Good god, White Rose has truly taken over my life. Here I still have Sucker Punch and ARAA to update, yet I continue to dish out completely unrelated oneshots. Elsanna and Falling Petals have truly been set on the backburner for these two. Oh well, at least this one is considerably shorter than the last.

Anyway, this piece was inspired by a work of art I stumbled across on iFunny. I don't recall who the artist was, but if you search the RWBY tag, I'm sure you'll know which one I'm referring to.

EDIT: Thanks to a couple reviewers, I figured out that the artist's name is medukarrabu.

.:Mechanics of the Heart:.

This was not the way things were supposed to have happened.

Weiss huffed indignantly as she saw the stream of blue smoke lazily drifting from the hood of her car. To make matters worse, as she had been attempting to pull over and see through said smoke, she had somehow managed to get a flat tire as well.

So much for cars the finest money could buy.

Now what am I supposed to do? Weiss thought with another aggravated sigh. Father's in the middle of that important business meeting, mother isn't going to give me the time of day so long as I'm not injured, and Winter's away. Great; just great.

Figuring if anything in this God-forsaken car was going to help her, it would be in the glove compartment, Weiss leaned over and opened it. A mess of papers came tumbling out. Pulling them into her lap, Weiss began to shuffle through them.

I don't see why I couldn't have had one of our drivers take me to this silly meeting with a suitor. I mean, what's the use of having a limo and drivers if they're not even available when you need them? Now, I'm stuck in a broken down car and am obviously not going to be making that lunch. Weiss paused her train of thought before resuming it with a shrug. Oh well. I didn't want to meet that mess of a boy anyway. Now I don't need an excuse for being absent.

Just as she was about through looking through the car's title, insurance forms, and handbook, a small business card fluttered down into her lap. Examining it, Weiss heaved a breath of relief.

Xiao Long-Rose Towing & Garage

Better than nothing, I suppose, Weiss grumbled as she pulled out her scroll.

The other line was picked up within the first ring by a man that sounded far too happy to be working such a low-level job as a mechanic.

In Weiss's opinion, that is.

"Xiao Long-Rose Garage, how may I help you?"

"Yes, I'm currently broken down on Interstate 60 going north towards Vale," Weiss explained. "Something's wrong with my engine and I have a flat tire. I'm in need of assistance, please."

"Bummer," the man replied to which Weiss only rolled her eyes. How unprofessional. "Well, fret not, miss. I'm sending out the best mechanic this side of Remnant to you now. Hang tight."

"Thank you," Weiss quipped before hanging up.

Returning her scroll to her jacket pocket, Weiss decided she might as well wait outside the car. After all, it was probably going to take a while for anyone to show. If Weiss had learned anything from her other trips into Vale, it was that the city's workers seemed to not value punctuality.

Fifteen minutes later, however, she was shockingly proven wrong—though she would never give these people that kind of satisfaction.

A red pickup truck pulled off the highway behind her, the bolded words of the company letting her know it was indeed the people she had just called.

Weiss was even more surprised when a young girl, younger than Weiss even, hopped out of the truck, her exuberant energy and bouncing steps making her seem to almost hop over to Weiss.

"Hiya!" she greeted with a wide grin.

Weiss took her time to observe the girl before her, critically analyzing every little detail. Aside from the obvious grease stains on the girl's shirt, she hardly fit the bill as a mechanic. Weren't mechanics bulky men who never showered? They were gruff and rude, and, while they excelled in their field, were never real friendly. Yet this girl was completely shattering the stereotype.

She donned a red t-shirt which showed just the barest hint of a milky white stomach, short black shorts and black Converse, her shoulder-length brown hair dyed red at the tips and pulled back into a ponytail. Overall, she looked like she belonged in middle school, not driving, and certainly not anywhere near Weiss's car.

"You're the best mechanic this side of Remnant?" Weiss balked.

The girl just nodded excessively. "Yup!" she chirped. "Ruby Rose at your service."

Weiss just rolled her eyes when the girl gave a little salute at the end of her spiel.

"Whatever," Weiss grumbled. "Can you fix my car or not?"

Suddenly seeming to just notice the car sitting idly behind Weiss, the girl's intriguing silver eyes lit up.

"Oh, wow!" she squealed, dashing past Weiss and to the vehicle. "A 2016 Aston Martin Vanquish Volante! So cooool~!"

