Tumblr is rolling out a new reblog/notes system that completely disregards creators. In their new system, they're taking a twitter-style approach where reblogs will have their own notes that DO NOT contribute to the original post's notes.
Because of this, creators will no longer be able to see an accurate display of likes/reblogs/etc. This is completely altering the way feedback and responses to works are going to be received on this website.
If you come across a fan work that you enjoy, please take the extra step to go to OPs original post, and leave your comment/like/reblog there. Or go one step further and send an ask to OP directly to tell them what you liked!
I really hope Tumblr staff reverses course and reverts to the original reblog system for the sake of the large base of creators who use this site to share their works, but until then, please be considerate and make sure the creators here see/feel the love.
uhh so alot of 80s, like everything really. toto, bon jovi, whatever. obviously alot of djo. i actually collect cds (got about 150 i would say?) and the only djo one i'm missing is twenty twenty. lana del rey because i grew up dressing vintage americana lol. but i'm genuinely the person who says they listen to everything and means it.
tumblr says i got three things in my inbox but when i open it its empty i hate it i'm like 90% sure theres at least one request i cant see because of it
HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I SAW YOUR POST ABT WANTING TO INTERACT SO HERE I AM
you summoned and i shall comply
I found your blog literally 15 minutes ago- the Steve Full House fics and dear god i LOVE them. I grew up with Full House and i LOVE Steve and the henderson!reader trope. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT <3
this genuinely made my day, i'm so happy. thank you so much!!!!! i watched through the entirety of full house one summer when i was fourteen and it absolutely shaped me lmao.
i adore the henderson!reader trope, which is funny because i hated it at first and now it's my favourite. i was a hopper!reader girlie in the past but henderson!reader just feels full circle somehow?? i changed my stranger things oc i have had since 2019 from hopper to henderson because of it lol.
writing the full house stories is so much fun actually, i got an easter one coming up. i just love dad!steve (my daddy issues show) and he would be the best father and the second joe keery said steve would have four daughters i thought let's cook. (and considering joe keery himself has four sisters, two of which are twins, i thought let's take inspiration from that). the twins birthyear is the same as joe keerys and their birthday is the one publicly known as joe keerys (although i'm aware of the interview where he said it's false, i still thought that's cute).
it's just a fun project i can add onto whenever i feel like it. anyway this really made me happy, thank you so much for sliding into my inbox haha.
Mother Council {Steve Harrington x Henderson!reader}
Full House Masterlist
Every part can be read as standalone.
Summary: When you take your girls along to the post office, you run into the mother council. Your own mom Claudia Henderson, as well as Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers, Susan Hargrove and Sue Sinclair.
Information: You are Dustins older sister, you and Steve have four daughters because ofc I'm pushing Joe Keerys "Steve Harrington, 4 daughters, girl dad" propaganda. Also, you are a radio DJ at W.S.Q.K. because I think it's fun lol.
Warnings: None that I can think of.
Spring in Hawkins always came in patches. One day the town still looked like winter had forgotten to leave, with gray slush gathered in the gutters and the bare trees standing there like they were waiting to be told what came next. Then all at once there would be a warm breeze, a bright strip of sun across Main Street, plastic eggs hanging in shop windows, and somebody at Melvald’s dragging out a cardboard rabbit with one ear bent funny from storage.
By the second week of March, Hawkins had already thrown itself into decorations like Easter was tomorrow instead of still a ways off. There were painted eggs in the window at Melvald's, paper chicks taped crookedly to the glass at the diner, and the little square by the post office had pots of yellow daffodils set out by the ladies from the church committee. Somebody had tied pastel ribbons around the lamp posts downtown, and in the breeze they fluttered lazily, soft pink and pale blue against the washed-out Indiana sky.
You had Anita on your hip, warm and tiny and half asleep against your shoulder, one fist curled into the collar of your sweater. She was only a month old and still had that new-baby weightlessness to her, all softness and milk breath and sleepy little sighs. Steve had kissed the top of her head before you, still on maternity leave, had left and stood in the kitchen doorway in his blue coach jacket, coffee mug in hand, looking at the five of you like he still couldn’t believe he got to keep you.
“Need me to come?” he’d asked for the third time.
“It’s the post office, Steve, not a hostage exchange.”
He’d narrowed his eyes at you. “That is exactly the kind of attitude that gets people taken.”
Pamela, already in the garage pulling on her rollerblades before you stopped her with one look, had said, “Dad, Mom can fight, like, several people at once.”
Rosanna had adjusted her glasses and added matter-of-factly, “Statistically that seems unlikely.”
Joanna, on the floor tying and retying one sneaker because she had somehow gotten gum on the lace, had announced, “I could bite somebody.”
And Steve, entirely serious, had pointed at the three older girls one by one and said, “No rollerblading on Main Street, no climbing anything, no running off, and if your mother says jump, you ask how high.”
Pamela had grinned. “You say that to us every day.”
“Because every day you all wake up with fresh bad ideas.”
Joanna was beaming. “That’s because we’re creative.”
Now, walking into town with the girls, you could still hear his voice in your head.
Pamela walked beside you in a denim jacket with the sleeves shoved up, hair swinging down her back, carrying herself with the kind of confidence that made people turn and smile without meaning to. At five years old she already had Steve’s easy charm and that same alarming ability to get information out of people just by asking like she belonged there. Rosie and Jo trailed half a step ahead, twins only in birthday and face shape because everything else about them was wildly their own. Rosanna was holding your stack of envelopes with grave importance, like she’d been entrusted with state secrets. Joanna had found a stick somewhere before you’d even hit the sidewalk and was now dragging it along the edge of the curb, talking steadily to nobody and everybody.
“Do you think the mail trucks have the same route every day?” Rosie asked.
“Mostly,” you said.
“What if there’s road work?”
“Then they go around.”
“What if they get lost?”
