Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Count Alaric Crowell did not have neighbors, of this he was very adamant.

He may not be terribly feared as he once was, but neighbors–human neighbors–such a thing could never happen to him.

Mr. William Wonka, of course, was not really a neighbor so much as he was a nuisance.

Much in that same manner, the man’s factory—only a day’s carriage travel down from Alaric’s own stead—was no longer really a building so much as it was an eyesore; a technicolor blister on the barren landscape Alaric called home.

Once upon a time it had been a castle—the lesser Fort Morloch, of similar stature and elegance to Alaric’s own—but having fallen into disrepair and with not nearly so much superstition around its ruins as those of the greater Castle Crowell’s, it was easily reclaimed and resold by and to enterprising englishmen while Alaric was too busy wallowing in torpor to notice.

Apparently, the legends of his vampiric devastation had faded over time with his recent apathy toward the people of the valley below. Humans were so fast to brush such things off–it was terribly nettlesome. A simple few centuries break and suddenly peddlers were knocking on his doors, asking if the “esteemed Count Crowell” wanted to purchase a “vah-cueme” (horrible noisy little carpet-sweepers; Alaric nearly broke his bloodfast for the first time in decades and ate the solicitor instead).

It seemed to him that humans became fools terribly fast if you didn’t teach them not to be.

Where once people cowered at the very mention of his title, Alaric’s exploits were now reduced to naught but a ghost story primarily purveyed by children, while he himself was cast simply by the rest of the clodpates as some recent descendant holed up inside his family inheritance.

The peddlers kept coming. Alaric stopped bothering to answer the door.

And so, without any care for the Count Crowell’s once looming presence, the lesser Fort Morloch was reclaimed and sold to one Mr. William Wonka.

Mr. Wonka defiled it immediately of course, casting it in garish pinks and reds and shining modern paints of that nature. Blankets of strange, glass roofing and foreign greenery erupted around it, while towering candy-striped chimneys rose out of its hollows and began to pipe great, bright plumes of sugary smoke against the white sky, like an obnoxious stain on silk curtains.

Alaric had half a mind to go out and put an end to the man himself. It would be simple, to be sure, Mr. Wonka was a small man who seemed prone to frequent flights of fancy—the kind of fellow that nobody would be surprised to hear went on an impromptu escapade and had an accident—and he never looked to be in great health when Alaric would see him—his body was thin and frail in his gaudy purple suits, and his english skin held no sweet pinks of blood-warmth in the cold—but by now Alaric saw little point in going out of his way to do so. The damage was already done: the lesser Fort Morloch was no more, and in its place stood Mr. Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Count Alaric Crowell did not break his bloodfast, still growing weaker each moon.

—

The basket was unassuming in its presentation: a simple, woven fiber body with a shiny purple bow and a paper note tied to the handle, left unaccompanied at the main door.

Alaric wasn’t sure how long it had been out there. No animals nor weather seemed to have touched it (though that hardly meant much in his domain), and the handle was cold when he took it inside. He vaguely recalls briefly waking earlier to a loud metal rapping at his door, another peddler no doubt,—or so he’d believed at the time—but whether that was earlier today or weeks ago by now he’s unsure. He’s never been very good with time, especially during torpor.

Alaric places the basket on the low table in the hearth room and sits heavily in the cushioned chair across from it.

It had been centuries since the last he’d received an offering.

During the height of his reign of terror, gold, silks, and virgin women would be sent to his castle on a near-weekly basis (admittedly, sometimes the cloth was laced with garlic or the women had wooden stakes tucked in their bodices, so Alaric was aware it wasn’t all friendly); the people of the valley had long attempted to quell him with treasures.

