask, "I think I recognize you. Who are you?"

"You don't remember? I'm Charlie, Charlie Bucket, the last Golden Ticket winner, from Wonka's factory," he replied, disappointed but not surprised that Veruca didn't remember the heartfelt conversation about the past they had at the bar.

But knowing how negatively Veruca felt about Wonka's factory, it came as no surprise to Charlie that after telling her where she recognized him from, she asked as if dreading to learn what she did the night prior, "Oh, God, why did I go back to Wonka's?"

"No, we met at a pub, Fenston's, surely you must remember," Charlie replied, attempting to clear up any discrepancies Veruca had and figure out just how much she remembered from the night before.

As she ran her fingers through the tangled mess that was her uncombed, curled brown hair, Veruca shut her eyes so as to not have to look at Charlie, and responded, "All I can recall was ordering a Gimlet, that's the last coherent part of the night that I remember."

Surprisingly, Veruca did turn to look at Charlie sitting next to her, and after sizing him up, she commented, "You know, you're the first bloke I ever picked up at a pub that was still here the morning after. So, tell me, what are you still doing here?"

"You were off your trolley last night, I couldn't possibly have left you by yourself," Charlie answered honestly, something that did not sit right with Veruca.

"That doesn't answer my question," she responded bluntly, implying a demand for clarification in her tone.

"You were throwing up so much last night, choking on your own vomit, you're lucky I stayed. That is why there is a bucket on the side of your bed," Charlie elaborated, pointing towards the bucket on the floor as he did.

"So Bucket fetched me a bucket," Veruca responded, cracking a joke to ease the tension since she was confused as the thought of someone caring for someone else without expecting anything in return seemed so alien to her.

Sensing the uncomfortable vibe in the room, Charlie attempted to change the conversation, asking Veruca, "What time is it?"

"It's four past nine, sir," Alice responded after staring down at the small watch on her wrist.

The revelation that Alice had been present throughout the entire conversation she had with Charlie frustrated Veruca, causing her to lash out, "You're still here?! Go!"

"Of course, Miss Veruca," Alice replied with a hint of fear in her voice as she bowed and left the room, despite the fact the only reason she remained was because Veruca had not responded to her original question if whether or not she should also bring Charlie something.

After hearing the time, Charlie completely ignored everything Veruca told Alice, he instead realized he had his own watch on and checked to confirm the time, to which he responded rather frightened, "Four past nine? Oh my, I'm late for work!"

"Oh boy, it's going to take over half an hour to get back to the factory by car, so I'll have to take the...," Charlie cried frantically as he put on his suit jacket and grabbed the tie he left resting on the chair he spent a large portion of the night sitting on before lying down and sleeping next to The Bad Nut.

As he struggled to button his dress shirt and flatten out the wrinkles since he would not have the time to stop at home and change, Charlie spoke without making eye contact with Veruca, who thought she might as well be watching a circus monkey trying to ride a unicycle, and said, "Listen Veruca, I really think we should meet up again sometime soon and reminisce on the good old days. I'm available tomorrow, that is if you'd like my company."

Such a proposition was new ground for the Good Boy since he had never asked a girl to spend some time with him after work, then again, he had never had a girl he could ask to spend time with before, but little did they both know that Veruca's decision would end up changing their lives forever.

Chapter Text

The previous decade and a half had forged the two British Golden Ticket winners into very different people, and that is not even considering the fact that both of them came from remarkably different social classes. While Charlie grew and became more gawky and more awkward with age, Veruca continued to glow up as she began her journey into womanhood, and this only served to magnify her already undesirable character traits. As a child, Veruca was raised to believe that the world was there to serve her and her needs, and so as she grew up this worldview began to affect the way she interpreted all the changes she was going through. And with this view that her desires were the only ones that required recognition, the little brute quickly grew into a very vain and superficial person as she became a teenager only a few years after the tour of the factory. Everyone from possible friends to potential romantic partners were judged by one simple philosophy, are your looks compatible with mine? And anyone who failed reach Veruca's standards were quickly dismissed as she did not want to spend any amount of time with anyone whom she did not desire. While many people, people just like Charlie, might have wanted to get to know her, she rejected them outright just because she thought they were too ugly and weird to be close to her. And because of that the idea of spending time with the meekly Good Boy after work riled Veruca up so much that her eyes could have popped out of their sockets from how hard she wanted to roll them. Did this street urchin not know a girl as beautiful as her could never be spotted with someone like him, Veruca thought.

But it just so happened that she need something from another person at that moment, leading her to keep herself from rejecting Charlie's invite to spend time together, and so she replied, "I'm going furniture shopping tomorrow, my sofa is broken and I need a new one."

Charlie remembered seeing the broken couch the night before and thought such an excursion would make a simple but appropriate bonding experience, and so he enthusiastically responded, "That sounds swell, I could accompany you. I'll even bring a van with me to bring the sofa back to your penthouse. I'll have it up here by the end of the day."

"What time were you thinking of going? My schedule is open after three," Charlie added.

"We'll go at five, at this rate I'll still be utterly pissed today, and I'll need all day tomorrow to recover from the hangover," Veruca amended as she took another sip of coconut water. It was important for Veruca to have barked back in such a fashion, if she was the one to suggest what they were going to do then she would get to be in control of every single detail, including what time they would meet up.

"Well then, here, take my business card, just ring me on my mobile whenever you are ready," Charlie replied as he handed Veruca a business card from his breast pocket, only for her to do what Wonka did when her father handed his mentor his own business card during the factory tour, throw it to the side without even looking at it.

A bit unnerved by Veruca's actions, Charlie grabbed his tie and began walking out of her bedroom, but not before turning back to say, "Take care, and please, rest today. Oh, and lay off the bottle, we do not want a repeat of last night, now do we."

That last comment utterly angered Veruca, the vicious stare she gave Charlie when the two locked eyes a few minutes before returned, no one could ever tell her how to live her life without her fighting back, Charlie thought, and so he simply added as he stared down and wrung his hands, "Alright then, I'll see myself out."

While the previous night had been one Charlie would never forget, it eventually came to an end and another day began, a day full of responsibilities. Even though he was running late, Alice barraged him and begged to stay for a bit, at least for a small breakfast, but Charlie declined. In order to emphasize their different social stations, Veruca had Alice wear a modern version of a servant's traditional uniform, a thin black dress with a white collar and apron, while on duty at her penthouse. The incredibly young woman had a faint bulge protruding out of her abdomen, she was three months pregnant and this job was the only way she could earn money to help her parents whom she still lived with. Not to mention the fact that once her child was born, she would need all the money she could get to begin covering the expenses, but sometimes the stress of working for Veruca while pregnant seemed more stressful than giving birth without a safety net to fall back on.

Charlie entered the elevator and rode it all the way down to the lobby, all the while he pulled out his phone and signaled his ride back to the factory. Charlie's phone was like no other, only two of them existed in the entire world. Instead of purchasing some other company's product and risk them somehow hacking into the factory's system and have them steal even more trade secrets, Wonka's paranoia led him to order a crew of Oompa Loompas to create a pair of smartphones so that both could always stay in contact. At first, Wonka was hesitant of even commissioning them as he felt it would only connect him more with the outside world, but a teenage Charlie eventually wore him down as he tried to follow the trends of the outside world, in this case the telecommunications revolution of the late 2000s and early 2010s. And with the elevator reaching the lobby, Charlie rushed out and made his way to the curb where a few seconds later his ride back to the factory arrived.

Wonka's Great Glass Elevator descended from the heavens and landed right next to Charlie, much to the doorman's amazement who could not believe what was transpiring before his eyes. Charlie stepped into the crystal contraption and pressed the button labeled "Chocolate Room" on one of the walls, leading the doors to close and the four propulsion rockets to ignite and send the elevator up into the air. London was a beautiful city for Charlie to fly over, especially the well-developed areas such as City of London or Westminster, which Charlie could see from this high up. But even though he was now wealthier than his child-self could ever imagine, his mode of transportation maneuvered him from this most exuberant of views to an egregious display of income inequality. It took only a few minutes for the Great Glass Elevator to reach Wonka's chocolate factory on the edge of economically deprived East London. While surrounded by modest post-war-era council homes that had long ago been converted into housing associations and the adjacent small businesses, the grim and gargantuan production center for all of Wonka's candies stood out like a sore thumb, its dark gray stone walls combined an industrial revolution aesthetic with fascist architecture, letting everyone around know that there was one influential person in this corner of the world, only now there were two.

The Great Glass Elevator entered the factory though a hatch that opened whenever the device got close, a hatch, constructed over the spot where Charlie, the rest of his family and Willy Wonka crashed through the roof of the factory following a literal out-of-this-world adventure, that was designed to let the device leave and re-enter the facility whenever the user pleased. The Elevator descended into the building until it could attach itself to the rails, the component that allowed it to maneuver about the structure, in a large, hollow room where goods were being transported throughout the factory complex and after zig-zagging through the various jaw-dropping rooms the contraption stopped in the most beautiful room of them all, the Chocolate Room. The room had not changed much since the day Charlie, the other Golden Ticket winners and their guardians first saw it, other than the rundown Bucket family shack residing in the middle of the room, everything else was still as beautiful, and edible, as before. Unfortunately, Charlie had no time to idle by and take in this breathtaking view; he was so late for work, so he would have to show up in the clothes he had been wearing since the day before. As he struggled to put on his tie and straighten it, he rushed over to the same candy apple tree where over a decade ago fellow contest winner Violet Beauregarde beat him to the punch, or fruit to be more specific, and plucked a candy apple without much competition from the Good Boy. With no time for breakfast, Charlie picked the most nutritious item in the room and ate it to keep him fueled until lunch, which itself was sort of a difficult task since most of the room was outright candy.

As he took bites from the apple, Charlie rushed over to his own personal transportation device, an Areoscoot, a hovering red dish brandished with an ornate golden "W" in the front with a yoke control wheel nestled in front atop a metal bar. The device looked and worked similar to a self-balancing scooter with the driver needing to lean forwards or backwards to indicate whether they wanted to speed up or slow down and a gyroscopic yoke controlled the direction the device went, left or right, up or down, you name it. Originally designed for Charlie to move around the factory in a more compact device than the Glass Elevator, the Areoscoot caught on so much that miniature and simpler versions were mass produced so that Oompa Loompas could better navigate the facility too. After finishing the apple, Charlie placed the core in one of Areoscoot's slots for disposal later, pressed the autopilot button so that the device would take him to the office and placed both hands on the yoke to begin his daily commute. His journey took him through the dark tunnels of the chocolate river with only his Areoscoot's headlight and those mounted on the tunnel walls illuminating his passage, all while the breeze blew his half-combed hair up from his head and making him look even more disheveled than he did leaving Veruca's penthouse. The Areoscoot took him where he needed to go and within a few minutes he reached the center of the factory, another hollow room with a tinted window ceiling. Charlie parked his Areoscoot in a room adjacent to the Administration Offices where a tower nearly as tall as the room with a large glass dome nestled on top stood and rushed over to the tower where he boarded the elevator to get up to the dome.

The ride up was quick and when the doors opened into the domed room he was greeted by the soothing voice of his benefactor, "Oh, my dear boy, there you are. Your parents told me you did not come home last night and when you did not show up to work on time, I got worried. Didn't you receive any of my calls?"

Chapter Text

Behind his desk sat the founder of this magnificent factory and Charlie's personal mentor and friend, Willy Wonka. He had not changed much since the first time Charlie met him; sure, the skin around his jaw, on his neck and around his eyes had begun to sink and wrinkle, but Wonka still had a great skin care routine which kept most of the effects of reaching the age of 57 at bay. The most noticeable change in his appearance was the fact that the one silver hair which frightened Wonka so much that he concocted an elaborate contest to find an heir had now nearly taken over his entire head, leaving only streaks of his original brown hair remaining. While he was once terrified of facing his own mortality, ever since he met Charlie and spent nearly every waking minute with him in the factory over the past few years, he no longer feared death as he was confident his empire was in good hands. When it came to attire, he was still as exuberant as ever; he continued his use of flamboyant-patterned dress shirts, black vests, dark velvet coats, golden collars that sported his own initial, and literally topping it all off with one of his signature top hats. With a net worth of £1.9 billion, Wonka was the 24th richest person in the United Kingdom and one of the 1,000 wealthiest individuals in the entire world, but none of that really mattered to him, the only thing that did was innovating in the field of confectionery and defending his claim to the throne as its king.

"Oh, you dialed me. I must have missed it," Charlie responded, unsure of whether or not he noticed any notifications on his phone when he signaled the Glass Elevator to pick him up.

Still a bit on edge that his heir disappeared for hours on end without notifying anyone in the factory about his whereabouts, Wonka probed Charlie for more information, asking, "So, tell me, Charlie, why are you late for work? You've never been late."

"Oh, well, I...got caught up out there," Charlie replied, stumbling to come up with a cover story as lying had never been his forte.

Charlie's inexperience with lying gave it all away to the inquisitive Willy Wonka, who smiled and asked, "Caught up? With something…or someone?"

The little bit of color Charlie had in his face all seemed to drain out with that question, but to spare his heir any more embarrassment, Wonka added, "It's alright, my dear boy. I always knew this day would come. Although, I expected it would have happened before you turned twenty-four. But hey, better late than never."

"What? No, Wonka, it's not like that, I just spent the night somewhere, nothing more," Charlie replied, almost frightened that his mentor had the idea he was up to something mischievous last night and wanting to turn the conversation away from where he was the night before.

Wonka leaned back in his chair after Charlie reacted rather terrified at his comments made in jest, and hoping to restore the peace, he joked, "Oh, then I guess I'll keep waiting. But it's good you're venturing out into the world on your own. I know finding someone is very important to you and it's not like you'll meet anyone inside our factory, now is it?"

"I could say the same for you," Charlie replied without a hint of humor in his tone as he was still quite on edge about Wonka's prodding.

Yet, in true Wonka fashion, the master chocolatier injected more humor into the conversation, clarifying, "That's where you are wrong, my dear boy. I choose to be a solitary hermit; you just don't go out much."

"Well, I'm here, so let's get to work," Charlie stated as he spread his hands across his desk made from the candy cane trees found only in the Chocolate Room.

But, still unwilling to let it go, Wonka sat at his own candy cane tree desk for a few seconds in silence, just staring at Charlie preparing his work for the day, and then randomly blurted out, "Then I guess you won't be telling me her name."

"His name?" Wonka asked additionally as Charlie stared back at him with exhaustion in his eyes, even though Wonka was unsure if such a question would even apply to Charlie.

Even though he'd had enough of Wonka's antics, Charlie wasn't the kind of person to burst out in rage, so instead he vocalized his feelings as straightforward as possible, stating, "It's nothing Wonka, there's no need to go into any of that right now."

Charlie sat down behind his desk right across from Wonka's and began pulling up reports on the newest candies in development on his computer, but as he began searching through his desk for a spare flash drive, he rediscovered one of his most prized possessions. In one of the drawers of his desk, Charlie stored a collection of newspaper articles and magazines documenting the Golden Ticket contest and the winner's tour of Wonka's factory. Each magazine featured a cover image of one of the other four winners following their discovery of the prized document, the same for the newspapers along with the collection of articles written on the day of the tour featuring interviews conducted while the ten guests waited on the outside for the gates to open. And as the metaphorical cherry on top of this emotional sundae, stood a white sheet of paper with crayon scribbles all over. It was a drawing Charlie created as a child only few months after the tour featuring him and the other four kids holding hands and frolicking in the Chocolate Room. As an adult, Charlie understood why his younger self drew this image; sure, many of them were rather mean to him but they were the closest thing he had to a group to call his own. Growing up, Charlie had no friends, gut-wrenching poverty and a personal aesthetic that was not at all en vogue did not help; the only attention he really ever got was that from bullies, but the other kids often ignored him because they just simply did not notice him. Without anything special to define him positively, Charlie often fell in between the social cracks, and at first, he thought belonging to the Golden Ticket winner's club would open up more social opportunities for him, but those dreams never materialized.

Apart from not bonding with the other children on that fateful day, they all left home right after the tour, most likely upset about their experience at the factory like Veruca clearly still was, meaning that they would most likely not be in the mood to stay in contact with either Charlie or Wonka. And with such a tragic outcome, it left Charlie with only one friend, a middle-aged recluse, and while he was grateful for everything Wonka did for him and his family, he thought he could not be blamed for doing what his mentor encouraged him to do, strive to make his reality even greater than it already was. Wonka had hired a private investigator to track down his estranged father, but he never acted on the information until Charlie accompanied him on a mission to make amends and Charlie often pondered whether he should do the same. He had already found Veruca, meaning the PI would only have to track down three more people, but he never had the courage to set up a meeting to begin the investigation and that was something he was starting to regret. Perhaps if he had reached out a year or two after the tour, they could have all came back and made peace with what had occurred behind the large, gray brick walls of the factory, and perhaps then Charlie could have had age-appropriate friends. Charlie might have been able to do all the things a kid was supposed to do like celebrate each of the winner's birthdays and have sleepovers in the Chocolate Room, but those days were long gone and impossible to do-over.

Chapter Text

As he wiped away a tear that had begun forming underneath his right eye over the passing of an unfulfilled childhood, Charlie noticed another pile of mementos in his drawer, clippings of pictures of the winners and of them and their guardians mostly standing outside the gates of the factory. Out of all of them, one picture caught Charlie's attention in particular, it was a group image of all ten guests lined up nicely, taken by one of the factory's security cameras in the courtyard as they watched the singing animatronics show before Wonka emerged out of nowhere and welcomed them inside his mysterious factory. One of Charlie's qualities that Wonka loved was his ability to pick up on a seemingly insignificant detail and explain it away as if it were the central piece tying everything together, and that was exactly what he did with this picture. Charlie noticed that if he started from the right and moved leftwards a particular order was established; Mr. Teavee stood at the end with his son Mike next to him, followed by Mrs. Beauregarde and Violet, then Mrs. Gloop and Augustus and finally Grandpa Joe and Charlie himself, but that was where the pattern stopped, and a new reality took form. The Salts were the only other family left to be accounted for, but instead of Mr. Salt standing next to Charlie, none other than Veruca stood at his side. Veruca stood slightly taller than Charlie, even though he was a bit older than her, a detail that put a smirk on Charlie's face when he contemplated it.

Another detail that made Charlie smile and feel all warm inside was the fact that while Mike and Violet physically distanced themselves from those around them, and while Augustus probably wanted to do that as well but couldn't due to the limited space between people and his larger-than-average span, Charlie and Veruca stood together in line literally rubbing elbows, and forearms and almost hands for that matter. That image of the sleeve of Charlie's worn-out flannel jacket rubbing up against the sleeve of Veruca's elegant silver mink coat perfectly symbolized the nature of their Yin and Yang relationship; both came from totally different worlds but nonetheless came together for this special event. The similarities could also be seen in their guardians, Mr. Salt and Grandpa Joe; both were gentlemen who were noticeably older than everybody else in the group and wore hats, gloves and three-piece suits under their overcoats. The only difference was while Mr. Salt's slick outfit declared affluence and prestige, Grandpa Joe's scruffy apparel was that of a man who, despite his lack of wealth, tried his best to present himself in the best possible light. Even though Charlie could recognize how ridiculous he sounded in moments like these, he never let that get in the way of his explanations. Was the fact that Charlie and Veruca stood side-by-side while the other winners were separated a mere coincidence? Most likely. Was Charlie's chance encounter with Veruca the night before a sign that there was a deeper meaning to an event that occurred nearly a decade and a half ago? Probably not. Would Charlie use this revelation to try and understand the strange feeling that drove him to interact with Veruca? Absolutely, one hundred percent.

For as long as Charlie knew him, Wonka never appeared to be much of a sentimental person, it was only after his sales plummeted following the contest that he reached out to Charlie for life advice. And even after his father died, Wonka did not mourn for long before jumping back into his routine, although most of that had to do with his lack of a relationship with the dentist. Unfortunately, the same could be said about the other contest winners; throughout the tour, the master chocolatier was rather rude to the other children, but whenever Charlie brought this up, he always retorted that they were even worse. Charlie also questioned whether decades of being locked inside the factory played a role in forming Wonka's terrible relationship with the other guests as his social skills were in a severe deficit. Such an attitude towards the other winners would make any kind of reunion nearly impossible if Wonka had the final word, but since Charlie had a say in what happened in the factory now, he knew that he had some leeway to manifest such an event into reality.

Charlie did not ask Wonka for much, and being honest, he often felt weird asking his benefactor for something after he had given him the world, but he ginned up the courage to ask for what he most desired, asking, "Wonka, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course, my dear boy, I'm all ears," Wonka replied, glad to have a chance to regain Charlie's confidence following his jokes being interpreted as taunts by his heir.

"I've been thinking lately. Next year is going to be the fifteenth anniversary of the Golden Ticket winner's factory tour, and I was thinking that maybe we could organize a reunion. You know, so that all the winners can get together and catch up on everything that has happened to everyone over the years," proposed Charlie, bracing for the rebuttal from Wonka he knew he would surely receive.

"You know what, yes Charlie, that sounds like a wonderful idea. And after that, we will take a trip down to Loompaland without any Snozzwanger mace. Hehe," Wonka sarcastically responded and then wrapped up with his signature faint nasal cackle.

While his laugh typically brought a smile to Charlie's face, Wonka noticed his heir just sat there with a serious look on his face, causing him to also become serious, and reply, "Oh, you're not joking. Well then, why would you ever ask such a ridiculous question?"

"Well, what if we didn't invite all of the winners? I mean, Veruca shouldn't live that far away, Buckinghamshire is on the other side of the city," Charlie retorted, hoping he could at least get this smaller concession from Wonka as his mentor was dead-set against a full reunion.

But, it was that request that turned Wonka into the indignant one in the conversation, sending him into a rant, declaring, "The Bad Nut! Especially not her! No, if she were to ever set foot inside my factory again, I would personally make sure the incinerator was properly working this time and throw myself down the garbage chute. No, scratch that! I'd throw her down the chute. It'll be less tragic for everyone that way."

"Oh Wonka, no need to be over dramatic, having her over wouldn't be that bad," Charlie pleaded, almost hurt because Wonka singled Veruca out as the one he never wanted to see again.

Yet, despite Charlie's calls for caution, Wonka was having none of it, adding with an almost dismissive tone in his voice, "But it would, my dear boy. Only Mumbler Mikey what'shisname would be a worst guest."

While Wonka felt confident about his decision, he noticed just how affected Charlie was by his comments, so he tried to alleviate some of his heir's discomfort, explaining, "Charlie, my dear boy. You must understand, they were rotten children when they first came here, and now they're fully grown beasts. Those are not the kinds of people we want infecting out creative space; it would not be good for our business, our future."

Charlie understood what Wonka was trying to say, it's not like the other Golden Ticket winners were choir members, but in order to hammer his view through his heir's head, Wonka evoked Charlie's most beloved deceased loved one, saying, "You know, I once had a conversation with your grandfather, and it confirmed what I always suspected. It takes a special kind of person to work at my factory, you and your Grandpa Joe before you shared many qualities with me. We can make something out of nothing, and we see things that are not there in the eyes of others. We have a sacred duty to use our superior skills to better this world and we cannot do that if we have the scum of the earth rubbing off on us. So, Charlie, please, I hope this is the last I hear of this reunion rummytot."

Wonka's invocation of Grandpa Joe really struck a chord with Charlie, he was surely not trying to be disrespectful to his benefactor nor did he want to do anything that might undermine the trust Wonka had in his contest winner. However, Charlie also knew his feelings were legitimate and needed to be respected, he was just not sure how to express them publicly.

With the tension in the room eased by the passing of time, Charlie recalled his plans for tomorrow, but he felt he needed Wonka's permission to go along with what he envisioned, to which he said, "Also...uh...Wonka. Um, I promised my new friend that I would accompany her furniture shopping tomorrow. I also promised I would bring a van with me to help transport the furniture to her home."

While they had spent the last few minutes in a heated debate, Wonka was caught off guard by such an uncomplicated dilemma, and simply responded, "Oh, well, that doesn't seem too harmful. Have some Oompa Loompas down in shipping accompany you with an empty truck. And why don't you take her some of our chocolates? I think she'll love them."

Charlie was glad he had Wonka's blessing to go forward, but instead of clarifying just who this friend was, he got up from his chair, and politely declared before walking out, "Thank you, and now if you'll excuse me, it seems I'm needed in the Inventing Room."

With Charlie out of the room, Wonka was left to ponder why his heir went from talking about his new friend to a Bad Nut like Veruca and back to his friend. If he did not know better, he would have assumed that they were one and the same, but refusing to believe that his heir could be so foolish to think The Bad Nut would make an appropriate partner, he vocalized his thoughts, saying, "No, it can't be. Can it? No, impossible. Charlie might be sweet, but he's not stupid."

Chapter Text

The journey from the office to the Inventing Room only took a few minutes via Areoscoot, and as soon as he arrived, Charlie was apprised of the situation by the chief Oompa Loompa of the room. As it turned out, while synthesizing crocodile tongues, a green bio-luminescent crystal-like substance that was gifted to Charlie by a mysterious man while out on a scouting mission for fantastical organisms, into a liquid, some of said liquid got on an Oompa Loompa's hand, causing it to grow. While the affected hand was now as big as a regular-sized human hand, the Oompa Loompa's hand was now bigger than his own head. The chief Oompa Loompa pleaded with Charlie to speak to Wonka to either get them better hazmat equipment or to consider shelving the project due to how dangerous working with the mysterious substance was. Charlie said he would discuss it with Wonka but made no promises either way, if there was something to be gained by studying the substance the workers in the Inventing Room would have to continue conducting experiments. This was the part of the job Charlie hated the most, telling others what to do, especially when the laborers stood against the task. He thought that years of watching Wonka order the Oompa Loompas to realize his dreams would rub off on him, but he was still that kind, considerate boy, even after all these years. Ironically, Charlie thought that if Veruca would have been the last Golden Ticket winner standing and became Wonka's heir, this would have been the part of the job she would have loved the most, barking orders and bossing people around. And the more he thought about it, the heir realized both of them only possessed one of two gifts needed to thrive while working at Wonka's factory, and opposing gifts at that; Veruca had the personality traits but not the temperament while Charlie had the temperament but not the personality traits.

