HARVARD HARRISON HARGROVE III.
NICKNAMES: harvey, harv,
AGE: 19
GENDER: male
PRONOUNS: he/him
JOB: college student / junior board member at HAH / trust fund baby
FOOTBALL JERSEY: #03.
+TRAITS: strong, affectionate, charming, responsible, protective
-TRAITS: insecure, jealous, guarded, occasionally obnoxious, picky
FEARS: being left, losing people he loves, being alone, losing his father, loving people
PUBLIC HOBBIES: football, partying, basketball, dating, surfing, playing pool
PRIVATE HOBBIES: reading novels, photography, working on the fleet of classic cars in the Hargrove Mansions’ Garage, video games, running errands for his step-mom, swimming in the ocean at sunrise
HABITS: trying to hide how he’s feeling, revving engines so everyone sees him when he pulls into the parking lot, zoning out when he’s upset, rolling his eyes, starting fights at parties when he’s wasted, crying when Elaine Archer is around, lying to his dad, regretting small talk
TW: UNNAMED ILLNESS LEADING TO DEATH
When Harvey is totally losing it, he likes to think of the last few good memories he has with his Mom -- like before she was diagnosed, and everything got worse. He thinks about how they used to dance around the kitchen together, listening to the Beach Boys and singing along to old pop songs from the 60s. He thinks about her auburn hair in the glow of the fireplace’s crackling flame, and how they would sit in the living room together, Harvey’s cheek resting comfortably against her lap.
When he’s angry, and trying not to use his fists - when he’s trying not to be someone she would be disappointed to have brought into the world - he thinks about the way that she told him he was special, and that she would love him forever. He thinks about her hand encompassing his, and it’s the warmest glow in his chest... Until he remembers the day that she died, and, just like that, he’s a goner under the weight of his own emotions.
Harvey Hargrove hadn’t expected such a huge loss of love to define the rest of his life - what kind of 12 year old does? But as the years passed by, and as his mother became nothing more than a speck in the distance of his childhood, he began to realize that more than one of his problems could be rooted back to the Painful Departure of Delia Hargrove.
Before she was gone, for instance, he was a happy kid. He would spend his days reading in the park. He would find himself lost on real-world adventures with a young Casey Russell - his twin terror - and he would hang by Elaine’s side like a conjoined twin. He would ride his bike just about everywhere, and smile a sweet-cheeked, rosy little grin at the Witches who would call him, “Little Prince!” as he rode past. Harvey Hargrove the Third was full of charm, and promise, and excitement for the world.
Some of that still hung behind once she was gone. He still rode his bike, and though he and Casey seemed to start developing a competitive streak, they were still inseparable. His hand was still permanently clasped in Elaine’s or Libby’s, and he still buried his nose in a book on late nights when his nannies were avoiding him, and Harvard was working late.
It was easy to see how vastly the light behind Harvey’s eyes had dimmed, though, when he stopped smiling so much: it was easy to see the way he cringed when the name ‘Little Prince!’ was shouted at him from across the streets.
He wasn’t sure why it felt more like an insult after his Mom was gone, but looking back on it? Harvey just thinks it felt like a reminder that the life he knew at home was anything but a fantasy. He wasn’t a prince, and Hargrove Mansion wasn’t a kingdom. It was more like a prison.
Harvard Hargrove II hadn’t ever truly been warm, but the true frost came fluttering through the windows of Hargrove Mansion the day his wife dropped out of their lives. There had always been certain expectations set out for Harvey - he had always been expected to be the next face of H.A.H. - but without his mother there to protect him from the harsh reality of being a Fully Fledged Hargrove, Harvard took the reins on his son’s life.
Throughout middle school, he was expected to sign up for every sport that Cherry possibly had to offer. Football, Basketball, Baseball, Swimming - you name it, and Harvard Hargrove III was sure to be on the roster. There was no time for the kind of hobbies that Harvey longed to cultivate - no time for taking photo, and no time to wax poetic on the old records that his mom left him… There was only time to become the man that his father expected him to be. Strong, Respectable, and the shining example of their Picturesque Nuclear Family. You know. Minus the Mom.
He thought things would change when Jillian and Zev moved in - and he was right, they did - but his father’s control in his life never really seemed to ease up. Harvard II tried for Jillian, at least.
It was really no surprise that Harvey grew up a little shivery. No surprise that he built himself a bit of reputation as ‘A fucking Asshole’ with the people who refused to see past his Born Title as the ‘Prince of Cherry Proper.’
There were a few people who managed to melt his exterior over the years - a few people who got to see just how caring, and gentle he could be… High School really fucked that for Harvey, though. It got really hard to let people in.
