Author's Note: This chapter was a quick update, but the rest will probably be much slower...Thanks to everyone who stuck with this story! I hope y'all like where this is headed. :)
"Beans-ss!" Rango hissed, mortified when the word stretched across his forked tongue. "What are you doing? Put the gun down! Please, you gotta believe me. I don't know what happened, but it's me! Rango. I would never hurt you! Something- I think something'sss happened to me. I feel funny. Not myself." He laughed hysterically. "Something- something's turned me into a snake!"
Beans lowered the gun. "Rango... Is that really you?"
Rango frantically nodded his head. "Yes, it's me. Oh, Beans!" He gasped, uncoiling himself from the wall. His head hit the ground, and he tried to slither towards her.
Beans took another step back. "Not a step closer!" She said. "First, tell me something only Rango would know."
Ouch, Beans, that hurt. Was he really so unrecognizable that even his own girlfriend was afraid of him? Rango wanted to protest her behavior, but he didn't want to try Bean's infamous temper while she was holding a loaded gun. Rango was proud that his girlfriend could handle herself, but at the same time, some of those skills made Beans downright scary. Thinking better of the situation, he quickly drew back.
"Okay, um. Last night, I drank some magic water, and then I came down here to play cards with you!"
Beans looked him dead in the eyes. "Everyone knows Rango and I are together. Try harder. That's not good enough."
Rango looked down the barrel. "Ah! Could you try, um, not pointing that gun at me? For one second try to trust me. I can't think when you're waving that thing in my face!"
"You've got five seconds." Beans said in a deadpan voice. "Five. Four. Three. two..."
"Okay, okay, I've got it. It was when we were hunting down that stolen water! We were camping and you told me about the moving cactuses. How you would see them walking at night. Everyone thought you were crazy, but I knew you were not crazy... Because I know you, Beans."
Beans must have believed him because she lowered her gun. "Okay," she said with a sigh, "But that still doesn't explain anything goin' on right here. It just don't make any sense. Wait a minute..." She pondered. "That's it! Rango! The magic water! You said last night you drank some magic water offered to you by a gypsy! Is this what did this to you? Yesterday, at the saloon- what'd you wish for?"
"I don't know!" Rango protested. "I didn't wish for anything! I drank the water, and the gypsy said it would grant me my heart's desire."
"What?" Beans exclaimed. "And your heart's desire was to be a rattlesnake?" She threw her hands up in the air. Rango recognized the air of sheer, undisguised frustration. His girlfriend looked ready to pop.
Rango's eyes widened. "What No! Absolutely not! Why would I want to be a rattlesnake? Rattlesnakes are mean and scary and don't even have hands!" He too wanted to gesture around wildly as he talked, but his body no longer allowed for it. The only thing he could do now was shake his head and thrash his tail. Somehow, that made the situation even more frustrating. Without meaning to, Rango bared his fangs. "What am I supposed to do now? I can't do anything! I'm too big, I can barely fit in your house, and everyone's gonna be scared of me!" Rango wanted respect, but he realized now he didn't want fear. The citizens were supposed to trust him. He was their Sheriff.
And Beans. Rango didn't know how big he'd grown, but when he reared up, he was almost tall enough to touch the roof. Where was he gonna live? And how was Beans gonna want to date a three-foot, four-foot-long reptile? As he looked down on her he could see the fear gathering in her eyes.
Suddenly, Rango knew how he must look. A giant rattlesnake reared up in her house, his fangs bared. He had a feeling he wasn't as big as Jake, the only rattlesnake he really knew, but still. It was a frightening, uncomfortable realization: his size made it hard to comfort her now.
Rango tried his best to calm down, slipping down on his coils so that he and Beans were once again the same height. His coils. Right. It felt so weird to acknowledge the situation, half of his body sitting up, and half of it lying down. Did this count as sitting or standing? Rango couldn't tell.
"Beans, I'm so sorry." Rango wanted to say something else, but he couldn't find the right words. He swallowed heavily instead...
"Rango." Beans slowly reached out a hand. Rango's nostrils flared, and he caught a sudden whiff of prey-scent and heat. But this was his girlfriend, Beans he was talking about, and the instinct quickly stilled. He leaned forward and rested his snout against her hand. He closed his eyes. Everything was wrong. He could feel the heat where she touched him, a confusing, Beans-shaped blur of red forming a faded picture behind his eyes. Without seeing her, Rango could tell that she was near.
Great, was this how Rattlesnake Jake felt all the time?
Vaguely, Rango remembered reading at one point that vipers had a sixth sense, a heat sense, located in a pit organ located just below their eyes. Despite the loneliness of his earlier months, there were some perks to being a cozy house pet. Growing up with a human family who loved Shakespeare and nature documentaries certainly had its advantages. Rango realized that must be what he was feeling right now.
He had a heat sense. It was fascinating, but it also made him sick to his stomach. No lizard ever had heat sense. It just served as another reminder that nothing would ever be the same again.
He leaned in closer, pressing himself against the warm heat of her palm. "Beans, I'm scared. You gotta help me. I don't know what to do."
When he looked at her again, the newly-turned rattlesnake realized that Bean's expression was just as teary-eyed as his own.
"I don't know either, Rango." She said, a slight tremor in her voice. "I ain't never seen anything like it. One minute you were a lizard and the next minute, bam. Poof!.." She gestured vaguely to al of him. "Lizards don't just turn into snakes, even when they do drink so-called called 'magic water.' This should be impossible. But I reckon that if we're going to get to the bottom of this we'd better hurry up and talk to Lorraine, before she gets on up and leaves town."
Rango nodded eagerly. "Of course! She gave me the water, so she'll know what to do to change me back! That'll be perfect! I'm a deputy, a hero, a sheriff; I can't be stuck as a rattlesnake!" No hero can walk out of his own story. "This is just the next chapter, the sequel to the story. The hero now must undo the curse and confront the enemy within himself!" Lorraine will turn me back, you'll see.
He tried reaching again for his belongings, realizing too late that he wouldn't be able to pick up anything unless he wanted to try using his tail or his mouth. And Rango was too embarrassed for that still. He turned to Beans with a nervous chuckle instead. "Hey, would you mind picking up my badge, gun, and hat? I just remembered I don't have hands." A slight note of hysteria crept into his voice and this time, he didn't try to hide it.
Beans nodded. "Got it"
She tucked the sheriff's badge and gun into her belt, and then with a sad smile gestured for Rango to lean down so she could put the dusty old hat on his head. Although it didn't change anything, Rango felt a flicker of hope. Maybe he and Beans could beat this magic water spell together.
"And now," Rango said, trying to sound braver than he felt. "We ride."
Author's Note: By "early months" Rango is mentioning, in fact, that he isn't very old. One thing I am doing with this story is having the characters age in a way true to their biological species. According to my research, Rango is a veiled chameleon. Their average lifespan is 5-8 years old. I looked up some other species ages as well. Here are some biological and relative ages of some of the major characters in this story:
Rango: As chameleon-2 years, 3 months (about 28 years old) As a rattlesnake- about 10 years old
Rattlesnake Jake (Western diamondback, average lifespan 15-25 years)-12 years old (about 35 years old)
Beans (Desert Iguana, average lifespan 7-14 years)- 3 years, 6 months (about 23 years old)
There will be some drama over characters aging differently. Also, this feeds into my fun headcanon that part of why Rango acts so immature is because he's so much younger than everyone else! Chameleons... They gotta live fast, y'all.