If they would have worked together, perhaps one could have supplemented the area where the other was deficient in and made an interesting team along the way, but back in reality, it was up to Charlie to find a solution to the problem he faced. Perhaps he could get Wonka to discontinue the project, it would not have been the first time a promising invention had to be shelved. The life of an innovating confectioner included a lot of trial and error, mostly error, like the results of the large dismantled machine the Oompa Loompa's stored in the back of the Inventing Room. The machine which produced the Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum had long ago been taken out of commission when the Oompa Loompas, Wonka, and Charlie could not figure out a way to stop the chewer from turning into a blueberry. The project's expenses and the additional costs related to treating the gum's victims kept growing exponentially, and once there was no way for the product to become profitable, Wonka made the decision to terminate the project, something that didn't really bother him as he detested the texture of gum and the chewing sounds that accompanied it. Now, whenever one of the teams in the Inventing Room needed a specific part for a new machine, they would go to the old gum machine and strip it for whatever they needed, leaving only the outer husk and some internal gadgets remaining over a decade later.

As he walked around the black, steam-filled room full of gizmos and tables covered in Bunsen burners, retort flasks and Florence flasks to name a few, all the while black-clad Oompa Loompas maneuvered about transporting different chemicals and other materials to create the candies of the future, Charlie could only think about the greatest tragedy that occurred in this room. It was in this room during the tour that the uber-confident and downright cocky Violet Beauregarde went from being a future Olympian to a human blueberry in a matter of seconds. Each one of the Golden Ticket winners suffered a gruesome fate somewhere in the factory, giving rise to a tradition Charlie engaged in multiple times a week. Whenever he needed to clear his mind of something, Charlie would hop on his Areoscoot and visit the four rooms where the other contest winners were punished for their flaws. While it hardly came up in his mind, his family's house was just a few yards away from where the gluttonous Augustus Gloop fell headfirst into the chocolate river. The more Charlie thought about what happened to the chubby German kid, the more sinister the chocolate room felt, so he often preferred to block out that memory than to have to contemplate the truth about his neighborhood.

The Inventing Room was next on his journey, and he often ventured to this spot for official business, but also to cathartically relive the events of that fateful day. His next stop was actually much farther so instead of visiting the rooms in chronological order, after finishing up in the Inventing Room, Charlie decided to take a break from work, hopped back on his Areoscoot and took off for the former Television Room. It was just a few minutes until Charlie reached the spot where he was not just crowned the winner of the special prize, but also the room where he watched a human being get shrunk down to the size of a finger. When he entered this room, he always remembered to put on those bulky, white-framed and red-tinted goggles designed to protect the user from the blinding flashes of light that emanated out of the disintegrator as the process of what happened in the room had not changed much. It took Wonka a few more years after the tour to work out all the kinks of Television Chocolate, but by then the media landscape had already begun to change and it was up to Charlie to keep everything up with the times. By the time of the project's completion, the world had begun the transition from television to streaming and from boxes in the living room to phones in your pocket. Wonka, in true fashion, was stubborn when it came to researching wireless devices, he already thought TV was a waste of time, so he was not going to start cheering on an even easier way for people to become more idle.

It was only after Charlie begged Wonka to get with the times that the master chocolatier approved research and development of smartphones and tablets for business and personal use for factory employees, and that research eventually made its way down to the former Television Room. Nowadays, the Oompa Loompas stationed in this room build upon the science of Television Chocolate and adapted it to work on digital platforms. In conjunction with the Marketing Department, they had to condense their longer TV commercials into catchy five second clips so that the audience did not click on the Skip Ad link and not sample the product, and now they were working on solving the problem that comes along with delivering Wonka products though mediums of different sizes. The biggest headache for the Oompa Loompas in the former Television Room was figuring out a way to have someone using a smartphone, someone on a tablet and a laptop user all be able to pull out the same sized chocolate bar from their device of choice. With so much innovation happening in this one room, Wonka and Charlie attempted to rename the room the "Streaming Room" but that name never really caught on and an informal compromise was reached inside the factory by instead referring to the room as the "former Television Room."

There was one more stop on Charlie's pilgrimage, the infamous Nut Sorting Room, the spot where his reconnected acquaintance suffered a life-changing crisis. Unlike the other three rooms, the Nut Sorting Room did not undergo any significant changes following the tour all those years ago. Apart from new squirrels being added to the line after the older ones were retired, the location was still the same blue-and-white, swirled-floor, gated-off, squirrels-seated-about, garbage-chute-leading-to-the-incinerator room as before. It was only fitting that he saved this room for last, Charlie's encounter with Veruca gave him a glimpse into the reality the other Golden Ticket winner's lives after the tour of the factory instead of just what he imagined happened to them. The last he had seen of all of them was from above in the Great Glass Elevator with Wonka and Grandpa Joe beside him. He watched them all leave the factory having failed the secret test to become Wonka's heir and it was up to Charlie's mind to fill in the blanks from there on out. He always suspected that Mike and Violet left in the worst condition as they left the factory literally deformed; Violet would have to live with her blue skin forever and Mike could only hope puberty might bless him with muscle build up to make up for his ever-so-thin body. Augustus was a bit more ambiguous, but Wonka explained to Charlie that his time smeared in chocolate had left the confection stuck to his body, essentially casting a mold of chocolate around him. He most likely underwent countless surgeries to remove the stuff from his body after it began fusing to his skin, but even that could not be as bad as what the aforementioned two had to live with.

Looking back, Charlie thought Veruca had it the easiest out of all the other winners, all she needed to do was take a long, deep bath once she got home and then she could have gone back to her normal life. At worst, her mink coat had stewed in trash for so long she had to throw it out but compared to the others her pride would have literally hurt worse than her back. The heir thought the worst thing she had to endure was photographers snapping pictures of her and her father covered in trash, but that was before Charlie had met up with her as an adult and seen how she was living in the present day. Her excessive drinking was enough of a sign that she was suffering from some sort of emotional distress and the way she spoke at the bar made it sound as if there was a dynamic shift in her relationship with her father following the tour. So, while she exited the factory with only minor physical scratches and bruises, Veruca left the factory with scars on a psychological level, scars that are far more difficult to spot if you did not know to look for them.

Chapter Text

It only made sense that Veruca's trauma from the factory would have been psychological and not physical, for her elimination was easily the most disturbing of them all. While Mike and Violet's actions directly resulted in the tragedy that got them eliminated, the punishment they each endured was rather quick. And while Augustus' punishment took a bit longer to fully manifest, his elimination truly was an accident. Wonka told everyone that everything in the chocolate room was edible, so it was inevitable that someone would fall into the ungated chocolate river attempting to savor the lifeblood of the factory. Veruca's punishment on the other hand was the one that truly haunted Charlie, even after all these years. He remembered watching from the balcony above as Veruca walked down the flight of stairs and creeped towards the squirrels until, all of a sudden, they attacked her for invading their space. And if getting attacked by a swarm of large rodents wasn't bad enough, having them climb on top of and all around you and toss you down a garbage chute would surely cause a few nightmares, at least. Those few minutes, which felt more like hours to Charlie when it happened, had changed Veruca's life, as was clear from how she spoke about her father and her relationship with him for example. The Good Boy even hypothesized that the ordeal in the Nut Sorting Room had done something to Veruca's outlook on life, something he could see now that they had met up after so many years. There was fear behind those fiery blue eyes of hers and Charlie guessed alcohol was just the way she dealt with that fear as an adult.

As Charlie returned to his Areoscoot, he noticed the core of the apple he had ate for breakfast was still in the slot he left it in, now all brown after having been exposed to the elements without its skin. Seeing as he was next to one of the largest openings to the incinerator in the entire factory, Charlie picked up the apple core from its stem, walked over to the blue gate separating the balcony from the rest of the Nut Sorting Room, and chucked it down to the floor. While Charlie was by far one of the least talented pitchers in the world, Wonka's genius room design came in handy when the brown apple core landed on the blue-and-white swirled floor, yet at quite the distance from the chute opening, but then began to slide down the slanted floor all the way to the middle of the room where the core fell down the garbage chute just like all the bad nuts before it. With his garbage disposed of, Charlie was ready to head back to the office and get back to work, but before he could set foot on his Areoscoot, a disturbing noise emanating from down below caught his attention. Charlie walked over to the edge of the balcony and peered his head over the railing to get a better look at the Nut Sorting Room and to better hear the noises coming from inside it. While the squirrels toiled away, inspecting nuts for their quality, an unexplained noise echoed from the depths of the garbage chute. As time went on, what were once faint groans grew into distinct moans of pain, and then those moans grew into full-on words.

"Help! Save me!" A frightened child's voice cried out from beyond the opening of the chute, causing Charlie to shake his head as he hoped someone else had not fallen down the chute.

Following his head shaking, Charlie stopped hearing noises from the chute, but when he spotted an Oompa Loompa dressed in Nut Sorting Room yellow down below, he called out to him, and asked, "Did you hear that? Those screams, coming from the rubbish chute."

The Oompa Loompa took a quick glance at the chute, then gave Charlie a confused look and shook his head; he had heard nothing while he was down on the room floor doing maintenance work on the equipment. This really startled Charlie as it was not normal to hear a child's scream out of nowhere, not even in Wonka's wacky factory, and the only explanation he could come up with was that perhaps he inhaled one too many fumes in the Inventing Room. With the Oompa Loompa informing Charlie that he heard nothing, Charlie could only conclude the scream was all in his head, perhaps caused by something chemical in the factory or perhaps due to a lack of proper sleep the night before. Either way, Charlie had to shelve that odd experience away in the back of his mind and get back to the office in order to attend to his other duties. The rest of the day was business as usual, Charlie briefed Wonka on employee grievances, they read reports written by the Oompa Loompas from different rooms detailing the progress on the trials of their latest invention and they spitballed ideas for new candies. The day passed by like every other day in Charlie's life for the past couple of years, at this point it was almost monotonous, but at least he had a homecooked meal waiting for him every night to put a smile on his face.

Family dinners were a feast, or at least they appeared to be a feast in Charlie's mind, considering he grew up believing an extra loaf of bread was nothing short of a gift from God. Charlie's mother was a homemaker, she always stayed home to cook, clean and take care of Charlie's grandparents while Charlie's father ventured out of the factory every day to his job as a robotics technician at the Smilex Toothpaste factory down the road. Ever since Charlie became Wonka's heir, the family never again had to worry about food or money, the only reason Mr. Bucket did not quit his job was because he thought he would get bored spending all day at home. At the same time, Mrs. Bucket could now cook whatever she desired thanks to the massive indoor gardens, fields and ponds that raised all the food that Wonka and the Oompa Loompas ate, but she occasionally still made cabbage soup, mostly as a gag but also as an homage to the difficult times the family went through. Fortunately, the only real change in their appearance from when they first entered the factory to now was that they were a bit grayer now, but surely no longer having to worry about whether there would be food on table did wonders for their health and kept the worst effects of stress-related aging at bay.

Things had never been better for the Bucket family, except for the fact that their tiny shack was much emptier now. A few years after moving into the factory, Charlie's beloved grandfather, Grandpa Joe passed away, followed by his wife, Grandma Josephine a few years later, and after that his other grandfather, the ever-pessimistic, straight-shooting, no-nonsense and unfiltered Grandpa George, also joined his fellow bedmates two years after that. Fourteen years after they had moved into the factory, it was just the senile-but-sweet Grandma Georgina that remained of Charlie's grandparents. Charlie knew she would not be around for much longer, and while he could prolong her life, he knew she shouldn't have to live forever for his own sake, so he made sure to treasure the time he still had with her. Despite the loss of loved ones he suffered through, Charlie did gain a new family member as a result of him and his family moving into the factory. Since Wonka's only family was his aging father, Charlie agreed to move into his factory if Wonka agreed to become an honorary Bucket, something he eagerly accepted. It was Wonka who had the Bucket's old shack transplanted from the edge of town to the inside the Chocolate Room and he joined Charlie for family dinners every night. And now, with a couple of empty chairs lining the table following the passing of many of his grandparents, Charlie often daydreamed of one day filling those seats with new people. One day, Charlie would bring someone over for dinner and then her parents another day, filling up the three empty chairs, and of course, getting an opportunity to see the faces of all those people when they realized that the heir to the Wonka empire willingly lived in a rundown shack.

That night's dinner was excellent as always and the night was still young, but instead of chatting with Wonka and the others after the meal, he excused himself from the dinner table, climbed up a rickety latter to his room and went to bed early as he was so exhausted following a day of work on insufficient sleep from the night prior. His bedroom had not changed much from when he was a kid, Charlie had replaced his old cot with an actual bed frame and put in a single-sized mattress and a new pillow underneath a corner of the attic with a hole in the roof he made after his parents had patched up the hole that used to be over his bed following Charlie initially refusing to move into Wonka's factory and them needing to repair the damage the Great Glass Elevator had caused to their shack when the amazing chocolatier brought Charlie and Grandpa Joe home after the tour. Through this hole, he had a good view of a corner of the now-unilluminated chocolate room and all the magnificent sweets that grew there. And even though he now had enough money of his own to repair the existing house, expand on it, and build a new one altogether over and over again, Charlie promised himself that he would never do anything that would compromise the originality of the structure. This old, rundown shack was his childhood home, and despite undergoing many hardships here, he had so many good memories associated with it as well, and he would not forsake all of that just because he had all the money in the world now. And while he very much enjoyed Veruca's spacious and luxurious bed for a change, Charlie slept much more comfortably knowing he did not have a bed partner who could asphyxiate on their own vomit at any moment. And like every other night, Charlie was lulled to sleep by the sound of melted chocolate cascading down the chocolate waterfall and the scent of candies all around were the perfect catalyst for sweet dreams.

That was, until now...

Chapter Text

The view was fuzzy and all Charlie heard were the sounds of squirrels squeaking, nuts clanging and being chewed on by said squirrels in the distance, but then he heard these faint footsteps moving away from his ears and towards the squirrels. With everything appearing nebulous, it was no surprise that, at first, spoken words too were fuzzy. The first voice Charlie heard was a muffled man's voice who uttered three syllables rather rapidly, which was followed by a separate soft and concerned soothing voice saying something that he also could not quite decipher. The first muffled voice returned to say something else the Good Boy could not completely decipher, except this time Charlie was able to understand the last words the man spoke: at once. The only other thing notable about that voice voice was that it sounded stern but confused, almost as if the speaker were doing something he had never had to do before. As the voices began to become more comprehensible, the view became much clearer as well. Charlie realized that he was back in the Nut Sorting Room, but he was not his normal self, he was a child again, a child on a tour of Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory. To his left was his Grandpa Joe, still alive but not focused on him, to his right was Willy Wonka, along with the Teavees on the far right and Mr. Salt in between them and Wonka. Everyone was accounted for except for one person, Veruca, who Charlie now spotted standing on the floor of the room by spying her distinctive silver mink coat and the slinky curls of her brown hair she pulled back using two ornate hair clips. As it turned out, the muffled man's voice Charlie heard before was that of her father, who this time called her name to get her to come back and rejoin the rest of the tour group, but that was to no avail; the brat had found something more interesting and decided to pursue that instead of walking around a strange factory. Now, while it should have been enjoyable to be a kid again, after reassessing his situation the Good Boy realized what was happening right now; Charlie was reliving Veruca's punishment during the tour and all the emotions he felt at that moment all those years ago, feelings he thought he had repressed.

With an intruder on the ground floor, the squirrels stopped testing nuts for their quality and turned their attention towards Veruca, who was creeping slowly towards an individual squirrel she had marked for the pickings. Wonka knew this would only end one way if no one intervened, and even though Veruca was in no mood to listen to anybody else, the chocolatier still alerted her, "Little girl? Ey…don't touch that squirrel's nuts! It'll make him crazy!"

As expected, Veruca completely zoned out this warning and continued on her war path until she reached the squirrel she desired. By now, all the squirrels had focused their attention onto the little brute, they sized her up and sniffed her sent as they would to any other predator. The brat and the squirrel she had marked now stood in front of each other with both of them locking eyes, and even though the tension in the room could be felt all throughout the air, Veruca was still dead set on getting a squirrel as a pet, so reached out to grab her new pet, all the while proclaiming, "I'll have you."

That was her death sentence; the squirrel Veruca had marked jumped out of his seat and ran around her, easily startling the young girl. The rest of the squirrels came to the defense of their brother and joined in tormenting this trespasser, all the while, Charlie and the rest of the tour watched this karmic comeuppance from above where Mr. Salt once again called her name out to get her to come back, only this time the brat did listen. The Good Boy's attention was then drawn towards the victim's father, the nut magnate who nervously rattled the gate, almost hoping it would open, before turning to Wonka for help. The Lucky Boy then turned to face his Grandpa Joe, who was also mesmerized by what was going on below, before turning back to his right where he saw Wonka's response to the tragedy unfolding below, a large, full jingling key ring and a factory owner unsure which one to use. Back down below, the squirrels came from all sides of the room and descended on one point, the ostentatious girl with fear on her face rushing backwards towards the stairs while she swatted away the bushy-tailed rodents jumping all over her and scratching her.

For a brief second, as she turned around to face the stairs after her father called her name out again, the stairs she hoped to reach in order to escape the hoard of beasts pursuing her, both Veruca and Charlie locked eyes with each other. Needless to say, the typically prissy little princess looked rather awkward as she tried to escape, her mouth hung wide open and the slinky curls of her hair were flailing about in the air as she rushed backwards, but unlike the unbridled rage he received from her in her Penthouse, this time they connected on an emotional level, and all Charlie saw behind those big blue eyes was a mortified child begging for help. But help did not come, the squirrels began amassing around and on top of Veruca so fast that it almost looked as if rats were crawling all over her, leaving her with even more heightened anxiety levels denoted by her loud breaths. Unsurprisingly, the little girl whimpered and cried as she tried to swat the rodents away and the whole experience clearly left Veruca feeling nauseous, but even more intriguing, Charlie was experiencing the same sensations of disgust and unease at the exact same time.

The squirrels did not care who felt what, they just wanted to defend their space from intruders, and that's what they did when they quickly overpowered Veruca and slammed her down to the floor. Mr. Salt tried his hand again at magically opening the gate by shaking it, but the stress-relieving exercise did nothing to get him closer to his daughter who was in pain, and all he could do was call out her name another time from above. The brat called out for her Daddy and he called her name once more while Wonka kept on trying to open the locked gate with different keys, but to no avail. Even as Veruca kept on whimpering and crying as the rodents latched onto every edge of her body, the following events deeply disturbed Charlie as they must've also certainly traumatized Veruca for life. The squirrels began maneuvering Veruca into a position advantageous for any aggressor; Limb by limb, the squirrels began stretching Veruca's appendages out to keep her from swatting them, but even more fiendishly, they pinned her down to keep her from moving all together. They started with her right arm, then jumping to the left, and proceeding to do the same with her right leg and the left one after that. Most revolting was the split second when the squirrels spread Veruca's legs out, Charlie felt the same stomach-churning sensation that caused Veruca to lift her head up from the floor and see what was going on, fortunately none of them were treated to that most abhorrent of acts associated with such a physical manipulation of the body by an aggressor. The squirrels seemed to have won the battle, Veruca was successfully pinned and no one from the tour had yet to venture down to the floor of the Nut Sorting Room to help her because Wonka hadn't yet found the key to open the gate, something that obviously didn't stop Veruca from calling for help.

"Daddy, I want them to stop," Veruca cried out in a tone that sounded so relaxed, most likely because fear had overpowered her ability to overreact as she often did.

Mr. Salt was clearly on edge watching his daughter get attacked by waves and waves of squirrels but what really startled Charlie was Wonka nonchalantly testing different keys to see which one would open the gate. Charlie almost wanted to grab the key ring out of Wonka's gloved hands, pick a key at random, scream It's this one and have the gate unlock and swing wide opens. Mr. Salt had tried to open the gate by shaking it so many times by now, but that failed to deliver results, the only way he would be getting to the floor of the Nut Sorting Room would be by overcoming the obstacle created by the entry gate. Unfortunately, he was too big to slip in through one of the gaps in the gate like Veruca did to get into the room and it would not be safe for him to try and scale the gate as he was a man who had officially entered advanced age the year prior, meaning that if he made a wrong move, he could find himself tumbling down the narrow staircase and severely injuring himself. All he could do was watch as the squirrels pinned his daughter down and as the squirrel that started this whole ordeal jumped on Veruca's chest and treaded carefully towards her head where he began to sniff the structure, clearly disgusting Veruca, then knock on her forehead and place his ear next to it to get a better sense of what was inside the little brute's head.

Charlie's entire body had long ago become paralyzed with fear, he was as stiff as a board just like Veruca was down below, and all he could do was ask nervously, "What are they doing?"

"They're testing to see if she's a bad nut," Wonka replied without shifting his attention from the attack occurring below.

That was when the squirrel Veruca marked had concluded his examination and simply made a disconcerting squealing noise, leading Wonka to somberly declare, "Oh, my goodness. She is a bad nut after all."

The climax had passed, now all that was left was the descend, literally. With a single look, the squirrel upon Veruca signaled his kind to begin transporting their catch to her destination. The squirrels began to crawl underneath her in order to move her, thus looking even more like rats from Charlie's point of view, and the only response Veruca's fear-paralyzed body could muster were these whimpering and gasping sounds that were barely audible up on balcony where the rest of the tour group was. Mr. Salt called out her name one more time, but all the brat could do was call back for her Daddy, leading her father to ask, "Where are they taking her?"

Without any hesitation, Wonka gave the nut magnate a quick glance before refocusing his attention down below, and replied, "Where all the other bad nuts go, to the garbage chute."

As Charlie watched Veruca regain some of her motor skills and begin kicking her legs like she did during one of her fits, Mr. Salt made it clear he was not content with Wonka's response, he needed Wonka to elaborate, which is why he then asked, "Where does the chute go?"

"To the incinerator," Wonka responded, cold and unmoved by the dreadful situation this father, and more importantly, that young girl, was put in, and oddly enough, a bit gleeful, quite the opposite of Mr. Teavee and especially Mr. Salt's horrified reactions.

"But don't worry. We only light it on Tuesdays," he added, attempting to ease the tension in the room, but that comment only served to stress out the nut magnate even more as he remembered a crucial fact.

And unlike Charlie who could not move like the victim below, Mike had no qualm about ignoring Veruca's plight and instead turned to face the amazing chocolatier, and clarified in that most smug tone of his, "Today is Tuesday."

Wonka was in no mood for dissent, he quickly gave Mike a disgusted sneer and quickly returned to play the role of the optimist, something even he wasn't buying, yet still suggested, "Well, there's always the chance they decided not to light it today."

It was at that moment that every memory Mr. Salt had of Veruca flashed before his eyes, every moment of self-aggrandizement, every demand, every tantrum was on full display for him as it had all led to this. As Veruca continued to be dragged towards the mouth of the garbage chute by the hoard of squirrels, whimpering and wheezing loud enough for the Good Boy to hear her from a distance, Charlie could also sense something strange emanating from the victim's father. The fear in Mr. Salt's expression from the moment the squirrels first pounced on his daughter and especially after hearing Veruca would be heading to the incinerator was real, but his fear was not that of dreading the loss of someone, but the loss of something. The nut magnate almost felt as if he was being deprived of some sort of achievement or some other abstract concept that was not love for your child. By now, it was clear to Veruca that no one was coming to save her as she looked up to face the others one last time, she tried to stop the squirrels from proceeding forward by dragging her fingernails across the floor to create some traction but that did not seem to work. This excruciatingly long punishment had dragged on for far too long, but it was about to come to an end. The squirrels had finally reached the garbage chute and those in front began to scatter as to not accidentally fall down that dark, unforgiving abyss. When Veruca had looked up to face the audience of her fellow tour members one last time she again locked eyes with Charlie, who felt his heart racing as fast as hers and his muscles tense up as tight as her own. Neither of them wanted this to happen, but as Veruca began her descent down the garbage chute all Charlie felt he could do was to scream, and that is what he did.

"Noo…aah!" Charlie screamed as he woke up from his nightmare, accidentally smacking his head on one of the ceiling beams that would have held the roof shingles in place had he not removed them in order to create his makeshift skylight. He was no longer in the Nut Sorting Room and he was no longer a child, he was back to being his normal self, well, as normal as one could be after having been through what he had experienced.

Chapter Text

As he moaned in pain, Charlie straightened himself out in his small bed carefully so as to not bump himself on the head again, and thus he no longer faced the hole in the ceiling but the side of his bed leading to the stairs that took him to the floor below. One of the bad things about living in the same attic space he did from when he was a kid was that Charlie often hit his head on the ceiling beams whenever he recklessly got up too fast. Especially in cases such as these when he woke up from a Trogglehumper, what Wonka would call a nightmare, and had no time to regulate his reaction from frightening fantasy to reality. With his hand over his eyes, he saw nothing as he tried to alleviate the pain, but all of that changed the second after he moved his hand down and saw what was in front of him now. There she was at the foot of his bed, Veruca, still a child, like in the nightmare Charlie just woke up from, but far from the polished little lady he wandered throughout the factory with all those years ago. Her face was smudged with dark ash, her hair was all tangled, and she was covered in weeks' worth of factory trash from head to toe. The stench was horrendous, but still not as stomach-churning as her posture and expressions. She had her arms extended towards Charlie with her palms wide open while the bottom portion of her face seemed to be in pure ecstasy. She opened her wide mouth and put on a huge smile, flashing those perfect pearly teeth of hers and accentuating her already well pronounced cheekbones even more. It was the same face Veruca made when she pretended to be a nice little girl for Wonka as her father tried to purchase one of his squirrels for her, and Charlie also thought this must have been what the squirrel she marked to be her pet must have seen before he and the others jumped her. This clearly fake expression of joy had taken up her entire face, well, every part except for her eyes. While her eyes were wide open, like how an exited child's eyes might get, Veruca's eyes had tears coming out of them and running down her cheeks. There was no joy in those eyes, no hope of getting a trained squirrel as a pet, there was only deep trauma in that sea of blue.