He usually sent the women away upon their arrival—he’d never asked anyone to send him virgins, they just did that on their own—but they persisted anyway. It was expected that an unholy creature of the night would desire these pure, uncorrupted, feminine souls or whatever the church had been spouting at the time, and so some even took offense at his lack of interest, much to Alaric’s confusion (except for ones with the stakes—that he understood—Alaric was well-aware of the glory slaying him would offer, and so the most eager women were always given the widest berth by the Count). It was never personal, of course. Offerings always seemed to him to be more of a formality than anything else. Big, showy trains of horses and women and riches that were meant to convey nothing more than submission and groveling. It was always ‘Please accept this gift as a sign of our fear and respect’ (and also, ‘try not to kill anyone too important this week, did you see all the women and gold we sent you? Don't you want more women and gold?’) (or occasionally, ‘We hope you die soon. Maybe you’ll fall for it next time.’).

Not much thought was put into it, as far as he could tell. The one time he’d actually requested something specific–a new, red, linen table runner for the dining room (the previous green one had obvious bloodstains, and silk was hard to wash)–they’d only returned the next week with more silks of expensive blues and purples instead. And virgins. It was always virgins.

(Alaric may have been a little more violent that week down in the valley than was solely necessary).

He wasn’t sure what to think of the basket.

He sat there—simply staring at it—for many hours before he thought to examine the slip of paper attached.

The handwriting was childish. The content was much the same:

To the Count Crowell,

Hello, good sir! I’m quite pleased to hear that somebody has finally moved back into that dusty old castle up North. Seeing as we’ll be neighbors from here on out, I put together a little welcome basket from me to you. I run a chocolate factory you see, and I thought it only right to introduce myself with my craft.

Unfortunately, I am writing to you now in lieu of a personal visit, as you seem quite busy on this fine day I’d elected to make the trip to finally visit you. If you find the time, please drop by for a proper introduction. I’d be happy to show you around!

I wasn’t sure how you like your chocolate, so I put together a few popular flavors for you to sample. Do let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

Your neighbor,

Willy Wonka.

Alaric’s lips curled in a grimace, disgust and frustration already swelling in his chest by the end of the note. Not one word of it pleased him. Not at all.

He pried open the hinged lid of the basket with more force than necessary. Nestled there inside a cushion of grating shiny purple fabric was something that looked to Alaric much like a large paper jewelry box. Patterned in swirling pinks and blues, it had only one reflective, silvery-white word emblazoned on its top: Wonka.

Alaric stiffly lifted the box from its place and dropped it beside the basket like it was something grotesque, then threw its lid off too.

Chocolates.

Alaric scoffed at the sight.

He’d had chocolate once before, in the 1800s. It was much like everything else he’d tried since his turning—like bitter ash on his tongue. Anything that wasn’t blood left him curled and retching on the street.

He plucked a truffle from the first square: a white, vaguely rabbit-shaped thing with a golden garnish in the shape of an antler carefully positioned on top. It had a strange weight to it, like it was heavier than it should’ve been.

A tawdry, foolish thing meant for children, no doubt. Alaric scoffed again, and snapped it in half. He would not let such things—

Blood. Congealed blood. The scent was heavy in the air. Alaric tore into the man’s throat with animalistic desire, drinking in the intoxicating scent of wet gore and blood spray around him. When he was this close, all else was drowned out by the sound of the rattling gasp and dying pulse of his victim.

He didn’t hear the door whine as it was pushed open.

“Honey? Dear, where have you—Oh god, oh my god!”

Alaric shivered and blinked as he came back to himself. He was in the greater Castle Crowell. He was alone. He had not hunted human blood in decades. He was holding a broken chocolate with some kind of…thick, red liquid dripping from it.

He examined the truffle closer, and gave it a tentative sniff.

It didn’t smell like blood, exactly, but it didn’t smell like it wasn’t blood either. It smelled sweet, like the puffs of smoke the factory that once was the lesser Fort Morloch piped into the air around it, but there was an undertone—perhaps only obvious to his advanced senses—that was almost metallic.

Alaric stared at the strange confection, trembling slightly. The scene was familiar, in a bizarre way: the red liquid staining the smooth white coat of the rabbit and getting under his sharp nails.

Against his better judgement, Alaric brought the truffle to his mouth and took a bite.

It didn’t taste like blood.

