Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thomas Sanders was an orphan. He’d never known his parents, and had grown up in an orphanage with the many other kids there all his life. The owners of the orphanage, Dot and Larry, weren’t very wealthy. They tried their best to keep the place in good condition and give all the children the care they needed, but with every passing day, it became more apparent that the place was facing problems.

Not all the children realised as the portions of food became smaller at meals. Thomas did. Not all the children noticed as the chocolate they got weekly as a treat changed to be a monthly treat, and then changed again to a yearly one that every kid only got on their birthday. Thomas did. Not all the children noticed as things in the orphanage like the television and furniture were sold and switched out for cheaper, second-hand stuff. Thomas did. Not all the children noticed the look of relief Dot and Larry had when a child was adopted or fostered, as it meant they had one less mouth to feed. Thomas did.

So, Thomas decided to try and help out. He got an after school job doing the paper round. It didn’t earn much, but Dot and Larry were grateful all the same.

His new job meant the boy would have to pass a certain building in his town four times a day. A building that was torture for him to be near.

This building was a chocolate factory. And it was the largest in the world.

Remus Duke, the owner, was like the local town cryptid. Many in the town were once employed at his factory, where he created the most amazing candy inventions in the world. While the Duke brand chocolate bars were the signature item, other creations included ice-cream that would never melt, gum that never loses its flavour, bubblegum that can be blown to enormous sizes without popping, and more! It was incredible!

However, other chocolatiers grew envious of Remus’ booming business and ability to create things seemingly impossible. So, they sent in spies to go undercover and learn Remus’ secrets. Soon, Slugworth was releasing the ice-cream that never melted, Fickelgruber was selling gum that never lost its flavour, and Prodnose was selling the bubblegum that could be blown to enormous sizes! Remus, panicked, fired all his workers and closed his factory forever.

Forever didn’t last very long.

One day, smoke was coming from the chimneys again. Duke products were being sold at candy stores once more. Remus’ ex-employees raced to the factory, hoping to be given their jobs back. But Remus never came out from the factory to announce his return. Ever since its closure, no one had ever gone in, and no one had ever come out. No one knew who his new workers were. Apparently, shadows appeared in the windows, but no one could ever make them out.

Thomas would give anything to go into that factory. The place had fascinated him ever since he first heard the story of it. He wanted to know how Remus created the things he did, he wanted to know who the workers were, and he wanted to have the chance to try all of the Duke products he could. The only thing he’d ever tried were the chocolate bars he got for his birthday.

That’s why it was torture for him to walk past. As he walked from the orphanage to school, from the school to the news office, from the news office to the houses subscribed to the paper, and from those houses back home, he’d pass those large gates and the smell of warm sweet chocolate would flood and override his other senses. His stomach would growl hungrily, and he’d shuffle by slowly, imagining he were eating it as well as smelling it.

Torture. But blissful torture. It was his method of escapism.

One that he really needed as food portions got smaller and smaller.

One night, he’d been getting ready for bed. Larry came into his room to say goodnight, only for Thomas to speak before he could. “Larry? How much longer will you be able to keep the orphanage open? And where will we go when it closes?”

Larry sighed. He walked over, sitting on the end of Thomas’ bed. “... We don’t know how much longer. But there’s an orphanage in the next town over with a lot of spare rooms and in much better condition. They’ve agreed to take you all in when the time comes.”

Thomas nodded solemnly. “Okay… What about you and Dot? What are you going to do?”

“Dot’s probably going to go back to teaching. As for myself… I’m not that sure yet. But we’ll make do. You don’t need to worry, Thomas.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“We’ll miss you too, Thomas. But it’s okay. We’re not closing this place just yet. Now get some sleep, you have school tomorrow.”

“Okay… Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Thomas. See you in the morning.”

Thomas buried himself under his thin blanket as Larry stood up, flicked off the lights, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Thomas’ eyes drifted to the window. There in the distance was the Duke factory, and the sky above it was filled with stars. And one of said stars was a shooting one, firing across the sky. As he saw it, Thomas wished with all his might that some good luck would come his way. That something would save the orphanage. That he’d get a new life and not have to go hungry anymore.

-

“I’m home!” Patton Gloop called through the bakery as he stepped inside. Only he shouted in German, obviously, given he lived in Germany.

His mother, Harley Gloop, poked her head through the doorway behind the counter that led to the kitchen. “Pat! Perfect timing, I just put in some cookies in to bake for you. I made an extra batch of dough with no eggs so you could eat it.”

Patton grinned, dropping his school bag. He ran behind the counter and into the kitchen, going right over to the bowl and digging in with the spoon. Mm, it was so good! He really needed this…

Patton hadn’t had the greatest day at school that day… He’d had PE, his least favourite lesson.

Patton was fat. He knew the word had bad connotations, but he didn’t think it should. He liked his body!

Well… he tried to. But it was hard to stay positive when no one else seemed to like his body.

He didn’t get bullied necessarily, but… People would tease him, call him nicknames like ‘butterball’, ‘chubs’ and things like that. He knew most people meant it in an endearing fun way, but it could still hurt sometimes.

However, one person who always meant for it to be taken seriously and hurtfully: his PE teacher. The guy was a… was a b-hole .

I know, it sounds very harsh, but it’s true. Due to Patton’s weight, he decided to force him to work a lot harder than any of the other kids. Patton would have to do exercises double time, put all the equipment away after the lesson on his own, sprint when the other students were told to jog, and jog when other students had to walk, and multiple times had been worked to the point he was physically sick. One of his best friends, Terrence, often found himself knelt beside him, comforting him as his breakfast came back up.

Little did Mr Wyatt, the PE teacher, know, said actions just enabled Patton and made him eat more. Because that’s what Patton did when sad: eat! It made him feel so much better; the delicious tastes distracted him from the bad feelings and made him feel bright and happy! Which is why he was so happy to be having this delicious cookie dough.

“So, honey, how was your day?” Harley asked, finishing up icing a cake to put in one of the display cases for the next day.

“It was good.” Patton didn’t like telling his mum what happened to him in PE. It would make her sad and angry, and he didn’t want to feel the bad feelings he did. “Terrence and I were talking about having another sleepover soon! I’m on snack duty as usual. I know both our favourites, after all. I think it’s going to be at Terrence’s this time.”

“You know what date yet?”

“Not yet. Hopefully soon, I can’t wait!”

Harley smiled, kissing his head as she passed him, taking the cake to the front of the store. “Why don’t you take that dough up with you to the apartment, get in your onesie and pick out a movie. Once the cookies are done, I’ll bring them up and we’ll watch it together.”

“Okay!” Patton picked up the bowl, running upstairs to his and his mother’s flat above the shop. It was small, but neither of them minded. It was all the two of them needed, and they were happy in it. He put the bowl down on the coffee table, before running to his room. “Hey, Toby!”

Toby, Patton’s dog, yawned awake from where he was curled up in his bed. Patton gave the dog a quick hug before going to his wardrobe and pulling out his grey cat onesie. Once he’d changed into it, he whistled for Toby to follow him, before leaving the room, returning to the lounge. He scooped up another spoonful of cookie dough, before going over to the DVD shelf.

“Hm… which one…?”

Patton looked over them a little longer, before smiling and pulling a DVD from the shelf. Winnie the Pooh was his favourite movie, but this was his favourite documentary. Well, by ‘favourite’, I mean the only one he actually liked and was interested in. It was all about the Duke factory, detailing the rise, fall and resurgence of it. Though, Patton didn't care much for the mystery side of the factory’s history. He just liked watching the candies, sweets and chocolates being produced. It looked so delicious, and always made him desperate to go out and buy a bunch of Duke chocolate - it was his favourite, after all.

Patton ran to the TV stand, putting the DVD into the player, before returning to the sofa. Toby immediately jumped up and curled up on his lap. Patton petted the dog’s head, before picking the bowl of cookie dough back up and digging back in. Soon, it was empty. With perfect timing, his mother came in holding a plate of cookies just as Patton put the bowl back on the coffee table. Harley sighed, smiling, as she saw what DVD Patton had chosen. “Why am I not surprised…?”

Patton giggled, taking a cookie from the plate. “You know how much I love Duke chocolate; it’s the best ever!” He smiled, turning back to the screen and pressing play on the remote. “I’d give anything to get a lifetime supply or see inside, or anything like that.”

That would be nice. Maybe, if he got to go and see inside, he wouldn’t be picked on anymore because everyone would want to be his friend to hear his story of what’s inside. Or, if he got a lifetime supply, everyone would want to be his friend so they could have some.

Either way, he’d get a lot of friends. And that would make him happy.

-

“Daddy, I’m home!”

Roman Salt called through the mansion as he stepped inside, the butler having let him in after driving him home from school. He pulled off his fur coat and handed it to said butler, waiting for his father to come in and greet him. He waited… and waited… and-

There were the footsteps. He turned to the person coming into the entrance hall, and his face soured. It was neither of his parents. Instead it was his nanny, Pryce.

“Welcome home, Roman. Now, I-”

“Where’s my father?”

Pryce sighed. “Roman, your father is on a very important business call in his office, and it will probably last for the rest of the day, so-”

“The rest of the day?!” Roman almost screeched. “My performance is tonight! He’s seriously missing it?!”

“Yes, he is. I’m sorry, Roman, but I’ll be taking you in-”

“This is unfair, he’d better be able to properly make it up to me! If not I’ll SCREAM!”

Before Pryce could respond, Roman was storming off in the direction of his dad’s office. Pryce chased after him, calling for him to stop and calm down, but Roman’s temper was a fire that could not be put out. He slammed open the door, causing his father, Romulus Salt, to almost jump out of his chair.

“YOU AREN’T COMING TO MY SHOW?!”

Romulus muttered to himself, before turning to his laptop. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He muted the call, before standing and turning to his son. “Roman, let me explain-”

“DON’T! I don’t want to hear an excuse! What I want is retribution!”

Romulus sighed, knowing what was coming. He put on a smile. “I’ll get you whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“Good! I want a horse. Valerie said she got one for her birthday, and they’re so much better than my stupid ponies. She may be my best friend, but I cannot let her show me up. Also, I would like a new mink coat - the fur’s getting all matted on my current one.”

“Of course, my little pri-”

“I’m not done! I want you to get a professional dressmaker to make me personal, high quality replicas of all the Disney Princess dresses. They need to be good, not like some cheap dress-up thing from a Disney store.”

“Okay, Ro, I’ll make sure you get all those things as soon as possible.”

“...Good.” Roman turned and left the office, head held high, the smuggest possible look on his face.

Once the door was closed, Romulus sighed in relief. Peace and quiet, once again. He took a moment, enjoying the calmness, before sitting back down behind his desk. He unmuted himself from the call, and returned his focus to business.

Roman, on the other hand, found Pryce once again, and gestured for him to follow him to his room. “I need to look my best for the show tonight, I need you to do my makeup. BUT!” He turned on his heels, glaring up at his nanny. “If you ruin any of my palettes, lipsticks, anything … I’ll make sure daddy has you fired.”

Pryce nodded. “Of course. I’ll be very careful, Roman, I promise.”

“You’d better hold to that promise.” Roman led the way into his bedroom, sitting down at his dressing table, which was laden with more makeup than most people would buy in a lifetime. “Right, I’m playing a prince, so I need to look as handsome as possible, obviously - though to be fair, you don’t really need to do much to make that the case. A red and gold colour scheme is best, as my costume is white, red and gold. Make sure it’s bold enough to stand out on stage, but not to the point where it’s too unnatural and weird looking.”

Pryce nodded, already planning out the look in his head. Thanks to working with Roman for so long, he was an expert at creating very high quality makeup looks and then applying them fast. The boy had very high standards, and Pryce knew if he didn’t meet them, he would be fired. And he couldn’t let that happen - the pay was extremely good. So, Pryce had to bring out his skills now, and make sure not to comment on how extreme Roman’s makeup request was for what was just an amateur school play performed by a bunch of ten and eleven year olds.

Well, Roman did like to stand out and be the centre of attention.

Eventually, Pryce finished. He stepped back as Roman turned to his mirror. Pryce waited with bated breath, before Roman hummed. “It’s acceptable.” He picked up a hairbrush and hairspray, handing them to Pryce. “Now do my hair. It needs to be neat, and enough hairspray to hold all evening, but not so much that it will take ages to wash out.”

Pryce held back a sigh, starting to brush Roman’s hair. ‘Don’t worry, Pryce…’ he thought to himself reassuringly. ‘When you finally put your creative writing degree to good use and write a book and get it published, you can quit and move away...’

Roman raised an eyebrow as he noticed Pryce wasn’t quite focussed. He folded his arms, clearing his throat. When that failed to get Pryce’s attention, his expression soured. “PRYCE! Focus!!!”

Pryce started, face flushing. “S-sorry…” He drew his focus back to what he was doing. When he was done, Roman gave a nod which translated to ‘acceptable’.

Roman stood. “We need to get going if we’re going to get there on time. You packed me a dinner to have at school, correct?”

Pryce nodded. “I’ll go grab it from the kitchen and meet you in the entrance hall.” He held the door open for Roman, letting him past. Roman didn’t thank him, heading down to the entrance hall.

“Butler!” he called. He’d never bothered to learn any of the staff’s names apart from Pryce’s, since Pryce was the one who practically raised him.

The butler came in. “Yes, Master Salt?”

“Get my coat.”

“Which one, Master Salt?”

“Hm… the leopard print one, please.”

The butler nodded, heading to the coat room. Roman’s patience wore thin very quickly, as it usually did. When the butler came back, he snatched the coat. “Took you long enough.” He pulled the coat on. “You’ll need to drive Pryce and I to school. He’ll be here in a minute.”

When Pryce finally came in, Roman snatched the bag that contained his dinner away from him immediately. “Be a little faster next time.” He opened the bag, humming as he looked over its contents. Pasta, garlic bread, and for dessert, a Duke chocolate bar. He nodded. “Acceptable. Now, let’s go!” He turned and left the mansion, Pryce and the butler promptly following.

-

It was all down to this. The teams were tied. The Bayshore Little League team had one batter left. They needed a homerun. Luckily, it was their best player who was stepping up to the plate.

Logan Beauregarde narrowed his eyes at the pitcher, blowing a bubble with the gum in his mouth. He sucked the bubble back in as he raised his bat, gaze focused on the ball in the pitcher’s hand.

The pitcher threw the ball, and as it neared, Logan swung his bat as hard as he could, hitting right on target. The ball was sent flying, and he took off running. He reached first base as the ball had landed and stopped rolling, was at second by the time one of the fielders got to it, reached third as the ball was thrown back near the diamond. It was a race to home base.

He skidded to a stop at the base just before the catcher caught the ball.

Cheers rang out from the home team’s dugout as well as the stand where the team’s family and friends were. Bayshore had won! The team ran out from the dugout, all going into a hug on the field. Logan beamed with pride as his teammates and coach all started cheering him, calling him awesome and the best player. He knew it to be true, but that didn’t change the fact he liked to hear it. However, he knew he couldn’t stay for long; he had somewhere to be. He pushed through the crowd, heading towards the stands, which his dad was coming down from.

“Lo! Oh, you did amazingly, I’m so proud!” Teal Beauregarde smiled, hugging his son close.

“Um, Dad? Hugging… You know I don’t really like hugging…”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Teal pulled away. “But you really did do great.”

“Thank you…” Logan paused, looking around. “Where’s Pa?”

“Oh, he, um…”

Logan sighed. “He didn’t come again?”

“He was probably busy with work. But hey, you know he’ll be really happy when he hears you won!”

“True...”

Teal sighed, trying to think of a way to cheer his son up, before remembering something. “Hey, I ran into Joan earlier. I said maybe they could come round and you two could have a sleepover tonight. We could order pizza, you can watch movies, play video games-”

“Can’t. Busy.”

“Huh?”

“Dad, you know the high school asked me to fill in for a missing member of their mathletes team, and then after that, tonight, I have a chess tournament.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. Tomorrow night, then?”

“I have astronomy club, a soccer match and then karate. And before you say the day after, I have robotics club and then ice skating. Now I need to go get changed into my mathlete uniform, Pa’ll probably be here soon to take me there and I need to be ready.”

Logan turned and was about to walk away, when Teal caught his hand before kneeling down in front of him so he was the boy’s height. “Lo, you don’t get too overwhelmed, do you?”

Logan’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You do so much in a week, every week. So much extracurricular, so many competitions… Promise me you’ll let me know if it’s ever too much, okay?”

Logan responded with a simple eye roll accompanied with a slightly cocky smirk. “Dad. I’m a world record holding gum chewer; I’ve been asked to fill in for a high school mathletes team when I’m still in the 5th grade; I currently hold the title of the champion of the under elevens national chess championship, a title which I’ll defend tonight; and I could go on with a bunch of my other achievements. Trust me, I can never get overwhelmed by a workload. Remember the motto Pa gave me? ‘Win or die trying’. I’m sticking to it.”

And with that, he turned and walked off towards the changing rooms, blowing a bubble with his gum as he went. Teal sighed as he watched his son leave. He often worried Logan was a little too confident for his own good. Teal wished he had the guts to talk with his husband about what he was teaching their son...

Logan, meanwhile, quickly got changed, before heading back out, only this time leaving the field and going to the sidewalk, where he quickly found his Pa’s car parked. He ran over, before climbing in the passenger seat.

Anton Beauregarde turned to him as the boy climbed in. “Did you win?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good,” Anton nodded. “Still got your gum?”

“Yes, I do.”

Anton nodded again, before starting the car. As he pulled away from the curb, he started talking again. “It’s very important you win this round of mathletes tonight. You need to get through to the quarter finals, since that’s televised.”

“I’m not aiming to get into the quarter finals,” Logan replied. “I’m aiming to win the finals. And before you say it, yes, I’m aiming to keep my chess championship title. Don’t worry, my motivation hasn’t waned.”

His father didn’t respond, so Logan assumed Anton had heard all he wanted to hear. Logan turned, looking out the window, absentmindedly blowing another bubble.

Logan’s pa had always been… hard to please. He wasn’t the affectionate type, a trait Logan appeared to adopt from him over his development. This led to Logan quickly learning that he would gain praise - the closest thing Anton gave to affection - if he made his father proud by being high achieving and being, well, a winner. So, at school, Logan threw himself into academic studies. He quickly climbed to the top of his classes, and started taking academic extracurriculars. It didn’t do much. So, he started going outside of his comfort zones, dipping into different sports. Baseball, soccer, karate, ice skating, gymnastics. Still nothing. So he decided to do something big: break a world record.

Breaking the world record for the longest time spent chewing the same stick of gum was an obvious choice. Logan liked gum - he often chewed it while working to stop himself fidgeting. The current record was only three months, something he knew he could easily beat. So, he went to a candy store and bought a stick of Duke brand gum, specifically the gum that never loses its flavour. Not losing the fruity taste to bland nothingness would make it easier.

Three months and a day later, he was awarded a certificate saying he was now a world record holder, which was hung up in the living room to this day. Anton finally started acknowledging his son’s achievements and started getting more involved in Logan’s life. Logan could have given up gum chewing then… but he’d gotten kind of addicted. And what if someone broke the record and he lost his pa’s respect? So he kept chewing, and hadn’t stopped since.

And he was happy. Yeah… he was happy.

-

“Virgil! Virgil!”

Virgil Teevee’s eyes did not leave the TV. He didn’t even hear the voice calling his name to be fair - he had a headset on, his ears filled with the noises from the game he was playing as well as the voices of the people he was playing online with.

“Shoot, I’m out of ammo…” he mumbled as his character pressed his trigger to no avail. “Can you guys cover me while I try to find more ammo?”

“Sure,” one of the guys he was playing with - Andy - replied. “Also, here. Not much ammo left in it, but it should last until you find more.” Andy’s character dropped a handgun in front of Virgil’s.

“Thanks.”

“VIRGIL!!!”

This time, Virgil heard. He pulled off his headset, before calling, “What?!”

His mother’s voice called back. “We have to get going, come on!”

Virgil immediately paled. “Um… go where…?”

His mother, Linda Teevee came in, pulling on a cardigan. “We have that meeting with your teacher, remember? I reminded you this morning.”

Virgil felt like he was going to be sick. He knew his grades had been dropping. He knew he hadn’t done 90% of the homework assignments that he had been set so far this year. He knew he barely paid attention in class, just sitting in terror that he’d be called on to answer a question. This was going to be the worst meeting with the teacher of his life.

He needed to prepare.

He left the game, turning off the TV, before running upstairs to his room. He pulled on his sneakers first, before he grabbed his largest pair of soundproof headphones, as well as his phone and Nintendo Switch. He plugged the headphones into his phone, started playing music, and turned up the volume. He slipped a game cartridge into the Switch, turning it on, and starting to play. He left his room, heading downstairs, not lifting his eyes from the console in his hands.

This was his plan. This was how he was going to get through this whole evening. Just ignore everything and bury himself in Mario Kart and Animal Crossing and the other games he had for his Switch.

It had worked before, and would likely work again.

Linda didn’t bat an eye as she saw Virgil come in head down, glued to the screen. Over the years, she had gotten used to his apparent gaming addiction. If anything, she encouraged it. His games kept him out of trouble.

Linda remembered when Virgil was younger… He was such a handful! When he was in kindergarten, she felt like she was called in every other day because Virgil had a screaming match that led to him being sick. Then, when he started elementary school, she kept having to come in because Virgil passed out in lesson, apparently due to getting extremely panicked when called on, leading to him hyperventilating and being unable to breathe.

But then he started getting into video games. Suddenly, he was calmer, much more reserved, and kept out of trouble. She didn’t have to come running to pick him up from school on a regular basis anymore.

So, she got him the consoles and games he wanted, and left him to his own devices. She was happy, her son was happy. It was good all around.

“Come on, then, lets go,” she said despite knowing full well Virgil couldn’t hear her. She left the house, Virgil trailing behind. They climbed into the car, before heading off.

Linda didn’t bother to try and start a conversation with her son as they drove up to the school. She knew by now that he always kept his music up so loud he couldn’t hear anyone. 

And she was right. To Virgil, the journey up to school, the meeting with his teacher, and the journey home all blended together. Whatever happened during the meeting, Virgil knew it couldn’t be good, so he purposefully stayed ignorant. When they got home, he wordlessly went up to his room before his mom could try and question him about what was said by his teacher. He turned off his Switch, before getting out his laptop. On it, he returned to the game he had been playing before he left the house.

“Hey, Verge, where’d you go?” Andy’s voice spoke as Virgil turned his mic back on.

“Had some stuff. Doesn’t matter, I’m back now. What’d I miss?”

“Missy choked on his Duke chocolate bar after his brother scared him.”

Virgil chuckled. “Missy, you need to get Pranks under control…”

Missy mumbled incoherently in annoyance, Virgil and Andy laughing.

Talking to his friends online was the best thing, Virgil thought. Even better than having real life friends. Real life friends judge you based on your appearance and popularity. Online, all that mattered was whether you were good enough at gaming, and if you were, boom, you're in a group who’ll invite you to play no matter what. They couldn’t see Virgil and what a mess he could be. All they knew about him was what he told them. And they liked what they knew of him.

And that was good enough for him.

Chapter Text

Thomas’ stomach growled as he dejectedly walked home from his paper route. He groaned, hugging his tummy as he walked, rain soaking him as he went. Curse Florida weather...

It seemed his wish upon a star had not been accepted. Instead of some miracles coming his way, things had gotten worse. Breakfast wasn’t an option for anyone at the orphanage anymore. Instead, they had to go hungry until lunch. So, Thomas had only had one meal so far today, and it wasn’t even that good. The food served as school meals cannot count as actual food. How are they allowed to serve that stuff?

He got even more annoyed when a van drove quickly past him, going through a large puddle in the process, which splashed over Thomas, soaking him even more. Thomas took a deep breath, trying not to lose his temper, glaring at the van, only to pause when he saw what van it was: a Duke chocolate van.

Thomas’ eyebrows furrowed. It was known through the town that the vans delivering Duke chocolate only left the factory after dark - something that only added to Remus’ cryptidness. Seeing one out during the day was very strange.

And it got even stranger when the van pulled to a stop nowhere near a candy store, and instead by a lamp post. An arm reached out the window, sticking a flier to it, before the van drove off.

Thomas blinked, watching it go, before his attention went back to the lamp post. He wandered over to it, reading the message written on the note.

Dear guys, gals and non-binary pals all around the world,

I, Remus Duke, am opening my factory to the public. But hold your horses, don't come running to my factory just yet! Not just anyone can come. I will be sending out five golden tickets hidden under the wrappers of five Duke chocolate bars for children to find. The five children who do find the tickets will be invited on a tour around the factory conducted by myself, and after will be given a lifetime supply of chocolate. However, one child may receive a different, special prize should I see them fit for it...

Happy hunting, and good luck!

Remus Duke

Oh. My. Gosh.

Thomas pulled the flier off of the post, needing to feel it to see it was actually real. It was. Oh my gosh, Remus Duke’s factory was opening.

After staring at the letter in shock for a few more seconds, he turned and took off running. He didn’t stop, going as fast as he possibly could until he arrived at the orphanage, practically slamming on the door instead of knocking. After a few moments, it was opened by Dot.

“Thomas, you’re soaking! Come on in, let’s get you dri-”

“Dot, look look! I saw this being put up coming back from my paper route! The factory, it’s opening! Remus Duke’s opening his factory!” Thomas pushed the flier into Dot’s hands, practically jumping up and down in excitement.

He honestly didn’t know why he was so excited. He knew full well, he had basically no chance of winning a ticket and being able to go on the tour. Well, he had a chance, but only one: the Duke bar he’d get on his birthday, which was coming up soon. But that was the only chance he’d have. Other kids would be able to get tens, maybe hundreds of bars a week. Thomas and the other children in the orphanage could only get a single one a year. Thomas shouldn’t have been getting his hopes up like he was…

“This is real?” Dot asked, drawing Thomas’ attention back to the present. 

Thomas nodded. “I saw a Duke truck drive by and the person driving it pinned it up!”

“Thomas, that’s wonderful news. I bet everyone will be really excited. I’ll go spread the news, and in the meantime you should probably have a warm shower and get dry. We don’t want you getting sick, do we?”

Thomas nodded, before turning and running off upstairs and to the bathroom. One shower later, he got dressed into some clean, though still tattered and old, clothes, before running back downstairs. It was obvious Dot had told the other kids what had happened, as everyone was gathered in the living room, talking excitedly. When Thomas came in, two of the younger kids in particular ran up to him.

