VARGAS, Billy Ellwood

[billy ellwood vargas]

BILLY ELLWOOD VARGAS

FULL NAME: Billy Ellwood Vargas.
NICKNAMES: None.
AGE: twenty-six
GENDER: Male
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Casablanca bartender.

HAIR: His hair is extremely dark brown, shaved short at the sides and long on top. He usually slicks it back or combs it over.
EYES: Blue.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: A few from skateboarding.
TATTOOS: His body is covered in them. He’s constantly adding to his collection of ink and he’s fast running out of space for more work. If anyone asks about them he could easily spend an hour or more just talking about all the designs on his body.
PIERCINGS: Nose, both sides, several piercings in his ears including gauges, and an anti-eyebrow piercing.
PLAY-BY: Jimmy Quaintance!

LIKES: Skateboarding, movie trivia, spoiling friends, cooking dinner, tattoos, piercings, shopping, bar atmospheres, Amsterdam, stripes, garlic bread with cheese, hair products, dogs, reading, retro furnishings, making fancy drinks, hot chocolate, silverscreen movies, It’s A Wonderful Life, Vans, surprising people, dressing up, magazines, house plants.
DISLIKES: People talking down to him, arrogance, the subway, misplacing one of his hearing aids, dry skin, throwing away a favourite shirt, warm nights, losing touch with people, hot dogs, Pepsi, feeling lazy, bad subtitles, poor hygiene, unnecessary Amazon packaging, bowling shoes, unexpected loud noises (it can hurt), cold coffee.
FEARS: Never being able to skate, bees, tiny dark spaces.
SECRETS: It’s A Wonderful Life always makes Billy cry.
PERSONALITY: Billy is a friendly guy who will welcome just about anyone into his life. Whether they stay in it is another thing entirely, but he always tries. Happy most of the time, he’s a tough guy to bring down and despite what he’s gone through he’s still usually smiling. A sarcastic ass he cracks jokes and loves to have friends who he can throw insults back and forth with. Skateboarding has been his life since he was a kid and despite how tidy he seems, he’ll grab his old jeans and hoodies and hit up the skate park when he’s got some free time. Billy is a sweet guy who enjoys treating and spoiling the people in his life, but he’s not going to stick around to be used or walked over. He’s got a backbone even if he rarely shows a temper. Mostly he’s protective of the people in his life who mean something to him; he’s not going to sit back when they’re upset or threatened. People tend to assume that his hearing loss makes him weak, but they couldn’t be more wrong about Billy. In his opinion it’s made him stronger. He’s honest about his opinions and his feelings, not seeing the point in lying when the truth will only come out eventually. He’s a non-traditional romantic, which means he like to put a twist on things that are traditionally expected in relationships. He values relationships more than flings, but Billy is only a man and there are times when he will take a woman home not expecting her to be there for breakfast.

MOTHER: Sally Vargas, 50.
FATHER: Benjamin Michael Vargas, 54.
SIBLINGS: Katrina Marie Vargas, 27.
OTHERS: N/A
PETS: Polka, a French Bulldog of one!
HOMETOWN: Los Angeles, California.
HISTORY: Ben was the friend of Sally’s older brother. She always had a crush on him, but he never noticed her until she came home the summer after graduating college. Their romance was something of a whirlwind. Ben wanted to make up for lost years and Sally just didn’t want to waste a minute of what she was sharing with Ben now that it was finally all coming true. They married at the end of that year and soon after Katrina was born. Ben supported them working in a bank while Sally took some time to spend with Katrina, and not long after that Billy arrived.

Their childhood was mostly uneventful. Katrina and Billy fought between themselves a lot, but it was the kind of sibling fighting that made them hate each other, but if anyone else wanted to cause trouble they’d have each other’s back in a heartbeat. Billy started skateboarding when he was eight and that was his life with his buddies. He progressed from tiny ramps in the road to the bigger tricks and stunts he could pull at the skate park. It became his community. He was something of an outcast at school, but he loved it. There was a gang of them who didn’t fit in and it was always a riot to be with them. They grew up together from when they were tiny and stayed friends right through school, which was something Billy just loved. It didn’t matter if bullies came after them, or they had it rough at home, they were there for each other and whether they were at school or a skate park it felt like they were invincible together. Sadly, they were not.

When Billy was sixteen he came down with what he thought was the flu. Everyone had it through the winter and many of his friends had been off school with it. He thought he was no different. It was only when he collapsed trying to get himself a glass of water that his parents took him to hospital and the doctors instantly ran tests for meningitis. There was no rash, but they informed his parents that there didn’t need to be, and his symptoms were all pointing to it. Bacterial meningitis confirmed, Billy spent a rough time in intensive care, battling it out as his body was pumped with antibiotics and steroids. He was in hospital for close to a month fighting in and out of consciousness. Thinking it was the flu meant that the meningitis had done more damage and it was a severe infection when he was admitted. His hearing vanished after a week, but Billy was too weak and delirious to report it until another few days had passed by. Doctors were concerned about other side effects, and they came in time, but after his recovery it was the hearing loss that was the most costly.

He ended up with moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears, though his left was worse than his right. He got hearing aids to help him out, but soon discovered that in nosier environments they were a hindrance more than an aid. He hated fiddling with them just because it was loud and then quiet again. Thankfully, he picked up lip reading fairly quickly, which his doctor told him was common when hearing loss was acquired later in life and not something a person was born with. Billy learnt sign language, too, just for another option. It came in useful when he was having down days when he didn’t want to talk or listen to people, but he didn’t expect everyone in his life to follow suit just because he was deaf now. Without his hearing aids everything was muffled. He could hear someone shout if they were right next to him, but that wasn’t fun at all. He also had trouble with balance and co-ordination for a while, but determination to get back on a skateboard helped with that. Billy’s eyesight was slightly affected, but only by a minor degree. It was only something he noticed if he was in the back of a classroom, but he picked up a pair of glasses anyway.

Billy went back to school, but ultimately graduated a year later. After coming out of the hospital he still needed more time to get his strength back and then with the changes to his life his parents decided to hold him back just so he could be fully prepared, and not jump back in at a disadvantage. Billy surprised himself and others with how well he took to his hearing loss. He just took it in stride and adapted to things quickly. It took time, but he was back with a grin on his face, though he often caught people staring at his ears where his piercings were now accompanied by hearing aids. At nineteen he graduated and went to a New York college where he studied art. Billy had always been fairly good at drawing and there wasn’t much else he wanted to try his hand at. Moving away scared his parents, but he didn’t want to be treated different or worried about. He was fine and he wanted to prove that to them.

College flew by. Billy graduated and then started doing a little bit of this and that around the city. By college graduation he was covered in tattoos and addicted to the ink. A colourful man he had a few exhibitions before putting his easel away and trying a brief stint as a tutor to a deaf student who was struggling at school. That ended when the boy graduated. Billy didn’t know what he wanted out of his life so he dabbled in a few things, took a few night courses to see if something new and different might open a door he really liked. It was sheer chance that he ended up working at Casablanca, but he was good at mixing drinks after entertaining friends through college and beyond and he’d picked up tricks from dabbling. He was an artist after all. He likes it there, plus Iliza lets him be himself when he’s behind the bar and he treats it like his baby.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: On the back of a label.
SAMPLE:

Never!

[kim]