It didn’t taste like ash either.

For the very first time, Alaric tasted chocolate.

Chapter Text

Alaric was a mess.

He didn’t have the words to describe the experience, it was like nothing he could remember. Centuries of blood and ash and blood and ash and more blood and more ash and now—chocolate.

Thick, velvety, rich, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate.

The filling was fruity—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tasted fruit but he knew deep inside that that was the right word for it—sweet and tangy, with a certain familiar sharpness at the end he still couldn’t place.

“Raspberry,” he whispered aloud to himself, as if to test out the shape of the word in his mouth. He remembered the taste of raspberries.

Alaric impulsively took another bite, and then another, and again, finishing the small truffle all at once.

He remembered the taste of raspberries.

It was like a dream. A sort of feverish giddiness filled him all at once, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He felt lighter than air.

The feeling hadn’t lasted, of course. Nothing so wonderful could.

Over the next half hour, Alaric tested every piece in the box with steadily growing hysteria—picking each one up and snapping them one by one, and then going through and smelling, and then even tasting each one just to be completely, utterly sure, but all he earned for his efforts were the wretched, overpowering taste of ash in his mouth and the traitorous thought that maybe he should have purchased one of those strange, loud carpet-sweepers when he had the chance.

Broken chocolate and wax paper littered the hearth room floor below, carelessly tossed aside in Alaric’s frenzy. There was a tight sensation in his chest as he looked around at the aftermath of his madness, still tightly clutching one wrapper in his fist.

The rabbit-shaped truffle was alone in its magic.

Alaric felt betrayed.

To live in blood and ash and torpor for the rest of his time—for forever—the idea would not have seemed so suddenly and immensely torturous now if he’d never known there was anything else. If he’d never been reminded.

Alaric—who as a vampire, did not strictly need to breathe outside of smelling, speaking, or (when the mood struck) playing a wind instrument—took one very long, deep breath, blinked, pivoted on his heel, and walked straight out of the room in a thoughtless, mechanical stride. He then kept walking and didn't stop until he reached his coffin several floors below, whereupon he immediately laid down inside it, shut the lid, and closed his eyes, hoping that by some divine or occult miracle he might manage to die again in his sleep.

(Alaric was quite disappointed to wake several hours later and find that he was still very much undead).

(He went back to sleep).

When he woke again, several days later, it took a moment for his bleary mind to catch up with the source of his irritation. When it finally clicked, a horrible new thought struck him like a bolt of lightning and he shot up, bashing his head against the lid of his coffin.

He hissed and shoved it off the top immediately, rubbing the sore spot with a grimace.

He was going to have to visit Mr. Wonka.

Alaric could already feel an oncoming headache that had nothing to do with the coffin lid.

He hadn’t properly interacted with humans in decades, and the absolute last one he wanted to see now was the man known as Mr. William Wonka, much less at that stain he called a factory. The thought was nauseating.

(The thought of not visiting equally so).

He desperately tried to come up with any way around the inevitable as he slunk back to the hearth room, but there just wasn’t another option. He felt his hunger more keenly than ever now.

Chocolate.

He could taste chocolate.

The concept felt utterly foreign to him still, confusing and exciting and frustrating all at once.

The memory of the experience was distracting in the worst way, but something nagged at him despite it.

Was this a trap?

Ages without an offering had clearly left him rusty and impulsive. He hadn’t sensed the telltale scent of hawthorn or garlic in the basket or the truffles, but he was well aware of how inscrutable the human world’s modern achievements were quickly becoming to him (“vahcueme”; what a dreadful word)—if they could make something that didn’t taste like blood or ash, who’s to say they couldn’t hide hawthorn or garlic? Who’s to say they couldn’t come up with something worse? The fact he’d tasted anything in the box at all had been deeply reckless—regardless of his base instincts.

…Regardless of the taste of chocolate. Regardless of the taste of raspberries.

Alaric grimaced as he stepped on a discarded piece of chocolate shell while approaching the basket, cracking it and pushing it into the nice Persian carpet under his shoe.

