Chapter Text
“My boy! Look at all of this! I couldn’t possibly sort through this all. Hell, I think it’s about to rain anyway. I gotta hurry then. No choice.”
“I already know where this is goin’…”
"Arthur… son… can’t you just have some faith in me?”
The leaves hadn’t even finished turning red and orange down in the deep south piss consistency of air, and the leftover Halloween candy wrappers hadn’t even been blown out the yards and trenches on the sides of the damp roads yet, before Dutch van der Linde was all up in somebodies estate sale looking for something far too particular to have gotten there before the sun rose as if he’d miss finding some random treasure.
Arthur Morgan was stood beside him in his Carhartt jacket, hands shoved down in his pockets trying to keep out the “morning” chill. Even as he got older and older and older he didn’t understand how the hell these oldass people had these sales and got up for them, ready to wheel and deal random junk before the crack of dawn. 4:10 AM seemed like an unreasonable time to get woken up by any means. Just let a man lie.
Arthur was stood beside him though, in some dead rich schmucks estate sale. Awkwardly standing at the entrance to the attic where an assload of torn up cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly. There weren’t no way the rain was about to factor into this. A roach like no other skittered past them, probably also upset to be up at this ungodly hour. 4:40 AM? The thing was probably shellshocked.
His eyes hadn’t even woken up enough to half process what the hell Dutch was sliding his way.
“I’m gonna just take it all with me.”
"Aint no way you’re fitting all of this into that car, Dutch. Give it at least a minute of thought this time around.”
"I know exactly what I’m getting here because of what our dear friend Mr. Uh….. well, what our kind neighbor had put out each year for the holidays. Arthur, we can do this, trust me. Go ahead and start taking these down, I’ll work right here. Quit your worrying.”
So Arthur Morgan was sighing and lifting up cardboard boxes that belonged to a deceased Mr. Uh, and carrying them down a flight of 22 uncarpeted creaky stairs, down to the entrance where the host of this was listening in, so he could mention that this is their own growing pile of boxes. A couple other old folks meandered around slowly but speculatively, nothing like Dutch’s manic energy. Arthur was certain he hadn’t even slept the night before.
In Arthur’s case, he’d passed out on Dutch and Hosea’s couch listening to some bullshit on the TV around 11. He was one of those inconvenient rude and disrespectful people who needed more than five hours of sleep, but he was still up here. The ‘After all I’ve done for you…’ card was usually enough to get him up and moving.
By the fourth box of which he barely knew the contents, he began to grow a little in-complacent. There was no way they needed all this. These things were the full sized moving boxes, not even at least the medium kind.
He stopped down by The Pile, setting down the fifth box, before leaning over on it, and taking a look inside.
String lights that were too old to be LED’s, were the main contents of this box on top. He’d say 'Fire Hazard' and Dutch would say 'Old School'. Honestly. He slid the box down to the floor and glanced down at the next box. Faux pine something or other. Not wreaths but probably some kind of window decoration. Maybe for a mantle? All that fireplace shenanigans. Arthur closed it back up, and marched his way back up the stairs with a tired heave.
Dutch Van Der Linde had this idea in his head the past few years that if his holiday decorating was lacking, then he was therefore lesser. The notion had been spurred primarily on by one Colm O’Driscoll.
The feud-esque rivalry between the two was ridiculous to everyone but them by now. When you hit your 40’s shouldn’t stupid girlfriend disputes be over? Regardless, it wasn’t even close to being about that anymore. This was locked and loaded and wrought right through the job environment.
These two were practically competing for their respective church positions and following.
Every year Arthur had to wonder a little more if decorating a church was sacriligegous in some way, yet there was always some kind of 'reasonable' answer to that complaint. So eventually, he gave up. It weren't never that big of a deal anyway, it was just some lights he'd be stapling up there and wreaths to get the ladder out for. Took him awhile, but it always did end up looking real pretty afterwards, and the folks did enjoy it. A classical look to it all was probably just fine.
It weren't like he cared either way though.
Colm O'Driscolls plot on the other hand, was to the nines. It was gaudy, blasting color and inflatables and even music got thrown in with some fancy setup timing it to the lights. Was a sight to behold, for lack of worse terms.