Pamela snorted. “Mailmen don’t get lost, Rosie. That’s, like, their entire job.”
“That is not a scientific answer.”
Joanna jabbed her stick toward the flower shop window. “I think if I was a mailman I’d make my route go past the candy store first so I could fortify myself.”
“With what?” Pamela asked.
“With gummy worms. Obviously.”
You shifted Anita a little higher as she stirred. “You can’t fortify yourself with gummy worms.”
Joanna looked back at you, offended. “Says who?”
“Says biology.”
“Biology is mean."
Pamela barked out a laugh so much like Steve’s that it made your chest pinch a little.
Hawkins knew you. That was the strange, lovely thing about it after all these years. Men in overalls outside the hardware store tipped their heads and called out hello.
Mrs. Gable from Birch Street, who had to be at least eighty, clasped both hands to her chest and said, “Well, if it isn’t my favorite voice on the radio,” before taking in the girls around you. She always called your daughters “those Harrington angels,” as if she didn’t know perfectly well Joanna had once climbed her low front fence to rescue a cat that was not in any danger at all.
“Morning, Mrs. Gable,” you said.
Pamela, because she had been raised right, smiled sweetly. “Morning.”
Rosie echoed it.
Joanna waved her stick. “Hi.”
Mrs. Gable’s eyes fell on Anita. “Oh, look at that little bit.”
Anita yawned without opening her eyes, and Mrs. Gable nearly melted on the spot.
By the time you reached the post office, the front steps were busy with people mailing letters, picking up packages, stopping to talk. Hawkins treated errands like social calls. Nobody got in and out of anywhere quickly if there was a chance to lean on a counter and hear three new stories first.
You had just gotten the girls lined up in some loose approximation of order when Pamela suddenly went still beside you.
“Oh no,” she whispered, though her face said the exact opposite. Her face said delighted recognition. “Mom.”
You followed her line of sight.
Outside the post office, gathered under the window boxes like they had been planted there by town ordinance, stood the Hawkins mother council in full force: Karen Wheeler in a cream cardigan and pressed slacks, her blond hair immaculate as ever, your mother Claudia in a bright jacket that was somehow a little too loud for the weather and entirely perfect on her, Sue Sinclair with that calm, sharp-eyed expression that missed absolutely nothing, Susan Hargrove tired-looking in a way that had softened over the years into something steadier, and Joyce, in her worn jacket with her hair caught by the wind, smiling before she’d even fully seen you.
“Well,” you murmured. “There goes the next hour.”
Pamela looked up at you. “Are we in trouble?”
“No, honey. Worse. We’re about to get discussed.”
That made Joanna grin. Rosie looked mildly alarmed. Anita slept through the whole thing.
Joyce was the first to wave you over. “Hey! There you are.”
And just like that, all five women turned.
There was no surviving that kind of attention.
Karen put a hand to her chest. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, look at Anita.”
Claudia was already coming forward, which told you she’d spotted her newest granddaughter and temporarily forgotten every other person in the county existed. “Give me that baby. Give her here.”
“You didn’t even say hello.”
“I raised you. Hand over the baby.”
Sue laughed under her breath. “Morning to you too, Claudia.”
You surrendered Anita carefully into your mother’s arms, and Claudia immediately transformed, going soft all over, her voice dropping into that tone that only came out for babies and very sick people. “There she is. There’s my sweetheart.”
Pamela leaned into Karen Wheeler without invitation because she had known Karen all her life and moved through familiar women like a cat through sunbeams. Karen put an arm around her automatically.
“My, you’re getting taller every time I see you,” Karen said.
Pamela lifted her chin. “Dad says it’s because I’m athletic.”
“Your father says that about everybody in this town under ten,” you said.
“That is because your husband is out there recruiting from the cradle,” Susan said dryly.
Karen laughed. “He tried to teach Holly to throw a curveball last summer.”
“Holly’s fifteen,” Joyc said, smiling.
“Exactly,” Karen said. “He missed his window.”
Rosie had drifted toward Sue, who bent a little at the waist to hear whatever question was already forming. Joanna had planted herself beside Susan Hargrove and was tapping her stick against her own sneaker.
Susan looked down at her. “What happened to your knees now?”
Joanna glanced at the fresh scab visible above one sock. “I was seeing if I could jump off the porch railing.”
“And could you?”
“Not gracefully.”
“That sounds about right.”
You folded your arms and gave them all a look. “You all act like this is surprising.”
Claudia bounced Anita gently. “Honey, with Steve as the father? And you as the mother? I’m amazed any of them have skin left on their elbows.”
“I do,” Pamela said.
Karen smiled. “That’s because you’re the one with sense.”
Pamela brightened. “I know.”
“You absolutely should not encourage that,” you said.
“Oh, let her have it,” Joyce said. “She’s earned it. She’s been helping El and me sort clothing donations on Thursdays. She folds better than Mike.”
Pamela looked smug. “Mike folds like a man.”
Karen let out a laugh that she tried and failed to hide behind her hand. “Well. I won’t repeat that to Ted... or maybe I will.”
At the mention of Mike, Joyce rolled her eyes fondly. “He’s up half the night writing and then staggers out to the kitchen at noon like he survived a shipwreck. El says if she has to read one more page with the words ‘brooding silence’ in it, she’s gonna lose her mind.”
“That sounds like Mike,” you said.
“Sounds like Jonathan at twenty-two,” Karen said, and Joyce pointed at her in immediate agreement.
“Exactly.”
Rosie, meanwhile, had asked Sue something involving postal sorting systems, because Sue was saying, “I’m sure there’s a process, but no, sweetheart, I don’t know if they separate by zip code first or by street.”
“They probably do both,” Rosie said seriously.
“Probably,” Sue agreed, just as seriously.
Susan reached over and brushed Joanna’s hair out of her face with an absent tenderness that made Joanna lean into it without thinking. “Where’s Steve today?”