Charlie only caught a glimpse of her for a second before the girl with food, wrappings, and other discarded items trapped in her messy hair and on her once luxurious mink coat began to ask in that refined, and rather nasal, child's voice of hers, "Why didn't you save me?"

Veruca then began to approach Charlie with her arms extended, her palms wide open and ready to latch onto him once she got close enough. And it was when that, all of a sudden, Charlie panicked and hid himself under his blanket, rolling up into a fetal position right under his skylight and lied under his blanket like a child spooked during a nighttime thunderstorm. He lied there, frozen in terror at the impossibility he just witnessed, and waiting for whatever that thing was to begin clawing at his back and most likely feast on his soul. But fortunately, nothing laid a single finger on him, and after amassing enough courage to peer beyond the blanket, Charlie carefully turned around and lowered the blanket from his face and was in awe at what he saw; nothing. There was no one standing next to his bed anymore, Veruca was gone. He summoned more courage to move farther away from the skylight and began looking down the side and under his bed and there was nothing there. Charlie knew what he had seen, what he smelt, Veruca was there with him, he was sure of it and he needed to find her. He put on some slippers and climbed down the stairs only to find a house devoid of a stinky little girl wandering about. He then ran outside to the Chocolate Room to investigate and found no signs of anything out of the ordinary.

With no natural explanation for what had just occurred, Charlie came to believe that he must have still been asleep, causing him to repeatedly blurt out, "I must be dreaming, I must be dreaming."

Convinced there was a chance he was still asleep, Charlie rushed over to the side of his house to kick it in order to wake himself up, but once he kicked the shack and all that happened was that he felt a painful, pulsating sensation rush through his right foot, Charlie simply screamed out, "I'm not dreaming, that's real! I'm not dreaming!"

Charlie walked with a limp until he found a spot on the Swudge grass where he could sit down and take off his slipper to examine his foot. For the most part, his foot appeared fine, but he would not be surprised if his big toe turned purple by morning. He now knew he was awake, but that realization did not bring Charlie peace as he knew what he had seen. Veruca was not a little girl anymore, but her child-self was at the foot of Charlie's bed just a few minutes ago. Could his mind be playing tricks on him? Perhaps, but her presence was so real, Charlie could literally smell her. If that encounter was not mind-bending enough, Charlie was not about to forget the nightmare he just woke up from. What are the chances that before a dirty Veruca appeared to Charlie in his room, he would have relived the moment that got her all mangy in the first place? That was an odd question to ask himself, hell, it had been an odd night, but as Charlie though it over he quickly remembered something from the day before which also left him feeling bewildered. The more he replayed the scene of Veruca in his room in his mind, it became clear to Charlie that he had heard her child voice the day before in the Nut Sorting Room.

The voice Charlie heard of Veruca talking to him in his room was the same voice screaming for help from inside the garbage chute. The Veruca that appeared to Charlie had all the trappings of someone who had fallen into a backed-up incinerator, and he was also the only person who heard her speak as the Oompa Loompa on the floor of the room heard nothing. There were just too many parts that fit so perfectly together for all of this to have been a huge coincidence, something was going on. But what was going on exactly? Was Charlie losing his mind? He knew that spending his formative years inside the factory with Wonka had helped in resulting in him growing up to be even more odd and uncomfortable around others than he was when he first moved into the factory, but could he have also picked up the madness which drove Wonka to pursue the impossible? Charlie didn't know if he was going crazy or not, nor did he want to find out, but he couldn't get the image of the young Veruca with that crazed expression, which looked as if she was preparing to lunge at him, out of his head. Nor could Charlie rid that simple question she asked him while she was in front of him out of his head; Why didn't you save me? It was not a question Charlie had an answer for, but it was one that bothered him the more it simmered in his mind.

As Charlie pondered over her words and cross-referenced them with his memories from the tour, he eventually made a startling realization he had somehow not picked up on after all these years, and so he somberly vocalized, "I didn't save her...I didn't save her. How can I go around and let people call me a selfless person when I didn't save her?"

This realization truly his Charlie hard, his entire personality was based around being a good person, but as it turns out he failed to do the right thing at a moment when it truly mattered. Sure, he was paralyzed by fear as he sensed what Veruca was experiencing down below, but even Charlie was not convinced that that was an acceptable excuse. By not doing the right thing, he enabled the squirrels to throw Veruca down the garbage chute and cause lasting damage to her, and what was even worse was that Veruca truly was the only one of the four other Golden Ticket winner whose punishment he could have stopped. Augustus fell in the chocolate river but was out of reach to pull out, and it was not like Charlie had a large lollipop or something for Augustus to grab onto in order to pull him out. Violet was fine for a while as she chewed the Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum, that was until she reached the third course but by then it didn't matter if Charlie pried her mighty jaw open and pulled the gum out with his bare hands, she was still going to suffer the effects of the experimental candy. And as for Mike, he pushed everyone out of the way and bolted so fast to the teleporter that Charlie could have only responded by the time the cynical child was already floating in the containment tube and the disintegrator went off, thus sending him whizzing through the air into the TV. Comparing all those punishments to Veruca's, she spent minutes being under attack from the squirrels and Charlie could have gone down there at any moment to put a stop to it, but he did not.

She was pinned down for a long time and Charlie could have gone down to help but he too was so paralyzed by fear that he could not do anything. As Veruca got swarmed by rodents down below, Charlie the Good Boy did nothing, absolutely nothing. All he did was watch the torture for minutes on end and the only excuse he had for not getting involved was that he froze up, and what kind of response is that? This realization only hurt more the longer he recounted the events of the tour of Wonka's factory and though them through. If he was going to be a hero and save one of the other Golden Ticket winners, it was going to be Veruca as she was the only one who wasn't mean to him throughout the tour. Augustus played that odious prank on Charlie where he got the poor boy's hopes up by pretending to want to share his chocolate, Violet called him a loser, and Mike slammed down his theory about candy, and to an extent, Charlie himself, by calling it all stupid. Veruca was the only Golden Ticket winner who never called him names, who never teased him, nor did she ever give him a dirty look, all the bad things she did that day to the other kids. Sure, she most likely spared Charlie her wrath that day because he was all too easy to ignore and she had even greater targets to take out if she wanted to win the special prize, but the ever-positive-thinking Charlie preferred to believe Veruca just had no hate for him in her heart. Even now that Charlie and Veruca had had a one-on-one encounter that predictably ended rather tense, Charlie chose to believe that it was the alcohol making her so vile against him and not her rotten personality. It was one of Charlie's biggest flaws that he often tried to see the best in people, even when they demonstrated that they didn't deserve it, but he also never gave up hope that others would unleash the good in themselves, and Veruca was no exception.

Chapter Text

While Veruca might have grown up to become an entitled misanthrope with alcohol-related impulse control issues, Charlie knew that underneath that rough exterior lied a little girl, still terrified by the memory of squirrels amassing around her, who just needed a hug, he just knew it. Charlie now realized he had to reach Veruca somehow, he had to make up for his own failings, and the more he thought about it, he realized he had to make it up to the other winners as well. The only reason he won Wonka's factory was because all the other kids got disqualified, and Charlie could not live knowing that the other kids had to suffer in order for him to have won the factory. The Good Boy agreed that one of his first acts of business in the morning would be to look into hiring a private investigator to track down the other Golden Ticket winners, perhaps even the same one that Wonka hired to find his father. He knew Wonka probably still had his number lying around since the master chocolatier had told him that he had a personal relationship with the investigator, but Charlie would also have to make sure the investigator would not reach out to his old friend and inform him of his new assignment. Nevertheless, Charlie knew where one of his fellow Golden Ticket winners was and despite all of the bad experiences he had with her, including just a few minutes ago, he was going to do the right thing and reach out, even if she hesitated to respond the whole time.

Getting a good night's sleep in the same room where a trash-covered person, who was really now an adult, appeared to you in child form just a few minutes prior was a challenge, but it was Charlie's only option other than bunking with Grandma Josephine. But eventually, the night passed and with morning came a new day. Charlie followed his routine as usual, albeit with a bit more excitement than usual because he would be doing something different in the afternoon. He had asked two Oompa Loompas in the Shipping Department to accompany him on a journey to the outside world, literally off the beaten path they took every day transporting Wonka Candies from the factory to the domestic and Irish distributing warehouse and Heathrow Airport to ship them to their many other distributing warehouses and then to their individual distributors all over the globe. Wonka chose the 1961 Bedford J2 as his preferred mode of transporting goods out of the factory, he chose the trucks first produced when he was still a toddler around the time he first opened his factory, and like a Cuban mechanic, he always found a way to keep those classic vehicles running even after being on the road for almost 60 years. That ingenuity came in handy because after he replaced local workers with Oompa Loompas, Wonka had to reengineer the cabin of the trucks so that the miniature humans could drive the vehicle to and from their destination.

While two Oompa Loompas followed him in one of the old, faded cherry red trucks he used to watch leave Wonka's factory every day as an impoverished child, Charlie knew he had to arrive in style if he wanted to capture the attention of the toffee-nosed Veruca. Arriving in the Great Glass Elevator would surely qualify as haughty, but it might be too much for a first trip out, so he decided to go with his second option. When it was time for Charlie to learn how to drive, Wonka commissioned a vehicle based on the luxurious Audi A8L for his heir. Charlie kept his gift in good condition as he hardly ever drove it, he really only used it when he had business somewhere in London, and the farthest he'd ever driven his car was the Low Countries on the mainland. The car looked so much like its inspiration, the only way you could differentiate them would be by looking at the logo of the vehicle's grill, it was not the four unified rings of the original but the decorative W of the commissioner's initial and brand logo. Both Charlie and the Oompa Loompas exited through the front gates of the factory with Charlie leading the charge for the next 45 minutes until they reached The Stourton Block in City of London. Charlie told the Oompa Loompas to sit still until he came back with his friend, who he assured them would be stepping out any second now, but the reality was that he had not heard from Veruca since the moment he left her penthouse in a rush because he was late for work. He gave her his business card with his phone number on it, but she had not called him back. Sure, she threw it to the side, but that did not mean she couldn't have picked it up later and dialed the number, right?

After waiting outside the building for five minutes, having yet to receive a call from Veruca, let alone see her come out of the building, Charlie was starting to get worried she might never come down. If true, not just had he brought these Oompa Loompas down to the heart of the city for nothing, but he might also not get the opportunity to reunite with this particular Golden Ticket winner as he desired. Now, he was not going to let that happen, so Charlie grabbed his personal items from his car and walked into the lobby of the building in hopes of letting Veruca know he was out here waiting for her. Unfortunately, as he remembered, he needed a key card to access the building's elevator, but luckily the concierge was behind his desk, waiting to attend anybody who needed help. As Charlie got closer, he noticed the concierge was the same one who attended him when he first brought Veruca home from Fenston's. He was a lanky, dark-skinned man with dark curly hair styled in a flat top and a bright smile who wore a navy-blue three-piece suit uniform.

Overall, the look was quite similar to what Charlie was wearing, except he ditched the jacket and tie and wore a dark vest with gray trousers and a white dress shirt. He rarely dressed this formal, usually only when he was out of the factory on business, but he didn't want to stick out like a sore thumb to the high-end clientele that would shop at whatever luxury store Veruca would have in mind of visiting. That was probably the worst thing Charlie had to go through as the heir to the Wonka empire, mingling with the elite; sure, he was destined to inherit billions, but he was not brought up in those circles and only really knew the customs of the urban underclass. He often felt very uncomfortable at business events surrounded by Oxford and Cambridge-educated trust fund babies, especially during social mixers when he had a front row seat to their rants about how ungrateful the lower classes were for demanding more benefits and a bolstering of social services. At first, he thought Veruca would fit in well with such a crowd, but Charlie knew deep down there was something different about her, he just needed to help her unleash it.

Charlie reached the concierge's desk and leaned across the counter to introduce himself, saying, "Greetings."

The clean-cut concierge stood up from his desk to face Charlie, and replied, "Good day, Sir. You were with Miss Veruca the night before last, correct?"

Charlie smiled when the concierge recognized him as becoming chummy with him would aid him in his plan, and so he built off this fact, adding, "Indeed, that was me. I've come back to take her furniture shopping, but she hasn't seemed to have dialed me back. If you could, my good sir, open the lift doors and send me up to her Penthouse. I know you need a key card, but I don't have one."

Unfortunately, the heir had run out of luck, the concierge's face became dead serious with such a request, leading him to respond, "I'm sorry sir, but without a key card I can't allow you inside the lift. Only if the tenant informs the concierge's desk of a visiting guest ahead of time and I do not see a note of that kind from Miss Veruca."

With the concierge looking down at his computer for the last part of his response, Charlie leaned on the counter to be at eye level with the other man, and begged him, "Please, is there any way you could help me out? I can't seem to get in contact with her."

"Since I know you two know each other, let me dial her myself and I'll inform her of your presence. You're name, sir?" The concierge responded, asking for the guest's personal information.

"Charlie, Charlie Bucket," the Good Boy replied solemnly.

"Very well Mr. Bucket," the concierge said as he picked up his desk phone and called Veruca, all the while unsure if the little brute would even answer her phone.

Chapter Text

It was very much uncommon for the concierge to call a tenant just to let them know someone was down in the lobby waiting for them, in fact this was the first time he had called Veruca for something other than to let her know that a large package was about to be delivered via elevator. Then again, this was the first time that the concierge had the head of one of the largest candy companies at his desk asking for his help, so every day was like an adventure for this front desk attendant. As one of the people working at the front entrance of The Stourton Block, he had a front row seat to many things, but nothing as memorable as watching Veruca leave her penthouse only to return completely bog- faced after a night out. Although sometimes, she was already chemically unbalanced when she left the apartment block and returned in an even worse condition, as was the case two nights prior when Charlie had to carry her all the way to her bed. While Veruca had needed assistance getting home after hitting the bars before, never before had the concierge seen someone help the little brute with genuine care in their heart until he saw Charlie do exactly that. For that reason, he trusted the Good Boy when he said that Veruca was expecting him so that the two could go furniture shopping, but that he needed the concierge's help to let the little brute know that he was waiting for her down in the lobby. And because protocol prohibited him from allowing the Good Boy to get in the elevator to visit a tenant who had not been cleared by the tenant prior, he found a work-around, and so the man behind the counter picked up his desk phone and dialed the little brute's phone.

It rang for a bit until the receiver answered the call, and that was when the concierge began to speak graciously to the person on the other end, saying, "Greetings, Miss Veruca, this is Herp from the concierge's desk, it's a pleasure to be speaking to you this evening."

After hearing such a name be uttered, Charlie noticed the concierge wore a name tag that claimed his name was Herp, such an odd name, he thought. Meanwhile, Herp focused on Veruca responding to his call, to which he added, "Well, a Mr. Charlie Bucket is waiting for you down here on ground floor. Will you be going furniture shopping with him this evening, or should I send him on his way?"

Veruca's voice made its way out of the phone, but it was too mumbled for Charlie to decipher what she was saying, and all he saw was Herb put on a fake smile, and gleefully respond, "Alright, I'll let him know, take care Miss Veruca."

The call was over, yet Charlie didn't know what Veruca had said, meanwhile all Herb did was rest his desk phone and responded by whispering to himself, yet still loud enough Charlie could hear him utilizing slang from his ancestral land, saying, "Yea mon, she is a mouthful."

Herb then looked up at Charlie with a much more natural pleasant expression on his face, and informed him of Veruca's decision, and even more importantly the state of the Good Boy's standing with the little brute, stating, "She said she's getting ready, it'll just be a few minutes."

"Thank you so much," Charlie replied, nervously chuckling as he was overcome with relief and joy, it seemed the heir did end up getting through to Veruca in the end.

A few minutes passed and Veruca had yet to come down from her Penthouse, but Charlie didn't want to ask Herp to call her again, he did him that one favor and he wasn't going to ask him for another one so soon after the first one. Instead, Charlie decided it would be best to try and cultivate a relationship with the concierge during this time as he did not know if he would need his help again. The Good Boy then turned to point at the concierge's chest, and said, "I see your name tag says Herp. I thought it was a typo for Herb or something, but then I heard you refer to yourself as Herp. May I know your real name, good sir?"

This was a question that the concierge hated answering because he had long grown exhausted of having to explain his full name to all of those who learned it. Nevertheless, his job meant he was at the disposal of the tenants and their guests, so he complied and answered the question. And so, Herp took a deep breath and looked around to see if anyone else was around, and when he saw that there was nobody else in the lobby, he responded directly to Charlie, "If you must know, my full name is Herpes Trout, but most people just call me Herp."

"How'd you get that name?" Charlie responded, sounding surprised; a bit too surprised as he also had difficulties regulating his emotions during small talk considering how little time he spent with people outside the factory.

Herp had told this story to people who had asked him what his full name was and obviously had follow-up questions so many times before that he essentially had a script in his head ready for times like these, and so he explained, "Well, my mother told me she wanted to name me Hermes, but when she was at hospital giving birth, she got so exhausted giving birth that she was drowsy by the end of the whole ordeal. When the nurse came in and asked my mom what name she had decided on for her newborn son, her tiredness combined with her accent cocked-up the nurse and what she wrote on the birth certificate, and well, I got Herpes."

After sharing such a fascinating story, the two men just stood there in awkward silence, Charlie then looked around the lobby as well, and then blurted out some advice, "Maybe don't say the last part like that next time someone asks why you have that name."

Standing in awkward silence was not new for Charlie, it seemed to happen every time he left the factory and interacted with someone else, so the feeling he got while spending his time at the concierge's desk with Herp was nothing new to him. The clock had struck 5 PM yet Veruca was nowhere to be seen, nor did she appear in the minutes following. Charlie even began to wonder whether she was even going to come down at all, even though Herp called her and informed her the Good Boy was waiting for her down in the lobby. That was something he could not bear to contemplate, but luckily those fears were just the result of a mind that often catastrophized the smallest of problems. Eventually, the elevator bell rang, indicating the passenger had reached the lobby, and when the doors swung wide open out came Veruca, all dolled up and ready to head out. She wore a pair of reddish-brown high-waisted pants, a black and pink vertically-striped top, white flats, and of course a fur coat; this one being a tannish-white rabbit's fur, an optimal fur when the wearer did not need that much warmth from the coat. Surprisingly, she also wore a pair of big, black sunglasses indoors, and with her curled brown hair hanging down Charlie could not make out much of her face.

As she strolled out of the elevator, clutch purse in hand while her arms swung back and forth at her waist, she walked past Charlie and marched on towards the door, telling him, "It's seven past five, you're late."

"I've been waiting for you on ground floor for the past fifteen minutes, Veruca," Charlie replied, but not in a confrontational tone, more as if he were asking for forgiveness, something he did not need to ask for as he was not the one who was running late, nor did Veruca plan on dispensing forgiveness as she continued walking towards the door without responding to the Good Boy's clarification.

"So, you showed up at my apartment building, even after I didn't dial you back?" Veruca asked, sounding sort of indignant, all the while invoking the Americanism for block of flats which had also begun to imply something more high-end in Britain. However, Charlie was surely not going to shame her for such a thing as he too had a soft spot for the Yank term candy instead of the British sweets.

As the doorman opened the door for Veruca and her guest, Charlie attempted to ease the tension by nobly responding, "Of course, I made you a promise that I'd take you furniture shopping today and I'm a man of my word."

Without turning to face him as she continued walking outside, all Veruca did was smirk at Charlie's claim of chivalry, and retorted, "I assume that's what Mohammed Jaffar said to Taylor Swift when he did the same thing."

Charlie did not get the reference, but from the sound of her tone it probably was not a compliment, yet he didn't want to get into an argument and loose this valuable opportunity to reconnect over some trivial comment. He guided her to his car where he saw her cheeks perk up, almost as if she were smiling, but without being able to see her eyes Charlie could not fully interpret her expression. However, her expression soon returned to her typical displeased smirk when she noticed Charlie getting into the driver's seat. Charlie noticed this change and watched her stand next to the passenger seat door for a bit before Veruca let out a fake cough and he realized what was going on, she was expecting him to open the door for her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, where are my manners," Charlie said as he rushed over to the left side of the car and held the door open for his guest.

With Veruca inside, he closed the door and rushed back to the driver's seat, but not before signaling to the Oompa Loompas in the red truck behind them that they were ready to go. Once inside, Charlie noticed Veruca's interests were heightened once again as she took in all the details in his car. She ran her hands across the dashboard, feeling the material through the tips of her fingers and signaling her approval by nodding her head ever so slightly. Since the moment Charlie first learned of Veruca, he knew she was the kind of girl who enjoyed the finer things in life, exactly the type of girl he knew he had to stay away from if he didn't want to have everything he earned swiped right out from under him, at least that was the narrative most people operated under. But despite her personality running contrary to what he needed in his life at first glance, Charlie was still convinced that there was some good in Veruca, even if it was buried under piles of greed and envy. After all, the Good Boy knew that not even the worst child deserved to undergo what Veruca went through in the Nut Sorting Room and so it was now up to him, as heir to the Wonka fortune, to make up such a traumatic moment in Veruca's eyes.

Chapter Text

From what he had seen all around her penthouse, Veruca's desire for everything she owned to proclaim elegance had not come to an end following her decent down the garbage chute, for her home was littered with ornate decorations and just as beautiful furniture. The Good Boy remembered the broken sofa in the living room, and while it looked nice beyond the damage requiring her to purchase a new one, it had a much more slim and modern look to it for Charlie to have called it ornate. The little brute appropriately blended the traditional interior decorative aesthetic that made up her opulent, upper-class childhood home with a modern touch so that she could better relate to and feel more comfortable in her personal realm. All of that stood in sharp contrast to Charlie who still lived in the rundown shack of his childhood and virtually all the fine items he owned had the additional caveat of being zany and eccentric since they came directly from the twisted mind of Willy Wonka. This interesting difference raised many thoughts inside Charlie's mind as he got back inside his car, but none more urgent than where Veruca wished to go shopping, he literally had no idea where he was taking her, and he had to find out where or they would be spending their evening just outside Stourton inside the heir's car.

So, as he turned on the ignition of his car, Charlie turned to face Veruca in order to uncover their destination, and asked, "So, tell me, Veruca, where is it we're headed?"

"There's a shop in Chelsea, Coûteux. We're going there," she responded, still refusing to make eye contact with her utmost generous driver, and instead choosing to continue examining the luxury vehicle's amenities. And, if the lack of politeness wasn't enough of a sign that the brat had not changed even after all these years, it seemed that her preference in furniture, and all her other goods in general, came from one of the most affluent districts in one of the wealthiest cities in the world. This little excursion was surely gearing up to be an interesting yet unsurprising look into the little brute's lifestyle.

Eventually, the little brute grew bored of examining Charlie's car and instead wanted to listen to music. She reached for the car stereo and flipped it on only to learn that stick-in-the-mud Charlie listened to an informal news radio show while driving, in which the host could be heard reporting, "Now in international news, President Crump of the United States received an unfavorable ruling in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this week ordering him to comply with subpoenas issued by the U.S. House of Representatives for his personal financial records. The President, as usual, vented to reporters on the White House lawn following the judge's ruling, ranting about how unfair the American judicial system was and how supposed actors lurking in the shadows and at the highest levels of the government were conspiring against him and what he proclaimed to be the 'most terrific administration in the history of this country.' The President has appealed the case to a higher court, but the case is expected to only be finally adjudicated after reaching and having a decision on the case dispensed by the U.S. Supreme Court."

As the news was always ripe for jokes and such material could ease the tensions in the car, Charlie tried his hand at humor, stating, "I once heard a joke that the Canadian Prime Minister, Tristan Goudeau, speaks the King's English while Crump speaks Queens Douchebag."

Charlie put on a smile while Veruca just stared at him, not adjusting her unimpressed expression at all, leading the driver to attempt and save the joke by explaining, "You get it? Because he is from Queens, New York."

Her sunglasses were the only thing keeping Charlie from seeing Veruca roll her eyes at his failed attempt to humor her, and instead, she chose to poke holes in the joke's premise, claiming, "We have a Queen, it should be 'the Queen's English.'"

"But then the joke wouldn't...no more humour, I guess," Charlie replied, giving up halfway through his counter-rebuttal, yet not surprised at all as he had never been good at charming others, especially women.

Not content with having to listen to the news during the car ride, Veruca began switching through radio stations until she found something that appealed to her, and she continued this until the speaker's began emitting a classic song.

♬It's gonna gonna gonna gonnaaa, It's gonna be me!♬

The hit song that was about five years younger than both of them, NSYNC's "It's Gonna Be Me," continued to play as Charlie got on the road and headed towards their destination.

♬All that I do...is not enough for you. I don't want to lose it, but I'm not like that. When finally, finally, you get to loooove. Guess what? Guess what? It's gonna be me.♬

With the chorus continuing, Charlie though Veruca might react to him putting himself in a less than desirable state, such as humiliation, so he laughed at himself as he pointed towards the car stereo controls, and said, "These lyrics, I mean, I feel a tad bit attacked."

Not even an indictment on himself was enough to turn Veruca's frown upside down, and with his guest choosing to focus on the road ahead, Charlie admitted defeat, whispering to himself, "Alright, not even self-deprecating humour will do. Got it."

