Author's note: I'm not usually the type to make a note on every single chapter, but I forgot to establish this last week: My gratitude for all the kind words, everyone! Given that this is a crack ship… not only that, but a crack ship based on a joke that I'm taking way, WAY too seriously, I didn't expect anyone to read it, so the attention it's garnered has been amazing.

I'm flattered by the offer to commission the work too, but I'm self aware enough to realize that my prose is nowhere near refined enough for me to be charging people money. I tend to write for as long as the passion for a ship burns within me… or until canon directly contradicts what I've written, but that doesn't really apply here.

Based on the outline I made for this story, and factoring in my preferred chapter length, this story will… well, it'll basically be a novel if I write it out to its conclusion. Whether I write it all out or not is up in the air (admittedly, I don't have a great track record for multi-chapter works), but if you'd like to see more just keep letting me know. I'll happily try to keep writing as long as people tell me they want to keep reading.

Anyway, here's wonderwall:

Roman Torchwick

Torchwick stood beside the bedroom door, all alone in the long, dark hallway. He'd originally decided to pass the time by scoping out the building. Casing the joint, like in the good ole days, or at least hitting up the library to see if there wasn't some tome of eldritch lore containing something he could do to set himself free. Alas, he hadn't made it more than a few doors down the hallway before he felt a pressure on his body that weighed down his limbs. It grew stronger the further he traveled, until eventually reaching the point that he was physically incapable of advancing any more.

This aroused his suspicion, so he began to head in the other direction. Sure enough, he only made it about as far the other way before the force trapped him once again. Yup, it seemed there was a limit to how far away from Weiss he was allowed to go. A pretty stingy one, too. He wasn't sure exactly how far her bed was from the door to her room, but even by his most generous estimates there was no way he'd traveled more than 30 feet.

He sighed. Probably just as well. Even if the Schnee family happened to have a book tailored to his specific needs, it wasn't like he could open it on his own, anyway. Either way, It was going to be a long night.

Part of him wanted to wander into her room just to spite her, but he couldn't bring himself to break the promise he'd made to her.

… Man! That was an alien thought. Roman Torchwick was never the kind of man to honor a promise after it became even the slightest bit inconvenient. When he'd arrived, he'd fully intended to tell any lie he thought she needed to hear to get her to let him stay, but in practice he'd been strangely honest. Indeed, he volunteered far more truth about himself than the situation even called for, and he wasn't sure why. Part of it was desperation. Literally the only scenario that could have made his odds worse than getting attached to one of Little Red's friends was getting attached to Little Red herself, after all. Truthfully, though, for a while there he'd completely given up, and resigned himself to death.

Seeing her in that state had a weird effect on him. She reminded him of someone he only vaguely remembered. Someone he'd spent much of his adult life trying to forget… and seeing her in that compromised situation made him feel like he owed her something, so he overshared in kind.

Meh! No use thinking too hard about it. It was a stressful situation, and this was a temporary arrangement. He needed to stay focused on what he needed to do.

The first step was escaping from that stairway. Well, he could put a big damned check mark next to that one! The second step was convincing his new host to let him stick around. At least for the moment he could put a check there, too. Now that he had an anchor to the world he could start on step 3: finding a way to get his own body back. Realistically, he wasn't gonna find that in a mansion, and since he was currently suffering from a reverse-restraining order, that meant he was going to have to somehow convince Weiss to get out of here.

Therein lies the rub, though. It was only a hunch, as he'd only really had the one interaction with her so far, but something about her just seemed different from before. She seemed despondent and defeated, like she was just going through the motions of life. Sure she was an ice queen, but where had her fire gone?

He took a deep breath and shook his head. Again, no use overthinking it when he wasn't sure something was wrong.

To distract himself, he began to pace the hallway. Well, he 'paced' as far as the leash he was stuck on would permit him to go, anyway, and patiently waited for the minutes of the night to tick away. As he walked, he happened upon a framed photograph hanging on the wall. The Schnee family: A man, a woman, two daughters, and a son. All gazed out from the picture sullenly, wearing expressions the rich liked to fancy as 'dignified', but which always looked to Roman more like 'miserable'. He examined the painting a bit, reaching out a hand only to be frustrated (though hardly surprised) when his fingertips vanished into the object without resistance. He hadn't managed to touch anything with his hands since returning, and his annoyance about it was beginning to mount.