“Thomas! Is it true?! Is the factory really opening?!” Kai bounced on the balls of his feet as he asked.

Thomas nodded. “Yep!”

“Your birthday’s coming up!” Elliot said. “You could win a ticket and get to go!”

“I really really hope I will.” Thomas did wish on that star a few days ago… Maybe this was because of it! Maybe he was destined to win a ticket; maybe, on his birthday, fate was going to make it so that there would be a golden ticket within his chocolate bar, and that would be the good luck he wished for!

“Now, Elliot, don’t get his hopes up,” Larry said. “There are millions of Duke bars being sold every day. It’s highly unlikely Thomas will win a ticket and be able to go. It’s practically impossible in fact.”

“Larry…”

“What?” he turned to his wife, who had folded her arms. “We shouldn’t give them false hope. It’d just be cruel to make them excited and then have it torn away.”

Dot sighed. “I guess… but they don’t get much to be excited about. We should let them have something to be happy about.”

The two continued talking to each other, most of the children ignoring them and going back to their excited chatter, talking about what they thought the factory and the man who ran it would be like. Thomas was the only one who kept focused on Dot and Larry’s conversation. He guessed Larry was right, he shouldn’t get his hopes too high. Not to mention, winning a ticket would just let him tour around the factory. And while, yes, that would be amazing and a dream come true for him, it wouldn’t help with what was important. A lifetime supply of candy can’t make up for proper nutritious meals. Meeting Remus Duke wouldn’t save the orphanage from closing. He shouldn’t put so much on the idea of winning.

“Thomas? Are you okay?” Elliot must have noticed his thoughtful expression.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Just a little tired after school and work.” He raised his voice so all the other kids would hear and listen. “How about we put on a movie?”

Voices of agreement rang through the living room. Suggestions for movies were called out as Thomas went and got a bowl and notepad. Once the suggestions were put forward, Thomas handed out strips of paper for everyone to vote. When all the votes were in the bowl, Thomas counted.

Soon, all the kids were gathered around the living room, as well as Dot and Larry, whose discussion had ended, watching Tangled. And as Rapunzel sang, Thomas couldn’t help but wonder. In the film, Rapunzel went on a quest to get what she wanted: to leave the tower and see the lanterns. But she ended up getting what she needed: to be reunited with her family and be free from Mother Gothel.

What if something like that was true for Thomas? What if getting what he wanted -  winning a tour around the factory - would lead to getting what he needed - a new happy life and an orphanage that won’t close?

And that thought? Well, it was hard not to get his hopes up when thinking about it.

-

Patton giggled as Toby excitedly ran over and jumped up onto his bed, curling up to his side. He scratched the scruff of the dog’s neck as he settled down under his duvet. “Night, Tobes.”

Patton made sure his night light was on, before flicking off the lamp on his bedside and laying down to go to sleep. He wasn’t sure how long he slept - heck, he didn’t know if he even got to sleep at all - before the door to his bedroom was pushed open, light spilling into the room.

“Sorry to wake you, Pat, but there’s something I think you’d really want to see!” Harley was smiling brightly from his doorway.

Patton rubbed his eyes, sitting up and turning his lamp back on. “What is it…?”

“Come see!” Harley came over, taking his hand, and leading him out of his bed and out to the living room. Toby followed at Patton’s heels as the boy, clutching his favourite plush toy - a frog - to his chest, went over and sat on the couch. He blinked at the TV, willing his tired eyes to focus on the bright screen. It took him a moment to realise that the blurriness wasn’t because he was tired, but because he forgot to put on his glasses before leaving his room. Luckily, it seemed his mother had seen him overlook this and gone to get them, as Harley suddenly slipped them onto his face.

“Thanks, Mum!” Patton gave Harley a thankful smile, before looking back to the screen as Harley unpaused it.

It was a news report. Patton was confused at first as to why, of all things, his mother would show him a news report. He was only ten, usually he wasn’t told about stuff in the news unless it was really important stuff.

But as the report went on, Patton found his eyes widening in excitement and shining in amazement. When the report finished, he could barely form words. He turned to his mother, who was smiling at the joy on his face. “How about I get you a Duke bar for you to have before you go back to bed?”

Patton nodded, and Harley headed off to the kitchen. Patton looked down at Toby, smiling. “Did you see the TV, Tobes?! Isn’t it exciting?! Oh, I really really really hope I get to go! It’d be a dream come true…”

Harley came back, handing Patton the chocolate bar. Patton went to excitedly tear it open, only to pause before he did so. Harley frowned. “What’s the matter, Pattoncake?”

“Nothing, I just… I’m really excited. I really really hope a ticket is in this.” Patton closed his eyes, wishing as hard as he could possibly wish, before opening the bar.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing. Just a chocolate bar. He sighed. “Oh… oh well. I guess I can always buy some more after school tomorrow?”

Harley smiled at her son’s optimism, kissing his head as he started eating the Duke bar. “I’ll give you some money tomorrow morning. Now finish that chocolate, and then it’s back to bed, Pattoncake.”

Patton nodded, munching happily at the chocolate bar. He was going to win a ticket, he just knew it! It was his dream after all. He’d eat as many Duke bars as it took!

-

Knock knock knock!

Romulus didn’t look up from his laptop as he called “Come in!” to whoever the person outside his office door was. He was in the process of writing an email to the CEO of another company and he could be about to make the biggest business deal of his life. He wouldn’t let himself get distracted by one of his workers, probably demanding a pay rise they didn’t need, and threatening a strike they would never follow through with if they didn’t get it.

“Mr Salt?”

Now Romulus looked up from his laptop, frowning. “Pryce? What are you doing here? It’s past Roman’s bedtime, you should be at home with him.”

Pryce stepped into the room. “I know, it’s just there was just an announcement on the news, and Roman demanded to come see you right after. I told him to wait in the car while I informed you, and though I know he probably won’t listen and will scream it to you whenever he gets here, I thought I should let you know calmly first: Remus Duke is opening his factory.”

Romulus’ eyes widened. “He’s what?” He paused. “This could be a great business opportunity… Possible partnership between Salt’s Nut Corporation and Duke Chocolate...”

“The news said that five tickets have been hidden in the wrappers of Duke bars, and those who win them will get to go on a tour of the factory. So, Roman will probably want you to buy as many as you can so that he can go.”

Perfectly on time, the door to the office suddenly slammed open, Roman storming in. Romulus and Pryce shared a ‘here we go’ kind of look, before Roman started ranting.

“I want a golden ticket! Get me a golden ticket !”

Romulus nodded. “Yes, of course, Roman. I’ll start placing orders for Duke bars later tonight, and you can open them when they arri-”

Roman scoffed. “Are you kidding me? I’m not opening all those bars by myself!” He paused, before a grin spread across his face. “Get your workers to do it!”

Romulus blinked at his son, before raising an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Your workers spend all day shelling nuts. When the bars arrive, make them start opening up the chocolate to find me a ticket instead. And I won’t take no for an answer!”

Romulus sighed. That would not at all be profitable, stopping production for so long… but if he didn’t do as his son said, he would never hear the end of it. The screaming… the screaming would never end. He’d need all the headache medication he could possibly afford to get through it.

“Okay, Roman, I’ll get my workers to look for a bar for you.”

The anger disappeared from Roman’s face, replacing itself with a sweet smile. “Great!” He turned, and marched out of the office. “... PRYCE! LETS GO!”

Pryce jumped at the yell. “Uh, coming!” He turned to Romulus. “Goodbye, sir.” He quickly hurried from the room after Roman.

Romulus sighed, opening the Duke website on his laptop, and starting to place orders.

-

“Excellent vault, Alexander! Next time, try not to stumble when you land. Stay strong and keep your form. Now, Logan, you’re up.”

Logan stepped up to the run, taking his gum out of his mouth and sticking it behind his ear. Rather unhygienic, he knew, but where else was he supposed to keep it? He couldn’t exactly keep chewing while vaulting, he’d choke on it.

Today in his gymnastics club, they were supposed to be doing front handsprings on the vault. Logan, however, had a little surprise up his sleeve.

He sprinted down the run, jumped on the springboard, and planted his hands on the vault, performing the front handspring with ease. However, as he pushed off the vault to land, he added in a half twist before his feet planted solidly on the mat. He stood up straight, smiling proudly as Mr Winterson called out, “Excellent, Logan! Now, Logan just demonstrated a front handspring with a twist on the landing. That is what you’ll be learning after you’ve perfected the front handspring.” He turned to Logan as the boy walked back over, popping his gum back into his mouth. “I’m assuming you’ll work on something a little more difficult for then?”

Logan nodded. “Definitely. I’m thinking-”

He was interrupted when the door slammed open. “LOGAN!”

Logan’s best friend, Joan, was running over so fast it was a miracle their beanie didn’t fly off their head. They panted as they came to a stop in front of Logan. “Duke… opening… tickets…”

Logan went over to where his water bottle was resting at the side of the room, picking it up before running back over and offering it to Joan. They muttered a “Thanks”, taking a drink and a deep breath before speaking more clearly. “Remus Duke is opening his factory!”

Almost immediately, all the other boys gathered around Logan and Joan, yelling questions, all desperate to hear what Joan had to say. They quickly answered, explaining what they knew. “He’s released five tickets hidden in Duke bars, you need to find one to get to go!”

“Okay, the session’s over early today, boys, you can all get ready to head home!” Mr Winterson called out. He seemed just as excited about the news as all the kids.

“Wait here, I’ll be out in a minute,” Logan told Joan before he turned and ran to the changing rooms along with all the other boys. When he arrived and started getting changed out of his leotard, his phone vibrated with a message.

Pa: You’ll win a ticket, won’t you? You’re my little champion after all.

Logan smiled, before responding.

Logan: Of course. Win or die trying.

He finished getting dressed, straightening his tie, before heading back out to Joan, the two leaving the gym.

As they started walking down the road, Joan frowned. They pointed behind them. “Isn’t the store that way?”

Logan, however, didn’t turn around. “If you want to look for a bar, go ahead. But I’m not heading to the store, I’m heading to my house. There’s no need to waste a bunch of money and time getting a bunch of chocolate bars. All I need is a little bit of research.”

Joan raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. “Suit yourself. Good luck!” They turned, heading in the direction of the candy store.

Logan continued his way home, pulling his phone from his pocket as he blew a bubble with his gum. Time to see if he could get some information about Duke chocolate distribution over the last few days.

-

“Shoot shoot shoot shoot!”

“What’s up?”

“Not much, apart from the fact there’s a fricking creeper in my house! How did you get in here?! Leave!!!”

Virgil chuckled, calmly collecting wheat from his farm in Minecraft. Andy didn’t seem to appreciate the lack of reaction from the other boy. “C’mon, Verge, get over here and help me!”

“Hmm… nah, no thanks. Not gonna put myself in harm’s way. I’m not losing all this experience.”

“Betrayal. Complete and utter betrayal, Verge. I thought you were my friend.”

Virgil shrugged. “Hey, at least I just didn’t arrive at all despite saying I would.” He paused. “Where is Missy, anyway?”

“Dunno- GOD DAMN IT! The creeper blew up! I didn’t even get close to it! Oh, my precious items...”

“Big oof.”

It was at that moment that Missy finally joined the discord call. “GUYS! MY BROTHER JUST TOLD ME THE BEST NEWS!”

“It can wait, Missy, get in the game. I need all hands on deck to rebuild my house.”

“Your house can wait, Andy! No offence, but I really don’t care!”

“Full offence taken.”

“Ssh! Ssh! Shut up, Andy! Let me speak!” Missy took a deep breath. “Guys… Pranks told me that Remus Duke is opening up his factory.”

There was a long pause, before Virgil replied, “Um… Missy, you literally gave your brother the nickname Pranks. Has it occurred to you that maybe, possibly, this could be a prank? I mean… the Duke factory hasn’t opened for years.”

“No, I mean it! I was sceptical at first as well, but I looked it up, and it’s true! Everywhere’s reporting on it. Go on, google it yourselves.”

Virgil pulled his phone from his pocket, assuming Andy was doing the same. He googled ‘Duke opening’ and, lo and behold, all the results were news sites announcing that the factory was indeed opening.

“Holy sugar honey iced tea…” Andy mumbled.

“Told ya! Five tickets are hidden in Duke bars. You find one of them, you get to go.” Missy gasped. “Hey! We should all try and win one each! Then we can all finally meet each other in person!”

“Sounds cool!” Andy said.

Virgil, though, wasn’t so sure. Whenever either of the other two brought up meeting in person, he tried to subtly decline, pretending he was busy or something. He was scared. What if they didn’t like who he was in real life? What if, after spending a day together, they decided they didn’t want to play with him anymore? “I dunno, guys… I mean, it’s really unlikely any of us will win one. Even less likely that all three of us do.”

“There’s still a chance,” Missy replied, finally joining the Minecraft server. “And hey, even if not all of us win, maybe one of us will, and that person can tell the rest of us about the factory.”

“I’m in,” Andy said. “Verge? C’mon, buddy, don’t miss out.”

Virgil didn’t know why his response was what it was, and he regretted saying it right after. But he sighed, “Fine. I’m in."

Chapter Text

Thomas frowned down at his shoes as he walked home from school. The sole had been starting to tear off of the left one for some time now, but today it seemed to be on its last legs. Well… at least today was his day off from his paper route, so he had the evening free to see if he could find a way to fix them?

As he walked past a candy store on his way home, he looked through the window. The place was practically full of people, all wrestling to get to the counter and hand over their money. The person behind the counter was hurriedly handing out Duke bars, trying to keep up with the growing line. Thomas sighed, stomach growling as he watched people ripping open and devouring Duke bars. He’d give anything to be in there with him, having the chance of winning a ticket, and even if he didn’t win one, getting to eat all that delicious sweet chocolate…

He shook his head. As fun as fantasising was, it wouldn’t put food on the table. And it wouldn’t fix his shoes either. He needed to get back to do so.

He continued walking down the street, hurrying up a little as he heard the rumble of thunder. He didn’t want to get caught in the rain again like last week. He hummed as he went, starting to daydream about what he thought would be in the Duke factory. I mean, since he’d likely never be able to see it himself, he may as well construct his own version of it in his head to explore.

So much candy… what if there was a room that was made of pure candy? It seemed like something Remus Duke would make. Maybe… there would be… a flavoured ice rink! And when it’s skated on, the ice the skates shave off is taken away and sold as, well, shaved ice! And, for warming up after, right next door, there could be a room with Hot Cocoa Springs! And what if there was also a room where the floor is made of jello, and you could jump on it like a trampoline!

After some time of thinking what the factory could contain, his mind drifted to the man himself. Remus Duke… what would he be like? Creative and rather eccentric of course. You’d have to be to make what he does. He also must be really really smart. And to choose to spend his life bringing joy to people, mostly children, by making candy, he must be so kind and warm, and a little childish at heart too.

Well, Thomas guessed that even if he never got to meet Remus in person, he’d at least get to see him for a bit on TV, since there’d undoubtedly be reporters there when the factory opened.

He soon found himself back at the orphanage and, as he was welcomed inside by Dot, he almost immediately felt his arm be grabbed.

“Thomas, you’re just in time! Come on, you gotta see!” Kai grinned as he tried to tug Thomas over to the living room.

“See what?”

“The news! The first golden ticket’s been found! There’s about to be an interview with the boy who won it!”

Thomas felt a weird mix of disappointment and intrigue as he quickly followed Kai to the living room. He sat on the couch along with all the other children who had gathered to see the news report. Dot stood in the doorway behind them all, a little curious to see who it was who won too.

On the screen, the anchorman announced they were going over to the reporter on scene. Thomas leant forward in his seat as the screen transitioned to show the reporter: they had brown skin and curly black hair that was shaved on one side and partially dyed pink. They were wearing clothes that seemed less than professional - sunglasses, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket.

“Thanks, babes. I’m here in Dusselheim, Germany to have an exclusive interview with the first golden ticket winner of the Duke competition: Patton Gloop!”

The camera zoomed out to show a boy sitting beside the reporter along with a woman who Thomas assumed was Patton’s mother. Patton himself was… well, Thomas hoped it didn’t sound rude to say, but he was fat. His chubby cheeks were rosy, and he wore round glasses over his light blue eyes. His hair was brown, a trait his mother shared. Patton was wearing a blue sweater with a frog on it and khaki shorts, and was eating a Duke chocolate bar.

“So, Patton, you excited to go see the factory?” the reporter asked, before holding their microphone to the boy to respond.

Patton nodded, swallowing the bite of chocolate that he’d have in his mouth. “Yep, I can’t wait! I hope I get to try a lot of samples for a bunch of candies and chocolate, all of Mr Duke’s stuff tastes sooooo good! I’m a huge fan!”

“Patton loves eating, it’s one of his biggest hobbies,” his mother added. “Good thing given I myself am a baker! But the Duke brand has always been his favourite, he’d have anything Remus Duke makes. He eats so many bars a day, it doesn’t surprise me he won a ticket.” She ruffled Patton’s hair, causing him to giggle.

The reporter nodded, “Kay. How exactly did you find the ticket, Pat? What’s the story?”

“Oh, well, it was yesterday after school…”

-

The second the bell rang to signal the end of school, he and his friends Dayd and Terrence shared excited looks, before practically jumping out of their chairs. They ran out of the room right after their teacher dismissed them.

“Do you all have money or do we need to stop off at anyone’s houses first?” Dayd asked, pulling his backpack on.

“My mum gave me some this morning, it’s in my bag,” Patton replied, slipping on his frog raincoat. “Terrence?”

“Got mine.”

“Then lets go!”

The three boys practically ran from the school building, before sprinting across the playground to the main gate at full speed. However, after they were through the gate and starting to head down the pavement, Patton slowed to a walk, panting a little. “Uh… can we slow down a little…? I’m a little tired…”

“Sure. Sorry we almost left you behind, Pat,” Dayd said as he and Terrence stopped, waiting for Patton to catch up.

“It’s fine, you don’t need to apologise,” Patton reassured, reaching into his bag and pulling out a Duke chocolate bar. “I have a few of these on me already to get my energy back.”

“You already have some on you?” Terrence asked.

“Yep! I’m buying as many as I can everyday to boost my chances of winning! It means it takes some time to open them all, though…” Patton ripped open the bar as he talked before taking a big bite. He then asked, with his mouth full. “You two want one?”

“Sure!”

“Thanks, Pat!”

Patton reached into his bag and pulled out two Duke chocolate bars. He handed one to each of his friends, who happily accepted them. They both sighed upon seeing them absent of tickets, before biting into them.

As the three boys walked down the street, they continued to eat their chocolate. By the time they reached the candy store, they had all finished. Patton pulled another bar for himself from his bag as they stepped inside, heading over to the Duke section of the store. Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few people there, all pushing past each other to get chocolate bars. Patton sighed in disappointment, knowing there was no way they’d be able to get past the small crowd to get more chocolate. He dejectedly opened the one he was holding, taking a bite without looking down at it.

However, he almost immediately slowed his chewing. It tasted weird… and there was a strange texture to part of it…

Dayd frowned as he crouched down, trying to see if he could push between people’s legs to get to the shelves, but there wasn’t enough space. He frowned, before turning and looking up to Terrence. “Think you could fit through?”

Patton frowned, reaching into his mouth and pulling out the bit of the bar with the papery texture.

Terrence considered Dayd’s question, before shaking his head. “No, there’s not enough room.” He sighed. “Guess we just have to wait and hope that there’s still some bars left when there is a space to get through.”

Patton looked down at the bit of chocolate bar in his hand that wasn’t actually chocolate at all. It was a bit of paper. Golden paper. He looked down at the bar in his hands.

“Great... “ Dayd sighed. “We’ll never win any tickets at this rate…”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that!”

Terrence and Dayd turned around to face Patton. And Patton was pulling a golden ticket out of his chocolate bar. “I won!”

After a moment of staring in shock, Dayd and Terrence burst into excited yells and cheers. It wasn’t long until all the others nearby wrestling over Duke bars were distracted by the cheers and noticed the golden ticket in Patton’s hands. Dayd and Terrence used the opportunity to go grab some bars for themselves. Then, once the two of them paid, the three boys left, excitedly talking about Patton’s win.

When they all had to split up and all go their separate ways home, Patton immediately ran as fast as he could, not caring at how out of breath he got, excited to tell his mother the news.

-

The reporter nodded as Patton finished his story. “So, what are you looking forward to most about going to the factory? Anything you’re hoping to see?”

Patton hummed for a moment, thinking. “Hm… Well, I’m hoping to get to try a bunch of sweets that I never have before! And maybe some I have too… I just want to try a bunch of things!”

“Cool. Now, let's get into the tea. Patton, what are you hoping the other tour members are like?”

“Oh, I hope that they’re really nice and friendly! I really want to get to know all of them and hopefully make friends with them. I hope we can even keep a connection after the tour is over! It’ll be really cool to make friends with people from other parts of the world.”

“Well, ain’t that sweet.” The reporter turned back to the camera. “That’s been our interview with the first golden ticket winner, Patton Gloop. I’m Remy Sleep, and I’ll be back when the next ticket is found. Back to the studio.”

The screen changed back to show the anchorman, who went on to another story. Thomas sighed, feeling a little disappointed at the fact he had one less chance at the possibility of winning a ticket. But he guessed it could be worse. Patton seemed like a really sweet kid, and given how big a fan of Duke candy he seemed to be, he really appeared to deserve to get to go to the factory.

But still. It couldn’t change the slight loss of hope Thomas felt.

-

“YOU SAID I’D BE THE FIRST PERSON TO WIN ONE!”

Romulus sighed. He made a mental note to purchase some earplugs at some point. He’d need them if he didn’t want to go deaf. “Roman, I know I promised, and I’m sorry. But all the world is looking for these tickets. There may not even be any in the country, for all I know. There are only five, and a lot of places they could be.”

“Then start getting shipments from other countries! Make your workers work overnight!” Roman demanded, slamming his hands on his father’s desk. “If I don’t win the next one, I’ll scream!”

Pryce spoke up from where he was standing in the corner. “Roman, maybe we should head home so your dad can-” He cut himself off when Roman shot him a poisonous glare.

“I’ll make sure of it, Roman,” Romulus continued. “You won’t need to wait much longer. I’ll have gotten you a ticket by the end of the week.” Romulus winced right after he said that. He really should be careful when making promises… It may calm Roman down now, but if he failed to follow through, Romulus may have to lock himself in his office to survive the wrath.

“You’d better have!” Roman pounded his fist on Romulus’ desk as he yelled, not caring that he knocked various things in the process. Then he turned on his heel and stormed from the room. Both Romulus and Pryce let out sighs of relief, sharing an exasperated glance.

“I imagine this whole ticket thing has made things rather hard for you,” Romulus said. “I’m sorry if Roman’s becoming more difficult. He’ll calm down when he has a ticket.”

Pryce shrugged. “I’m used to it. Tantrums come with the job anyway. And-”

“PRYCE!”

“And I should probably go. Goodbye, Mr Salt.” Pryce turned and hurried from the office, catching up with Roman as they left the factory. “Sorry.”

Roman huffed. “This is so unfair… I ask for one thing and he doesn’t get me it. I mean, there were five tickets! How hard is it to find one?!”

“Roman, there are many places they could be, and-“

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about or love me!”

This caught Pryce off guard. He looked down at the boy beside him, who had now fallen quiet, glaring at the floor. But there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. “Roman… your father loves you so much. Can’t you see how much he does for you? He’s completely stopped the production of his business all to help you.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t get it…” Before Pryce could say another word, Roman stormed off, hopping into the car and slamming the door behind him. “Home! Now!”

The driver raised an eyebrow. “But Pryce is still out-”

“He can head home for the day! I don’t want to speak to him right now! HOME. NOW!”

The driver did as he said, and Pryce sighed as he watched the car pull away. He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone before calling his roommate. “... Hey, Arthur? Can you come pick me up? Yeah, I got left behind again… Outside the nut factory, yeah. Thanks.”

-

Logan didn’t look up from his laptop and notepad as the news report played from the TV in the living room. Even though he could feel his pa’s glare from where he was leaning in the doorway, and that glare caused fear to bubble in Logan’s stomach, his focus didn’t waver. Anton saw the ticket being found as a bad thing, as it meant Logan had less of a chance of winning one. Logan, however, saw it as a great help. Knowing where that ticket had gone could help him.

He had already (less than legally) hacked into the Duke company’s computer system - it was surprisingly simple - and found distribution information. All he had to do was find the most recent date Duke bars had been shipped to Dusselheim, and see where else they had been shipped that day, and from there start narrowing it down.

Anton suddenly let out a scoff, eyes still on the news report, where Patton was excitedly talking to Remy about his hopes for the tour. “‘Friends’? What a joke… Remember, Logan, the other children on the tour aren’t your friends. They’re your competition. Don’t get all buddy buddy with them. You have to show that you’re better. Win or-”

“-die trying,” Logan finished. “I understand, Pa.”

Teal looked up from the book he was reading, frowning up at his husband. Anton caught his look and raised an eyebrow, sneering at him. “What’re you giving me that look for?”

“Nothing.” Teal quickly said. Only to pause, before taking a deep breath. “Actually… it’s not nothing. I, um… I think it’d actually be nice if Logan were to make some new friends. I mean, right now he only really has Joan, and-”

“Friends show weakness,” Anton spat. “Too sentimental. And they distract you. Logan’s too busy for friends, they’ll get in his way.” He looked over his shoulder, back at the boy sitting at the kitchen table. “Right, Logan?”

Logan nodded, ignoring the sinking feeling he felt as his pa had spoken.

Teal sighed, looking down at his book but not reading, fiddling with the pages. He should say something, and give his husband a piece of his mind. He put his book on the coffee table, before standing from his armchair. He started marching over to Anton, to finally stand up to him…

… Only to walk right past him and into the kitchen.

Great.

Teal’s eyes went to his son, still sitting at the table, eyes glued to the laptop screen as he scribbled down information from it. He sighed, stepping over to Logan and ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, Lo, you’ve been doing work all day. How about you take a break for a bit? You could put on your onesie, and we could curl up on the couch and watch a movie? Big Hero 6?”

Before Logan could respond, Anton cut in. “He can’t afford to take a break, there’s only four tickets left. He needs to find one quickly.”

Logan nodded. “Pa’s right, it’s best I keep looking.” He paused. “Though I wouldn’t mind if I could have some Crofters?”

Teal smiled, before pressing a kiss to Logan’s head. “I’ll go grab you some, Lo.”

