PRETTY SICK!
— code red ☆

By the time the sun had come up and over the dreary old buildings of Hawkins, Boris kicked Gen to the curb and dropped her off the moment they saw signs of living, breathing people. He claimed it was to "conserve gas", but she knew he probably wanted to get back home sooner than later, which she didn't blame him for. She'd run out of Hawkins the moment she stepped into it, if she had the willpower, of course. But, alas, something brewed in the Upside Down.

She felt it in the back of her head — and heard the obnoxious beeping that came from her backpack once she made it to the center of town.

Two pagers sat in the front pocket of her backpack, next to a few empty peppermint wrappers and several crushed cigarette boxes. She kept them for emergencies only because she didn't have a telephone, and gave one to Will, and the other to Steve Harrington (a mistake in itself) — Gen was sure Will had lost his, forgetful as ever, so she groaned as she reached for the small black box and looked at the message. Or rather, 26 messages that had been sent since she left Hawkins. "CODE RED." Each of them read.

"LIVES ARE AT STAKE OR IM NOT COMING." She typed out slowly, her eyes struggled against the glare from the morning sun. Gen regretted giving Steve the pager, but Nancy would be able to tell her in person if something was wrong, and Will already had his in case Jonathan needed it. Steve motherfucking Harrington was, sadly, her next best choice, because she would rather not have a bunch of kids paging her over little things.

"LIVES ARE AT STAKE."

"DUSTIN'S HOUSE."

"BRING MEAT."

Gen blinked and scratched her head, then started to type again despite being entirely confused. "MEAT."

"LOTS OF MEAT."

"BRING IT."

Meat? Where the hell was she going to find a bunch of meat? She had about twenty dollars lying around in her backpack, maybe a bit more counting loose change — Gen didn't even know why they needed so much in the first place, considering it was a code red. To walk all the way home and back would take too much time, so she made her way to the butcher to practically grovel for whatever amount of meat she could find. Even scraps.

The butcher gave her an odd look and offered what he could for as cheap as he could, seeing as no one else bought those parts of the cut, and Gen graciously took them and started to lug them towards Dustin's house.

She was sure they needed quantity over quality, because it would have been weird if they just... felt like having a meat-filled feast. It wasn't like Gen could put it past them, though, it was Dustin and Steve — two of the more (socially) stupid people out of their designated age groups. She didn't have a problem with Dustin, but the few times they interacted it resulted in her face unwillingly becoming a cringe.

Gen gave him the benefit of the doubt; Will always raved about how Dustin was the funniest person he'd ever met, and also the nicest, which she begged to differ on the latter. Their dorky nerd fiestas rarely made much sense to her, especially when they started to use weird slang and foreign words, but sometimes she could just tell that the things he said weren't kind. She could get behind that, though: being mean to people — she hoped he bullied Steve to the point of tears.

As she approached the home, Gen saw Dustin and Steve already waiting by the trunk of his ugly brown car; the brunette was in fact, not in tears, and instead speaking amicably with the younger boy. She dropped the two styrofoam crates of meat in front of them and crossed her arms, brow raised expectantly for an explanation. "Took you long enough," Steve said instead.

"Where the hell were you? Everyone went M.I.A! Steve has been trying to page you since yesterday!" Dustin started to chastise her, his hands waved dramatically as he opened up the crate and grimaced. "Gross."

She shook her head. "Illinois. You try dragging all of this meat around, Harrington, it takes time," Gen scowled and closed the lid, "What the fuck is going on?"

"Dustin got this lizard—"

"It's not a lizard," he corrected and held out a pair of latex gloves for Gen, who put them on and started to help Steve cut off chunks of meat and put them in buckets. "On Halloween I found what I thought was a terrestrial pollywog — a land tadpole," Dustin reiterated at the blank look on her face, "I kept him as my greatest discovery, since America doesn't have terrestrial pollywogs — and to show my friends, and a girl... But he kept growing and molting, and then..." he trailed off into mumbling.

She stared at him, "What?"

"Its face opened up and ate Mews, his cat," Steve explained to her and pointed towards the fresh grave in his yard. "Then he trapped it in his bunker, except... it, uh, dug through it and now it's roaming Hawkins. So we're luring it with meat."

Gen had to stand up straight and take off her gloves to pace away from the boys, her stress levels spiked the moment he said it ate Mews. She feared the worst, and kept her head turned away from them as she questioned, "If this thing is what I think you're about to tell me it is, don't. I don't care. I'll help you. Why the hell would you keep it?"

