Title: Abracadabra: Part III
Author: Lyricality
Warnings: Slash. Adult Charlie/Wonka. Sexuality.
Disclaimer: Pity they aren't mine. What wicked fun they would have if they were.
CC: Please do. What you liked, what you didn't like...you get the jist.
Summary: Eight years after that fateful day, Charlie finally learns how to get what he wants. Based heavily on the look of the future Burton film and the chronology of both Dahl's books.Depp is Wonka.
Author's Note: Thank you, everyone, for your continuing support.
"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
-Mae West
"That's how it is. How it's gone, I mean," Charlie says. His voice reflects, echoes against metal and marble, and returns to him sounding tinny and false. "So. How do I fix it? Or do I fix it," he amends, drawing his knees up against his chest and wrapping one arm around them. No, he's never given up that easily, and he's faced plenty of obstacles during the relatively brief run of his life. "Of course I fix it," he whispers, leaning back, resting the curve of his spine a bit more securely against the headstone behind him. "I just don't know how I'm going to manage it. Just yet." He tilts his head back, resting it against chill stone as well, eyes closing. "Don't suppose you have any helpful ideas?"
No answer, of course. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear the steadying hum of machinery, a constant among the factory's many variables, and the muffled sound only intensifies the quiet of this room.
Grandpa Joe can't answer anymore, anyway.
Of Charlie's family, only Grandpa Joe might have considered taking Wonka-Vite, even after the fiasco with the other three grandparents. He'd so loved the world, as eager to explore it in his old age as in his youth, fascinated with progress and change and invention, gleeful to have a chance to participate in all three. He might have bought a bit more time, but he'd died peacefully in his sleep one night. One hundred years of life, gone in only a moment, and Charlie still misses him badly enough that his throat aches, sitting here like this, against his grave.
Charlie talks anyway; talking eases the pain. Only Grandpa Joe hears the truth, not just the endless repetition and reassurance that he tells the rest of the family, month after month. I'm happy. He's happy, yes, but he's human too, and sometimes he hurts.
Just now, pain is another constant in his personal equations. He and Wonka haven't quite spoken in days, and avoiding each other is proving a little too easy in the sprawling and endless passages of the factory. Their world, always shared, now halved in a thousand crossing and bristling lines. Charlie's life feels wound full of wire, taped together, just sort of shattering, but he won't give up. He's holding to one image now-Wonka's bare fingers pressed to his perfect lips. Wonka kissed and kissed back. That's hope.
This place is a sort of reprieve. Sanctuary, and that is the word spelled out in curving golden letters on the only door to the wide, low room. Not religious, but spiritual, and familial, this is the final resting place of a great many members of Wonka's family, here in a room with a floor of earth and true, sprouting grass. Around Charlie, the headstones rise in a quiet series of curves, broken here and there by vaguely swirling spires of marble, columns supporting the vaulted ceiling. The entire structure speaks of reverence and whimsy, the sort of neverland Wonka would build for spirits beyond taste, past sound and light. Before his death, Grandpa Joe had declared that nothing would take him from the factory, and Charlie has chosen to interpret the wish as literally as possible. The factory is built around this place, the fantasy structure supported by this heart of silent reflection, and so long as Grandpa Joe is buried here, the factory holds his spirit of wonder.
"I love him," Charlie whispers, and the words echo, reflected stone by stone. It isn't the first revelation he's made to this grave-in fact, it's probably the most often repeated one-but it's no less true for that. He made his first stumbling confessions of his heart's desire here, beginning years ago.
A surreptitious creaking breaks the silence, and Charlie jerks, straightening up and looking toward the door, throat tightening. He's hoping for Wonka, but an Oompa-Loompa enters instead-or half-enters, hovering in the doorway, looking not a little horrified at disturbing him. He doesn't mind, and waves a hand, beckoning. Thus encouraged, she comes directly, soft steps barely disturbing the grass, and stands beside him with her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes wide and sparkling. The Oompa-Loompas hate the strife between him and Wonka-they've been moping for days-but this one is smiling, bouncing on the balls of her feet, so whatever she has to tell him must be wonderful.
Charlie tilts his head, and she leans over and whispers in his ear.
He knows his eyes must have gone nearly alight, because she's barely holding back from giggling. "Really? It's just started?" She shakes her head. "How much, then?" After she whispers again, he pushes himself to his feet, smoothing out the hollow in the grass where he's been sitting. "I'll come back soon," he promises Grandpa Joe, resting both hands on the headstone for a moment or two, then pulling back and smiling at the Oompa-Loompa. "Let's hurry, then," he says.