“At school till noon, then little league practice,” you said. “He made me promise not to let them rollerblade too far ahead downtown.”
“That’s because Dad thinks strangers are waiting around every corner,” Pamela said.
Karen made a thoughtful face. “Well, he’s not entirely wrong.”
“He trusts us,” Pamela added at once, loyal and offended on his behalf.
“I know he does,” you said.
Everybody did. That was the thing about Steve. For all his fretting, all his pacing and his checking the locks and his habit of asking who was driving and when they’d be home and whether they had enough gas, he trusted his girls with his whole heart. It was everybody else he kept an eye on. Everybody else he didn’t trust to understand how precious something was until they’d already handled it carelessly.
Joyce was smiling at you in that knowing way she had. “He still carrying all your stuff?”
You snorted. “He tried to carry my mail to the mailbox yesterday.”
Susan laughed outright.
“Oh, that man is helpless for you,” Claudia said, not even pretending this was a private observation.
“Mom.”
“What? He is.” She adjusted Anita in her arms and looked at the baby with deep satisfaction. “Always has been. It’s nice to see a husband with sense.”
Karen tilted her head. “The students still adore him?”
“Unfortunately,” you said.
Susan lifted a brow. “Unfortunately?”
“In January, before my mternity leave, a sophomore girl told me, on air, while requesting a song for the dedication hour, that Mr. Harrington was 'way too hot for a teacher'.”
Sue covered her mouth, laughing.
Joyce slapped a hand over her eyes. “Oh, no.”
Karen looked scandalized and delighted in equal measure. “Did Steve hear about this?”
“He heard about it from Robin, who nearly choked to death telling him.”
“And what did he say?” Joyce asked.
You could hear him perfectly, offended and earnest all at once. You dropped your voice into a rough imitation of his. “‘I can’t help my face, all right?’”
That broke all of them. Even Susan laughed at that, quiet but real.
Pamela, who worshiped her father in a way that managed not to interfere with clear-eyed judgment, sighed dramatically. “Dad acts like he doesn’t know people like him.”
“Your father knows exactly people like him,” you said.
“Yeah, but he gets weird about it.”
“That,” Karen said, patting her shoulder, “is also true.”
From inside the post office came the metallic clatter of a box being shut. Somewhere down the block a car radio played a country song too softly to make out. The breeze smelled like damp earth and paper and somebody frying onions at the diner.
It felt, for one long easy minute, like the whole town had settled around this little patch of sidewalk and was content to stay there.
Joyce reached out and touched Anita’s cheek with one finger. “She’s a sweet baby.”
“She really is,” you said, softer.
Claudia gave a triumphant nod, as if this had been her doing personally. “Hardly cries.”
“Don’t brag,” Susan warned. “That’s how they hear you.”
At once, as though on cue, Anita scrunched up her face.
All five women reacted.
Karen made a helpless cooing sound. Joyce put out her hands on instinct. Claudia started bouncing. Sue said, “There it is.” Susan just smiled like she had seen this exact thing happen a hundred times in a hundred different forms.
Before Anita could work herself all the way up, Pamela stepped closer to her grandmother and put one careful hand on the baby’s little leg.
“Hey,” she said softly, with all the confidence gone out of her voice and something gentler in its place. “It’s okay. Don’t do that.”
Rosie came around to the other side and peered up, concerned. Joanna abandoned her stick on the sidewalk and pressed against your hip.
And there it was again, that secret center of your life, sitting right out in the open where everybody could see it: all your girls so quick to gather, to soothe, to make room for one another.
Anita settled almost immediately, her face going slack again.
Claudia looked smug. “See? She knows she’s got an audience.”
“Comes by it honest,” Karen said.
You finally took the baby back, tucking her close and kissing the warm top of her head. “All right. I do actually have to mail these before this turns into supper.”
“Tell Steve Holly says he still owes her batting practice,” Karen said.
Joyce smiled. “Bring the girls by the cabin this weekend. El’s making cookies.”
“Chocolate chip?” Joanna asked immediately.
“El only believes in chocolate chip,” Joyce said solemnly.
“That’s why I love her,” Joanna declared with all the seriousness a three year old could muster up.
You headed toward the post office door at last, girls clustering around you again, the sidewalk buzzing behind you with the mother council resuming whatever conversation you’d interrupted. Through the glass you could still see them: Karen with one hand moving as she spoke, Joyce smiling into the wind, Claudia leaning in too close because personal space had never once been her concern, Sue listening with that level stare, Susan half-turned like she was about to say something dry enough to make them all laugh.
Pamela slipped her hand into yours for half a second before darting ahead to hold the door. Rosie kept the envelopes clutched to her chest. Joanna retrieved her stick at the last possible moment. Anita slept on.
And as you stepped inside, into the warm close smell of stamps and paper and old floor polish, you had one of those strange, sudden feelings that still came over you sometimes in the middle of ordinary things, the deep quiet knowledge of how much had survived, how much had changed, how much had stayed.
Outside, pastel ribbons moved on the lamp posts in the spring wind.
Inside, your daughters talked over each other in bright small voices.
And in a few hours Steve would come home smelling like the gym and sunshine and grass, drop his keys in the bowl by the kitchen door, and ask you what he missed in town like Hawkins hadn’t probably already told him half of it.
Likes, reblogs and especially comments are super appreciated. Thank you for reading this. Inbox is always open, I would love to talk to you guys! You can also request new parts of this series <3
Summary: The family life of you and Steve following the Upside Down.
Mother Council 🌹 (set in March 1995)
Summary: When you take your girls along to the post office, you run into the mother council. Your own mom Claudia Henderson, as well as Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers, Susan Hargrove and Sue Sinclair.
Blast from the Past 🌹 (set in July 1995)
Summary: When Steve takes your four daughters grocery shopping at Melvalds, he has an unexpected encounter with some people he hasn't seen since graduation. People who don't know Steve married you and had four daughters. Carol Perkins, Tommy Hagan, Tina and two other guys from the basketball team.