"We bonded," Dustin frowned, "He might be what you think he is, but he might not be. We just need to find him."

"Uh, no, that thing is definitely a Demogorgon or whatever you call it — the face opening up and eating things is definitely a thing that falls in common with it," Steve interrupted, glancing upwards at the other two, and Gen's brows knitted together as deep as they could. Were they really that fucking stupid?

"You kept a Demogorgon as a pet?" she asked in disbelief.

"I didn't know it was a Demogorgon."

"How do you not know? It's usually very obvious."

"First he was this big, now he's at least this big," he explained as he showed her the sizes with his fingers, "He isn't fully grown, but he will be by tomorrow — which is why we need to find him right now." Dustin began packing things into the trunk of the car, which included the meat and a few choice weapons and tools for their protection. Gen pinched the bridge of her nose in disappointment and sighed when she got into the passenger's seat just as Steve got into the driver's.

She went through her backpack and placed one of her cassettes in, much to Steve's dismay, because he immediately went to take it out. Gen smacked his hand away and glared at him, "Passenger gets to control the music."

"It's my car. Do you want me to crash?" he asked and started the car once Dustin got in and buckled himself up. "Because I will if I have to listen to your God awful music."

"Maybe if only you died. I drive or you listen to my music." She shrugged, and Steve didn't seem to have the heart to argue as he pulled the car out of Dustin's driveway and towards the town's railroad.

The curly haired boy leaned forward and stuck his head in between the two seats, eyeing Gen's cassette case curiously, then doing the same to her. "Wait, so, why were you in Illinois for that long?" he asked.

She sighed and gave him a once-over, feeling uncomfortable in the presence of a child who wasn't Will or Eleven. Was she scared of children? That made no sense — they were harmless, for the most part, but she still felt so violently uncomfortable when she had to be around them for more than a few minutes. "Family affairs."

Steve's brows furrowed and he gave her an odd look, one that questioned her integrity without alerting Dustin, who nodded in response, "So... so, you have Russian spy family here? In America?"

"Something like that," Gen languished and turned her body away from the boys.

"Is it in the family-family way? Or The Godfather way?" he asked, almost excitedly as he leaned forward more to get closer to both teens. What was he talking about?

She knit her brows together in confusion and stared at the boy, who chuckled sheepishly at the lack of real response. Gen saw Steve roll his eyes out of the corner of her vision, "She doesn't watch movies, she's like, sheltered — like the Amish."

"I'm not Amish, I've watched movies before."

"So, you're just too stupid to understand."

"I hope you choke on your hair and die," Gen scoffed and looked at Dustin, who seemed dismissive of the pair's violent arguing. "No, we aren't blood related, if that's what you mean."

The older brunette parked his car by the railroad and pressed his lips together into a line, "I thought you weren't supposed to be talking to those people."

She shrugged in response and got out of the car, stretching her legs and feeling very sick of being inside of vehicles, especially after spending nearly a whole day in one over the weekend.

Steve got out too and looked at her over the roof of the car, "Hey, no, no, no — don't just brush that off. Isn't it like, dangerous for you to be doing that? I don't want weird evil Russians invading Hawkins because of you."

"Evil Russians?" Dustin questioned.

"You're fine," she rolled her eyes, "It's nothing like that, focus on the task at hand." Gen pointed to the meat in the trunk and ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach as she remembered Boris' warning, they're planning something. No one knew what, but it seemed relevant enough to bring up and get on Boris' radar.

Steve seemed unconvinced as he unloaded the car with Gen's help, and she glanced at Dustin once he started to talk to himself. Or what she thought was himself until she saw the dinky pair of headphones sat atop his head. "Alright, let's go," the older teen ushered them over while he slammed his trunk shut.

Gen trailed behind them in a protective way, just in case something happened to jump out at them with their backs turned, and they each tossed a piece of meat every few seconds to make a trail. Apparently the plan was to lead Dustin's Demogorgon, which she found out was named D'artagnan (or Dart, for short), to the junkyard and then set him on fire to immobilize him until they could get Hopper to help. "You guys know I can blow things up with my mind, right?"

"You aren't blowing up Dart," Dustin hissed, glancing back at Gen with the best death glare he could muster (it wasn't good), and she rolled her eyes at him.