"You can tell the year just by looking at it?" Weiss asked, regretting to find herself somewhat impressed.

"Of course I can!" the girl—Ruby, a part of Weiss's mind reminded her—exclaimed. "I love cars! Why do you think I became a mechanic?"

Weiss figured the answer 'because it was the only thing you could make a living doing' was not the one she was looking for. Instead, she remained silent, watching Ruby like a hawk as she circled the car.

"Okay, I know it's impressive, but can you please just fix it?" Weiss snapped. "I kind of have somewhere I'm supposed to be."

"Oh! Right!" Ruby squeaked, a light blush dusting her cheeks from being chastised.

Quickly skipping—yes, skipping, Weiss thought distastefully, and yet slightly amused—to the hood, Ruby popped it open, immediately being shrouded in a cloud of smoke. A deeply rooted curiosity had Weiss carefully inching her way over as well, peering over Ruby's shoulder as she was elbows-deep in her engine.

"Well?" Weiss pressed.

Spinning to face her and pulling a rag from her pockets, Ruby wiped her hands off before looking to Weiss.

"I'm going to need to take this back to the shop in order to repair it. One of the valve stem seals malfunctioned. I'm gonna have to replace the cylinder head to fix it."

Weiss just blinked for a moment before scoffing. "I have no idea what you just said, but do what you have to and quickly. Father's already going to have my head for missing this lunch."

"Well, I'm sure he'll understand if you give him a call, right?" Ruby spoke with a hesitant smile that somehow worked to help Weiss unwind in the slightest.

"You don't know my father…"

A moment of awkward silence fell between them before Ruby cleared her throat, turning to close the hood of the car.

"Well, I'll move my truck so I can get you up on the bed to tow, and then you and I can head back to the garage, okay?"

Weiss simply just nodded as Ruby walked back to the truck. Pulling it around, Weiss watched as she carefully pulled in front of her Aston Martin before backing up as much as she could without their cars touching. Weiss couldn't help but be impressed by the girl's precision. In no time, Weiss's car was securely fastened to the tow bed.

Rounding the truck to its passenger side, Ruby opened the door and held out her hand for Weiss.

"Need a hand up?" she asked, that infuriating childish, yet undeniably adorable, smile still lighting her face.

Weiss found with a flutter of her stomach that she didn't have the heart to tell the girl off.

The ride back to the garage was spent mostly in silence. Weiss couldn't help but observe the interior of the truck. She had been expecting it to be a mess, but she supposed after seeing the immaculate condition of the truck's exterior, she shouldn't have been so surprised the inside was just as clean.

"You…keep this truck spotless, don't you?" Weiss finally broke the silence.

"Yup!" Ruby giggled. "She's my baby!"

Weiss gave her a bewildered look. "She?"

"Yeah! Don't you name your cars?"

"Excuse me?" Weiss was near speechless. "Why would I name a car, let alone assign it a gender?"

Ruby simply shrugged as she kept her eyes on the road. "Why not?"

"And what, pray tell, is this thing's name?"

"Crescent Rose!"

Weiss chuckled. "And here I was expecting it to be named Betsy."

Ruby laughed and looked to Weiss. "No, silly, what kind of name is that?"

"Well, I'm sorry, is there some kind of guide to follow when naming a car?"

"If Betsy is the first thing that comes to your mind, then maybe there should be!" Ruby replied with another laugh.

Weiss was surprised this friendly banter was entertaining, and not in the least bit annoying. Ruby was really something different.

"You really like this truck, don't you?" she asked, dropping her holier-than-thou attitude for the first time that day.

"Of course! My dad gave her to me for my sixteenth birthday last year and I've been taking great care of her ever since!"

"So why Crescent Rose, then?"

Ruby shrugged again. "I don't know. My last name's Rose—hence part of the name of the garage—and I just thought putting Crescent in front was catchy. My sister, Yang, has a motorcycle she named Bumblebee, and her girlfriend's car is named Gambol Shroud." Looking to Weiss again, the older girl noticed a playful gleam to her eyes. "Naming a car isn't like naming a dog," she went on. "In a way, automobiles are more complicated than even humans, and as such, they deserve complex names."

"What got you so interested in cars in the first place?" Weiss asked next, surprising herself by how curious she really was.