…If it had been a trick, he found himself noting with chagrin, he surely would’ve been poisoned already—unless Mr. Wonka was so incompetent he’d somehow managed to bait a trap without setting the spring.

Or unless this was the spring.

And oh, that made sense to him, far more than anything else about this situation had in the last few days. He latched onto the notion like a lifeline, letting a familiar anger boil around it.

The chocolate—however Mr. Wonka had managed to make such a thing—was a lure, the lack of fear or distaste around his presence was a trick, and the carpet-sweeper salesmen were…probably involved, somehow.

The point was, Alaric was clearly being lured into an ambush of some kind.

Inefficient? Sure. Stupid? Gravely so. But Alaric understood it. He understood why people wanted him dead, why they wanted to finish it by their own hand, rather than following through on subterfuge alone.

More importantly, Alaric understood what to do about it.

Alaric glanced at the slip of paper still tied to the basket with a scowl.

If you find the time, please drop by for a proper introduction. I’d be happy to show you around!

What an utter fool of a man.

The Count Crowell, for all his historical wealth and status, did not own a horse. He had owned horses—in the past. He’d received them as offerings here and there, reclaimed a few from unfortunate travelers who would just so happen to ‘go missing’ around the greater Castle Crowell, even took a few as trophies from defeated slayers. He had, in fact, actually owned a lot of horses over the years.

His stables were empty now.

There was a variety of reasons for that—premier among them being that Alaric had never been particularly good at keeping things alive—but the most relevant of which follows:

Bats are faster.

—

If Willy hadn’t already been immensely preoccupied at the time, he may have just barely noticed a curiously large black bat circling the chocolate factory against the long, dark sky, just minutes before his doorbell sounded (doorbells, actually, the ‘s’ was very important there; Willy was quite proud of his doorbells—giant, ornate brass things that clanged in time with each other to create a jaunty little tune throughout the entire factory when a visitor pulled their string).

Unfortunately, Willy very much was preoccupied at the time, and so he noticed nothing unusual whatsoever.

When the doorbell did chime, he grinned from ear to ear.

That had to be Noodle.

—

Alaric was angry.

More specifically, he was the kind of angry that one can only be after flapping their arms against the wind for an hour on an empty stomach.

Less specifically, he was the kind of angry that made one want to do something about it.

And Alaric knew exactly what he was going to do too.

First, he’d introduce himself as he always had: he was Count Alaric Crowell; Lord of the Greater Castle Crowell, Scourge of the People of the Valley Below, Bringer of Death and Plague and All That. Then, he’d scare the fellow a bit—really play it up and tap into his glory days—he wasn’t going to break his bloodfast, not over such a feeble, piffling man, but he wasn’t above doing a little bit of dramatic doomsaying or roughing him up some to get his answers. Finally, he’d fly away with as much of the offending chocolate as he could possibly carry and the secret to their creation, content in the knowledge that he would never, ever, ever have to return to one Mr. William Wonka’s chocolate factory again in his preternatural life.

Alaric peered dubiously at the factory’s double doors. No knocker, only a bell rope.

He tugged it far harder than necessary.

The sudden eruption of awful noise from inside the building made him jump, and his anger was momentarily replaced by startled confusion.

He stood frozen for a pause, only remembering he was meant to look intimidating just as he heard muffled footsteps approaching, whereupon he quickly straightened himself and put on an expression of utmost seriousness.

Mr. Wonka threw open the doors with a grin, only to immediately frown at the sight of the Count, then squint, and then lean dramatically to look around and behind him. Alaric tried to follow his gaze, twisting to look behind him himself, but there was nothing there.

Odd.

Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and spoke slowly, putting all of his vitriol into his address.

“Mr. Wonka—“

He was immediately cut off.

“Please, call me Willy!” said Mr. Wonka brightly, throwing out his hand for a shake. The man’s apparent confusion was already quickly being replaced again with a polite, wide grin.

The Count ignored this.