The Sanctuary is just below ground level, and when Charlie closes the door behind him and ascends a half-flight of curving stairs, he can see through the ornate windows of the main level and out into the inner courtyard. The earth outside is buried in at least three inches of pure and perfect snow.
Wonka loves the snow. Maybe, if Charlie asks in just the right way…
It's worth a try. Once he's wrapped up in his coat and gloves, bundled into boots and-for once-his own scarf, he knocks at the door of their shared office. All in white, he feels a little like a sacrificial virgin. Hopefully Wonka will accept the offering.
"Come in!" Wonka's voice is clipped, polite, but a little strained. He knows who's at the door.
Charlie turns the knob and enters anyway, his current choice in clothing making Wonka's eyes widen a bit, but he supposes that he does look ready for an immediate trip to the Yukon. He stays silent for a moment, merely smiling as he stands in front of Wonka's desk, then makes a flourish with one hand and performs a bit of sleight of hand, pulling Wonka's scarf apparently out of nowhere and holding it out to him in both hands.
"It's snowing. Come outside and play with me."
Wonka leans forward just a fraction, an aborted movement, and Charlie sees the subtle movement of his throat as he swallows. "Oh…oh. I really shouldn't, I've so much time and so little paperwork, balancing the books for the end of the year. Hmm. Strike that."
"Reverse it," Charlie supplies. He gives Wonka the full benefit of his most charmingly pleading smile. "Please. Come with me."
Wonka wants to go. He's tapping his pen against the surface of his desk, and Charlie can hear his feet shuffling back and forth under his chair. Tilting his head, Charlie waves the scarf a bit between his hands, enticing.
"I'll do the accounting," he adds, just another little layer of temptation. "You hate it."
For a moment, Charlie truly thinks that Wonka will agree, and his heart beats a little faster, his cheeks warming with the rush of his pulse and the eagerness glinting in Wonka's eyes. Then Wonka draws a breath, and his gaze falls just for a moment on Charlie's lips. In the next moment he grips his pen a little tighter and straightens his shoulders, swallowing again as though something has caught in his throat. "I'm sorry, I am, but truly I can't. So little to do, you understand." He doesn't correct himself this time, so he must be utterly flustered.
He won't go now. Charlie knows that determined furrowing of Wonka's brow all too well. He's adaptive, he's flexible, but he isn't infallible, and he can be obstinate. Folding the scarf in fourths, Charlie lays it atop Wonka's desk. "I understand," he murmurs. "Next time."
"Another time," Wonka says, which sounds less promising than next.
"I understand," Charlie repeats, even if he determinedly doesn't, but he isn't about to beg for Wonka's unwilling company, either. He turns to go.
Wonka speaks very softly, but Charlie hears him nevertheless. "I was afraid you would."
Oh, no. Charlie isn't going to play a game without any rules, even for Wonka's sake. "Don't you dare," he says, whirling back around. Wonka's eyes widen a bit, but then narrow just slightly, shading toward chilled. "That isn't fair," Charlie insists. "Don't you dare do this to me!" This isn't a game, not really, and Charlie leans sharply forward over Wonka's desk, slamming both hands flat against the wood. Not a violent gesture, but a firm one.
Wonka's jaw tightens, the lines of tension around his mouth that Charlie has seen only rarely in the last several years coming into play. He has that unpleasant expression of mixed disappointment and condescension, and something childish in Charlie's heart quails, but he isn't about to surrender. Not this time. "Don't shout at me."
"Don't shout at you in your own office?" Wonka said that to him once, when Charlie was sixteen and furious about something inconsequential. Charlie rarely shouts, and he isn't shouting now, just gritting his teeth and speaking through them. "Our office," he corrects. "It's our office, and this is us, and if you're going to hide from me, you'd better find a better place to do it." He turns on his heel and makes for the door. "I'm going. Do what you like. Do what you do best. Play make-believe." He doesn't slam the door—no matter how satisfying that would be, but he isn't a child anymore—just lets it click quietly shut behind him, and leaves Wonka alone.
He hates fighting with Wonka. It makes him feel shattered inside, hollow at the heart. Hypocritical, like he's rejecting some essential part of himself.
The truth is that he loves playing make-believe with Willy Wonka…so long as he's actually part of the game.
Outside, the snow is still falling, spiraling around Charlie when he stands in the center of the courtyard, arms slightly outstretched and face tipped upward to the sky. Maybe he's kneeling in supplication; he doesn't know. The breeze spins the snowflakes into curls like question marks.
