A/N- Hello everyone. This is Nina. This is a rehost of one of my fics that's been up in this section for a good number of years. For various reasons I needed to take it off my main account, but I know a lot of people enjoy it, so I didn't just want to remove it from FF altogether. Please note that it's not finished and that unless I have a change of heart it is, for the moment, discontinued.

WARNING: this is a chanslash story featuring a romance between Willy Wonka and Charlie. If that's not your cup of tea please press that little back button at the top of your screen.

That said, please enjoy.

Touch me, Hold me, Love Me

Chapter I- An Awful Realisation

It was a rather ordinary day in the chocolate factory. Well, as ordinary as Willy Wonka's chocolate factory could be, for most wouldn't find it ordinary at all! With its chocolate rivers and waterfalls and even a whole tribe of singing dancing tiny men, otherwise known as the Oompa-Loompas, nothing could be considered normal in the factory.

Charlie- Mr Wonka's heir- thought living there was magical; he wouldn't be surprised if he found that Mr Wonka had a bit of magic in him too.

Charlie was now twelve, he'd lived in the factory for over two years, but he still thought it was wonderful; there was just so much to explore! No matter how many times he looked, there were still so many rooms and places in the factory he'd never seen before. He had to admit however… he had gotten himself lost quite a few times. For instance once he had found a room completely full of different coloured candy floss, and whatever door he tried, it just lead back to the candy floss room, it was incredibly confusing for poor Charlie. He didn't mind too much though, the candy floss was very scrummy, though it did start to get a tad boring after he'd been there all day.

But Wonka had found him, and told him just how easy it was to get out. You only needed to turn left for three rooms, go forward for six, go right for two and then repeat the whole thing again five times.

"Of course," Wonka had said, "only a super-duper chocolatier like me would know that."

A lot of people thought Wonka was a bit strange, perhaps even a bit mad, but to Charlie he was wonderful. His strange sense of humour might shock other people, but Charlie always thought he was very funny. He could become slightly egotistical and sarcastic at times but he had lived in his factory for such a very long time with out any human interaction it was no wonder. Charlie didn't mind, he loved every bit of him, from his trademark top hat to his brightly coloured high-heeled shoes. He loved him even more than he knew.

x

Both Willy Wonka and Charlie were in the Inventing Room, though Charlie was pretty sure Wonka didn't notice him, he was sitting quite high up on a balcony overlooking the room. Normally, Charlie wouldn't have liked sitting up there, he didn't particularly like heights, but Wonka was testing out a new product today- Bubbletastic Balls. You were supposed to swallow them, and after a few seconds you would start exhaling bubbles for a short period of time. Charlie didn't want to miss this, but he didn't want to distract Wonka either, so he decided he would sit on the railing out of the way.

Wonka had ten Bubbletastic Balls in varying strength, and ten Oompa-Loompa's to test them on. The Oompa-Loompas didn't mind of course, they thought it a privilege to try out Mr Wonka's chocolates and sweets before anyone else. Even if one did turn orange or inflate occasionally.

As Charlie watched he noticed the expression on Wonka's face, he was smiling. Charlie was glad, Wonka often smiled, but usually it was fake, for some reason he didn't like to express his true emotions and covered them up by masking them with fake ones. But Charlie had slowly learnt to read his emotions, even with a big grin plastered on his face his eyes usually gave him away. Willy Wonka had very expressive eyes, it was like he was trying to cage his emotions but his eyes managed to slip though the bars. He could look completely calm and normal when he was sad, his face looked normal, his body language was normal, but his eyes would be almost pleading for sympathy and love. No one else in his family seemed to have this knack of Charlie's for reading Wonka's emotions however, and they tended to get duped by the chocolatier a lot.

But the smile on his face right now, Charlie knew it was a true smile. Willy Wonka loved making sweets and chocolates and today was the grand day when he showed everyone else in his factory all his hard work. Charlie smiled too, whenever Wonka was happy he felt happy as well, though he wasn't quite sure why; he wasn't like this with anyone else. Perhaps Wonka just had this amazing effect on people?

For no apparent reason at all, a new question floated into the young boy's mind- how come Mr Wonka wasn't married? Or at least had a girlfriend? You see women practically throwing themselves at rock stars and basically anyone from the telly all the time. So why not Mr Wonka? Everyone knows about him, he can't go out (not that he does usually) without being recognised. So, why don't girls hurl themselves at him? Why, if Charlie was a girl he knew he would.