There HAD to be a trick to this! After all, he wasn't falling through the planet. He was even able to sit on the floor if he wanted to, and could possibly sit on other objects as well. Passing through walls was a convenient skill to have, but if he didn't figure out how to interact with the world he would be dependent upon the Ice Queen for everything. The thought elicited a groan. He was so, so tired of feeling powerless.

He tried for a while longer to touch the painting, but eventually tired of the failures and headed back to the door of Weiss' bedroom. From there, the stillness of his night would only be interrupted by the occasional intrusion of a pair of guards, who appeared every hour without fail to walk the length of the hallway. When they got to Weiss' room their behavior changed: One would always stop, kneel down to peer into the keyhole, then nod to the other, confirming she was still inside.

Ah… now he understood. Guards protecting you from the outside had a different manner to them than guards keeping you inside. It was a distinction he'd learned to appreciate after the first few times he'd ended up behind bars. No wonder the little snowflake was so frustrated! She was a prisoner in her own home, and since he was her prisoner, that meant he was double-trapped. He really couldn't seem to catch a break! What had he ever done to deserve this?

All that said, part of him wished he hadn't realized her predicament. It was hard for him to hate someone he pitied, and Weiss' situation was certainly pitiable. Still, his thoughts went back to the fight atop the airship- to what Little Red had done to Neo- and he decided that, however hard it may be, he'd surely find a way to hate her, all the same.

***

"Blue, white. Blue, white." Roman yawned dismissively, complaining about the colors of the walls, floors, furniture… everything, really... as he walked beside Weiss. His long night finally ended, with Weiss waking not long after sunrise, and the pair of them had departed her room, though he thought better of asking her what she was up to. He still wasn't sure why she'd relented and agreed to let him stay, but he knew enough to realize it was a tenuous alliance at best, and he had to avoid upsetting her too badly. Alas, though, he had a disposition that so loved to tease… and she seemed like the perfect target for teasing.

The pair of them walked further, past there residential wing of the mansion and into the great foyer: a grand, shimmering staircase of dark blue and white inviting them down into the entryway. Despite himself, Torchwick shuddered. By this point he was as tired of stairs as he was of feeling powerless. They descended slowly, then rounded the corner toward the dining room.

"… and to the shock of nobody, what do we have? More blue and more white." He chuckled taking a seat at the end of the long dining table. His eyes widened as he found he was able to sit down without any effort, feeling the chair take his weight above it as if he were any regular human. Excitedly, he reached down to press his fingertips against the seat's padding, and only barely stopped himself from screaming in anger as his hand once again phased through the solid matter. What the hell!? What did his ass have that his hands didn't?

Weiss, oblivious to his struggles, stared daggers at him as she took her own seat at the end furthest from him.

"Give it a rest." She whispered. The dining room and kitchen were separated by a thin wall, and as she took her place servants quickly trotted out to her, busing trays of food. She hadn't even needed to make a request or let anyone know she was coming! Man, the rich really did live in their own special world.

"Hey, don't take it out on me. Not my fault the Schnee family seems to have a blood feud with the concept of color." He sniped back cooly. The table itself was longer than some of the houses he'd seen in the slums, with at least thirty chairs lined along its outer perimeter. Every single place was set with a plate and a wrapped collection of silverware. All this despite the fact that the family was only, like, half a dozen people! Just in case they were randomly beset by 30 of their closest friends at the last minute?

"Those colors represent our family and our company. It's tradition… not that I expect you to care about such things." Weiss waited to reply until after the servants had placed her food in front of her. She sounded strangely proud as she defended the home decor. Torchwick's thoughts fell back on the guards he'd observed last night, and what she'd said to that tubby butler guy about being frustrated. Guess home is home, even if it's also your prison. He could sort of relate to that.

"You expect correctly! In my experience 'tradition' is just Stockholm syndrome for the mistakes of our ancestors." He acknowledged with a sly nod, before conceding, "Hey, who am I to judge, though? I have some signature colors, myself."

"Yeah, we noticed. You're not exactly a subtle guy."