He can't beckon him forward with one hand and push him back with the other. Can he?
Of course he can. He's Willy Wonka, and he's a study in unexpected contradictions. Wonderful and whimsical and frightening and frustrating, all things at once.
Charlie knows that he reached him at least once, touched something far deeper than the surface with that kiss, but reaching into Wonka a second time will be more difficult without the advantage of surprise. He's too clever to underestimate Charlie again. Charlie curves his lips a bit, working at the problem in all the ways he's ever learned, and one lesson he recalls particularly well is that if a solution can't be found going forwards, it might be found going backwards. Wonka's ideas move like unexpected reflections, bouncing and doubling back, but using his own tactics against him isn't so difficult nevertheless.
In other words…even if he can't sink below Wonka's self defenses, he might still outmaneuver him by rising above them.
Exceeding expectations, as it were.
Christmas is fast approaching, only a week away, and with it could come the opportunity for something spectacular. Wonka has always been highly complicated, so far as presents are concerned. Charlie gave up on store-bought gifts years ago, in fact, after fiascos with ties and paintings and one ill-advised chartreuse sweater. Recently, he's taken to giving usefully aesthetic things, or a little more rarely, ideas. Wonka appreciates nothing else so much as creativity.
He has no ideas at the moment that Wonka doesn't already know about. Unless…
Charlie raises his hands up in front of his face, snowflakes clinging to his gloves. Each one sparkles with a unique sort of magic, so purely individual. Wonka looks incredible in the snow, all dark angles contrasting fluffy white.
As an idea goes, it's complex, but certainly workable, and Charlie feels the first shivers of obsessive excitement in his chest, fluttering behind his ribs. In that way, he and Wonka are always the same, because a wonderful idea demands total concentration and complete commitment. If he starts working now, he can surely finish by Christmas, perhaps even by Christmas Eve, and he can give Wonka something extraordinary. Something to remind him that Charlie really does know him best, after all, and that the end of innocence doesn't necessarily mean the end of magic.
By the time he goes back into the factory, Wonka has already commandeered the Inventing Room, but Charlie knows better than to set this project up anywhere that Wonka might see it—sometimes the man is a little too clever for his own good. The Oompa-Loompas will help him too, because they love surprises. They usually aid Charlie in his Christmas endeavors, and this time they agree so readily when he approaches them that he suspects they've all been lying in wait until he found a proper idea.
He and Wonka make a very tentative peace over dinner that night, all too-polite apologies and forced cheerfulness. Charlie escapes as soon as possible, and throws himself into his work.
By the night before Christmas Eve, he isn't sleeping at all, hanging from the rafters of the Chocolate Room instead and installing strange squiggly lines of piping and heavy vats of coolant. Building a dream requires a certain amount of perfectionism, after all, and this gift requires a lot of scientific testing. He has to see it in action, first, to satisfy the question of whether or not he's still capable of manufacturing magic.
Once the test goes off perfectly, he falls into bed and sleeps dreamlessly for the first time in days.
Charlie wakes up some time past noon, but Wonka knows he's been working on something, and will understand why he missed two meals in a row. After a shower and a hasty cup of coffee, he finds Wonka in the Chocolate Room of course, decorating that most beautiful part of the factory with the help of possibly half the Oompa-Loompas on staff.
Every year, Wonka guides the Oompa-Loompas in the construction of the Christmas tree, a ridiculously tall and gorgeously extravagant creation of peppermint bark fringed with long needles of evergreen swudge. It tastes of mint and smells like pine. When Charlie was still eleven or twelve, he liked to hide beneath it, lying back and plucking off individual needles to lick, watching each one grow thinner and thinner until the last glassy bit melted against his tongue. Nothing compares to that sort of decadence. They always decorate the tree with real candy canes and gingerbread people and round ornaments molded from white and dark chocolate. The Oompa-Loompas love painting all their molded swirls and holly leaves with bright dyes.
"No no no no no!" Wonka is fretting, dancing from foot to foot as he waves both hands at the Oompa-Loompas thirty feet up, holding the star above the tree in a way that is certainly less than centered. "It must be straight! No, not that side! Not that side either!"
Charlie comes to the rescue, since the Oompa-Loompas are now helplessly spinning about in circles. "To the left! No, the right-just a little-like that." The star settles onto the tree both centered and straight, with the right side thankfully facing outward, and the Oompa-Loompas descend gratefully from their grapping hooks and climbing ropes.
