Natasha and Archer
Recent events had been keeping Archer Avery busy for the past few weeks -- hell, the past few months, if he was being real fucking honest -- but he figured he owed it to his friends, if no one else, to take a breather now and again. His friends were the ones that had to look out for him when he buried himself with work. 'Least he could do was give them a break from that and have a go at taking some time for himself. Brannon in particular had to deal with Archer's workaholic ways, being his deputy chief and best friend, so Archer decided to make the time to check out the grand opening of The Chestnut Tree. Bran talked about Natasha enough to make Archer want to meet the bar's proprietress in person anyhow; the free drinks he had on a tab, created back when he donated items to help the place get up and running a few months ago, vaguely pinged at the back of his mind but hadn't really factored into his decision to go check it out. Archer needed to take a deep breath, what with everything, and a drink as he scoped out the new business and met Natasha seemed to count as a break to him.
He was met at the door by a member of The Chestnut Tree staff, who asked that he check his weapons in before entering the establishment. Archer’s mind warred with that for a second or two, torn between thinking it a good way to keep everything neutral and not wishing to part with his service pistol in the event that not everyone was as interested in keeping the peace as Natasha wished them to be. Rules were rules, though, so Archer went through the ritual of racking the slide to clear the chamber, ejecting the clip, and making sure the safety was on before handing his gun butt first to the attendant. Since he wasn’t about to sit around in an empty shoulder holster, Archer unsnapped the loop that went through his belt on the left side and shrugged out of the straps. He handed his rig over to the staff member, who holstered the chief’s gun once more. Then Archer was given the claim ticket, assured the weapon would be well taken care of, and told to enjoy his time in The Chestnut Tree.
When he came down the hallway and into the main room, senses on alert… there was a moment where Archer could have pretended that this wasn’t the fucking apocalypse. This place cleaned up pretty good. Natasha, and anyone she’d gotten to help her, had done a nice job in here. Sure, the stools didn’t all match, but fuck it: she had a bar, and bar stools, and a jukebox, for fuck’s sake. And it was going, playing music, and the place even smelled faintly like he remembered bars smelling like. Give it a few weeks and Archer bet it’d hit even closer on his sense memory. In a different world, if he was a different kind of guy, it’d be nice to see how long he could pretend he wasn’t the fucking chief of police to a scarred up wasteland he just didn’t fucking understand anymore. Not that it really meant much in here. Half on autopilot, he unpinned the badge from the front of his plain grey work shirt and shoved it into the pocket of his charcoal cargo pants.
The tall cop picked out his empty stool and settled onto it in time to be the recipient of a cheerful greeting, the redhead behind the bar asking for his order. “Beer. If you’ve got it. Please.” Archer ran a hand over the back of his head, over the short white hair there, and tipped his head slightly, blue eyes curious. “You’re Natasha?” he asked, the friendly tone offsetting his clipped way of speaking.