Charlie reached a red light on the road and in order to pass time he listened along to the song. Meanwhile, Veruca noticed him tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, following along with the beat of music.

♬Every little thing I do...never seems enough for you. You don't want to lose it again, don't want to lose it, but I'm not like them. Baby, when you finallyyy get to love somebody. Guess what, guess what?♬

♬It's gonna be m...♬

The song got cut short after Veruca began fiddling with the car stereo once again, changing the station before the song could wrap up, thus depriving Charlie of some sort of escape from this uncomfortable situation for the rest of the drive. While the destination was less than five miles from Veruca's home, the usual traffic, coinciding with the beginning of rush hour as all the office workers left their workspaces in City of London for their homes in other boroughs, made the trip last about 20 minutes overall. Nearly half an hour in this tensely charged space left Charlie feeling uneasy, all he could do to pass the time was listen to the music Veruca selected on the car stereo and dissect their lyrics for entertainment. But little did he know that, with its too-close-to-home lyrics, the first song that came on the radio during their drive would mark the first track in the soundtrack of their relationship.

Once Charlie reached the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Veruca guided him through the busy maze of streets until they reached their destination. Coûteux was a medium sized shop nestled in between other medium and small buildings housing small businesses dedicated to the sale of designer clothes and other luxury goods. Charlie was right to trust his instincts and change into something more presentable before leaving to pick Veruca up as the clientele inside this upscale furniture shop all looked as if they were either excelling business figures or heirs leeching of the financial success of their forefathers. While he aesthetically blended in with the crowd, mentally, all the Good Boy experienced inside the store were paranoid, insecure thoughts that everyone secretly hated him. All Charlie saw were elite snobs turning their noses up at a poor kid from the east side who wore nothing but raggedy clothing and toiled away as a shoeshine boy on some street corner. He knew logically that such a thing was not happening, but ever since his first trip outside the factory on his own as a representative of the Wonka brand, Charlie knew that he would never fit in amongst the wealthy, no matter how much money he had.

Instead of focusing so much on his tormented self, Charlie turned his attention towards Veruca, who now seemed to be much more at ease than she had been in the car. Perhaps being surrounded by material goods all waiting to be purchased, with her father's money, of course, for her pleasure made her feel more relaxed, Charlie thought. There was so much about Veruca that Charlie would have loved to know, like why she lived in a penthouse instead of a stately home somewhere in the English countryside like the one she grew up in or in a townhouse in a borough closer to the shops she had become acquainted with over the years. Typically, if someone had a question about someone else's life, the first person could just ask the second person an intimate question, but up until now the biggest obstacle to getting answers to these questions had been Veruca's unwillingness to even acknowledge Charlie's existence. If she had been any other girl, Charlie would have stopped barking up that tree days ago; but she wasn't just any other girl, she was Veruca Salt, one of only four other kids who had the privilege to enter and experience the twisted reality of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. He couldn't do what he did with every other girl who didn't show any interest in him, he couldn't just give up on trying to get Veruca to open up to him, so hopefully the familiar setting of a luxury shop would loosen her up enough to get her to start talking, Charlie hoped.

Chapter Text

This luxury shop with its fancy merchandise and its even fancier clientele was almost too much for the Good Boy to handle, he never would have even been able to get close to a shop like this when he was a child without getting shoved out of sight by a security guard protecting the merchandise or by overzealous classists hellbent on not having to feast their eyes on a dirty street urchin. Even now, he felt completely out of place at Coûteux, Charlie was so afraid of knocking something over and breaking it by accident that he looked around constantly and nervously to make sure that he didn't bump into something like a coffee table with an expensive lamp nestled on top of it. The same could not be said for Veruca, who walked around the store like she owned the place, she held her head up high and refused to make eye contact with anyone, not that anyone else could see her eyes behind her sunglasses. The little brute's confidence was one of her traits that mesmerized Charlie, the result of an all-too pampered upbringing created this sense in her that she was always in the right, a trait that often veered into dangerous and unsettling territory considering how few restrictions she had placed on her life. The Good Boy very much admired the little brute's ability to take control of every situation she found herself in, but he could also recognize how devastating it was to live in a world where you equated any kind of criticism or concern about the ramifications of your actions with a declaration of war. Perhaps he could help the little brute regulate her emotions and responses in order to keep her from becoming too toxic, yet she would have to let him into her life first. But what better way to initiate such an operation than to start a personal dialogue between the two that could lead to the two becoming much closer than acquaintances.

As the two made their way to the corner of the shop where the sofas were on display, Charlie treaded carefully and asked, "So, how often do you come down to Chelsea? This place seems like your kind of environment."

Surprisingly enough, this was a question Veruca was actually pleased to answer, and so without turning back to face Charlie, she replied, "Whenever I'm not home, I like to come down and check out all of the shops and boutiques here and in the surrounding boroughs."

Over the years of working with people in the core of London, Charlie had become acquainted with the administrative divisions that existed throughout the city, especially those populated with affluent business types, and since he was amazed that the little brute didn't reside somewhere at the top of that list, he pressed on, "I'm actually surprised you don't live in Chelsea, or Kensington or Knightsbridge for that matter. Don't get me wrong, City of London is more than fine, but I thought a girl as posh as you would dwell in a quainter area of town. Not somewhere so hustle and bustle, at least when it comes to business and finance."

Again, Veruca wasn't shy to answer this question, only this time she spoke in a more somber tone, responding, "I always wanted a home with a view and the buildings in the quainter parts of London aren't typically that tall. Plus, Daddy said that I had to live close to the central business district if he was going to continue covering my expenses."

"Seems like an odd request, why does he need you living close to there?" Charlie asked, confused that Mr. Salt, the man who, despite all of the brat's complaints about him being a stricter parent after the tour, still essentially gave Veruca everything she asked for, would tie where his daughter lived to whether he would pay her bills or not.

Interestingly enough, that was one question Veruca did not want to answer; she regressed to her closed-off state of being, yet also began firing back at her guest, asking indignantly, "Well, I'd like to know why you keep following me?"

"What do you mean?" Charlie asked in return, standing on the opposite side of the sofa Veruca was checking out, using the piece of furniture to create physical distance between the two just in case anything nasty went down.

Even though a sofa-turned-divider was not needed as Charlie had feared and prepared for, Veruca still went all in with her attack on her driver, saying, "You showed up at my home unannounced and tried to get into my penthouse. I don't even know you and you wanted to enter my home, and now you're asking me personal questions about my family!"

While Veruca's attacks were typically quick and left the victim feeling dazed in the aftermath, this cold, clear-cut, verbal beatdown struck a chord with Charlie. He didn't mean to cross a line when it came to reaching out to the little brute, Charlie didn't really understand the protocol for reaching out to people for personal reasons, he was simply trying to see her the quickest way he could think of, and he let her know this, replying, "I told you, I made you a promise that I intend to keep. Besides, you're here with me now, aren't you?"

Veruca kept silent after that last comment, not just because she did not wish to interact with Charlie anymore, but because she had no comeback to Charlie's claim. While he did things that might borderline on something worthy of getting the police and judiciary involved, Veruca still got in his car and let him drive her down and accompany her to this furniture shop. Instead, she decided to focus her attention on the various sofas, the only reason she decided to come down from her penthouse and head out with her fellow Golden Ticket winner in the first place. Many of the luxury sofas had an antique aesthetic to them, but she wasn't decorating her parent's home; Veruca was drawn towards the more contemporary styles as they were much sleeker and fit better with the rest of the furniture in her penthouse. There was one sofa that caught her attention, a sectional Atwood Sofa; the brown base was paired with flared legs while the actual sofa possessed a button-tufted back that spun three sides of padding. The sofa was also tealish-blue, a shade that Charlie thought almost matched the color of Veruca's eyes, although he could not compare the two at the moment with her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. As he watched Veruca sit down on the sofa, Charlie contemplated what she had said over in his head and knew that he could not respond to an attack with another attack and leave it at that. Charlie couldn't give up on trying to get Veruca to open up to him, he would not cower like he always did when he was rejected, and what better way than to rip the band aid off than to just tell the little brute what he felt when they first reunited, right?

With Veruca sitting down on the sofa and rubbing her right palm across the surface to feel the material, Charlie sat down next to her so he could be at eye level with her, and added, "There's also something else at play, if I may be honest. When I first spotted you at Fenston's, I do not know what, but I was drawn to your presence. There was some sort of connection there that was telling me to talk to you, and look what happened, I found a fellow Golden Ticket winner."

"I'd even go as far as to say that a shared experience, like the tour of Wonka's factory, can only result in bringing people like us closer together," Charlie added, leaning in much closer to Veruca as he spoke.

If there was ever a cause to raise literal red flags, then this event would have been the prime example, because as far as the brat could tell, Charlie had set this whole trip up just to entrap her. And with the loss of distance between them, but also because of the power behind his words, Veruca leaned forward and sprung off the sofa, only to proclaim, "This is the sofa I want, this one!"

"Are you sure?" Charlie asked as he studied the piece and compared it to the others.

"Of course I'm sure, now, let's go," Veruca responded quickly before looking around and signaling a salesperson to come over to them and attend them.

Coûteux's female staff all wore navy blue skirt suits with pearl necklaces and styled their hair in a bun, just like the blonde sales associate who headed Veruca's call, and greeted them, "Good evening, sir and madam. How may I be of assistance?"

"I've looked around and decided that I'll be taking the 'Lisbon' Atwood Sofa this evening. So, ring it up and have your crew load it up onto that red van outside," Veruca responded, pointing her arm out towards the front window where the red Wonka truck stood parked on the other side.

The sales associate took a quick glance at the sofa before a look of disappointment overcame her face, leading her to explain the situation to Veruca, saying, "I'm so sorry, miss, but we seem to be out of stock of the 'Lisbon' at the moment. If you come with me so that you may give us your address and we may charge you for the sofa, we can have one delivered to your home in about a week."

Hearing that she could not have what she wanted when she wanted was something Veruca could never tolerate, a bubbling heat boiled up to her surface as she carefully removed her sunglasses, revealing that her facial expression had changed. Her expression shifted from a cordial smile to one of contempt; in fact, it was a near identical change in expression to the one Charlie noticed on Veruca after Wonka told her father she could not have one of his squirrels. As Veruca focused her deadly stare on the sales associate, she blurted out in frustration, "A week? A...WEEK?!"

"Veruca? Veruca, are you alright?" Charlie asked as he gently wrapped his palms over Veruca's increasingly twitching shoulders.

The volcano that was The Bad Nut had been dormant for some time, but now she was ready to go off once again with no regard for whomever was caught within range of her.

Chapter Text

Having her wishes denied was something Veruca simply could not tolerate, in fact, up until her participation in the tour of Wonka's factory, no one had ever dared to deny her whatever it was she desired. The Bad Nut took in deep breaths as she clenched her jaw, exposing her teeth out of rage, while her eyes beat around the faux-living room set-up in the shop until she spotted a lamp on coffee table close to her. As far as she was concerned, it sat there, mocking her, she could touch it, but she could not take it home with her, just like the sofa she wanted. And just as she was no stranger to getting angry whenever she could not have what she wanted when she wanted it, she, as no stranger to venting her frustration at the unfortunate situation, found herself in such a rambunctious manner that even reality television viewers would have believed was staged if they were not there to see it in real life. The brat released her rage at not being able to leave with her preferred sofa by balling up her hands into fists that she held in place at the side of her hips and marched over to the aforementioned coffee table where she proceeded to use one of her fists to punch the lamp off the display piece, causing it to smash once it hit the floor.

There was another coffee table nearby that the little brute kicked as well, causing one of the legs to break off, and then she returned to the original table and flipped it over, all the while blurting, "AGH! UMPH! NO!"

"No! NO! I'm not waiting a week for a new sofa! My old one is broken, and I want a new one, now!" Veruca screamed as she jumped up and down and flailed her fists in the air.

With every eye in the shop now focused on them, Charlie panicked as he tried to calm the little brute down, pleading with her to listen to reason, "Veruca, Veruca, please stop. Waiting a week is not that bad."

Veruca also could not stand anyone trying to calm her down at a moment like this, no one could ever dare tell her what to do or how to feel, and she made that clear by insulting Charlie and using his own words against him, sniping back, "No, don't start now, street urchin! You promised you would get me my new sofa in my home the very same day. You promised!"

"Well...um...I, I did, didn't I?" Charlie mumbled, stuttering as he vocalized his realization to the fact that Veruca spoke the truth, which put him in an uncomfortable position.

Charlie had a front-row seat to one of Veruca's infamous tantrums that evening, the kind he thought he was promised after her spoiled personality was broadcasted by an adoring press all over the world after she claimed possession of the second Golden Ticket but never got to see as the Nut-Sorting squirrels got to her before she could do anything outlandish during the tour. The curls in her hair bounced as her hair jiggled back and forward, her clenched teeth and shut eyes created an expression of frustration that most resembled a constipated toddler, and her fists were flying all about that if someone got too close to her, she might have given that person a black eye by getting punched in the face with one of her fists. It was truly a sight to be seen, a grown woman throwing a fit in a store because she could not have things go her way, now the worldly chocolatier really had seen everything. It was like watching a child throw a fit in front of the cashier of a grocery store because the kid's mother didn't want to buy the Wonka Bar the child begged for, and like in that situation, all eyes were now focused on the crying brat's mother, Charlie. All those eyes converging on the chocolatier did not help with his social anxiety or his irrational fear of secretly being hated by the shop's wealthy patrons, in fact it made his anxiety worse. The Good Boy failed to restrain Veruca and everyone in the shop was beginning to feel uncomfortable watching this meltdown, especially the sales associate who also had a clear view of what was going on.

Not wishing to get involved any further, the sales associate began to back up and leave the scene, but not before replying, "I don't know what to tell you, miss. We do not have a sofa to sell you tonight. Oh, and you'll be paying for all of that."

Shaking at the thought the observing patrons knew he didn't belong in their beloved shop, Charlie was able to get close enough to Veruca that he was able to plead with her to stop overreacting, telling her, "Veruca, maybe we should leave. Let's look at other shops, they're bound to have a sofa for sale today."

"No, I'm not going. If you won't get me my sofa, then I'll get it myself," she barked back as she stormed off down the aisle. The confidence and determination the brat displayed at that moment was all the Good Boy could think of, and it almost felt like they were back in the Nut Sorting Room. But while Charlie was more than certain there was not going to be a horde of squirrels wherever it was the brat was headed that were willing to attack to protect their realm, he knew it would end up almost as bad if she stuck her nose where it didn't belong.

"Where are you going?" Charlie asked, calling her from the sight of her tantrum.

And without turning back to face her fellow Golden Ticket winner, Veruca continued marching forward and extended her right arm out as she said, "To the back room, there's bound to be a 'Lisbon' back there."

"No no no, I don't think we're allowed back there!" Charlie cried out as he ran to grab Veruca, already on edge that the two would have to be escorted off the property for her actions and The Good Boy not wanting trespassing into unauthorized areas added to any charges.

The heir grabbed the brat by the arm, but she immediately began resisting the restrain, forcing him to have to grab onto her entire body, and with Charlie's arms wrapped around Veruca's waist, she began to try and slither her way out of his grasp, all the while continuing to scream, "Let go of me! Let go of ME! I want my new sofa; I want it now! I want it now, Daddy! I want it n..."

Both of them froze for a bit to process Veruca's Freudian slip, and Charlie, aware that her behavior was already out of the ordinary for an adult, carefully yet seriously asked, "Veruca, do you know where you are?"

"Shut up! How dare you suggest something like that!" She screamed back, not taking the insinuation that there was something wrong with her lying down.

This unexpected encounter was such an odd moment, and even more surreal was the thought that what had just occurred could very well have taken place if Mr. Salt pulled Veruca away from the gate when she tried to slip through it. Sure, she would have thrown a tantrum so loud that Augustus, Violet and their mothers would have heard it wherever in the factory they were, but it would have prevented her from getting mauled by rodents, thus keeping her in the contest. Sure, the little brute would have been moody and pouty throughout the rest of the trip, seeing as her own father dared to set boundaries on her life, but it would have kept her both safe and in the contest, meaning it would have just been the two of them and their guardians wandering around factory with Wonka as their guide after Mike got shrunken in the TV Room. Perhaps the two of them would have become friends as they would have been the only Golden Ticket winners standing after a while, Charlie thought. Even though, in the back of his mind he doubted Veruca would have even spoke to him, but one could dream. Nevertheless, Veruca confusing Charlie for her father for just a bit called for a hitting of the reset button. Although, it was not the first time it had happened, Charlie still remembered a drunk Veruca confusing him for her father during the taxi ride from Fenston's where she asked him for Turkey Twizzlers. But that only showed how important it was to reassess where everyone stood before moving forward. Yet regardless, he felt he would have to start keeping track of such occurrences if they happened again.

Now, Charlie put Veruca, who had begun to open her fists ever-slowly and thus making them look like claws for a bit and composed herself, down and then walked around to face her, and kindly suggested, "Let's just go ask the lady to mark your order down, you'll have your new sofa in no time."

However, Veruca would not budge, she continued to cry out like the petulant child she still was, "No, you said I'd have it by tonight and I want it now!"

The stress of the situation was starting to mount on Charlie, and with tears beginning to form he begged the brat to understand, "But, Veruca, I...I can't just make a sofa appear out of thin air, I'm not a magician. How do you expect me to get you your new sofa by tonight?"

Trying to explain why she couldn't have what she wanted when she wanted had never worked on Veruca, and it surely would not start now. Instead, all she did was focus that blue-eyed stare of death of hers on Charlie, and screamed in his face, "Don't care how, I want it NOW!"

The Good Boy gently backed away from the screaming brat, and with a somber look on his face, he began to assess his options for his next move, none of which were pretty.

Chapter Text

Charlie found himself at a crossroads at this very moment, he was not one to indulge in or endorse bad behavior, but the politics of the situation made a condemnation detrimental to his ultimate goal. Charlie could have put his hands up in the air and given up on Veruca, he could have left Coûteux at that very moment and driven back to Wonka's factory with the Oompa Loompas following suit, he could have vowed to never speak to Veruca again because she was still a spoilt, ungrateful brat, as her father apparently called her following the tour of the factory, even after all these years. Charlie could have done all that, but he did not, he instead stayed and pondered over his two options with gentle care. On the one hand, Charlie could heed the advice Grandpa Joe parted on him when they were first introduced to Veruca Salt through a television news interview, no good ever comes from spoiling a child like that. Whereas on the other hand, he could power through the awkwardness and embarrassment that was her tantrum and get her the sofa she so wanted, and it wasn't like he was incapable of making it out alive from an uncomfortable situation. Even though the Good Boy hated being the center of attention, he had managed to survive the onslaught of stares from the other customers that focused on him when the little brute threw her fit, so if he did choose the latter, he at least knew he could get to the other side unscathed with enough willpower to keep moving forward. And with that considered, it seemed like a no brainer at the moment, he would lose nothing by leaving, nothing except for the one thing he truly wanted, a cordial relationship with the other Golden Ticket winners, whereas sticking kept the dream alive for at least a bit longer.

There was also another problem with simply leaving, he had made a promise to Veruca that he would get her a new sofa inside her penthouse before the day came to an end, and if he left now he would be something worse than a spoilt, ungrateful brat, a hypocrite. Charlie talked a lot about being a good person, but like his revelation the night before, he could not leave Veruca to suffer just so he could remain clean. That was the exact same lesson he learned after reliving the Nut Sorting Room event in his dream and after a young Veruca appeared at the foot of his bed and scared him half to death, he could not just leave her. How could he continue to consider himself a man of character if he did? And while enabling Veruca's worst impulses was no noble feat, he could still claim to be a man who honored his word and kept his promises. Charlie would keep his honor if he went along with Veruca, and he would also not burn any bridges with her, leaving the door open for a relationship that would be beneficial for the two of them. Perhaps Charlie's good nature would rub off on Veruca, blossoming the seed of goodness buried somewhere within her, or at least that is what Charlie thought. Those were his two options, and both were manifestations of Charlie's greatest strength and curse, his good heart. He wanted her to learn a lesson, but he also didn't want her to suffer; he wanted to be just in his actions, but he also wanted to uphold the code that all good people abided by. In the end, Charlie came to a conclusion and made a heartfelt decision, in the pursuit of long-term happiness, he made the short-term choice to be like Mr. Salt before him; Charlie bit his tongue and gave into Veruca's demand.

Charlie had gotten Veruca to calm down and sit down on one of the sofas on display under the pretense that he would come through with his promise to get her new sofa in her penthouse by the end of the day, something he didn't know how he'd accomplish, but he wouldn't give up until the promise was fulfilled. Unsure of where to go from here, the heir located the sales associate who broke the bad news to Veruca, and kindly asked, "Um, excuse me. I have a question, what's the fastest you could get another 'Lisbon' delivered to the shop?"

The sales associate was in no mood to get involved in the brat's quarrel, and with a dismissive tone she turned to face Charlie, and replied, "Listen sir, I already explained, we don't have any on stock for her to take home right now. She can pay for one right now, along with all the other items she broke, and she'll have it delivered to her home in a timely manner."

Charlie began to feel the stress of the situation amassing around his shoulders, and as he moved his arm to massage one of the troubled spots, he slid in in a weak response to the sales associate, saying, "You see, um…that's the problem, she needs the sofa right now."

"And so do all of our other customers who purchased the 'Lisbon,' but they didn't throw a tantrum and go on a rampage throughout the shop, now did they," responded the sales associate, not afraid to cast aspersions on probably the worst customer she had ever had to attend to.

Desperate times like these called for desperate measures, and that's what Charlie had come to, and so he said as he began to fiddle around his pants' right pocket, "Alright, I didn't want to resort to this, but here it goes."

Left with no other option, Charlie resorted to the most Mr. Salt-esque option he could think of, he grabbed his wallet, pulled out an £100 banknote and slipped it into the flap pocket of the sales associate's suit jacket, all the while asking, "Are you sure there isn't anything you could do to make sure we leave with a sofa this evening?"

A faint smile came over the sales associate's face, yet she still spoke in a serious tone as she responded, "Like I said, we're out of stock. But for you sir, I'll speak to the manager."

The sales associate wondered off towards a room in the back of the shop and stayed there for a few minutes, long enough that Veruca had finally calmed down and was now just sitting on a display sofa with her arms crossed across her chest and her lips pouted like a grounded child. Charlie watched as she buried that defined chin of hers into her crossed arms until the sales associate returned from the back room, and informed Charlie, "Bad news, sir. The manager said the only way to get that sofa would be to get one delivered from the warehouse and they are not doing deliveries to their customers at this hour."

While many would have taken such news as a defeat, Charlie and his outside-the-box thinking mind took it as a challenge to overcome, and as he pondered the situation over, he realized how he could get his hands on the sofa, which he explained to the sales associate, saying, "That's it, the warehouse. Ask the manager, just hear me out. What if we pay here and we go and pick up the sofa at the warehouse ourselves? All they have to do is charge the shop for an extra sofa when you order more merchandise from them to restock."

Amazed at the length this nice man went to in order to appease the wishes of such an ungrateful brat, who she noticed would constantly look up from the sofa and give her a dirty look, the sales associate simply replied before heading back to her boss, "Let me ask the manager."

It took a bit longer for the sales associate to return from the back room this time, but when she did, she had a smile on her face as she told Charlie, "Congratulations sir, the manager has just gotten off the phone with the warehouse and they agree to the deal. The only problem is that they close at 7 and the warehouse is all the way down in South Croydon."

While Charlie's knowledge of the Greater London area was primarily focused on the business and financial sectors of the British capitol, he knew enough that he could calculate travel times in his head, to which he responded, "South Croydon, that's an hour away during rush hour."

"Then you better start driving down there, you can still make it," the sales associate added, sounding rather encouraging near the end.

With no other options available, Charlie swallowed the hard pill of his new reality and ingratiated himself with the sales associate, repeatedly saying, "Thank you, thank you so much, thank you!"

It seemed like the Good Boy's prayers had been answered, he had found the little brute her sofa, now he just had to break the news to her that they needed amend their original plan for their afternoon excursion in order to complete the mission. Getting her to accept that the sofa was not at the shop was the easy part, she had more or less given up on the sales associates of Coûteux getting her what she wanted, but now the task at hand would be to get her to follow along with the Good Boy's plan to get the sofa in their hands. And, as Charlie walked back to the brat, the only question that rattled around in his mind was whether or not he was doing the right thing trading his beliefs on unruly people for his honor and an opportunity to form a relationship with the loud-mouthed Veruca.

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Placating the little brute was much harder than it looked, Charlie could not tell how Mr. Salt had been able to pull it off year after year, it was incredibly exhausting physically and emotionally, not to mention financially. Fortunately, if years of experience in the business world had taught him anything of value for a regular person, it would have been the concept of supply chains and how important they are to the movement of goods. When a customer wants a particular item but the shop they are at does not have it in stock, there is a good chance there is a warehouse somewhere nearby with the desired item in stock. Wonka bars and his mentor's other candies worked in the exact same way, whenever a corner store sold out of the beloved sweets and the shopkeeper needed to restock, there was an entire supply chain behind them ready to supply them with whatever they needed to restock. Now, while pieces of furniture were much larger and less easier to transport about than candy bars, the Good Boy knew he would have to use a bit more elbow grease in order to make it across the finish line, and luckily, his extra work did pay off now that he learned where he could get the sofa the brat wanted. There was now a light at the end of the tunnel, there was a chance Charlie would be able to keep his word after all, the only problem was that he needed to get Veruca to agree to accompany him to a location she had not chosen to visit beforehand.

He knew he had to tread carefully or else she might even take a swing at him too, so Charlie approached the little brute ever so carefully, and informed her in the most positive tone he could muster, "Veruca, Veruca, I have great news. I found you your 'Lisbon,' but we have to take a short drive down to South Croydon immediately."