Wonka turns and latches onto him immediately, too excited to remember that they've been silently fighting over the past week, and Charlie surprises himself by willingly forgetting about that as well. This is familiar tradition, and falling back into their usual patterns of affection proves simple enough. Wonka is all warmth and light like this, with just that hint of underlying mystery to counterbalance it, and his enthusiasm is real instead of forced. While they're decorating the tree, Charlie even wraps an arm naturally around Wonka's waist, and the moment is intimate and sweet rather than tense or frustrating. Everything feels easy, and once evening falls, his confidence in the success of his gift rises.
Once the hour rolls around to half past nine, the Oompa-Loompas have brought out the butterscotch and buttergin, and Wonka is offering Charlie half a glass of bubbling champagne. He's well over eighteen now, so he takes it willingly and sips it slowly, letting it steel his resolve. Wonka looks very good drinking out of a long-stemmed glass, rather Victorian, and Charlie decides that now is the time. He rises from his place beside the tree, then steps over to stand in front of Wonka and clear his throat.
"There's something…" he begins, trailing off as the sound of drums begins, the Oompa-Loompas gathering around. In another moment, they start to sing to Wonka:
"He has something for you!
A gift! A gift!
It's really swift!
You'll never believe what our Charlie can make!
You'll never imagine just how he can take
An idea that some would say isn't so great-"
"All right all right," Charlie cuts in, daring to interrupt their singing for once, since-as usual-the lyrics don't seem to be going in his favor. "That's quite enough of that, I think, or you'll spoil it." He makes a shooing motion with one hand, and the Oompa-Loompas scatter to their assigned places, giggling and hardly looking contrite.
Charlie puts his hands together, meeting Wonka's eyes with an arcane smile. He makes a flourish, snapping up the crystals he has tucked into his sleeves, one in each hand, and then he starts gliding them back and forth, over his fingers and wrists and lower arms, switching them from hand to hand. "This is going to be my best magic trick," he says, and both Wonka's eyebrows arch in curiosity, but he doesn't say anything. "So you know what you have to do." He grins, just a bit, rolling the crystals back and forth in a hypnotic pattern. "You have to close your eyes."
Wonka gives him just a breath of laughter, but does it. His eyelashes flutter dark against his pale skin.
Charlie nods to the Oompa-Loompas, and they spring into action. Nothing so difficult to do, after all. He waits a full thirty seconds, counting silently, and then draws in his breath, holding it for a moment. "All right," he says. "You can open them now." He slides the twin crystals down his forearms and over his wrists, catching one in either hand, as Wonka opens eyes of purest violet blue. "Abracadabra," he breathes.
Snow is falling from the ceiling of the Chocolate Room, sparkling in the lights of their Christmas tree. It eddies around the licorice twists of the other trees, flurries about the Oompa-Loompas who stand with faces upturned, and clings to their clothes and skin. Bits of starlight ice gleam in Wonka's dark hair. One snowflake falls exactly onto Wonka's nose, and Charlie wants to cup his face in both hands and lick it away with the tip of his tongue.
He smiles instead. "You wouldn't come out. So I turned the outside inside-out, and brought it in here, for you."
Only very, very rarely is Wonka rendered speechless. It doesn't last long, but it's more than enough, nevertheless.
"Oh," Wonka breathes, "oh. Wow."
He makes a slow and complete turn on his heels, spinning under the cascade of snowflakes-manufactured, yes, but still real and solid and pure. He holds up both gloved hands to it, like Charlie himself did, outside six days ago, and then he laughs, a sound like music, full of complete delight. Charlie's heartbeat flutters, knowing that he's undoubtedly done right by this man, yet again.
He's done right by the factory, as well. The snow is nothing but sugar water, mixed with the compound that keeps Wonka's best brands of ice cream from melting, and showered down in a precise formation to keep from contaminating the chocolate river. All necessary but secondary concerns.
Under the snow, the Oompa-Loompas are dancing now, singing a sweetly celebratory song in their own language and throwing the occasional tiny snowball. Wonka catches one snowflake on the tip of his tongue and blinks, startled. "It's real," he says. "And it tastes like vanilla."
"Of course it's real," Charlie scolds with a helpless grin. He thinks he can indulge in a little deserved pride this evening. "The vanilla is my addition, though."