Information
You are Dustins older sister.
You and Steve got married on January 1st 1988. You have taken his last name.
You and Steve have four daughters because ofc I'm pushing Joe Keerys "Steve Harrington, 4 daughters, girl dad" propaganda.
Also, you are a radio DJ at W.S.Q.K.
Everyone lives AU.
The Kids
Pamela Ellen Harrington (b. June 26th 1990)
The Sporty Kid. The most like Steve personality wise. Has his hair, your eyes. Loves baseball and rollerblading. Also loves gossip. Steve and her are partners in crime. He shows her r-rated movies behind your back and stuff like that. She also really loves the movie Clueless and quotes is sometimes.
Rosanna Robin Harrington (b. April 24th 1992)
The Science Kid. Alot like Robin and Dustin. Extroverted, but still more reserved than Pamela or Joanna. Has Steves eyes and hair.
Joanna Joyce Harrington (b. April 24th 1992)
The Music Kid. If you merged Steve and Eddie, you would get Joanna. Has Steves eyes and hair. Loudest of the girls. Is trying to learn guitar. Tomboy.
Anita Maxine Harrington (b. February 14th 1995)
The Bookworm Kid. Shyest of the girls, a huge sweetheart. Only one with your hair. Also has your eyes. Steves heart, your brain. Likes pastels, Care Bears (has a Cheer Bear Plush she adores), Strawberry Shortcake, Books, Painting, My Little Ponies, playing dolls.
Just wanted to give you guys a list of the authors I personally love and appreciate. I really adore their work, which I'm saying as someone who follows less than 20 people at the moment lol. I follow all of them and have reread all their works, so I thought others might appreciate it!
Some of these also got excellent Joe Keery x reader stuff, especially @keerymehome.
I present, my favourite authors and my personal favourite piece of theirs:
Blast from the Past {Steve Harrington x Henderson!Reader}
Full House Masterlist
Every part can be read as standalone.
Summary: When Steve takes your four daughters grocery shopping at Melvalds, he has an unexpected encounter with some people he hasn't seen since graduation. People who don't know Steve married you and had four daughters. Carol Perkins, Tommy Hagan, Tina and two other guys from the basketball team.
Information: You are Dustins older sister, you and Steve have four daughters because ofc I'm pushing Joe Keerys "Steve Harrington, 4 daughters, girl dad" propaganda. Also, you are a radio DJ at W.S.Q.K. because I think it's fun lol.
Warnings: None that I can think of.
The heat sat on Hawkins like a hand you couldn’t shake. Thick, loud, and sticky, the kind that made the air above the road ripple and turned the parking lot at Melvald’s into a shimmering mirage. Steve hated it on principle. It made his hair flatten at the sides no matter how much he fought it, and it made kids cranky and slow and dramatic in the exact way that made coaching Little League feel like herding cats with bats.
But he still looked… annoyingly good.
He had that worn-in white T-shirt that made mothers in aisle three linger too long near the paper towels, jeans that fit the way they always had, and a little scruff he’d decided was a “summer thing”.
He stood with a hand on the cart handle and the other holding baby Anita Maxine Harrington against his hip like she belonged there. Like she’d always belonged there. Anita’s head rested against his chest, warm and heavy with sleep, her tiny fingers curled into the collar of his shirt.
Pamela Ellen Harrington- five years old and already walking like she owned the place- pushed the cart with one hand even though Steve had told her five minutes ago to use both, because she was just like him: hearing rules, acknowledging them, and then doing whatever she wanted anyway with an innocent expression that made adults forgive her.
Joanna Joyce Harrington- three year old menace and one part of your set of twins- darted ahead and skidded to a stop by a display of batteries like it was the most thrilling thing she’d ever seen. She had scraped knees visible under her shorts and the kind of grin that usually preceded property damage.
Rosanna Robin Harrington- also three years old and the other part of your set of twins- stayed near the cart’s side, peering at everything like she was taking inventory of the universe. She had a small notebook tucked into her little denim purse, something she’d started carrying after she watched Dustin write equations on napkins at Enzo’s that one time, like it was normal. She’d written “hypotheses” in it yesterday about why the creek behind the school smelled weird in July.
Steve was there for practical things: coffee filters, a pack of sponges, diapers, and more duct tape because you never had “enough duct tape” when you traveled in an RV as often as you did. Also ice pops, because he was weak and his children knew it.
“Okay,” Steve said, leaning down so his mouth was closer to Pamela’s ear. “We are getting... what are we getting?”
Pamela lifted her chin, tapping a finger against it like she was thinking seriously. “Diapers. For the baby. Coffee filters because you drink too much coffee. Duct tape for when we visit Aunt Max and Uncle Lucas. And sponges.”
Steve pointed at Pamela in agreement. “Thank you. Finally. Someone in this family with a plan that-”
Pamela cut him off, “Also ice pops. Because you said maybe.”
Steve sighed like a martyr. “I said we’d see.”
Pamela’s eyes went wide and shiny in a way that would’ve fooled a priest.
Steve felt himself cave in real time. “Okay, yes, ice pops. But-” he raised a finger, “-you’re not getting the cherry ones because you all look like vampires after.”
“We look cool,” Joanna said, popping up beside him like she’d teleported. “We look like rock stars.”
“You look like you murdered somebody in the kitchen,” Steve corrected, but his mouth twitched.
Joanna leaned in close to Anita’s head and whisper-sang, “Anita, tell him we deserve ice pops.”
Anita didn’t wake, just made a tiny sound and burrowed in closer. Steve’s face softened instantly, the way it always did, like the world had just handed him something fragile and perfect and he couldn’t believe he got to keep it.
“See?” Joanna said, as if the baby had made a ruling.