"Touche," Seeing all that pride, a consummate gadfly like him couldn't help but poke her a little bit, so against his better judgment he added, "Still… the SDC is known for more than its color scheme. Profiteering, smuggling, industrial sabotage, and that's not even getting into the animal abuse. You guys have a rap sheet that could rival mine! Is that 'tradition', too?"

"Of course not! Our family may have lost its way in recent times, but we aren't defined by our mistakes." She glowered forward, a determined frown on her lips. Seemed he'd stumbled upon a subject she was quite passionate about. "I'll put us on the right track again. I have to."

"Listen to you! I'm relieved to see so much fighting spirit. It's kind of cute when it's not being used to foil my plans." He laughed softly, a warm sound to mask some cold memories. Her completely earnest reactions to his needling questions were already promising to be an endless fount of amusement for him, but he had to be careful to stop pushing while he was ahead. More than anything, he was relieved to see that she still had some fire in her, after all. Seemed her 'real' self was just hiding under the miserable, trapped princess he'd glimpsed last night.

As they talked he absently reached out for the bundle of silverware at the place setting before him, clicking his tongue in frustration as his gloved fingertips fell through the material and gripped only air. Still no progress…

Weiss ate in silence for a few moments, though she didn't have long to enjoy it before another voice called out to her.

"Well! As I live and breathe. To think we would be blessed with your company multiple times in one week!" The voice of a teenage boy, outwardly cheerful and confident, but with an undercurrent of sarcastic condescension… not that that last point was a stone Torchwick should ever throw. He looked over to the entrance of the dining room, finding the source of the voice standing there.

Roman immediately recognized him from the picture he'd seen last night, although he was much older now. This must be the son of the Schnee clan? The boy was a scrawny little twerp, with pale skin and effeminate features. So much so that he could have been a dead ringer for his sister, were it not for her modest chest and less-than-modest ponytail. He was dressed in a light blue vest over a white button-up shirt, with matching slacks, and wearing the most smug, punch-able smirk Torchwick had ever seen in his life… though he again admitted he probably shouldn't be the one criticizing others for such a trait.

"Good morning, Whitley." Weiss offered cordially, not bothering to look up from her plate. Ah! Whitley Schnee. Unlike the daughters of the line, Torchwick didn't have any firsthand experience with the youngest son… but he didn't need firsthand experience or incredible psychic powers to tell this wasn't a loving sibling interaction.

"Oh, don't worry! I don't intend to intrude upon your sullen meal, I just wanted to express my relief that your melancholy is finally beginning to lift. For a while I'd begun to fret that perhaps your bedroom door had been welded shut." His smirk grew wider, and he tilted his chin up slightly, literally looking down his nose at her.

"Yeah… I'm sure you've been beside yourself worrying about me." She rolled her eyes, tapping her fork absently against what remained of a breakfast sausage. Her brother seemed either oblivious or apathetic to her hostility, however, and merely reached into the pocket of his vest, extracting an ornate pocket watch.

"Yes, well, wounded as I am by your lack of faith, I can't tarry long. Father has entrusted me with a most important task. Would that all of us had the luxury of lounging about the house all day! I hope your disposition continues to improve. Best of luck in your charity concert performance. We highborn have a duty to ameliorate the suffering of the unwashed masses from time to time." He bowed his head and left as abruptly as he'd entered. It seemed he'd come and talked to her for no greater purpose than to show off how busy he was. Torchwick watched him leave, shaking his head thoughtfully.

"Y'know, I gotta thank that kid," He said with a grin. "Sometimes I forget why I hold the Atlas elite in such seething contempt, so it helps to have a reminder."

"Really? From where I sit you two are a lot alike." She returned his grin with a bemused smile of her own, her cool blue gaze narrowed his way. Harsh as her words were, there was a light playfulness to them that at least implied she was getting better at hiding her disdain for him. He'd take that! Progress is progress.

"Honesty, Snowflake." He labored the distinction to her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "The secret ingredient is honesty. A low-born thug like me will rob ya, but at least I won't try to pretend I'm doing you a favor when I do it. High-born thugs can't do that. They won't rest until they convince you that it sure was nice of them to return your emptied wallet to you. It's good to have self-awareness, right?"