Wonka tilts his face up, closing his eyes for a long minute, with hands outspread. "We can make this," he says, and Charlie grins a little wider. Wonka is still a businessman above all else, a creator, and he loves to distribute his particular brand of enchantment to a needy world. A philanthropist, too, but money is necessary for the maintenance of the Oompa-Loompas and this fantasy home. "We can market this, and even children in Siberia can have a white Christmas-I mean, even children in the Sahara-you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean." Charlie can't stop smiling, so he just links Wonka's arm with his own and leads him down the slope to the chocolate river, walking with him until the music of the Oompa-Loompas isn't so loud, and they can hear each other speak. When Wonka pauses, raising one hand to the snowfall again, Charlie halts as well and turns to face him. The room is dim, lit mostly by the lights wound around the Christmas tree, the overhead lamps turned low.
"I wanted to give you something magic," Charlie says. His voice is pitched low, naturally so, for this moment of intimacy.
"You did," Wonka murmurs, his own voice quiet. "Oh. You did." As always, he means more than he ever says, and Charlie moves just a step closer, watching his eyes, trying to see into him.
Wonka's eyes shine faintly in the dark. Gaslight, Charlie thinks, uneasy for a moment, remembering stories of will 'o wisps in the fog, tempting travelers, follow and fall.
Then Wonka surges forward, slender arms reaching, body all angled beauty. Both those arms go suddenly around his waist, drawing him close, and despite gasping a breath, Charlie holds him in reflex-no, in instinct, one arm against Wonka's waist, the other tangled over his shoulder blades, fingers at the nape of his neck. He's three inches taller than Wonka, and he's known that for two years, but now the abstract fact is a physical reality of warmth and weight, limbs fitting together. Puzzle pieces too strange and jagged for any other proper match.
They've clicked together, matched in all the important places. This time it's easy. Charlie angles his head, and their lips brush together, then cling. The kiss is chaste at first, dry but warm and softer than before, willing and slow.
But something has changed between them, opened, and Charlie splays both hands against Wonka's back, pressing in and running his tongue along Wonka's lower lip. It's a natural movement, a soft drift into intimacy, and after only a heartbeat the lips against his part fully, letting him truly inside for the first time.
Wonka tastes of champagne and sugar snow.
Charlie would sacrifice a great deal of himself to ensure that this sensation never ends, Willy Wonka pressed velvet and warm against him, lips parted and soft, tongue brushing smooth against his own. He's no poet, no artist at all, but this is the sort of inspiration that requires no traditional artistic representation.
He pulls back first, with painful reluctance, but he's learned not to apply too much pressure. His hands stay gentle against Wonka's back, their breath mingling against each other's lips. Wonka shocks him, leaning in again on his own initiative, eyes narrowed to glimmering slits. They kiss again, truly sharing breath, and Wonka's tongue slides like rough velvet into Charlie's mouth. It's the gentlest form of possession Charlie can imagine.
When they part again, he can feel the subtle tremors of Wonka's body under his fingers, against his chest.
"I was starting to think…" Charlie swallows and tries again, as they inch apart, just enough to give each other room to breathe. "I thought you just didn't want me."
Lips quirking, Wonka chuckles, a strangely nervous sound, and rests his fingertips against his lips. "I'm not that unselfish."
"Good," Charlie says, and the sound he makes isn't quite a laugh. It catches in his throat.
At the opposite edge of the Chocolate Room, the Oompa-Loompas are still singing, apparently paying no attention to them whatsoever, but Charlie thinks he catches sly glances from them now and then. He harbors no illusions that they don't have every idea just what has been going on, and that makes him want privacy like nothing else.
"Let's go somewhere," he murmurs. "Somewhere else."
For a moment, he catches that flash of wary fear in Wonka's eyes again, but it disappears, and Wonka doesn't object when Charlie takes his hands, bare fingers against dark gloves. Charlie leads them away from the river and to the door, subtly and silently, but once they've passed through that door and it shuts behind them, a sort of collective whoop comes from inside the Chocolate Room, ending in a smattering of applause from tiny and undeniably meddling hands.
Charlie winces, embarrassed more for Wonka's sake than his own, but Wonka gives him a rueful smile and tugs at the hands in his. "Come," he says. "This place keeps its own secrets well enough, doesn't it?"
It does. Charlie nods and for the moment, follows his lead.
They end up in front of the door to Wonka's private rooms, hesitating before crossing over that threshold. Charlie takes a moment and realizes that they shouldn't pause; they should let this momentum carry them as far as it possibly can. Better that neither of them have time to remember that Wonka is afraid, or that Charlie should be apprehensive. Strange that he doesn't feel hopelessly virginal at the moment. Perhaps that's due to Wonka's usual effect upon him, making him better and braver than he otherwise might be.
