The latch on the bathroom door turned, whining in the socket of the door. A moment later, like nothing had happened, the door swung open and opened wide enough for both Archer and Ajax.

"Rather clever, the hand-dryer trick," said Archer, passingly as he came out ahead of Ajax, mindless of anything on the other side. He then stopped short, realizing he had nearly collided with another person. Seemingly blinded, Archer immediately stepped to the side to let the person through, thinking it was someone who wanted to go ahead of him into the men's room. When the person didn't move, Archer looked up from where he had propped the door open with his foot for Ajax to exit and this new person to enter.

It was a young, redheaded woman, a black Rocket beret tipped to the side on her head. A pair of bright, neon red eyes looked up at Archer, seemingly glowing in the darkness of her eyes. She looked to have a clean, paling complexion normally, but there was marks of dried mud across her cheeks—some caught in her hair as well, matting it in strange bent shapes around her head. All down the traditional black Rocket grunt uniform that she wore, mud had been smeared across where the large red 'R' was in the center. Her uniform looked like a costume that had seen too many halloweens—despite the mud splatters—where the black fabric was fraying and the foam padding around the torso had come through and broken off in some areas. Her gloves were forever ruined by grime, as well as her boots.

"Ariana, hello!" said Ajax, beaming, surprised to see her—not nearly as stunned as Archer was. "Sorry for occupying the men's room, it's all yours."

"It just seems oddly suspicious when two men lock the door and come out thinking its inconspicuous," Ariana said, raising a pointed eyebrow as she turned her attention to Ajax. She then smiled, playfully, toying with Ajax's expectations more than his words.

Archer had continued to have his eyes locked on her, even as she looked away. When she looked back at him, Archer saw an uncomfortable quality in her face—a feeling that had nothing to do with how filthy she was.

"Archer," Ajax said, raising his voice to cut through what was seemingly the beginning of a very awkward pause. "I wouldn't feel so bad abandoning you if I wasn't leaving you to meet with the cutest member of Team Rocket. I believe I have some other business to attend to, if you'll excuse me."

As if what he had said had somehow helped prevent a pregnant pause, Ajax took up and left, stepping between Archer and Ariana to leave the small section of the bar where the two bathrooms met. Isolated from the loud, thought-drowning sounds, Archer and Ariana hesitated to follow.

"You know, I came looking because Kat thought she had let you drown in the crowd," said Ariana. "She's saved a spot for you at our table."

Archer had caught himself being distracted. His gaze still lingered on where Ajax had been moments earlier in the doorway, having left him be—his mind still on the conversation in the bathroom. His head turned, his eyes turning to meet with Ariana's, seeing that they were earnest. It took him several seconds to reengage, remembering where he was and how he had gotten to that bar. He blinked, the image of Kat returning to his head, making him cringe as he processed the whole thing. As he looked at Ariana, something in his expression softened, and he relented.

"Yeah, let's."

Ariana put on a smile. "Good. She can be a trifle to handle on one's own."

Leaving the alcove of the bathroom, the inside of the bar seemed hazier than it had been before, more smoke seemingly filling the space and making the pink lights more of a nuisance. A wall of grunts with their backs to them proved an annoying front as, Archer trying to walk the length around where they had all stacked, watched Ariana cut through them and their game of pool. Archer followed quickly, stepping through the gap between all of them and following Ariana closely. They walked along where several tall standing tables had been set, dense groups of female grunts packed in around them all, giving Ariana and Archer leery eyes as they sipped their drinks. Passing between them took them close to the bar, where those at the stools had grown much rowdier, their conversations at shouts and their camaraderie becoming more physical—much to the chagrin of the bartender. As they reached the front of the bar, Ariana swung to the left, passing around where several had been standing and were talking up the fight between an officer and a grunt.

All of the activity that Archer had passed put him into a stupor—the extra cigarette smoke hadn't helped either to put him in a clean mental state. When he looked down, he realized he was standing in front of a booth. Ariana was sitting down on one side, a seat next to her open as she sat across the table from two other people—though they were seemingly so entangled they couldn't be separated. Kat had leaned in close to Zuzzo, looking ready to fall asleep, her head on his shoulders as he kept his arm around her, stroking it like he would a beloved Pokemon.

"Are you going to sit down?"

Archer had been staring down at the two of them—Kat and Zuzzo—like something was wrong between the two of them. When he looked back to where Ariana was by his side, having made space in the booth beside her, Archer didn't look fazed or embarrassed like he may normally have. Instead, his thoughts shifted, his expression never changing, as he took a step back.

