PRETTY SICK!
— such a strange girl ☆

Vines. Mud. A clock chime.

Shallow breaths tore through Genevieve Volkova's throat like flaming razors. Her mouth and throat were too dry to swallow and relieve the pain from the toxic air she breathed in for God knows how long, and the vines that writhed beneath her taunted her, they threatened to pull her against the cool ground and force themselves around her neck and down her esophagus until she couldn't breathe any longer.

Faceless monster. Dead air. Faint whispers.

No Russian winter compared to the temperature of the stale air that nipped at her nose and cheeks, and Gen's normally tolerant body shuddered involuntarily as she sat up. Her eyes tried to refocus themselves in the constant darkness of the Upside Down. Flurries of particles whipped around the teen, and she spun around in a panic when she realized she was entirely alone. "Will?"

Her voice echoed into the open air.

"Will? Will!" she called out, "Pete!" Each time she heaved, her throat would wheeze and whistle unpleasantly, and her muscles continued to ache with exhaustion. Her hands found themselves against the wall closest to her for support as she tried not to falter, but an inhuman screech and the sound of screams telling them to run made her stomach drop and her blood run cold.

Blood. Sweat. Tears.

Gen ran towards the source and had a sense of déja vu while she watched Pete get dragged through the streets of Hawkins, a town she'd been unfamiliar with during her time spent there, but still recognized when she looked around. His brown hair was plastered against his forehead with blood and sweat, and his skin had a sheen from the pure amount of grime that the Upside Down had throughout it. Her body froze in its spot, and the sensation of fear hung heavy in her chest and resonated in her feet as they glued themselves to the ground.

She cursed at herself to do anything, but it was as if she watched the scene happen in third person, and could only listen to his screams become more gargled with his own blood as the monster ravaged him. Pulling, tearing, biting. The only movement she could make was to duck into the nearest alleyway and puke up the little bit of food that she had in her system, but the screams never stopped. If anything they got louder.

They got so loud Gen couldn't hear herself think, the only thing that pummeled her brain louder than his cries was the rhythmic pounding of her heart in her ears. She couldn't find Will. She feared the worst: that the thing had gotten him too, but the screaming overtook that thought as quickly as she used her hands to hold her weak body up against a wall into a somewhat standing position. The thing started to get closer; everything in the Upside Down felt alive, but this thing had a presence like the others didn't. She was its next target, and she was going to die.

"Gen." A voice came from beside her, and she jumped slightly and glanced over at her curly headed companion. She caught her breath and her eyes darted from her hands to the pot of water, whose lid rattled from it beginning to boil over and onto the stovetop.

Her hands flung to the knob to turn the heat down. "Черт!" (Shit!) she cursed, and El stared at the scene before her, a plastic bag in hand.

"A mess," she stated and grabbed a rag to wipe up the water which had splashed onto the floor around Gen's feet and ankles. Ow.

"Yes," Gen sighed and used her middle finger and thumb to pinch in between her eyes and rub them, "I made a mess. Go watch TV, I can clean." Unenthusiastically, she took a paper towel from the roll and used it to wipe up the spilt water from the pasta she was cooking.

"I want to help," El insisted and continued to scrub at the floor, instead of arguing, Gen let her and glanced at the general store bag in her hand.

"You found my stuff?" she asked and motioned to the rustling plastic. Eleven glanced between the two as she nodded slowly, unsure if Gen was angry at her for going through her things or not. The lanky girl pursed her lips in annoyance and shook her head, "You need to ask next time, okay?" God forbid she found something other than a Halloween get-up in her things — drugs, alcohol, hidden late slips.

El nodded in response and stood up, then opened the bag and showed her the contents as if Gen wasn't the one who bought it. "Ears, and... p-eye-nt," she stated and butchered the word when she read it from the package.

"Paint," she corrected, "I know, I bought it. It's for a costume."

"Costume?"

"Yes. You dress up as something you aren't, mine is a cat." Gen stirred the sauce on the stove as she spoke, sending short glances to El while she cooked for them. "It's for Halloween, kids dress up and go out to get free candy, I forget the word for what they call it."

