A/N: Alexa and Doug enjoy an evening at home, post game (but no huge spoilers). Swears & beer & something that is not flirting, not even close. Really.

All the good stuff belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITH SOFT, although I came up with the film title.

Isn't it bromantic?

Doug and Alexa were watching a brilliant smash-em-up skell movie, "San Andreas Mechs III". Lots of chases and shootouts. Doug just enjoyed the dumb action, while Alexa could not control a string of hoots and criticisms about the wrongness of every skell and every scene. Luckily the sound consisted mostly of explosions, screeches, and driving tinny rap music, because if there had been any exposition more involved than "We need to go now!" and "He'll pay for that!", Doug would never have heard it for her chatter.

Best way to spend an evening if they couldn't be doing their real favorite things. With no juicy or even bone dry missions going, Doug was a little at a loss. Hopefully things would pick up soon. He didn't feel like hanging out at Repenta one more night, but he couldn't quite manage sitting in his quarters either. He would just end up pacing. This left the hangar area, but dammit, nothing needed cleaning or repairing. He'd checked. So it was one more endless night there, sipping repulsive coffee and not quite making eye contact with his team.

Meanwhile, Alexa had finished a long series of detailed tests on, of all things, improved knife melee accuracy. Necessary, appreciated, but so not skells it made her almost weep. She could only pray that her assignment tomorrow would be better. Home wasn't any bed of roses either. She'd read all her skell mags and manuals so many times, she could only flip through them half-heartedly. Her roomies were watching a kissy kissy movie, sighing over dudes who wore capes and rode horses. HORSES! They'd kicked her out after she'd made gagging noises. Finally, she'd headed to the hangar area, maybe to bug Lila, maybe to drool over skells (maybe!), and found Doug looking gloomy. They'd decided that misery loved company, and that a really trashy racing movie was about the only solution.

Which is why they were enjoying the wonders of Doug's tiny regulation couch, squished elbow to elbow, drinking a little beer, eating a lot of popcorn, and generally smoothing out the wrinkles in their brains with this fine piece of cinema. Alexa kept grabbing Doug's arm to alert him to a particularly awful misrepresentation of the greatness of skells, because, oh yes, she'd seen this one before. She could recite the dialogue for long patches. Doug could recite the dialogue too, although he'd never seen this particular movie before. Anyone with half an imagination could figure out that when the hero stomped onto the battlefield, then transformed into a vehicle, the only possible line could be, "Let's roll." Occasionally, he'd make a snarky remark about tactics, and Alexa would hoot about that too.

Just before the first big race competition scene, where Doug already was certain the naive but plucky skell pilot would sacrifice the lead to let the team leader triumph, Alexa reached over Doug to adjust the lighting on the switches next to his ear. A less lazy person would have hopped off the couch, but she just turned, half straddled him, and reached up and behind his head to fiddle with the levels.

"Alexa!" The complaint came from the area of her chest.

"What?" She was still punching at the light switch, trying different options. "There's some wicked glare, and I can't stand it."

"Excuse me, but ever hear of personal space?" Doug sounded muffled and maybe just a little terrified.

She sat back on her heels, squarely on his lap now, and looked down on him. "I'm exactly as close as before. Just blocking the view a little. Lean to the side if you have to."

Doug closed his eyes tight, and took a deep breath. "This is really distracting and a little disturbing."

"Come on," she chided him. Her grin was derisive. "Don't tell me you are interested in this part. They're just going to yabber on about the honor of their team for 3 minutes. Dullsville."

"Jesus, Alexa, do I really have to explain this? I am not used to somebody jumping on me and smothering me with their tits. You like skells. I like girls. Get off my lap."

"What?" If he'd hoped to shock her into moving, it didn't quite work. Shocked, yes, and starting to giggle, but she was still sitting there, unbelieving. "You're kidding me."

"Alexa, I'm going to count to three…" His eyes were still closed, and he had his jaw clenched.

She really did laugh then, and shifted back to sit beside him. She gave his hand a consoling pat. "Really? God, what will you think of next? Better now?"

