Work Text:
Shelly had, of course, asked about the teeth on the first time they went out for dinner together. It was a late dinner - late enough for Colette to have gotten free of her workplace, so it was actually morning. Still… 2 AM felt like enough of a ‘late night’ time for Shelly anyway.
It was as much of a ‘going out’ date could be, considering they’d only walked out into the alleyway behind the gift shop and sat on the stairs together that led back inside.
“Your teeth are sharp,” she’d observed, watching Colette scarf down sandwiches.
Colette blushed furiously. “Oh... yeah.” Her gaze flickered up and down, between Shelly’s eyes and the ground. “Are you - I don’t mean to scare people. I’m not sure… they’re just like that, you know? They’re useful for… for things.”
Shelly nodded. “I reckon so.” She snorted, thinking of all the times she’d used her own teeth to open or cut things… well, Colette was right that it would be much easier if they were sharp as little knives inside her mouth. “Alright, you convinced me.” She didn’t notice Colette’s little smile as she scooted closer to Shelly on the stair-step.
“I - I’m just glad you’re not scared,” she admitted.
“Pfft.” Shelly scoffed. “I’m not scared of anything .”
“I know.” Colette’s voice was full of even more awe than usual.
Shelly didn’t think of it anymore that night. Actually, she didn’t think about it at all until several weeks later. Colette knocked on her door late one night, and once Shelly was done cursing Colt in six ways from Sunday, she opened the door and immediately lost her anger.
“Colette?” she asked. “Are you - are you okay?”
Colette looked tired, which was saying something, considering she pretty much always looked to be permanently in some stage of exhaustion. “I - I’m fine,” the woman replied, wiping at her blurry eyes. “I’m just - I got off work and didn’t want to sleep in the stockroom tonight. Today’s been… difficult.”
Shelly nodded. “Of - of course. Come on in.”
She wrapped an arm over Colette’s much shorter shoulders and guided her to the couch, where she sat down, pulling her down next to her.
Colette started slightly, but then exhaled heavy and slow, sinking into Shelly’s chest almost like she was melting there.
“Not a good day?” Shelly asked.
Colette shook her head.
Shelly nodded. “Well, I’m glad you came here instead of breaking into Piper’s house. That’s good!”
Colette nodded. “I - I’ve been trying. It’s h - hard sometimes. The - the store, I do love it, but it’s just… it’s a lot sometimes. It’s so loud and everyone is talking at the same time and I just - I just … I could use some quiet, you know? Some space?” She leaned her head on Shelly’s shoulder.
Shelly nodded. “I getcha. I think. I like the wide open spaces out there in the wilderness. It’s special, I reckon - out there where you ain’t gotta be bothered.”
“Yeah.” Silence persisted over the two of them for several minutes, during which Shelly debated turning the light on, but ultimately decided she didn’t want to have to get up to do that.
“Say, Shelly?”
“Mmm?”
“Can I ask you for something? It’s - it’s … it’s not, uh-”
“What is it?”
Colette’s face was immensely conflicted. “I want to bite you,” she said.
“What?”
“Sorry! Sorry! I just -” Colette was cringing. “I just think… you’re my favorite of all of them, you know? I like you so much … and I just - sometimes when I’m stressed I - I bite things. Things I-” she was blushing now. “Things I like.”
“Oh.” Shelly nodded slowly. She eyed Colette’s teeth, still sharp in the dim light. “I see. And now…?”
“If it’s not okay, that’s fine,” Colette said hastily. “I don’t wanna hurt you, I just- I usually bite the cover on my scrapbook instead, I, uh, I brought it with me if you’d rather me do that-”
Shelly snorted. “You can’t hurt me. I’ve been sunburnt enough times that I can barely feel my skin anymore. Actually… considering that -” she thought for a moment. “If it helps you calm down, I don’t mind.”
“Really?” Colette’s eyes sparkled in the dark. “Th - thank you.” She was smiling, and her weight shifted even more heavily against Shelly’s side.