"Hmmmmmm..." Weiss' voice rumbled in her throat, her eyes narrowing still more at him. Seems she was less than impressed by the difference, Torchwick thought. How genuinely shocking! "Well, whatever. He's the least of my worries, right now."

"Oh? Do you mean the concert he was talking about?" Torchwick asked. Weiss finished eating, pushing the plate away from herself and letting out a long, beleaguered sigh.

"Why? Are you going to pretend to care about me, too?" She asked, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. Torchwick didn't doubt she intended the question to be confrontational, but a little bit of her abject misery had seeped into her voice, as well. Once again, pitiable! If she insisted on being like this she would almost rob his teasing of all its fun. Almost.

"Geez! You're not even in your twenties yet and you're already so cynical. That's not healthy."

"So you really care then? After everything that happened between you and my team?" She raised a fair point. After last night he'd tried to stop letting himself think about Little Red at all. Every time he did so he was reminded of Neo's terrified face as the turbulent winds pulled her into the void, and that mental image conjured a fury in his chest that he had a difficult time keeping off his face. The 'Preschool Huntress Pals' really could rot in hell, for all he cared.

"It's the transitive property, Snowflake." Fury aside, he finally settled on how to respond to her. This was her home, but she was completely alone here. She didn't need him to be another enemy to worry about. Not that he cared, of course. Absolutely not. It would just be counterproductive to add to the things making her hide in her shell, is all. "I care about me. I care about me deeply. For the foreseeable future, you and I are joined at the hip. Almost literally, as it were. So, if I care about me, and me equals you, logically I care about you, too. Get it? Don't feel like you have to face all your problems alone! Come on! Vent. Vent to your ole pal Torchwick!"

Weiss sighed again, this time in resignation, and stood from the table slowly. Torchwick followed suit. His host looked from him, to the wall, and back again. As she did so, the frown at her lips slacked and reformed several times. A thousand thoughts were running through her mind all at once, and he could only guess what they were.

Then, she finally spoke. She started speaking in her normal tone, but the words grew gradually more fast paced and frantic as she went, "I'm performing a concert in a few days. To raise awareness and funds for Vale. It's proving quite a challenge for me. The attack on Beacon left me with a lot to think about, and before I could even start processing it I got pulled back home, and now I have to sing when I just want to..."

She stopped abruptly as her voice began to crack, saying more in the moment than she'd meant to. Tears were beginning to pool behind her eyes, but she furrowed her brow and refused to let them flow. Torchwick found himself looking away from her, feeling as if he was seeing a side of her she would rather have kept private. Had this been the first time she'd been able to vent about all this?

"Funds? From old-money Atlas? For Vale? You'd have an easier time squeezing orange juice out of a turnip. Well, that aside, I guess-from my outsider perspective- the biggest point of confusion I have is: why do you 'have' to sing?" He realized that what he said right now wasn't really important. He needed her to escape from this pity party she had fallen into if he was ever going to convince her to leave, but he was an old enemy, so she wouldn't listen to him if he tried to advise her. She was going to have to work out her problems on her own. All he could do to help himself was to let her talk through her problems and hope to the gods she could figure herself out on her own.

Ugh! He really should have billed her upfront if he was going to play the therapist. Still…

She walked silently for a while. Weiss seemed like the type of person who was always vaguely pissed off about something, but there was no fight in her body language now. Her shoulders were slumped, eyes cast downward, and her thin lips bore a soft frown that felt more 'resigned' than 'furious'. Torchwick pondered whether he should push the issue or let it lie, but before he could make a decision one way or the other she finally responded.

"I was on the grounds of Beacon when it fell. It would be to the benefit of the Schnee family and company to remind the world that we stood in defense of Vale in its hour of need." There was no pride in her voice this time… no emotion at all, for that matter. She spoke like a reporter relaying a quote they had no personal stake in. Torchwick reached up and brushed his bangs away from his eye, scowling thoughtfully. He wasn't sure why, but her response annoyed him.

"What are you, a parrot? If you're gonna use someone else's words to justify why you're doing something, you could at least pretend you agree with them." To his surprise, she reacted to his words by turning to face him, meeting his gaze with a joyless smile.