Doug took in a deep breath and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He rolled his shoulders, trying to relax them. "Yeah, so usually it doesn't come into play, but there are limits on even the weirdest friendship."

She laughed harder. "You're the weird one."

Finally he could look at her again. He smiled a rueful smile. "Really? Whose nickname is Skellhead?"

"Mine, thank you very much. What's weird about that?"

"Sad thing is, it used to sound much weirder to me. Maybe I'm getting numb to it all."

She shrugged and turned back to the screen. "Whatever. Oh wait, watch this part."

They watched that part. Alexa went on a long rant on how there was no way the maneuver, drifting to the side to push the opponent's skell into the gorge, would have worked without also crashing the hero. He wouldn't have just fallen behind. He would have caught on fire. Doug congratulated himself silently on spotting obvious plot developments as the team leader indeed used the opportunity to race to the front of the pack.

The movie continued, through several more shoot outs and crashes and a final all-country rally that was so poorly shot that even Alexa was having trouble telling which team was making which curve.

As Doug picked up the beer bottles, and Alexa helped corral the errant popcorn pieces, she turned and asked him. "Did it really bug you?" She didn't have to explain what.

"Naw, just, don't do it again."

"Usually you ignore that I'm a woman. None of that stupid stuff. That's cool of you."

"I don't ignore it, I just don't let it get involved that way. Gotta do that when you work with a team, for a lot of different things." He'd ducked down to check his mini fridge, then popped back up with two last cold ones. "Who's a woman, or a dude, or married, or a drinker. If it's an issue, you pay attention, otherwise, you don't." He handed her a bottle.

"Still, it's cool. Thanks."

"It's easy with you."

"Huh, like I'm not a woman?" She didn't sound hurt, just curious. Well, maybe a little worried too.

"Nope. If I didn't remember it, my current team would remind me. Just a note, keep away from them, they are 100% dogs. Man did I draw a bunch of losers this time." He shook his head, then clinked bottle necks with her. "It's just, I like you, so it's easy."

"Until I use you as my own personal step stool."

"You got the picture. My reptilian brain goes: Me Doug, you girl, and I need to start counting to 1000."

Alexa laughed cheerfully, and Doug smiled back at her. "Well, I won't do that again," Alexa promised. "Okay?"

"I'd appreciate it."

"We're still cool for tango, though?" It made sense to be a little worried, because when they hit the dance floor, there was a whole lot of choreographed grabbing and pivoting going on.

"Tango is a whole 'nother world, Alexa, its own thing. No other thoughts need apply."

"Great! Because I was thinking about next week's talent competition…"

They bounced ideas about moves back and forth, and even discussed costumes. Yes, they'd sunk that deep that Alexa was almost ready to try a skirt to enhance the visuals. Until Doug pointed out that their winnings were better when they arrived at an event in their most casual of street clothes. Something about seeing the two of them in hoodies and jeans made even the most cautious Pathfinder bet big against this couple doing anything more interesting than the chicken dance. Even people that had seen them once or twice seemed to lose all sense, sure that last time had been a fluke, that they'd misremembered those quick yet fluid movements, those fiery mobile embraces. Mufti it was then.

Alexa gave a great yawn, not her first but surpassing all others in ferocity. "I gotta get home. This week has been twice as long as normal because it was so BORING!" She stood up and wobbled a bit from tiredness.

"You can hop into my bed."

"Doug!"

"Shut up, stupid. I'll ride the couch. I was going to stay up and read anyway."

She smiled mildly, already asleep on her feet. "Okie dokie. Thanks, Dougie."

"No problems. Yell if you need anything."

And if any of their various roomies or teammates made rude remarks the next morning, Alexa just wrinkled her nose, while for his part, Doug merely wondered out loud, his usually mild voice holding the slightest touch of menace, if somebody had a problem with something.

A/N: Eldest Child swears there will never, ever be anything between these two darlings, and I tend not to argue with experts. However ... I say, there could come a day when beer, boredom, and an overly enthusiastic demonstration of new skell harnesses and throttle placement will lead to something very interesting. Or not, I'm okay with that too. If your read "Picnic", you will see (obliquely) what dogs Doug's team really are (don't worry, Alexa's abuela raised no fools).