Logan felt a small smile tug at his lips. If there was one thing he liked most about his dad, it was that he didn’t have to work for affection from him. As the jar of Crofters and a spoon was placed in front of him, he pulled his gum from his mouth and stuck it behind his ear. Then he opened up the jar and dug in.

Anton frowned. “Don’t be such a pig, Logan. You eat fast like that all the time and you’ll put on weight, and you can’t exactly win any of your sports competitions if you get as fat as that kid who won the first ticket.”

Logan nodded, slowing down, knowing better than to try and argue that Crofters was organic and healthy.

-

“First golden ticket’s been found.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow as Missy joined the Discord call. “What the hell is that noise in the background?”

“That would be my brother, screaming because, as I said, the first golden ticket’s been found and he’s annoyed he didn’t get it.” Missy joined the Among Us lobby. “Because apparently the fact there’s four more he could win doesn’t resonate with him.”

“Well, four left means there’s three for us still,” Andy said, setting the lobby to public so they could get enough players. “Who won it, though?”

“Some kid from Germany called Patton. He seems sweet, in both the personality and he eats a lot of them sense” Missy replied. “You guys have been buying up loads of bars, right?”

“Duh,” Andy said.

“Yep,” Virgil replied, popping the p. He decided to leave out the story of how he started hyperventilating and crying right after buying a bunch and leaving the store, because he accidentally replied “you too” when the cashier told him “good luck with the competition, and enjoy the chocolate”, which was stupid because the cashier didn’t have chocolate, he was stupid, stupid stupid, a complete idiot who didn’t deserve to have such cool friends who were so eager to meet him, they’d be completely disappointed when they did and would lose them forever, rightfully so-

“Virge? You okay, dude?” Missy’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Huh? Oh… y-yeah, it’s fine. I, um… can we start the game?”

“Sure.” Andy did so. Virgil muted, before looking back to his laptop. He was a crewmate.

He sighed as the game started, pulling one of his blankets around him. He pushed back his scary thoughts, just focusing on the screen, making his little purple bean run around and do tasks. When the first body was found, and everyone started debating who it was, everything was good humour again and Virgil started to relax.

There were only four tickets left. It was practically impossible for Virgil to find one. There was no need to be worried about his friends meeting him and being disappointed. Things would be okay.

He took a Duke bar from the bag sitting by his bed, opening it and smiling at the lack of gold. He happily took a bite as he watched his little bean get murdered by Andy’s.

Downstairs, his mother wasn’t as content. Linda sighed, mulling over a glass of wine, her phone to her ear. “Again? Dice... you cannot keep doing this. This is the fifth time you’ve cancelled on him in a row. Virgil’s having a very tough time at school right now, he needs support… I don’t care if you’ve been invited to a film festival to review, your son should be your number one priority! … Oh don’t say that, this has nothing to do with us two! This is about Virgil! … Don’t you dare hang up on me, Dice- DICE!” The phone went silent. Linda huffed, practically throwing her phone down onto the table. She held her face in her hands.

God, what was she going to tell Virgil...?

Chapter Text

Thomas was pretty sure no one was listening to his teacher as he rambled on about math. It honestly seemed no one really cared about school these days, not even the teachers. Everyone was just going on and on about Remus Duke’s competition. It was rather disappointing for Thomas to listen to everyone boasting about the hundreds of bars their parents had bought for them in order to try and win the contest. He had to listen to it in class, during break, over lunch…

He reminded himself of that one he would get tomorrow on his birthday. He knew the odds were tremendously low, but he couldn’t help but wish.

And the odds were just about to get lower.

“Oh my god…” Thomas suddenly heard the kid who sat next to him mumble. They were holding their phone, keeping it out of sight of the teacher, and staring at it, eyes wide. Then they suddenly called out, loud enough to get the attention of the entire class. “The second golden ticket’s been found!”

Everyone fell silent… before running over and crowding around the kid’s desk. Even the teacher, not caring about the phone being used in the middle of class against school rules. Everyone pushed and shoved, trying to reach the front to see the kid’s screen. Thomas was very relieved he was already seated by them, meaning he had a good view without having to move. Though it did mean he kept being shoved by others.

The kid opened up the live news report, and everyone fell silent again and stopped shoving, watching intently to find out who the new winner was.

The anchorman called to cut to the live scene, and the screen changed to show Remy Sleep once again. They were sitting in the largest, most elaborate and expensive-looking living room any of the children watching the report had ever seen. Beside them was a boy with tanned skin, dark auburn hair, and emerald green eyes. He was clearly wearing designer clothes and a little make up, and was smiling charmingly at the camera. In an armchair by the blazing fireplace was a man who was presumably the boy’s father. He was wearing a fancy suit, and had similar features to the boy, only his hair was a darker brown. 

“Hey, babes,” Remy greeted the viewers. “I’m here in London, England, with the winner of the second golden ticket, Roman Salt!” They turned to the boy. “So, Roman, spill the tea: what’s the story? How’d you find the ticket?”

“Daddy got it for me,” Roman said, purposefully making his voice sound sickeningly sweet, looking over at his father.

“Yes, from the moment this competition was announced, Roman was adamant about winning a ticket. So - I should preface that I own Salt’s Nuts Co. - one day I went into work, and I told all my workers that they would stop shelling nuts, and spend their days opening Duke chocolate bars instead until a ticket was found for Roman. I bought hundreds of thousands of bars, and my workers spent days opening them with no luck. Every day Roman came home from school, he’d cry and sob that he didn’t have a ticket yet. It seemed our luck was short. He was getting more and more upset every day, and it pained me to see him so distraught. I just couldn’t stand it.

“However, eventually, just as we were losing hope, we struck gold.” 

-

It was the weekend, and Roman had insisted he spend the day with Romulus at the factory. In fact, he was now saying he would not leave the place until he had a golden ticket in hand. Not to go to school, not to go home. Both Romulus and Pryce had tried to convince him to do otherwise, but Roman was stubborn as usual. He even threatened to tie himself to his father’s office chair if they kept trying to make him leave.

“You promised me I’d be the first one! You promised I’d be the first to find a golden ticket!”

Romulus tried not to let out an exasperated huff. “I know, my prince. We’re doing the best we can. I’ve got everyone on the staff hunting for you!”

“Then where is it?! Why haven’t they found it?!”

“Roman, sweetheart, I’m not a magician. Give me time!”

“I want it NOW!” Roman stormed to the window overlooking the floor where the factory workers were unwrapping chocolate bar after chocolate bar. “What’s the matter with those twerps down there?!”

“The entire factory has been on the job for five days. They haven’t shelled a single peanut since the start of this competition, they’ve been shelling chocolate bars instead from dawn to dusk…” Romulus sighed, thinking about all the profits he’d lost.

“I thought I told you to make them work nights!” Roman huffed.

Romulus shared an exasperated glance with Pryce, before sighing. He opened the door of the office, leaning out and calling to all his workers. “Come along, all of you, work faster! Now, whoever finds the ticket for Roman will be given a bonus and an extra seven days paid leave! How does that sound?”

The response he got was the sound of wrappers being opened faster and more furiously. Romulus smiled, closing the door to his office as he went back inside. Roman however, was not so happy. He was sitting back in his father’s chair, arms folded, pouting.

“They’re not even trying! They don’t want to find it. They’re jealous of me.”

“My prince, I can’t push them much harder. They’re doing their best, they’re opening nearly nineteen thousand bars an hour. So far they’ve done seven hundred and sixty thousand.”

Roman glared, jumping from his seat. “You promised, Daddy! You promised I’d have it the very FIRST DAY!”

Romulus sighed, leaning against the wall next to Pryce. The babysitter frowned at the tantruming ten year old, before mumbling to Romulus, “Y’know, I have a feeling he’s never gonna forgive you if you don’t get this ticket…”

“I know… It breaks my heart to see him so upset…”

“I won’t talk to you ever again!” Roman continued to rant. “You’re a rotten mean father, you never give me anything I want! I’m definitely not going to school until I have it!”

“Roman, sweetheart, please… There are only four tickets left in the whole world, and the whole world is looking for them. What else can I do-”

He was interrupted by a sudden yelling and cheering from outside the office. Roman, Romulus and Pryce all ran over to the window and standing there, on the factory floor, one worker was holding a golden ticket and waving it over their head.

Roman immediately ran from the office and down to the worker. “Give me that golden ticket! It’s mine! I’ve found a golden ticket!”

Romulus, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief, going over to his desk and sinking into his chair. “Thank god for that…”

Pryce chuckled a little. “Hopefully he’ll calm down a little now.”

“I hope so,” Romulus said, rubbing his face with his hands.

-

“... Right… Anyway, so, Roman,” Remy turned to the boy, “what are you looking forward to most about the tour? Making new friends? Getting to see and try exclusive candy?”

“Definitely getting to be the first to try different candies. I feel it’s only fair I get to be the very first, since I didn’t get to be the first to win a ticket…” Roman sent a subtle glare to his father, before going back to his overly saccharine smile.

Remy nodded, adjusting the sun glasses resting on their head. They clearly did not like the child they were talking to. “Okay… So what do you think about meeting other tour members? And your opinions on Patton, the first winner? Any plans to make some new friends throughout the day?”

Roman shrugged. “I’m not sure any of the other winners will exactly be up to my high calibre. Maybe I’ll make some friends, but I’m mostly hoping they just don’t get in the way.”

“Uh huh. Okay, well, that has been our interview with the second Duke golden ticket winner, Roman Salt! I’m Remy Sleep, and I’ll be back when the next golden ticket is found. Back to the studio.”

The screen cut back to the reporter, and the kid who owned the phone closed the video. The classroom immediately burst into chatter. Thomas heard a few phrases but it was hard to pick one conversation out to listen.

“Spoiled brat”, “he cheated”, “unfair” - it seemed Roman was very unpopular with the class. Heck, even the teacher was muttering about how it was unfair that Roman won a ticket.

Thomas couldn’t help but admit it was a little unfair. I mean, here he was only able to have one bar, whilst Roman’s father could order him thousands and make other people open them for him. Roman didn’t even find it himself.

But then again, when a competition is centred around buying things to win, Thomas guessed it would always be unfair and the rich would always have an advantage.

-

Logan smiled as he watched his pa go over to the trophy cabinet displayed in the living room. Anton opened it up, looking for an empty spot, before placing a new trophy inside. It was modeled in the shape of someone doing a side kick, and the engraving on the base read “Logan Beauregarde: 2021 Florida Taekwondo Championship, 9-11s Winner”.

“We might need to get you a second trophy case,” Anton said, stepping back and smiling. “Look at all those awards…” He patted his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “You really did good today.”

Logan beamed, warmth filling his chest. Shoulder pats - the highest honour Anton gave. “Thank you, Pa.”

“Proud of you, kiddo!” Teal’s voice called from the kitchen. “I was thinking about making a Crofters cake to celebrate - what do you think?”

Before Logan could respond, Anton rolled his eyes, saying, “What did I say just a few days ago about making sure his weight doesn’t get out of control?”

“O-oh… right, sorry… I’ll just make something special for dinner instead.” 

Logan sighed softly, fiddling with his shirt. Man, he hadn’t had cake in a while. It would have been nice…

“Now, Logan, you’ve got a figure skating competition in a few days.” Anton took Logan’s shoulder and turned his son to look at him. “You’d better have practiced enough already, since your main priority should still be finding one of Duke’s golden tickets.”

Logan nodded. “Yes, I made sure to schedule in some extra practice around all my other activities and responsibilities. I should far outperform my opponents. I highly doubt they’ll be able to come up to my level.”

“Excellent,” Anton patted Logan’s shoulder again.

BZZT!

There was a vibration from Anton’s pocket. As he pulled out his phone and looked down at it, his expression immediately soured. He looked up at Logan, frowning. “The second ticket was found. There’s only three left.”

Teal poked his head in from the kitchen, Anton’s tone unnerving him. He watched his husband and son anxiously.

Logan cleared his throat, standing tall. “I-It’s alright. The only reason I hadn’t found it yet was because I didn’t have enough information. Now a second ticket has been found, I should be able to work out the location of the others easily. Um, where was it found…?”

“London.”

“Right, then I can just cross reference when there were shipments to both London and Dusselheim, and find where else there were shipments that day! From there, I can find the other tickets…” Logan hurried from the room, heading upstairs and to his bedroom. He sat at his desk and opened his laptop, pulling up his notes on the Duke stock distribution information. He scrolled through, blowing a bubble with his gum. London… London…

Ah ha! Right there! A date where bars were shipped to both Dusselheim and London. And what do you know, there were three other places listed where bars were shipped that day. And one was Bayshore, Florida.

Now, time to find the stores that received the shipments and buy all the bars available.

-

“Wow, you suck at this.”

“Spamton is a very difficult boss, Verge!”

“It’s clearly nowhere near as bad as Jevil.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to see you try…”

Virgil rolled his eyes as he watched Andy’s Discord screen share of Deltarune. “I told you, I’ve been spending so much money on chocolate - your idea and your fault, by the way - so I can’t afford to get any new games right now.”

“You realise this is free to download, right?”

“... Wait, it is? I thought only the first chapter was free!”

“Nope, the second was put out for free too. So go and download it!”

“Hm… nah, I want to keep watching you for now and laugh at your failures,” Virgil smirked, causing Andy to grumble in annoyance.

A ping played in both of the boys' ears, signalling a new arrival to the discord call. And after the ping, there was the sound of a child screaming, having a tantrum. Over the noise, Missy’s voice called. “Hey, can you guys hear me?!”

“Just about - what’s going on?” Virgil asked.

“The second ticket was found. And Pranks is going to make me go deaf.”

“Shit…” Andy muttered. “Who won it?”

“Some kid in London - Roman Prince. He’s a rich kid.”

“Of course…” Andy sighed. “That means there are only three left. We gotta start looking harder if we want to all go together! I think we should aim to buy some bars every day, and we can all open them together on VC!”

Virgil winced, fiddling with his hoodie. “Are you sure? I mean… It’s pretty much impossible we’ll all win tickets. Maybe it’s for the best that we just give up now instead of getting our hopes up only to be disappointed.”

“It’s worth a shot anyway,” Missy said. “I mean, it’d be cool if even one of us got to go.”

“Yeah! We can’t give up now, Verge.”

Virgil sighed. “... Fine.”

It was okay. He wouldn’t win a ticket. It was really unlikely. They wouldn’t know how… disappointing a person he really was, right?

Chapter Text

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to Thomas! Happy birthday to you!”

Thomas smiled as the other children of the orphanage sang to him, Dot’s hands covering his eyes. He heard the sound of something being placed on the table in front of him, and then something smaller and lighter. “Open your eyes!” Dot’s voice said as she pulled her hands away. Thomas opened his eyes.

A cake was in front of him, vanilla, with white icing, and written in rainbow lettering ‘Happy Birthday Thomas!’. And in front of the cake was his bar of birthday chocolate. Duke chocolate.

Thomas barely looked at the cake, taking a deep breath as he picked up the chocolate bar. This was it. His one chance at being able to go to Remus Duke’s factory.

Everyone was staring at him, watching with bated breath. Kai was wiggling excitedly in his seat, while another child, Elliot, sat beside him, biting their nails nervously.

Thomas hesitantly began to open the chocolate bar, peeling off the branded outer wrapper. He let it fall onto the table, looking down at the remaining silver inner wrapper. He took a corner, pausing and taking a deep breath. He closed his eyes, before pulling the wrapper away.

No one else in the room said anything, but Thomas heard some sighs. He opened his eyes, finding a plain chocolate bar in his hands. No ticket hiding in the wrapper. His face fell as his shoulders slumped.

His one chance…

A hand patted his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Tommy,” Larry said comfortingly. “Look on the bright side, you still get some nice chocolate.”

“I… I guess…” Thomas sighed, breaking off a square of chocolate and nibbling at it. But it didn’t taste particularly sweet right now… Maybe he’d enjoy it more tomorrow. “… Is it alright if I go for a walk…? I promise I’ll be back before it gets dark.”

“I…” Dot hesitated. “If you’re sure… But remember, there’s still a whole party and cake waiting for you, okay?”

Thomas nodded, slipping from his chair, before turning and leaving the room, and then the orphanage. He wandered down the street, not sure if he knew exactly where he was going.

He knew his chance was next to none. He knew it was basically impossible for him to win a ticket. He knew. So why did he feel so disappointed…?

He hugged himself as he walked. It was cold out. Maybe he should head back. It’d only get colder as the sun continued to go down. But at the same time, he didn’t really feel in the mood for the party waiting for him yet.

He stopped outside of a television store, weighing his options. Stay in the cold, or go back to the party…

“Breaking news! The third of Remus Duke’s golden tickets has been found!”

Thomas blinked, before turning around. All the TVs in the window of the store were broadcasting the news, the anchorman listening to the earpiece in his ear telling him the information that was coming through. “The ticket was won by a boy in Florida by the name of Logan Beauregarde! We will now go to our reporter on all matters Duke, Remy Sleep!”

The screen changed, showing Remy sitting on a couch in a living room beside a man with brown hair, blue eyes and glasses, wearing a black shirt and light blue tie. “Hey, I’m here with the father of the third ticket winner, Teal Beauregarde. So, Teal, where’s the winner? Off celebrating his victory?”

“Oh, um, no, he had ballet rehearsal this afternoon, but he should be back very soon!”

“He wins the biggest competition in the world, and he doesn’t take a break for the day?” Remy raised an eyebrow. “The grind never stops, huh?”

Teal chuckled a bit, but it seemed a little forced. “Yeah, he, um… he’s very ambitious and strong-willed. I’m not surprised he won a ticket, he’s been spending all his free time searching for it. Sometimes I worried he wasn’t even sleeping-”

He was interrupted by the sound of a front door opening, and Remy gestured to the camera to turn. It swivelled, showing the two people who had stepped inside: first, another man, with black hair and grey eyes, wearing a black t-shirt, jeans and leather jacket. He was carrying a large golden trophy. Just behind him was a boy with red hair, blue eyes and glasses, wearing a light blue tracksuit, and blowing a pink bubble with the chewing gum in his mouth.

“Sorry we’re late,” the man smiled. “As you can see, we were a bit busy.” The camera followed him over to a large trophy cabinet, where he placed the golden one in his hands. “There, perfect.” He turned back around to Remy, shaking their hand. “Anton Beauregarde, nice to meet you.”

“You too. And this must be Logan!” Remy grinned at the boy, who sat down and offered his hand to the reporter. Remy chuckled, shaking it. “Very formal of you. So, Logan, tell us about yourself? Your dad here said you’re pretty ambitious.”

Logan nodded. “I do like to challenge myself - most of the things I’m expected to be able to do for my age are just far too easy and simple. For example, I am the top of my class in all my subjects at school - most of my teachers believe that I’ll be able to skip some grades, and maybe even gain a scholarship to an Ivy League college in just a few years. As well as that, I take many extracurriculars and sports, which I also excel in. I live by the motto ‘win, or die trying’. And one of my earliest and proudest achievements was this stick of gum I’m chewing: I’ve been chewing it for the past two years, which is a world record I have fiercely protected. I doubt anyone will ever be able to beat it.” He gestured offscreen, and the camera spun to look at a Guiness World Record certificate hung on the wall above the fireplace, between two framed magazine covers which seemed to show a teenage Anton on them.

“The same stick of gum for two years…?” Remy blinked. “That, uh… what do you do with it when you eat and sleep?”

“I have a tupperware box I put it in at night. And when I eat I, um… stick it behind my ear…” Logan mumbled that last bit, clearly aware of how disgusting it sounded. However, he sat up straight again, the cocky expression coming back to his face. “But it’s worth it to have and defend the title of a world record winner.”

“...Uh huh…” Remy was clearly wincing in disgust, but cleared their throat. “So, how about the ticket, huh? What’s the story?”

“Oh, well, from the moment the tour was announced, Logan was sure he had to win a ticket,” Anton answered for his son, clamping a hand on Logan’s shoulder. “But he’s also far better than those wasting hundreds and thousands of dollars buying tons of bars.”

“Instead of hoping for luck, I found a way to access the distribution information for the Duke corporation, and using the information of where the other tickets were found, I was able to narrow down and find the date of shipments to both Dusselheim and London. And it just so happened, on that day, there was also a shipment to the local candy store here to Bayshore. I was able to find records of the serial codes of all the boxes shipped here that day, and then headed to the store.”

-

“You’re a hundred percent sure the ticket will definitely be in one of these boxes?” Anton asked, looking down at Logan.

Logan nodded, waiting in the queue with his father at the candy store, holding a notebook with various serial codes written down in it. “Yes, Pa. Exactly five stores in five different areas received shipments on the day that correlates with the previous two tickets, and this store is one of them. It has to be here.” 

He stepped forwards as the line moved on, people buying bars and moving to the side to open them hurriedly. Logan just hoped the fated boxes hadn’t been opened yet… If one of the people around him suddenly held up the winning ticket right now, when he was so close, his father would-

“Kid? Hello?” The cashier’s voice pulled Logan back into reality. “Let me guess, a Duke bar?”

“O-oh, yes! I mean, no! I, um… I’d like to buy five boxes.”

“Okay, let me get them from the store room-”

“Wait. I need five very specific boxes.” Logan tore the page from the notebook and handed it to the cashier. “The ones with these serial codes. And I will be checking if they are the exact ones written down, so don’t try and give me some other random boxes.”

The cashier raised an eyebrow, before turning around and heading back into the store room. He went in and out, bringing each box one by one. Logan checked each of the serial codes, nodding to Anton as each one matched his notes. Anton picked them up, taking them out to the car as they were approved. When all five boxes were in the car, Anton slapped some money on the counter, before grabbing Logan’s hand. “Come on, you have some bars to open at home.”

Logan nodded, walking out with him. “Yes, Pa.”

The drive home was mostly silent, Logan focusing on blowing bubbles with his gum to try and get his mind off of his building nerves. He knew he definitely had a ticket, why was he so nervous…?

Once home, Logan sat at the kitchen table, Anton placing all the boxes in front of him. “Now get to it.” Anton turned and left the room.

Teal was sitting in the living room, grading essays for work, and he looked up as Anton stepped in. “Aren’t you going to help him?”

Anton raised an eyebrow. “Why? It’s his ticket. He should be the one to open all the bars.” He headed out to the hall and upstairs before Teal could say any more. He called as he went, “Logan, yell when you find it!”

“I will, Pa!”

Teal sighed a little, fiddling with his pen, before moving aside the papers to stand. He headed into the living room, before sitting beside Logan. “Hey, Lo, let me give you a hand.” He took some of the chocolate bars from the box, starting to unwrap them.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “But don’t you have work to do? You were grading papers…”

“It’s okay. It’d take too long for you to open these all by yourself, and I needed a bit of a break anyway. It can be our father-son activity for the day. It feels like I’ve barely seen you all… um… week.” In reality, it was more like all month… or maybe months… “Hey, how about we move to the living room and put on a movie while we open these?”

“Can’t. It’ll distract me, and I need to find the ticket as soon as possible.”

Teal sighed a bit. “Okay, kiddo… if you’re sure.”

The two continued to open chocolate in mostly silence, only broken every now and then by chit-chat from Teal - most of which was brushed off by Logan.

Until Logan smiled and abruptly stood up. “Pa, I got it!” he called as he ran from the room, not pausing to show the golden ticket in his hand to Teal.

-

“That’s pretty impressive,” Remy hummed. “Well, now we’ve heard the tale, tell us: what are your hopes for the tour? Anything you’re especially excited about?”

“I’m mostly interested in learning about the process of how Mr Duke makes some of the candy. The science behind some of the things he creates must be fascinating… I might be one of the few intelligent enough to understand it all. But more importantly, I’m most interested in winning the special prize mentioned in the competition announcement - which I’m sure won’t be too difficult, I’m sure I’ll prove myself as the obvious choice rather quickly.” Logan smirked, adjusting his glasses. “If there’s anything else I’m interested in, it’d probably be trying different gum flavours. With how long I’ve been chewing this blackberry and pomegranate flavour, it’d be nice to try something new.”

“What about the other tour members? Looking forward to making some friends?”

Logan blinked at the reporter, raising an eyebrow. “Friends? They aren’t friends, they’re competition. There’s only one special prize at the end of the tour. Why would I get close to them when I’m trying to work against them? Anyway, I can’t let myself get distracted with sentimentality.”

“Right… Well, uh, that has been our interview with Logan Beauregarde, the third winner of Remus Duke’s competition! Only two tickets remain, so good luck!”

Thomas’ face fell. Two tickets left… his one chance gone…

It was getting dark.

He turned, beginning to shuffle home.

-

Virgil was spending his evening as he did most days when his friends were unable to hop onto a Discord call: laptop, playing one game, while his tablet was open beside him, open on YouTube, showing a lets-play of a completely different game. An active distraction to engage in, and a passive one playing in his ears.

A distraction from what?

Well, there was a lot. For one, another terrible day at school. He’d gotten an English essay back - an F. He’d really hoped he’d just scraped a D, but as the paper was placed down in front of him upside down, he didn’t even need to turn it over before he felt his chest  getting tight and tears welling in his eyes. When he’d turned it over and had his fears confirmed, he quickly asked to be excused and ran to the bathroom.

On top of that, when he got home, he got the news he swore he got every week from his mom: his father once again wouldn’t be visiting over the weeked, he was “busy with work”.

Still unwanted, still a failure…

BZZT! BZZT!

Virgil jumped at the vibration from his bedside table, blinking back into the presence. He’d died in his game as a result of zoning out, and his YouTube video had finished, autoplaying onto another random video. He paused both his game and the video, before picking up his phone to see what the notification said.

Andy: @everyone another ticket gone

Missy: wait seriously?? nooooo

Andy: yup. there goes the hope we all get to go together

Virgil: so we’re giving up?

Andy: ‘course not! it’d still be cool for one of us to go! i’m sure at least one of us will be able to find a ticket

Virgil’s shoulders slumped. Darn, he’d hoped that’d be the end of this… This competition had not been helping his stress. He preferred ordering online, since that minimised any human interaction, but ordering Duke chocolate was near impossible right now. Buying it at regular price on the Duke website was impossible, as any new stock would be sold out almost instantly. And buying it anywhere else would be from people reselling at ridiculously high prices. Therefore, Virgil had had no choice but to buy Duke bars… in person.

It was hell.

If just buying chocolate from a stranger was so bad, what would it be like if he met Andy and Missy in person…?

He just hoped those last two bars would be found by some other random people soon, so he could stop being so paranoid about meeting his friends...