"I want candy," she replied. Of course she did.

Gen shrugged unsurely in response as she racked her brain for any reasons why she couldn't go. Her face could be covered with a costume, and it wasn't like anyone would recognize her unless she tried to interact with any of her friends, and frankly, she knew that she would try, but she didn't really care that much. "Get me a sheet and I can make you a costume, but you have to ask Hopper before tomorrow night. I can't go with you because I'm hanging out with Eddie."

"Okay. Hopper says... Eddie is a — hooligan," El sounded out slowly while she recalled what Jim told her, and Gen couldn't help but roll her eyes and motion to the table once she served Eleven her beef stroganoff.

"Hopper is senile, he doesn't understand rock and roll. Once you get old enough, you forget how to have fun and stuff." She nodded and chuckled a bit at the horrified look on El's face, Gen ruffled her hair and grabbed the bag she discarded on the floor to hide underneath her bed and out of sight from Jim's prying eyes.

It'd been nearly a year since Gen and Eleven moved in with Jim, the former two had a good bond, or Gen thought they did, as she taught El things about the world that Jim couldn't or refused to. But Gen and Hopper had a tendency to butt heads, Gen was allowed to do whatever the hell she wanted as long as it wasn't in the house and Jim didn't seem to understand that — It wasn't like she was his daughter or something. The only reason she even lived under his roof was because she had nowhere else to go, and it was the least he could do after she found and helped not one, but two missing children. Not to mention that he was too stubborn and headstrong for his own good, she deserved something in return for putting up with him.

People questioned Gen at first, but she came up with some half-thought out lie about her being his step-cousin's adopted daughter, except the cousin and his wife died in a house fire, which left Jim to take care of Gen as her 'only living family'. It was stupid, but people refused to interrogate them past the explaination because no one wanted to poke the bear. It was no secret that Miss Volkova was easily provoked.

She hung around alone when she started her first semester at Hawkins High School — or she tried to, as the freaks of the school seemed to flock towards her like a group of kicked puppies. Initially, Eddie "The Freak" Munson got jealous that he wasn't the undisputed leader of the hoard of fucking imbiciles, but he quickly got over it once he realized that Gen had no interest in spending her afternoons in a stuffy room hunched over a table top fantasy game for losers. Instead, she got coaxed into their shitty band, Corroded Coffin — which arguably, was worse.

She tolerated them more than all of the nosey 'normal' people, she had to admit. The Hellfire club knew their boundaries and what happened if they crossed them (a rough smack to the back of the head, or aggressive comment.), and she had a love-hate relationship with them, which she considered exceptional considering Gen felt like she wanted to shove her head in a meat grinder when she got forced to speak to anyone else in the dreary town. Except for Nancy and Will Byers.

Nancy Wheeler balanced good and evil perfectly. She did well in class, stayed kind to others despite them giving her every reason not to be, and Gen liked her clothes — but she had an evil side: the side that wanted to date Steve Harrington. Not only did he annoy the girl to no end, he tried to push her buttons, too! Knowing that she would give him a reaction eventually! Fortunately, he toned down once he realized it upset Nancy too. Not that it made Gen tolerate him any more, they bickered, and bickered, and bickered, whenever they were within each other's general vicinity.

Maybe she got protective over Nancy, but they were friends, close friends at that. Especially after she'd seen the horrors of the Upside Down.

Gen didn't like to think about it, or talk about it, or details extended around it. But she got stuck there and came across Pete Bell, and then they found Will Byers eventually as they trekked through grime to find an escape. No one asked either. Someone like her never got vulnerable like that with anybody, especially after only two people returned.

People hadn't realized she went missing until she came back, for better or for worse, she showed up in Hawkins with a "friend" a measly two days before she got taken by the "Demogorgon.". It was a blessing and a curse. Anyone who knew what she'd been doing thought she went AWOL the moment she stepped into territory they stopped tracking her in, and her friend (who, unsurprisingly, was not really her friend) probably took the hint and did the same as well, which left Gen deserted in small town American hell.