"I don't really know," Ruby answered. "It probably has to do with the fact that I was born into the family I was. This garage has been in my family since my great-grandparents, did you know? I've been around all kinds of cars, trucks and bikes my whole life, so I guess it was just natural I'd come to love them. By the time I was four I could change a flat tire on my own—only needing my dad's help for the heavy lifting part—and when I was six, I already knew how to fix an engine when certain things were wrong with it. I started working at the garage when I was thirteen, and like I said earlier, on my sixteenth birthday, dad gifted me with this baby."

"That's…actually very impressive," Weiss mumbled.

"What about you?" Ruby asked.

"What about me?"

"Do you have any passions?"

"Well, I sing professionally."

Ruby gasped. "That's so cool!" Grinning, she looked to Weiss. "Will you sing now?"

Weiss immediately erupted in red. "No! I barely know you! If you want to hear so bad, come to the next concert!"

"I will!"

They fell back into another silence, yet Weiss found it was strangely more comfortable now. After another moment, she broke the quiet once again.

"Myrtenaster," she whispered.

"Huh?"

Weiss rolled her eyes at such an eloquent response. "Myrtenaster," she repeated. "I'm going to name my car Myrtenaster."

"Myrtenaster…" Ruby mumbled, as if testing the name on her tongue. "Does it mean anything?"

This time, it was Weiss who shrugged. "It's German for a certain kind of flower."

"Well, I like it!" Ruby exclaimed. "It suits you!"

Looking critically at the girl next to her, Weiss asked, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Ruby immediately erupted in a pink blush. A small voice in the back of Weiss's mind squealed from the utter adorability present in that moment.

"I don't know…" Ruby mumbled. "You just…have the gracefulness of a flower? Or something?"

With a small 'hmph,' Weiss replied, "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was!" Ruby quickly set straight.

Now another awkward silence fell between them. Luckily, they pulled into the lot of the garage not a minute later. Ruby backed the truck into the lot so she could easily back Weiss's car—now Myrtenaster—into a garage with ease. She then hopped out of Crescent Rose and dashed around to the passenger's side again and opened the door for Weiss.

Weiss chose to ignore the blush on Ruby's face as she was helped down.

"Okay," Ruby spoke. "So, I'm going to work on Myrtenaster, and you can go wait inside if you'd like. There's a TV and drinks, and there should still be some snacks as well, if you're hungry."

"Wait, you're going to fix my car yourself?" Weiss asked. Seeing the crestfallen look that quickly overtook Ruby's face, Weiss found herself quickly wanting to rectify the situation. "I mean," she attempted. "I'm sure you're capable, but…what about your dad or…someone?"

"My dad's out right now to get parts for some of the other cars we have here. He left right after you called and he sent me off to you," Ruby explained. "He put me in charge of the shop while he's gone. It's usually just me and him here anyway. Yang's always out partying and not working."

"You don't have any other workers?" Weiss now asked strictly out of curiosity.

Ruby looked almost embarrassed as she looked down at the ground. "We can't really afford to hire anyone else," she answered. "Business has been kind of slow lately, so dad and I have had to let people go in order to stay open. It means more work for the two of us, but we can't stand to let this place go out of business, so we made sacrifices. It was hard, but…"

"I'm sorry," Weiss apologized—for what, she wasn't exactly sure. "I wasn't trying to be rude. I just can't imagine you working on so many cars by yourself."

Ruby shrugged again. "I mean, it helps when you love it. It can get a bit overwhelming at times, yeah, but… We have to make a living somehow."

"I can come back for my car later if that helps," Weiss found herself offering.

Ruby looked up at her again finally with a frantic shake of her head.

"No!" she cried. "I'll fix it right now!"

"But…what about everyone else whose cars are here now? Don't they take priority over me?"

Ruby mumbled something that sounded strangely close to, "no one could take priority over you," but Weiss chose not to press further upon her heart speeding up so much it felt like it would break out of her rib cage.

Instead, Weiss waved Ruby off with the simple utterance of, "You're the mechanic." Ruby beamed at that, saluted once more and zipped off to do her work. Weiss was left with a small smile in her wake before she made her way inside the building to wait.

Of course, that was easier said than done. She quickly filled herself a cup of water as soon as she stepped inside before heading over the small TV like Ruby had said. But as she mindlessly flipped through channels, her brain was blocking out what was on the box in front of her, instead filling her mind with flashes of black and red, shining silver, and a million-in-one smile.

