Confusion

By: Emmy

Disclaimer: don't own it, yada, yada, yada.

A/N: This is my first non-POTC fic, and it was inevitable that I'd end up writing one on CATCF. The truth is that I love getting in people's head, and what better head to get into than a fictional world-famous chocolatier who is undeniably weird? I hope he's in character. And I hope you enjoy this (and review!)

Willy Wonka gets a bit confused. Sometimes he thinks that maybe Charlie Bucket is a little too good to be true. That maybe the hero worship and the smiles and the smart ideas are all an elaborate hoax. That maybe behind all the sweet smiles and delighted laughs he's really thinking about ways to steal all the ideas.

Willy Wonka tells himself that he's being stupid when he thinks that, but then he reminds himself of all those hugs. Gentle and friendly and (when he is the hug-ee) a little hesitant. Everyone in the Bucket household gives hugs, it's natural to them. Like it's natural for him to have his best ideas when he's in the shower (but that isn't something he usually tells people.) The only problem is that Willy Wonka always keeps his best recipes in the chest pocket of his waistcoat (close to his heart and always nearby.) Willy knows that Charlie knows about the recipes. So every time someone wraps their arms around him he always worries that they're going to get their nasty, germy paws on his precious recipes. That they're gonna smudge his perfect handwriting (complemented with elaborate curls and swirls) with their greedy fingers.

Like the spies did.

God he hated those sellouts. He supposed he owed a lot of the factory's new look to the pilgrimage that they eventually sent him on (after he'd fired every single one of their smelly ass-bottoms.) He remember what one of them looked like, she was pretty and smelt nice (like the Stars on Mid-Summer's Nights) and had given him a hug.

He had liked it. He wasn't going to lie (at least not about something he'd had nearly two decades to deal with.) He'd liked the way she hadn't asked (he would've said no.) He'd liked that she was so close that he could feel every inch of her but that he hadn't noticed 'cause she was whispering a quiet (accidentally seductive) thank you (he couldn't remember what he'd given her, maybe a promotion.) And he'd liked (very secretly) that she hadn't said anything to him when he didn't let her move away from him until he'd memorized her scent.

That Friday his gummy bears (great miniature pets that didn't bite because they didn't have teeth and would occasionally ask you politely to eat them) were being sold under a company that was most definitely not owned by him.

But he was digressing. The simple fact was that he was paranoid that the Bucket's were going to steal his recipes. And that maybe (just maybe) he was a little jealous of Charlie.

He spent a lot of the time between bedtime and morning telling himself that he wasn't jealous and that he wouldn't let them hug him next time. But every time Grandma Georgina reached up her wrinkly little arms in silent pleading or Mr Bucket gave him an awkward one-armed hug a part of him wanted to sink into them and let them fix all his problems. The other part wanted to yell at Charlie and tell him that it wasn't fair that Charlie had a family that loved him as much as they did.

Willy remembered a particular incident where he had accidentally snapped at his young apprentice and had wound up having a conversation filled with ugly truths and ended with a stronger (dare he say it?) friendship. It had basically been Charlie explaining that people that lived hard lives together where closer because any minute one of them could die. That had been rather frightening and Willy had (rather idiotically) changed the subject to the weather, ('oh I say, the sun is quite hot today, isn't it?' 'Willy? We're inside.')

It wasn't Willy's fault that he got nervous around feelings. So Willy Wonka, World Famous Chocolatier, would wait impatiently for the grips of sleep. And when it finally came, sometimes, (He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but he knew that deep down he liked it,) he'd dream of a pretty woman and the crisp, clean beauty of Mid-Summer Night's Stars.

And when that happens, he wakes up (hot and sweaty and uncomfortable in his own skin)and realizes (if only for a little while) that maybe Charlie Bucket isn't that bad, he does, after all, smell of Frosty, Winter Morning Light.