"South Croydon, why would I go there? It's so provincial," Veruca replied, indignantly rejecting the idea of traveling anywhere south of the River Thames.

Nearly drained of all his emotional energy, Charlie began to smile nervously, and pleaded with Veruca, "I'm not asking you to live there. All you have to do is pay here and we'll drive down there, pick up your sofa from the warehouse and then we'll take it back to your penthouse, like I promised."

Veruca pondered the proposal over for a bit and then proceeded to get up from the display sofa and passed Charlie without giving him a simple glance, instead she approached the sales associate, who was now at her transaction desk ready to receive a payment for the sofa and the other pieces the brat destroyed, and bluntly asked, "How much?"

It took a while for the sales associate to figure out what Veruca was talking about, but after a few seconds of her not responding, Veruca simply blurted out in rage, "How much is the bloody sofa?!"

"Well, the 'Lisbon' is £3,500. There's also the additional charge of £1,200 for the items the madam destroyed," the sales associate responded from behind the desk, trying to sound as professional as possible, yet not afraid throw shade at such a rude client.

With her death stare originally focused on the sales associate for daring to insult her, Veruca took in the information given to her and turned her attention over to Charlie where she barked a simple but large order at him, "Pay for it!"

"Me...but...w...why?" A frightened Charlie replied, still trying to process why Veruca would order him to do such a thing, especially since both of them knew her father had enough money to cover the expenses, so it was not like she would not be able to pay for everything.

But weirdly enough, Veruca did have a reason to cast the responsibility to pay upon Charlie, which she explained using her twisted logic, "Because this mess is all your fault."

Even more confused now, Charlie looked at both the sales associate and Veruca, before responding, "This mess is my fault?"

"This mess is his fault?!" The sales associate screamed, surprisingly more upset at Veruca for her accusation than Charlie was.

As it turned out, her messed up logic relied on using Charlie's weakness against him, she made him feel guilty for something that was out of her control as she screamed, "You promised I'd have a new sofa tonight and look at us now. We've been here for how long and I still have nothing!"

The sales associate fought back every muscle in her body urging her to slap Veruca across the face, and Charlie as well in hopes of knocking some sense into him so that he would just storm on out of there, leaving this brat stranded there to teach her a lesson. But instead, all she saw was Charlie pull out his wallet once again, and reply in a defeated, exhausted tone, "Very well."

With his elite black credit card in his hand, Charlie saw his reflection on the shiny material that glazed the card, he saw his life go from a poor kid trying to survive one day at a time to now trying to buy off a brat's friendship with luxury furniture. He was only brought out of his trance once Veruca grew too impatient of waiting for Charlie to give the sales associate his credit card, and screamed in his right ear, "Buy!"

The sales associate reached across her desk to take the credit card from Charlie's hand, but not before making a sly comment about the madam's attitude to the cardholder, "It's like a battle cry."

All it took was one tap on the Point-of-Sale machine for one of Charlie's largest personal purchases to go through, the sales associate then proceeded to hand Charlie his credit card back, along with a business card with the address of the warehouse written on the back in black ink. With the purchase going through without a hitch the two customers proceeded to leave Coûteux's, albeit with different outlooks. Shame overcame Charlie as he noticed the other patrons watching them leave, making him want to crawl into his shell and never come out, all the while Veruca strutted out of the shop with her head held high and a smug look on her face that indicated she felt rather proud of herself, in other words her typical expression for when she was out in public.

Now, before driving off, Charlie went over to the red Wonka truck parked behind them and knocked on the window to tell the Oompa Loompa driver that they were going to South Croydon to pick up a sofa and for them to just follow him. The Oompa Loompa concurred and his partner rolled up the passenger side window once Charlie returned to his car, where the heir found Veruca standing next to passenger door, looking rather impatient. Even after all the headache she caused him, Charlie still found a way to put a smile on his face and he then opened the passenger side door for The Bad Nut. With Veruca in his car, Charlie rushed over to the driver's seat, hopped in and got back on the road, now headed for their new destination. It was a ten-minute drive through rush hour traffic in Chelsea to reach the Albert Bridge and cross the River Thames, and from there on outwards it was more rush hour traffic. The only difference was that they were now in South London, a place where well-bred people like Veruca seldom ventured to unless they had reasons for doing so. It took another forty minutes to drive through the roads crossing the various South London boroughs until they reached their destination, the suburban town of South Croydon.

As Charlie looked out the window all he saw was a normal-looking English town, in fact, before he had won Wonka's chocolate factory, he could have only dreamed of living in a place like this. While a town with such narrow roads and the outer walls of the houses all touching each other would have been a step up for him growing up, he also understood why Veruca called it provincial. Growing up exuberantly wealthy, it came as no surprise to Charlie that she would view such an average town in a less than positive light since it neither had the prestige of her natal Buckinghamshire nor the glitz and glamor of her current residence, Central London. Even from the driver's seat he could see Veruca literally sticking her nose up to the entire town, especially whenever they passed a local on the street, and that look on her face especially didn't change once they reached the Davies Brothers Warehouse, South Croydon facility. The two former Golden Ticket winners arrived at the warehouse with only a couple of minutes before they closed up for the night so there wasn't that much movement of people on the grounds, but it didn't take that much imagination to picture the warehouse in the middle of the day with trucks being loaded and unloaded with goods by workers doing their best to get by on such a meager living. While Charlie very much respected the working class, seeing as he hailed from such humble roots, Veruca didn't just not understand the plight of the poor and working people, she downright despised them for something out of their control, their social station in life. The brat gave the occasional worker on the outskirts of the warehouse the same look of superiority she gave the townspeople they passed for no reason other than to proclaim how wealthy and important she was. Fortunately, none of them seemed to notice, thus avoiding getting them, particularly Charlie, in trouble for it.

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The atmosphere inside the cabin of Charlie's car was as tense as ever, after more than an hour had passed from when both originally thought the brat would have gotten her new sofa by, Charlie found himself far away from home trying to track down the item Veruca so desperately wanted. Even though he had made Veruca a promise that he would get her her new sofa by day's end, something she so eagerly brought up when he showed even the slightest sign of giving up on completing the mission, the Good Boy still heard a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him to forget the deal, drive back to the city and kick the little brute to the curb for acting out the way she did throughout the entire ordeal. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view of things, an even louder voice engulfed the previous voice and it reminded him how much his moral character meant to him, of his wish to make up for the torment Veruca endured in the Nut Sorting Room, and his desire to reconnect with the other Golden Ticket winners, especially someone so geographically close to him as Veruca. This voice was able to keep the heir on course and smiling back as the brat scowled at everyone around her for making her wait this long to get what she wanted, even though a tiny chunk of him kept on telling him to stop indulging this ungrateful, entitled brat, strand her somewhere and head back to the factory.

But once he reached the gate to the Davies Brothers Warehouse, Charlie rolled down his window and told the security guard manning the checkpoint that he and the truck behind him were here to pick up a sofa, and after checking his manifest the guard buzzed them both in. The courtyard at the warehouse reminded him a lot of the courtyard at the entrance of Wonka's factory, only bigger, despite this warehouse only serving shops in the greater London area whereas the crown jewel of the candy production world was responsible for concocting confections for nearly every corner of the globe. There were no trucks inside the courtyard as the warehouse was preparing to close for the night, in fact, they only had one loading dock open, the one where Veruca's sofa was waiting to be taken away, which made it easier for both Charlie and the Oompa Loompa driving the red Wonka truck behind him to know where to go to pick it up.

Charlie parked in the space next to the open loading dock, and as the Oompa Loompa backed up to line up with the dock, Charlie got out of his car and called for the men standing around in the warehouse, "Good evening, gentlemen. We're here for a sofa, a 'Lisbon.'"

That was when one of the warehouse workers, a gruffy-looking man in worn-out work clothes, approached the opening of the dock, and replied, "We got it up here, mate. We'll load it up for you like a bomb."

The usage of a slang term for doing something fast put a smile on Charlie's face as he spent his days speaking to an American like Wonka who had trouble understanding such expressions and sophisticated British businesspeople who were too classy to speak in such an informal manor. He also got another smile on his face when the man pointed at the truck backing up to carry the sofa, and asked, "Is this sofa for Willy Wonka himself?"

Realizing the worker was pointing to his mentor's name that painted on all sides of the vehicle, Charlie chuckled as he responded, "No, no, I'm just borrowing one of his vans. It's for someone else."

And before heading off to load the sofa onto the truck, the warehouse worker walked closer to the edge, and asked, "So you know the old chap? I loved his sweets as a kid."

"Oh yes sir, I know him, I'll be sure to let him know you're a fan. Take care now," Charlie responded as he headed back to his car.

From the comfort of his car, both Charlie and Veruca watched as a team of four men loaded the teal sofa onto the back of the Wonka truck. And now that she could see that she was in possession of the sofa she so wanted, it also seemed as if some human kindness seeped inside Charlie's car as Veruca, now looking straight forward at the closed loading dock gate they were parked in front of, began speaking to her fellow Golden Ticket winner on her own accord, "You know, you're one of just three men who have gotten me whatever I've wanted."

Finally, she was beginning to open up to him, albeit still without any eye contact, but Charlie was willing to take what he could get, and responded with a grin on his face, "Well, I'll take that as a compliment."

Despite taking such a positive outlook on Veruca's life experiences that resulted in her becoming so demanding and entitled, the more Charlie thought about what she had said, the more he began to question what exactly he had heard, culminating in him blurting out, "Wait, three men?"

Surprisingly, Veruca did turn around and looked at Charlie's confused face, who was perplexed at the math she had mentioned before, to which the little brute attempted to clarify, saying, "Well, you're not Daddy or someone who's financial and social standing is intertwined with my family."

Such a clarification did not really help Charlie clear up his confusion, he knew that Mr. Salt catered to pretty much every single one of Veruca's wishes but that still left him guessing who the second man was. Perhaps it was a grandfather or an uncle, but he had no way of knowing without asking the brat for more details. Charlie tried to get more information out of Veruca but she retuned her gaze to the warehouse in front of them and stared off with that dead, displeased look on her face. Luckily the warehouse workers finished loading the sofa onto the back of the truck before the vibe in the car got even more awkward than at any other point during the excursion and Charlie did not hesitate to put his car in reverse and leave the warehouse as soon as possible. It took about another hour to get back to City of London, Veruca continued making her stuck-up facial expressions as they passed the small towns on the outskirts of London and especially while they drove passed the economically deprived areas of South London. Things changed once the brat spotted the iconic Tower Bridge, and once they crossed it she knew she was almost home in the far superior Central London north of the river. And, after maneuvering through streets still busy with the last legs of rush hour traffic, Charlie finally made it back to the little brute's home, The Stourton Block.

With the car now parked on the street corner besides the apartment building, Charlie looked across his shoulder and said as he tried to keep a smile on his face, "Well, Veruca, you're home."

And unsurprisingly, instead of thanking the Good Boy for all the trouble he put himself through to get her the sofa, the brat glanced up at her building for a bit before responding, "It's about time."

No longer needing a signal from his fellow Golden Ticket winner, Charlie got out of his car and rushed over to the passenger's side to open the door for Veruca to exit and again she did not even thank him for doing so. Nevertheless, Charlie stood there like a well-trained dog waiting at the door for his master to come home. Regardless of how ridiculous it was for him to act in such a manor, the Good Boy continued playing the role of the obedient servant, he even leaned in and asked Veruca for her opinion on the new matter at hand, asking, "Alright, how do you think we should get the sofa up to your penthouse?"

Such a question was so offensive to Veruca, how could she be expected to do any physical labor? As far as the brat was concerned, she was the closest thing to royalty there was, and she expected everyone else to recognize that and treat her accordingly. She could not be expected to do the work of a common laborer and help move a sofa up to her penthouse. So, of course, she had to make her displeasure publicly known, turning to face Charlie with a disgusted, snarky look on her face, and retorted, "We? No, no, no, you made me a promise that you would get me my sofa in my penthouse by the end of the day. You figure it out."

It had almost become second nature for the Good Boy by now to overlook the brat's rotten personality and disposition and instead chew away on his own perceived flaws. Now, Charlie could not believe he did not factor in moving the sofa into the penthouse all by himself when he made Veruca such a consequential promise. He scanned the façade of the apartment building all the way from the lobby to Veruca's penthouse in awe, the height terrified him, yet he powered through and asked with a hint of fear in his voice, "Does your block have a crane or something? How did you get everything else up in your penthouse the first time?"

"The movers took everything up through the lift. It looks like you'll be doing the same," Veruca replied as she began walking towards the doors of the lobby, leaving Charlie on the street corner to try and figure a way out of this new dilemma he found himself in.

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For not having thought through how he would get the sofa up to the penthouse, Charlie was left on the street corner next to Stourton all alone to pick up the pieces and come up with a plan to get Veruca's sofa up to her penthouse right on the spot. He rolled up the door to the back of the red Wonka truck and just stood there for a bit, observing the teal sofa that had put him through so much trouble, almost taunting him as this debacle had revealed one final surprise when they reached the home stretch. It did not take long for Charlie to realize that the sofa was going up to Veruca's penthouse via one mode, the elevator, so he hopped inside the truck and began pushing the shrink-wrap-covered sofa towards the edge of bed. He then jumped out of the truck and began to pull the sofa down to the street, being extra careful to not scratch any part of the furniture or even worse damage a part like one of the legs. Charlie eventually got half of the sofa onto the street but seeing that he still needed to get it up onto the curb to bring it inside, he carefully twisted the sofa so that the legs on the street touched the sidewalk while holding the back so that it didn't tip over and shatter. Following some more maneuvering, Charlie was able to get the part of the sofa that was still on the bed of the truck onto the street and from there he was able to get the entire sofa on the sidewalk and he closed the door to the back of the red Wonka truck. Now that the first obstacle had been cleared the second one amassed itself, specifically in the form of a large distance from the curb to the elevator. Charlie was looking at about 15 yards from the street corner to the door leading into the lobby and from there another 30 yards until he reached the elevator; he might as well have been crossing the English Channel, Charlie thought.

While he could theoretically drag the sofa all the way to the elevator, that would surely scuff up and damage the back legs that still touched the ground, not to mention the fact that the noise of the wood legs dragging on the cement walkway was one Charlie simply could not tolerate. There was another, more tedious but safer, option, he could move the sofa in a zig-zag position by turning one end to the side and then bringing the other end to the same latitude, so to speak, and then turning the sofa in the other direction and continuing the process until he reached the elevator. All it took was a few of these turns until Charlie began to feel exhausted and it came as no surprise to him, despite being rather tall and superbly healthy, he was not at all physically imposing. After moving the sofa about three yards closer to the doors of the apartment building, Charlie's spaghetti arms began to give out, and to make matters worse he had begun to sweat profusely as this had been the single greatest feat of physical labor he had done in years. His forehead and back were dripping with sweat and his armpits were drenched in the coolant as well, not to mention the fact that the vest he wore also restricted many of his movements. To optimize his movements, thus diminishing the amount of stress he'd put on his body, Charlie unbuttoned his vest and walked back to his car where he tossed it onto the passenger's seat for storage until he got back to the factory. This also turned out to be a faithful move because as he leaned passed the driver's seat to get a better shot at the passenger's seat, Charlie spotted a gift he had placed in the back seat.

He had wrapped up a small box in a metallic silver wrapping paper in hopes of giving it to Veruca, but with the chaos of having to venture out of the city to pick up the sofa he promised her, the gift had left his mind entirely. It was a good thing Charlie found the gift now because he could have gone all the way up to Veruca's penthouse and have come all the way down as he prepared to return to the factory, only to then have found the gift, forcing him to have to go back up to give Veruca the gift. With the box now in hand, Charlie took it over to and rested it atop the sofa, that way his hands would be free to resume moving the piece of furniture now that he had rested for a bit. As he continued to push the sofa closer to the door, he noticed Veruca was still standing outside the building, yet she was in no mood to help carry her own sofa inside. While Charlie pushed the sofa towards her, Veruca just stood underneath a light fixture and examined her fingernails. She seemed displeased with the status of her nails as she gave them a disgusted look and proceeded to pull out her phone, most likely to make an appointment with her manicurist, Charlie thought. Nevertheless, the Good Boy continued pushing the sofa towards the elevator, no matter how smelly or sticky he or his clothes got. While Veruca just walked inside the lobby once Charlie got to the main entrance, it was the doorman who was kind enough to lock both doors in their open position so that Charlie could get the piece of furniture inside without any additional work.

Once inside the lobby of the apartment building, the concierge who helped Charlie get Veruca down from her penthouse, Herpes Trout, watched as the poor man pushed a heavy piece of furniture all the way indoors while the building's tenant just stood there and watched him struggle. Herp could not say anything, it would be improper for a concierge to question a tenant, plus such an action could have negative consequences in terms of his standing in his employer's eyes. All he could do was tell them to wait because he needed to bring them some mover's blankets to wrap the corners of the sofa in so that they did not accidently damage the inside of the elevator. It took him about five minutes for him to come back from the storage closet but Charlie had still not reached the elevator yet, so Herp just rested them on the sofa and told them to put them on before placing the sofa into the elevator. Charlie did as he was told when he reached the elevator and placed the mover's blankets on both ends of the sofa, and after Veruca swiped her key card on the sensor and the doors opened he began pushing the piece of furniture into the cramp contraption. It was a good thing Herp brought the mover's blankets because Charlie immediately hit the wall of the elevator with the sofa as he tried fitting the other end as well. But the worst of this most recent turn of events was that part of the sofa still stuck outside the door of the elevator. The only way the elevator was going to be able to close its door and take them up to the penthouse would be by elevating the part of the sofa that stuck out so that it would fit inside, someone would have to hold it up the entire ride up to the Veruca's penthouse, and by someone Charlie meant himself as there was no way the brat would do it.

He relaxed his arms for a bit and then proceeded to pick up the part of the sofa that stuck out and rested it on his chest while he propped the piece of furniture up with his two extended palms. Veruca then followed Charlie into the elevator and gave her back to the sofa as she swiped her key card on the sensor and like always she stuck her nose up at Charlie and gave him a quick haughty look before turning away to face the elevator door. Although, since his sweaty armpits were wide open thanks to the position he put himself in by holding up the sofa, Charlie rationalized that such a face would have been warranted this time. Such a rationalization could only come from two places, devotion or a decline of cognitive abilities and Charlie couldn't tell which one was in control of him at the moment as he was ready to pass out after stressing his body to the his limit by moving the sofa from the curb to the elevator and then propping it up in the cramp elevator. Fortunately, a bell came ringing though the speakers inside the elevator, indicating that they had arrived at their destination. When the doors swung wide open Charlie watched as Veruca carelessly strolled out of the elevator and into her penthouse, almost walking slowly to torture her fellow Golden Ticket winner some more, but the moment she was far enough Charlie rushed out and rested the sofa on the ground. He struggled to regain his breath and he noticed the palms of his hands were red, much like the rest of his extremely fair skin at this exhausted moment of this life, and also marked after grasping the wooden base of the sofa for so long. He did not really feel it now, but Charlie knew he was going to wake up incredibly sore tomorrow after pulling off such a herculean feat.

However, Veruca noticed none of the Good Boy's selfless work, all she saw was her living room wide open as she'd had the damaged sofa removed the previous day, to which she pointed at as she continued walking and exclaimed, "Put it there, where the old sofa used to be. I want to sit down, now!"

And, without reflecting on what Charlie had been going through for the last couple hours, Veruca threw her clutch purse onto the dinner table and said as she headed for her home bar, "Oh lord, what a day. I am exhausted, I need a drink."

Charlie's strongest asset turned into his greatest weakness that day, his desire to be a man of honor literally drove him around Central and South London and made him carry a 150 pound sofa all the way from the street corner to an elevator inside the building and then suspend it in the air during a ride up in that elevator. It was almost over though, it was just about five more yards until Charlie got the sofa to the exact spot Veruca wanted it, five more yards until it was all over. He was careful not to accidentally hit anything in the way like a table, stools or chairs yet he was so irritated by the sound of the legs dragging against the floor inside the entrance to the penthouse. Charlie eventually got the sofa into position, but it was still covered in wrapping and other stuff, so as a gesture of good will he grabbed the gift he rested on the sofa and placed it on the dining table, along with the mover's blankets Herp brought out and began removing the shrink wrap. He tore a hole into the material with his fingernail and began pulling on the first sheet he could grasp onto and continued this process until he had pulled off all the shrink wrap off the sofa.

Chapter Text

After putting in so much time and energy finding the little brute's sofa and carrying it all the way up to her penthouse, the Good Boy was finally able to relax now that he was finally able to stand back and admire the new piece of furniture in its new home. Charlie thought the sofa fit well with the rest of the living room, but, more importantly, now that he had come through with this promise, Veruca would surely recognize his commitment to forming a deeper relationship, right? While Charlie was busy bringing the sofa in and making it look presentable, Veruca was occupied, serving herself a glass of rum after she suffered such traumatic experiences earlier that afternoon, like Coûteux not having the sofa she wanted and her having to travel south of the River Thames for the one she wanted. But now that her new sofa was ready to be used, she rested the bottle of rum on the coffee table in front of her, kicked off her shoes and lied down on the sofa with her feet tucked underneath her. The Good Boy waited desperately for a gracious response from the little brute, but she did not thank Charlie for all he had done for her, instead she leaned forward to refill her glass with more rum and then reclined to relax.

Armed with another glass of rum in hand, Veruca returned to her perfect little world, that was until she spotted Charlie standing off to the side, smiling and waiting for her to interact with him, to which she nastily responded, "What are you still doing here? You don't think you're staying, are you?"

He almost could not believe what he was hearing, almost could not believe it. All Charlie could do in such a terrible situation was save face, smile, and solemnly reply, "Well, I think it's best that I leave now, I'm not exactly in the right condition to sit on nice fabric."

Veruca made that same disgusted facial expression she made on board the elevator as Charlie pointed out his sweaty clothes, yet Charlie pressed forward with his mission to reconnect with his fellow Golden Ticket winner, saying, "But, listen, Veruca, I know that you're...very busy, but I'd like to maybe do today over. No shopping, no wandering around, no work for me, hehe."

The little brute was still not amused at Charlie's attempts at humor and he sensed it. That extra stress only added to the existing anxiety Charlie dealt with when he talked to women, and it all manifested itself through hand wringing and trouble speaking, as he struggled explaining, "So, what if we were to, you know, maybe get dinner sometime soon? It'll just be the two of us and all we'll do is chat and relax. Doesn't that sound swell?"

Now, instead of focusing on the nervous Charlie, Veruca finished drinking the last of the rum in her glass and in order to show her displeasure with having to fill it up again, she let out a deep, "Ugh!"

While Veruca was clearly in her own little world at the moment and her groan was clearly directed at her having to refill her own drink, Charlie also knew that such a primal grunt was also directed towards him for trying to disrupt her space. He spent all day trying to get her to notice and interact with him, but she only seemed to do so when she was pointing something out to him, and the other times she was straight up ignoring him. Charlie did not want to give up but he did not know what else he could do to win her attention, he literally carried furniture up to her penthouse for her and she could not even utter a simple thank you in return. Although he should have expected such behavior, it was not like it was in Veruca's nature to be grateful, yet Charlie could nt wonder but feel depressed that he had failed at his mission to reconnect with another Golden Ticket winner. It looked as if he would not have any kind of relationship with Veruca after all, and with failure on this front, Charlie feared he would fail with all the other winners as well. There was nothing more he could do but leave the penthouse and let Veruca live her life, so he turned around and began walking back to the elevator. But before he left, he noticed the mover's blankets Herp let him borrow, Charlie went to grab them to take them down with him, and it was then that he was once again reminded of the wrapped box he had brought for Veruca.

With the gift wrapped in reflective wrapping paper in hand, Charlie walked over to Veruca, who's attention was now on the shiny box, and said as he handed her the gift, "Before I go, here, I brought this for you."

"Gimme!" The brat screamed as she snatched the gift from Charlie's hand, sounding much like her child self for that second she spoke.

Without much care for what lied underneath the cover, she unwrapped her gift impatiently, tearing through the silver wrapping paper violently and rapidly, exposing the multi-colored box below. The box had four sides, one side colored red, followed by blue, then orange, and finally brown, and each side had printed the name of the man who let her be attacked by a hoard of rodents as a child in a bold, stylized font, Wonka. It was an inner box, just like the ones the ladies working on the lines of Mr. Salt's processing facility pulled out of larger container boxes, which themselves came in the large cardboard shipping boxes, and shelled chocolate bars from for days until one of them found Veruca's Golden Ticket. Charlie asked for an inner box of candy to be delivered to the factory from the London distribution warehouse, one of twelve warehouses all over the world responsible for distributing Wonka candies to nearly every country on the planet and the one responsible for all domestic distribution throughout the UK, before heading out to pick up Veruca. The Good Boy even wrapped up the box of chocolates himself, adding even more personal charm to the gift his mentor suggested he take his special friend and that he hoped Veruca would enjoy as much as he enjoyed them.

"It's an assortment of fifteen Wonka Bars, the kind shops get delivered to sell. It's got all four flavours inside, I thought you might like it," Charlie explained, sounding sad as he spoke since he was all but certain that this would be the last time he ever spoke to Veruca.

As Veruca opened the top of the box and ran her right index finger down the line of packaged Wonka Bars the way you might run your finger down the keys of a piano, Charlie knew it was time to leave, and so he bid his fellow Golden Ticket winner a final solemn farewell, "Well, good night. See you...around."