'…What...?' Charlie suddenly realised what he had just thought. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the nonsense he had collected in it. Sure, he might do that if he were a girl, but what if he were a boy? …No, of course not, he didn't like Mr Wonka like… like that. He must be two… three times older than Charlie was, possibly more, he'd never asked him. And what's more, Mr Wonka was a man.

Charlie didn't like boys… did he? He'd never even thought such a thing beforehand, he hadn't even really started to think about girls yet, sure, there were some girls in his class but looked quite cute, but honestly… boys?

'No, of course not, this is complete bosh; I don't know what I'm talking about.' Charlie shook his head again and turned his attention back to the testing, only to find that not only had they started already, they had almost finished.

While Charlie had been staring at Wonka with an expression that could only be resembled by that of a love struck fool Oompa-Loompas had been letting out jets of bubbles, one of them exhaling bubbles from his nostrils, and another letting out so many it was impossible to see him anymore- there were a million tiny reflections of him on the bubbles, it looked as if the Oompa-Loompas were multiplying!

By the time Charlie had come back to Earth, he had missed almost all of the action, there was only one Bubbletastic Ball left, and it was the strongest one. Wonka handed the last tribesman the sweet and stood slightly back, holding up his notepad to record the reaction. He gave the Oompa-Loompa the thumbs up.

The small man popped the sweet in his mouth and swallowed. Almost immediately something began to happen. With all the others lots of smaller bubbles had been exhaled, but this sweet was much stronger, he began breathing out one huge bubble.

It got bigger…

And bigger…

The bubble became so enormous that it covered the Oompa-Loompa, that is to say- the Oompa-Loompa was now inside the bubble. But more was to come; the bubble started lifting off the ground slowly, rising higher and higher. Calmly Wonka wrote down on his notepad 'TOO STRONG' and circled it several times.

Charlie was amazed Wonka was still so placid, he himself was more than a bit worried for the Oompa-Loompa, the bubble would float to the top of the ceiling and then… pop! The drop would surely kill him, why didn't Wonka do something?!

Charlie was just about to call out to Wonka when he realised he was doing something. He was bent down low and talking to another of the tiny men.

Wonka tapped the side of his face several times with his candy flavoured pencil calmly while trying to think of an idea. "Aha!" he exclaimed. "I've got it, Patrick, would ya head down to the gum room and fetch a piece of Super-Stretch-Scrum-Gum. Then bring it back here and stretch it out." The Oompa Loompa, Patrick, gave Wonka a quick salute and he scurried of to go find the gum. Wonka himself turned back to watch the rising Loompa's slow progress towards the ceiling with the same calm and slightly uninterested look on his face. But a small flicker of fear darted across his unmasked eyes for a second before the calm look reappeared. That was all Charlie needed to see, for a moment he thought that Mr Wonka didn't care. But he knew for a fact that couldn't be true, Wonka had told Charlie himself that he was quite fond of the Oompa-Loompas and he knew that when Willy Wonka says he's quite fond of someone, it means he really likes them a lot. He also knew all their names, despite the fact there were hundreds of them in the factory. He must have spent weeks and months trying to memorise them all, that's how dedicated he was to them.

Patrick had now returned, holding a small rectangular object in a silver wrapper. "Good, good," said Wonka. "Now you just need ta stretch it out."

Several other Loompas came to help Patrick; they took the wrapper off, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary piece of pink chewing gum. Now, if Charlie had not lived in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for two years he might have thought this. However, judging by its name, he could already guess what it could do. The 'super-stretch' part kind of gave it away.

The little men each took a side of the gum and pulled hard. It began to stretch, stretching farther than any normal gum; it was like rubber, except better. Charlie was sure it would snap soon, but it kept stretching and stretching. He shook his head, he should never have doubted the genius that was Willy Wonka, for the chewing gum no longer resembled gum at all, it was more like a giant trampoline! Charlie gave a quiet "Ah…" as he realised what Wonka was planning to do. 'They better hurry though,' he thought, 'that bubble will reach the roof soon!'

The Loompas held the gum underneath the bubble without any instruction, moving over to stand underneath their distressed comrade. The bubble rose higher with the rather distraught man inside. It was only a few seconds away from the roof…

Charlie covered his eyes as the bubble popped soundlessly and the terrified Oompa-Loompa plummeted to the ground.

Sliding his hands away and opening his eyes; he gave a sigh of relief and then- laughed. The bubbled man was sitting in the chewing gum trampoline covering in pink gum; it had sprayed all over the room. The other Oompa-Loompas were also covered in it, they laughed at one another, pointing at each other's pink hair. Wonka, looking rather stunned, took of his top hat and pulled the gum of it, before putting it back on his head with a rather strange expression. The rest of him was still rather pink though.