Oh, fuck me, Weiss cursed irritably, switching the TV off as she downed the rest of her water.

Quickly standing, she walked back out into the garage. She immediately spotted her car where she had last seen it, but Ruby was nowhere to be found. Quirking an eyebrow, Weiss hesitantly stepped further inside the carport. Finally picking up on the tinkering of tools, she followed the noise to the other side of her car to see two long legs in a pair of black shorts sticking out from under her car. Weiss gulped as an unknown pleasant heat stirred within her as her eyes traveled further up.

They came to an immediate stop and nearly bugged out of her head at the pale expanse of toned stomach that greeted her as the familiar red t-shirt rode up ever so slightly. Weiss felt her cheeks burning.

Holy hell, does she have a six-pack?

Not that it should have come as much of a surprise, Weiss supposed. All the physical labor a job like this entailed, it probably should be expected.

What wasn't to be expected was how excited it made Weiss feel.

"R-Ruby?" she hesitantly called out, the stutter of the girl's name giving her slight pause. She never stuttered.

"Yeah Weiss?"

"Uh…"

What was she supposed to say? 'Hurry up, dolt?' 'How much longer is this going to take, you dunce?'

Instead, a meek, "Is there anything I can do?" flitted out.

Sliding out from beneath the car, Weiss's heart only increased ten-fold at the smudge of grease on the girl's cheek. Not to mention that adorable quizzical look was not helping in any way.

"Uh, you actually want to help?" Ruby asked, surprised.

Even though she barely knew Weiss, she seemed to have quickly picked up on the fact that Weiss was much too 'refined' to usually be seen in a repair shop, never mind working on a car.

"I mean," Weiss had no idea why she kept digging herself into a hole. "There was nothing on TV…"

Ruby giggled a bit at the lame excuse before she smiled. "Sure, Weiss. Want to learn how to change a tire?"

The prospect had never appealed so much to Weiss.

By the time the tire was changed and Ruby went over her work with a trained eye, Weiss couldn't help but admit that she had actually had fun working on her car. She guessed it had to do a great deal with her teacher; surely only Ruby could make changing a tire fun.

"You're good to go!" the girl chirped once more, yet again wiping her hands off on that towel of hers.

Weiss had to hide the fact that she was kind of upset by that. Instead, she nodded, and tried to put her 'rich girl' mask back in place.

"You can just send the bill to my father and he'll take care of the payment," she stated.

"That's okay, the work was on the house."

That had her spinning around and her façade crumbling in an instant.

"What?!" she flinched.

"It's free," Ruby restated with a sheepish smile and pink cheeks once more.

"But…" Weiss fumbled. "You said you were struggling?"

Ruby just shrugged. "It's no big deal, Weiss. I wanted to do it for free. Dad doesn't have to know."

"But…"

Ruby giggled. "I know I don't know you that well, Weiss, but stuttering doesn't really seem to suit you."

Shaking her head in order to—hopefully—regain her composure, Weiss reached for her wallet regardless.

"Well then at least take a tip," she offered.

"Oh, no, Weiss, really, it's fine!"

Weiss stomped her foot. "Why are you so damn nice?!"

Ruby merely shrugged again, averting her attention back at the floor.

"Why are you so pretty?" she mumbled so softly Weiss barely caught it. This time, she let herself absorb the words of the brunette instead of casting them aside in fear.

"Ruby," she said softly, gently, so out of character for her, in fact, that it had Ruby looking back up at her. Smiling, she pulled a bill out of her wallet and handed it to the girl. "Please."

Silver eyes widened at the money being thrust her way.

"Weiss, that's too much! I can't accept it!"

"I insist," Weiss persisted, yet still in a caring undertone. "You've been nothing but nice to me, even when I know I'm not the easiest person to talk to or deal with. Not only did you fix my car, but you were a friend to me when I really needed one. I know we don't know much about each other, but let's just say I'm not used to kindness such as yours. I was hesitant to accept it at first, but I'm truly glad I did. So please, let me return the favor."

Silver met ice blue in an intense stare down before Ruby reached a shaky hand out to take the offered one-hundred-lien bill.

"T-Thanks, Weiss."

Weiss's smile widened.

"You're welcome, Ruby."

Five weeks later, Weiss wasn't even able to lie when she intentionally backed into the mailbox at the end of her driveway, just so she'd have an excuse to call up the bubbly little brunette she had a feeling was about to change her world.