The noise the mover's blankets made actually caught Veruca's attention as she did not tolerate anyone touching her stuff and such a noise in her penthouse set off that alarm that existed inside her head to look out for kleptomaniacs. While nothing of hers was being moved, something inside of her did move. All she saw as she stared towards her right was Charlie walking away towards the elevator, slumped over and marching away in defeat. This was quite a new sight for Veruca because every other time she had to go the extra mile to get what she wanted often ended in a predictable fashion, a fashion unlike this one. Her father would smile, almost devilishly, when he would get her what she wanted, her mother and other people close to her and her family would fake a smile when she was in the room but then most likely become disgusted when she'd leave, and every non-familial or professional encounter she had always had ended with the other person storming off in anger as they wanted no part of Veruca's spoiled behavior once they saw beyond her attractive exterior. Charlie was different, he actually came through with his promise like those closest to her, but he was neither proud of himself nor displeased with her, in fact it looked as if he wanted to kill himself.

Pity was an emotion Veruca had never felt before, she actually felt sorry for the poor boy, and she did not want to continue tolerating that knotted feeling forming in her stomach, which caused her to proclaim, "Stop!"

Charlie heeded Veruca's call and turned around, still looking depressed, and that was where he saw Veruca pick up a piece of the silver wrapping paper she tore off from her gift like a lion clawing away at the carcass of a gazelle, and pronounced, "Don't make me regret this."

She then proceeded to take the piece of wrapping paper to a desk next to the wall of the living room where a desktop computer rested and pulled out a pen from one of the drawers. Charlie saw her flip the wrapping paper over to the blank white side that made contact with the inner box, rather carelessly scribble something on the paper, and walk over to hand him the slip while she said, "Here, take this."

"What is this?" Charlie asked, examining the piece of wrapping paper as all he saw were a series of numbers written in black ink.

He had an idea of what the numbers meant but he wanted to hear it come out of Veruca's mouth as confirmation that he was not hallucinating, and that's what he got when the little brute hesitantly explained, "It's my phone number. Ring me on my mobile some day later and we'll figure out the details for your dinner excursion."

Charlie almost wanted to hug Veruca and cry, she had actually opened up to him, but instead all he did was chuckle and smile nervously, causing his fellow Golden Ticket winner to lash out in contempt, "Just go! I'm already regretting giving you my number. Don't make me take it back from you by force!"

The lucky boy took orders very well, Charlie now had a more confident look on his face and so he straightened himself up as he strolled over to the elevator, but before he got in, Veruca called out, "Oh, and take a shower when you get home, you smell worse than the incinerator."

The Good Boy just nodded at the request and quickly turned away to keep the little brute from seeing the smile that came over his face and thinking that he was laughing at the memory of her being assaulted by waves of squirrels and thrown down the garbage chute. And while Charlie would never in a million years find pleasure in that event, he very much enjoyed that Veruca was not pushing that special day into the back of her mind, but using it to elaborate on their blossoming relationship.

Chapter Text

Charlie nodded in agreement at his fellow Golden Ticket winner's order for him to take a shower, but even after being chastised by her, he was as gleeful as ever as he got in the elevator that took him down to the lobby; all the while, Veruca was alone in her penthouse and left to contemplate what she had just done. Perhaps it was the rum that made her give Charlie something he desperately wanted, but alcohol typically made Veruca feel even more irritated at the people around her than when she was sober. Or perhaps Veruca also felt something, a connection like the kind Charlie spoke of when he tried to get her to respond to his interactions with her. Could empathy be why she gave him her phone number? No! Of course not, she could not feel any kindness for anyone but herself, right? But, instead of going down this emotional rabbit hole, Veruca preferred to continue drinking, at least this way she had some control over her life; and when she could no longer control herself, she would just eventually wake up with no recollection of what happened before. She sat back on her new sofa, grabbed her glass of rum she rested on the coffee table when she turned to grab Charlie's gift, and returned to drinking it, that was until the inner box of Wonka Bars caught her attention. She had not eaten one of these magnificent candies in years, primarily because she did not want to be reminded of the horrifying, near-death experience she underwent at the factory where these chocolates were produced, but now that she had been given an entire box of these candies, she reasoned that she might as well try one. The chocolates were in a random order but Veruca decided to savor her favorite flavor from when she was a kid first, the brown-wrapped Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. She pushed the foil-wrapped chocolate bar through the brown wrapper, unfolded the foil and took a bite out of the candy, and or a few seconds it was like she was a kid again, the sweet block she bit off sliding across her tongue making her feel even more at ease.

The more she savored the chocolate and examined its texture in her mouth, the more Veruca was reminded of a trade secret she learned about on the tour of Wonka's factory, leading her to say as she took another bite of the Wonka Bar, "He was right, it is light and frothy."

While Veruca lounged around her penthouse, trying to keep thoughts of self-reflection at bay, Charlie was exiting the elevator once it reached the lobby and felling pretty good about himself. He passed by the concierge's desk and handed Herp the mover's blankets before wishing him good night and heading back to his car. Once the Oompa Loompas saw him get to his car the driver of the red truck ignited his engine and followed Charlie as they resumed their about-an-hour long journey back to Wonka's factory. With the roads partially empty with pretty much everyone who worked in Central London at home by then, Charlie had more energy to focus on what had just transpired. He could not believe it, he got Veruca's phone number without even asking, all that work he put in throughout the day actually payed off. Looking back, Charlie could not believe he did what he did, he could not believe he just stood there when Veruca threw a fit in public just because the shop did not have the sofa she wanted. He could not believe he drove said grown-up toddler all the way to some warehouse outside the city to pick up the sofa he ended up paying for, and he could not believe he hauled that sofa all the way from the street corner up to her penthouse all those floors above them. It was not like him to enable spoiled behavior, his moral compass always told him that people who leveraged others to get what they wanted, like Veruca whining until her father found her a Golden Ticket, were rotten and needed to be disciplined, but with her it was different. Even though the little brute made many despicable life choices in the past, the Good Boy did have some sympathy for her. Simply put, as he saw it, Veruca got screwed over twice; she was a child who got tortured, but she was also a brat who had never had to undergo anything uncomfortable in her life up to that point. And, having to process that fact while dealing with the pain that came with having hordes of squirrels attacking her all at the same time must have only made that traumatic moment even more traumatic for her.

The Good Boy also believed reliving the Nut Sorting Room incident in all its slow, torturous horror made him feel completely different about Veruca. And seeing her child-self appear at the foot of his bed while she delivered a chilling message about his own failures did not hurt when it came to making amends for his own shortcomings. That mind-opening encounter left him with the feeling that he had to get Veruca to open up to him, that way he could help her deal with the pain from the squirrel attack she was still living with. It took a lot of sweat and tears, and while he had not examined his entire body, he would not be surprised if blood were also added to that list, but he had succeeded with phase one of his mission. It took a lot of work to get Veruca to respond, but in the end, it was all worth it to have her initiate the next phase of their new relationship. There were times when Charlie questioned what he was doing, but he always came back to the haunting words of the dirty, young Veruca that appeared at the foot of his bed, "Why didn't you save me?" Charlie called himself a Man of Honor, but how could a man of honor let such a travesty like the one Veruca underwent in the Nut Sorting Room transpire without feeling some sort of guilt. That original guilt, coupled with the fact that he had made her a huge promise left the Good Boy in a bind, he could either walk away from his label of generous and caring person or he could continue to stand by Veruca's side and absorb all the vitriol she spewed at those who made life uncomfortable for her. Charlie did the wrong thing for the right reason when it came to appeasing Veruca's spoiled nature. But, by doing everything he could to get her new sofa up in her penthouse he now had one foot in the door to make up for his failure to save her when she was a child, and perhaps even save her now that she was an adult set on a destructive course.

However, none of that explained why he even approached her at Fenston's days ago in the first place. Sure, a major reason why Charlie stood by and took all of Veruca's abuse was that he was hoping to start a new relationship with her and upsetting her would only be detrimental to that goal, but there was also something more abstract at play. Before a dirty, child-aged Veruca appeared in his room, before he relived the Nut Sorting Room incident, even before he heard Veruca's cries for help emanating out from the garbage chute, Charlie felt something pulling him in the direction of Veruca. This mysterious special bond Charlie felt he shared with Veruca would explain why he vividly felt the same emotions she experienced in the Nut Sorting Room, but he did not know if it was strong enough to make him blind to her many, many faults. Charlie knew full well Veruca was a spoiled brat and that she would not willingly tell others how thankful she was for everything they did for her, yet time after time he constantly waited for her to express her gratitude to him for doing all he did to get her the sofa she wanted. No matter how much she ignored him, he could not help but feel an irresistible urge to continue to reach out to the little brute until she responded. I want her so bad…to respond, that is, he told himself. A bit surprised that he had gotten so emotionally driven there for a second, but more surprised at what his subconscious revealed about what he desired the most when he thought his mind was focused on something else like the road. While such an outburst required him to look inward, all Charlie could focus on at the moment was getting back to Wonka's factory and taking a nice, refreshing shower to cleanse himself of all the sweat he had covered himself in in service to his fellow Golden Ticket winner.

Chapter Text

As expected, Charlie woke up the next day feeling completely sore from moving Veruca's sofa all the way from the street corner up to her penthouse all by himself, and the fact that he slept in a small bed in the crawlspace of his family's shack's attic surely did not have help with his posture. Luckily, he was not needed anywhere that day other than at his desk opposite of Mr. Wonka where the pair went over briefs sent to them by the administrators down below and tried coming up with new candy ideas. But, even after being stationed at his desk all day, Charlie tried to move the least bit he possibly could as to not bring attention to his pain, he did not want Wonka asking questions about why he was injured or where he hurt himself. He knew Wonka would get hopping mad if Charlie said he spent the afternoon using his trucks full of his fuel and driven by his Oompa Loompas to fulfil an undeserved favor for The Bad Nut, so it was best to keep him in the dark for a bit. The Good Boy sure felt guilty doing this to his mentor, but if he wanted to continue connecting with Veruca then he would have to start keeping small secrets from Wonka, at least small secrets from Charlie's point of view. If they were small to him, he feared they would be huge betrayals to Wonka, and betraying the man who lifted his family out of poverty was one thing he did not want to do, but it was something he was willing to risk in order to come to peace with the fact that he failed to save Veruca when she most needed his help.

The more he thought about how to keep Wonka from finding out about what happened the afternoon before, the more he realized he had not ordered the Oompa Loompas that accompanied him to keep quiet about their journey. Those two workers saw the heir to the Wonka empire do the work of a common laborer and move a piece of furniture all by himself. There was also the fact he did all that for a former Golden Ticket winner, and a very spoiled one at that. Even though it had been years since the Golden Ticket winner's factory tour, it would not have surprised Charlie if the Oompa Loompas recognized Veruca. Despite the appearance of their civilization being rather primitive, over the years Charlie began to realize that the Oompa Loompas were some of the most intelligent individuals he had ever encountered. It was the Oompa Loompas who came up with most of the machinery that automated the Wonka Bar manufacturing process, it was them that built and tested every single project, candy or machine that went on inside the factory, and it was them who maintained all the equipment and kept the factory running. If they could train squirrels to distinguish bad nuts from good nuts, transport chocolate bars through a television and find a way to reverse the effects of aging, then surely, they could have remembered an entitled brat their brothers had to liberate out of a malfunctioning incinerator. It would only be a matter of time before the story of the lucky boy submitting himself to the little brute who went down the garbage chute would begin to spread around the facility. What would start off as typical water cooler office talk would become full-blown factory-wide gossip, spreading from the Loading Docks to every corner of Wonka's factory. And once every single Oompa Loompa learned of Charlie's night out with Veruca, it would be near impossible for Wonka to not hear about it from one of his faithful workers. At least that's how Charlie's over-imaginative, catastrophizing mind rationalized the situation he found himself in.

Now, back in the real world and not in the mind of the injured heir, Wonka had left the office a while back and since Charlie was now all alone without anything to do, he thought this would be the perfect time to call Veruca back. He spent the night prior fleshing out all the details for their night out, now he just needed to call her and find out when she would be available to meet up. He could not call too early or he would look desperate, well, more desperate than he already looked like he was. However, he also could not call too late because he feared Veruca would think he was ghosting her and she would forget all about him and move on with her life. With both of these conflicting fears rattling around in his mind, Charlie pulled out both his phone and the piece of wrapping paper where Veruca had written down her phone number for Charlie the night before from his pants' pockets and began punching in the eleven digits onto the digital dial pad in hopes that by just jumping in and getting it over with he could end the torture both options created. He then pressed the green call icon and brought the device up to his ear, but the phone just kept ringing and ringing. This was Charlie's worst fear, that Veruca would just ignore his calls and that he would be left all alone once again.

Fortunately, those fears were put to rest when the little brute answered her phone in the most quintessentially Veruca way possible, "Who's this? What do you want?"

Clearing his throat, Charlie tried to ease her tension by speaking in a meek and tender voice, replying, "H...hi, is this Veruca? It's Charlie."

The other end of the phone went silent for a bit, but instead of apologizing for such a brash introduction, all Veruca did was respond with a primal sound, "Mmm."

Understanding the grunt as a sign of agreement, Charlie took a deep breath in an attempt to combat the anxiety that overcame him at such a pivotal moment, and responded, "So, listen, I've taken a look at my schedule and my weekend afternoons are wide open. How's this Saturday afternoon for you?"

"I could do Saturday afternoon," Veruca replied, actually taking the time to articulate a near full response to Charlie's question.

Veruca's seeming eagerness to actually converse with Charlie only made him more exited, something that caused a bit of a blowback after he over-enthusiastically asked, "Does six work for you?"

Charlie might have spoken too soon, after replying with such energy, Veruca was back to barely responding, this time simply saying, "I guess."

"That's good, so listen, I have an idea about where to go. Do you like fresh seafood and salads?" The ever-considerate Charlie asked, checking to see if his plan was acceptable to his guest.

Luckily, Veruca seemed to be fine with such a restaurant, replying, "I'll eat both."

"Great, then I think you'll like it. So, I guess I will see you Saturday at six," Charlie added, sounding just a bit too excited.

Veruca had picked up on Charlie's enthusiasm from the other end of the line and acted like his polar opposite, as all she had to say was, "Sure."

With the two of them now entrenched in an awkward silence and with nothing else to say, Charlie thought it would be best for him to initiate a valediction, saying, "Alright then, take care Veruca, buh-bye."

Veruca didn't hesitate to end the call, but instead of focusing on her bad manners all Charlie could do was criticize his own conversational skills, whispering to himself, "Buh-bye? What kind of farewell is that? I might as well have said toodles."

It was moments like these that emphasized just how tough Charlie was on himself. Instead of being upset at how his upcoming dinner guest treated him on their call, he had to criticize himself for a rather arbitrarily sub-par method on how to end a phone call. While it was not fair for Charlie to put so much pressure on himself to correct supposed errors, it was also just the way he grew up, no matter how hurtful the schoolyard bullies were to him he always kept the pain under wraps and showed up to school the next day with a smile on his face. Even after everyone learned that Charlie would be moving into Wonka's factory the taunts did not stop, nor did real friendships blossom. If anyone did approach him at all it was in hopes of getting to see the inside of the mysterious factory. That was why reconnecting with Veruca and the other Golden Ticket winners was so important to Charlie, they were already well-defined in his mind. He knew what to expect from them and at least they would not want to hang out with him just because they wanted to experience Willy Wonka's chocolate factory firsthand. This upcoming dinner would be the next step in making his dream of a reunion become reality. After he brought Veruca closer to him, the two of them would bring in the other Golden Ticket winners and they could all be like a family of sorts, at least that is what Charlie dreamed of.

Chapter Text

All this talk about reunions and family made Charlie think about his own family. His desk was littered with framed photos of all his loved ones, from his parents, his grandparents and even Willy Wonka as well. There was one photo of all of them together that stood out to Charlie; it was taken after Wonka moved the Bucket's shack into the Chocolate Room and Mrs. Bucket had prepared a huge feast to celebrate their new life inside Wonka's factory. Wonka had an Oompa Loompa take the photograph of the entire family, Wonka included, huddled together around the dinner table with all the food Mrs. Bucket prepared spread out. The smile on Charlie's face only grew bigger when he realized this framed photograph stood right above the part of his desk where he kept his collection of media reports on the Golden Ticket winners and of their special tour. Charlie opened the drawer and pulled out a magazine that featured all the winners and their guardians standing outside the gates of Wonka's factory, waiting to get inside, on the cover and again noticed that Veruca was the one standing right beside him.

With Veruca back in his life, Charlie thought he should pull up a digital copy of a photo taken outside the gates, crop everybody but Veruca and him out, have it photo-printed and then frame it and place it on his desk with all of his other photos. It surely would not be difficult to find one seeing as he would often find himself scrolling through pages of them on the image section of a web browser whenever he was feeling down or just had nothing else to do. Although, framing such a picture might send the wrong message, especially to Wonka who was quite addiment he wanted nothing to do with The Bad Nut. So, instead of rushing into things and framing a picture of him and Veruca as kids, Charlie thought it might be best to try and get a picture of the two of them at dinner. At least this way if Wonka noticed the picture, he might have to give it a minute or two before figuring out who the woman in the photograph was. Charlie knew that his mentor would react rather negatively if he did such a thing, and that bothered him a lot the more he thought about it. The Good Boy could not understand how Wonka could make up with his father but could not do the same with the Golden Ticket winners. They had both offended him in the past, but they were not evil, just simply misguided and not in tune with Wonka's personality.

Nevertheless, the Good Boy still wanted to frame a picture of him and Veruca together as kids, and so he came up with a great way to do this while minimizing the chance of provoking Wonka's wrath. He found a picture in the magazine of just the Golden Ticket winners, no guardians at all, that just so happened to feature Charlie and Veruca once again standing next to each other. If he could find the digital copy of this image, he could have this one turned into a photograph and he could frame it under the guise of reliving the greatest day of his life if Wonka ever got too curious. With nothing else to do for the day, Charlie turned his attention to the computer on his desk and began searching the web for a copy of the image from the magazine. Charlie struck gold with his luck, he located a digital album of good quality images from press coverage of the event and downloaded the one he wanted onto a flash drive with plans to take it somewhere where the image could be turned into an actual photograph.

The day came and went and so did the following day until Saturday afternoon rolled around. Charlie had been waiting for this moment all week, yet at the expense of him overanalyzing and overthinking everything down to the bone. Charlie had pondered every possible scenario, too many of them ending rather nasty, but he was confident enough that if he played his cards just right, he could get Veruca to become closer to him. After another day of work, Charlie put away his duties, went back to his house, changed into something cleaner, and left the factory in his car. It would still take him about an hour to get to The Stourton Block, but he needed to make a stop somewhere beforehand. Following some additional online research, Charlie found a place where they could develop the image he downloaded into a photograph, so he decided to stop by before to have the image developed while he was having dinner with Veruca. He would stop by to pick up the photo afterwards, and if he got lucky, to develop the picture he would have taken of him and his fellow Golden Ticket winner together that evening as well.

Charlie arrived at Stourton some time before six and called Veruca from his phone to let her know he had arrived to pick her up, no longer needing Herp to do him the favor of calling one of the tenants for him. Nevertheless, Charlie thought it appropriate to step into the lobby and greet Herp, he did not know why but he had a good feeling about him. Luckily, Veruca did not take long to descend the elevator and when she did she presented herself in that most elegant manner that she had mastered since when she was a child. Her outfits were always carefully coordinated, and this time she wore a black skirt that made it half-way down her thighs, a black-and-white horizontal striped long-sleeve u-neck top, and red flats. She also hung another clutch purse around her right shoulder, tucked her slinky brown curls behind her ears and kept them in place with clips on either side, and of course, sported another fur coat, this time one made out of red fox fur.

The little brute looked pleased, well, as pleased as she could feel out in a world where hardly anybody catered to her every whim, but that was until she stopped to look at Charlie, and asked, "Oh, dear lord. You're not actually planning on going out dressed like that, are you?"

"What seems to be the problem, Veruca? This is what I wear all the time," Charlie responded, smiling and tugging on his shirt and pants in order to accentuate them.

Even though Charlie was as well dressed as Veruca the last two times they had met, the only reason he looked as good as he did was because he had just come back from a business conference before reuniting with her at Fenston's the first time and because he did not want to stand out among the high-end crowd of Coûteux the second time they met up. This time around, Charlie was wearing an outfit that more matched his everyday style; he wore a generic plaid dress shirt with an autumn-colored sweater vest, a pair of some rather baggy brown pants and some clunky dark shoes. With Veruca looking at Charlie with a sense of hopelessness and Charlie looking at Veruca utterly confused, Herp just stood behind the concierge's desk, feeling like a child of divorce stuck in between two dueling parents. All he could do was observe the differences that lead to this divorce, and the contrasts couldn't have been clearer. He had all the money in the world yet he lived a similar lifestyle to that of his impoverished child-self while she relied on Daddy's money to keep up appearances. Charlie and Veruca no longer looked like an affluent couple from Central London, they looked like grown-up versions of those two polar opposite kids standing side-by-side while they waited to enter Wonka's factory.

With Charlie seemingly oblivious to Veruca's issue with his outfit, she rolled her eyes, and commented, "And here I was thinking you had quit being a street urchin."

But, regardless of her attacks on Charlie's social standing, Veruca headed out of the lobby and made her way to his car where Charlie knew beforehand to open the door so his fellow Golden Ticket could enter. And with Veruca seated, Charlie rushed over and got back in the driver's seat, where his guest asked, "So, tell me, where is it that you're taking me for dinner?"

"Because by the look of your rags, I'm guessing we're not going anywhere Michelin certified," Veruca added, giving Charlie one of those side smirks she constantly dispensed during the factory tour.

As Charlie buckled up, he confirmed Veruca's fears yet also tried to assure her that she could have a good time on their night out, replying, "Well, you're right about that. I am taking you to this little restaurant called El Pescador Tabasqueño, The Tabascan Fisherman. It's a regional Southern Mexican restaurant, I really like it and I hope you like it too."

Rather surprised that Charlie would pick such an out-of-the blue spot for a dinner he so desperately wanted, Veruca asked rather confused, "Why would you want go to a Mexican restaurant? It seems so esoteric."

Surprisingly enough, there was a reason why Charlie had a penchant for such a food rare in his native Britain, which he explained to his guest, "The thing is I know the owner, her and I go a while back. Basically, she used to cook for a business partner in Mexico and I really liked her cooking, so I offered to help her and her family immigrate to the UK. They accepted, I gave them the money for a restaurant and now they are entrepreneurs. So now whenever I'm in the mood I drive on down to their quaint restaurant and they treat me like family."

"I actually thought that kind of environment would be perfect for our dinner," Charlie added, already imaging the tiny two-person tables and all the possibilities that might arise from such an intimate setting.

However, Veruca did not see it that way, all she could think of was Charlie's plebian clothes and after hearing about how he had decided to invest his money, she replied, "So you have money to move people from the other side of the globe and open up a restaurant for them, yet you don't buy yourself an entirely decent wardrobe."

"You seem like a brilliant businessman," the little brute sarcastically added, throwing in another one of her signature smirks into mix as well.

Chapter Text

The Good Boy and the little brute found themselves in the middle of another awkward car ride into the city as it took about fifteen minutes to drive from Stourton to the West End of London, the city's entertainment district and a great location to set up a unique restaurant ready to feed tourists and locals alike. Veruca didn't much care for surprises since they put her in a situation where she had no control, something she realized the hard way during the tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Therefore she did not like the fact that Charlie kept their destination for the evening a secret until he picked her up at her penthouse. Nevertheless, she gave him the opportunity to make the evening a memorable one, and so far he seemed to be doing so with his choice of clothing. Unfortunately, that was a personality choice the brat despised and was willing to ostracize him for until the end of time, but yet she allowed him to take her to this mysterious restaurant that he so wanted to take her to. Nestled in between two other small businesses, the location of El Pescador Tabasqueño was a building with an apartment above where the owners lived while the first floor appeared to be short widthwise while making up for the lack of space by expanding lengthwise towards the back. There was a line of cars parked on the curb, so Charlie had to park two buildings down from the restaurant, the upside of such a line was that it meant people were actually coming to try the different yet delicious meals prepared inside. After parking his car, Charlie got out and rushed over to once again open Veruca's door for her, as she expected him to do. But he could only hope the ambiance of the place would loosen her up and lead to a fruitful discussion about their pasts and perhaps even their future.

"We're here, Veruca," Charlie said as he held the passenger door of his car open so his guest could get out.

As the two former Golden Ticket winners walked side by side towards the front entrance, Charlie had a surprise ability he wanted to demonstrate in front of his guest, so he pleaded with her, "And one more thing, when we go inside, just let me do the talking."

Unsurprisingly, Veruca did not take kindly to being told what, or in this case what not, to do, so, she gave Charlie yet another side sneer and asked rather irritated, "Why?"

"You'll see," Charlie simply and mysteriously responded with a smile on his face before reaching out for the handle of the door to the restaurant.

The first thing the pair saw when they entered the restaurant was the host's desk with the title bearer, a man with black hair and dark brown skin about five and a half feet tall and in his early 20s, the owner's son, Benito, standing behind the desk, who then greeted the two guests through his English learner's accent, "Welcome to El Pescador Tabasqueño, table fo...Oh, Mr. Bucket, a pleasure to see you."

Benito struggled to articulate what he wanted to say due to the presence of such an honored guest, but then managed to scream for his mother in the kitchen in his native tongue to present herself, "¡Amá! ¡Ven aqa!"

(Mom, come here!)

With her son screaming while people tried to eat a few feet away, out came an equally dark-skinned woman in her 50s with graying hair no more than five feet tall and dressed in a traditional white southern Mexican dress and a stained khaki apron from working in the kitchen, Doña Rosita, who without regret screamed back, "¡¿Que quieres, Cabrón?! ¡¿Porque andas gritando?!"

(What do you want, dumbass?! Why are you screaming?!)

Now, all it took was one quick glance at the amazing chocolatier's apprentice to turn Doña Rosita from an angry matriarch to the world's sweetest grandma; she even greeted the heir by calling him one of the nicknames he picked up while in Mexico, the Hispanicized equivalent of Charlie, saying, "Ay, Carlitos, mijito, ven aqa."