She worried she would be found out eventually; Gen was too valuable to be killed, but if she went back home, there was no way she'd be in one piece.

Gen cut her hair, changed her name, and prayed to whatever would listen in hopes that the KGB didn't try to look for her. She liked the fast life of being a Russian secret intelligence worker, in a way, but now she had a life of her own as your average everyday teenage girl — and frankly, she enjoyed it a lot more. She had friends, she attended school (most of the time.), and she even ran on the track team. But sometimes it felt... weird.

Like she played a character or something.

Anyone who wasn't involved with the Upside Down had no idea about her past, or what abilities may have stemmed from it, and she needed to keep it a secret for the sake of everyone; but her life was a lie. A pure, unadulterated lie. If it all unraveled — well. Gen would be fucked... just completely fucked. They'd call her Satan and have mobs search for her, maybe her friends too. They'd blame the music she listened to and the dark eyeliner she wore.

Gen knew she was a bad person, an awful one, even. But not for that. Not for some kind of inhuman ability she got cursed with from birth.

The clock ticked every day, and when it chimed, she knew people were going to be knocking at her door with pitchforks in hand as priests swore up and down that she was the devil that cursed Hawkins. A part of her thought that they might be right — she could feel the Upside Down becoming restless, somehow. Hopper told her it was paranoia, from trauma, or some other made up word telling her to man-up.

So, she'd man-up. Gen would go to Tina's stupid party in a stupid half-assed costume and watch Eddie sell his stupid drugs to the other stupid teenagers who attended — they were probably trying to get their minds off of the woes of their lives too (though, theirs were probably a lot more trivial and less "everyone I tolerate is going to die'").

Maybe she'd even get drunk and piss Hopper off for fun. Just because she could, it was her duty as both the eldest teenager in the home, and Hawkins' resident angsty metalhead to wreak as much havoc as she possibly could.

𓆩♡𓆪

"Oh, Jesus!" Jim Hopper called out from where he stood in front of the stove, the smell of french toast wafted from the pan to Gen, who sat at the table, newspaper and Hopper's coffee in hand.

She glanced up at him, her eyes flitted over to Eleven for a second, who had a sheet with two holes over her head. "Ghost," El stated, and Jim muttered something as he made his way to the counter to make plates for the girls and himself. "Halloween."

"Sure is," he replied groggily, "But right now, it's breakfast, okay? Come on, let's eat."

Gen set the paper down and turned to grab her plate, which she immediately began to scarf down like she hadn't eaten in months. Hopper wasn't a cook — far from it, even, Gen did most of the cooking for all three of them — but God, did she love to eat. Soups, stews, and meat all practically made her buckle at the knees; anyone could win her over with a decent meal, even someone as obnoxious as Jim Hopper... he used this to placate her many times, especially when she became unreasonably enraged for God knows what reasons.

"They wouldn't see me," Eleven told him, and the darker haired girl watched as she spun around to follow Jim through the kitchen.

Preoccupied and head still swimming with sleep, Hopper didn't follow while he set both his and Eleven's plates on the table, and plucked his mug from in front of Gen. "I was drinking that," she hissed through a mouthful of food.

Jim ignored her. "Who wouldn't see you?"

"The bad men."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"She wants to go out with the other children and get candy," Gen stated once she swallowed what was in her mouth, annoyed with the fact he was borderline senile whenever he woke up. Well, more borderline senile than usual. Eleven nodded in agreement and Jim glanced between them.

"You want to go trick or treating?" El nodded again, and he shook his head, curt as ever, but noticeable enough. "You know the rules."

"Yes, but—

"So you know the answer."

"No, but they wouldn't see me."

"Hey. No. I don't care, no, I don't care," he cut her off and held her shoulders to get to her level. Not rough, he never got rough, but to be stern with Eleven as he informed her there would be no trick or treating or else she'd be shot on sight or something.