Wonka fishes in his pockets for a moment, searching a little too frantically, and Charlie puts a hand over his and reaches into the topmost inner pocket of the familiar jacket, fetching the key ring. He does know Wonka better than most.
Wonka unlocks the door, then catches Charlie's hand and pulls him into the darkness beyond it.
They fumble against each other for a second or two before Wonka finds the light switch and flips it. This is the study, books upon books and velvet-upholstered chairs in front of the fireplace. Sedate and charming. Wonka clears his throat "Can I…would you like something to drink?"
The usual method of slow seduction seems unnecessary. Charlie steps forward, hands framing Wonka's face, fingertips resting against his high cheekbones. His voice doesn't sound like his own. "No. Just you."
For a moment, Wonka's throat works as he swallows; then he reaches back, and turns the lock. Charlie thinks that simple movement, in all its mundane glory, might be the most arousing thing he's ever seen. The layers of meaning blur together, warm and hazy in the lamplight, and Wonka tilts his head slightly, turning toward Charlie's hands. They kiss again, then again, deep and wet.
Charlie knows the way to the bedroom. He's been there twice, both times when he was much younger, and still sometimes troubled by nightmares. When he came knocking at odd hours of the morning, Wonka would bundle him up in a spare quilt and share the bed with him, even though Charlie was really too old to need to sleep with anyone else. This time he's more than old enough to sleep with someone else, in the very figurative sense of the phrase, and the thought makes his heartbeat skip. He remembers the faint clinging of Wonka's scent, from those two nights, and it hasn't changed in all these years.
This time, he doesn't hesitate to take the first step, and Wonka follows willingly down the short hall and into the bedroom. Charlie closes the door behind them, and Wonka turns the lights on low.
In the shadows, Charlie can't see his eyes, hidden by the brim of his hat, and he breathes a silent sigh of relief when Wonka takes the hat off and sets it on a chair. Another breath and he's shrugging out of the jacket, so Charlie steps forward and helps him, letting his hands linger against Wonka's shoulders, then against his waist, fingers fitting perfectly against narrow curves. The jacket goes the way of the hat, discarded. Charlie isn't prepared when Wonka spins to face him, rising up on his toes for another kiss. One melts into another, tasting of sugared vanilla, and Charlie is only dimly aware of Wonka removing those ever-present gloves, setting bare fingers to work along the fastenings of Charlie's outer jacket. The clasps might make anyone else fumble, but Wonka triumphs over them all with delicate ease and lets the garment slide to the floor.
They pause then, watching each other, Wonka's hands splayed against his chest, their heat reaching Charlie's skin through his shirt. Charlie thinks about saying that they needn't go so far, that it isn't necessary, but Wonka is already unfastening his shirt, button by button, and the sight is too beautiful to resist.
Perhaps Wonka knows what's on his mind, anyway. As he slips Charlie's shirt off each arm, their eyes meet again, searchingly, and then Wonka gives him the slightest curve of a smile, lips parted. The expression is perfection. It's part demure adult, part innocent sensualist, and it leaves no doubt whatsoever in Charlie's mind that Wonka knows exactly what he's doing. His hands glide over Charlie's chest, fingertips and palms stroking, as if smoothing fine fabric. In a moment he's urging Charlie back a step, up against the closed door, his hands dragging downward and ghosting over Charlie's sides and abdomen, then-God-unzipping his pants, delving inside to gently cup, then knead.
Charlie groans, biting into his lower lip. He won't tear his eyes away from Wonka, whose smile has shifted subtly, wild and fey and brilliant, those eyes sparkling beneath long lashes. Wonka glides his fingers deeper, pulling Charlie's underwear aside, then wraps slender fingers around him and strokes, gentle and erratic, and Charlie's breathing goes uneven, following that pattern. He's never been touched by any hands but his own. The experience is almost revelatory, the man giving it to him no less extraordinary, and he lets his head fall back against the steady weight of the door, needing the support, because now Wonka is kneeling in front of him, holding him steady, and replacing his fingertips with his tongue.
"Oh my…oh…my…"
He can't finish the thought. Strange sentiment, but he's always loved Wonka's tongue-those glimpses of soft pink when he's tasting something, when he's licking his lips. Enticing.
Or maybe it's Wonka's entire mouth he loves, because that mouth is wrapping around him now, drawing him in and drawing him deep.