(Oh, Carlitos, my boy, come here.)

After greeting the owner with hugs and kisses, Charlie kept his promise to amaze Veruca by responding to the woman in her language, albeit with the accent of a Spaniard rather than one from rural southern Mexico like their host, "Buenas tardes, Doña Rosita. ¿Usted tiene mesa para dos?"

(Good afternoon, Doña Rosita. Do you have a table for two?)

Doña Rosita had a policy in her restaurant, whenever Mr. Charlie Bucket stopped by to eat, it was the entire staff's responsibility to cater to his every whim, and she kept true to that policy, replying, "Para ti, siempre tenemos lugar."

(For you, we always have room.)

"Come, come," Doña Rosita added, unleashing her elementary English skills as she walked towards the restaurant dining area while dragging Charlie by the arm with one hand and signaling Veruca to follow her with the other.

However, when it came to her actual son, Doña Rosita was not afraid to get bossy when they were both at work, barking at him from the corridor leading to the tables, "¡Benito, trae dos cartas, Cabrón!"

(Benito, bring two menus, dumbass!)

As the group of four passed through the hallway and into the dining center where two-thirds of the tables were occupied, Doña Rosita turned around to examine just who exactly Carlitos had taken out on a dinner date and she was not impressed. She clearly spotted how modestly he was dressed while she appeared to be coming right off the catwalk of some fashion show. His inviting smile and soft features stood in clear contrast with her disinterested gaze and defined facial features. And while his energy seemed approachable, his guest's vibe screamed that if you even looked at her the wrong way you would not want to stick around to find out what she would do to you.

Wondering what exactly the little brute wanted with sweet Charlie, Doña Rosita turned to her beloved benefactor, and asked referring to the grown-up brat in a taunting manner that was not entirely intended to be playful, "¿Aver, Carlitos, dime, quien es la princesita?"

(Alright, Carlitos, tell me, who's the little princess?)

That question caught the Good Boy by surprise as he struggled to even find the right words to describe the type relationship he has had with Veruca in English, and so Charlie went for the most generic description he could muster to explain what the pair were, replying, "Es una...amiga de la ninez, Doña Rosita."

(She's a…childhood friend, Doña Rosita.)

Doña Rosita turned back to observe the stuck-up brat cast sneers at the restaurant for not being adorned with chandeliers like her childhood home, then back at The Good Boy who actually gave the brat affection even though she never reciprocated, and wondered what these two had in common that would have justified a relationship spanning back into their youth. And so, the owner commented with so much distain herself, "No te quiero ofender, Carlitos. ¿Pero como podrias ser amigo con una Niña Fresa como ella? Mirala, bien curra la muchachita."

(I do not want to offend you, Carlitos. But, how could you be friends with such a snobby girl like her? Look at her, she thinks she's all that.)

Instead of trying to fight Doña Rosita on the character of his guest, Charlie admitted that Veruca was a bad nut, chuckling before stating, "Si, puede ser muy consentida."

(Yes, she can be very spoiled.)

Doña Rosita was only half-joking when she called Veruca a snob, but to hear confirmation from someone she viewed like one of her grandchildren only hurt her when she saw her grandson with such a bad woman, to which she made sure to express her disappointment in the situation, saying, "Ay, Carlitos, no me digas eso. Puedes encontrar a alguien mejor que ella."

(Oh, Carlitos, don't tell me that. You can find someone better than her.)

Charlie understood many good-hearted people would think such a thing after looking at him and Veruca for more than a second, but instead of explaining that he was trying to make up for failure to save her when she was a child, he instead chose to mention his lack of success at finding a life partner, clarifying, "Lo he intentado, Doña Rosita, pero aqui estamos los dos. Y además, solo somos amigos."

(I've tried, Doña Rosita, but here we both are. And besides, we're just friends.)

More than confused at the predicament Charlie found himself in, Doña Rosita decided to change the conversation from the man who improved her life tenfold to the son she playfully disparaged, saying, "Pos...que al menos sea mejor que la novia nueva de mi hijo. El pendejo escogio una de la vida loca, ni que estaba en la capital."

(Weeell…hopefully she'll at least be better than my son's new girlfriend. The dumbass chose a wild one, he thinks he's in the capital.)

Aware of the fact she was referring to Mexico City and its bohemian energy compared to the rest of the country, especially her quiet home village, Charlie toyed with her using some literalist humor, "Pero él si está en la capital británica."

(But he is in the British capital.)

Doña Rosita took Charlie and Veruca to a small two-person table next to a mural of Tabascans fishing in the swampy marshlands that covered the Mexican state, and the chocolatier's apprentice instinctively pulled out the spoiled brat's chair for her to sit down before she had to tell him to do so. The restaurant owner watched as this kind gentleman pulled out all the chivalrous stops for an entitled hussy who would not even say thank you afterwards, yet she could not say anything that could knock some sense into Charlie because it seemed her generous benefactor had already been ensnared by the seductress and saying anything might damage her relationship with the heir more than it would the relationship between the heir and his date. Benito, on the other hand, was just interested in doing his job, and as he handed Charlie and Veruca their menus he said, "Here are the menus, just let me know when you're ready to order."

Before Veruca could pick up the menu from the table and look the items over, Charlie put his hand out to grab the casebound booklet, and retorted, "Um, actually I've thought this over and I have an idea of what to order. Do you like the taste of garlic on fish, Veruca?"

"Sure," the little brute responded, unsure of what to make of Charlie's seemingly newfound penchant for controlling of the situation.

Placing such a specialized order in such a direct manor was one of the few areas in life where Charlie socially exceled at, and because he was surrounded by people he was comfortable with, he looked up at Benito and Doña Rosita and ordered, "Okay. Tendremos dos órdenes de Carpa al Mojo de Ajo y dos..."

(We'll have two orders of Garlic-Buttered Carp and two…)

Unsure if his fellow Golden Ticket winner would even like his idea for a drink, Charlie stopped mid-sentence, and asked her, "Veruca, have you ever had hibiscus tea before?"

"No," Veruca immediately replied.

"It almost tastes like cranberries. Does that sound like something you'd like?" Charlie added, attempting to pitch the idea of an exotic drink to a girl who had to have everything go according to her plan.

Essentially having been dragged here, Veruca did not really care about the drinks Charlie wanted to order, and simply responded, "I'll try it."

Deciding to take Veruca's routine disinterest in the lives of others as nothing less than a minor inconvenience, Charlie put on a smile for their hosts, and added, "Great. Y dos Aguas de Jamaica, por favor."

(And two hibiscus teas, please.)

And, as she wrote down what Charlie requested on her restaurant order pad, Doña Rosita finally got to stare down at Charlie since she was only taller than the lanky man when he was sitting down, and said in a grandmotherly tone before walking back to the kitchen to prepare the order herself, "Claro que si, Carlitos. Danos unos minutos y les traemos sus ordenes."

(Of course, Carlitos. Give us a few minutes and we'll bring out your orders.)

"Enjoy your stay," Benito interjected, heeding his mother's promise before returning to his station in front of the restaurant to greet entering clients, leaving the two former Golden Ticket winners alone at their table where one would have to explain to the other what just happened.

Chapter Text

As the two of them sat at their table in awkward silence, it only then dawned on Veruca that so much had transpired in the life of The Lucky Boy, and all of the other Golden Ticket winners for that matter, since the last time there paths crossed. Although, it was not like her to take other people and their lives into consideration, so such lack of consideration was not all that unusual for her. She had certainly had unique life experiences from the last time she had seen Charlie in the Nut Sorting Room to when they encountered each other by complete chance at Fenston's. It was a life the little brute was more than sure the Good Boy, sitting patiently across from her, was just dying to hear all about, and something she would oblige for the sole purpose of hearing the sound of her own voice. However, that did not mean that she would like to hear what Charlie, or anyone else she had not seen in years, had been up to during the time interval of when they last saw each other until now. She was just not interested in anyone not herself, nothing too surprising for a spoiled brat like her. Yet, there was something about Charlie's mastery of a second language that actually intrigued her, for the first time in her life, she was taking an interest in the life of someone else. And, to make matters more shocking, it was not just that Veruca had taken an interest in someone else, but that she had taken an interest in the poor boy who found Willy Wonka's last Golden Ticket without having his father buy hundreds of boxes of Wonka Bars and have the employees of his large business do the work of shelling them to find the ticket for him. Veruca did not expect much from a person like Charlie, even if he was now a successful businessman. She knew he was still nothing more than a street urchin at heart as evidenced by his choice of clothing for their evening out, at least that is what she thought.

Nevertheless, the realization that someone who came from such a squalid background could grow up to be so intellectually capable baffled the brat's brain, which led her to ask with true curiosity in her tone, "Where'd you learn to do that?"

Finally, Veruca was beginning to show interests in someone besides herself; luckily, Charlie had rehearsed this scenario in his head for the past few days and he knew exactly what he would say, and so he recited, "Mr. Wonka got me a tutor from Madrid when I was in secondary school, but I mostly use it on my trips to Latin America to find new cocoa bean strains and ideas for new candy flavours. You can probably recognize the difference in accents between me and the staff, I think that is one of the reasons Doña Rosita likes me so much. I imagine the Spanish accent I use sounds to her a lot like how our British accents sound to Americans, peak refinement. Although, considering the history of Spanish colonial oppression of the Indigenous populations of the Americas, it could also be some sort of respect based on residual fear of retaliation…"

"Stop!" Veruca screamed with her palms held up in the air and a bit closed which made them look like claws.

The little brute had lost interest after Charlie mentioned his business trips overseas, and she was surely not interested in listening to his theory on the power of accents, so she added rather frustrated, "I don't need a bloody uni lecture, just say you can speak another language!"

Charlie always knew how to blow it, and in all honesty, he really was not as smart as he made himself seem. The little stunt he pulled was nothing more than a testament to what a mind of plain old average intelligence could concoct given days to prepare to answer a question about one's multilingual abilities. And, even though his attempt at impressing Veruca with what seemed like a huge intellect failed, the Good Boy got back on the horse to try again. After being reprimanded, the two of them sat in silence until the chocolatier's apprentice summoned the courage to speak again, claiming, "I can also speak French and Arabic."

"You say," Veruca hurled back in disbelief, flashing her large maxillary central incisors through that large, wide mouth of hers as she spoke.

In order to prove her wrong, Charlie pulled his other language skills off the mental shelf and began reciting sentences relevant to his line of work where he often used them, coincidentally starting off with the language of love, "Oh, oui. La plupart des fèves de cacao sont cultivées en Afrique de l'Ouest, donc ma connaissance du français est très utile lors des voyages d'affaires sur le continent."

(Oh, yes. Most cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, so my knowledge of French comes in handy during business trips to the continent.)

With Veruca actually attentive to what Charlie was saying now he continued on with his demonstration, now switching to a language that conveyed mystery and intrigue, adding, "'Amma al'arabyia. Airtafaeat mabieat 'alwah alshwkwlatt Wonka fi almaghrib alkabir wamisr bilad alshshami wadual alkhalij alghaniat khilal almusabaqat wabialttali jaeal aleallamat altijariat 'akthar shaebiatan fi tilk albuldan."

(As for Arabic. Sales of Wonka Bars soared in the Maghreb, Egypt, the Levant and the wealthy Gulf States during the contest, thus making the brand more popular in those countries.)

In true Charlie fashion, he did not become a polyglot to show off, there was always a practical reason why he decided to learn a new language, which he explained in the case of Arabic, "I'm working on expanding the business into Saudi Arabia...The Kingdom, I mean."

From having lived most of her life surrounded by her businessman father, Veruca understood the effect personal decisions had on your professional success. And Charlie continued to show the effect his literal choice of words had on his job by leaning in closer to the little brute and whispering as he was about to use some foul language in a public space, but not before looking over both his shoulders to make sure there were not people eavesdropping, "You have to learn to kiss arse if you want to succeed there."

The Lucky Boy spoke four languages and hoped to learn more as time allowed for it, but he knew he could not spend the entire dinner talking about himself. He brought Veruca to this place hoping that she would open up to him about her life, and what better way to start than to find out if they shared this ability, to which he asked, "Do you speak any other languages, Veruca?"

Her big, bright blue eyes didn't seem cold like they usually did, but now they seemed more aloof as she responded, "No. Just 'Hjälp! Jag behöver en läkare!'"

Charlie could tell the language Veruca was speaking was a Germanic one, most likely Scandinavian, but as he stared at her with a confused look on his face as he tried to both figure out the language The Bad Nut was speaking and what she had said, Veruca spoiled the thrill of the hunt by clarifying, "That's Swedish for 'Help! I need a doctor!'"

His guess seemed to be close to the correct answer, but Veruca only saw the memory of her learning another language as a hurdle in her past she once had to overcome, adding, "Three years of Swedish in secondary school and that's all I cared to learn. My logic being if I am ever in Stockholm, medical attention is the one thing I can't wait for someone else to translate for me."

The poor kid from East London had grown up into a worldly man with worldly insights and Charlie thought he was being insightful when he informed his fellow Golden Ticket winner of a language factoid about the Nordic country, "Um, most people in Sweden speak English, they're really good at it, too."

The only problem was that Veruca did not seem to take the Good Boy's statement as an interesting tidbit about the proliferation of English as the Lingua Franca of the world, but instead as an attempt to humiliate her for what she viewed as time from her youth she would never recover, to which she replied by asking in an indignant tone, "Why didn't you tell me that before I got stuck in a classroom with Professor ABBA for hours on end?!"

At least from his perspective, Veruca seemed to react as if Charlie had been an active part of her life during her secondary schooling career and could have counseled her on what language to study instead, and all he could do now was plead that she spare him her wrath, nervously claiming, "I...I didn't know where you were until less than a week ago."

Luckily, Veruca seemed to have listened to Charlie's pleas and calmed down, meaning the final Golden Ticket winner could ask the second winner about her past without having to block every delicate part of his body, "So then, why did you learn Swedish? I'd assume the magnificent school you attended offered more practical languages to learn."

As it turned out, Charlie would learn something about Veruca after all, albeit it did not help him in any practical way, when she responded, "They did, but the Swedish teacher was fit so I chose his class. The problem was that he would neverrr shut up. It was always add an umlaut to this and conjugate that. He eventually got on my nerves so much that I just stopped paying attention. Well, to his lessons, that is, he always got the girls' attention, and some of the boys' too."

By the way she described her Swedish class, Charlie knew he was too scrawny to compete for the brat's attention on a physical level against whoever caused the events leading to the mental image he had of schoolgirl Veruca biting her bottom lip instead of doing the schoolwork laid out on her classroom desk. Instead, he would have to rely on his own strengths, in this case what appeared to be his wit, to capture her attention, and so he said, "Well, all I know is that if we drove from here in the West End of London all the way down to the souks of Marrakesh, I'd be the only translator you'd need."

His not-a-joke joke was a dud, instead of leading Veruca to agree with Charlie she simply took it as the logistical fact it was. Luckily, the tense, awkward silence that followed was broken when Doña Rosita brought over the two glasses of hibiscus tea Charlie had ordered for him and Veruca. The brat grabbed the glass full of the ruby red drink and sniffed it first before putting it to her mouth and taking a sip of the tropical drink. Charlie watched in suspense, afraid that the little brute would not like the taste and spit it out in disgust, something which would surely upset Doña Rosita, or even worse, damage the tenuous relationship he had with the little brute. With the drink swishing through her mouth, Veruca picked up the similarities with cranberry juice. Apart from the color, the hibiscus tea was also bitter and tart, it was also rather chill, a bit too chill for British tastes. Nevertheless, Veruca did swallow the sip she took and as Charlie's toes were about to burrow their way out of his bulky shoes after so much nervous sole-scraping, Veruca surprised him when she brought the glass back to her mouth for another sip. Charlie had dodged a bullet there, Veruca was content with the drink after all. Doña Rosita also told him that she was preparing their food and that she would bring it out to them in no time. It seemed that Charlie's plan was going off as he had planned, for now, at least.

Chapter Text

Veruca had begun to grow impatient waiting since the food was going to take many more minutes to arrive. Every time someone from the restaurant, all of them members of Doña Rosita's family, passed by her, she made sure to give them that side sneer of disgust of hers so that they all knew she was displeased. Charlie did not know if this would be the right time to ask her the question he had been yearning to ask since the day they met up again, what had she been up to since the tour of the factory, but if he did not act now, she might just grow too angry and shut down any potential conversation the two could have. There surely was a lot for Charlie to learn about, but also some stuff for Veruca to learn about her dinner-inviter, albeit most of that information was already public knowledge. Most of the world already knew an abridged version of his life; Charlie Bucket, a kid born into crippling poverty who one day found the last of the elusive Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets and ended up becoming the heir to his candy empire. However, only those who were a part of the tour knew exactly why Charlie was the one that ended up becoming the heir, and only Wonka, the rest of the Bucket family and himself knew what it took for Charlie to officially be pronounced Wonka's heir and business partner. He would graciously share his story in exchange for his fellow Golden Ticket winner reciprocating the act, thus leaving each of them more enlightened about the life of the other.

After taking a sip from his glass of hibiscus tea, Charlie turned to face his bored invitee, and asked, "Do you have any questions about my...line of work?"

"What's there to ask? You work at that factory," Veruca rudely replied, not just disinterested in Charlie's life, but downright repulsed by the mere thought of Wonka's factory.

Unsurprisingly, Veruca held so much contempt for the mysterious factory as she had almost died inside the elaborate structure years ago. Nevertheless, Charlie began to press her on her knowledge about him specifically, asking, "May I ask, how did you discover that I had been chosen to inherit Mr. Wonka's empire?"

Charlie got a kick out of hearing the different myths people invented in an attempt to explain his rise to power in Wonka world, but Veruca could have cared less about the life of her fellow Golden Ticket winner, and she made that known when she carelessly responded, "Years ago, it was all people in the business world could speak of. I remember Daddy and his business mates talking about your rise once. It didn't seem important, so I ignored it, but just by being alive you hear stories about how the Wonka heir is making a name for himself."

She paused to take another sip of her hibiscus tea and proceeded to put that smug look back on her face before adding, "Plus, seeing that nice car of yours and your outfits that don't look like you got them from a deceased pauper...there's no way a street urchin could ever reach a level like that without someone backing him."

Of course, the Good Boy kept a smile on his face, even as he was being insulted, and by choosing to present a positive outlook he had managed to manifest the confidence needed to ask the follow up, "Any other questions, Veruca?"

This was the problem Veruca knew she would have to deal with the moment she gave Charlie her phone number, this street urchin has a desire to pick at old wounds in hopes of discovering something new. She already regretted giving him her number, yet she might as well poke around her inviter's life now that both of them were trapped inside this unique restaurant as he possibly might have something interesting to talk about. The little brute sighed before rolling her eyes, and asked in a rushed tone, "Fine, tell me, what's working for the amazing chocolatier, Willy Wonka, like?"

"Well, I actually work with him," Charlie replied, chuckling while he corrected her on a common mistake many people made, because as far as he was concerned, him and Wonka were equals when it came to their business relationship.

But Veruca did not like to be corrected, especially not when she was graciously asking questions to keep a conversation that she wanted to end already going. She did not really care to know the answers to said questions, she just did it to keep the person sitting across from her content, and she made her frustrations known by asking indignantly, "I thought I was the one putting forward the questions?"

It was times like these that Charlie told himself he had to carefully craft his response to keep the person he was interacting with from growing bored or displeased and leaving, so he made sure to concede a bit to her before responding, "You are, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to Mr. Wonka and I, we work together as a team. One of us is not more important than the other and it's been that way since I won the special prize for being the last kid standing during the tour."

Everyone knew Wonka met his future business partner and heir during the tour of his chocolate factory, but the world, including Veruca, had not yet pieced together that fact with an additional claim the chocolatier made in his initial announcement of the contest, which the little brute brought up after realizing it, "So, the special prize was to work for Wonka when you became an adult?"

It was obvious the brat was disregarding the Good Boy's clarification about the nature of his business relationship with Willy Wonka, but instead of choosing to fight her about it, and thus guaranteeing that this would have been the hill their relationship would have died on, Charlie did not correct her, and instead replied facetiously to the question she posed at him, "As far as the Department for Work and Pensions and child welfare services are concerned, then yes, when I became an adult."

The fact of the matter was Charlie had been unofficially working with Wonka whenever he was not at school since he was 10. He was not legally an employee of Wonka's companies, and thus he did not receive a paycheck until he turned 18. And while that would have raised red flags by itself, it was not like Wonka did not have a history of skirting the law in the past. The entire factory was basically taunting the Health and Safety Executive to shut it down for unsafe workplace facilities and practices, but Willy Wonka always managed to get the law to look the other way and leave him and his factory be. In return, he created the world's greatest candies, with Oompa Loompa labor paid for with housing and food.

Now, with that question having been answered, Veruca began reminiscing about the day of the tour, and afterwards, she asked Charlie something she had occasionally wondered about their former tour guide, asking, "Tell me, does Wonka still dress like a pimp?"

Honestly, the Good Boy did not know what to make of such an outlandish statement, but seeing how Veruca critiqued his choice of clothing before, Charlie took her attack on Wonka as hyperbole, and replied, "If you're referring to his unique choice of outfits, then yes, he's still very much fond of long coats...and top hats...and a cane."

"Good God, he does dress like a fleshmonger!" Charlie screamed, genuinely surprised as he had not picked up on such a resemblance before, not that his mind would ever start thinking about something so deviant to begin with.

However, he did not let that coincidence change the way he saw his benefactor, instead he rationalized Wonka's choices, adding, "But, I wouldn't say it's any different than your penchant for fur coats."

Charlie could not stop stepping in it, Veruca did not take kindly to her love of furs being compared to a recluse's idea of fashion, and now the heir had to dig himself out of another hole that his words had gotten him into, which he started to do by saying, "Well, my point is Mr. Wonka is still very much the same person you met on the tour all those years ago."

"Then it's a miracle you're not dead already," Veruca sniped back, speaking from her own personal experience with the confectioner while still upset at Charlie's comparison of her to the man who let her almost die.

It was more than evident now that Veruca had no love for Willy Wonka, the joy he brought to her as a child was gone and replaced by cynicism and hatred stemming from the tragic events of that fateful February day, none of which was surprising, of course, but still a fact the Good Boy wished was not so. In fact, Charlie wondered if all the other Golden Ticket winners felt this way about the amazing chocolatier, but all he could do now was chuckle and defend Wonka, replying, "I guess that's true. He's gotten us into our fair share of sticky situations. But I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything."

The Lucky Boy's continued devotion to his mentor was astonishing. Even after he almost got him killed on multiple occasions, Charlie continued to hold the kooky candymaker in high regards, and he was now going to tell The Bad Nut all about those death-defying adventures.

Chapter Text

It had been almost fifteen years since the last time Charlie and Veruca had seen each other, not that they even got to know each other the first time they met. But with so much time between their first two face-to-face encounters, the more stories about what had transpired in their lives between the time gap each of them had to recount. Now, multiply the number of stories worth telling someone you have not seen in nearly a decade and a half by a thousand, the Wonka Factor, and you now have a total of stories that would knock the socks of everybody at a dinner party or another social function. The fact of the matter was, spending so much time with the amazing chocolatier not only molded Charlie into the young man he was today, for better or worse, but it essentially gave him a front-row seat to the most bizarre and outlandish adventures the mind of man could ever come up with, and sometimes even adventures no healthy human mind could possibly fathom. Charlie had traveled to every corner of the globe and tried so many exotic delicacies, as was demonstrated in the order he had placed for him and Veruca, but those stories were no more unique than those of your average globetrotter. What many frequent flyers did not have were stories about how their jobs created awkward situations when traveling. Perhaps Charlie could tell a story about all the times he and his mentor got in trouble with the locals, which was always because Wonka committed some sort of cultural faux pas in their presence. Veruca knew just how awkward Wonka was and Charlie though she would get a kick out of hearing about a couple of the times people got to take down the man who tormented her simply for not following along with what society deemed as proper, but even that, the Good Boy feared, would not be enough to induce a jolt of joy into the little brute's dining experience. If he wanted to impress her, Charlie would have to tell her the most riveting, most unexpected, most adventurous story he had, and fortunately, that story from Charlie's past was so amazing it literally was out-of-this-world.

Now, despite the Good Boy's constant praise and adulation, the little brute did not seem convinced that there was any good in the amazing chocolatier. Therefore Charlie decided to tell her the story of what happened between him and Wonka after he had been declared the winner of the special prize in order to set up his big story, first asking, "I remember at Fenston's you mentioned a flying glass elevator, correct?"

"Yes, the one Daddy didn't want to get me," Veruca responded, crossing her arms across her chest and pouting as if she was still a child.

Charlie knew he could not argue with Veruca's perception that her father was abusing her for not buying her a Great Glass Elevator, instead, all he could do was try and redeem Wonka in the eyes of his guest by speaking about his experiences with the candymaker, replying, "Right. Well, we blasted our way out of a chimney and then hovered over the factory, that was surely a surprise. I didn't know that thing could fly, I thought the thing was going to shatter the moment we hit the grate on top of the stack and we were going to die, but we didn't and ever since then I learned to not question Mr. Wonka's judgement."

"Well...maybe I learned to not question him a bit later," Charlie added, remembering that his relationship with Wonka post-tour did not start off on the right foot.

Still in disbelief that Wonka was capable of more than gambling with people's lives in schemes concocted in that crazed imagination of his, Veruca wondered what the candymaker could have done to have rattled Charlie, and asked, "Why? What could be more impactful than him almost killing you?"

