harvey hargrove iii — the golden boy
❝ The kind of radiance you only have at seventeen. ❞ Taylor Swift (Nothing New)
the basics :
Name: Harvard William ‘Harvey’ Hargrove III Age: Nineteen Birthday: December 29, 1979 (Capricorn sun, taurus moon, gemini rising) Gender & Pronouns: Cismale, he/him/his Sexuality: Heterosexual (though he’s had some bicurious thoughts and impulses he’s yet to act on) Major: Business Former School: Ohio State University Job: Unemployeed and living off of daddy’s money Inspiration: Chris McKay (Euphoria), Archie Andrews (Riverdale but specifically s1), Warren Worthington III (Marvel Comics), Andrew Clark (Breakfast Club), Jake Wyler (Not Another Teen Movie)
background : (tw for emotional abuse
The Hargroves were a seemingly perfect family from any outsider; the walls of their expansive home hiding the fractures in Cherry’s royal family. One of Harvey’s earliest memories is loneliness. He was raised by nannies instead of parents, his parents’ absence filled by any material good a boy could ask for. A key moment in his life was when his mother left. Harvey doesn’t like thinking about it that much. The dynamic at home changed greatly after she left; suddenly his father seemed to care more about him, though care might be the wrong word to use considering the next twelve years of torment he would go through at the hands of his father.
On the outside, Harvey and his father seemed to be a father and son duo, brought together by thr tragedy of a wife and mother cruelly abandoning them. But behind closed doors, he was poked, proded, and sculpted into the perfect figurehead through his father’s cruel words. Harvey has never been a person to easily submit, but it’s clear how quickly his persona changes when his father walks into a room.
When his father told him he had began seeing another woman and wanted to marry her, part of Harvey longed for the perfect nuclear family act the Hargroves had once played, his father paid less attention to him back then. It was a hard adjustment when Jillian and Zev entered the picture, even now it still doesn’t feel like they’re truly a family. But Harvey doesn’t mind much, his stepmother brings a warmth and kindness that seemed to lack from the Hargrove family for most of life; and even if Zev isn’t the brother Harvey spent most of his childhood fantasizing about, it was nice to not be the only teenager at home.
Harvey reached his peak in high school: he was the star athelete at school, everyone knew his name, and he finally had found a group of people he was comfortable to be himself around. But he wanted more. He was a Hargrove: he could have anything, do anything he wanted. As tensions began to rise in the gang as high shool graduation drew closer, Harvey wanted out of this town. Lux was the only person he ever opened up to about these plans, and she was the one who he encouraged him to look at schools outside of Califorina. When the acceptance letter for Ohio State University arrived in the mailbox, Harvey had found his golden ticket out of Cherry. He left town with a few choice words about many people before cutting contact with most of the gang as soon as he got to Ohio.
College life seemed to be going great for Harvey, he had found a new friend group on campus and was almost going steady with a girl. But then, Ohio was ripped right from him as a consequence of his own actions. In Cherry, he could seemingly get away with anything, of course there is a difference between speeding tickets and agravated assault. Coming back to Cherry, he felt like a dog with it’s tail between it’s legs. ‘Homesickness’ is what his father tells anyone who asks why Harvey is back, holding the real reason cruelly over Harvey’s head.
Forcefully back home and at his lowest, the cracks in Cherry’s golden boy are beginning to look more visible.
secret :
Harvey had always been the best in Cherry: he was the star quarterback, practically the best athelete to come from Cherry in years. His ego was only inflated when he recieved a football scholarship to Ohio State. But as soon as Harvey got to school, he was suddenly for the first time in his life stuck around people you were equally talented, if not more so. The desire to prove himself pushed him into some unhealthy lifestyles: insane exercise routines and borderline eating disorder diets. The ‘answer’ to his prayers came in the form of an older student slipping him anabolic stereoids one day before a game.
Harvey had always thought of himself better than needing performance enhancers, but the pressure he put on himself weighed too much as he took the stereoids before his next game. It had been one of the best games he’d played in months and he had never felt better.
Slowly, he began to take stereoids more and more. He dawned on his dependency after it was too late. Even now, back home in Cherry, it’s a habit he can’t quite kick. Ashamed of what the public would think if news slipped there once beloved quarterback can’t even play a game anymore without the help of drugs, Harvey keeps his addiction locked behind his bedroom door.
headcanons :
Huge fan of altnerative rock, which might be a little surprising to some consdiering the jock persona he lives by. Some of his favorite bands include Pearl Jam, R.E.M, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
He drives a red 1996 Mazda RX-7 and it is his pride and joy. It was a gift from his grandfather shortly after he graduated high school. He can often be found taking it out for joy rides around town; not many other sports cars in Cherry so it’s pretty easy to recognize when it’s Harvey.
He’s a night owl. While Harvey often wakes up at ungodly hours to work out before his classes, he feels most productive when the sun goes down. There is something about how quiet and still the world is during the middle of the night that calms him right down.
When Harvey isn’t working out or being arrested he is often playing video games. While he considers himself a casual gamer, he plays them quite often. His favorites include Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear Solid. He prefers console games over computer and arcade games.
He hasn’t had another girlfriend since Audrina, but that hasn’t stopped him from sleeping around. Not so much now that he’s back home; but almost half the girls in his grade back in Ohio have some sexcapde story with Harvey to tell.