Shelly could feel the woman moving her arm now and she watched the process with some curiosity in her gaze. Maybe, she thought, on some level, Colette was exaggerating or not being entirely truthful about her habit - but no. There was only a simple flash of her sharp teeth in the moonlight, and then Shelly could feet the points of them against her skin.
Maybe she had been expecting some kind of sharp stinging… but there really wasn’t any. Colette’s teeth were sharp and intimidating, but her bite was gentle and only pushed the teeth into Shelly’s arm enough to feel the warm resistance there. Shelly’s arms were, much like the rest of her body, wiry from constant physical exertion - she didn’t think of herself as soft very often, though even the hardest of muscle was soft compared to enamel and bone.
There would probably be some kind of mark left there, but Shelly… didn’t actually mind so much.
Colette clung to her for several minutes - Shelly, too, leaned into her companion on the couch, letting the still of the night and the sound of their joined heartbeats lull her to sleep.
That was the first time it happened, though it wouldn’t be the last - and most of the time, it wasn’t nearly so sleepy and peaceful as Shelly could appreciate then, at two in the morning. Sometimes it was because she was happy - and sometimes it was just because . Shelly found herself fond of it, actually - there was a certain appeal to being able to express one’s feelings without needing to use words.
(She was bad at words, actually. The only things she was good at were sarcasm, insults and threats - none of which were helpful in situations like this.)
Colette was very bouncy when she woke up days, before her job had had a chance to drain her energy. Shelly had started to get in the habit of strolling over to see her then , before even visiting Piper to rob her - she liked to see Colette then, when she was happy and at the most rested she would ever be.
It made her happy too.
“Shelly!” Colette greeted excitedly.
Shelly waved and smiled. “Hey again. What’s cookin’ wit’ ya this morning?” She caught Colette easily - the shorter woman weighed probably half as much as Shelly did. Colette hugged her tightly, wrapping her arms around Shelly.
Shelly hugged her back. Colette’s teeth would gleam in the early morning sunlight when she opened her mouth, and she smiled broadly when she bit down. “I’m so glad you come over mornings,” she said.
“Of course, of course. I mean, I’m up early anyway, I might as well come see you, no?” Shelly smiled, continuing to hold Colette. There was the faintest twinge of pain in her arm - Colette was always very gentle, despite appearances - both her personality and her teeth, actually. Shelly had found this out and kind of appreciated it.
Shelly was not a particularly talkative person by nature herself. Colette seemed to get more than enough noise at work for her liking, and thus the two of them often spent long evenings and mornings in silence, simply being close. Colette would doodle in her scrapbook and Shelly would sit cross-legged on the floor next to her with her shotgun carefully disassembled on a cloth for her to oil and clean all the parts. (The key to keeping any gun in perfect working condition for as long as she had was constant maintenance, something Shelly prided herself on.)
Colette drew her one time, sitting there and oiling the bits of metal wood. She really was a good artist, actually - but most of the time it went unappreciated, bundled up in her scrapbook - even if it was drawn of someone who would appreciate it, which the rest of her drawings… were not necessarily always.
She did improve at that. Shelly crossed her arms and shook her head and reminded her that she probably shouldn’t go sneaking into Piper’s house at night.
“But you break in there every morning and steal all her money,” Colette pointed out. “And isn’t that also bad?”
Shelly was at a loss for that one, actually. “Why do you like Piper so much anyway?” she asked instead.
Colette shrugged, paging through her scrapbook. “She’s easy to - to remember, I guess. I can remember her well … feels like I’ve known her forever, y’know? It’s - it’s hard to explain. It’s like, uh-” Colette was doodling random patterns again when she spoke. She did that a lot when talking hurt her head, which happened sometimes. Shelly usually tried to change the subject when it happened. But Colette continued of her own now. “It’s like, when I try - when I see … Piper feels like the difference somehow. Between work and ... and ... “
Her doodling was faster now, ink leaking from the pressure on the pen. “I don’t know. I just feel like… she’s important. I love her.”
Shelly nodded. “I’ll be honest, Piper’s nice. She’s always nice to me, at least.”