Charlie had to prepare himself for Veruca's vindication as there was no way to present what happened next without telling her exactly what she wanted to hear, evidence that proved Wonka was a heartless beast. But he had to be honest with her or else this whole night out would have been a sham, so he swallowed the large pill of truth, and responded, "You see, Mr. Wonka is a very...reclusive man, you know that, right. The thing is he wanted me to leave my family and go live with him at the factory, but I said no."

Veruca actually looked shocked at what Charlie had said, but not because she heard the heir disparage his master, but because he turned down something every other child who Wonka had not tortured would have jumped at the opportunity to take, leading her to ask in awe, "You gave up an entire factory for a bunch of double-dealing, two-timing rats?"

Charlie didn't know where her hostility towards his family was coming from as Veruca had never met the Buckets, but insulting his kin was something Charlie would not stand for, his demeanor got really serious, and he replied, "Family is really important to me, Veruca. They have covered my back for many years and they still do. And I can assure you, my family are not double-dealing, two-timing rats."

The little brute didn't seem to be fazed by Charlie's sudden shift in tone, and instead decided to double-down on her inflammatory rhetoric, retorting, "If you say so, but I say that sounds like a load of rubbish. Since when have families ever covered each other's backs?"

While he did not expect Veruca to understand the nuances of all the things she did not have to worry about because of her pampered upbringing, Charlie at least expected her to be aware of all the glaring examples of those around her catering to her every whim. How could she not recognize everything her father did for her? He literally gave her everything she had. But, ignoring the fact that Mr. Salt lost valuable time and profits to have his workers find the Golden Ticket for his dear Veruca, it seemed the little brute's resentment was not geared directly against the Bucket family, but all families in general. Charlie had seen such disregard for the most important institution in life from only one other person before, Willy Wonka himself. He could have brought this up directly, but he now knew better than to compare the brat to the amazing chocolatier, seeing as how she had reacted when he had done so before.

Instead, he decided to share the story of Wonka's transformation from bitter recluse to friendly mentor, by saying, "Well, what happened afterwards was that Mr. Wonka sought me out weeks later because he felt terrible and his candy was tasting terrible as a result, so his sales were plummeting as a result. Now, as it turned out, he and his father never saw eye to eye and they had not seen each other since Mr. Wonka was a child, so I accompanied him on the journey to his father's home and place of work and the two made amends. Mr. Wonka gained a new outlook on life and he offered me the chance to work at his side and one day inherit his factory. And I agreed on the conditions that, one, my family could move into the factory as well, and two, that Mr. Wonka had to become an honorary member of the Bucket family. He now joins us every evening for family dinner. They're probably all having dinner as we speak now that I think about it."

While Charlie chose to interpret the anecdote as proof that even the roughest shells have soft insides, all Veruca seemed to take from the story was that Wonka was eating while she sat at an empty table, across from someone she thought she would never see again just a few days ago, and responded, "And we're still waiting for those plates of whatever it is you ordered."

The Good Boy had no response to his guest's claim, it took Doña Rosita a while to prepare their meals, and while he hoped to use that time to catch up, Veruca and her ever-fit body were just craving something to eat. She also had not yet heard a retelling of a misadventure her inviter insisted he had had with the reclusive candymaker, leading her to ask, "So, where's the sticky situation you mentioned?"

It seemed his guest was finally showing interest in his past and Charlie was more than willing to tell her about his previous experiences, and so he replied, "I was getting to that. So after Mr. Wonka agreed to my conditions, we returned to my home to pick up the rest of my family. He crashed the Great Glass Elevator through the roof of my home, that was actually the second time he had done so actually, and after explaining to them that we would all be moving into the factory he got my parents and grandparents on board and we set off towards the factory. The problem was that we flew too high and accidentally got sent into space, but we did get to go inside that hotel the Americans launched into orbit, Space Hotel 'U.S.A.' is the name if I remember correctly. It was truly a sight to behold, but we could not stay there for long because we got ambushed by, wait for it...aliens! We had to fight them off, but thanks to Mr. Wonka's genius insight and leadership we were able to make it back to Earth in one piece. Here's another interesting tidbit that happened later on, I almost lost one of my grandmothers after she took too many of my mentor's creations. But Mr. Wonka did everything he could to make sure everything went back to normal, in fact he made things better than normal. His genius mind was able to invent something that got my bed-written grandparents walking about again."

Charlie had never told this story to anybody else because he knew nobody would believe him, but if there was anybody in this world who would, it would be someone who experienced the wackiness that was Wonka's factory as well. However, despite being a first-hand witness to all the peculiar contraptions and concoctions inside the factory, Veruca just sat there with her jaw hanging wide open, stretching out the skin that covered those well-defined cheekbones of hers and thus extenuating her bright eyes even more. Frozen in such a state of confusion, all Veruca knew to do was lash out with a hint of anger in her tone, asking, "Does Wonka make edibles as well? What in God's name are you talking about?!"

There was one downside to telling unbelievable stories, many times nobody believed you, and Veruca was not believing Charlie, even though he knew for a fact that others might have remembered some of the details of what he was talking about.

"All of this happened, it was all over the news. Well, I think it was," Charlie responded, pleading with his guest to believe him yet struggling to remember all the facts about the event himself, particularly those that people who had no first-hand knowledge of the event would know.

As it turned out, the little brute had a convincing reason as to why she did not remember Charlie's heroic journey into space, saying, "I was barely on the cusp of turning 10 after the factory tour, what would I be doing watching the news?"

She had him there, most kids do not pay attention to the news nor would an adult be expected to remember something broadcasted on TV they had no interest in watching before they even cracked double digits in age. Yet Charlie thought Veruca must have had at least a slight idea about what he was talking about, as he pointed out, "But you surely must have heard about it."

"I was too busy being angry at Daddy for months after the factory tour. He was ruining my life, and you think I had time to watch stupid news coverage of some space skirmish," the brat barked back, still presenting herself with the body language of the petulant child she seemed to still be.

It didn't matter to The Good Boy if nobody believed him when he told the story of his space adventure in the Great Glass Elevator, Charlie knew full well it unraveled the way he told it, and he continued recanting his memories, saying, "Well, in that space skirmish, we did save three American astronauts and much of the hotel staff, so the American president organized a trip for my family, Mr. Wonka, and myself to visit the White House where his nation could thank us for keeping their emissaries safe."

"You're telling me you've been to the White House and met an American president now?" Veruca sniped as she leaned back in her chair, actually interested in hearing how this story, which presented itself as an obvious lie, would come crumbling down and embarrass the poor boy after it unraveled.

Despite his guest's disbelief in the facts of his story, Charlie just nodded almost innocently while he reminisced with some tension as he was about to use some language that did not come natural to him, "Oh, yes, I met President Lancelot R. Gilligrass, and let me tell you, he was a real Texas Shitkicker as they say across the pond."

"But, blimey, does the entire world miss him now, huh," he added, commenting on the current state of domestic politics in the United Kingdom's most trusted ally.

While the R. Gilligrass presidency was controversial worldwide, Charlie didn't feel right criticizing another country's former leader, let alone insult him, so he decided to bring up all the great memories he had of the other buffoon who lost the American presidential election but ended up becoming the most powerful man in the world because of his country's wacky electoral system, saying, "I'm being a bit mean, so I should say Gilligrass doesn't have an outright bad personality, per se. He was a gracious host and the dinner he held at the White House in our honor was sublime. I still remember the entertainment; his best friend is an Afghan sword swallower and he did his death-defying act for the audience. If I remember correctly, Gilligrass wanted to install him as President of Afghanistan after the invasion but he could never get the idea off the ground, so the sword swallower just moved into the White House and stayed with him."

That last tidbit of information reminded him of his own family's fate after being embraced by the amazing chocolatier, leading Charlie to mention, "Speaking of moving into somewhere special, while we were all in Washington, D.C., Mr. Wonka had the Oompa Loompas move my family's little home into the middle of the Chocolate Room in the dead of night. So, yeah, I now live in the same Chocolate Factory that is shrouded in mystery."

"Well, at least we know what goes on in the Chocolate Room," Charlie added, smiling and leaning over the table to get closer to Veruca. It was a sign of progress that Veruca did not throw her glass of hibiscus tea in Charlie's face or punch that grin off his face because he dared to get closer to her and remind her of everything she experienced in the factory. Instead, she just stood still and nodded in agreement, or, at least in Charlie's book, she was beginning to open up to him.

Chapter Text

It baffled Veruca just how loyal and devoted Charlie was to Willy Wonka, and not just because she had never been loyal to anyone else before. It truly was an enigma to her how this goodie-goodie could align himself with such a sadistic maniac, at least that is how she saw him. Even though the reason Charlie could sleep at night knowing he was locked in the same facility where horrific deformities and attacks transpired was because he did not hold Wonka accountable, even the heir had to admit that the amazing chocolatier had no remorse for what his fellow Golden Ticket winners went through. Even worse, from all she had heard from him, the little brute was starting to believe the Good Boy was as heartless as his mentor was for defending him as vehemently as he did, which was exactly the opposite of what the heir wanted her to think about him. Charlie was good, everyone knew that, he could not hurt anybody. But now he needed to convince Veruca, not just that he was trustworthy, but that he genuinely cared for her wellbeing. The only problem was that he was just not sure how he would demonstrate that to her. Sure, he could come out and tell her that he knew how she felt when she was attacked by the squirrels in the Nut Sorting Room because he had just had a dream a few nights ago where he had relived the events and experienced all the same gut-wrenching emotions that she did. But, if the Good Boy were to come out and say this, all she would hear was that this creep dreamt about her, which would immediately raise red flags and kill any chance of a relationship between the two.

On top of that, the idea that the Good Boy thought the contents of a bad dream he had were in any way comparable to a trauma she experienced in the real world would probably be enough for Veruca to wrap her hands around Charlie's neck and choke him out until he ran out of oxygen, and then some. Charlie had to make the strategic decision to keep quiet about his revelation, but now he was at a point where he had to come up with a way to ease Veruca's feelings about their history if he wanted their night out to continue. And so, he took on the herculean task of getting her to see that her beliefs about Willy Wonka were incorrect by humanizing him in her eyes. Perhaps, if the brat could let go of her rancor against humanity's greatest confectioner, then perhaps she could also open up to her fellow Golden Ticket winner and invite him into her life. Now, Veruca was not at all interested in seeing Wonka in a better light, however, she was still mystified by the reclusive candymaker. There was still so much she did not know about him that she could not look up on a search engine, but ironically the person sitting right across from her at this very moment was the best secondary source to consult on all Wonka-related matters.

One such thing that always bothered the brat was the confectioner's exotic surname as it did not sound like it originated anywhere on the British Isles, so she brought that up to the heir, and asked, "I've always wondered, what kind of name is Wonka? It's definitely not English, but it doesn't sound Gaelic either."

Charlie had asked Wonka a similar question soon after moving into the factory when they were still getting to know each other on a personal level, and he recounted to Veruca what the candymaker had told him, replying, "He told me it's Sudeten German. Interesting, but sad, fact; when Mr. Wonka's grandfather, Wilfried, immigrated to the United Kingdom in the twenties after getting a job here as a Chemical Scientist, he had to tell everyone he was Bohemian and that his native language was Czech because of all the anti-German sentiment during the interwar period. Not that Eastern Europeans were accepted with open arms either, but still better than the Huns who had just ravaged the continent in The Great War. But, in the Wonka patriarch's defense, technically he was not lying. He had immigrated to the UK from Czechoslovakia and Mr. Wonka told me his grandfather used to tell him he was also part Czech, but I would need to see the complete Wonka family tree to confirm that. Nevertheless, Wilfried started a career and a family in Britain, and after the Nazis invaded and the Communists took over his homeland he never returned as London was his new home."

As it turned out, Wonka's backstory was as complicated as his factory was wild, and what nobody outside the Wonka and Bucket families and Wonka's small circle of friends knew, Charlie was about to tell his guest in a continuing effort to humanize the man who she considered to be a monster, saying, "Wilfried eventually assimilated into British society so well that his son, Wilbur, Mr. Wonka's father, didn't stand out from the rest of society. On a superficial level, that is. But as you could probably tell from his accent, Mr. Wonka is not from Britain. His mother, Wilma, was a Yank and Mr. Wonka was actually born in Massachusetts. Both of his parents met there after Mr. Wonka's father immigrated to America to advance his career in dentistry, but the family ended up moving back to London sometime after Mr. Wonka was born. Mr. Wonka loved his mother very much, but after she died when he was very young, he was left in the care of a father he hardly saw eye to eye with and the two eventually parted ways and didn't speak for decades."

"Even though he started his business in the UK, Mr. Wonka still has close ties to his motherland. The subsidiary for international distribution of Wonka Candies, Wonka Worldwide Inc., is headquartered in New York City, and even though Mr. Wonka and I have the final say, it's mostly run by childhood friends of his," Charlie added, giving Veruca some more insight into the corporate structure of his organization, information he only realized she could not care less to know about until after speaking.

Instead of following up on Wonka, the little brute preferred to play with her hair, cupping it between her hands and then running her fingers down her golden-brown locks. Nevertheless, Charlie kept looking at her for guidance on what to speak about next, and when she realized the good boy would not take his eyes off her, she asked him about something she found interesting about his stories, "Do you visit America a lot?"

Unfortunately, he did not have all that many interesting stories about his trips to the New World, therefore the Good Boy had to focus on his most interesting story which he had saved for occasions like this, responding, "Mostly for business. But, while we're on the topic of America, I'll also mention that I've met more presidents than just Gilligrass. Mr. Wonka and I met his successor, President Opolo, once when he invited Mr. Wonka over for a roundtable discussion on Americans in international business and I accompanied him for that meeting. He's a nice chap, I actually met him twice, once in each of his terms. And you may or may not have heard about this, but yes, Mr. Wonka and I have also met President Crump."

From the brat's perspective, her fellow Golden Ticket winner was just lying to her face, and it seemed that no matter how much she pushed, Charlie just kept digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole rather than admit he was full of it. Yet, Veruca continued to head down this hole with the heir to see where it took her, and she asked with exhaust and utter disbelief in the heir's claim in her tone, "You've met Clarence Crump? Alright, what's he like?"

Now, this question was a bit more difficult to answer. Charlie leaned back in his seat and exhaled, thus bulging his blue eyes out, because unlike Gilligrass, he did not have a kind word to say. But Veruca asked him about the President, yet he was not going to make things up either. Therefore, it was best to just be honest, he reasoned, and so he replied, "To be perfectly honest, what you see on the telly is the exact same man you meet in real life, just...bigger. When I first met Crump face to face, he reminded me of an Oompa Loompa who discovered the side effects of a new candy in development the hard way. Mr. Wonka and I created what we call Warming Candies, they are these little red lozenges that are great if you are outside on a cold night and you want to stay warm. I guess they could possibly be used as a treatment against hypothermia, but I will leave that for the medical professionals to decide. However, if you eat too many of them at the same time, like that Oompa Loompa I just mentioned did, you get all red and overheated, and that is exactly what came to mind when I met Crump. He literally looked like he had been cramming mouthfuls and mouthfuls of Warming Candies into his mouth beforehand. Crump was incredibly...bloated. And his face, that colour. I do not know where in nature you can find something of that same orange hue. Well, you know, outside the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra."

It seemed to Charlie that Veruca did not catch his primatology joke, or at least she did not react to it with glee. Instead, the brat continued staring at him, making the Good Boy feel even more awkward than usual, and waited for the heir to respond, and so that is what he did, adding, "My Crump story is actually rather interesting, it's more than my description of his appearance. The reason he invited Mr. Wonka and I to the White House was that he was going to award Mr. Wonka the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the first one he ever gave out while in office if I remember correctly. Crump basically gives them out to celebrities in hopes that they will like him in return, or something like that. Not to say Mr. Wonka has not done anything that merits recognition, but Crump would have given the medal to Ronald McDonald if he could have. Anyways, we go to the ceremony and Crump puts the medal on Mr. Wonka while the press takes pictures, but then he offers to give us a tour of the White House. Now, we had taken this tour during our other visits, but to not be impolite we accepted the offer. He then gives us the tour, all the while spewing what I assume were incorrect facts about all the artifacts we passed by, but then he invites us into the Oval Office just to talk and we follow him inside and sit down opposite the Resolute Desk. The discussion was rather standard, he asked about our sales and our business goals, but then he began enquiring about our mode of transportation, the Great Glass Elevator. He said he wanted to know how it worked but Mr. Wonka would not budge. Crump then became frustrated and started saying that he had just given him a medal and that there was nothing to worry about since it was just the three of us. Mr. Wonka then thought it over, he later told he didn't think Crump would even be able to comprehend what he would say, and proceeded to explain the mechanics of the Great Glass Elevator."

"Crump just nodded his head as Mr. Wonka described the Great Glass Elevator, not taking notes or anything. But when my mentor finished talking, Crump pulled out an unhung red rotary phone from one of the drawers of the presidential desk and said into it, 'Did you get that, Yugetoff?'" Charlie remarked, speaking in a cartoonishly whiny New York accent at the end.

"And what did we hear emanating out from the phone? A single, deep 'Da,'" muttered Charlie, now in a Russian accent that sounded more like those used in movies where the stereotypical Ruskie bad guy is not even portrayed by someone from Mother Russia.

The heir then began to speak in a somber tone and stared off to the side of Veruca's shoulder as he recalled the events, adding, "That red phone was the famed line between the White House and the Kremlin and the other person on the line was Russia's President Yugetoff. The Russians eavesdropped on our conversation and now they had the knowledge to build their own Great Glass Elevator, all the while, Crump just sat there and smirked."

"Yugetoff, he's such a great guy. So much stronger than our last so-called president, O-po-lo," Charlie yapped, sounding out every syllable in the name of Crump's predecessor while mimicking his odd speech pattern, "You know, he was not even born in this country, believe me!"

While Charlie thought he was being endearing with his impersonation attempt, Veruca just looked at him from across the table with an annoyed look on her face, instantly making him regret doing his impression of the American president in public. Charlie then shifted back to his regular mode of speaking, not because he thought he was being too mean, but because he knew he was not doing it convincingly enough, and therefore explained, "I am sorry, I can't do a good Crump impersonation. But you know who can, though? Mr. Wonka, and a pretty good one at that, believe it or not."

Chapter Text

In nearly every other scenario, people who were having dinner with Charlie would have jumped over backwards to hear a story of the heir to the Wonka empire and the amazing chocolatier getting into a high stakes pissing match with the President of the United States. But just listening to the heir ramble on about foreign heads of state was enough to lull Veruca to sleep. She would have thought his trips to the United States would have involved parties in the Florida Keys or the Hollywood Hills. Then again, what would a good boy like Charlie be doing in such dens of debauchery, she thought. The fact that her mind immediately went to partying instead of tense business meetings when she thought about America was just more proof to support the theory that The Bad Nut and The Lucky Boy did not have anything in common and thus had no business spending time together. Yet, there they were, waiting to be served their food. Time kept passing and passing, but their meals were no where in sight and Veruca was growing hungrier by the minute, but even worse, more and more irritable as well. All of these factors combined should have easily led to Veruca grabbing her belongings and storming out of the restaurant, but not before thanking Charlie for wasting her time and letting him know that she never wanted to see him again, but that did not happen. For some reason, the little brute made an exception for the Good Boy and not just because he was her ride. Something inside Veruca was anchoring her to her chair and keeping her in the heir's presence; and even though she would never admit it, deep down she enjoyed having his company.

Nevertheless, she still presented herself as being irritated by Charlie's incessant chatter, and because she desired for him to get to the point of this tale that she viewed as in no way affecting her, the little brute straight up told him, "Charlie, you're boring me. Tell me that's the end."

While he could have stopped there, Charlie did not like the sensation that overcame him whenever a story got cut off before he could hear the ending. He remembered when he was a kid and his mom would tell him to go to bed because it was passed his bedtime, yet Grandpa Joe had not even reached the mid-way point of one of his fabulous tales. He would then spend the entire night tossing and turning because he could not suppress the urge within him that needed to find out how the story ended in order to get closure for the night. Now, as an adult, the same condition reigned within him, even when he was the one telling others a story. Albeit, he rarely had anyone else to tell a story to besides his parents, Grandma Josephine, or Wonka. Not to mention the fact that at least one of them was most likely present when the events of the story originally took place since Charlie rarely ventured out and anything noteworthy that happened to him probably transpired inside the factory.

However, he also did not want to inconvenience Veruca anymore than he undoubtedly already was, so he decided to give her the most condensed version of the conclusion, responding, "Well, no, but I'll keep it simple for you. We leave the White House soon after the ordeal, Mr. Wonka is so upset and says he never wants anything to do with Crump ever again. Now, it just so happens that Crump had fired the head of the FBI a while back and that launched an investigation into his conduct. The investigators had learned of what Crump had done for Yugetoff when he met with Mr. Wonka and I during the course of their investigation and, long story short, Mr. Wonka, as a US Citizen, was subpoenaed and I, as a non-citizen, was formally invited by the Special Counsel's office to come to Washington, D.C. and testify in front of a Grand Jury about what happened that day. Mr. Wonka reversed his position and agreed to testify out of spite, and I followed suit. We gave them our testimony, however, the investigation continued on for over another year. It wrapped up two months ago if I remember correctly. But did it amount to anything? He is still president, last time I checked. Although, if I had to choose, I would say the funniest part of this entire scandal was seeing Crump's fans on social media go from praising Mr. Wonka and I when Crump gave him the medal to them boycotting our products after we testified. I mean, they're the only people who purchase the product they're protesting before they burn them in effigy."

"Legend has it that the flames from when one of Crump's followers tried to burn a carton of Mr. Wonka's unmeltable ice cream are still raging on to this day, hehe," Charlie joked, unleashing a high-pitched nasal cackle near identical to Wonka's distinct laugh. Veruca despised the super-annoying sound, and she was not really surprised Charlie's laugh had evolved to sound like just like Wonka's, seeing as it originated from a combination of Charlie spending little to no time socializing with anyone from outside the factory and spending most of his time inside the factory with the crazed candymaker.

Now, for having to subjugate her to hearing a shriek so similar to that of the man who sanctioned her torture at such a vulnerable age, Veruca grunted at Charlie for his rant, spitting back "You said you would keep it simple, yet you kept on rambling."

Even though she was being incredibly rude, Veruca did have a point, Charlie had been dominating all of their dinner discussions so far when this was supposed to be a moment for the two of them to reconnect. It only seemed fair that he pass the baton over to his guest, then perhaps he would learn more about her, so he proclaimed, "You know what, you're right, I've been taking up the spotlight far too long. I'd really like to hear what you've been up to for over the past decade, Veruca?"

Now, this was something Veruca excelled at, talking about herself. There was so much for her to talk about...but also so much a street urchin like Charlie did not need to know. There was one thing from her past that she thought of right on the spot that she could discuss, and it was one of the proudest moments of her life, and so, with a hint of indignation in her tone, she asked her fellow Brit sitting right across from her, "Well, for starters, how could you not recognize your Miss Universe Great Britain 2013?"

"Wait, you competed in the Miss Universe pageant?" Charlie asked in amazement.

A smug grin came over Veruca's face as she heard someone else acknowledge her achievement, she even closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair in order to soak in the emotional glory of having been crowned a real-life beauty queen. And as she nodded her head in order to convey that she was pleased with the sense of pride that overcame her, she began to straighten up once again, and spouted, "Of course. It was my dream to be Miss Universe ever since I was a little girl, and the moment I turned 18, I knew it was time to claim my throne. I told Daddy I wanted to be Miss Universe, and he actually did what a good Daddy should do and got me into the pageant. I was there to see him make the calls to the organizers and to the designers who prepared all my outfits, you know, just to make sure he did not betray me and leave me empty-handed. By the time the pageant started in June, a bunch of bints had entered the competition and they thought they could beat me. So, I told Daddy I wanted to win more than any of them, and he made sure the judges knew that."

Something about Veruca's story was not sitting well with Charlie, he could tell she was not telling him the entire truth concerning her beauty pageant win, albeit she was inferring it as he saw it, and with one rational answer rattling in the back of his head, Charlie leaned in and asked, "So, your father bribed the judges?"

Veruca did not take kindly to the accusation that she had been crowned a beauty queen through illegitimate means, as far as she was concerned, she won the title because it was her God-given right as the most ravishing contestant of them all, which led her to angrily explain, "No! Daddy made sure the judges knew that I was supposed to win!"

Even though in Veruca's mind her explanation that her father was merely enlightening the judges before they crowned her a beauty queen made sense and did not merit any additional scrutiny, Charlie was still struggling to comprehend how nothing shady had transpired, which led him to ask, "Well, how did he get them to comply?"

"I don't know. He took them into a room and set them straight, then they all reemerged with smiles on their faces," Veruca growled back, not understanding why Charlie could not simply comprehend that she was the one who deserved to have been crowned winner all along.

It now became clear to Charlie that his suspicions were correct, Mr. Salt did what he always did and used his wealth to get his daughter whatever she wanted, contrary to the austere father image his fellow Golden Ticket winner often painted whenever she got frustrated. And so the Good Boy pointed this out to the girl right across from him, saying, "That sounds an awful lot like a bribe, Veruca."

Out of all the foolish decisions Charlie had made throughout his twenty-four years on Earth, no other decision had such a predictable outcome as him deciding to question Veruca on a matter she had a strong opinion on, and she let it be known that his insolence would not be tolerated.

"There was no bribe, you twat! I won! I won because I was the most beautiful of all the contestants! Daddy said so!" The little brute cried out as she stomped her feet on the floor out of frustration, catching the attention of some of the other restaurant patrons seated around them.

As everybody, especially Charlie, watched the brat, they all noticed she really did look like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum in the back of her mom's car because she did not get the toy she wanted. And, it was both hilarious, yet also extremely sad that an adult could still act out in such a manner, and in public no less. But now, Charlie was much more preoccupied with dealing with the embarrassment of having much of the restaurant's patrons stare at the noisemaker, Veruca, and by extent, him.