"I'm getting drinks. What would you like?" asked Archer.

Ariana looked thoughtful for a moment—she hadn't thought of that, despite being in a bar. It took her several seconds to act on the question, her posture shifting around uncomfortably as she wondered to herself what to respond with. Her hands ran uncomfortably beneath her hair, brushing her hat aside and forcing her to raise her other hand to catch it, then setting it beside her on the booth. Her fingers brushed over the smooth table, herself sitting up more as her gaze lingered on the glossy surface.

"A brandy should be fine," said Ariana.

Ajax was leaning over the bar, just at the corner where there were no stools. Arms folded, his legs crossed one-over-the-other behind him and his torso bent over the wooden lip of the bar corner at nearly a ninety-degree angle. He was chatting with one of the newer recruits who sat in a stool just beside him, the other recruit leaned into listen to the conversation with as much crowding noise as the bar had. As he looked on, listening to some point that one of the grunts nearly had to shout to get across, Ajax looked up out of the corner of his eye, looking down the length of the bar and the length of stools that had been stood up—Archer was walking towards him.

As Ajax paid attention for the final bit of what the grunt was saying, he waved the conversation off lightly, shouting something just as incoherent back as he stood himself up—just enough to rest his side against the bar and lean facing Archer.

"She's pretty cute, huh?"

"Yeah, you mentioned something like that," said Archer, raising his voice to a shout—his voice clearly not used to speaking at such volumes. He was hunched over, fumbling with his wallet, leafing out cash from it as the bartender rushed to make his drinks.

Though Archer was somewhat distracted, a hand suddenly went between him and the top of his wallet, pushing it down. When Archer looked up to see what was happening, he saw Ajax giving him a knowing smile and handing out some cash to the bartender to cover Archer's drinks. Archer looked deeply annoyed up at him, and Ajax just rolled his eyes, grinning.

"Don't worry about it. You're on assignment now," laughed Ajax. "Let me cover the expenses, its the least I can do to help make up for switching things around on you."

Archer shook his head. It wasn't just the music that was giving him a headache. "I can handle things on my own with women, thank you. You don't have to give me homework," said Archer.

Beside Ajax, both of them watched as the bartender set out square white napkins on the bar's surface one at a time, setting two drinks down—and then a third, somehow added to the tally by something Ajax had said that Archer clearly missed. He looked on, watching as a smoky brown liquid was added to a glass largely filled up with half-and-half and chunks of ice. All three glasses were passed to him, and Ajax immediately took the third, taking a drink.

As he sipped, Ajax soon looked somewhat serious—somewhat somber. "It's a little more complicated than that, now," he said.

Archer, whose eyes were still fixed on the various drinks that had been set on the bar, remained quiet. His gaze then switched, watching as Ajax took a long drink from his glass, looking mildly concerned as the drink went on. His features flattened as a thought crossed his mind.

"You think Ariana is our spy, don't you?"

Ajax pulled his drink away. He looked at it for a long time, then set it back down on the napkin, lining it up with the soaked ring that had already set in on it. Slowly, he looked up to Archer, looking as regretful as he could likely ever look. He made an odd, uncomfortable smirk as he looked away, and then finally up at Archer.

"Maybe it's not so complicated," said Ajax.

Ariana had taken to looking out into the rest of the bar, looking away from the scene happening in the opposite side of the booth. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dark forms of two people moving close together—moving somewhat 'aggressively' as they seemed to be 'wrestling', making strange, animal noises with one another. As it so happened, it was where Kat and Zuzzo had been, and the dark shapes that moved against one another resembled them closely. The longer it went on, the closer Ariana was to looking sick once again. Her face had turned a lighter shade beneath the streaks of mud, her eyes darting about as she tried to think of something that wasn't happening not a foot away from her.

Her whole body seemed to rise as she saw Archer approaching, walking down the clustered, crowded pathway along several other booths that led to theirs. She seemed much more excited than she should have been, beaming brightly as she slid into her corner of the booth and gave Archer room to slide in. Archer had set the glasses down on the table, no sooner than he noticed what was happening between Kat and Zuzzo.

The wall thudded, right as Zuzzo's back and head collided with the wall, forced up against it by the force of Kat's clumsy, uncoordinated arms. His Rocket cap flipped up, tufts of pink hair coming up and out like it was full of feathers, some falling across his eyes and blinding him. As his hands drunkenly reached up, trying to clear his vision and grab his hat at the same time, he felt a pair of just a clumsy—and not as blinded—hands grabbing the side of his head, bringing him close for an intimate, hot kiss. Their lips moved furiously together, flashes of teeth showing between wet, kissy lips.