"Have you ever felt trapped, Roman Torchwick?" Her question hit him hard. So hard he stopped walking for a moment. Ah, so that was what was going on. Seems family drama was what had robbed the Ice Queen of her fire. Suddenly, he could start to piece together what it was he'd said that convinced her to spare him last night.

"Gotcha, gotcha, fine. I guess we have a concert to prepare for, then… unless you wanna run away? Leave the heiress and huntress life behind and become an outlaw? Hey! Have you ever considered Dust smuggling? With your connections to the SDC and my connections to the underground we could build an empire!"

For just a moment she gave him a genuine smile. A warmth that he'd never seen from her before radiated from the expression, and he was fairly sure his heart skipped a beat… if it was even beating to begin with. That moment was quite short-lived, however, and her lips quickly straightened into a flat, bemused line.

"I'll thank you not to project your fantasies onto me, you dolt!" A bit of genuine sharpness had found its way into her voice, but despite the anger there was a sort of levity about her body language, as her steps lightened a bit- from a wistful shuffle to a more brisk walk. Seemed his instinct about her was right: She was at her happiest when mildly annoyed by something.

"Sorry about that. I forgot, you kids hadn't met the real world yet. I envy your naivete. Still, it's an open invitation, if you change your mind." He exhaled sharply and shrugged. These heroic types were the kinds of people he got on with the worst. He was completely at her mercy, though, so for now he had to try to make himself as pleasant as possible.

"I want to help people. I want to erase the stigma on my family name. That's why I'm going through with this concert. If I were willing to hurt the innocent for something as ridiculous as an empire, I'd just follow in my father's footsteps."

Deep breaths, Roman, old buddy. He thought, closing his eyes to hide that his right eye had begun to twitch. He really didn't like these heroic types. Prattling on about the 'innocent'. One of the many truths he'd accidentally divulged to her last night had been his sincere denial of the existence of innocent people.

The world was too bleak. Too cruel. The rich only cared about their own egos and their own comforts… even Weiss' obsession with her 'family name' reeked of egotism to him. The poor, in turn, could present a veneer of kindness in times of plenty, but revealed their true selves when times got hard. They'll put hunters up on a pedestal, but that's because they want those same hunters to die for them someday… and they all inevitably will, because every Grimm you kill will be replaced by two more. His offer to her may have been self-serving, but he did really believe she'd be better off just taking his advice and living free.

Anyone naive enough to think otherwise could never be convinced of that, though. Not with words, anyway. It was a lesson only time could teach. Life had a way of punishing optimism.

"If you say so! Remember, I'm at your service here. I'm just sayin' that you look pretty miserable for someone who's 'choosing' to do all this."

"Don't talk like you know me." Her eyebrow twitched and her ponytail jiggled as she stopped and tilted her head toward him. She looked like she was trying to puzzle out how much of his concern was genuine. The fact that she had to question that at all was a credit to his acting… because while he couldn't help but pity her, she was his enemy.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I get that you're under a lot of stress right now. I was just trying to help, but I can tell I was out of line. I can't help it, I like to poke nerves sometimes, but we're a team now! The two amigos! Snowflake and Torchwick: the hat-less ghost. If you're hellbent on following through with this concert, then I'll help you out any way I can."

She grimaced, but did seem less overtly angry with him, so he was willing to take that as a compromise. It was a frustrating situation for him because she obviously wanted to get out of this place. A fact which dovetailed quite nicely with the fact that he, too, wanted her out of this place. Why did these goody-goody sorts have to insist upon denying their true selves?

"This is all I can do to help Vale now. If the people of Atlas hear my song, they'll understand." She muttered this silently, more to herself than to him. Seemed even she needed to be convinced this was something she wanted to do.

Her words brought a sense of relief to Torchwick, though. She was hinging her stubbornness on the charity of the people of Atlas... which meant she was about to learn a harsh truth about the world even without listening to him. The kinds of people who would be able to attend a concert held by the scion of the SDC were the kinds of people who would never, in a million years, feel the slightest bit of concern for their fellow man. If it couldn't make them money, and it wasn't something they could smoke, drink, or screw, then they had no time for it. It was a lesson he'd also needed to learn the hard way, back in the day.

He offered no further resistance to her after she spoke, allowing silence to fall between them as he looked ahead and massaged his shoulders. Seemed all he could do for now was wait.