Last year on Christmas Eve, him and John was sat out in the cold across the street from Colm O'Driscolls heavenly sanctuary First Baptist Church and watched the spectacle for a good hour, and went home feeling like they'd left a concert.
Colm O'Driscoll had gotten to speak on the news that Christmas morning and it had thrown their own mornings church service into beyond a frenzy. Dutch Van Der Linde was not about to stand by while this blasphemous bastard wound his way up to the top and got himself a whole new following for it. This year would be different.
Now that November was here again, back for another round in the ring, Arthur was about scared to find out what the hell they were in for.
Dutch jingled his keys from his pocket. The ones that went to his old white Cadillac Sedan.
“Arthur… Go take the car back and go get your truck from the house.”
The drive was preferable to the hauling of dusty deterioration, but pay it no mind.
It was Monday morning, thus, the day before had been busy as usual. That solved how Arthur had ended up passing out in Dutch’s place and got woken up by him, instead of heading back out to his own place that night. Fried chicken after church was no joke, arteries need time to recover. He was lucky he made it back there even.
He made it back to the house in the sedan, heehawed a little over getting out of the just warmed up car, before making the quick walk from the sedan over to the faded red 1990 F-150.
The thing had seen better days but also the worse days had probably been partially his fault. His 20s weren’t kind to it, and taking John out in the mud in it had been one of his less damaging escapades. He got it mostly working these days, but walked down the road a lot and gave a lot of money to the auto parts places. It smelled and tasted like stale cigarette bad enough you couldn't pick out whatever food had gotten left in there. The seats were tore up and that had been from his dog Copper, rest his soul.
It took to the second crank to get it on. The muffler was long since gone without a trace. Hosea was out on the front porch in a bathrobe giving him the stink eye before he could even pull out.
He rolled down the window until it got stuck at about 3/4th the way down, and stared back.
”Why the hell are you out here cranking that truck at 5 in the morning?!” Hosea hollered at him off the porch. Maybe the loud truck was an excuse to yell.
"Dutch’s got me hauling shit.” Arthur hollered back, sticking a thumb back to point at the bed of the truck while leaning halfway out the window.
"Tell him he better not be making any ‘deals’ at that goddamn estate sale! This living room already looks like a bombwent off! If more than one box shows up, I’m leaving! I'm taking off, Arthur Morgan!”
And with that Hosea was back in the house. Arthur sighed and pulled out.
Dutch had six full boxes piled up at the door of the estate sale house, all filled of various Christmas decor, with the new addition of a nativity scene that had been left in the backyard to rot a little. Amen.
Dutch told him about the great deal he’d gotten, fifty bucks for this whole set of crap, and Arthur was already tied into hefting them onto the bed of his truck while he talked about the way he’d talked them down on the price.
"That nativity scene is Amish, you know. Fine work. Same goes for that tablecloth. Did you see it? Embroidered by hand. I think those deer are actually vintage that go up on the mantle. I’m telling you, this is a real fine deal.”
"You’re really tryna sell me on the idea that you got a ‘good deal’ it feels like.” Arthur said, as the last box was pushed in Tetris style in the bed of the truck. It heaved down and left it seesawed downwards.
"Think of the children, Arthur.”
"Them children don’t care anyhow. Don’t care none about that old church no way.”
"Oh, they will, my boy.”
They clambered in and slammed the doors shut as they headed out once more. The sun was rising just then, as they made their way back. Coming up over the hills behind the trees. The sky was slowly turnt yellow and pink amidst the darkness and maybe he wasn’t watching the road too closely.
"Hosea gonna have his way wit’chu, Yknow.” Arthur murmured, as that mornings altercation came back up in his head. One hand on the wheel, they cruised down the highway, currently empty. It was just them two fools out on the road and the deer that were heading home after their nights out.
“I don’t doubt that. That’s why we need to head out to the church first. Drop all this off there, and he won’t know the difference.”
Arthur could argue and debate it, sure, but it weren’t worth it. He let it be. Dutch got what he wanted regardless, didn’t matter where they ended up because of it.
So he skipped on past the house on the highway with no doubt that Hosea heard his truck tearing down the road out front, and most likely saw the set of boxes in the back, and made his way on down.