Steve, helpless, took the cart from Pamela and nudged it forward. “Fine. But you’re all washing your hands first when we get home.”
The town looked at them when they came in, always did. Hawkins didn’t have movie stars. It didn’t have famous people. It had the girl from the radio and the handsome teacher who coached the little kids like they were headed to the majors and a set of Harrington daughters who said “please” and “thank you” like it was wired into their bones.
And Steve - Steve knew the town looked.
He didn’t mind it the way he used to. When he was seventeen, being watched felt like oxygen. It felt like proof. Now it just felt like… a place to live. A place that had swallowed him and kept him and sometimes still gave him chills if he drove too close to the wrong patch of woods.
He’d just turned the cart toward the aisle with the coffee filters when he heard a laugh.
A very specific laugh.
It cut through the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant beep of the register like a needle.
Steve stopped without meaning to, shoulders going tight, a reflex from a version of himself that hadn’t existed in ten years. He looked up.
And there they were.
Carol Perkins stood by the endcap display of sunscreen like she’d never left high school. Tall, tan, hair curled bigger than it needed to be, white nails. She wore shorts that made Steve feel ancient just looking at them and a bright tank top that screamed “I went to the mall and I’m proud of it.” Her laugh was loud, sharp. She held a pack of cigarettes.
Tommy Hagan leaned against a shelf like the entire store was his. He looked older. of course he did. Everybody did. But the posture was the same. The smirk was the same. Hair shorter than it had been, a little thinning at the edges, which made Steve’s stomach do something weird because, in his head, Tommy was always seventeen.
Tina walked with them. Tina who’d been at that Halloween party with that terrible music and the stale beer and Nancy Wheeler’s words that still sometimes echoed in Steve’s head when he was trying to fall asleep. Tina’s eyes flicked across the aisle, and Steve saw recognition bloom there like a bruise.
And then two guys Steve remembered from the basketball team. Mark and Clay, faces half-familiar the way dreams are half-familiar. Mark had a wedding ring, Clay had a mustache that looked like he’d gotten it out of a catalog.
They were holding baskets, talking too loud, laughing about something that probably didn’t matter. Home for the summer, visiting their parents. The kind of people who left Hawkins and thought Hawkins stayed frozen behind them.
Steve’s first instinct was to turn the cart around and go down another aisle.
Not because he was scared. He wasn’t scared of them. It was more like… stepping into an old photograph. Like putting on a jacket you’d outgrown and realizing you didn’t even want it anymore.
Pamela noticed first. She always noticed first. She followed Steve’s gaze and then looked back up at him, eyebrows lifting with the kind of quick, clever assessment that had made her teacher write “future lawyer?” on her report card.
“Daddy,” she said, soft but pointed. “Those are people you know.”
Steve’s mouth tightened. “Yep.”
Joanna leaned over the cart handle, eyes wide. “Are they famous?”
“No,” Rosanna said, like it was obvious. “They’re just… older teenagers.”
Pamela tilted her head. “They’re not teenagers. They’re like… old.”
Steve laughed a little. “Okay, rude.”
Pamela shrugged, unrepentant. “It’s true.”
Steve adjusted Anita higher on his hip, partly because she was slipping, partly because he needed something to do with his hands. He could feel sweat at the back of his neck. Could feel the way his body remembered the hierarchy of a hallway, the way it remembered being the person everyone watched.
He wasn’t that person anymore.
He was Steve Harrington. Coach. Husband. Father. Guy who knew which brand of diapers didn’t give his baby a rash. Guy who built his whole life around you and not some obsolete "King Steve" title.
Carol turned her head fully and saw him.
Her expression froze for a second, like she’d been slapped with memory.
Then it brightened into a grin that was all teeth. “No way.”
Tommy’s head snapped toward Steve. Mark and Clay followed. Tina leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing like she was trying to be sure.
Tommy’s smirk spread. “Holy—Harrington?”
Steve exhaled slowly through his nose and kept his face neutral, like he did when a kid told him they didn’t need to run laps because they “didn’t feel like it.”
He pushed the cart forward.
Pamela straightened beside him, suddenly very attentive. Rosanna hovered close, notebook forgotten. Joanna bounced on her toes like this was entertainment.
Steve didn’t give them the satisfaction of pretending he hadn’t seen them. If he’d learned anything after everything Hawkins had thrown at him, it was that running from things only made them chase you harder.
So he met them in the aisle with the coffee filters and the sunscreen and the cheap plastic lawn chairs.
Carol laughed again, this time directly at him. “Steve Harrington. I swear to God, I thought you moved to, like, California or something.”
He forced a polite smile. “You thought wrong, I guess.”
Tommy stared like Steve was a ghost. “Dude. It’s been—what, nine years?”
“Ten,” Steve corrected automatically, because he was weirdly good with dates like that now. “Graduation was ’85.”
Clay whistled low. “Man. Hawkins never lets anyone go.”
“It tries,” Steve said. His voice was easy, calm, the same voice he used to tell kids to stop picking their noses on the field. “You just gotta be stubborn.”
Tina glanced down into the cart and then up at Steve’s arms. “Are those… your kids?”
Pamela- bless her dramatic little heart- stepped forward with the confidence of someone who had never been embarrassed in her life. “Hi. I’m Pamela Ellen Harrington. These are Rosanna and Joanna. And the baby is Anita.” She said each name like it was a title, like they’d been printed on a trophy.
Steve’s eyes squeezed shut for half a second. “Pam—”
Pamela beamed at the group, oblivious to the minefield she’d just stepped onto.
Carol’s grin faltered.
Tommy’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline. “Harrington?” he repeated.
Mark leaned in, squinting. “Wait. You- You have kids?”
Clay did a slow scan from Steve’s face to Pamela’s hair to Joanna’s grin and back again, like he was putting together a puzzle.
Steve felt the moment tighten.