"It's a Demogorgon," Gen emphasized, waving her hands slightly as she did so, "I don't care if you think it's a pet or... something, but once that thing is full grown it's going to be a lot harder for me to kill. You do know that, right? I have a battery. Once it's completely empty, I'm the one blowing up, and killing one of those is beyond draining."

"Which is why we should light him on fire instead," he replied as she tossed her head back and groaned. "Trust me, we have a bond — he won't hurt me."

"Yes, well, once he's fully grown and ripping someone to shreds: have fun wiping my bone shards and brain matter off of your faces," she taunted morbidly, sticking her tongue out at Steve when he looked over his shoulder to cringe at her.

His entire face recoiled at the image she put into his head and she chuckled at the thought."Shut — shut up, that's nasty, Gen. He's like, twelve."

"I'm thirteen," corrected Dustin, annoyed.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Why don't you do something useful like contact people with your brain stuff instead? You know..." Steve put up his fingers to his temple and made a synth noise with his mouth, or what Gen assumed was an attempt at one, because God it sounded worse than when Eddie tried to play his guitar with broken strings.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Me blowing up isn't mutually exclusive to me blowing things up — like I said, a battery, idiot," the ravenette scoffed and aimed her meat at his shoes, which he tried to kick back at her in retaliation. "Plus, I need peace and quiet to focus."

"Still, it might be useful. No one else responded besides you and Lucas — I got lucky when I found Steve at the Wheeler's," Dustin explained, motioning towards the man in question. "He was going to give Nancy flowers."

"Dude."

"What? You were."

For a second Gen felt a twinge of something in her stomach, she only noticed because it felt like a pinprick and left as fast as it came. Sympathy for Steve Harrington. Sympathy for someone who was nothing but a thorn in her side and always managed to push her buttons in a way that made her irrationally angry.

"Err..." she trailed off, which gained the undivided attention of both boys. Gen never hesitated. "Have you seen Nancy in the past few days?"

"No, I heard she ran off with Jonathan on Thursday," he grumbled and chucked his meat down more aggressively, then raised his brow at Gen. "Why?"

She cleared her throat and looked at Dustin, then away as she motioned Steve closer. When did children learn about the birds and the bees? Gen didn't want to find out, and the young boy didn't need to know about Nancy's sex life, either. "Just tell me, Volkova," Steve stated, stupidly too.

"For fucks sake," she groaned and grabbed the back of his collar to whisper into his ear, smearing meat on his jacket. "They were fucking in the next room over while I was trying to sleep, don't waste flowers on that relationship."

At first Steve tried to smack her away, then he slowed to a stop as she furthered her explanation. The brunette side eyed her with his brows furrowed, probably to check if she decided to mess with him or not, but there wasn't a hint of humor in her face once she let go of him and backed off. He fell silent as Dustin turned to look at Gen.

"You whisper really quietly."

"Spy training."

"Ah..."

She nodded and continued to throw meat down onto the tracks while she ignored the fact that Dustin would try to "sneak" glances at her when he thought she wouldn't notice. Gen didn't really know what he was doing, nor did she care, because she knew that kids sometimes just did things after living with Eleven. No rhyme or reason. They just felt like it.

The curly haired boy was obviously not an exception, he didn't do anything besides talk nerdily, but she could just tell by looking at him. That was a complete and utter loser.

(It was because he got along with Steve.)

After a while, Steve sobered up from the realization that maybe he and Nancy weren't getting back together, and he started to talk, much to the annoyance of literally everyone else. "Alright, so let me get this straight..." he started, "You kept something that you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a girl who... who you just met?"

"Alright, that's grossly oversimplifying things," Dustin replied.

Steve gave him a look that sarcastically said "sure", and tossed the beef. "I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?" he asked.

"I like slugs," Gen stated. "Or frogs."

"You're like... subhuman, you barely count."

"Thank you," Dustin languished to Gen while she threw a piece of meat at the back of Steve's head, which he quickened his pace to avoid and walked next to Dustin, "It's an inter-dimensional slug, because it's awesome."

"Well, even if she thought it was cool, which she didn't, I... I just... I don't know. I just feel like you're trying way too hard," Steve explained, which made Gen blink in confusion because she was 90% sure that Steve would have jumped into a burning building to be able to date Nancy again.

"Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, alright?" Dustin frowned, and Gen did too, just barely. Neither of the boys saw it, but she felt her limbs grow cold at the thought of how she felt when Nancy and Jonathan started fucking each other in the other room. She didn't have perfect hair, and she never would have the boyish charm that Steve used to make hearts melt and what Jonathan lacked in charisma, he made up for by being a man.