Chapter Text

Thomas… to put it simply, wasn’t doing too great.

He felt bad for feeling this way. He knew he wasn’t entitled to win a ticket. There were billions of children who were just as desperate as he was - many in even worse positions than him. And yet he just couldn’t move on from the disappointment.

He sighed, kicking his feet as he fiddled with his fork, poking at the small slice of leftover birthday cake on his plate. That was what he and most of the children had been eating recently, trying to make it last as long as possible.

By this point, everyone in the orphanage knew it wouldn’t be long. Whether it would be the town council ruling the orphanage as unfit to stay open, or Dot and Larry throwing in the towel when funds start to get too low, the children knew it wouldn’t be long until they’d be rehomed. Moved away to another city that put more funding into their local orphanages. While it sounded nice to live in better conditions, the idea of leaving the town they’d grown up in and losing the two closest people they had to parental figures was daunting for the children.

It was daunting also for Dot and Larry, who sighed as they sat in their therapist’s office, waiting patiently for her to arrive. Usually they’d be talking to each other as they waited. But today, instead, an uncomfortable silence hung over them.

“Da! Da da dadada! Da de da de de da- Oh, it’s you two!” Dr Emily Picani chuckled to herself as she stepped into the office, cutting off their own dramatic entrance. “Sorry, my brain’s a bit frazzled recently, got my schedule mixed up in my head. I guess that’s what good news does to you, huh?” They sat in their chair, sighing… before her face fell a bit as she registered the quiet and morose atmosphere. “Though I sense that I’m about to get some bad news to balance that out…”

“We do have bad news, I'm afraid, Doctor…” Dot sighed. “This is going to be our last session.”

Emily blinked. “Huh? But we’ve still got so much more ground we haven’t covered! So many cartoons that could be useful to discuss and-”

“We just can’t afford it anymore,” Larry shrugged. “Therapy sessions aren’t cheap, and we really need to put the money towards the kids. They have to be our priority.”

Emily sighed. “I understand… but hey, if circumstances ever change, know my door is always open. And if there are any emergencies, I’m willing to hold some free one-off sessions for you.”

“Thank you, Dr Picani, thank you so much,” Dot smiled. “You really have done so much for us. I don’t think we could have kept getting through all this stress without your help.”

“Oh, it’s been no trouble,” Emily shrugged, smiling. “Just doing my job! Now, if this is going to be our last session together, let’s make the most of it!” She flipped open her notepad and clicked her pen.

The session went by mostly as usual, though Emily did seem to be rushing a little more, cutting their cartoon rambles short when they veered into irrelevant territory. However, eventually, she sighed, looking up at the clock. “Well, that’s our time up… You’re both sure you want to stop renewing your sessions now?”

Dot and Larry both nodded, starting to gather their things. “Again, thank you for everything, Doctor. I’m sure we’ll be back when we’re in a more financially stable position.”

“More like if .”

“Larry!”

“I’ll be looking forward to then.” Emily stood up, going to step over to the door to open it for their clients.

“Can I ask, what was the good news you mentioned earlier?” Dot asked. “I know as your clients we probably aren’t allowed to inquire about your personal life, but I’d be nice to hear something positive. It seems like we only ever get bad news these days…”

“Oh, um… Well, you’re right I’m generally not allowed to. But I guess you two aren’t my clients anymore, and it’s not exactly sensitive information. So, what the hell! I’ll tell you. I found out last night on the news that my nephew won a golden ticket!”

“That was your nephew? Oh, that’s wonderful!” Dot smiled. “It must be exciting to know you’ll get to hear all about the factory from him.”

Emily’s face fell a little. “Yeah… Anyway, um, I should be going. Gotta get my coffee break in before my next client arrives. See you both around, fingers crossed you’ll be able to book another session soon!” With that, they hurried from the room.

Dot blinked a little, before looking up at Larry. “Was it something I said?”

“Probably not, the thought of having to talk to her nephew probably just freaked her out. You saw the news last night, that kid seemed like a big-headed jerk-”

“Larry!!!”

-

Thomas felt his eyelids drooping as he sat in class. He didn’t have the energy to stay awake and focus on what his teacher was saying about whatever they were learning in Math. He didn’t even know what they were studying right now. Calculus? Algebra? Statistics? Trigonometry? The numbers written on the board just blended together into a fuzzy mess…

“Hey.”

He felt a poke against his shoulder. He blinked tiredly, trying to refocus his eyes as he turned to face the student sitting at the desk beside his. It was a boy, and he was holding something out to Thomas. “I heard your stomach growling pretty loudly, and figured you could use this. Quick, before Mr Barnes turns around and sees.”

Thomas hesitantly took the item from the boy’s hand, looking down at it. It was a chocolate flavoured energy bar - Duke brand, of course. He looked back up at the boy, smiling a little. “Thanks.”

“No problem!” the boy smiled, before turning back to face the front of the class, continuing to write notes.

Thomas opened up the energy bar, and didn’t waste any time in digging into it. Right now, it felt like the most satisfying thing he’d ever eaten. After finishing it, the math on the board didn’t seem quite as difficult to understand.

When the lesson finished, and the bell rang signalling the end of the school day, everyone began to pack up all their things. Thomas looked back to the boy that had given him the food. “Thanks again. I really needed that.”

“It’s nothing, really. My mom always makes me bring them just in case I need more energy, but I never really do,” the boy shrugged. “I may as well give them to people who do. I’m Nico, by the way.”

“I’m Thomas.”

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Thomas. Guess I’ll see you tomo-”

Nico was interrupted by a loud yell out in the corridor. “The fourth golden ticket’s been found! There’s only one left!”

Chatter immediately filled the classroom, students pulling out their phones to check if it was true. Thomas felt a bit awkward as he saw everyone else reading about the ticket winner, but was unable to do so himself. He tried to catch a few of the words they were saying, but it was hard to pay attention through all the conversations, and noise out in the hall.

“Here.” Nico was holding out one of his earbuds to Thomas. “You can watch the report on my phone.”

“Thanks,” Thomas smiled softly, shuffling closer to Nico so the cord of the earbuds would actually reach his ears, looking down at the phone screen. Nico then pressed play on the video.

Remy Sleep was sitting in a living room. It was very homely, filled with bright and colourful furniture and decor. They were sitting on the couch with two people. First was a woman, wearing a white and yellow floral dress with long black hair. Sat between her and Remy was a boy who seemed to contrast the rest of the atmosphere in the room. He had black hair dyed purple, bangs hanging and covering one of his eyes. He was wearing black ripped jeans, a long sleeved purple shirt, and a black t-shirt over the top of it. He had black eyeshadow under his eyes, which were glued to the screen of the Nintendo Switch in his hands.

“I’m here with the fourth ticket winner of Remus Duke’s competition: Virgil Teevee! Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Virgil?”

The boy refused to look up from his video game, and he didn’t say a word. The woman beside him, presumably his mother, sighed a little, before speaking for him. “Well, as you can probably tell, he’s very passionate about his games. He spends almost all day on some kind of device, to be honest.” She chuckled a bit. “He’s a very good kid, though, he never really gets into trouble at home. He’s able to keep himself busy, and I honestly thank his games for that.” She ruffled Virgil’s hair, finally getting him to look up from his game.

“Moooom…” he grumbled quietly.

“Ah, so he does talk!” Remy joked, though Virgil clearly didn’t appreciate the comment, huffing and turning back to his game. “So, Virgil, you mind telling us all how you won your ticket.”

Virgil blinked, seeming almost frightened for a second, fingers pausing their tapping. It was only for a moment, though, before he turned back to his game, concentrating on it. “Fine… I, um… I’d decided to look for a ticket because my friends suggested it. I don’t even like chocolate that much…”

-

Virgil held his headphones against his ears tightly, I’m Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance blasting into his ears. Maybe if he played it loud enough, it’d be enough to drown out the terrible thoughts.

Another test back from school. Another F.

Having the most awkward interaction of his life with the cashier at the store when buying Duke bars. And on the way out, he’d tripped and dropped all the candy bars all over the floor. Everyone around was staring at him, people had laughed…

And now he’d come home only to be told by his mom that, once again, his dad had cancelled. He still wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worth anything to his dad. No, movie festivals were more important than Virgil was…

He needed more of a distraction, the music wasn’t enough. He opened up discord on his phone.

Verge: @everyone you guys able to vc?

Andy: yea sure

Missy: i’ll be on in just a minute ^^

Virgil sighed in relief as he hopped onto the voice channel. Soon he’d have chat with his friends and a video game to keep him distracted…

There were two pings as Andy and Missy both joined the call.

“So, doing our chocolate opening a little early today, I guess?”

And Virgil’s stomach immediately dropped at Andy’s words. He’d forgotten about this stupid contest…

Honestly, with every ticket found, he’d become more and more nervous, wanting to win less and less. Before he’d only been worried about his friends meeting him in real life, but now it was impossible for all three of them to go on this tour, and extremely unlikely even two of them would. If Virgil did win a ticket, he’d be stuck on a tour all day with strangers. People he’d never met meeting him, judging him. Not to mention, all the media attention. What if he was edited to look bad? Heck, what if he didn’t need to be edited, and he just came across really badly? The whole world would be judging him, including Andy and Missy. He’d lose their friendship, and never be able to make any new friends because everyone in the world would hate him-

“Verge? Hello? You got a bar ready to open?”

Virgil was startled back to reality. “I-I, uh… J-just a second…” He leaned over the side of his bed, dragging out the bag of unopened chocolate bars from beneath it. He picked up a bar, taking a deep breath. Come on, Virgil, billions of people in the world, and only five tickets. No way you’ll win one. “O-okay, um, I’m ready…”

“Okay! Open on three. One… two… three!”

Virgil ripped open the chocolate bar as he heard the other two doing the same, rips echoing through their microphones. 

“Darn, nothing…” Andy huffed.

“Me neither…” Missy sighed. “How’d you do, Verge?”

Virgil felt like his heart had stopped. His hands were shaking so badly he was close to dropping the chocolate bar in his hands.

The chocolate bar and the golden ticket on top of it.

“Virgil?”

His heart started going again, now at a rapid pace, the noise banging in his head. He felt like he could barely breathe, gasping for air which refused to stay in his lungs. Tears pricked in the corner of his eyes.

“Virgil, are you okay? What happen-”

Virgil practically slammed the off button of his laptop, cutting off Missy’s question. He couldn’t let them hear him like this.

He pulled his sheets over his head, and he held his fist over his mouth, biting down on his knuckles, to muffle his gasps and sobs. He didn’t want his mother to hear. He’d gone so long without an ‘episode’, she thought he was getting better, he didn’t want to disappoint her.

Later he’d throw the golden ticket in the bin.

Unfortunately, Linda would find it, assume he’d thrown it away by accident, and rescue it.

-

“Wow, you definitely got lucky!” Remy whistled. “To think you were so close to accidentally throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. You’re lucky your mom noticed. So, anything you’re particularly looking forward to about the tour?”

Virgil shrugged. “I mean, not really… As I said, I don’t even really like chocolate…”

“Okay… What about the other tour members? You looking forward to making new friends?”

Virgil just shrugged again.

“... Alright, well, that was the interview with the fourth Duke ticket winner, Virgil Teevee! Only one ticket remains, so good luck!”

The video ended, and Thomas took out the earbud, looking up at Nico. “Thanks for letting me borrow that.”

“It’s nothing,” Nico shrugged, before sighing a bit. “Well, one ticket left… I guess I’ll have to start buying a lot more chocolate if I want to get one.”

“Good luck,” Thomas replied, picking up his school bag. “I hope you find it.”

Nico smiled. “Good luck to you too.”

“Oh, ah… not much point in that, I can’t buy any more bars…”

Nico shrugged again. “So? I’m still gonna wish you good luck. Who knows what could happen? Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, Thomas!” He waved, before leaving the room.

Thomas smiled a little as he watched him go. Even if he knew it was basically impossible, Nico’s words inspired a little bit of hope in him that he hadn’t felt since his birthday.

Who knows? Maybe fate would lead him down a path that ended with a ticket in his hands? If anything, it was at least a pleasant thought.

Chapter Text

Thomas dropped his bag as he sat down at his desk, looking around at the half full classroom, more students occasionally wandering in. Some people were chattering, filling each other in what their plans were for over the Christmas holidays. Others looked close to falling asleep, tired after the long school day.

It had been over two weeks since the last golden ticket had been found, and many people were starting to run out of money to spend on chocolate. It had led to a general dip in enthusiasm regarding the contest. With the tour date only a day away, many people were becoming convinced the final ticket would go unfound, and Patton, Roman, Logan and Virgil would be the only ones on the tour.

Thomas fiddled with his pen, sighing a little. By this point, he had well and truly resigned himself and given up all hope. And not just about the contest.

He’d overheard Dot last night on the phone. She’d been talking, assumedly to the head of another orphanage, about arranging all the children to be transferred. It wouldn’t be long until he’d be told to pack up his things and leave his town behind. Leaving his school behind.

Leaving his newest friend behind…

“Thomas!” Speaking of, Nico suddenly ran in, dropping into the seat beside Thomas. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“The last golden ticket apparently got found!” Nico held up his phone. “It says the son of a millionaire in Paraguay found it…”

“It doesn’t surprise me it was someone rich. Sounds like they’re the only ones who can still afford Duke bars at this point,” Thomas sighed. “Has there been an interview yet?”

“Not yet, apparently it only just happened. That reporter probably hasn’t even boarded an aeroplane to Paraguay yet.” Nico put his phone away, before pulling out a Duke energy bar and holding it out to Thomas. It had become their thing now. Every day, Nico would give Thomas an energy bar.

Before today, Thomas had always opened it as soon as Nico handed it to him, filled with anticipation, wondering if there was a golden ticket hidden under the wrapper. The logical part of his brain said that the ticket wouldn’t be there, as the contest announcement had said the tickets were hidden in Duke chocolate bars, not energy bars. But he still was always a little hopeful.

But now the final ticket was gone. On top of that, he didn’t have much of an appetite. He simply tucked the bar into his pocket. He’d save it for when he needed it.

By the time the teacher entered the classroom, it seemed the news had spread throughout the entire class, as the mood greatly dipped. Sure, people had mostly already given up on the ticket contest, but they’d still had a chance. Now, there was none. None of the students could really be bothered to focus on discussing the reading they were supposed to do for homework.

Eventually, the bell rang. Everyone began to pack up their things, saying goodbye to their friends, or leaving quickly, glad that the Christmas holidays had officially begun. Thomas pulled his bag onto his shoulder, he and Nico walking from the classroom together. That was another one of their things - they’d started walking home together, Nico’s house being on the way to the orphanage.

“So, what are your Christmas plans?” Nico asked as they stopped at their lockers to pick up their things.

“I… don’t really have any,” Thomas sighed. “I honestly don’t know if I’ll still be here at Christmas.”

Nico blinked. “Oh… things are getting that bad…?”

Thomas simply nodded, before changing the subject as they finished at their lockers and headed out of the school. “What about you? What are your plans over Christmas?”

“My family’s going to visit my grandparents to spend Christmas with them. It’s what we do every year.”

“That sounds nice. I hope you have fun.”

“I’ll be able to tell you myself if I do. I don’t care if you go away, you know my address. You can write me letters! We can be pen pals!” Nico smiled.

“Really?”

“Mhm! You’re not getting away from me that easy. We’re friends now, and I don’t like losing friends.”

The two kept walking and talking, Thomas not feeling quite so grim anymore. Well, not until a familiar strong scent of chocolate floated by.

Every day, on the walk home from school, he had to walk past the Duke chocolate factory. And every day, it was torture. It drew out the deep hunger he felt and tried to will away, making his stomach growl painfully. And now, today, it represented another pain: lost hope. There was no more chance of winning an extraordinary opportunity that could bring some deliciousness to his life.

Pain had never smelled so sweet.

He hadn’t realised he’d stopped walking until Nico tugged on his arm. “Thomas? Are you alright?”

Thomas tore his eyes away from staring up at the large metal gates, nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, just… daydreaming.”

Nico frowned a little, looking up at the factory. He sighed, “It really is a shame the contest is over. You know, I was really expecting at least one ticket to be here, in this town. I mean, it’s the home of the factory. It just feels right for one to be here.”

Thomas just hummed, before turning and walking away. Nico jogged to catch up, falling back into step beside him.

The rest of the walk was quiet, and it didn’t take them too long to arrive at Nico’s house. As he was about to step inside, Nico paused.

“I was going to go to the factory tomorrow morning to see the winners all head in and see Mr Duke. Do you want to come with me? You can come round my house after and we could hang out! We can watch movies, play video games, eat snacks… It’ll be fun.”

Thomas nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you at the factory tomorrow.”

“Great! Bye, Thomas!”

Thomas waved as Nico headed inside and closed the door. Then he turned, continuing the walk home alone. 

He tried his best to focus on his surroundings, worried that if he thought too much, all his bad thoughts would just flood in and become too much. He let his eyes focus on the houses, stores and people he passed, fiddling with the strap of his bag on his shoulder.

Until he came to a stop at a strange site. A large crowd inside the nearby candy store, all rushing to the counter carrying Duke chocolate bars.

But the contest is over, Thomas thought to himself. Why are they so desperate to buy chocolate? Had these people not heard? Why wasn’t the cashier of the store telling them?

He was about to continue home, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Caught in the drain, a note. A bank note. Money.

He looked around to see if anyone was looking for it, but people were just walking past without a care. He leaned down, taking hold of the note, and pulling it free.

His eyes went to the candy store. His mind reminded him of that smell of chocolate outside of the Duke factory. Oh, how he’d love to eat a delicious chocolate bar right now…

But then he recalled the energy bar in his pocket, given to him by Nico. He already had food. Back at the orphanage, however, there were all the other kids who didn’t get food given to them by friends every day. Who’d do anything for a rare delicious sweet treat.

Yeah, that’s what he’d do. Go buy a bar for all the others to share.

He stepped inside, pushing past the crowd to the shelves of Duke bars, his skinny frame allowing him to slip by relatively easily. He looked through the different flavours, before picking out the Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. He was pretty sure that was the one that most of the kids at the orphanage liked.

He slipped through the crowd again to the counter. Once he reached the front of the line, he slid the bar onto the counter. “Just this please.”

“Just the one?” the cashier asked, seemingly surprised - well, until he looked Thomas up and down and saw his worn clothes, at which point his expression softened. Thomas nodded, sliding the money across the counter too.

The cashier took the money, printing a receipt and handing back the bar with the small amount of change - not nearly enough to buy another bar, but Thomas could add it to the mostly empty piggy bank in his room. Thomas said a polite thank you, before turning and leaving the store.

As he left, Thomas slipped the chocolate and the change into his pocket, and pulled out the energy bar Nico had given him. Seeing all that chocolate had made him feel hungry. He ripped it open, digging in, savouring the delicious taste.

As he stood there eating, two passers by also stopped outside the candy store, one of them sighing as they looked through the window at the bustling crowd inside. “That faker certainly brought people’s eyes back to the competition…”

“Mhm. I still can’t believe it. How was he expecting to get away with lying about having a ticket? I mean, presumably they’d have to present the ticket tomorrow. They’d have been caught sooner or later regardless.”

Thomas froze, blinking.

The final golden ticket… was a fake? The actual ticket was still out there?

His eyes drifted to the empty energy bar wrapper in his hands. No ticket in there…

The chocolate bar suddenly felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket.

He reached inside, pulling out the bar. His hands shook a little as they fiddled with the plastic outer wrapper, pulling it off. The foil outer wrapper was all that remained, teasing him. His heart pounded in his chest.

He took hold of the foil, slowly pulling it back. He was scared to look, holding his breath, as he watched the brown surface of the chocolate being revealed.

And then a hint of gold.

His hands froze.

And then fumbled with the bar as he quickly ripped away the rest of the silver, a grin spreading across his face. He took hold of the golden paper, holding it in front of his face.

He started laughing. He couldn’t help it. The excitement was forcing its way out of him. He wanted to run, to jump, to scream.

He, Thomas Sanders, had won the final Duke golden ticket.

The people walking by, the crowd inside the candy store, all began to take notice of the boy laughing giddily in the middle of the sidewalk. They may have looked at him in confusion or disdain at first, but then they noticed the ticket in his hands. It didn’t take long for Thomas to suddenly be surrounded by a crowd.

If Thomas wasn’t so filled with excitement, he probably would have been overwhelmed by all the voices and faces pushing to see the ticket, yelling at him to hold it up. Some were yelling prices, trying to offer to buy the ticket for hundreds- no, thousands of dollars. Some even tried to grab the ticket away from him, but he made sure to hold on tight, hugging it to his chest.

“Hey, leave him alone, he’s just a kid! Get away from him!” the cashier from the store suddenly pushed through the crowd, taking Thomas’ hand and pulling him free. “Hey, kid, I’d get out of here if I were you. Run home, don’t stop ‘til you get there. And make sure you keep a good hold on that ticket, okay?”

Thomas nodded. “Th-thank you!” was all he could sputter out, vocabulary having mostly left him, before turning and bolting away.

He ran as fast as he could, still giggling, gripping tightly to the ticket so it wouldn’t go slipping from his grasp. He mentally thanked Nico for giving him those energy bars, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to run this fast for so long if he hadn’t been eating them so much recently.

He turned down an alley that he knew to be a shortcut home.

Only to skid to a stop when he found his way blocked by a man.

The man had a bowler hat sitting atop his brown hair. His skin was pale, and he had a scar on one side of his face. He had heterochromia, one eye brown, the other a startling yellow. He wore a black jacket over a black suit, with a yellow shirt, black bowtie, as well as yellow gloves.

“Congratulations. Winning the final ticket the day before the tour was an exceptional stroke of luck,” he said with a smirk that unnerved Thomas, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Uh… thanks… I, um, need to get home now.”

“I just wish to talk for only a moment. And don’t worry, I have no wish to take the ticket.” The man took a couple of steps closer to Thomas. “My name is Arthur Slugworth, you probably know me. I’m one of Duke’s fiercest competitors. However, I’ve been struggling recently. I’ve heard tell of a new product Duke is working on called the Everlasting Gobstopper. If he releases it, I could be ruined. All I need is for you to take an Everlasting Gobstopper and bring it to me after the tour. I promise I will… compensate you heavily.”

Arthur reached into an inner pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a thick wad of money.

There must have been thousands of dollars there.

It could be enough to at least buy the orphanage more time…

“And this is just a fraction of what I’ll pay you,” Arthur said, putting the money back into his pocket. “I’ll be waiting here after the tour. See you then.”

He turned and walked around the corner at the end of the alley, leaving Thomas alone once again.

Thomas didn’t move immediately, waiting to make sure that man was a good distance away. Something about him just… it didn’t sit right with Thomas.

At the same time, the money… If he did as Arthur said, he could save the orphanage. He wouldn’t have to move away. He and Nico wouldn’t have to be pen pals, they could just stay normal pals.

He looked down at the ticket in his hands. Oh, whatever. He could think about that later. For now, he had to get home and share the good news with everyone!

He continued running, leaving the alley and heading off in the direction back home.

When the orphanage appeared in sight, he picked up speed even more. He skidded to a stop in front of the door, knocking hard, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waited. As soon as Dot answered, he didn’t give her a chance to speak, running inside.

“I won! I did it! I won the last golden ticket!” he yelled, holding the ticket up. “I’m going to Remus Duke’s factory!”

“You what?!” Kai’s head poked in from the living room.

“Why’s everyone yelling?” Elliot appeared at the top of the stairs with other children and Larry.

“I… I think we need to gather everyone into the living room, dear,” Dot called up, and Larry nodded.

It didn’t take long to get everyone rounded up, all the children being instantly curious at Thomas’ yelling and excitement, showing everyone his ticket as soon as they entered the room. The excitement quickly spread to everyone else within the room, and the room filled with buzzing chatter, everyone wanting to have a chance to read the text on the back of the ticket. It took a while for the ticket to eventually be passed to Dot and Larry.

“One chaperone needs to accompany him,” Dot said, reading over the text. “You can go, Larry, I’m happy taking care of the kids for the day.”

“Are you sure? I’d be happy to stay home if you want to go.”

“I promise, I’m perfectly fine with staying. Plus, I can see it in your face, you’re just about as excited as all the kids about this aren’t you~?” Dot teased, nudging Larry gently, causing the man to flush a little.

“... Okay, maybe I am.”

Dot giggled. “It says you have to be there for 10 am sharp, so make sure you two get up nice and early, you two. Now, I’ll go see what I can make for dinner with what we have. I think today certainly requires something special.”

“Oh! Wait!” Thomas ran up to Dot, holding out the chocolate that had been in the wrapper with the ticket. “Can you put this in the fridge and share it out between everyone for dessert after? I bought it for everyone to share.”

“That’s very kind of you Thomas,” Dot smiled. “I'll put it away now.”

As she walked away, Larry patted Thomas’ shoulder. “Excited for tomorrow, kiddo?”

Thomas nodded. “Mhm! It’s going to be amazing! I can’t wait to meet Mr Duke! I bet he’s going to be so cool!”

That evening in the orphanage was the first in a long time that was just filled with unbridled fun and happiness. After dinner, Thomas shared the chocolate out between everyone, and they got out some board games to play. However, eventually Dot ushered everyone to bed, knowing they’d all likely get up early the next morning so Thomas could get to the factory.

Thomas smiled as he laid in bed, his ticket resting on his bedside table. Tomorrow morning, he’d be experiencing the best day of his life.

The orders of Arthur Slugworth were hanging around in the back of his mind. However, he tried his best to push his thoughts away, focusing on daydreaming about what the next day would bring...

Chapter Text

The next morning at the orphanage was a blur. Thomas was desperate to get to the factory as quickly as possible, not wanting to risk being late. As soon as his alarm went off in the morning, he ran to the shower. Once he was done, he got dressed as quickly as possible, brushing his teeth at the same time.. He made sure to grab his ticket and put it in his pocket, so he wouldn’t forget it later. Then, he went downstairs, pulling on his shoes as he hopped down to the floor where Dot and Larry’s room was.

Knocked wasn’t the right word. He slammed on the door to Dot and Larry’s room. “It’s Thomas! I’m ready to go!”

The door opened, revealing Larry, pulling on a sweater vest, clearly having just finished getting dressed. “Bit early, isn’t it, kiddo? It’s quarter to nine, the tour isn’t until ten. No need to rush.”