This was the part where old Steve would’ve puffed up. Would’ve made it a show. Would’ve loved the shock.
New Steve just wanted to get the coffee filters and go home before Anita woke up and decided to scream her opinion about this entire encounter.
“Yep,” he said simply. “These are mine.”
Tina’s gaze slid to his ring hand, to the band there. Gold, worn. The one you’d slid onto his finger with shaking hands in 1988, when the whole world still felt like it might crack open again but you’d decided you were done waiting for peace to be permanent before you let yourself be happy.
“You’re married,” Tina said, like it was an accusation.
Steve’s mouth twitched. “Yeah.”
Carol blinked rapidly. “To who? Like, who did you marry?” Her eyes darted around, as if your presence might be hiding behind a shelf of detergent.
Pamela, again, without any hesitation, said, “My mom.”
Steve shot her a look. Pamela smiled sweetly back.
Rosanna’s eyes flicked between the adults, taking notes. Joanna’s grin widened atbthe mention of you.
Tommy shook his head, laughing like he didn’t quite believe it. “No, no, no. No way. Steve Harrington married some random girl from Hawkins and had a bunch of kids? Dude, I thought you were-"
“Dead?” Steve offered flatly.
Tommy’s laugh stuttered. “No. Like… still you.”
Steve shrugged with one shoulder, careful not to jostle Anita. “I am still me.”
Carol looked at Pamela again, and her expression softened a fraction despite herself. Pamela had Steve’s whole face in miniature—the brows, the smile, the way her eyes sparkled was the same as his when he was about to talk his way out of trouble.
“That one’s yours,” Carol said, half-awed, half-amused.
Pamela nodded proudly. “I’m the oldest. I'm five.”
“And you’re… what,” Carol waved vaguely at the other two. “Four? Five?”
“I’m three,” Rosanna said politely. “I’m going to be a scientist.”
Joanna puffed up. “I’m three too!” She said proudly and held up four fingers anyways.
Steve couldn’t help it—his expression softened when he looked down at the girls. “Yeah, they're twins,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone.
There was a pause where the fluorescent buzz filled the space between them.
Then Tommy, because Tommy couldn’t help himself, said, “So where’s… your wife?”
Steve didn’t answer immediately.
Not because he didn’t want to. God, he wanted to. He wanted to say your name like a punchline, like a reveal, like something that would land. He wanted to watch their faces when they realized the Henderson girl—the one who’d walked the halls with a stack of books and a quiet smile, Dustin Hendersons sister who’d gotten under Steve Harrington’s skin so deep he’d never managed to pull her out.
But he didn’t want to make you a spectacle.
And also… it was July, 1995, and Steve Harrington had kids standing beside him. He had a baby sleeping against his heart. He was twenty nine and tired and deeply, almost painfully happy.
So he just said, “She’s at work.”
Carol leaned forward, hungry for details. “Work where? You guys still in Hawkins?”
Steve nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got a place. Right by the Wheelers.”
Tina’s eyes widened. “You live next to Karen Wheeler?”
Steve’s mouth quirked. “Yep.”
Tommy scoffed. “Of course you do.”
Pamela frowned. “Why are you saying that like it’s weird?”
Tommy looked down at her like he’d just realized she was a person and not a prop. “I didn't, kid.”
“You did,” Pamela decided, and then looked back at Steve. “Daddy, do you like these people?”
Steve blinked.
Carol let out a startled laugh. “Oh my God.”
Steve stared at his daughter, half horrified, half impressed. “Pamela-”
“What?” she demanded, genuinely confused. “You always ask me if I like people after we talk to them.”
Rosanna murmured, “She’s collecting data.”
Joanna whispered loudly, “I don’t like them. They’re boring.”
Steve made a face. “Jo-”
Carol held up her hands, laughing now like it was the funniest thing she’d heard in years. “Okay, okay. Wow. Harrington, your kids are-”
“Too honest?” Steve supplied.
“Terrifying,” Carol said, still smiling.
Tommy leaned toward Steve, voice dropping slightly like they were about to have a real conversation. “So what do you do now, man? You work for your dad? Still got the Beemer? I mean-” he looked Steve up and down, like searching for a sign of wealth. “You don’t look like you’re struggling.”
Steve’s laugh was short. “My dad’s not… around.”
Mark’s eyebrows lifted. “Wait, Danny Harrington?”
Steve nodded, because there was no point pretending. “Yeah. He’s… still out of town. Always out of town. My mom too. I think they're in Chicago, I'm not sure.”
Clay made a sympathetic noise that sounded like he didn’t know what to do with it.
Steve kept it light because he didn’t want to hand them anything tender. “I teach. PE and health. Middle and high school. Coach Little League.”
Carol stared. “You’re a teacher?”
Steve smiled, slow and dangerous in the old way, but softer now. “Yep.”
Tommy snorted. “No way.”
“Yes way,” Steve said. “Kids like me. Which is wild, because I’m basically their enemy.”
Pamela nodded solemnly. “He makes them run.”
“And they complain,” Steve added. “A lot.”
Carol’s gaze flicked to Pamela again. “And… your wife works…?”
Steve hesitated, and then he decided he didn’t want to play coy. Not because he wanted to brag, but because you were real. Because you mattered. Because you’d built something in Hawkins that was yours and nobody could take it away.
“She’s on the radio,” he said, and watched comprehension fail to land.
Tommy frowned. “What?”
“The Squawk,” Steve clarified. “W.S.Q.K. She hosts mornings.”
Mark made a face. “The local station? That...” he snapped his fingers, trying to place it. “That’s the one with the-”
“The bird,” Pamela said, frowning like he was stupid. “The squawk.”
Carol’s eyes widened suddenly. “Wait. The girl from the radio?”
Steve’s lips curved. “Yeah.”
Tina’s mouth dropped open slightly. “You married… her?”
Steve held her gaze, unimpressed by the tone. “Yeah.”