It was the same thing every few days, El wanted to go out, Jim said no, El got mad, Jim came up with something to keep her calm — a compromise. Without fail. It was a cycle that, unsurprisingly, got boring to listen to at least twice a week.

Moodily, Eleven sat down and refused to touch her food as she stared at Gen, who stopped eating to stare back at her. "Why do you get to go out?" she asked, her brows furrowed in frustration. "You don't like candy."

Gen sighed and pulled up the paper to make a barrier between her and Eleven — to read too, but mostly to break eye contact without seeming like the loser of the stare off. Her eyes skimmed the pages, if you could even call it that; she hated reading. "I'm not being hunted by the American government and I'm not going trick or treating."

"And where are you going?" Hopper asked, unimpressed with the lack of permission being asked from him. Somedays the cabin felt like Alcatraz, and Gen was a prisoner, especially when Jim insisted he kept constant tabs on her — which she found ways around.

"Eddie and then Gareth's," she replied, seemingly exhausted by the single question he asked as she stood up and placed her dishes in the sink. "I'm leaving right after school, then I'm sleeping over at Edith's."

Edith was, well, not real. Edith was Eddie. But Hopper seemed convinced that Gen and Eddie spent the entire time having a freakish amount of sex while his uncle wasn't home, so they came up with Edith, who was a fan of their band (alongside the five drunks who listened to them play), did her homework, and spent her Sundays volunteering at the church daycare. Edith was a made up poster-child of an all American 'good person'. She lived in the next town over, of course, because Jim Hopper knew everyone that lived in Hawkins.

She knew Hopper had an idea that Edith may not have been who Gen claimed she was, but he also figured that she would do whatever she was doing anyway, just in a way without telling him at all. "On a school night?"

"Yes, her parents are going to a Halloween party and she doesn't want to hand out candy alone. I'll be at school on time tomorrow — are you done interrogating me?" the teen asked, more haughtily than she intended, but it wasn't as if she minded. Hopper was being too nosy, and she hated when people were nosy, unless Gen was doing the snooping, of course.

"Hey. Don't give me an attitude," he warned, his tone firm. "Fine. But if I hear you skipped any of your classes tomorrow, you can't play that stuff you call music for a week."

"Okay. It's metal."

"She says you don't like rock and roll because you're senile," Eleven stated, innocently, but it still made Hopper furrow his brows and Gen clench her jaw in frustration.

"Snitch. This is why you stink so bad, you can't go outside."

"Hey! Watch how you talk to her."

El knocked a cup of juice at Gen with her telekinesis, which made Gen do the same to her, but with her syrupy french toast that spread all over the front of her clothing. An argument ensued.

Well...

They were dysfunctional, at their core. But for each of them... dysfunction was their comfort. They fought, they pushed each other's buttons on purpose, and they definitely made average family disputes look like child's play — but if no one else could put up with that, why not make a family out of people who would?

—————
——— AUTHOR'S NOTE
i cracj myself up writing gen's
internal and external dialogue
sometimes, she's so stupid

anyway, i think i should explain
her powers since she doesn't
really do it herself?? so here,
they're all VERY emotion based
and centered around how she
feels. so they go wonky, usually
when she gets mad

spontaneous combustion —
it's in the name, she can make
things blow up with her mind
using heat and pressure build
up.

telekinesis —
this one is stupid because she
can only really close doors and
fling small items with it?? it's
really really weak

projection/mind reading —
this one is similar to eleven's
void, except she projects hersef
wherever the person she connected
to is. when she's connected she
can like, read their minds and
people CAN tell she's there if
she speaks or if they have some
kind of sixth sense for that

a main drawback of all of them
is that, if she pushes herself to
a point, past what she SHOULD
be pushing herself to, then she
could become like, a human bomb
and just PSHSPSSHOSSHOS and
then dies because she blew up. it
also makes small-large injuries
when she strains.

anyways, live laugh love, vote and
comment!!!! 🫶🫶

PRETTY SICK!
girlpools © 2022