Nobody really knows what Harvey’s hopes and dreams look like - they’ve never really known. They’d probably assume he had, like, real dreams of becoming an NFL legend, but… If he’d overheard any conversation he had with his High School Sweetheart, Elaine Archer, it might be easy to tell that his goals laid a little closer to his heart.
Money had never really been an issue for someone like Harvey - he had never really cared about becoming the next President of HAH investments, or finding fame and fortune. Nah, he just wanted someone to stand by his side, that would call him their own: he wanted a few kids that he could treat better than his Dad treated him. He just wanted to take pictures with his mother’s camera, and to feel like he belonged someplace important.
He was a Hargrove, though, so his dreams were kind of dead on arrival. He was going to keep playing football, and being Cherry’s ‘Golden Boy’ until his Dad told him he could stop; he was going to marry some beautiful girl that Harvard II approved of, and take his rightful spot on the board of HAH. He was going to be whatever his Dad wanted him to be, even if it resulted in a tortured, frost-bitten, never-see-the-sun version of his Only Child.
Harvey is the token popular kid. He’s sweet in the shadows, and a Personality in the light of day... Sometimes he doesn’t even notice he’s switching over. But for his friends? For the guy he thinks he might be falling for? He’s going to try to start to fix it.
OTHER THINGS ABOUT HARVEY:
Harvey loves novels like a Wrinkle in Time, the Neverending Story, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, and the Princess Bride - those were the kinds of things you could find in his book bag all the way up to Freshman year! But once his mind started to feel a little darker, he began to branch out into the more melancholy side of the literature world. Harvey’s bookshelf at home is filled, now, with Stephen King Novels, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, and the list of totally obvious depressed-boy authors goes on… Though, he definitely still keeps well used copies of the Lord of the Rings novels in his night stand. In fact, he’d never tell anyone, but his personal collection of Lord of the Rings memorabilia fills the hidden crevices of his bedroom.
He spends a ton of time in the CCU library, and he has since he was a kid - in fact, if you’re looking for the guy? There’s probably a good chance he’s tucked somewhere in the back, not that enough people really pay attention to him to know that. Sometimes he’s studying, but more often than not he’s thumbing through some novel he found in the stacks.
Harvey’s mother died when he was 12, but he feels lucky at least that he has no shortage of pictures from their time on Earth together. Delia Hargrove loved photography: she always said it was the third love of her life, and when she died, it became the love of Harvey’s too. He inherited her old camera, and begin taking pictures of nearly everything he could point at with it’s lens. He’s got an entire stack of self portraits; he’s got pictures of his friends, and his family, and places he loves - everything. It’s everything to him.
Nobody really knows it’s a hobby that he takes seriously... They’d probably laugh if Harvey told them that he wished that photography was his major instead of business. But somewhere, deep down, Harvey wishes that he could just take pictures for the rest of his life. It’s all he’s ever really wanted.
WORKING ON THE FLEET OF CLASSIC CARS IN THE HARGROVE MANSION GARAGE:
So, like, reading and photography - listening to his Mom’s records and dancing around his room? Those were always hobbies that made his Dad sort of cringe, and what is a kid to do that desperately needs approval from his father? Find a “manly” hobby that Harvard II can actually stand… Enter the garage at Hargrove Mansion.
His house has always been huge - more of an estate, really, even if that basement was bleak - but the garage was half the size of the main house, and part of the main source of his father’s pride. Plymouths, Fords, Cadillacs, BMWs, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lamborghini, etc - if it was made before 1960, and in any class of luxury, you could bet your ass that Harvard Hargrove II owned, or had owned it, at some point in the past.
Harvey remembers the first time his father let him hold the flashlight while he worked on the engine of a 1947 Plymouth with suicide doors. He held nuts and bolts in his hands, and it took half an hour to wash the grease from his hands afterward… but he kind of liked the way that it felt on his fingertips. He sort of craved to be the one with his hands in the engine; actually fixing something that had the potential to run just as beautifully as it did back when it was brand new off of the factory line.
Harvard II was impressed when Harvey showed back up in the garage day after day, and Harvey pored over the many car manuals he could buy at the auto shop just outside of town. Soon enough, he was better at getting an engine to run than Harvard Hargrove II was, and Harvey swelled with the only amount of pride he could when his father actually told him how pleased he was.
Harvey can be caught driving a different car, like, multiple times a week - it depends on which one he’s working on, on any given day - but he has his favorites.