As Archer was getting his bearings, looking confused at the sight across the table, he looked to Ariana for some answers. No sooner than he had sat, Ariana was engulfed in her drink, gulping down a sizable amount of it.

"One might wonder why I don't come here as often," Archer wondered aloud, feeling numbly for his own glass in front of him, showing the first symptoms of a headache despite his inability to look away—it was like a car wreck unfolding before him, in slow motion and in high definition.

"That would make two of us."

Archer looked back. Ariana was looking back from where she had sank back into her chair in the booth, smiling. It made Archer relax, no longer be so hunched over in where he sat in the booth, unfolding his arms from where they had unfolded on the table in front of him.

The table then lurched, as two sets of arms and legs tried to suddenly push themselves out of the table, making drinks slosh and slide forward for a second. Both Archer and Ariana looked over, terrified, Ariana holding close to her own drink and Archer putting a hand over his on the table to keep it from capsizing as abruptly. Both Kat and Zuzzo's arms were fighting to gain some kind of hold on the table and the booth, inching themselves back against the vinyl seats as they kept their lips locked. Several painful winces came through—though they were masked in lustful groans and strange, drunken noises that had no sexual relation—as Zuzzo inadvertently jabbed his elbow into her ribcage several times and Kat's knee thudded several times into the center of his belly.

Somehow, in the preceding struggle to get out of the narrow opening of the booth bench and the table, Zuzzo stumbled out from beneath Kat, plummeting to the ground and landing on the filthy linoleum floor of the bar, looking momentarily dazed. Above, Kat kneeled on the bench, a leg stepping down as she stood herself up over Zuzzo. She held the corner of the booth bench, using it to stabilize her obviously tipsy figure. She then slid the white-sleeved varsity jacket she wore back over her arms, sliding it back and dropping it onto the booth seat with abandon. She immediately went to work sliding up the sleeves of her black turtleneck, slipping her arms inside and into the torso portion, giving her enough of a hold on it to launch it over her head. The wiry headband that had been tucked into her hair came flying off onto the table, her brunette hair tousled about and hanging in the air. In the slim, black tank top that she wore underneath, Kat reached down and hoisted Zuzzo back up onto his feet, putting an arm around him until he got his footing.

As soon as Zuzzo was back up, the kissing began once more. Their arms drunkenly found their bodies—Zuzzo's arms sliding around Kat's torso, Kat's arms wrapping around the back of his neck—as Zuzzo proceeded to immediately pick Kat up. Kat's legs swung around his hips, her standard-issue gray Rocket boots locking around his hips as the orgy of lips and tongues resumed.

Both Archer and Ariana watched as Zuzzo, a man who had been on the ground moments earlier from stumbling over due to a lack of coordination, carried another human being across the bar, making their way to the bathrooms.

"Looks like the seat's open for you. Be careful not to catch something."

Archer looked back over at Ariana, seeing that she had spoken up. He looked confused for a long moment, until something clicked with him and he realized what she was implying—not so much a passing thought she was having, it was a very welcome invitation to no longer share the seat. For a moment, though he did his best to hide it, he actually looked somewhat disappointed.

As Archer got up, sliding out of the booth and slid in on the other side the table, he saw out of the corner of his eye as Ariana reached out and grabbed the jacket and the thin, sweater-like undershirt that had been tossed aside so carelessly. For Archer's part, he found himself inadvertently sitting on the wiry headband with wiry cat ears that had popped off of Kat's head, 'discovering' it when it stabbed into his thigh on accident. Wincing, pulling it up from beneath his legs, he straightened the vinyl surface of the seat where it had become depressed, sitting himself forward to face Ariana.

It was the first time he had really had the chance to see her. Between bumping into her outside the bathrooms, being 'introduced' by Ajax, being led by her through the bar only to immediately lose her, and then reuniting with her only to essentially 'walk in' on Kat and Zuzzo, Archer had honestly tricked himself into thinking he had really met and got to know Ariana for a moment there. Even though, this whole time, through following to the bar and through the unintentional peep show, Archer had really been motivated to want to know her.

After all, that was Ajax's assignment. Get to know someone who may or may not be a traitor. The 'may' chance was particularly high.

But, there across from him, Ariana was sitting. A moment of peace, finally.