His universe condenses into one slow, molten glide, pressure and friction and the gentlest rasp of teeth to contrast wet heat. Then Wonka presses with his tongue, velvet warm and rubbing and Charlie's legs just aren't going to hold him up any longer. Knees buckling, he slides down to kneel on the floor, and Wonka follows him, hands curving wiry around Charlie's hips and mouth never faltering.
Charlie sobs out a breath and winds both hands into Wonka's hair, back arching. He rarely has the opportunity to so personally experience the thoroughness inherent in this man's nature.
In this moment, resistance is the only impossible thing.
He sobs again, fingers stroking restlessly at the nape of Wonka's neck, eyes half-closed and blurring the image of Wonka wrapped against him, pulling him deep into his mouth. Then he cries out, eyes clenching shut as he comes apart for the first time into someone else, oh God, into Wonka, and he gives up everything he can this way, hips shuddering with ecstasy.
By the time the pressure eases, and Wonka pulls back from him, Charlie is loose and panting against the door, still feeling stretched apart at the seams. Then Wonka is licking his lips. God, licking him off his lips, then licking his bare fingertips, and the sight is enough to make Charlie groan, gathering himself to rise up and catch hold of Wonka's hand, licking those fingertips himself, slow glides of his tongue. Quivering, Wonka closes his eyes. Too much clothing is still between them, and Charlie angles forward onto his hands and knees, kicking off his pants and his shoes and catching Wonka's elbows with both hands, dragging them both up to their feet with a little graceless and shaken stumbling. Confidence hangs around Charlie, heavy and warm, the gift that Wonka has given him, and he puts it to good use in urging the man over to the bed and pulling them both onto it, side by side. Wonka won't quite meet his eyes, but the flush of his cheeks is encouragement enough.
Eager, Charlie stretches out against him, fingers working at the buttons of Wonka's shirt, laying the fabric completely open before urging him up enough to strip the garment from one arm, then the other. Trousers next, unfastening the zipper hidden behind a row of faux buttons. He drags the material down Wonka's hips and smoothes it off each slender calf, and then Wonka is almost entirely bare beside him, just underwear distorting the pure lines of raw form.
The room is dim and the skin against his glows faintly in the lamplight. His lips flutter over Wonka's collarbones, one hand smoothing down his chest, fingers trembling a bit because Wonka feels rich and silken, as if he spends every morning bathing in cream. His skin might taste sweet. Charlie has to know. Leaning closer, he swirls a spiral over Wonka's breastbone with his tongue, trailing lower to lap gently at one nipple, enchanted with the tightening of the skin under his mouth. Charlie suckles at the other, shaping it with his tongue and listening to Wonka's breathing quicken in response when he glides down over his chest, tonguing the hollows of his ribs. Wonka pants in soft gasps when Charlie licks over his abdomen, head turning restlessly against the sheets when Charlie strips away his last bit of clothing and begins touching him for the first time. Charlie curls his fingers around steeled flesh, beautifully unfamiliar to his hands.
He's just decided that tasting might well be preferable to only touching, when Wonka draws in a shuddering breath and lifts himself up onto his elbows, displacing Charlie's hands. For a moment, Charlie is reeling, losing equilibrium without his fingers focused on Wonka's skin.
Fortunately, Wonka is only turning to search through the drawer of his bedside table. When he turns back, he's holding a tall bottle in one hand, and he offers it carefully to Charlie, their eyes meeting and holding for a moment. Charlie glances at the bottle, tilting his head to read the label. It's lotion, and comprehension jerks through him in a deep tug of returning arousal. Wonka's fingers are trembling, ever so slightly, and Charlie meets his gaze again as his two hands close around Wonka's one, holding secure for a second or two before taking the bottle and everything it represents.
He won't do anything stupid, like asking if Wonka is sure. He'll just do his absolute and utter best, and Wonka won't insult him by asking if he knows what he's doing. Those are the conditions of their old relationship, teacher to student, but now they imply a new level of respect—the sort given between adults.
Charlie slicks his fingers, and the smell of something like toasting marshmallows and roasted almonds fills the room, comforting.
Given his own particularly thorough research on this subject, Charlie knows the mechanics of it well enough, but no one could prepare for the reality of slow preparation, the movement of skin and the quickness of breath, the way heated flesh grips the first thrusts of his fingertips, and the way Wonka moans and arches his hips up off the mattress when he pushes his fingers deep and high and rotates them in an exploratory caress.