“I know, but I’m really excited and want to get there early! Plus I told a friend I’d meet him there at nine…”

“Okay, okay, let me just finish gathering everything and we can get going. It might be a good idea to get there before a big crowd builds up anyway.” Larry stepped back into the bedroom, picking up his keys, wallet and phone, slipping them into his pocket. He pulled on his coat, stepping over to the bed. He leaned over Dot, kissing her head softly. “See you later, love.”

Dot smiled sleepily up at him, before kissing him back. “Bye, dear. You and Thomas have a good day, alright?”

“Will do,” Larry smiled back, before waving as he walked out the door. He looked down at Thomas. “All ready?”

“Mhm!” Thomas nodded.

“Then let's get going.”

The two headed downstairs, leaving the orphanage and beginning the walk to the Duke chocolate factory. With how close they were, there wasn’t any point in driving. The two talked as they went, most of the conversation being Thomas rambling excitedly about what he thought they’d see in the factory and what Remus Duke would be like. The whole walk, Thomas kept his hand in his pocket, holding tightly onto the ticket so he could be sure it wouldn’t fall out.

It didn’t take long for them to arrive. There were a few people milling around the factory, a couple of news crews setting up, but it was still too early for it to be very busy yet. None of the other ticket winners seemed to be there yet. However, someone else was…

“Nico!” Thomas broke into a run as soon as he saw his friend, waving to him.

“Hey, Thomas!” Nico smiled. “Did you hear the news yesterday about the last ticket being a fake? I got so mad when I found out! To think I’d given up when it was still out there…”

“Actually, about that, I have some awesome news!” Thomas pulled his ticket out of his pocket. “Look what I got!”

Nico’s jaw dropped. “... No. Way.”

“I found it last night! I found some money in the street, and I used it to get some chocolate, and the ticket was inside! So, uh, sorry our plans to hang out today have been ruined…”

Nico let out a laugh. “Thomas, you’re getting to go inside Duke’s factory! I don’t mind if we can’t hang out today, this is so much better! Heck, we’re definitely hanging out tomorrow so you can tell me all about it.”

Thomas smiled, nodding in agreement. “Definitely!”

“Wait wait wait wait! The last ticket was actually won?! Hey, Steve, get over here!” Remy Sleep came jogging over, standing next to Thomas, pointing for the camera man to set up in front of them. “Okay, when you’re all ready, count us in.”

Steve nodded, getting the camera in position. Larry hurried over, seeing Thomas looked a little overwhelmed at suddenly being thrust in front of a camera with no warning, standing just behind him. “It’ll be fine, Thomas, don’t worry.”

“3…2…1…” Steve nodded to Remy as the broadcast began.

The reporter immediately put on a smile. “Hey, babes, I’m here with a surprise broadcast to bring some unexpected news! The final ticket, thought to be lost after the fake claimant was exposed, was actually found! I’m here with the lucky final winner! Tell us all your name, kid.” They held their microphone up to Thomas, who gulped, trying to push down his nerves and smile.

“Th-Thomas Sanders!”

“And this must be your father?” Remy looked up at Larry.

“Oh, ah, no I’m not. I’m Larry Smith, I’m one of the care workers at the local orphanage.”

Remy’s expression immediately softened, smiling mask dropping to genuine compassion as they looked down to Thomas. “You’re an orphan…?”

“Y-yeah… But I’ve lived at the orphanage for pretty much all my life, and Larry and Dot have been the best carers ever!” Thomas smiled. “I couldn’t ask for better parental figures.”

“Aw…” Remy turned back to the camera, putting back on their charismatic persona. “Looks like we have a real underdog story here, folks. So, how’d you end up getting so lucky? What’s the story of how you won the ticket?”

“It’s nothing special really,” Thomas shrugged. “I was just walking home from school yesterday and found some money in a gutter, and figured I could use it to buy a bar of chocolate for the other kids at the orphanage. Then when I was leaving, I heard that the last ticket had been a fake, and I got curious and opened it… and there the ticket was!”

“Nothing special? Winning a ticket when you had such low odds sounds pretty special to me. You’re probably one of the luckiest kids in the world. So, what are you looking forward to most about the tour? Trying a bunch of candy? Meeting the other kids on the tour?”

“I am really looking forward to all that, but what I’m looking forward to most is meeting Mr Duke! I can’t wait to see what he’s like, and find out how he comes up with and creates all those amazing candies! I bet he’s incredible.”

Remy smiled - their smile looked a lot more earnest and warm than when they’d been on screen with all the other ticket winners - and turned back to the camera. “That’s been our interview with the surprise final ticket winner, Thomas Sanders! Keep watching and we’ll keep you updated on the events outside of the Duke factory. For now, back to the studio.”

Steve cut the camera, and Remy turned back to Thomas. “Thanks for the impromptu interview, kid. Have fun on the tour. And apologies in advance if I corner you for an interview afterwards.” They waved, before walking away with the camera man.

“Wow…! You were on TV!” Nico ran back over. “You’re, like, a celebrity now!”

Thomas blushed a little. “I wouldn’t say that…”

Larry put his hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “Sorry to cut your conversation short, but the crowd’s starting to build up now. It’s probably best if we go stand at the gates so we don’t get blocked away by the crowd.”

“Right,” Thomas nodded, before turning back to Nico. “See you tomorrow?”

Nico nodded. “Come round my house around midday. Have fun!”

Thomas waved as he and Larry walked away towards the large factory gates, standing just outside of them. The crowd was forming a semicircle around them, eyes and cameras trained on the boy with the golden ticket in his hands. It was a little overwhelming, but Thomas did his best to keep a smile on his face, wave and show off his ticket. I mean, this was a big day. He may as well help make sure people had good photos of it.

“Excuse me! Out of the way! Duke ticket winner coming through!”

The crowd parted as at the man’s voice, revealing third ticket winner Logan Beauregarde walking into the semicircle. He was wearing a blue coat, black knee high socks, and brown Mary-Jane shoes. As usual, he was chewing the gum in his mouth. Anton Beauregarde was with him, hand on his son’s shoulder, and he huffed as he saw Thomas. “Great, we’re not the first ones here… Well, come on, we need to make sure we get good photos.”

Logan nodded, pulling his ticket from his coat pocket and letting his father guide him over to a cluster of photographers.

Thomas looked up at Larry. “Do you think I should go say hi…?”

Larry shrugged. “It’s up to you, kiddo. I mean, personally… I don’t think I’d even bother with this kid, but it’s your choice.”

Thomas nodded, taking a deep breath and putting a warm smile on his face, before walking up to Logan. “Hi there! I’m Thomas, it’s nice to meet you!”

Logan raised an eyebrow and, despite being shorter, seemed to look down on Thomas. “I’m not here to make friends,” was all he said, before turning back to the crowd.

Thomas blinked. “Oh… w-well, I am! So, uh, whether you like it or not, I’m gonna be nice to you!”

Logan didn’t say anything or even look back at Thomas. Instead, he shuffled a little away from the other boy and closer to his father. Thomas deflated a bit, sighing, before walking back over to Larry.

“No luck?”

“No…”

“Oh well. There’s the other kids you can try to talk to at least? That Patton boy didn’t look so bad.”

Thomas hummed.

“Out the way! MOVE! Daddy, why won’t they let us through?!”

“Patience, little prince, give them a moment to make a path…”

The crowd parted yet again, revealing Roman Salt. He was wearing a red shirt and matching skirt, a black ribbon around his waist tied in a bow at the back, with white knee high socks, and black Mary-Jane shoes. He also had an expensive looking mink fur coat. His father, Romulus Salt, was just behind, phone to his ear and talking into it. As he saw the two other winners, Roman froze, expression souring. He rounded on his father. “You said we’d be the first ones here.”

“I’m sorry, prince, but I couldn’t control the traffic.”

“Then we should have left the hotel earlier!” Roman huffed, folding his arms.

Thomas fiddled, walking over to the boy, a little more nervous and tentative than he was with Logan. “Um, hi there. I’m Thomas. It’s nice to meet you.”

Roman looked Thomas up and down, for a moment seeming almost disgusted by his old worn clothing, before offering his hand for Thomas to shake. “Roman Salt.”

Thomas smiled. Already going better than with Logan. He shook Roman’s hand. “So, are you excited for the tour?”

“Duh, of course I am. Who wouldn’t be?” Roman shrugged, before frowning as he looked over at Logan. “Well, apart from him… Seems more focused on the publicity than the tour itself. I honestly think it’s so unfair that he got a ticket despite barely caring! I mean, neither did that emo kid, but at least he bought a lot of chocolate and actually participated! That four-eyes only bought one bar!”

Thomas frowned at the harsh words, but decided not to bring up the fact Roman technically bought and opened no bars. Instead he just shrugged, saying, “I mean, I only bought one myself…”

“Yeah, but that’s different. You’re poor.”

Thomas winced, but again decided not to remark on the comment. “I wouldn’t say Logan doesn’t care about the tour. In his interview, he seemed pretty passionate about how Mr Duke makes candy, and the special prize at the end.”

“ Everyone wants to find out how he makes candy. And the special prize doesn’t count, because I’m getting that, no question.”

“Uh huh…”

Thomas was rather thankful that the conversation was cut short as the crowd began to shift and move once again. A voice with a German accent could be heard inside calling, “Excuse me! Oh, sorry! Just need to squeeze through, sorry, excuse me…”

Eventually, Patton Gloop stepped into the semicircle, letting out a breath as he escaped the crowd. He wore a light blue polo shirt, with a grey cat hoodie tied over his shoulders, and khaki pants. Harley Gloop stepped out just behind him, smoothing the skirt of her dress.

Patton gazed up at the factory in amazement, letting out a small squeal, clapping his hands. Then, his eyes went to Thomas and Roman, and he hurried over. “Hallo! I’m Patton, it’s nice to meet you! You’re Roman, right? Oh, and you must be the person who won the last ticket, right?”

Thomas nodded, smiling at the other boy’s enthusiasm. “Yep! I’m Thomas, it’s nice to meet you too.”

“This is exciting, right? Gosh, I’ve always wanted to go to the Duke factory, and now I finally get the chance! I can’t wait to try all sorts of delicious candy…”

“You sure you need it?” Roman muttered, eyes glancing at Patton’s stomach. Patton flushed a bit, ashamed, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Thomas frowned at Roman, before giving Patton a reassuring smile.

“I want to try a bunch of candy too! How about we go around and try stuff together? It’ll be fun to share what we eat.”

Patton blinked at him, before a small smile appeared on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay!”

Thomas looked to Roman. “Do you want to join us?”

Roman hesitated, before huffing. “... Fine. Just so I get to try more candy. I’m not going to give you anything I get for myself.”

Patton looked even more giddy now. “Oh! Should we go ask… it’s Logan, right?”

Thomas nodded. “Yeah, it is, but ah…” He hesitated. “I’m not sure if we should bother asking him. I tried to talk to him earlier, but he just told me he’s ‘not here to make friends’.”

“I’d feel bad if we left him out, though,” Patton said. “Maybe if all three of us ask him, he’ll agree?”

“I guess that’s worth a try…”

Patton grinned, before taking both Thomas and Roman’s hands and pulling them in Logan’s direction. Roman yelped in surprise, having tuned out of the conversation and being caught by surprise by the tug. When they reached him, Patton tapped on Logan’s shoulder. Logan turned, huffing a bit as he saw the other three boys, folding his arms. “What do you want?”

“Hallo, I’m Patton! The three of us were wondering if you wanted to hang out with us in the factory? We were planning on sharing candy with each other and stuff. It’ll be fun!”

“I’ve already made it absolutely clear, I don’t care about making friends and ‘hanging out’. My focus needs to be entirely on winning the prize at the end of the tour,” Logan snapped, and was about to turn away from them again, before he noticed Roman rolling his eyes and chuckling. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just the fact you think you’re going to get the special prize. That’s already mine.”

“It is, is it? What, are you going to get your daddy to buy it for you?” Logan teased, smirking. “You can’t just throw your money at Mr Duke, it’s a competition. He’d never pick a spoiled brat like you. Unlike you, I actually deserve it.”

“Deserve it?!” Roman laughed. “Please, you only bought one ticket!”

“Says you, you didn’t buy any! Your dad got them all for you. You couldn’t even be bothered to open them yourself. I put in actual work and research.”

“Well, I heard rumours you hacked into Mr Duke’s computers to find the ticket! I don’t think he’ll appreciate that.” Roman folded his arms, a smug grin on his face. “I’ve got this in the bag.”

Logan’s face flushed a little, and he quickly stuttered out, “Th-that’s just a rumour, it’s not true! And if it was, I-I think he’d think it was resourceful and intelligent. Unlike you, who was lazy-“

Roman let out an offended gasp.

“-exploitative-“

Roman gasped again.

“-and self-centred.”

Roman let out a final gasp. “Oh, I’m self-centred? I’ve never met anyone as arrogant as you!”

“I am not arrogant.”

As the two boy’s argument continued, Patton and Thomas shared a glance. After a silent agreement, they both turned and shuffled away.

“Guess I should have listened to you and not talked to Logan, huh…?” Patton chuckled awkwardly, before sighing. “Sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Thomas reassured. “It was nice of you to want to include him. And you didn’t know it’d lead to… that. And anyway, we can still have fun even if they’re busy fighting.”

Patton nodded, but still looked a little down. Thomas didn’t get a chance to reassure him further, when the crowd started to part yet again, revealing the final ticket winner to arrive. Virgil Teevee had the hood of his purple hoodie pulled up, hands buried in the pockets. He had black headphones on, a black graphic tee with a purple storm cloud logo, black ripped jeans and black combat boots. His mother, Linda Teevee, walked beside him, talking to him.

“Come on, honey, why don’t you pull your hood down so the reporters can take nice pictures?”

Virgil just grumbled, doing the complete opposite and pulling down his hood to cover more of his face as he stepped into the semicircle where the winners were.

Patton tugged Thomas’ sleeve. “Do you think we should go say hi to him? Or do you think he’ll just brush us off and we shouldn’t bother…?”

“I think it’s worth a try!” Thomas said, leading the way over to the emo boy. “Hi, there! I’m Thomas, it’s nice to meet you! And this is Patton.”

“Hallo.” Patton smiled warmly. “We wanted to ask if you want to hang out and share candy with us in the factory?”

Virgil looked between them both, his one eye that wasn’t covered by his purple bangs looking wide with almost fear. He didn’t say anything… before turning away from them both, pulling his phone from his pocket and staring down at it. His finger clicked the button on the side to turn the volume of his music up.

“Virgil, don’t ignore these boys, they’re trying to be nice,” Linda scolded. But she got no response. “Virgil!” Still nothing. She sighed, before looking at Thomas and Patton. “I’m sorry about that, Virgil’s a very… independent boy. It can take a while for him to open up to new friends.”

“That’s okay. The offer still stands if he wants to join us later.”

Linda smiled, nodding. “I’m sure he’ll open up more as the day goes on.”

Thomas turned to Patton, who looked pretty disappointed by Virgil’s rejection. He was about to say something, but was interrupted by a loud creaking. 

A hush fell over the crowd as the noise echoed. Even Logan and Roman stopped fighting, Romulus hung up his phone call, and Virgil looked up from his phone. The kids all returned to stand with the guardians, pulling their golden tickets from their pockets.

The gates of Remus Duke’s chocolate factory were opening.

Chapter Text

Everyone waited with baited breath as the gates parted for the first time in years. Thomas held tightly onto Larry’s hand, squeezing it. He couldn’t believe it. This was it. He was seconds away from meeting Remus Duke…

The door to the factory creaked open, excited whispers echoing across the crowd. Before falling silent again.

Remus Duke stepped out from the factory. A black top hat with a green ribbon sat on top of his chocolate brown hair, which had a silver streak in the bangs. His moustache had a mischievous curl to it, and he had purple eyeshadow that matched his gloves. He wore an emerald green tail-coat over a pastel pink waistcoat and a black button-up shirt, and he also wore black pants and shoes. As he shuffled towards the open gates, he leaned heavily on the cane in his hand.

The energy of the crowd seemed to deflate as Remus limped across the courtyard. They’d expected a lively kinetic energy from this incredible chocolatier, but instead his expression looked almost flat and bored. Was this really the true face of the man who spread joy to people across the world with his amazing inventions?

Remus finally began to come close to the gates, eyes glancing over the five children standing with golden tickets in hand. He was so focused on them all that he didn’t notice as his cane got stuck between cobbles in the ground, slipping from his hand as he took his next step. He took one more unsteady step, before he stopped. His hand grasped at the air where his cane once was, finally registering it was no longer there. There was a pause… before he began to fall forward.

The crowd gasped in horror - only to be caught off guard as Remus suddenly tucked into a flawless somersault, leaping to his feet, his expression lit up with a lively grin. 

 The crowd burst into cheers. Now this looked more like the man they had always imagined!

Remus leaned back, pulling his cane from the ground, before jogging through the gates. “Thank you, thank you! Welcome to my factory,” he called, voice boisterous and a little nasally, “and a very special welcome to our five ticket winners. I’m very excited to get this tour underway, I have quite the exciting route through the factory planned. But first! Before I check the tickets and we head on in, I have something to say.

“Beyond this door is surprise, invention, astonishment, and of course a banquet of candy and chocolate. However, whatever expectations you have of exactly what you may see inside… I advise you to drop them outside. Instead, simply be prepared to believe. It must be believed to be seen…

“Now! Let's check these tickets. Don’t want another forgery, do we? Would the first winner please step forward?”

Patton looked extremely giddy, and was about to step forward-

“I’m going in first!” Only for Roman to quickly move over to Remus before Patton could even take one step. Romulus followed his son, not at all reacting to his son’s lack of consideration.

Roman held his ticket out to Remus, doing a polite curtsy. “Roman Salt, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Duke.”

Remus took the ticket from his hand, looking over it. “And this is your father?”

“Yes, Romulus Salt, owner of Salt’s Nut Co.” Romulus took Remus’ hand, shaking it while reaching into his pocket and pulling out a business card. He handed it to Remus. “I was hoping we could perhaps have a discussion about a potential-”

“Ticket looks in good order,” Remus cut him off, handing the ticket back to Roman and throwing the business card over his shoulder. “Head on through the gates and wait just outside of the door.”

Before Romulus could say any more, Roman grabbed his hand, pulling him into the courtyard of the factory. Remus turned back to the other winners. “Right, who’s next?”

Once again, Patton went to step forward. However, he was also once again cut off as Logan stepped forward, his father’s hand on his shoulder. Logan handed Remus his ticket, “Logan Beauregarde. And this is my father.”

“Anton Beauregarde, you may have heard of me. I was a model for a few years back when-”

“Yeah, yeah, very interesting. Now, Beauregarde, why is that name familiar to me… Oh, yes, weren’t you the one who found his ticket by hacking into my computers?” Remus raised an eyebrow, looking down at Logan, hands on his hips.

Logan’s face flushed a little, but he cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, trying to maintain his composure. “That is simply alleged, there is no proof. I just did research, and the rules never stated that researching was not allowed.”

“Hey, I never said hacking wasn’t allowed either. In fact, it was pretty resourceful,” Remus grinned. The compliment caused Logan’s cocky smirk to return to his face. “Plus, now I know I need to improve my cybersecurity systems. Anyway, the ticket looks in order. Head on in.” He handed the ticket back to Logan. “Next winner, come on up!”

As Logan and Anton headed through the gates, Patton finally got his chance to step forward, him and his mother going up to Remus. “Hallo! I’m Patton Gloop, and this is my mother! It’s amazing to meet you, I’m a huge fan! I love your chocolate.”

“Glad to hear it, kid. And it’s nice to meet you too, Ms. Gloop,” Remus shook her hand, while taking Patton’s ticket with his other.

“Oh, please, call me Harley.”

Remus looked over Patton’s ticket, nodding. “All looks in order, you can head on through. Next!”

Neither Thomas or Virgil moved. Thomas looked to the other boy, giving a nod. “You can go first, it’s okay. I don’t mind going last.”

Virgil visibly hesitated. Linda took his hand. “Come on, Virgil, that boy’s being nice. Say thank you and then go up to Mr Duke.”

Virgil muttered, his words definitely not resembling a thank you, before reluctantly shuffling over to Remus. He held out his ticket, which was visibly crumpled, clearly having been stuffed in his pocket rather carelessly. “Virgil Teevee…”

Remus took the ticket, raising an eyebrow. “Virgil Teevee, huh? The kid who won my chocolate factory contest, despite not liking chocolate?”

Virgil didn’t respond, just glaring at the ground. Linda giggled to fill the awkward silence, “He may not be that fond of chocolate, but he’s a… curious boy. I’m sure he’s still interested in seeing what goes on in your factory. I’m Linda, by the way, Linda Teevee.”

Remus nodded. “The ticket looks fine, you can head in through. Next!”

Thomas took a deep breath, hands trembling a little as he stepped forward. This all still felt so unreal - he was about to talk to Remus Duke!

He held out his ticket as he stopped in front of the chocolatier, smiling brightly. “Thomas Sanders! It’s amazing to meet you, Mr Duke!”

“You’re the one who won their ticket only yesterday, aren’t you?” Remus asked, taking the ticket. “Don’t leave it so late next time, kid.” He grinned teasingly. “And this is your dad, I’m guessing?”

“Ah, no, I’m Larry Smith. I’m one of the carers at the local orphanage.”

“Oh, I see…  Well, the ticket looks all good. And that’s all five winners! Awesome, we can head on in and get started.” Remus grinned, heading over to where the rest of the tour group were waiting, while Thomas and Larry followed behind. “Right, now that’s all sorted, let's get this started. We’ll have a little bit of boring admin stuff when we get in, but then we can get right to the good stuff.” As he spoke, he led the tour group to the massive double-doors of the factory, the metal gates behind them swinging closed. “You all ready? Because once we go in, there’s no going back…”

Thomas nodded, the chocolatier’s slightly ominous tone only increasing his intrigue. The other four children assumedly nodded as well, as Remus’ grin returned.

“Good. Then let's head on in.”

He dramatically pushed open the doors, before stepping inside.

Roman immediately pushed past the group, quickly following Remus, his father trailing behind. Logan went in next, his father guiding him forward with a firm grasp on his shoulder. Patton eagerly followed, then Virgil, leaving Thomas and Larry as the only ones still outside. Thomas took a deep breath, trying to calm his giddiness, before stepping over the threshold and into the factory.

Nico had managed to squeeze to the front of the crowd watching from the gates. He watched as his best friend disappeared inside, and as the doors swung, seemling their own accord, closing with a loud SLAM !

-

A lobby. The first room, the entrance of this extraordinary factory, was a seemingly normal lobby.

Thomas glanced around the room, with its beige walls and blue carpet. There was a door on the other side, assumedly leading into the rest of the factory. There were coat hooks, the most eccentric thing in the room, as they were shaped to look like hands. And finally, there was a pair of green curtains, covering a section of the wall, with a small table set in front of them. Upon the table rested an ink pot, with two quills leaning inside.

“Hang all your coats and bags and stuff over there, then come stand just over here please,” Remus said, moving to stand beside the curtains.

Thomas moved over to the curtains, not having any coat to hang up, as did Patton, who was keeping his hoodie tied over his shoulders, and Virgil who didn’t want to take his off. Roman and Logan shifted their coats off, revealing Logan to be wearing a blue short-sleeved button up, a red tie, a blue skirt, and a red belt around his waist, before both raising their coats to the hooks.

They, and all the grown ups who had removed their coats, let out small screams as the coat hooks moved, the hands grabbing the coats.

“Little surprises around every corner but nothing dangerous!” Remus called. “Now, come on, let's get this admin done so we can get properly started. We have a lot of time, and not much to do. Wait, scratch that, reverse it… Anyway! Before we go in, I need you five kids to sign this.”

He pulled a rope, and the curtains parted, revealing a large contract on the wall. The words at the top started large and clear. However, as it continued, they got smaller and smaller until completely illegible. At the very bottom of the contract were five dotted lines.

“Whereas the management cannot be held responsible for any accidents, incidents, loss of property, or life, or limb…” Logan read, frowning. 

“A-are we gonna get hurt?” Virgil asked, taking off his headphones for the first time all morning.

“It’s just a precaution. There’s no need to worry, this factory is perfectly safe as long as you guys all follow the rules,” Remus reassured. “But you can’t go in if you don’t sign, so… who’s going first?”

“Me!” Roman went to step forward, only to have his shoulder caught by his father. “Hey!”

“Mr Duke, I am a businessman. I know contracts,” Romulus said. “I’m not letting my boy sign - I never would without letting my lawyer look over it first to make sure it’s not tricky.”

Remus shrugged. “Then he can’t go in.”

“NO! I am going in! Don’t you dare try and stop me!” Roman glared at his father as he pushed Romulus’ hand from his shoulder, before storming up to the contract. He snatched one of the quills, before signing his name on the first dotted line. “There.”

Remus grinned. “Right, who’s next?”

“Go on, Logan,” Anton gave his son a small push. Logan seemed a little reluctant, but stepped forward, taking a quill. He didn’t sign immediately, adjusting his glasses and squinting, trying to read the contract as best as he could. However, it didn’t seem to take long for him to sigh, realising there was no way he’d be able to read the whole thing with such a small font. He leant down, writing his name on the second dotted line.

As he did so, Patton eagerly decided to step forward, humming happily to himself as he took the other quill, signing his name on the third dotted line. Logan dropped his quill back in the inkpot, while Patton handed his directly to Thomas. “Here you go!”

“Thanks.” Thomas smiled thankfully, before stepping forward with Virgil, who huffed as he took the other quill from the pot. Both of them leaned down, Virgil signing his name on the fourth dotted line, and Thomas signing on the fifth.

“Great! Now that the boring shit is done, we can get on with the good stuff!” Remus jogged over to the door, not at all registering that he’d just worn in front of a bunch of kids. Patton let out a shocked gasp at the use of language, while Thomas just blinked. He’d never envisioned Remus as being the type of person to have a foul mouth. Remus looked back at the tour group, holding the door open, which led out into a small black and white corridor. “Well, come on, we haven’t got all day! Just go through the door at the end of the corridor.”

The group quickly went through the doorway past Remus, Roman once again shoving to the front as usual. However, when he reached the end, he found there was, in fact, no door. “Huh?”

The whole group entering the corridor meant it quickly became very cramped, all of them crowded together, trying to push through.

“Hey, watch it!”

“You’re stepping on my foot!”

“Open the door already!” Logan yelled, glaring at Roman.

“There isn’t one, Erlenmeyer Trash!” Roman yelled right back.

