So I'm just going to dump various one-shots here. I shall not discriminate via genres, plots, pairings or whathaveyou, but nothing explicit. Just the first of many, probably. Oh, and some may contain OCs. May.

So for this prompt I decided to go and find a word in the thesaurus and write from it. It's a good idea. Try it.

Word: Know-How

Alexander Gromov had very little "street smarts". Who needs 'em? he figured. Not me!

Although high school was rough for him because he was small, too talkative for his own good and a huge smart-aleck, once out into the real world, being smart had its privileges. Being pretty rich was one of them. Also, as it turns out, brainy was the new sexy.

But not anymore.

After the oxygen pump broke and he ventured out into the wild yonder of the wastelands, it became very apparent to him that attending gym class more often in his youth would have been beneficial. As soon as he set foot outside, he encountered a hideous beast battling three mortal men. How in all the hells they survived was beyond him. But they were obviously skilled, so he stuck with them.

He eventually realized that their so-called "Captain" was Project Seven and "Snippy" was Charles Snippy who continuously showered him in tightly worded notes about the quality of the workspace at the G-Cube. Being hardly able to keep a secret, his identity came out in no time.

As expected, he received a hard punch to the face.

The breath was knocked out of him as he fell to the ground. Charles was sitting astride his chest, his fist cocked back for another blow, his other hand holding notes with Alexander Gromov printed on them.

It had taken Pilot and Captain to pull Charles off of Alex, then another hour to calm him down. It was several weeks before Snippy grudgingly agreed to go on a mission with him.

The wasteland was icier than normal—and that's saying something. Gusts of wind blew through the decrepit buildings. Alex shivered and clung to his coat. Charles marched on ahead of him, somehow silent despite all the metal bits surrounding them and the crunching snow underfoot.

"Charles?" His voice sounded hoarse and tired. He was shivering, despite the fur on his jacket.

Snippy stopped and looked at him, his goggles giving the impression of quirking an eyebrow.

Alex looked down at his feet. "Can you teach me how to shoot a gun?"

"Why?" Charles' voice was colder than the wasteland.

Poking at the ground, he said, "I don't want to be useless. You have the wasteland know-how and all I have is this." He tapped his head.

Snippy shrugged. "That can be useful, if you know how to apply it."

That was probably the nicest thing that anyone had said to him in ages. He ducked his head sheepishly.

He felt a hand on his arm. Alex looked up and locked eyes with Charles.

"Listen," he said slowly. "I've been kinda hard on you, lately. Frankly, you deserve it."

He nodded. That was true.

"But on the other hand," he continued. "We need to stay together as a team. If we split apart, surely we'll die. This isn't the urban jungle, anymore. Social hierarchy doesn't apply."

"But Captain…"

"Yeah, he and Pilot think that he's a god. Just ignore them, when you can. What I'm saying, is that we're comrades now, yeah?" He held out a hand to shake.

Alex took it, feeling the weight of the statement. "So… you'll teach me how to shoot?"

"Eventually." Charles sounded amused as he turned around. "Once you finish building Captain's motorized zebra."

He sighed, having forgotten about that. "Don't remind me."

Snippy's laughter was carried away by the wind in the wasteland.