“I am Count Alaric Crowell, Lord of the Greater Castle Crowell, Scourge of—“

“Oh, I know who you are!” Mr. Wonka interrupted again, making Alaric’s lip curl with irritation. “Come in, come in then!” he said, making an eager summoning motion with his hand and prancing back down the factory’s landing hall.

Alaric did not quite manage to say anything at all in response, the words suddenly stuck to his tongue as he watched Mr. Wonka already disappearing down the hall.

Alaric stood there for a moment in disbelief.

And then slowly, against his better judgment, he followed.

He shivered slightly as he passed through the barrier of entry (having been invited in so readily did unnerve him), then stalked silently after Mr. Wonka down the hall and through a number of twists and turns. He had no idea what he was doing. This was not part of the plan.

Mr. Wonka began speaking again as Alaric turned the final corner.

“You see, I was expecting someone else, but in the meantime I could use someone to test this for me, and I think you’re the perfect fellow for the job!”

The sweet smell of sugar was stronger here somehow, now accompanied by an overwhelming layer of cocoa. The source was obvious.

Alaric took a tentative step into the room Mr. Wonka was already crossing, and gaped at the massive, thick chocolate river flowing through it. Bright colors and shiny machines with intricate piping lined the brick walls and peculiar greenery, while a massive blanket of glass roofing hung over them and barricaded them from the dark sky overhead. There was so much to look at, but Alaric’s gaze kept darting between the river and the glass.

Flowing river. Glass ceilings.

Anger sparked in him again, though his thirst for action was drowned out by trepidation now. He’d dealt with hunters and traps before, but this situation was entirely unfamiliar to him. What was Mr. Wonka playing at?

Alaric took a step backward, and glanced again at the strange plants that grew along the chocolate riverbank. Many of them seemed to be flowers, but he didn’t recognize them. They weren’t garlic or hawthorn at least, or not any breed of them he knew anyway (and he knew many).

“Count Crowell?”

Alaric ignored the man’s call from across the shiny rainbow bridge over the river, taking a moment to instead examine the dull brick hallway exit he now stood in again. There didn’t seem to be any mechanism to close it—to close someone in on the other side, but Alaric took another step backward still, suddenly deeply unsettled.

He wondered suddenly if there were crosses on the walls. He would have noticed that, right? Or would they get lost in the noxious colors and maze of pipes? Wooden stakes and silver could easily be hidden among the foundation of a building or the folds of a cloak, this he knew well.

Alaric took another step back and—

He bumped into something small and warm behind him and immediately startled like a scared cat.

“Mmph. Hey!”

He whirled around, hissing through his teeth at the little girl behind him.

Her eyes went wide. “Uh—“

“Noodle!’” Came Mr. Wonka’s jubilant voice from the chocolate room. “We must have just missed you, I didn’t hear you come in!”

“I let myself in,” said the girl, eyes flicking between Alaric and the chocolate room behind him. “Er—Willy, who is this?”

Alaric clamped his mouth shut but didn’t drop his guard, instead angling himself to better see both the newcomer and Mr. Wonka as the man approached the two of them in the hall, feeling deeply claustrophobic to be standing in between the two humans (which was especially bizarre, for somebody who slept in a coffin and drank blood). He was more than ready to start a fight or make a break back down the hall if he had to.

“Ah, my apologies!” said Mr. Wonka. “Noodle; Count Crowell. Count Crowell; Noodle.” He gestured.

“Uh-huh,” said Noodle. “Nice to meet you?”

“Pleasure,” said Alaric tensely, not really paying any attention to her.

There was a beat of silence. Alaric heavily considered just making a break for it now. Was the chocolate really worth this? He should leave.

He stayed in place.

“Well then,” said Mr. Wonka, clapping his hands together, “Now that I have both of you here, I can get double the feedback. What a wonderful surprise! Come along, now!”

Mr. Wonka turned and headed back in. After a few furtive glances back at Alaric, Noodle followed.

Alaric did not.

He didn’t leave either, though.