“There isn’t? I’m a hundred percent sure there is…” Remus hummed to himself, perfectly calm as he pushed past everyone up to Roman’s end of the corridor, and then back down. “Ah, here it is!”

“Duke, that’s the door we came in from!” Romulus protested.

Remus turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “You sure about that? I could have sworn…” He turned the handle, pushing open the door.

Revealing a brand new corridor, with pink walls and a white carpet, leading down to a door far at the other end. The tour group froze, just staring in awe.

“How on earth…” Logan mumbled, blinking.

“Come on, we’re almost at our first tour stop!” Remus called, stepping into the next corridor, starting to wander down. As he did so, he seemed to… grow?

No, rather the corridor was getting smaller, Remus having to crouch as he reached the end.

“What is this, Duke? Some sort of fun house?” Romulus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Why, having fun?”

Romulus huffed. “I’m sick of this, Roman, we’re getting out of here…”

“Hey, remember, I said once you come in, there’s no going back. You have to keep going forward to get out.”

The tour group finally headed down the corridor, ducking and crouching as it gradually shrunk around them. Once they’d all reached the end, Remus patted the very small door behind him.

“This is the single most important room in the whole factory. It’s the heart of the operation. I’ve never shown anyone else this room before. You’ll be the first to see it.”

Patton bounced excitedly, while his mother frowned. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to fit through there…”

“Oh, don’t worry, madam, you will,” Remus reassured, flicking a panel of the door down and revealing a small keyboard. He played a small tune - one Thomas recognised as being in many Duke chocolate TV commercials - and there was a click as the door unlocked. “Try not to get overexcited, okay? As much as I love chaos, we don’t want any accidents.” He pushed open the door.

The door that was suddenly large enough for the whole group to walk through at once. They followed Remus, stepping over the threshold, only to almost immediately freeze at the sight before them.

Chapter Text

A meadow. A gorgeous meadow with lush green grass. There were all sorts of trees and plants, all bright colours and unusual and fun shapes. And through the middle of the meadow ran a thick, creamy brown river, flowing from a waterfall, down through to a tunnel in the wall. The ceiling was glass, sunlight from outside streaming in and coating the room in a beautiful golden glow. A strong sweet scent hovered in the air, and the five children all immediately felt very hungry as they caught it.

“Welcome to the Chocolate Room!” Remus announced, leading the group further into the room, towards the open centre past most of the trees. “Everything you see here - every flower, every tree, every single blade of grass, even the birds you can hear singing - is edible. You can eat everything you see! Except each other, of course. Unless cannibalism is your thing… But anyway, here we harvest and collect some of the more classic candies that we sell. As well as that, we have the single most important thing in the factory: the chocolate river! This is where all the milk chocolate we use in the factory comes from. The waterfall is most important, the secret as to how we make our chocolate taste so good. It mixes it up, making it light and frothy. It’s my secret method for making it taste so good. No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall.”

As he explained, he led the tour group further into the room, walking on a rock candy path closer to the river. Thomas pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t. This candy paradise was real…

“Now, I figured to start off our tour, I’d let you all have a little fun,” Remus grinned, turning to face the tour group. “You can all feel free to wander and explore this room, and try whatever candy you would like!”

“Really?!” Patton gasped, eyes practically sparkling.

“Mhm! Eat whatever you’d like. The only boundary is that you’re not allowed to have any chocolate from the river. Apart from that, you can all go wild.”

Patton grabbed Thomas’ hand, “Come on! There’s so much we have to try!”

Thomas giggled a little as he was practically dragged, “Okay, okay, I’m coming!”, before eagerly following Patton away.

The other three children didn’t hesitate to run off as well, heading towards what most looked appetising to them. Roman ran towards a patch of lollipops that were growing from the ground like flowers. He knelt in the grass, before plucking a pink lollipop from the ground, and happily licking it. Logan, on the other hand, headed towards a patch of candy pumpkins, breaking one open to reveal it was full of jam. Before digging in, he pulled his wad of gum from his mouth, sticking it behind his ear. Virgil was the only one who didn’t run, just walking away as he slipped his headphones back on and pulling out his phone.

Thomas just stared around himself in awe as he wandered through the room with Patton, following a path into the trees. He had no idea where to start, everything looked so tasty! Maybe that cotton candy tree by the river? Oh, or he could taste the candy cane arches over the section of path over there!

While Thomas was overwhelmed by the amount of choice, Patton was embracing it. He was trying every single candy they walked past, even down to the grass on the ground, which held a distinct minty taste. His shirt, hands and around his mouth were already messy and stained with chocolate, cream and caramel.

He was in the middle of eating a chocolate choux bun that he’d picked from a bush, when he let out a gasp, dropping it. “Thomas, look! Giant gummy bears!”

He took Thomas’ hand again, pulling him over to a tree from which the oversized confections were hanging. The two boys shared an excited glance, before jumping up and grabbing bears, pulling them down. Patton immediately dug in with no hesitation, while Thomas took a smaller, slower bite from the gummy bear’s ear.

And oh goodness. It was delicious. Sweet, with a fruity strawberry taste, a practical explosion of flavour in his mouth. He chewed slowly, savouring it like he would his single birthday chocolate bar.

He took a couple more bites, humming happily, while Patton had already very quickly polished his off. “Mm, that was great! Come on, let's go find more stuff to try!”

“Mm!” Thomas nodded, swallowing his current bite and putting the partially eaten gummy bear down. 

The two continued wandering, Patton still picking and eating, while Thomas tried to find something else that caught his eye. Eventually, his eyes landed on something that looked particularly delicious: in a small ditch, a tree growing candy apples! He ran over, stepping into the ditch and reaching the apple that had the most sweet candy coating-

Only for another hand to suddenly snatch it from the branch before he could take it.

He turned, finding Logan standing above him out of the ditch. “Guess you should’ve been a little faster,” Logan smirked, before smugly taking a bite of the candy apple.

“Hey, no fair! That was Thomas’!” Patton frowned, jogging over.

“He didn’t touch it, and I got it first,” Logan shrugged, turning to walk away. He raised the apple, going to take another bite-

“Logan! What have I told you about watching what you eat?” Anton had been trying to find his son, and quickly came over, frowning. “Gorging yourself on that jam was enough, you don’t need any more. Just because we’re in a chocolate factory doesn’t mean you get to let yourself go and have all this sugar.”

Logan dropped the apple to the floor, seeming to shrink a little under his father’s stare. “Sorry, pa. I won’t eat anymore.”

Anton nodded, “Good. Remember, your focus has to entirely be on winning that prize at the end.”

“I know, pa, I understand.”

Anton, still frowning a little, nodded before turning and walking away, snatching a candy apple for himself as he went.

There was a moment of silence, before Logan glanced over at Thomas and Patton, seeing them staring from where they were in the ditch. “What are you looking at?”

“Your dad doesn’t seem very nice…” Thomas climbed out of the ditch, stepping closer to Logan. “You put a lot of effort into finding a ticket, it seems unfair you aren’t allowed to enjoy the reward.”

“Yeah,” Patton followed. “There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself.”

Logan stepped back, glaring a bit. “He’s making sure I stay healthy, like a good parent should. Better than your mom, letting you become an overgrown butterball,” he snapped, before turning and walking away. As he went, he took his gum from behind his ear, putting it back in his mouth.

Thomas frowned, watching him go, before hearing a small sniffle. Patton’s fists were balled tight, his eyes a little watery. “Patton, are you alright? Don’t listen to Logan, he was-”

“I’m fine! Don’t worry about me!” Patton reassured, a bright smile being forced onto his face - though his fists were still balled, knuckles white. “H-hey, um, I’m gonna go have another one of those gummy bears. You can keep going and trying other stuff in the room, don’t wait up for me, okay?”

“Oh, okay…”

“See you later!” Patton turned, quickly hurrying off before Thomas could say any more.

Thomas sighed a little. Patton was clearly upset… Thomas wanted to go after him, but he didn’t want to put pressure on the other boy. He’d give him some space for a bit and check on him later.

In the meantime, exploring the room wouldn’t be as fun on his own… Thomas decided to go and find Larry; he was probably trying to find where Thomas went anyway.

Thomas followed the path the way he came, leaving the small clearing he was in, and going back towards the open centre of the room. As he stepped out from the trees, his eyes glanced around the room, trying to spy Larry. It seemed, however, that Larry and the other parents were all preoccupied, talking with Remus. Thomas didn’t want to interrupt the grown ups…

Instead, his eyes landed on Roman. He was still sitting in the patch of lollipop flowers, though he seemed to have collected a pile of other candies and treats that were now gathered next to him. Well, Thomas guessed it was more likely Roman’s father who collected the treats for him.

Thomas went over, stepping into the patch of flowers, “Hello,” before sitting down besides Roman.

Roman looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s the fatty?”

“ Patton hung back to try some more candy.” Thomas pulled a lollipop from the ground to try. “You shouldn’t call him mean names.”

“It’s not mean, it’s just true. He is fat.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. Logan already made fun of him, don’t make him more upset…”

“Well, he’s not here right now, is he?” Roman gestured around them vaguely. “He’s not gonna hear what I say.” He turned back to Thomas, finding the other boy giving him a hard stare. “... Ugh, fine, I’ll be nicer.”

“Good.” Thomas smiled. He popped his lollipop in his mouth, sighing a little as he looked around the room.

It was so peaceful here… Hearing the chirping of chocolate birds, the rushing of the waterfall; smelling the delicious sweet chocolatey scent; looking at the beautiful pastel colour of all the candy… Thomas almost felt like he was in heaven.

“You two having fun?”

Thomas jumped at the sudden voice, turning to see Remus standing behind him and Roman.

“Jeez, you didn’t need to sneak up on us…” Roman muttered as Remus sat down in the grass too.

“Life is full of surprises, kid. If you can’t handle a little jumpscare, you’ve gotta learn to. So, what’s the answer to my question: are you two having fun? I saw Logan and that Virgil kid looking kinda miserable. And here I thought kids liked candy…”

Thomas nodded. “I’m definitely having fun! This room is amazing, Mr Duke!”

Remus grinned. “Glad someone’s enjoying it. I was just talking to all your parents, and god they are boring! It’s all ‘what’s the point, why make a room like this when you could just make candy the normal way, how does it make you more money?’ They don’t get it.”

“Get what?” Roman asked.

“ It . The fact that nothing needs a point. The fact there’s some things we feel we need to do, not really for any reason, but just because it’s second nature. I mean, that’s where fun comes from. You two get it, right?”

“I guess I kind of do…” Roman hummed. “Acting and performing is kind of like that for me. But it’s also so I can become famous and make a lot of money when I’m grown up! Then I can buy whatever I want.”

“That’s the exact issue! Adults get in your head! They tell you that you’ve got to have all these big goals of success and money and stuff… I never got it.” Remus turned to Thomas. “I was a bit like you as a kid. Orphan, poor… It frustrated me how I was expected to pick myself up by my bootstraps, spend all my time working and saving to get myself out of the pit I was put in by chance. I didn’t want that, I just wanted to fuck around. Make weird candy and have fun.”

Thomas nodded, ignoring the chocolatier’s bad language. He knew the exact feeling: he’d used to have more free time for hobbies before he got the job doing the paper round.

“But you did work to become super successful and rich?” Roman said, frowning. “Isn’t that hypocritical?”

“Never meant to. My passion just ended up getting profitable. I got lucky, and it just kind of happened,” Remus shrugged. “I know people say I am, but I’m not at all special. There are probably a lot of people who could do exactly what I do if they got the chance.”

“You really think so?” Thomas asked. “I mean, the stuff you make is so cool, it seems impossible! I don’t think anyone else could do it.”

“Nah. Hell, I bet one of you kids could probably do it. You haven’t had your spirit crushed yet, you’ve probably still got tons of fun ideas swimming in those brains of yours.”

Thomas blinked, eyes practically sparkling. Remus really thought he had the potential to create things as wonderful as this? That was-

“What is that?!” Roman had zoned out of the conversation at some point, but now he abruptly stood up, pointing at something on the other side of the river. “It looks like a tiny person!”

His yell had been loud enough to get the attention of the rest of the tour group, who all wandered over to see what he was pointing at. Logan was still following his dad’s orders, not eating anything and just chewing his gum, while Virgil was eating a licorice stick, and Patton…

Was strangely absent, not coming over with the rest of the group. Thomas could only assume he was too far away to have heard.

“What are we looking at?” Logan asked, adjusting his glasses and narrowing his eyes.

“In that tree there, look!” Roman pointed.

And there, right where he was pointing, was a person, about the size of a porcelain doll. They wore a uniform consisting of an orange t-shirt, black gloves, and green overalls, which had a ‘D’ logo on the front. They had brown hair, and their eyes were an unnatural orange colour. They were picking gumballs from the tree they were sitting in, dropping the colourful balls down into a basket held by another identical person.

The longer the tour group stared, the more of the tiny people they could see around the room. All were working, harvesting and collecting candy.

“How are they so small?”

“Where do they come from?”

“What are they?”

“They’re my workers,” Remus said nonchalantly. “Figured the uniforms would have made that obvious…”

“I thought you fired all your workers?” Larry asked.

“Yeah, and I made new ones. You didn’t think I could run this entire place by myself, did you?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “ Made new ones?”

“Yeah, they’re robots. But I call them Oompa Loompas, it’s more fun to say. I couldn’t trust human workers to not spread all my secret recipes, so I created ones programmed just to work for me that can’t share any secrets. Plus, now there’s no human error or employee casualties, so everything runs a lot more efficiently.”

Now that the group looked closer, there were visible signs that the workers were artificial. As they moved, there were slight whirring noises. Their ‘skin’ was shiny like metal, and there were visible gaps between plates around their joints.

“You actually created robots… that’s amazing!” Logan sounded genuinely curious and excited for the first time all day. “They seem so advanced. I mean, their movements are so human-like.”

“Yeah, it took a loooot of prototypes to perfect them. I made them that small just so it’d take less materials per Oompa Loompa and I could make enough of them for the whole factory.”

“You aren’t afraid of their AI becoming too intelligent, and them forming a coup to take you down?” Virgil asked.

“Nope. The thought did occur to me, so I made sure to not make them sentient enough for that. They’re the perfect workers. And they can sing and dance to provide entertainment too-”

Harley suddenly interrupted Remus. “Patton, I don’t think you should be doing that!"

Chapter Text

“Mr Duke said you’re not allowed to do that!”

The tour group turned, looking in the direction Harley was calling. Further down the river, keeling on a particularly steep part of the bank, Patton was leaning over, reaching his hand into the liquid chocolate and scooping handfuls up to his mouth. His eyes were red, skin around them puffy and wet. He’d clearly been crying recently. But now he was just gulping down mouthfuls of chocolate. The delicious taste and satisfying fullness in his stomach were comforting. It made him feel better.

He didn’t want to stop.

“Hey, get away from there!” Remus ran over to Patton, a worried look on his face. “My chocolate can’t be touched by human hands, you’ll get your germs all in it! I don’t wanna deal with a bunch of lawsuits if I give people food poisoning, lawsuits are boring… Ugh, I’m going to have to dump this whole batch…”

Patton either wasn’t listening or just ignored Remus, scooping up another mouthful of chocolate and hungrily drinking.

“Patton, listen to Mr Duke.” Harley put her hands on her hips, tone turning stern. “Come away from the river at once.”

“But it tastes so nice…” Patton reached for more, leaning further forward.

“Well, I guess the batch is already ruined…” Remus huffed, before muttering under his breath, “Jan is gonna be so mad at me…”

Patton leaned even further, desperate to scoop up more of the chocolatey goodness…

Only for his knee to slip from the bank. Instantly, his stability was thrown off, and he went tumbling forward. “Ah!” He dropped into the chocolate river with a loud splash.

“Pat!” Harley cried out.

After a moment, Patton’s head broke from the water. He gasped for breath, and began thrashing his arms and legs, desperately trying to stay afloat in the thick heavy liquid. “H-help!”

Harley turned to Remus. “He can’t swim, you have to get him out of there!”

Remus sighed. “Fine, fine…” He started to shrug off his coat. “Either we take a detour after this, or I’ll have to spend the rest of the tour covered in chocolate-”

“What’s that?” Roman suddenly spoke up, pointing up to the ceiling. On a rail hanging across the room was a strange contraption: what seemed to be a vat, and from it a large glass pipe was descending towards the river below.

“Ah…” Remus pulled his coat back on. “That is one of the many pipes that run in an intricate system around the factory. They suck up the chocolate from here, and then carry it away all around the factory to whatever rooms need it.”

Thomas’ eyes widened in horror. Patton was going to be sucked up the pipe if he stayed in there!

He quickly glanced around the room, before his eyes landed on a large licorice vine hanging from a nearby tree. He ran over, grabbing it and pulling it down, before hurrying back to the river bank. He threw one end of the vine out to Patton, while holding tightly to the other end. “Patton, grab it and hold on tight!”

Patton did so, legs still kicking frantically as he tried to keep his head above the chocolate. As soon as he was sure Patton had a secure hold on the vine, Thomas began to pull.

However, Thomas wasn’t strong, Patton certainly wasn’t light, and the heaviness of the liquid chocolate was weighing him down further. Patton barely moved as Thomas tugged with all of his might.

Larry grabbed the vine as well, and once she realised what they were doing, Harley took hold of it too. She pulled the vine as hard as she possibly could, desperate to rescue her son. But none of the other tour members tried to help.

Patton started to be dragged back towards the bank, but not fast enough. It was too little too late as unfortunately, behind him, the pipe finally reached the surface of the river, plunging inside.

There was a pause - and then the vacuum started. It was extremely powerful, the pipe immediately sucking chocolate up into the vat, as well as pulling Patton back away from the river bank. Thomas tried his best to tug against the pull to no luck. The vine slipped from Patton’s fingers, and he let out a small scream of fear, which was cut off as he was dragged by the force of the pipe under the surface.

“Patton!” Harley cried in horror. “He’ll drown! You have to turn off that pipe right now!”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Remus shrugged. “I’m sure he won’t drown. I bet we’ll see him alive and well going through that pipe any second now…”

At that exact moment, there was a muffled scream as Patton appeared inside of the glass pipe, shooting up through it.

“It’s a wonder that the pipe's big enough…” Linda mumbled.

“It's not,” Logan said. “Look, he’s slowing down.”

The speed of Patton’s ascent started to decrease, until he squeaked to a very abrupt stop, stomach firmly plugging up the pipe. He wiggled desperately in place, but with his arms pinned by his side, he made little progress in freeing himself.

“Yep, he’s stuck…” Roman said.

“H-help! Please! Get me out of here!” Patton’s muffled voice cried, tears welling in his wide, scared eyes. He kicked against the walls of the pipe, but the glass was far too thick for it to break.

“You have to do something! Break the pipe or something!” Harley begged the chocolatier.

“That’s some of the most expensive and important equipment in the factory, I can’t break it!” Remus looked offended by the mere suggestion. “Look, the kid will be absolutely fine. Right now, an enormous amount of pressure is building up in that pipe. It won’t be long until it’s enough to send him shooting through, and then we will take things from there. All we have to do now is wait.” He looked back up at the pipe. “The suspense is terrible… I hope it’ll last.”

“Wait?! I can’t just stand here and wait!”

“Well, then, feel free to jump in after him - unless you’d rather you’d not get stuck too?” Remeus said sarcastically.

“What’s that noise…?” Virgil suddenly spoke up, frowning.

The tour group paused, listening carefully. They could hear a gradually increasing collection of noises, creating a sort of rhythm. It was made up of robotic whirrs, shaking of trees, stamping feet, humming voices. It was coming from all around the room. As the group glanced around, they could see the Oompa Loompas gathering closer. They seemed almost amused, some of them giggling as they looked up at the boy trapped in the pipe.

“What are they doing?” Logan asked.

“I said earlier, they’re also programmed to sing and dance. Adds a little bit more fun to the work day,” Remus said. “I think they might be about to give us a private performance.”

“Doesn’t exactly seem like an appropriate time…” Larry muttered.

Remus just grinned. “I don’t think there’s ever an inappropriate time for a song.”

Before anything more could be said, the Oompa Loompas burst into song.

“Oompa loompa doompety doo
I've got a perfect puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

What do you get when you guzzle down sweets?
Eating as much as an elephant eats
What are you at, getting terribly fat?
What do you think will come of that?

I don't like the look of it!

Oompa loompa doompety da
If you're not greedy, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa Doompety do

Doompety do!”

Remus applauded as the song came to a close, and a couple of the Oompa Loompas bowed. Harley, however, looked fuming. “How dare they make fun of my baby boy! He is in danger, and your workers decide to ridicule him instead of trying to help him! This is an outrage-!”

“They will help him,” Remus interrupted. “There’s nothing wrong with a song to pass the time while we wait for him to come unstuck.”

“How did they all know the lyrics?” Virgil looked up at Remus, frowning. “Seemed like it was something they’d rehearsed…”

“Eh, they’re robots. It’s probably just some hivemind programming or whatever,” Remus shrugged.

“You made them, shouldn’t you know how they-”

POP!

The tour group turned back to the river as a muffled scream rang out. Patton was once again shooting up the pipe, the pressure finally having reached its apex. It didn’t take long at all for him to reach the top, pulled into the vat and out of the view of the tour group.

Not long after, the suction of the pipe stopped. The pipe started to retract, lifting out from the river, and back up towards the ceiling. Once the pipe had fully retracted, the whole contraption started to slide away on the rail, disappearing through a hole in the wall. As it went, banging could be heard from inside the vat, Patton’s voice distantly calling for help.

Harley was visibly shaking from nervousness. “Where is that thing taking him?”

“That pipe goes to, hm…” Remus hummed in thought, before perking up as he remembered. “Ah, I’m pretty sure that one goes to the Fudge Room!”

Harley’s face paled. “Oh god, my son is going to be made into fudge?!”

“What? No?” Remus blinked. “I mean, maybe I’d give it a try, but I don’t think most of the public would want to eat human flavoured fudge. I don’t think I’d be able to market it effectively without lying, and I don’t want to get sued for that! As I said earlier, lawsuits are boring as hell. Nah, we’ll get him out easy peasy.”

He raised his fingers to his mouth, whistling loudly. In response, an Oompa Loompa came running over. Remus leant down, crouching to meet the worker’s height. “Hey, I need you to take Mrs Gloop here to the Fudge Room to rescue her son. He should be in the mixing barrel - if you fish around enough, you’ll probably find him. But you gotta be quick, don’t leave it so long he gets poured into the fudge boiler, okay?”

“Fudge boiler?!” Harley cried.

“As I said, we’ll get him, he’ll be fine.” Remus stood back up straight, and as he did so, pulled a phone from his pocket. “Now go with the Oompa Loompa - the sooner you go, the sooner he’ll be rescued.”

The Oompa Loompa offered their hand to Harley, speaking in their slightly robotic tone, “I’ll make sure you’re both okay, ma’am.”

Harley hesitated, before sighing. She took the Oompa Loompa’s hand, following the short robot away from the rest of the group, and away through the trees.

“Bye, Mrs Gloop!” Remus called, finishing whatever he was doing on his phone, and then slipping it back into his pocket. He looked up at the tour group. “Right, well it looks like we have one disobedient child gone, four good children left. Let’s keep this tour moving, shall we? After that incident, I think it’s time for a change of scenery.”

Remus started leading the group further down the river. Virgil blinked, raising an eyebrow, “Wait, the tour isn’t being cancelled after that?”

“Why would it be?” Remus shrugged. “The kid was greedy, he ate something I explicitly told him not to. It’s not fair if the tour is ruined for everyone else because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. I trust my workers to rescue that kid while we keep having fun. So onto the next room we go!”

“So Patton definitely won’t be boiled into fudge?” Thomas was still concerned, fidgeting with his sleeves.

“He’ll be absolutely fine. If anything, this might act as a lesson and teach him a little something about not being too greedy. But enough worrying about that, it’s time for us to move on. And I think our transport will be here any second now…”

Chapter Text

Remus stepped onto a small dock, the planks seemingly made from sturdy rock candy. “Ah ha! Yep, here it comes!”

The waterfall of chocolate suddenly stopped flowing for a moment, revealing that behind it was a hidden cave.  And from within the darkness of the cave, something began to emerge: a large, hot pink viking-style boat. It was being rowed by rows of Oompa Loompas, programmed so their oars moved perfectly in time.

The boat drifted up to the dock, coming to a stop right by it. The Oompa Loompas inside turned, looking curiously up at the tour group - and then they burst into whispers and giggles amongst each other.

“What’s so funny?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow as he noticed a few of them looking and pointing at him in particular.

Remus just shrugged. “They’re probably just intrigued, they don’t meet to many humans after all. Now, all aboard! We have to get going if we want to stay on schedule!” He stepped into the back of the boat, where there were a few empty rows. He sat down on the bench right at the back.

Logan went to step on next - only to find himself pushed back by Roman, who hopped on. “Hey, watch it!” Logan glared.

“Should have been faster, Book Germ.” Roman smirked as he sat down in the front-most free row with his father.

Logan sat in the row just behind, folding his arms and glaring at the back of Roman’s head, while his father sat beside him. Virgil and Linda then sat in the row behind Logan and Anton, and Thomas and Larry were left to join Remus on the back row.

“Everyone aboard? Great!” Remus called to the Oompa Loompas. “Row on!”

The Oompa Loompas resumed their rowing, the boat pushing away from the dock and continuing down the river. It was very peaceful, gently moving forward, getting a brand new view of the room around them. Thomas smiled, running his hand across the side of the boat. It was a strange, but familiar texture “Wait… is this boat made of candy?”

“Yup!” Remus grinned. “Carved right out of a giant boiled candy. It’s a surprisingly stable material.”

“I want a candy boat just like this!” Roman looked up at his father, a hard state on his face. “You have to get me one, daddy!”

Romulus sighed. “Yes, my prince, I’ll make sure of it…”

“And I want an Oompa Loompa too, get me an Oompa Loompa after-!”

“Can’t you shut up and stop screaming for five minutes?” Logan snapped. 

Virgil went to slip his headphones back on, in the hopes of drowning out the argument likely to break out… only to pause. He glanced around, counting to himself, before frowning. “Hold on. There’s not enough seats…”

“What was that?” Remus asked. “I’m a little deaf, you gotta speak louder, kid.”

“On this boat, there’s not enough seats.”

“We’ve all fit on it, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, no, we all do. But there wouldn’t have been enough room for Patton and his mom if they were here too.”

