We Got Each Other: Rattlesnake Jake x OC

Chapter 1

Note: hey, I watched the movie Rango some time ago and I found this in my Google Docs and it was good enough to post, I guess (good enough for me, anyway). Also I drew the picture above so I hope you like it. :)

Warnings: uhhh, alcohol, sexism, guns? Snakes, if that counts...

Word count: 1670

I slither forward in the dust, keeping an eye out for anyone, human or not. My forked tongue flicks out, checking if there's anyone nearby. When there isn't, I pull my white Stetson lower with the tip of my black tail and Shift into my human form. Because, the thing is, I'm a snake shifter. And you can never be too careful, here in the Mojave Desert, about who's going to stab you and who's going to hug you. Plus, snake shifters are feared. We may be powerful, able to merge into both societies, humans and the desert folk, but they hate us. Good thing we're gifted at blending in.

The desert folk, as in the rodents and the birds and the lizards and the armadillos and things, know me as a five and a half foot rattlesnake with a Gatling gun on her tail, a belt of cartridges wrapped around her length and a white Stetson on her head. I'm darker than most, the opposite of an albino: black. You can just make out the diamonds adorning my scales in the sun. But in the dark... I'm terrifying. Just two emerald green eyes hovering in the air, slashed in half by a depthless slit of a pupil. No wonder they fear me.

However, the humans... they don't run, screaming. All they see is a black haired five and a half foot woman who carries a Gatling gun and has two pistols on each of her hips. What they don't see is the sharpshooter, the gun for hire, the piercing green eyes like shards of emerald ice. Which is why I tend to stay in my snake form more: I don't exactly like it when people stare down their noses at me just because they have a dick and I don't.

Shoving my hands into the pockets of my brown canvas trousers, I pull my Stetson even lower as I sweep into the bar on the outskirts of Cattleford. The closest desert folk town isn't too close, so human liquor will have to do. Everyone turns around when I enter; that's one thing that every single being in the desert will do, whatever species. Someone at the bar snorts - oh, how funny, just a woman with a few guns - but I don't bat an eyelid. I'm used to it by now, and besides, my attention is on the six foot man with a sweet black Stetson and a long duster looming in the corner. Is it? Is it? I start making my way towards him, even though I'm not sure why, when someone has the nerve to stop me.

'Oy,' they shout. 'You, woman! What d'ya think ya doing with guns that size?' I turn around and glare at him. He laughs. 'What, can't speak either?'

In a second, my pistol is in my hand and the shot glass wrapped in his fingers is in shards. The man screeches to high hell, and I tip my hat to him, a smirk gracing my lips.

The six footer doesn't move when I sit down beside him, but I know he's watching as I down a shot, always monitoring him out of the corner of my eye.

'Ya ain't from around here, are ya?' He asks, voice gravelly, staying still enough to be a statue. I blink, then nod.

'Neither are ya, from the looks of it,' it's a guess, but making people uncomfortable is my specialty and his accent isn't quite right. Plus, if it's him, he definitely won't be from this end of the Mojave. He turns his head abruptly, and from the shadows of his black Stetson, I see a pair of eyes that make my heart stop. Two, hellfire eyes, blazing like... like hell. It's then that I know. This man isn't human. This is a snake shifter. What are the chances that I've found one of my own kind in the edges of the Mojave? And not just any snake shifter, either. I'd recognise those eyes anywhere. Fuck, it's him. It's him.

'Who are ya?' He demands. 'Why are ya here? What did they tell ya?'

'Yer a little nervy fer a legendary gunslinger, don't ya think?' I reply, enjoying the fact he hasn't recognised me yet far, far too much. Probably because the last time he saw me I wasn't wearing three guns like normal women wear jewelry.