The girl trailed after Mr. Wonka closely. “Sorry I’m late Willy, Mom saw this huge black bat on the drive over and you know how she gets–”

Alaric winced slightly, at one point he’d dipped low in his flight to try and get a better look at one of those odd new metal wagons—clearly too low—the thing had almost struck him.

“–So she didn’t want me to go but then I said we do dinner every Sunday and so of course I was going to go but—“

“It’s quite alright,” interrupted Mr. Wonka, “I’m just glad you’re here now! I wanted you to try this.”

Noodle looked curiously at the odd workstation Mr. Wonka had stopped them at on the other side of the river bridge. There were several potted flowers sitting on it, with a colorful machine of intricate gears and tubes hanging above them.

Alaric watched, feeling somewhat helpless, from the hall as Mr. Wonka pulled several of the levers, lighting up the great tubes of yellow dust above and sending the particles inside into a flurry that coalesced toward a single wire-thin exit and traveled in a smaller tube back down toward the flowers. The smaller tube ended in a metallic gold bee shape, which Mr. Wonka disconnected and held proudly once the dust settled.

“That’s for the flowers?” asked Noodle, “I thought that last time you said you were going to try making them out of hard candy—these look the same as before.”

“Ah, that’s because I realized I didn’t need to change them at all. I managed to figure out what was missing instead—pollination!”

Noodle frowned. “Willy, they’re made out of candy.”

“Yes, but they’re shaped like flowers. And flowers are shaped for bees, which are shaped for pollination! It’s quite simple really.”

Noodle squinted dubiously at the metal bee.

“I can see you’re unconvinced,” said Mr. Wonka, now gingerly tapping the insides of the flowers with the object. “But just wait, the difference it makes is monumental!”

Mr. Wonka finished, then carefully pulled the cup-like portion of one of the flowers off the stem to hand to Noodle. He pulled a second one off, then held it out to the air and paused, clearly confused.

Alaric’s eyesight was great, much better than a human’s. Perhaps that was why it was so startling when, after only a moment, Mr. Wonka managed to make direct eye contact with him from across the length of the room.

Mr. Wonka tilted his head. “Count Crowell? Won’t you join us?”

Alaric mechanically stepped into the sweet-smelling room again, chest tight. He wasn’t scared of Mr. Wonka and–and a child. What an insane prospect.

Trap or not, he would not face this as a coward.

He approached the flowing river of chocolate cautiously, expecting to be accused and targeted the second Mr. Wonka confirmed he couldn’t cross it—the second Alaric encountered that same deep-down instinct that prevented him from crossing flowing water the same way it stopped him from entering dwellings uninvited—much the same way mortals couldn’t bring themselves to stick their hand into flame. He marched toward the bridge.

And successfully continued marching all the way across it. Alaric blinked, then looked back in shock.

“…What?” He croaked.

He crossed back to the other side. Still, no resistance.

Noodle leaned over to whisper to Mr. Wonka, quiet enough that Alaric knew he wasn’t supposed to be able to hear it. “Um, Willy, I think your friend is broken.”

Alaric barely cared. He was utterly fascinated by the newly discovered novelty, and all else fell away from him. Such a thing should have been impossible and yet—

He crossed over the bridge again, still unimpeded.

He’d tasted something other than blood or ash and crossed an openly flowing river in the same week. What was next, daylight? Hysteria and delight swelled in his chest, erupting in a bubble of insane, choked laughter from deep in his throat. Was it the bridge or the chocolate—? He wondered, and decisively approached the open, unguarded edge of the river just as he had approached the bridge before.

He never felt compelled to stop moving toward it.

In his disbelief, he didn’t think to voluntarily stop moving toward it either. He’d never had to before, after all.

This was a major oversight on his part, in retrospect.

—

Willy and Noodle watched in confusion, then horror, as Count Alaric Crowell walked directly toward the river’s edge with unfaltering momentum, appeared to try stepping into the air above it as if the ground never ended, and then unceremoniously plummeted forward into it like a dropped rock.