The Oompa-Loompa who was on the gum trampoline stuck his little finger in the gum, pulled it out and put it in his mouth. He grinned and gave Mr Wonka the thumbs up.

"Well," Wonka began, "it didn't sell well, but that gum really does have its uses!" He gave a short giggle. "Right guys; let's get all this cleaned up." As he said this, he pulled a strip of gum off his own coat with a funny look on his face. The Oompa-Loompa's wandered off, either to get cleaning equipment for the mess in the room or to attend to other things.

Wonka scribbled some more things down on his notepad before closing it and placing it in his pocket.

"By the way," he said loudly, "I do realise yer up there Charlie." He turned around and grinned at the boy, but it immediately dropped off his face. For Charlie had been watching the fun and had gotten so used to nobody noticing him on the balcony that when Mr Wonka had spoken to him it had been quite a surprise, he had been startled. Now he was wobbling dangerously on the railing.

"Charlie!" Cried Wonka, the fear now clearly showing on his face. He wasn't as high as the Oompa-Loompa had been, but if he fell the wrong way, the drop could still kill him, and what worried Mr Wonka most- was that there was no more time to get gum.

Charlie tried to get a grip on the railing but it was no good, it was as if in the last few minutes the railing had been greased by invisible demons. Charlie slid and slipped and tried to get a grip on the metal pole he was sat on but he never had been a strong boy, he always came last in races and got out of breath easy, he couldn't hold on for much longer.

He fell.

"Ai-iiiieeeee!" Charlie braced himself for the impact, this would definitely hurt. Charlie felt the rush of air around him, he saw the inventing room moving so fast it was dizzying; he closed hid eyes, though the image of the blurred room remained as though burned into his mind. He closed them tighter, scrunching them up and tensing his muscles ready for the ground.

The first thing he noticed when he hit the ground was that it wasn't very ground like at all, for one it wasn't hard, it was quite soft actually, it hadn't hurt nearly as much as he had thought. Secondly it was rather lumpy, and third and finally, floors don't usually make "Oof!" sounds when you land on them. Something wasn't right, Charlie peeked open one eye, then the other and saw why; he was lying in the arms of Willy Wonka!

Wonka's legs collapsed from the impact in which Charlie had fallen, they were then both sprawled on the ground, Charlie lying over the top of Wonka. It was all very awkward. They lay there alone staring at one another, unsure what to do or what to say. For the first time, Willy Wonka was speechless.

Charlie didn't know what to do, should he get off quickly and apologise? He knew the man hated touch, and something like this might be an overload for him, but as soon as he had this thought Charlie realised he didn't want too. Wonka was so soft he might just as well stay down here, and he made Charlie feel all warm inside. The smell was intoxicating, he smelt like chocolate, but not ordinary chocolate, the best chocolate ever in the world, sweet, rich and creamy, the type that he would unwrap carefully and take tiny bites out of so it would last for ever and ever. Before he knew it, Charlie was unconsciously wrapping his arms round his mentor, compelled by pure impulse and need, laying his head down on the man's chest.

With a start he came back to Earth, his cheeks flushed red, and he realised the unimaginably awkward situation he was in. He jumped to his feet, stumbling slightly and dipping his head low, trying to look anywhere else than the face of his teacher. "Umm…" he mumbled, completely at a loss for words. Instead he watched Mr Wonka getting up, his face was of complete shock, and Charlie noticed his hands were shaking in his squeaky latex gloves.

The young boy tried to voice his words again, "I…. um… tha-thanks for y'know… catching me… um…" Wonka was still staring him, forgetting completely to try and mask his face; anyone could see that he was shocked and downright scared. Then, without making an excuse or saying anything at all, he walked off as fast as he could in the other direction to a Charlie-free place.

Charlie stood, completely gob smacked for several minutes. He was just as scared and confused as Wonka was. Though it was embarrassing, he had to admit, he had liked it. He'd liked laying there with Wonka, putting his arms around him and just holding onto him. He couldn't explain the feelings he had just felt, that he was feeling right now. His chest felt so warm, but not uncomfortably so. He tingled just from the thought of his touch. He could still feel the heat in his cheeks.

Charlie didn't like boys… did he?

Now he had an answer, he buried his head in his hands.

"Yes, yes I do."

A single tear rolled down his cheek, soon to be followed by many more.