Tommy blinked hard. “No, hold on.” He laughed, but it sounded like disbelief. “The Henderson girl? Dustin Henderson’s sister?”
Steve’s heart did a small, stupid jump at hearing you referred to like that, like you were still seventeen and walking the halls with a stack of library books. Like you weren’t the woman who fell asleep with a pen behind her ear because she’d been writing her show notes at the kitchen table. Like you weren’t the person who knew every old lady in town by name because they called the station just to talk to you. Like you didn't carry his last name for years now.
“Yep,” Steve said again, because he liked the way it felt.
Carol shook her head slowly. “Shut up.”
Steve smiled wider. “No.”
There was another beat of silence. It wasn’t hostile, exactly. It was… recalibration. The past trying to fit itself around the present and failing.
Joanna leaned toward Rosanna and whispered, “They’re acting weird.”
Rosanna whispered back, “They’re surprised. It’s a social phenomenon.”
Pamela leaned closer to Steve, voice low like she was offering him insider gossip. “They probably thought you married a supermodel.”
Steve’s lips twitched. “I did.”
Pamela, satisfied, nodded.
Carol recovered first, because Carol always recovered first. “Wow. Okay. I mean, good for you.” She said it like she wasn’t sure she meant it, but then she looked at Pamela again and softened. “So you and… Henderson… have been together since when?”
Steve’s throat tightened, just for a second, because memory flashed: Nancy’s words like broken glass, the taste of cheap beer, the cold October air outside that party, the way the world had tilted. The aftermath of the party, your childhood bedroom, you hands in his hair, your soft moans. And then the Snowball, the night he finally had the courage to let it mean something and asked you out.
He didn’t owe them that story.
So he gave them the version that didn't belong to him and you, the version that didn’t bleed.
“A while,” he said. “Long enough.”
Tommy leaned back, arms crossing. “Man. That’s…” He searched for a word that wouldn’t make him look stupid. “…unexpected.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. “That’s kind of my thing.”
Carol’s eyes flicked to Steve’s cart again, to the diapers, the sponges, the coffee filters. “So you’re like… domestic now.”
Steve stared at her like she’d just insulted his mother. “I have four kids.”
Carol laughed. “I know! It’s just... Steve Harrington. King Steve. You used to-”
“Used to what?” Steve asked mildly.
Carol faltered. Tina looked away. Mark scratched his jaw. Clay stared at the floor.
Steve didn’t press. He didn’t need to. The truth was obvious: he used to be the guy they orbited because he was shiny. He used to be the guy who mattered because he had money and hair and a car and a girlfriend with the right last name.
Now he mattered because a tiny baby was asleep on his chest and his older daughters were arguing about ice pops and everyone in Hawkins trusted him with their kids.
That was better. That was real.
Joanna, impatient, said, “Daddy, can we go get ice pops now?”
Steve looked down at her, and the tension in his shoulders eased like a rope loosening. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, we can.”
Carol lifted her hand, half-wave, half-something else. “Tell—tell your wife hi. The Henderson girl.”
Steve nodded. “Harrington now. But sure.”
Tommy, trying to salvage something, said, “You ever come out? Like, the bar?” He gestured vaguely, like adulthood was one long invitation to drink.
Steve’s mouth tugged into a grin that was all honest. “Sometimes. My buddy works at the Hideout.”
Clay perked up. “Eddie Munson? That dude still in town?”
Steve’s eyes narrowed slightly, protective by instinct. “Yeah. He’s still in town.”
Tommy made a face like he remembered old rumors, old nonsense. “Huh.”
Steve didn’t give him anything else. He just pushed the cart forward.
Pamela stayed close to Steve’s side now, like she could feel the shift, even if she didn’t understand it. She reached up and hooked her fingers around the hem of his shirt, tugging it gently like a tether.
Steve looked down and smiled at her, warm and automatic. “You okay, kid?”
Pamela shrugged, trying to look casual. “Yeah. They were just… weird.”
“They’re from a long time ago,” Steve said.
Pamela thought about that, then nodded solemnly like she understood time as a concept. “Okay.”
Joanna trotted ahead again, already over it. “ICE POPS!”
Rosanna stayed beside Steve, voice small. “Did you not like them?”
Steve glanced down at her, surprised by the quiet question. Rosanna wasn’t usually the one who asked about feelings. That was Pamela’s job.
Steve considered it for a second, then answered honestly, because he always did with his girls. “I liked… parts of them. A long time ago. But people change.”
Rosanna nodded, absorbing it. “Like how you used to be a student and now you’re a teacher.”
“Exactly,” Steve said, smirking.
Rosanna’s eyes brightened a little. “So you were… their friend when you were a student?”
Steve exhaled through his nose. “Yeah.”
Pamela, listening again, said, “Were they mean to you?”
Steve stopped walking and looked at her, startled. Considered that because this was more complicated than differing between 'mean' and 'nice'.
“No, Pam.”
Pamela frowned. “They looked at you like you were… like you were something they found in the attic.”
Steve laughed, but it was soft. “That’s… a weirdly good way to put it.”
Pamela shrugged. “I’m smart.”
“Yes you are,” Steve said, and ruffled her hair gently, careful not to mess up her carefully clipped barrettes—the ones you’d put in that morning while she sat on the bathroom counter, chattering about rollerblades and how Mrs. DeLacey’s son had told her she threw like a girl, which Steve had taken as a personal insult.
They made it to the freezer aisle, where Joanna pressed her face against the glass dramatically and fogged it up.
“I want the rocket ones,” she announced. “The red white blue ones.”
Pamela rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.”
Rosanna leaned in, studying the boxes like she was choosing lab equipment. “The rocket ones melt the fastest.”
Joanna pointed at her. “Science is ruining my life.”
Steve bent down carefully, keeping Anita tucked close, and pulled open the freezer door. Cold air rushed out like relief.