Steve waved his hand, the meat covered glove gleamed in the sun that had risen to the peak of the smy. "It's not about the hair, man. The key to girls is just... just acting like you don't care."

"Even if you do?"

"Yeah, exactly, it drives them nuts."

"What the fuck? No way," Gen butted in, her face pulled into a scornful look towards Steve as he tried to create the next generation of douchebags. The world didn't need to keep spinning for a bunch of Billy Hargroves. "Women like it when you respect them, not that Harrington would know anything about that."

"I love women, I respect them," he scoffed in response, this might have been true, but every word that came from the ravenette's mouth was also true — and obviously her word meant more than Steve's.

"Then you should act like you care, it lets them know you want them around. Just be a little... err, what's the word? Closed off. Reserved. It leaves a mystery that they want to find out."

"Then what?" Dustin asked as he held onto every last word said by both teens.

"Stare at them longingly and then kiss them on the mouth." Gen said, maybe too confidently, because Steve whipped his head around at her with his eyes widened and mouth slightly agape.

For a second he almost looked confused? She couldn't tell what the perplexed expression on his face meant, but she didn't like it. Dustin never caught wind of it, he was too busy with his head in the clouds and his attention completely on Steve and Gen's words. "No — no, Christ, Gen. You're setting him up for failure. You just wait."

"Wait until what?"

"Until, uh... until you feel it."

"Feel what?"

"It's like before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh..." Steve paused, "Electricity, you know?"

"Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere —" How dense could this kid be? She knew he was young, but he couldn't think that Steve knew anything about science. Gen listened to Nancy fret about his science grade at least once a week, something about being worried that he wouldn't go to college if he couldn't pull his grades up.

"No, no, no, no, no. Like a... Like a sexual energy."

Ew.

"I thought you said to watch it because he was twelve?" Gen deadpanned, smacking him on the shoulder with the back of her hand so she wouldn't spray meat-remains onto all three of them.

"Oh..." Dustin trailed off, then sent her a glare, "I'm thirteen."

"He's asking for advice," Steve replied and tried to dodge her incoming hand, to no avail. "You feel that and then you make your move."

Gen sighed dramatically and shook her head at him. If anything, Steve would set him up for failure as the next up and coming scumbag that would terrorize the women of Hawkins the moment he got a chance. Rolling her eyes at the eldest's stupidity, she tuned them out and focused on positioning the meat towards his feet while he walked beside Dustin. Either Steve didn't notice, or he refused to because he kept the same pace the entire time, up until he fell silent for a moment in their hushed conversation.

"Fabregé," he muttered, it caught not only Dustin's attention, but Gen's as well when her head perked up to look at the back of his head.

"What?" she hissed.

"Huh?"

Steve glared at her for a split second, unhappy that she began to pay attention to him at that time. "It's Fabregé Organics. Use the shampoo and conditioner, and when your hair's damp... It's not wet, okay? When it's damp..."

"Damp," affirmed Dustin, his eyes locked on Steve with childlike intent, desperate for his senior's approval.

"You do four puffs of the Farrah Fawcett spray."

"Farrah Fawcett spray?" he started to chuckle quietly alongside Gen who couldn't hold in her condescending cackling.

"Yeah, Farrah Fawcett. You tell anyone I told you that and your ass is grass, you're dead Henderson. Do you understand?" His messy finger outstretched to point at both of them. Steve jeered, brows furrowed sternly. "You too, Volkova. Do you understand?"

"Yup," she paused and thought about it for a moment. "Maybe." Gen obviously wouldn't mention it to anyone, but it felt nice to have something that she would dangle over the boy's head to get her way. "How the hell did you even come up with this?"

The teen frowned, barely. "I learned from someone else, she has like, the second best hair in all of Hawkins."

"Who, your mother?" Gen snickered at the thought of a younger Steve begging his mom to help him with his hair. Really just younger Steve in general, at least young enough for him to be shorter than her.

"No. A—"

"I know all about your mother's hair, if you know what I mean." She winked at him, the corners of her lips pulled into a comically wide smile.

"You are so gross."

—————
——— AUTHOR'S NOTE
theyre all so collectively stupid
it's almost a crime for them
to work together.

steve at gen basically the entire
chapter:

hope you enjoyed!!! don't
forget to vote and comment
bc i love seeing what people
think. comments are genuinely
the highlight of my day 🫶

PRETTY SICK!
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