“Yeah,” Colette replied. “It was… I didn’t always know… the brawlers. And before - before - it was just Piper. She was the first friend I had, she just - she just didn’t know, you know?” She stopped drawing and smiled. “But now… now we talk instead.”
Shelly wiped her gun-oil soaked hands on her shirt. “It is a sight less lonely, true.”
“Yeah.” Colette was doodling again, but it wasn’t repetitive, stressed patterns - it was just Shelly’s name, actually. She smiled. “It’s easier to think of you now. Remember you. Brawler… but also. You’re Shelly.”
“That’s the one,” Shelly replied. “I… well, I don’t know. I don’t know that I ever talked to anyone much except Colt, but he’s like… the cop, you know? And there’s Spike, but Spike doesn’t talk.”
“The cactus?”
“He doesn’t move much, either,” Shelly confirmed. “But you can talk to him if you want. I have.”
“He’s fun to draw,” Colette agreed. “I like the merch. It’s cute. The shop goes through a lot of it.” She pointed at her vest, proudly showing off her Spike pin. “I got this from there actually. Someone chipped it, see, along the top, and so I had to pay for it - well, I decided if I was gonna do that, I might as well keep it.”
“Might as well,” Shelly agreed. “Though aren’t you like the only one who works there? Why don’t you just take shit you want?”
Colette peered at her out the corner of one eye. “I - I couldn’t do that. I’ve got to do the job properly, you know.”
“You and Piper both,” Shelly mused. “And the barkeep, now that I think of it. There really are a lot of shops around here, aren’t there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t - I don’t shop a lot. When I’m out, I like to - to fill the scrapbook, I guess. I like to visit everyone… get pictures… see them all.”
“You like to come see me?” Shelly raised an eyebrow.
“Come see you,” Colette nodded. “Though I still watch the others sometimes. You know… I miss them.”
“I could introduce you to Piper in person if you wanted,” Shelly offered. “Or, well, I could try. Piper works a lot, you work a lot… I’m busy a lot too.” She exhaled. “Everyone’s always busy. Well, I guess it’s better that way than not. Idle hands, and all.”
“Keep busy,” Colette echoed. “It aches less that way.”
“Somethin’ like that.” Shelly stared off at the horizon - though she didn’t really suffer from chronic headaches in the way Colette did, she did still get longings of her own from time to time. There was something locked up in Shelly’s breast that longed to travel into the desert, deep into the wilderness of the wild Wild West - far from home. But though her wanderlust smoldered low and warm, there was just… never a chance, really.
She was always busy. Always things to do. Days passed and she got used to it, eventually - but she did think about it from time to time. She was right though - it was probably better to not think about it…
Colette bit her lightly and she started.
“Oh, nasty,” Colette’s face wrinkled. “Oil. Yeesh.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t give me a chance to wash my hands, to be fair.” Shelly snorted in idle amusement and stood up, putting the gun neatly to the side, sparkling clean and ready to go for the morrow’s use. “I’m hungry anyway. You want somethin’ to eat?”
There were rainy days, too - days with literal storms, thunder and lightning and howling wind. Shelly still followed her routine as she was wont, but there were always differences in the atmosphere in those days. No people watched and Piper’s shop’s windows were boarded up for protection from the wind and rain. She wondered what Colette did all day if the gift shop was as empty as Piper’s store was those days - but, of course, there was never a chance for her to go herself and check. Her daylight hours were always full of activities.
The first time they kissed was one of those days. Late into the evening, while the wind howled around them on Shelly’s porch, while rain pummeled the roof above, falling in buckets and buckets from the sky. It’d just felt right that day, really, in a way that was hard to explain.
The storm put a pause on the activities everywhere - including their lives, and during those pauses, it was easier to stop and think about what they meant to each other.
There was a lot, to be sure - a lot of feeling for just a little thing - just a meeting of two minds.
Shelly blushed then, hiding her face behind her bandanna and Colette didn’t know what to say - but she didn’t want to ruin it with words anyway.
So she bit her instead.