He grabbed two boxes of ice pops before he could second-guess himself.
Pamela’s grin turned triumphant. “See? He’s a softie.”
Steve shut the freezer, giving her a look. “I heard that.”
Pamela didn’t care. “You were going to get them anyway.”
Steve opened his mouth to argue, then stopped because… she was right. He was always going to get them anyway.
He turned the cart toward the registers and heard his name again. Not shouted this time—called softly, like someone trying not to startle him.
“Steve?”
He turned and saw Mr. Melvald himself at the front counter, smiling like he’d been waiting for him. He glanced at the girls, eyes crinkling. “Oh my goodness. Look at you all. Growing like weeds.”
Pamela straightened immediately, polite as anything. “Hi, Mr. Melvald.”
Joanna waved both hands. “Hi!”
Rosanna gave a small smile.
Mr. Melvald’s gaze softened when he looked at Anita asleep on Steve’s chest. “And the baby,” he murmured, like it was a prayer. “You’re doing good, Steve.”
The words hit him somewhere deep. Not because he needed Mr. Melvald’s approval, but because Hawkins had once looked at him like he was a joke wrapped in nice hair. And now it looked at him like… like he belonged.
He paid, thanked Mr. Melvald, and guided the girls out into the heat again, the plastic bags swinging at his side, Anita still asleep against his chest like she trusted his heartbeat more than the whole world.
Behind them, Carol’s laugh echoed once more, but it sounded farther away now, like it belonged to someone else’s life.
Steve stepped into the sunlight, squinting.
Pamela reached for his hand without making a big deal about it, fingers slipping into his like it was automatic. Rosanna pressed close on his other side. Joanna skipped ahead toward the car, shouting about rockets and red-white-blue ice pops.
Steve breathed out slowly, feeling the weight of the groceries, the weight of his baby, the weight of the day.
And under it all, steady as the radio hum you could hear if you tuned the dial just right, was the thought of you at the station—voice bright in the early morning, laughing at a caller, keeping Hawkins stitched together with music and weather reports and the sound of home.
He looked down at Pamela’s hair catching the sun—brown and thick like his. Looked at Rosanna’s thoughtful face. Joanna’s scraped knees. Anita’s tiny mouth pursed in sleep.
And he thought: let them be surprised.
Let them stare.
He’d found something better than being King Steve.
He’d found you.
And he was going to get the girls home, get them ice pops, and then—if he was lucky—catch you in the kitchen doorway when you finally came in, let you tell him everything about your shift while he leaned against the counter and watched your mouth move like it was the only thing in the world worth listening to.
“Daddy,” Pamela said suddenly, tugging his hand gently, pulling him back to now. “Are you okay?”
Steve blinked, then smiled down at her, real and easy. “Yeah, kid. I’m okay.”
Pamela narrowed her eyes like she didn’t believe him, then decided she did. “Okay.”
And somewhere across town, the radio kept talking. Your voice carrying through kitchens and garages and open windows, while Steve Harrington walked across the Melvald’s parking lot with his whole life in his arms.
Likes, reblogs and especially comments are super appreciated. Thank you for reading this. Inbox is always open, I would love to talk to you guys! <3
Hi have you seen that video on TikTok of the couple dancing to the song ‘we are the people” I had seen it on my timeline and was thinking of Henderson/reader and Steve. It can take place before season 5 and before reader, Nancy and Robin graduate. it will be at there prom and reader takes Steve as her date (they aren’t together yet but are in love with each other and everyone knows) after they dance like the couple in the video reader wins prom queen and is pulled away from Steve and pulled to the stage she manages to sneak away and goes back to Steve. Reader takes Steve to the exit to get away from everyone and everything inside. Reader just kind of just blurred out “let’s go get married” and Steve is shocked but of course said yes. On the way to the church they’re both in Steve’s car freaking out asking each other if they’re really going to do this. And of course they do They go to that church and get officially married. They go back to Steve’s house and do what newly weds do ;)’ and maybe you can do a little of the aftermath of everyone finding out about them married. how Dustin would react considering everything going on with him because of Eddie. Sorry if this is confusing or if anything is spelled wrong❤️
Hi lovely anon! So unfortunately I deleted Tiktok last week because I wanted to limit my screen time and unfortunately my fyp is very specific either way (like only Djo, Stranger Things, House M.D. 80s, 90s and 2000s content). So if anyone could send me a link to that tiktok so i can write this that would be appreciated!! 🩷
hi hi hi! I just wanted to say I absolutely LOVEDDDD “Girl of the Week {Steve Harrington x fem!reader}” it was genuinely really really good and it’s one of the best Steve Harrington “fanfic” (of sorts) I’ve read by far! I was just wondering if you’d ever be open to making into a little bit of a short series? I feel like it’d be so sweet to see their story develop yk? Totally fine if not!
Hi lovely! Thank you so much, I'm so happy you liked it. 🩷 I'm kinda new to writing smut, I did like four pieces back in 2021 that were really badly written so I'm still trying to get a hang of it (and asking my friends for their opinions and Input constantly and has gotten me some freaky ideas). I wrote a series before that I never finished and I'm honestly too scared my lack of experience writing smut and my lack of discipline writing series will disappoint everyone on the long run if I did that. 🥲
But! I will post more Steve Harrington content similar to that, I generally include alot of banter like the one in "Girl of the Week" because I love that dynamic and feel like there isn't alot of that out there. (And because Reader is heavily leaning on my Stranger Things OC lol)
So I won't turn it into a series, but my other content coming up will be similar. ☎️
Last one is unfinished, as I will see Cold Storage tomorrow. My personal favourite is the Scoops Ahoy Page. Ignore my ugly ass next to the Benetton Stranger Things Tag, I got a sweater there. Maybe some Inspo for someone, I really don't give a shit if someone copies from my diary, but if you do feel free to send me a picture because I would love to see haha.
