Chapter Text
The desert was silent, but Rattlesnake Jake could still hear the gunfire.
It wasn’t real — not anymore — but it haunted him all the same. Every night the same ghosts came back, the same sounds echoing in the hollow of his skull. The sharp crack of a Colt. The gasps of dying men. The echo of his own rattle in the dark.
He slithered across the sand, the moonlight silvering his scales. The cool air hissed through the rocks, whispering around him like a voice he didn’t want to hear. He stopped near an old cactus skeleton, coiled up, and watched the horizon burn faint orange where Dirt’s lanterns glowed far away.
He should have gone farther.
But something held him close — something he didn’t care to name.
Jake’s tail rattled once, an involuntary tremor. He hated that sound, hated how it betrayed him. Once it was his weapon, his warning. Now it was just… noise. He flexed the muscle until it stilled, letting the desert quiet swallow it again.
His eyes were duller now — not with age, but with exhaustion. He had fought for so long, lived with the world’s fear pressing down on his back, that peace felt like a foreign land.
And in that silence, he realized he didn’t know who he was without the fear.
He remembered the look on Rango’s face the day he spared him — the way the chameleon had stood his ground, trembling but defiant. “The town’s not afraid anymore,” Rango had said.
And Jake had left.
But not far enough.
He’d thought he could slip back into the sands, disappear like smoke. Yet every night, he found himself circling back near Dirt. Watching. Listening. Some old, useless instinct told him to keep an eye out — for threats, for the townsfolk, for the lizard that had somehow seen him not as a monster, but as a man.
He despised that thought most of all.
A tumbleweed drifted by, scraping across the rocks. Jake’s coils tightened reflexively, his muscles tensing before he even realized what it was. When it passed, he sighed — a long, rasping exhale through fangs that felt too heavy for his mouth.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he muttered, voice low and rough. “Ain’t no ghosts out here.”
But when he closed his eyes, he saw them anyway. Faces from the past. Old comrades, enemies, a brother who’d once laughed with him under the same burning sky. All gone now — dust and silence.
A rattle broke the night again, soft and trembling. Jake uncoiled, restless, and began to move.
---
Back in Dirt, Rango couldn’t sleep either.
Peace had brought quiet to the town, but not to his mind. He stood by the window of the sheriff’s office, watching the stars above the desert, their cold shimmer like eyes in the dark.
Beans had told him earlier that someone had seen movement out by the ridge. “Probably just the wind,” she’d said, but Rango knew better. There was a feeling — that low, uneasy pull in his gut that told him Jake was still out there. Still watching. Still alone.
He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t feel afraid. He felt sorry.
He remembered Jake’s eyes the day they parted — not angry, but tired. There had been something behind them, something wounded and lost.
And that look had stayed with him.
So, before dawn, Rango saddled up and rode out alone. The desert wind bit against his hat, and his coat snapped behind him. The silence stretched for miles, the sand pale under the rising sun.
He found Jake just before morning broke — coiled beneath a dead mesquite tree, eyes open, staring at nothing.
“Didn’t think you were the kind to lose sleep,” Rango said softly, easing off his mount. His voice was calm, but cautious.
Jake didn’t move. His tongue flicked once, tasting the air. “You got a death wish, sheriff,” he rasped. “Or you’re just stupid.”
“Maybe a bit of both,” Rango said, setting his hat straight. “Heard you’ve been hanging around. Figured I’d see what’s keepin’ you.”
Jake’s pupils narrowed, a faint glint of amusement flashing before it faded. “You lookin’ for trouble again?”
“No,” Rango replied, eyes steady. “Just lookin’ for a friend.”
The words hung there like a ghost. Jake’s coils tightened, his tail rattling once — not as a threat, but as habit. His gaze shifted away, jaw clenching.
“Don’t waste your pity, sheriff. Ain’t nothin’ out here worth findin’.”
“Then why are you still here?” Rango asked quietly. “You could’ve gone anywhere. Yet here you are — same desert, same stars.”
Jake’s eyes flickered toward him, then away again. His voice dropped, low and harsh. “Maybe I like the quiet.”
Rango didn’t press him. He just stood there, the wind tugging at his coat, the light of dawn slowly painting the desert gold.
For the first time in a long time, Jake looked at him — really looked. And something shifted behind his eyes.
Not anger. Not hate.
Something else. Something uncertain.
“Go home, sheriff,” Jake murmured. “Ain’t nothin’ out here for you.”
Rango gave a small, knowing smile. “You’d be surprised what you find when you stop lookin’ for a fight.”
And then he turned his horse and rode back toward town, leaving Jake staring after him — caught between irritation and confusion.
When the sheriff’s figure disappeared over the dunes, Jake finally spoke to the empty air.
“…Why’d you care, lizard?”
His voice cracked just slightly, and for the first time in years, he didn’t know how to answer himself.
The desert wind whispered, and the rattlesnake closed his eyes — alone again, but something in his chest felt different.
Something small.
Something heavy.
Something that felt almost like hope.