Steve and Eddie go through the whole adoption process in 1996, despite how difficult it was to find somewhere willing to help them at all and despite their conflicted feelings on adoption.
The way they saw it though, providing a loving home for a child who needed one was better than the alternative. Eddie had enough experience with temporary foster homes to know stability was better than constant moving and questionable foster parents.
They get a foster placement almost immediately, a six year old girl named Amelia. She’s quiet, but not in a way that worries them. She’s very focused, and enjoys going to school more than any regular children’s hobbies. Neither of them know what to do with that other than keep encouraging it.
She stays for months, months turn into a year, and the agency finally gives them the go ahead to complete the adoption process.
But they don’t do anything without talking to Amelia.
She’s happy there, her therapist signs off on it immediately and explains that Amelia has shown more personality development and less signs of trauma with them than she had even living at home. Not to mention they actually brought her to appointments, unlike her previous guardians.
To celebrate, they throw a party with all their friends and family and tell Amelia she can invite anyone from school she wants. She invites everyone.
Turns out their daughter is a social butterfly and is friends with everyone.
At the party, Eddie pulls out his guitar, plays a bunch of popular kid-friendly songs after a very scathing look from Steve as a reminder to behave.
Amelia walks over to him after a few songs, on a sugar high like he’d never seen on her before, and asks to play the guitar.
He’s hesitant, but not because he’s still protective of his guitars, more because he doesn’t want her to embarrass herself in front of her friends. Kids are cruel, even and especially at seven, and the last thing he wants is this to be the thing that kids talk about for the next ten years.
She sits on the couch and holds it, arranging her fingers…correctly. Eddie watches.
Steve is watching from across the room.
She starts strumming, very quietly at first, not as confident as she’d been a moment ago. And then she starts really playing.
It’s one of the songs Eddie wrote. He played it for the last four months nonstop as he perfected it, and she’d apparently been watching.
Eddie’s jaw is on the floor and he quickly looks over to Steve, who has a similar look of surprise on his face.
He doesn’t interrupt her. She makes it through the entire song.
She looks up.
“When did you learn to play guitar?” Eddie asks.
“When I was watching you.”
“But have you played before tonight?”
Amelia shook her head, looking down. “Didn’t wanna touch it without asking.”
Eddie pulls the guitar from her hands and sets it aside, then pulls her into his lap and hugs her. Steve sits down on the couch next to them, hand on her back.
“You can always ask, sweetie. And if you’re this interested and this natural, we can buy you your own guitar if you want. I didn’t think you were interested in playing.”
“I wanna be like you,” Amelia admitted against his shoulder.
Eddie was done for. He looked at Steve, half-panicked, trying not to cry in front of these people, but Steve wasn’t faring any better.
“Then we can go get you a guitar tomorrow. You can get your own picks, too. They might even have purple ones.”
“Can I have red? Like yours?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
It only took them two days after that to realize she could play by ear, just like Eddie.
And then it only took another day after that to realize she had taught herself to read music too.
They spent hours and hours every week playing together while Steve cooked dinner or checked her homework or just watched them.
When Eddie’s band decided to record another album and go on tour when Amelia was 12, Eddie insisted that she get to be on it.
She ended up helping write one of their songs, played on the track on the album, and with a lot of work, convinced Steve to let them homeschool her for the entire 8 months they’d be on tour so she could perform on stage with her dad.
“Can’t believe she’s not even genetically yours. Are you sure you didn’t have an affair?” Steve asked the night before they were leaving for Europe.
“When would I have had an affair? I came back to the tour bus or hotel with you every single night,” Eddie kissed him softly. “She’s amazing, huh?”
“She is. What happens when she wants to be a full blown rockstar like her dad too?”
“Then we make sure she’s protected and has good people around her like I have. She could be a rockstar easily. She’s got the talent and the presence,” Eddie smiled. “And she’s got me to make sure no one takes advantage of her. But she’s only 12. We’ve got time to worry about that later.”
“You’re bringing her onstage every single night all over the world for the next eight months, baby. I think later is now.”
Eddie sighed. “She’s gonna blow them all away. I’m proud of her. Let’s focus on that for now.”
And she did blow everyone away. The fans and the media had nothing but good things to say, and Steve didn’t have to go into overprotective mom mode at all until she was 15 and signing a record deal of her own.
But between Eddie and him, the entire industry knew better than to fuck with her or them.
They made rules, of course. School still came first, she still had required family events to be at, she still had regular friends at home. She wasn’t allowed at any parties, not even the events for award ceremonies.
But she didn’t really need those rules. She had no interest in parties or abandoning her friends or family, and she was a straight A student who still had hopes of getting into Brown for Journalism like her Aunt Nancy. She had a passion for music and wanted to share it, but not at the cost of the rest of her life.
And Eddie and Steve did everything they could to make sure she got to have everything. That’s what they’d promised her from day one.
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Silly/Clumsy WB boys HCs
I see hcs like this and theyre always fun/make me laugh o(`ω´ )o
Sakura’s food went down the wrong pipe at a restaurant and when the waiter asked if it was because it was too spicy, he insisted through coughing and tears that that definitely wasn’t the case (he could tell they didnt believe him though)
Tsugeura sometimes lets one rip by accident when he’s exercising. Not even a little fart either, the kind that stops everyone from what they’re doing.
One time Nirei stubbed his toe so hard, he fell and grabbed onto the nearest object. Unfortunately that was the back of Sakura’s pants, making him accidentally moon a few people in class.
Word recall is hard sometimes. So when Choji calls an ambulance a ‘hospital truck’ really what can you do? At least he’s using words. Sometimes he just mimes the shape or action of the thing and insists that you know what he’s talking about. Will draw a picture if he gets frustrated enough, but if it’s something intangible? Well it’s a guessing word game. (Togame is the best at it, but Inugami is on Choji’s wavelength enough that he’s pretty accurate too)
Hiragi calls the first years by the wrong name sometimes, like a mom with too many kids. He’ll yell and say Sugishita when he means Sakura, but he does apologize before yelling again.
Because he’s around older guys a lot, Togame sometime uses really old words or sayings. You haven’t hear the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs” or he’s “bleeding like a stuck pig” in years until you’re stuck under an awning during a passing storm or he comes back from a rough fight, nose still bleeding profusely. Also keeps bag balm/cetaphil, some other really good lotion for calluses and dry skin and just kinda slaps it on whatever shishitoren member he sees who’s hands are cracking, saying that the skin won’t heal as well when they’re older so they better take care of it now.
Umemiya’s got the worst habit of losing, dropping, or sitting on his glasses. He doesn’t realize it until he hears the snap and he’s got them taped up until he can go get them fixed again.
Kaji’s kind of a messy eater. Especially with ice cream or food with sauce on it. Started to get better with checking his face after eating after Hiragi slapped a wet wipe on his face after he devoured a rack of ribs, leaving him looking like he’d cannibalized someone
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