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Karen groans, scrunching up the dress that sits in her hands.
“Fucking bastards.”
Bill had come up with the bright idea to rob some stagecoach, they got decent cash but she had ripped the skirt of her dress up on a jagged piece of wood, rendering the fabric unsalvageable.
“You okay there Karen?” Mary-Beth looks over, her book lays forgotten in her lap for the time being. Despite her annoyance, Karen smiles.
“Need a new dress but the old bat has us under lock and key like we’re some animals.” She shoots a withering glare at Mrs Grimshaw who stands by Dutch’s tent, berating poor Arthur about something or other.
“Well, you could ask one of the boys to go into town?”
“That’s cute, Mary-Beth, our boys?” She laughs, looking around the camp, “I don’t even think they know the size of their own clothes let alone how to even approach buying dresses.”
“Aw, have some faith, they’re not that bad.” Karen rolls her eyes.
“You sound like Dutch.” Mary-Beth laughs reaching out a hand to pat Karen’s knee.
“Well you never know…”
“I do know. Watch.” Karen turns her head before shouting, “Any of you fellas know the first thing about buying a dress?!”
As she expected, those who looked up, looked around nervously, confusion written all over their poor faces.
“See, what’d I tell you?”
“Hm,” Mary-Beth conceded, “Hosea would know.”
Hosea would know. Karen’s pretty sure he has a big journal with information on everyone who is and ever has been part of the van der Linde gang, from their birthdays to their clothes size, blood type, hell the man’s probably got a little picture of them too.
“Probably, but the old man’s disappeared to do lord knows what in lord knows where.”
“Ladies.” Karen tilts her head back and smiles.
“Oh hey Dutch.”
“Hi Dutch.”
“Heard you were having dress problems.” He says, grabbing a crate and pulling it beneath himself to sit.
“Yeah, tore the shit out of this one.”
“I could help?” He offers before his brows drop into a frown when the women laugh.
“Ain’t ever seen you buy even your own clothes? Just thought Hosea bought those too.”
Dutch gives her a look, “I mean, he does but that doesn’t matter right now” He mumbles.
“You know about buying dresses?” Karen raises her brow, and Dutch laughs.
“Of course! Used to buy them for Hosea back in the day.”
“Huh.” Then Karen frowns, “Wait what? Hosea?”
“Mhm, what sizes you needing? Cut? Colour?” He pulls out a note pad and pencil, licking the nib before he sets it to paper and looking up at her expectedly.
“Hold it a second boss, you can’t just drop that on us and skip past it.” She slaps a hand on his knee, and he just sighs , lowering his pad and pencil again.
“Alright miss. What is it you’d like to know?”
Karen grins looking between Dutch and Mary-Beth, sees her bright-eyed smile.
“Well, alright, first of. Why?”
“To steal from some poor rich sods. Bastard was damn good at it too.”
“When’d he start?” Dutch laughs, shrugging, “Now that I don’t know, was doing it long before we met. And before you ask, I found out when he walked in hanging off this brute’s arm. Had been trailing him for a couple days and finally decided on a day to rob him only for Hosea to appear as the man’s arm candy.”
“Was he pretty Mr Dutch?” Mary-Beth squeals, doe eyes sparkling as she eagerly awaits his answer.
“Oh, he was stunning. Most beautiful things I saw.” Karen rolls her eyes as Dutch takes on a faraway look as if he was deep in thought.
“Got any pictures?” Karen asks and Dutch grins,
“Oh he would kill me if I showed you such a thing,” Despite this, he’s reaching into his jacket and pulling out four photos.
“You just keep them on you?”
“Of course.”
He hands the photos over and Karen eagerly passes through them, Mary-Beth hanging over her shoulder.
The first is pretty standard, what looks to be a serious looking woman with short cropped hair sat in a chair one leg folded over the other as ‘she’ looks into the camera. It’s definitely Hosea though and Dutch wasn’t lying, he really did look stunning.
She moves it behind the stack and smiles at the next picture, she holds it up to show Mary-Beth and then slips it to show Dutch.
“Naw, look at you Dutch! Almost sweet looking you were.”
Hosea is still sat in the chair in a dress, but this time Dutch stands off to the side of him, a hand gripping his shoulder as they stare seriously at the camera. The lack of facial hair on Dutch’s face catches her off guard and with a quick glance at the man sat in front of her, she shakes her head unable to imagine his face bare.
The next photo makes her heart warm, they’re in the same attire but stood up laughing, Hosea’s hunched as he rests a hand on Dutch for support big smile pulling at his lips and eyes twinkling as he looks up at the man. Dutch shares the look, holding onto Hosea’s shoulders.
At last, she flips to the last picture, and it feels like she’s intruding on their moment despite the image portraying a time long passed. They’re in their usual clothes, though Dutch is looking incredibly under dressed in nothing but trousers and a shirt, and they look so similar to now albeit much younger. She can see the makeup still on Hosea’s face meaning he must have gotten changed between shoots.
They stand intertwined with each other, Dutch’s arm around Hosea’s shoulders and Hosea’s around Dutch’s side, staring at each other with a look that just screams love.
“How’d you find someone to take this without being ran out of dodge?”
Dutch leans forwards to look at which picture she was holding, and he laughed.
“Ah, Arthur took that one. The photographer was lying behind him hogtied. Caught on Hosea weren’t a lady and got a bit loud.”
“Bet he loved being dragged along for all that.” The women laughed.
“Not in the slightest. Was sat in the far corner sulking the whole time truthfully.”
Karen looks down at the picture again, “He looks so young, hell looks younger than you.”
“Ha, was a baby-faced fool well into his 40s. Cannot tell you how often he was mistaken for being younger. But it worked for us, plenty of rich men wanting a thrill.” Dutch rolls his eyes, plucking the pictures from her and hiding them back into his jacket.
“Now, please, tell me about this dress you want if you want it before Hosea gets back and kills me.”