Okay so Dally was born in Siberia, Russia with his mom, his dad and his little brother Rusty. They actually had a pretty good life—they lived in a small wood cabin sorta thing. They weren’t suuuuper well off, but they were living. His mom was a super sweet woman who loved her sons a lot, and their dad was hardly present in their lives. She died due to complications while birthing Rusty, and their dad was hardly home, but when he was, he was either drunk, or extremely depressed, and usually took it out on his sons. They were taken out of custody of their dad when Dally wa maybe seven and Rusty was about 5 and a half and their grandma took custody of them. She wanted what was best for them, and when Dally was nine, they moved to America. This was peak Cold War Era so I gotta figure out how to integrate that in, but obviously they were not very well liked. Their grandma had lived in America for a while before moving back to Siberia when Dally was five or so, so she knew English and tried to teach the boys She died when Dally was maybe eleven They lived in Maine at the time and ever since, him and Rusty had been street rats. They weren’t well liked at all, and it integrates with my headcanon that Dally’s name isn’t his real one. Dally was about twelve when he lived in New York, and that’s the accent he tried to mimic to fit in more when he lived in more. When he found Tulsa, he was going on fifteen and Buck found him and Rusty in the side of the road. Rusty was deathly sick with pneumonia and Dalky didn’t take too kindly to Buck at first, but eventually he let him help. He got introduced to the gang after dine and dashing with Rusty at the diner Darry worked at, and Darry being the fastest, was sent to chase them, and he did—but eventually just let them go. He knew he’d do the same thing. But he tells them not to come back, and if they really needed food that bad then they could meet him at the end of his shift and he’d get them food at his place. And ever since he was introduced to the gang.
He tries mimicking the New York accent to rid himself of his background in Russia, but it still slips out when he’s really angry or upset. Rusty didn’t wanna cover up his accent (and was worse at English since he was young when his grandma died and him and Dally communicated primarily in Russian)
Also “Dallas Winston” is a fake name. I’m not sure what his actual name is yet (Rusty’s was Nikolai but idk about Dally yet lol) and it was after Winston’s cigarettes and they were in Dallas at the time. And he was thirteen. Don’t tell me Dallas Winston doesn’t sound like something a thirteen year old would name himself given the chance, lol