Trigger Warning

This character deals with:

• Alcohol addiction
• Biker gangs
• Childhood neglect

History

The ‘luck’ to be born in Pine Creek hasn't made Dutch its native, nor does he feel like it brought him any closer to that mysterious, colossal ‘us’ that Pine townsfolk are.

His childhood is a memory viewed through a foggy, dusty, sooted glass of a broken-down car, all cracked and in spiderwebs. He got lost in the woods the day before his eighth birthday. His family picked up their rusted trailer and left when he was about nine, looking for better places, jobs, times, odds that never came. His father sold their trailer and moved them into a home in some dogpatch, Arizona, worked day and night fixing cars, turned their garage into a proper pit-stop. His mum was always a meek, sickly pale ghost of a woman who worked her legs off until she couldn't, worked from home (taught her son how to cook and sew, all the while talking about how he wouldn't find a wife if he's no provider) until she couldn't. He had an older sister, then he didn't: there one day, gone the next—probably even before they left Kentucky, but Dutch wouldn't be able to tell you.

School wasn't much impressive either. Preston got more bruises than good marks—ain't his fault those books were (and still are) so damn hard to read. The only class he actually liked was orchestra. All others he'd rather skip with his buddies and try to sneak into some pubs instead, or spend hours in the garage when his dad wouldn't chase him out with a diesel-stained rag for fetching the wrong wrench. A kid just good enough for a cheap, used cross-country motorbike for his fifteenth since he wouldn't shut up about all those bike clubs. Old man stuck around just long enough to beat the way to fix most household electronics into the kid's head, then drove his car off the highway one night in the desert.

And then Dutch was the sole provider. Left school as soon as he could, tried at college, didn't even manage to enroll, spent his teen years speeding on a shitty motorbike (and breaking his leg in the process) when he should've slept because he worked himself sleepless, spent his twenties driving mum to doctors and back. At least that didn't last long.

Life just never was anything much, no matter how he clawed at it. Tough luck was always the McLaughlin curse. By age twenty four being half-drunk around the clock and flying from being timid and broken down to being so mad at the world you feel like your spine's about to crack got old, and Dutch didn't want to get a record for aggravated assault, so some psychological management it was—and he still feels absolutely stupid at how much it actually helped. That damn moment you realize you're really being taken seriously, being listened to, not just heard like TV static? Ooh, let Dutch tell ya—that shit breaks a guy. Well, as in—in a good way, you know? Some people need to break down sobbing and walk out of a room a different person, that's for sure. Or maybe Dutch's just ‘special’ like that, and he's gonna try to convince everybody else to talk it out before they do something stupid they can't fix. Suddenly (or, really, always—now he just was free to admit it) he wanted to be that kinda guy.

So he became that kinda guy. Slowly, tentatively, rolling down and scratching back up, faking until he made it, or at least started to make it. Dutch uprooted himself and roamed the state, meeting people, listening to motorclub gossip, racing in the night, better places and odd jobs.

In 2019, in some washed out bar he hears about Hellhounds' new chapter in Pine Creek, Kentucky—and while Dutch isn't superstitious, that could only be a sign from the universe. By the end of the year he gets to Kentucky and fitting in becomes his new quest, even if it doesn't go according to expectation in the end—eh, Dutch never hoped to be part of town anyway. Knew it wasn't in him. He kept thinking how ironic it was: renting the trailer, hanging around the bar, finding a spot as a mechanic in the Roadkill garage and doing every job Preston can get his hands on. Thirty odd years ago, his dad was probably doing the same things.

It wasn't long before Dutch was noticed by the Hounds. He's a friendly guy, and eager to be of any possible service. He entertains, he dissolves conflicts, he takes care, he helps; he's useful, needed, liked—all the things he ever dreamed of being. It begun when he fixed a strangers bike in spring of 2020, and ended in the woods behind the club house in August of 2022. And to color Dutch shocked the night he was let into ‘the know’ would be… understatement of the year, honest, but it passed quickly. It only meant he's now a weirdo among other weirdos; he's trusted; he's part of some bigger whole, of some sort of unconventional ‘us’ that the Hellhounds are. And that's just what he wanted his whole life, no?

Personality

From the first glance, Dutch seems a little mellow. Too friendly, trying too hard to be funny for everyone, to be helpful in any way he can. Awkward, too, because he tends to overexplain or overcorrect or do that weird therapy talk, and people aren't something he's used to, and he still gets the urge for brute force from time to time. It can be kinda creepy to some, you know? Like he's pretending to be something he's not, never was, never will be able to become. And, really, even he himself still thinks so sometimes. Doesn't stop him from trying, and screw anyone who thinks otherwise.

Nor does it stop him from being a real pain in the ass to those he thinks deserve it, and you gotta try real hard to get onto this guy's naughty list. Nor does choosing to live a better life stop him from smoking and driving over the speed limit whenever he can. Lesser evils and allat.

Friends

Most people find Preston to be real easy to get along with, a lovable goof with a good sense of humor—the guy works himself ragged to be that way after all. He's willing to get along with anyone and everyone, as long as they don't press his buttons. A little too forgiving simply because he understands anything and everything a little too well, tries to be diplomatic no matter what. Dutch hasn't figured out the sweet spot between being a doormat and being a bully yet, so he tends to let people stomp on him and quietly stew.

A very clear ambivert, Dutch is the soul (or, rather, the main clown) of the party until the music stops. Then he sleeps for fourteen hours and dreams of getting lost in the mountains for three years. Everybody's friend, and yet he'd rather talk secrets with his pet millipede.

Dutch has a knack for analog stuff, mainly because he's familiar with fixing it up and there's less labels: the fanciest gadget he has is probably his phone, and that's because everything's online nowadays. He likes photography, he likes music, but he's not great at either and tends to pick rather… unpopular genres, so a kindred spirit has been hard to find.

Enemies

Typos are his greatest enemy—nah, fine, that's a joke. A bit of truth in it, though.

Some think he's a phony, or a coward, or a clown, or a whiny dumbass. He ain't got a care as long as they don't get in his face 'bout it. Dutch's own big three no-no's are: hypocrites or stuck-ups, people who refuse to change or don't believe in it, and those who remind him too much of himself in his twenties. As in, stubborn reckless douchebags with anger and substance issues: they bring him back, and last thing anybody in recovery wants is relapsing. Wait, was that four?

He's willing to sacrifice a lot to work out conflicts, but he wants the same in turn. If anyone keeps getting on his nerves for some reason, well… nobody likes having a black eye, and Dutch won't like giving them one, but someone said damn straight: there's some suffering in life that's just necessary, or just deserved.

Lovers

Real open-ended, this one. There's a song that goes ‘I can be a handful, but that's why you've got two hands’ and that describes it best: patience is what Preston wants the most. He really doesn't think about gender, now that he thinks about it. He doesn't care who they are or what they do, just as long as they can handle him, as long as they're kind. He'd just like someone who really gets what he's gone and going through, someone who can help, someone who's genuinely happy to help. He's been down enough, and he's been kicked while down plenty, too. It's high damn time to find someone who can help Dutch pick himself back up instead. Just gotta find them. Juuuuuust gotta find them.