Remus hummed. “Oh well, I guess poor planning on my part. Guess things worked out pretty good.” Before Virgil could say any more, Remus changed the topic, calling out, “Now, who wants refreshments?” He leaned down, opening a small hatch by his feet and pulling out four mugs. “Since this whole batch of chocolate needs to be trashed anyways, we may as well enjoy it.”

He leaned over the side of the boat, scooping up chocolate into the mugs, before handing each one out to the four children. Unsurprisingly, Roman took the first one, then Logan, then Virgil, then Thomas.

Roman happily gulped his mug down. Logan had his mug almost immediately taken from his hands by Anton, who gave him a hard stare, before drinking it himself. Virgil just handed his mug to Linda, given he didn’t even like chocolate.

Thomas took a gulp from his mug, eyes practically sparkling as soon as the chocolate hit his tongue. It was so delicious and creamy and comforting - he could feel it warming his stomach once he swallowed it down.

“You have to try this, it’s amazing!” He held the mug out to Larry, who shook his head.

“No, kiddo, that’s all yours.”

“I’m not drinking any more until you try a bit.”

Larry sighed, smiling. “Okay, okay…” He took the mug, taking a small sip. “Hm. That is very good.” He handed it back to Thomas, who happily drank the rest.

Logan glanced between Roman and Thomas drinking their chocolate rather jealously. He sighed, fidgeting and blowing a bubble with his gum to distract himself. Only to blink, sucking the bubble back in as he looked ahead. “Um, Mr Duke? Are we supposed to be heading towards that tunnel? It looks very dark…”

“Hm?” Remus sat up, looking ahead. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. In fact, lets pick up the speed a bit, shall we?” He called the last part so the Oompa Loompas could hear, and they began to pick up a little bit of speed.

The boat passed the threshold of the tunnel, leaving the bright light of the Chocolate Room and into the total darkness. Logan squinted, adjusting his glasses, “It’s so dark… How can the Oompa Loompas see where we’re going?”

Remus grinned. “There’s no knowing where we’re rowing.” Then, his tone turned almost slightly sinister as the light of the tunnel opening disappeared behind them.

“There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a–blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a–glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing.”

The moment the final word left his mouth, the boat suddenly tipped forward. It drastically picked up speed as it cascaded down a drop. Screams rang out from the boat, with the exception of Remus, who whooped and hollered excitedly.

When the boat reached the bottom of the drop, it didn’t slow down, continuing its swift journey through chocolate rapids. Now, however, there were rainbow lights illuminating the tunnel. Thomas couldn’t help but laugh and join in Remus’ whoops. This was basically a log flume like at a theme park!

The other children didn’t seem to share the same sentiment. Virgil was gripping onto the bench and side of the boat like his life depended on it, feeling his heart thudding like a million beats a second. Roman had grabbed onto his father’s arm, screaming any time there was a small drop or a splash of chocolate in his direction.

“Why don’t you have any seatbelts or harnesses on this thing?!” Logan yelled, also gripping the seat as the lights above flashed blue, indigo, violet, then back to red.

“Because that’s no fun! What’s life without a little danger?” Remus called back.

The parents didn’t seem that fond of the ride either. Larry was keeping a firm grip on Thomas’ shoulders, not wanting him to risk falling out. Linda was leaning over the side of the boat, face pale. “Oh god, I’m gonna be seasick…”

“Here!” Remus reached into his pocket, taking out a small candy. He handed it to Linda. “It’s a rainbow drop, suck it and you can spit in seven different colours. Also good at relieving nausea.”

“Oh, um, thank you.”

“No problem. Now we’ve got one last drop coming up, so everyone hold on tight!”

Roman groaned. “Oh, no, please not another o- AAAAAH!” His sentence turned into a scream as the boat once again darted downwards.

At the end of this drop, the boat abruptly slowed down, returning back to the gentle pace. Remus sighed, grinning, “Ah, nothing like a little adrenaline and blood pumping to make you feel alive…”

The tunnel around them opened up, revealing a wide cavern, various large round doors in the walls with docks in front of them. Once they’d recovered from the extreme boat ride, the tour group looked curiously at the signs above the doors they passed.

DESSERT ISLAND

SHAVED ICE RINK

WHIPPED CREAM MADE WITH ACTUAL WHIPS

JELLO TRAMPOLINES

DRAGON DROPS: CANDIES THAT MAKE YOU BREATHE FIRE

SQUARE SWEETS THAT LOOK ROUND

“Stop the boat!” Remus suddenly called to the Oompa Loompas. “Pull up at that dock right there. That’s our next stop on the tour.”

The group looked in the direction he was pointing, the boat heading towards a particularly secure looking door. The sign above it read:

‘THE INVENTING ROOM’.

Chapter Text

“Now!” Remus turned around to face the tour group, all of them now  standing on the dock outside of the Inventing Room. “This is the second most important room in the entire factory. If the Chocolate Room is the heart and soul of the business, this room is the brain. This is where all my brand new innovations originate. Everything in here is never-before-seen, and is currently being tested and adapted. Once perfected, most of the candies in this room will get their own production rooms and hit store shelves! With the exception of any we decide to scrap, of course. Until then, they’re worked on in here. Now, there are some rules before we go in, and I want you to pay close attention:

“Rule One: No touching. There are a lot of fragile and potentially dangerous machines here. We don’t want to risk either them or you getting broken or hurt. As well as that, you aren’t allowed to take anything from this room, unless you are given express permission.

“Rule Two: No tasting. As I said, everything in this room is still being worked on, nothing is perfected. A majority of the things in here have issues which mean they are currently unfit for human consumption. Unlike the Chocolate Room, you aren’t allowed to roam free. I will be guiding you around, to make sure none of you eat anything you’re not supposed to. If you do, the consequences are your own fault.

“And Rule Three: No telling. Everything you see in here is top secret. My competitors would cut all their fingers off just for a chance to look around for five minutes. You cannot repeat or share a single thing you see in this room to anyone outside of the factory. Do you understand?”

The group all nodded.

“Excellent! Then let's head on in.” Remus turned around, punching a code into a keypad next to the large round door. When he pressed enter, there was a loud click and thunk, and the door swung open.

The Inventing Room was essentially an absurdly large laboratory - specifically, a laboratory owned by a mad scientist. Metal industrial floors, light purple walls, with machines, pots and vats as far as the eye could see. Hanging from the ceiling were catwalks that some Oompa Loompas were walking on to access the tops of the tall machines. Mechanical whirrs and hums echoed through the room. It seemed like quite the unorganised mess at a first look, but Remus began to lead the way through the room, clearly knowing it like the back of his hand.

The tour group gazed around curiously as they wandered through the chaotic room. Logan looked particularly intrigued, eyes almost sparkling as he looked up at the complex machinery surrounding them.

“Each one of these machines is used to make a completely brand new and unique candy. That window you see over there leads to the Testing Room!” Remus raised his cane, pointing to the right wall. “Oompa Loompas take shifts in rotation waiting in there for candies to be brought over and passed through the window. They give it a taste test, and the results and feedback are observed and recorded. Oh! It looks like something’s about to be tested now, why don’t we go take a look?”

The tour group followed him, gathering around the window to the Testing Room - there was a small scuffle between Roman and Logan to get the  spot at the front  for the best view. 

The Oompa Loompa on the Inventing Room side passed a round red candy through the gap in the window, the other Oompa Loompa in the Testing Room taking it. They pushed the candy in their mouth, chewing it. They hummed, nodding. It must have tasted pretty nice-

BOOM!

The Oompa Loompa suddenly was blasted back into the wall behind them, coughing smoke from their mouth.

“Exploding candy for your enemies,” Remus explained to the surprised tour members, grinning. “Looking pretty good!” He looked down at the Oompa Loompa on the Inventing Room side. “Still needs a bit more of a kick to it, though, not quite powerful enough yet.”

The Oompa Loompa nodded, “Yes, sir!”. They noted his feedback down in their notebook, before hurrying off.

Remus led the tour group away from the window again, glancing around the room, trying to see what to show off next. The question was answered for him when Logan curiously asked, “Mr Duke, what’s this?”

He was standing by a particularly large vat full of a very viscous purple liquid. A tube led from the vat to a smaller machine, which was currently inactive.

“Oh, this is hair toffee!” Remus pressed a button on the machine, which dispensed a purple cube, which he picked up. “Eat it, and it causes your hair to grow! Perfect for those who want to try a new style, try a moustache or beard, and it even works for those with baldness that seems incurable!”

“Why haven’t you released it yet?” Larry asked.

“Well, um… let’s just say it’s pretty overpowered right now…”  Remus scratched the back of his head. “The last Oompa Loompa that tested it ended up with hair so long it basically obscured him completely. And that’s not even the worst: the test before that, the Oompa Loompa’s hair wouldn’t stop growing at all, and until we found an antidote, we had to just keep using a lawnmower to keep his hair in control. So this one is still on the drawing board…”

He pocketed the purple cube to keep it out of reach of any of the tour members - better safe than sorry. “Well, after that, how about I show you a couple of our more successful candies? There’s a couple that are very close to perfection, you will probably even be able to try them.”

He led the tour group a little bit further into the room, going over to a rail holding up… what seemed to be a normal sheet of wallpaper? It had a pattern of different fruits across it, but otherwise looked unusually normal.

“This is lickable wallpaper! We made it with the intent that it’d be perfect for nursery walls, but hey, anyone could want a nice sweet boost easily available on their walls. Each fruit picture tastes exactly like the fruit in question - no disgusting artificial flavouring. It’s not ready to sell yet because the flavour eventually fades away, and we want to get it to last forever. But it’s not dangerous, so you can all feel free to give it a try!”

Roman pushed forward first, licking a print of a cherry on the wall. Logan followed, taking his gum from his mouth before licking a print of a pile of berries, while Thomas licked on orange. The parents followed suit, equally curious. Virgil was the only one who didn’t lick the wall, wincing in disgust as he watched the others doing so. Instead, he slipped his headphones back on, pulling out his phone.

“It tastes perfect!” Thomas smiled, pulling away from the wall.

Remus grinned. “Yep!  We made it as accurate as possible. The blueberries taste just like blueberries, the strawberries taste exactly like strawberries, the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.”

“Snozzberry?” Roman blinked. “What’s a snozzberry?”

“A fruit, duh.”

“I’ve never heard of that before…” Logan frowned, clearly sceptical.

“Guess you’re not as smart as you think you are then,” Remus shrugged, causing Logan’s face to flush in embarrassment. Roman snickered, earning a sharp glare from the other boy, who huffed as he put his gum back into his mouth.

“Now come on, I still have more to show you all in here! We need to move quickly to stay on schedule,” Remus called, walking away. 

He brought the tour group over to another… machine? Presumably it was a machine - it was covered in a tarp reading ‘TOP SECRET’ that obscured most of its features, with the exception of a thin conveyor belt sticking out. 

“Now this is the thing ol’ Slugworth would be itching to get his hands on.” Remus reached under the tarp, grabbing what seemed to be a lever and pulling it. Instantly, the machine sprung to life, making all sorts of strange loud noises as parts moved and jolted under the tarp.

The conveyor started to move, and soon from under the tarp appeared balls of candy, each one a different colour. The machine went quiet, shutting off, when four of the candies had been made.

“These,” Remus picked up one of them, “are Everlasting Gobstoppers.”

Thomas felt his breath catch in his throat. That’s what Slugworth had asked him to steal! He blinked, before noticing the other four children seemed to have a similar glint of recognition in their eyes. Virgil had even put his phone away again. Had Slugworth asked the same of them too…?

“I made them for people who don’t have money to buy lots of candy,” Remus continued. “You can suck on them all day, and they’ll never get any smaller! These have been in development for a very long time. For the longest time, we kept struggling with making them last longer than ten years, but finally a couple of weeks ago we perfected the recipe! We’re currently in the process of setting up a room to begin mass production, as well as creating marketing material for their announcement. In just a few months, they’ll be hitting the store shelves.”

Romulus raised an eyebrow. “Surely making something that lasts forever is a terrible business decision? I mean, if everyone only needs one, you won’t have a reliable returning customer base. You’ll practically be bleeding money.”

Remus sighed. “Again with the money talk… Look, you could make the same argument for the gum that never loses its flavour. Technically, it can last forever too. Do people only buy one and then never get another? No.” He paused, glancing at Logan for a second. “... Well, a majority of people don’t. No, they buy more, to try new flavours, or just to have something fresher. I’m sure it’ll be the same for the gobstoppers.

“Not to mention, I’m not making these for the money. I mean, even if the profits for these are in a deficit, I won’t be losing money overall, given literally everything else in my business is widely successful. And even if it would harm my business, I don’t care if it means that my candy is more accessible to people who can’t afford it. People deserve to always have some sweetness in their lives, regardless of how much money they have.”

Romulus blinked, visibly taken aback at the response.

“Now.” Remus’ tone almost instantly switched back to its usual upbeat tone. “Who wants a gobstopper to take home?”

“Me, I want one!”

“I do!”

“Sure...”

“Yes, please!”

Remus smiled, looking between the four children. “You promise to keep them for yourself and not show or give them to anyone until the product is officially released?”

Roman, Logan and Virgil all crossed their fingers behind their backs as they and Thomas nodded, “Promise!”

“Good. One for you…” Remus handed the one he was already holding to Roman. It was red, presumably a cherry or strawberry flavour.

“One for you.” The one he handed to Logan was blue, likely blueberry or blue raspberry.

“One for you.” Virgil’s was purple, most likely grape flavoured.

“And one for Thomas.” Remus gave the final gobstopper to Thomas, which was pink, probably raspberry.

Roman frowned at the single gobstopper in his hand, before seeming to perk up with an idea. He peered over Logan’s shoulder at the candy in his hand. “Hey, Logan’s got two, I want another!”

“No, I don’t! I only got one like the rest of you!”

“He’s lying, he has two! I saw it!”

“Hey, hey, both of you only have one, and one is enough for anyone,” Remus said before the argument could get any worse. “I only had the machine make four candies, no one has any extra.”

Roman pouted, annoyed his plan failed, putting his gobstopper in his pocket. The others all did the same, not one of them deciding to start sucking the candy right away.

“Well, now that I’ve warmed you all up with these inventions, it’s time for us to go to the main event. There’s one more machine I want to show you in this room, and it’s one I’m very proud of.” Remus once again began to lead the tour group through the room. “When I finally fix the issues with this one, it will change the world. It’ll be one of the greatest things I’ve ever made."

Chapter Text

Remus led the group to the large machine in the centre of the room, the largest of all of them. “Ta da!” he grinned, before he ran around the machine, biting his lip. “Button, button, where is the button…?” He huffed, mumbling under his breath. “Where’s Jan when you need him…?”

“Mr Duke! Is this the button you’re looking for?” Thomas was pointing at a bright red button in front of him, and Remus’ eyes lit up. 

“That’s the bitch!” He went over and slammed the button.

Immediately, the machine sprung to life. Whirrs, clangs and buzzes assaulted the hearing of the tour group; Roman gave Virgil an envious glare as the latter turned the music on his headphones up to muffle the sounds. There was a bubbling from the machine, and through a window in it, liquid could be seen fizzing as well as shifting between colours. First it was an orangey-red, then it faded to brown, and then it faded to indigo. The indigo colour stayed, the liquid bubbling and fizzing noticeably more violently. Then, all the liquid suddenly drained from that compartment, travelling down through the machine.

A couple of seconds later, the whole machine fell silent. The tour group was silent, excitedly anticipating what incredible candy this machine would dispense. There was a click, and a small drawer on the side of the machine opened. And inside…

A small pale white nondescript strip. Most of the tour members deflated a little upon seeing it.

“You mean that’s it?” Virgil raised an eyebrow, slipping off his headphones.

Remus, however, just scoffed. “Oh, kid… You don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s gum!” Logan pushed to the front of the group, right in front of the drawer, seeming to be the only one who wasn’t disappointed by the candy.

“Wrong!”

“Um… no I’m not. I’m never wrong, especially about this. I mean, I think we all know that I am quite the gum expert-”

“Ssh, deflate that big head of yours a little and let me finish.” Remus ignored the glare he received in response from Logan, continuing. “This isn’t just any normal strip of gum! This is the single greatest and most magnificent gum ever created.”

Logan looked back at his father for a moment, before turning back to Remus, his curiosity piqued and previous annoyance already gone. “What’s so amazing about it?”

“Glad you asked! This gum contains an entire three course meal. You chew it, you taste all three courses one by one, and it fills you up, gives you all the nutrients and energy that a meal does. I decided to make it after I realised I was accidentally skipping meals because I was working so long I didn’t have time to cook myself anything. Also, every time I’ve tried making myself a proper meal, I set fire to the kitchen… So I created this to allow people to have quick, easy, cheap and healthy meals no matter how busy their day may be, or how bad they are at cooking. Though I haven’t got it quite right yet. There’s still one or two things that need adjusting-”

As Remus was speaking, Logan had looked back at his father again. Anton leaned down and whispered in Logan’s ear, and the boy nodded. 

“I don’t care,” he declared loudly, interrupting the chocolatier. Before Remus could stop him, Logan reached out and took the strip of gum from the tray, and quickly walked back away from the rest of the group so no one could take it from him. “As long as it’s gum then that’s for me. And I’m extremely curious to see how well it works...”

“I really wouldn’t do that,” Remus warned, watching him as he went.

But Logan didn’t listen. He reached into his mouth and pulled out his record breaking wad of gum, sticking it behind his ear. Then, he stopped in an area of the room mostly clear of machines, before he popped the new stick of gum into his mouth.

The tour group didn’t hesitate in gathering around him, watching as he began to chew, interested in hearing if the gum was really all as amazing as Remus had claimed. Anton pulled his phone from his pocket, pushing past the group to get a good view of Logan, while holding his phone up and starting to record.

Remus huffed at the sight of the phone, but decided to prioritise the more severe rule being broken, looking to Logan. “Okay, kid, listen. When I say it’s ‘not quite right’, I don’t mean ‘one of the flavours is slightly off’. I mean you are seriously going to regret not spitting it out right now.”

Logan rolled his eyes, just continuing to chew. “It’s a stick of gum, it can’t do anything that-” He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening and his chewing slowing down. “Oh my gosh… This is amazing! It’s tomato soup, and I can feel it running down my throat! It’s like I’m actually eating it! This is fascinating...”

“I’d really spit it out if I were you...” Remus had already seemed to realise it was a lost cause, as his words were now flat and bored. He was more so saying it out of obligation now, but it seemed Logan’s father didn’t appreciate his words anyway.

Anton scoffed, turning to his son. “Don’t listen to him, Logan, keep on chewing. I think the first person in the world to have a chewing gum meal would be a pretty impressive title to add onto, well, your numerous other ones. And I’ll post this video later to let everyone see…”

Logan beamed proudly at the words, only to be distracted as his eyes lit up again. “It’s changing! Roast beef, with baked potato. Mm, it’s really buttery…”

“Great, you know it works,” Remus shrugged. “Now spit it out.”

“No way, I want to see what dessert is like!”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

Thomas frowned at the interaction between the two of them, before looking up at Larry and whispering. “Why isn’t Logan listening to Mr Duke?”

Larry leant down and whispered back, “Because, Thomas, he’s a nitwit.” Thomas frowned even more in response. Not the nicest of answers for his carer to give.

“Here comes dessert!” Logan’s exclamation caused Remus to sigh in resignation. “Mm, blueberry pie and ice cream! This is the best blueberry pie I’ve ever tasted! I might even like it more than blueberry Crofters, and that’s saying something-”

Roman suddenly interrupted, “What’s happening to his nose?”

As Logan had been gushing about the flavour of the gum, something strange had started happening. A very small blue dot had appeared on the very tip of his nose, and as everyone watched, it slowly spread, getting bigger.

“It’s turning blue!” Romulus said, eyebrows furrowing. Everyone looked to Remus. However, the chocolatier did nothing but sigh.

“Welp, guess it was about time I did a human test and not an Oompa Loompa one.” He dug into his coat and pulled out a notebook and pen. He flicked the notebook open and started writing, muttering. “Wonder if the affects’ll be more or less severe…”

Logan looked between everyone in confusion, completely unaware of the change he was going through as he continued to smack the gum. His eyes went to his father, hoping for an explanation.

“Your whole nose has gone purple…” Anton lowered his phone a little, but didn’t stop the recording. “Logan, you’re… turning violet!”

Roman tilted his head to the side, shrugging. “Actually, I’d say it’s more of an indigo than violet.”

Logan shook his head. At this point, the blue colour was now beginning to cover his face, spreading across his cheeks and turning his lips and freckles a deep purple when it reached them. He reached up to touch his nose as he spoke. “That doesn’t make any sense. A person’s skin can’t just instantly change col- AH!!”

The reason he cried out was because his arms had begun to turn blue right before his eyes, spreading down from under the sleeves of his shirt. He was speechless for a moment, and yet he didn’t stop chewing the gum. “...Wh-what…?”

By now, his entire face was blue and it was spreading down his neck. Even his hair was turning blue, spreading out from his parting. It appeared from under his skirt, spreading down his legs. The tour group watched, equal parts concerned, confused and curious as every single part of Logan’s body changed colour, becoming the same blueberry blue. Even his his eyes changed - irises going from a sapphire blue to purple, and the whites taking on a lavender tinge.

Logan had raised a hand in front of his face, eyes wide in horror as he watched his pale fingers become taken over by the indigo. “M-Mr Duke, what’s happening to me?”

Before the chocolatier could say anything, Logan interrupted him with a groan, holding his stomach, which had begun to gurgle loudly.

“Are you alright…?” Thomas asked, debating whether or not to approach and comfort the other boy.

“I-I think three courses was too much on top of the candy from the Chocolate Room… I feel too full…”

Anton seemed to snap from shock to anger, turning to Remus. “What the hell is your gum doing to my son?!”

“I told him not to chew it. I told him to spit it out. Don’t blame me for your kid’s fuck up.”

“Excuse me?! It’s your gum that’s-!”

“Look, he’s getting fat!” Roman suddenly laughed.

Anton spun back to look at his son and his eyes widened in horror. Logan was swelling up. His waist widened and legs thickened as his belly swelled out, pressing against and bulging around his red belt. As he swelled larger, his body sloshed and gurgled.

Logan’s expression was initially one of horror as he pressed into his own body in disbelief. However, his expression soon turned to pain as his belt started cutting into him, far too tight around his waist. He whimpered, desperately trying to reach over the swelling mound that was his own belly to undo his belt. However, before he could get close, his belt broke with a loud POP! Whatever was filling him quickly filled the space previously held back, and Logan stumbled a little at the sudden surge of extra weight in his stomach. His shirt began to ride up, revealing his round stomach to be just as blue as the rest of him. He placed his hands back on his belly, feeling it grow, purple tears welling in his eyes. 

Any and all cockiness and confidence had left Logan, facade cracked to reveal pure terror and desperation. “H-help! Please! M-make it stop!”

“What the hell is happening?! He’s blowing up like a balloon!” Anton rounded on Remus once again, who was still absentmindedly scribbling in his notebook.

“Not a balloon,” he mumbled almost inaudibly.

“You’d better get the air out of him right now!”

“Air?” Now Remus looked up from his notebook. “Are you deaf? The loudest sloshing in the world is coming from him!”

“Water then!”

Remus sighed, rolling his eyes. “Dumbass, it’s not water filling him, it’s juice.”

“Juice?” Thomas asked, looking back at Remus, who nodded.

“Yup. Blueberry juice. Remember, the dessert of the gum was blueberry pie.” He turned back to Anton. “Your son is turning into a blueberry.”

“ What?! I… I can’t have a blueberry for a son! How is he supposed to compete?! What about his fame?!”

Before Remus could respond, Roman turned around. “Oh, I think it’s safe to say he’d still be famous - all sorts of freak shows will want him as an attraction.”

Logan sobbed, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. He was turning into a giant fruit?! His face was starting to get rounder and softer, juice beginning to fill his cheeks, and his arms had started to rapidly plumpen up. His chest began to swell more, rounding out with his belly. And yet, his well-trained jaw did not stop chewing as he mumbled, “H-hewp me, pwease…”

“Don’t freak out or anything. I’ve tested the gum before, this has happened before to the Oompa Loompas when they’ve been doing testing,” Remus reassured Anton. “We know how to turn him back. We just need to roll him to the Juicing Room.”

“The Juicing Room? What are they gonna do to him there?”

“Squeeze him! All the juice needs to be squeezed out before he explodes. Like a pimple!”

“Wha- explodes?!”

“Well, basically, if he isn’t juiced in time he will go through a process we call ‘ripening’. When he’s fully ripened, either he’ll be stuck like that forever, or… pop!” Remus made an exploding gesture. “But don’t worry! He has, like, an hour, maybe two at a stretch, until he even begins ripening. He’ll be all juiced by then.”

Anton still looked extremely pissed, but pushed his anger at the chocolatier aside for a minute, turning back to his now almost spherical son. Logan was taking on a much more berry-like shape, arms and legs swelling into him so became more round, hands and feet sinking into his body, feet lifting from the floor.

He flapped his hands and shifted his feet slightly, which was the most movement he could muster, whimpering and letting out muffled pleas for help. But the swelling wasn’t quite done. He kept getting bigger - wider, taller and rounder. His hands and feet sunk into his body a little further, as did his head, muffling his voice further.

The tour group shuffled back a little, giving the growing berry more space. 

“He’s getting huge,” Roman snickered, revelling in the retribution of seeing the person he’d been arguing with all day getting his just desserts. Virgil had pulled up his hood like he didn’t want to look, but couldn’t tear his eyes away. Thomas was just concerned and scared for the boy being transformed in front of them.

And as suddenly as the swelling started, it stopped. Logan was now just a ten foot tall blue ball in extremely stretched out clothes, with his head, hands and feet barely poking out. He cried quietly as he rocked gently back and forth, face flushing purple in embarrassment as he felt everyone staring at him. His embarrassment wasn’t helped when Roman reached out and poked his stomach.

Despite everything, however, his full cheeks were still chewing at the piece of gum in his mouth.

“Huh, he’s a lot bigger than the Oompa Loompas when they turned into blueberries… Guess that should be expected since humans are taller, and skin can stretch more than metal,” Remus said, making one final note in his notebook before snapping it shut and tucking it back into his jacket. “Hope he can still fit in the juicer. Speaking of…” He whistled, and it wasn’t long until an Oompa Loompa ran over. “I want you to roll Mr Beauregarde here to the Juicing Room at once, please.”

The Oompa Loompa nodded, “Yes, sir!” before running off. 