Then Wonka reaches up and grips him, stroking his renewed arousal to full hardness in a few gentle tugs, and together they ease into position, settling Charlie between Wonka's spread thighs. Face to face, cheek to cheek, Charlie eases inside with slowly stretching thrusts, crying out against the juncture of Wonka's shoulder and neck as he comes to rest fully buried in Wonka's body, held deep and close and tight by surreptitious ripples of living heat.
He can't contain this, and he's on the edge of some ecstasy more brilliant than any physical facsimile. It's everything he's wanted, and he thinks it's everything he'll ever really want, coiled into one single moment of unabashed giving.
One pure moment of receiving, too. But Wonka's gone stiff and quivering beneath him, eyes closed, face turned to one side.
Charlie wonders just when the other man went from participant to observer, from enjoying to enduring, and why he ever felt the need to teach himself that particular defensive skill.
"You can't go back that way," Charlie breathes, his fingers buried in Wonka's hair, spilling strands over the pillows. "You have to go forward to go back." He drapes himself over Wonka's chest, speaking against the arch of his throat, words trembling against skin. "Let me," he says, eyelashes tickling against the angle of Wonka's jaw. "Please let me give."
He doesn't entirely understand what so terrifies Wonka; his heart doesn't work quite that way. But he does have trust enough for the two of them, and he's giving it with eyes open to all the flaws and imperfections that balance the wonder and enchantment of Wonka's full nature.
Wonka is silent, shaking, but then his hands unclench against Charlie's shoulders, as if releasing something at last. He's shaking still, small nervous tremors, and Charlie wraps over him, strangely protective, heart rising into his throat until Wonka begins to truly relax, fingers smoothing through Charlie's hair, body stilling. In a minute more, he turns his head, meeting Charlie's gaze; his cheeks are flushed, his hair tangled around his face, his eyes all dark pupils rimmed by rings of heated blue.
Charlie keeps his eyes locked with Wonka's and moves slow. Intense, aching thrusts, starting gradually, quickening into pulsing rhythm, into long minutes of drawn out friction. Then Charlie sweeps both arms under Wonka's knees, positioning and angling each thrust, and beneath him, Wonka begins to make the most delicious keening sounds in his throat, head flung back, utterly vulnerable, his fingernails clenching into Charlie's back. Even the pain is pleasant.
"I love you," Charlie breathes against the beautiful curve of Wonka's neck. "Oh my God. I love you."
He thrusts again, just once more, angled with those words, and Willy Wonka jerks against him and cries out, body shuddering as he spills wet heat between them, like lifeblood.
Charlie holds to the rhythm, his own body rippling with fine tremors of restraint, hands smoothing strands of hair back from Wonka's face. God, but he can feel the man shuddering around him, clenching again and again, holding him as close as physical form allows. Then Wonka lifts languid hands, fingers lacing at the nape of Charlie's neck, legs tightening around him again with a subtle push. He takes the invitation to heart, thrusts quickening. Wonka wraps around him, rocking with him, meeting and holding his gaze with shattering intensity and driving him into ecstasy and beyond it, into a shuddering brilliance of perfect bliss.
When he comes back to himself, he's still cradled in Wonka's arms, embraced instead of clinging, and Willy Wonka's hands are stroking through his hair, over his back, and occasionally over the angle of his hip.
Charlie draws in a shuddering breath, forcing himself up onto his forearms to look into Wonka's eyes. They have a hazy cast, like dreaming skies.
"I thought you would want to be rid of me by now," Wonka says, very soft. Confession. "Not here, not this," he amends, indicating the way they've curled together, "just…that you would want the factory to yourself by now. Preposterous of me to linger about, getting in your way, when you have your life ahead of you-"
"No." For a moment, Charlie dips his head, his forehead resting against Wonka's in silent connection. "Never. Never go."
He feels the trembling rush of Wonka's breath against his throat.
"What would I do without you?" Charlie says, lifting a hand to run one fingertip up the length of Wonka's throat and higher, lingering against the curve of his lower lip.
Wonka closes his eyes, tongue flicking, lingering against Charlie's skin. "There's no question of what I would do without you," Wonka says. "I wouldn't."
Charlie arches an eyebrow, not immediately catching the meaning. "You wouldn't what?"
"I wouldn't do."
It isn't an intricate and flowery confession of love, but it still makes Charlie struggle to breathe. He isn't only an optimist, and the practical side of his nature knows just how many more troubles they might still face in the morning…but they will face them that morning, and every morning after that, because Charlie's luck really is the best, and he has no intention of ever wasting it. Forget sugar snow. Forever with Willy Wonka will be the best magic he'll ever make, after all.
(End)