#Turned out a lot sadder than I originally thought 😂😂

[metalheadcowboy]

Parents Harringrove idea...

Steve and Billy both being kinda...terrified when their kid gets to, like, 12 or 13.

Because they were just about muddling through before, and toddler tantrums and little kid drama might not have been easy but it was a piece of cake compared to teen angst.

And they're both so aware of how easily they might mess things up. And the both think that the other is doing a MUCH better job of this whole thing.

So they end up going, both separately and without telling the other, to Joyce and having a little cry and asking her for advice because she's the best parent they can think of.

🍒

YES THIS!!! ✨

Sure the years coming up to teens are rough, of course the are. Every stage of raising a child is a challenge. But the teens are where things get risky. It’s when the hormones set in and just about anything can set their kids off. They are both so afraid, it’s like their walking on egg shells because they are both devastated seeing their children upset because they just want to be good dads. They just want to be everything that their dads weren’t to them.

The first time one of them goes to Joyce it’s Steve. It’s the night after their daughter comes home crying because apparently her best friend picked to do the project they were assigned with somebody other than her. Steve would try to console her and say that it ‘s probably nothing, that she wasn’t doing it to hurt her. And their frustrated daughter yells at him that he’s ‘no help’ and stomps upstairs.

It really shouldn’t hurt him as much as it did, but deep down in his heart is stung. Because he just wanted to comfort her and make her feel better. He remembered it being so easy when he would comfort the kids in the 80′s, but now it just seemed impossible. But what hurt the most is when Billy rubbed his upper back softly and said he would go handle it and within ten minutes him and their daughter came down like nothing ever happened.

Joyce is heartbroken to find an already teary-eyed Steve Harrington at her door looking like he needs the biggest hug in the world. And of course she would invite him in ASAP and he would practically collapse into her arms, head hung low on her shoulder bawling. And she just lets him ride it out sobbing into the crook of her neck. It’s not like she has to worry about anybody else in the house anymore now that Jonathan and Will have both moved out. So, she has all the time in the world. And when he’s done he’ll pull away with a sad sniffle, look at her, and ask.

‘Is parenting supposed to be this hard?’

And Joyce will give him the softest most sympathetic smile and reply with a more than sure.

‘Yes.’

Now Billy, he doesn’t break easily. He’s let words of hate slide off his back for years. He can handle their daughters teenage outbursts much better than Steve comes. But then there comes the day. The day where she finally snaps and says something that strikes Billy like an arrow through the heart.

‘Yeah! Well, I don’t love you!’

Before stomping up to her room.

Billy and Steve are both in shock because that was definitely a new one. They could handle the petty retorts, but that, wow.

Billy all but shuts down, just staring off into space. He’s quiet for the rest of the night, no matter how much Steve tries to console him, he’s just quiet. It’s the type of quiet that says a million words. The type of quiet that says everythign it needs to all on it’s own.

It isn’t until around 2AM that he’s still lying away in bed, that he finally decides to go to Joyce.

The whole ride he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t even feel like he needs to cry, he just feels numb. He wishes he could cry like Steve and just get over it. But her words rang out through his head like a church bell.

When he gets to Joyce’s she looked tired, clearly awoken from sleep. But nonetheless, she invites him in.

She makes them tea and they sit in silence for a bit until they’re both about halfway done and then Billy finally speaks for the first time in hours.

‘She said she didn’t love me.’

And Joyce consoles him with a chorus of ‘oh, honey.’ and ‘Sweetie, she didn’t mean it.’ And Billy knows he didn’t mean it, but it still hurt. In all fourteen years of her being alive he’d never heard her say anything like that. And he knows that maybe he’s over reacting but it makes him feel like he failed as a parent. All he wanted was to give his daughter the best life possible, make her happy and not put her through anything his own parents did and now here they were.

He still doesn’t cry, not even on the way home. But by the time he’s snuggled back into bed with Steve and in his sleep ridden state his sleepy husband asks,

‘Are you okay, Bumble B?’

He feels better enough to say.

‘’M fine, sugar.’

send me all your Parent Harringrove and Catboy Steve headcannons right now, this is a threat 👁👄👁