Virgil was fiddling with the drawstrings, trying to calm his fast breathing. “Um… wh-what if you can’t, uh… juice him? Y’know… if he doesn’t fit…”

Remus just shrugged. “Then oh well. It was his own fault, and he’d better hope he gets lucky and just gets stuck instead of bursting.”

Anton glared at him, looking ready to punch Remus. But luckily, he didn’t have the time to protest, being interrupted by the Oompa Loompa returning, with a few other Oompa Loompas in tow. Not only that, but as they ran over, others in the room banged on pots and pans, started up machines, and began to hum, creating an instrumental.

“Are they going to sing again?” Thomas asked, looking up at his guardian.

Larry nodded, “It sounds like it.”

The five Oompa Loompas tasked with rolling Logan away stood in front of him, but rather than starting to roll him away, they turned back to the rest of the tour group and burst into song.

“Listen close, and listen hard
To the tale of Logan Beauregarde
This nerdy boy who sees no wrong
In chewing, chewing
Chewing, chewing
Chewing, chewing all day long!

Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing all day long!”

The five Oompa Loompas turned around and gave Logan a push, starting to roll him across the room. Three more Oompa Loompas then jumped onto him from the catwalks, deciding to walk on him and bounce on his stomach like a trampoline for their dance choreography - something that was clearly uncomfortable for the blueberry, given how Logan winced and whimpered.

“He goes on chewing till at last
His chewing muscles grow so vast
And from his face his giant chin
Sticks out just like a violin!

Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing all day long!”

Thomas frowned as he noticed the Oompa Loompas weren’t actually rolling Logan straight to the door. They seemed to just be pushing him randomly around the room so they had time to sing their song. Wasn’t that dangerous? The boy was a ticking time bomb!

“For years and years he chews away
His jaws get stronger every day
And with one great tremendous chew
They bite the poor boy's tongue in two
And that is why we try so hard
To save poor Logan Beauregarde!

Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing all day long
Chewing, chewing
Chewing, chewing
Chewing, chewing all day long!”

As the Oompa Loompas faded out of the song, the ones standing on him jumped off, and they finally rolled him to the door. They began pushing Logan through, though as they did, he got slightly stuck. The blueberry boy whimpered, the mean song certainly not helping his tears, as well as feeling slightly nauseous from a mix of the rolling and how full he felt.

One of the Oompa Loompas ran back over to the tour group and tugged on Anton’s pant leg, before grabbing his hand and pulling him away. As he was dragged, Anton called back, “I swear, if he isn’t perfectly back to normal, I’ll sue you for everything you have, Duke! Even if it’s the last thing I ever do! I have evidence right here!” He held up his phone. “I’ll show everyone that this factory is a deathtrap!”

As they reached the door, Anton turned back around and sighed. “I’ve got a blueberry for a son…” He pressed his hands into Logan, helping the Oompa Loompas push him, until Logan finally came unstuck. As the Beauregardes were taken away, the door was closed behind them, Logan letting out one final muffled plea for help before being cut off from the rest of the tour group.

“Good thing I had you all sign that contract so I don’t have to worry about him actually suing me,” Remus muttered, before plastering on a smile. “Come on! We should probably move along from this room before we lose anyone else. Now, the Beauregardes have taken the boat, so we’ll have to head through the corridors. This way!” Remus began leading the group to another door on the other side of the room, pulling his phone from his pocket.

“Mr Duke?” Thomas asked as they walked, looking back at the door Logan had been pushed through. “Will Logan always be a blueberry?”

“Nah, he’ll be fine. The juicer probably will fit him. Remember what I said? Unless he ripens, he’s all good. I didn’t just say that just to reassure them, it’s the truth.” He paused, giggling. “Though it would be kinda funny if it had been a lie.”

Thomas bit his lip, thinking a bit more. “Logan’s going to have the juice squeezed out of him… Will that turn his skin back to its normal colour too?”

“‘Fraid not. Haven’t been able to work that out yet. He’s probably gonna be blue forever. But I guess that’s what you get for being arrogant and not listening to adults ‘cause you think you're so much smarter than them. But now to put the past behind us and move on with the tour!” 

And with that, Remus finished what he was doing on his phone, slipping it into his pocket as he left the Inventing Room, the rest of the tour group following behind.

Chapter Text

Remus wandered down the corridor, the rest of the tour group following behind. “Two disobedient children gone, three good ones left. You’re dropping like flies! Let's hope the tour doesn’t continue on this trajectory.”

They passed various rooms as they went, Remus giving each a glance, as if trying to decide where to take the tour next. Thomas did his best to peek through the windows in the doors and see what hid behind each one, but he didn’t get a clear look in most of them, not wanting to fall behind.

At one point, he paused walking for a second to look through one of the windows, not realising that Virgil had been right behind him. The other boy bumped into Thomas, almost knocking him over. “O-oh, sorry! I didn’t realise you were right there…”

“It’s fine…” Virgil muttered, but he almost seemed distracted, barely even phased by the fact he’d bumped into Thomas. His hands were fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie.

“Are you okay?” Thomas asked, concerned. “Still shaken up after what happened to Logan…?”

Virgil seemed to hesitate, hands moving up to fiddle with the drawstrings of his hoodie as his eyes stayed trained on the floor. “I-I just… I don’t get why the tour hasn’t been cancelled… I mean, it was one thing when Patton got sucked away in the pipe, since he just has to be pulled out of a chocolate vat. But Logan… transformed into that , blue forever, and he could explode? And we’re just… moving on?”

Roman, apparently overhearing the conversation, rolled his eyes. “He’s not going to explode, Mr Duke told us he’s going to be squeezed back to normal way before that’s even a possibility. And why do you even care if he’s left blue? It’s his own fault. He got what was coming to him, anyway, he was being rude to me all day.”

Thomas frowned. “Just because he was a little mean doesn’t mean he deserved to be turned into a blueberry…”

Virgil blinked, eyes widening a little. “Wait… Why didn’t Mr Duke tell him?”

“Huh?”

“When Logan took the gum, why wasn’t Mr Duke honest about the problems with it?” Virgil whispered, clearly not wanting the chocolatier to overhear their conversation. “He just said these vague warnings… If he really didn’t want Logan to have it, wouldn’t he have just told him straight up, ‘Don’t, it’s gonna turn you into a blueberry’?”

“You really think any of us would have actually believed him if he said that?” Roman raised an eyebrow. “Logan would probably think he was making stuff up to stop him trying it.”

“We believed the hair toffee and everlasting gobstoppers! Gum that can turn you into a blueberry isn’t a huge stretch,” Virgil shrugged. “And it’s just weird he’d show us a potentially very dangerous gum knowing that right there is someone who literally has a world record for being obsessed with gum. Add that to the fully practised and choreographed songs by the Oompa Loompas, and there not being enough seats on the boat for Patton and his mom, and it’s just… really suspicious… What if this is all planned? What if we’re next?”

“You’re being paranoid. Mr Duke isn’t some evil mastermind, he’s just some guy who makes sweets and chocolate! Patton and Logan were just being careless and stupid, they did it to themselves; no one forced them to drink from the river or take the gum. Maybe you two will be the same, but I know I will make it to the end and win the special prize.” That was the last thing Roman said, before turning away, walking a little faster to catch up with the adults a few steps ahead.

Thomas frowned a little, turning to Virgil to ask him more about his theory - but the other boy had already pulled up his hood, quickly moving to step away from Thomas and walk next to his mother.

Thomas sighed, before walking into step beside Larry, taking his guardian’s hand. Larry glanced down at him, seeing his pensive expression. “You okay, Tommy?”

“Yeah, just… worried for Logan is all.”

“He’ll be okay, don’t worry.”

“Aha!” Remus got everyone’s attention, grinning as he stepped up to a door. “We can get along to the next stop quicker if we cut through here. We won’t be able to hang about, we’re already far behind schedule, but it’ll give you all a quick sneak peek at a new product of mine that will be releasing very soon.”

He pushed open the door, leading the way inside - Roman, unsurprisingly, pushing ahead to go in right after. Thomas and Larry held back to be polite, the last two to step inside.

The walls of the circular room were lined with shelves, on which rows of glass bottles rested. All the bottles were filled with bubbling liquid, the colour varying between each shelf. The deep brown of cola was on the first, what seemed like pink lemonade on the second, while each of the shelves after followed the colours of the rainbow. There was a large bubble machine in the centre of the room, the bubbles flying high up to the very very tall ceiling, where a massive fan was spinning.

As Remus said, he didn’t linger, walking across the room to the door on the other side. The group followed, moving through the doors, until Thomas and Larry were the only ones left.

Thomas lingered a little longer, looking curiously over the various bottles. “I wonder what these are…”

Larry came to stand beside him, taking a bottle of the pink lemonade looking drink and reading the label. “It says they’re ‘Fizzy Lifting Drinks’. Doesn’t say anything else.”

“Wish Mr Duke could have told us… Especially since we probably won’t be able to afford it when it releases…”

Larry took notice of Thomas’ disappointed tone, looking between the boy and the bottle. “Well, we have a chance right now?”

Thomas frowned a little, turning to look up at his guardian. “I’m not sure… After what happened to Logan, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try anything without Mr Duke’s permission.”

“He said it’s going to be released soon, I doubt it’s at all dangerous. What harm can a little sip do anyway?”

Thomas bit his lip. If a single stick of gum could cause what happened to Logan, probably a lot. But Larry did make a good point, Remus did say these drinks would be released soon. If that was the case, they had to be stable, right? “I… I guess if no one’s around to see, there’s no harm in trying. But just a small sip, so he won’t notice any of it is gone, and then we’ll head straight to catch up with them!”

Larry nodded, popping open the bottle and raising it to his lips. He took a small sip, before passing the bottle down to Thomas. “It’s pretty nice. Doesn’t seem like it really does anything thou- Whoa!”

Thomas’ eyes widened, putting the bottle down as he watched Larry abruptly float into the air. Before he could react, Thomas found himself rising too, feet lifting from the floor.

Larry quickly grabbed onto the top of one of the shelves to stop himself rising any further. Thomas grabbed onto his leg, gasping as he realised, “I get it now! Fizzy Lifting Drinks! They must be so bubbly they lift you off of the ground!”

“S-so this is supposed to happen?” Larry asked nervously.

“I think so!”

“How do we get down? We can’t stay up here all day! Besides, I don't think Mr Duke will be happy if he comes back and sees this…”

“I don’t know… Maybe it’ll just wear off on its own? He wouldn’t have made something like this permanent and then sell it.” Thomas hesitated, before letting go of Larry’s leg. He moved his arms in a swimming motion and kicked his legs, successfully moving more to the middle of the room. “Hey, this is actually pretty fun!” he giggled. “Come on, Larry, the air’s fine!”

“Oh, I don’t know-”

“It’s okay, it’s just like swimming! Come on, when’s the next chance you’re gonna have to try to fly? We gotta make the most of it! Take my hand,” Thomas took Larry’s hand, slowly pulling him away from the wall.

“Okay, alright… “ Larry took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he let go of the shelf. He hesitantly cracked one open, making sure he was still safely suspended in the air, before letting out a sigh of relief. “Huh… You’re right, it’s not so bad. Kinda relaxing, just weightlessly floating like this.”

Thomas smiled, letting go of Larry’s hand. “Lemme try…” He raised his arms up, before waving them down, propelling himself quickly upwards. “Woohoo! I’m a shooting star! Come on, Larry!”

“Easy, Tommy, I’m coming!”

The two kept flying higher, Thomas giggling excitedly and Larry smiling at his excitement.

“Hey, Larry, watch this!” Thomas called, leaning back, before propelling himself forward into a frontflip. “Cool, right?”

“Very cool,” Larry chuckled.

“You try!”

“I don’t think I have it in me-”

“Go on! You’re flying, you can do anything!”

“Alright…” Larry hesitated, before leaning forward, doing a slightly slower frontflip, groaning a little as he righted himself.

“You did it!”

Larry smiled, glancing down. “Wow, we’re really getting high up. We’re gonna hit the ceiling at this point.”

At that, Thomas’ face fell. The ceiling. The fan.

He looked up, face going pale. They were mere feet away from the rapidly spinning metal blades. “Larry! We’re going too high, look! We need to get down!”

Larry went pale as well as he followed Thomas’ gaze. Thomas furiously tried to wave his arms and propel himself back down to the floor, but to no avail. Both of them just kept rising. “Help!” he screamed, praying that the tour group hadn’t gone far, that Remus would come through the doorway and rescue them. “We’re getting pulled in, we can’t stop! Help!”

“Thomas, grab ahold of something!” Larry cried, moving closer to the walls.

“There’s nothing to grab onto! HELP! We’re gonna be killed!”

“Help!” Larry joined in the screaming, still aimlessly trying to find something on the wall to grab onto. “Help! Mr Duke, turn off the fan!”

He and Thomas were getting dangerously close, the hairs on the top of their heads mere inches away from the spinning fan. Larry felt the panic rising in stomach, in his chest, higher, up into his throat-

Burp!

As soon as the noise left Larry’s mouth, he stopped rising. In fact, he instead began to slowly sink, away from the danger. “I’m going down… Quick, Thomas, burp!”

Thomas closed his eyes, bowing his head and hugging his stomach, squeezing tightly to force the air that was keeping him afloat out through his body-

Burp!

He let out a loud sigh of relief as, millimetres away from the spinning fan, he began to slowly lower in the air.

“That’s it, Thomas! Keep going!” Larry called encouragingly, he and Thomas letting out more burps and they sank further and further. “We’re gonna be okay, Thomas, we’re almost there.”

In only a few seconds, the two found their feet once again landing on solid ground. Thomas let of another sigh, “I’m really sorry, I-”

“Don’t apologise, Tommy,” Larry interrupted. “It was my idea. Though they should really put a warning label on those bottles and tell you how to get down… From now on, you and I keep our feet on solid ground.”

“Absolutely,” Thomas nodded. “Should we catch up with the others?”

“Yeah, and if they ask, this never happened. We were with them the whole time, they just didn’t notice.”

The two hurriedly left the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room, heading out to the corridor everyone else had gone into earlier. They could hear Remus’ voice nearby, following in that direction until the tour group came into view. Luckily, Remus currently had his back turned, allowing Thomas and Larry to hurriedly join the back of the group, following along as if they’d been there the whole time.

The only one to apparently notice anything on was Virgil, who glanced back at Thomas and did a double take, sliding off his headphones. “Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Thomas shrugged, trying his best not to look guilty.

Virgil raised an eyebrow, but turned back around, sliding his headphones back on. Thomas let out a small sigh of relief.

“Ah, here we are!” Remus’ voice boomed just ahead. “This is the next room I wanted to show you all. Everyone, gather around the door!”

Chapter Text

The tour group quickly gathered around the door Remus stood beside - no surprises, Roman once again shoved to the front. He was about to open the door, when Remus caught his arm. “Nope, only authorised personnel can enter this room, and by that I mean the Oompa Loompas and myself. It’s not safe for anyone else to enter, you’ll disturb the workers.”

Roman pouted. His father, however, took particular notice of the sign hanging over the door.

“The Nut Room, huh? You know, Duke, I’m in the nut business myself. If you’re ever in the market for some advice-”

“I’m not in the market for it, I’m the one who should be selling it. Too much room for human error in your operation.”

“Excuse me? You don’t even know how my factory is-”

Romulus was interrupted by a gasp from Roman, who had practically pressed his face up against the glass window in the door. “Squirrels!”

Thomas pushed himself onto his tiptoes, managing to finally catch a glimpse into the Nut Room. Inside, stairs descended from the door, leading to a wide open circular hall. The centre of the room had a large deep hole in it, the floor around it slightly slanted inwards. Running around the edge of the room was a long counter, which large containers of nuts hung over. Sitting at stools positioned all the way along the counter were many squirrels.

“We pride ourselves on only using the very best nuts in our confectionery,” Remus began to explain. “Which is the trouble with humans and Oompa Loompas. Neither people nor robots can truly tell whether a nut is a good nut or a bad nut. But! Squirrels can. Not only that, but a human can’t break open the shell of a nut cleanly, it always breaks the nut in the process. Squirrels, however, specifically evolved to be able to break open nuts cleanly. So all the nuts we use are carefully checked and opened by squirrels to ensure the highest quality. Watch, look up there on the balcony.”

He pointed through the window. Like the counter down below, a raised balcony ran along the wall of the room, just at the height of the tops of the storage containers. Oompa Loompas walked along it, carrying crates of nuts and emptying them into the containers, filling them back up.

“The Oompa Loompas store the nuts in there, and one by one, nuts are released through the tubes coming out of the bottom of the containers and placed in front of a squirrel. The squirrel then taps the nut and listens to it, to see if it's a good nut or a bad nut. If it’s good, they shell it and send it down another tube embedded in the counter, which takes it to wherever in the factory they need it. If it’s a bad nut, however, they toss it behind them and it goes rolling down the garbage chute. It’s a very efficient system.”

“It sounds unsanitary…” Romulus frowned.

“No, the squirrels are honestly the cleanest workers in the factory. Cleaner than me, that’s for sure. Oh! Look, the squirrel closest to us is checking a nut. Watch, let's see what it does…”

The group gathered closer, all doing their best to get a good view of the squirrel. It rapped its knuckles against the shell of the nut, before raising it to its ear. There was a pause, before the squirrel let out a squeak.

“Think that might be a bad one… Yep, there it goes.”

The squirrel had tossed the nut over its shoulder, and it went rolling down the slant of the floor, circling the garbage chute before falling down into it.

“Wow…” Roman mumbled to himself, before looking up at his father. Thomas knew exactly what his words were going to be before they even left his mouth. “Daddy, I want a squirrel.”

Romulus sighed, before putting on a smile. “Of course, my prince. I’ll look into it as soon as we get home-”

“No! I want it now! And I don’t want just any dumb squirrel, I want a trained one! Get me one of these squirrels!”

“Right, of course.” Romulus turned to Remus, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “How much for one of the squirrels, Duke?”

“They’re not for sale.”

Romulus blinked, clearly caught off guard by the outright refusal. “Name your price, I’m willing to pay.”

“No, he can’t have one. These aren’t objects we’re talking about, Mr Salt, these are my workers. They are essential to my operation.”

“But that’s not fair!” Roman whined - Virgil turned the volume of his headphones up to drown out his voice. “You have, like, a hundred of those things! You can give up just one!”

“Not ‘like’ a hundred, I have exactly a hundred. And my factory requires all of them - if even one were to go, it would set me back substantially, so you can’t have one.”

Roman’s face had gone bright red in anger. He grabbed his father’s arm, tugging harshly. “Daddy, make him give me one right now! Do it or I’ll scream!”

Romulus let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve tried, my prince, but if Mr Duke keeps being unreasonable and refuses to sell, there’s nothing I can do.”

Roman’s eye twitched, frown growing deeper. For a moment, Thomas thought he caught his eyes looking a little watery. “Well… fine!” He let go of his father’s arm, stepping closer to the door. “If you won’t get me a squirrel, I’ll get one myself!”

Before anyone could register what he’d said, Roman had thrown open the door of the Nut Room. He ran inside before anyone could try and stop him.

“Roman!” Romulus called after him, going to follow, only for Remus to catch his arm and hold him back.

“Hey, kid, I wouldn't recommend you getting anywhere near those squirrels!” Remus called. “They’re very protective! If they think you’re going for their nuts, they’ll go crazy!”

Roman just shot a glare over his shoulder, not hesitating for a moment. He continued his march further into the room, glancing across the counter lining the walls at all of the squirrels.

Speaking of, all the rustling and tapping and squeaking had gone eerily silent. The squirrels were now still, turned around on their stools, beady black eyes staring directly at Roman. The only movement they had was the occasional twitching of their noses.

Roman hummed as he looked between each squirrel. Eventually, his eye landed on one particular squirrel with a slightly more reddish coat than the others. He smiled, stepping towards it, arms outstretched. “I’ll have you.”

He stepped right up to the stool, reaching down to grab the squirrel. But before he could get his hands on it, the squirrel leapt out of the way… and onto Roman’s shoulder.

“Wha- OW!” Roman winced as the squirrel grabbed and tugged at his hair. “Let go! Get off of me!” He waved and thrashed, stumbling back as he tried to bat the squirrel off of him. It swiftly evaded, jumping from shoulder to shoulder.

Roman was so focused on the one squirrel that he didn’t see what everyone else just outside saw: all of the squirrels in the room had leapt off their stools, and were now running directly at the boy.

“Roman, look out!” Romulus called, but it was too late. More squirrels launched themselves at Roman, grabbing onto him and climbing across him. Roman screamed, thrashing more.

As he did, a few squirrels ran behind him, standing right at his heels. Within seconds, he was toppling, falling hard onto the ground. He groaned, trying to get back up - only to find he couldn’t move. He lifted his head, looking down to see the squirrels had all of his limbs pinned. Twenty five squirrels on each leg, twenty five on one arm, and twenty four on the other.

“L-Let go of me! Daddy, help!” Roman cried, fruitlessly trying to pull himself free.

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Thomas asked, looking up at Remus.

“Not at the moment, it’s best we wait for the squirrels to calm down. A hundred of them together are very strong, and they’ll only get more mad if more people get in their way of testing a nut.”

“But they’re not testing nuts right now?”

“Yes they are, look.”

Turning back to the Nut Room, the group could see the final squirrel, the one Roman had tried to steal, was now sitting on the boy’s chest. It leaned forward over his face, tapping its knuckles against his forehead. Roman winced. “H-hey!”

The squirrel listened closely to Roman’s head - before letting out a loud squeak.

“Oh dear,” Remus hummed. “Seems like he is a bad nut after all.”

As the squirrels tightened their grip on Roman, squeaking between themselves to share the verdict, music suddenly came from above. The tour group looked up to see, on the balcony in the room, a large band of Oompa Loompas had gathered. Some had instruments they began to play, while others burst into song.

“Roman Salt, the débutant
He’s always screaming “I want, I want”
We hope he wants last month’s chow mein
As he jetés
down the garbage drain!”

“Help!” Roman cried. The squirrels had begun to gradually drag him across the floor. He tried to grip the smooth floor, nails scratching it, and pull his limbs free to no avail.

“Roman! Where are they taking him?!” Romulus rounded on Remus.

“Like the song says, where all the other bad nuts go: down the garbage chute.”

“Roman Salt, the silly cow
His maddening mantra was “now, now, now!”
But now hang a bell on the little brute
As he pas de bourrées
down the bad nut chute!
Yes, now he’ll join the trash below
So spoiled and so rotten
The fish head from a week ago
Some Gouda long forgotten

“A bacon rind, some left out lard
A loaf of bread gone stale and hard
A rotten tooth, a reeky pear
A thing the cat left on the stair!”

As the Oompa Loompas sang the names of various items of trash, they threw them off of the balcony, sending them falling down into the garbage chute. Roman watched in horror, clearly disgusted at the idea of being tossed down there with such gross items. His horror only grew as he was pulled closer and closer to the lip of the pipe. “No, no no no no, please, let me go! I’m sorry! I won’t take you, I promise!”

“Roman Salt, the pampered prince
Will now fouetté
to a foul abyss
So take a whiff, for it’s awfully ripe
His new address: the sewer pipe!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” Roman let out a scream as the squirrels pushed him over the edge of the pipe with one final hard shove. His voice quickly faded as he dropped out of sight, growing more and more distant until it was nothing more than a faint echo.

“Oh my god… Duke, where does that chute go?!”

“The furnace.” Remus shrugged as Romulus’ face turned to one of pure horror. “Oh, don’t worry, we only light it on Tuesdays.”

“Uh,” Virgil mumbled, shrinking into his hood as everyone turned to look at him, “today is Tuesday…”.

“Oh. Huh, so it is.”

Romulus shook his head, breathing fast and panicked. “There has to be something you can do! I can’t let my son get burnt! He’s all I have left of her, I…”

“Hm,” Remus hummed. “Well, sometimes there can be a lot of backpack built in the chutes - a lot of waste builds up in the factory, as you can probably imagine. If that’s the case, he might not actually have fallen very far, there could be a big pile of trash holding him just a few feet out of sight. If you head in, you might be able to lean down, grab his hand and pull him back up.”

“What about the squirrels?” Thomas asked, concerned. “Won’t they attack?”

“They’ve gone back to work now.” Remus pointed through the door at the squirrels, which had returned to their stools, back to testing and shelling nuts. “They shouldn’t get aggravated if you don’t get too close to them… I think.”

Romulus took a deep breath, steeling his nerves, before running through the door.

“Roman Salt, the selfish tot
Was never good with the things he got
But it’s not just vicious Roman’s fault
This rancid recipe demands another dash of salt!”

“Roman, Daddy’s coming!” Romulus called, hurrying over to the garbage chute. He knelt down at the edge, leaning over and squinting, trying his best to find any sight of his son in the dark abyss. “Are you there?! Say something if you can hear me!”

“Blame the parents, blame the father
That Roman will reside
With the rubbish and the other
Wasteful things he’s tossed aside

“To the furnace we bequeath him
See the squirrels as they are swarming
Thought recycling was beneath him
He’s the cause of global warming!”

Thomas, like most of the group, had been glancing between Romulus and the Oompa Loompas performing up on the balcony. He was the first, however, to spot other movement; one of the squirrels, the one Roman had tried to grab, had jumped off of its stool and was running towards Romulus. “Mr Salt, look out!”

Romulus glanced up, looking back at the tour group - but he did not spot the squirrel.

“Roman Salt, the wicked witch
Will soon develop a nasty itch
We’ll soon hear the twit screaming “mine, all mine!”
From deep down below where the sun don’t shine!”

The squirrel leapt at Romulus, pushing its entire body weight square into his back. It sent him toppling forward, screaming as, just like his son, he went plummeting down the garbage chute.

“BAD NUT!”

“Oh dear…” Remus sighed as the Oompa Loompas on the balcony bowed. “There’s going to be a lot of trash to deal with today.” He stepped into the doorway of the Nut Room, whistling up at the Oompa Loompas. “Can a small group of you head to the furnace and get those two out before they’re burnt?!”

A few of the Oompa Loompas nodded, before running from the room.

“There,” Remus turned back to the tour group, closing the door of the Nut Room behind him and pulling out his phone. “Don’t worry, everyone, the Salts will be just fine. The Oompa Loompas will have them out in no time. Now let's move on, we still have plenty to see!”

He turned, leading the way down the corridor as he typed on his phone. The group followed, Thomas glancing worriedly back at the door of the Nut Room as they went.