Above the table, a lone light was hanging by a thin metal wire, pointed down at the table's surface. The sheathing and the dimness of the light itself kept the lights low and private, not to diminish any of the bright, sickeningly pink lights in the rest of the bar. Ariana's face was aglow in the warm, pale light that came from the bulb underneath, making her seem like a ghost amongst the haze of the surrounding bar interior. Her face was thin, somewhat bony for how young she was. Beneath a pair of small eyes stood a pair of pointed, shaped and sharpened eyebrows that always seemed to be engaged. The shadows of the bright light had dimmed everything beneath her brow, but despite that the red lenses of her irises were a glowing neon, brimming intensity as they stared across at Archer. A knowing smile had worked its way onto her lips, crossing the thin and red-painted shapes that they were. Her red hair was pulled back , over her ears and beneath her dirtied black hat. A few loose ends poked out from beneath the brim of the hat, hinting at bright red bangs.

"Ajax must've had something really important to attend to," said Ariana.

Though Archer seemed momentarily stalled by the question, staring back as if he had been accused of something heinous, he looked back down at the glass in his hand as he turned it on the white napkin, pursing his lips into a smirk.

"I'm sorry I'm not nearly as entertaining as Ajax," said Archer. "I hope this doesn't feel like settling."

"Why should it? I was more thinking of the great time you were going to have. I was seriously beginning to think that you 'getting drinks' was your way of resuming your night with Ajax," said Ariana. "If anything, I feel rescued from those two 'just friend' Luvdisc."

Archer chuckled. "I suppose we both have nights that we're both failing on."

As Ariana caught herself chuckling, she reached up, removing the hat from her head and setting atop where Kat's things were piled on the booth. She brushed her hair back quietly, holding a playful grin as she adjusted her seating, holding carefully onto her glass. As she did, passing in and out between the closely-held light of the table, Archer was reminded of the mud-stains that had grazed her cheeks and all the questions that had first crossed his mind when he saw it.

"Don't settle for me, then. Reclaim your night. Go grab a drink with Ajax, go oggle some girls like he always does."

Archer let the thought pass over his head, his grin only growing. "This doesn't feel like settling to me. Does it to you?"

"What does this feel like to you?" asked Ariana.

"This feels like my night is looking a lot better than it did an hour ago," said Archer. "Seriously, this is the best thing to happen all night, getting stuck with someone sane in Team Rocket."

Ariana simply smiled. She set her drink on the napkin, her eyes turning down towards where she folded her hands together in her lap, her smile turning into a patient one.

"What does this feel like to you?" asked Archer, looking on curiously.

"It feels like someone is spying on me. On Ajax's orders."

Archer wasn't ready for that. He wasn't ready for Ariana's gaze as it turned up to meet his. The normally serene, careful look she had in her eyes had been replaced by something far more serious and steely, looking piercing and just as knowing as Archer had feared. The neon red hue in her eyes was far more dangerous than Archer had initially imagined. His look faltered, his smile fading almost instantaneously as he realized that she wasn't kidding. He swallowed, on the verge of breaking any facade he hadn't realized he was putting up.

"What makes you say that? Is it a common tactic of his?" asked Archer.

"You would know, wouldn't you?"

Archer shook his head, sitting back defensively in his side of the booth. Though he had looked away, staring at his drink to get his mind off of Ariana's intensity, he could still feel her eyes on him. Her gaze never faltered.

"I don't believe you," said Ariana, flatly.

"What's there to believe? I never came in with him. I came in with Kat. She was supposed to show me to her friends—which means you," said Archer. "I'm just sticking to the plan, that's all."

"'The plan'?" Ariana asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sighing, Archer came as close as he could to rolling his eyes. The symptoms of a headache he had felt moments earlier when he had saw something truly cringe-worthy had returned.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Archer saw something strange. He saw it as soon as Ariana had looked up to it, looking even more confused at its arrival than she had at anything Archer had said up until that point.

A bartender had arrived, dressed in simple black clothes and with a simple black apron on. In his hands, he wielded a tray, filled with small glasses in rows on a wire holsters, filled with a dangerous-looking clear liquid. He had stood himself at the end of both Archer and Ariana's booth, setting the tray down on their table.

"A round of shots, huh?" asked the bartender. "You don't seem the drinking type."

Ariana gave Archer a charged look, only growing worse when Archer too looked surprised.

"Your friend Ajax is extremely generous," said the bartender, setting down the dozen or so shots.