Working on engines not only helps him prove his masculinity to his father - which he kind of hates about his favorite hobby - but Harvey hates the idea of taking his car to someone else to fix. He gets enough “spoiled rich kid” shit thrown his way… Breaking down on the side of the road or something, with no way to help himself? Not being able to change his own oil? It’s a non-option.
SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN AT SUNRISE:
Harvard Hargrove II has always pushed Harvey into sports, and though he enjoys the thrill of the game, really, swimming was probably the only one that ever brought Harvey any peace… Which is why he refused to turn it into one of the many competitive sports he plays.
Since Harvey was 14 he has been waking up extra early a couple mornings a week to run down to the Orchard Shore Beach and take a swim before the sun rises over the ocean. The girls who lifeguard at the beach have caught onto the routine - sometimes they’re already working out on the beach by the time he gets there... but it’s not enough to give it up. He kinda likes the attention.
RUNNING ERRANDS FOR HIS JILLIAN:
Harvey misses his mom basically, like, every day, even if it doesn’t always manifest itself in the most obvious ways… Jillian fills some part of the void, though.
Zev and Harvey don’t exactly get along, obviously, but in the absence of being a good step-brother, Harvey has always tried to go the extra mile to be a good step-son. He used to stop by to make sure she had lunch everyday. He would pick up clothing bundles from her supplies, or stay up late organizing inventory when she was stilling running her business… He craved her approval, even if there would always be the wall between them with Zev’s face graffitied all over it.
Harvey and his father have always had a strange relationship with each other. When Delia Hargrove was still alive, things were like... actually semi-normal. Of course, Harvey has been sitting in on H.A.H meetings since he was six years old; formed and molded into the idea of what the perfect Hargrove CEO should look like. But before his mother was gone, they would take vacations, and spend holidays togethers; tradition was rife, and so were the days that the two would throw a football across the lawn or watch a movie together.
When Delia passed away, their relationship became distant and cold. It was like Harvard II didn’t know how to be a father without his wife at his side. Instead he became Harvey’s coach, and his leader; he wasn’t a man that Harvey could share his feelings with, instead he was the man that made Harvey feel like he was never going to be good enough.
Harvey isn’t sure he’ll ever be a great football player, or a great businessman. He isn’t sure he’s ever going to be able to play the role of a Husband to a wife, and the father to her children... It was all he wanted when he had Elaine. She was probably the only person he could have pretended with his whole life: he didn’t even know it was pretending back then.
Now he’s sure he’s got a choice: himself, or his father.
Harvey doesn’t think he’ll ever really know what it’s like to be loved again: not since elaine left him, and his mother died. He was only nine years old when she was diagnosed - a life ruining moment and a half. He was twelve when she finally passed away, frail and broken in a hospital bed at Cherry Memorial.
She left wounds on Harvey’s heart that he doesn’t know what to do with, and it’s made him lonelier than anything. Left with only a broken father, he’s always struggled with believing people care about him; and deep within his heart, there’s a fear of being abandoned that rages on... but it’s also just made him crave a future with someone. He wants a family of his own - he wants to feel whole enough to be able to spend his life with someone.He’s just scared he’ll never be able to be that person until he can figure out how to fill the hole that his mother left behind.
Harvard Hargrove II is the person who took Delia’s death the hardest, even with Harvey to consider... and when he’s drunk past the point of no return? He blames it on his son, and Harvey believes him. What else is he supposed to do?
Harvey has always had sort of a wild streak - a part of him that just set off with no regard for control - whether it comes to partying, or jumping off of shit he shouldn’t... getting angry when he should probably just take a breath? It’s always been a part of him, and though it’s a part he’s tried to fight, it really took on a life of it’s own when Harvey went to middle school and became all but addicted to the rush of popularity and attention - however negative it may be.
He likes to throw parties. He likes to get angry on the field, and fight it all out... He likes to get drunk, and do stupid shit sometimes. It’s something his father absolutely hates about him - what kind of CEO is acting like a token frat boy? But it’s just about the only form of control Harvey has over his life anymore.
Harvey has basically always refused to acknowledge just how intense he feels over some of the males in his life - it’s an avenue he couldn’t find himself even thinking about turning down. Recently, though, it seems like it’s all hitting Harvey in the chest with unrelenting force. He had always chalked it up to jealousy, the way that he’d look at guys in the locker room and feel himself, like… melting? Right in the chest? He’d always told himself he paid so much attention because he wanted to be like them, but… Whatever. Lately, he’s just been rethinking things. He’s been finding himself attracted to people he shouldn’t be: AKA, Mackenzie Walsh.
He’s doing everything he can to hide, but recently he thinks there must be some way he’s slipped up, because his father has become unrelenting about Harvey finding a nice girl to date.
