Hi! I am so very in love with your Appalachian!Eddie 'verse. Everything you've shared about it is absolutely perfect. <3
You've said you're usually open to getting asks about headcanons, so I hope this is okay. I started wondering about what birthdays were like for Eddie, since today's mine. I'm stuck pondering how they were for him growing up, and how they may have changed when he moved in with Wayne. I also started wondering how'd they'd be when he and Steve get together--especially considering Steve doesn't seem to have a typical home life, so he may not even have the experiences we'd expect him to around that kind of thing.
If you have thoughts on any of this, I'd love to hear them, but please don't feel pressured to respond. No worries if you're not feeling it! :)
hi!! i'm so sorry i couldn't answer on your actual birthday, but i'm less busy now and have so many thoughts about this!!
Eddie's birthdays growing up are small. His parents aren't super well off, and they don't talk to the rest of their families, so small birthdays it is. I can see them going out for ice cream or getting fast food for dinner, small stuff like that. They usually got him one or two things, too, stuff like comics issues, books, art supplies (you can't tell me Eddie wasn't a creative kid), and new tapes.
The most important thing, though, is that both of his parents were there. Neither one of them missed a single birthday before Eddie went to live with Wayne, and they were both sober enough to be functional. Holidays were hit and miss, but Eddie's birthday was a priority. They made an effort to be there, and he loves them for it.
When Eddie goes to live with Wayne, he's around thirteen years old. Wayne is better off than Eddie's parents are, so he takes Eddie to Benny's for his birthday and gets him new clothes and his acoustic guitar. It's... a lot for Eddie, who grew up watching his mama count change on the kitchen counter of whatever house (or motel room) they were living in at the time, even when his pa tried to distract him from doing so. He knows he and Wayne aren't well off, not really, but it's still an adjustment.
Steve is big on birthdays. I've written his parents a variety of ways, but for this particular scenario I'm going to settle on the idea that they loved celebrating his birthday when he was younger but didn't like it as much as he got older. I feel like his parents wanted a kid, not a person, and once Steve stopped being a kid, it stopped being fun for them and time for him to finish growing up and become a man. So, Steve is big on birthdays because he remembers loving them as a kid, hating them as a teenager, and then learning to love them again with the Party. Once Eddie becomes a solid part of their group, Steve wants him to have that, too.
They fight about it at first. Steve is a bit pushy. He can be a lot, and Eddie is still uncomfortable with the idea of doing a lot for his birthday. They fight about it, briefly, until they come to the conclusion that they can make Eddie's birthday little and Steve's birthday big, just as it suits them.
Eddie usually wants to go out for ice cream for his birthday, and that's it. Steve's is for the adventures they take, like driving up to Lake Michigan for a weekend or going into Chicago to see a concert.
They wouldn't have it any other way.
