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the universal curse of sensitivity — igby slocumb

Part One: Smoke and Mirrors

PART TWO

Pairing: Igby Slocumb x reader

Warnings: Drug use, explicit language, underage nicotine use, underage drinking, neglectful parents, predatory adults, and more that can be found in the movie: Igby Goes Down

Summary: Troublesome kids will always reach to find love and acceptance, even if it means making a mess where it's unintended. They’re just kids, but the older they get, the worse their inner conflicts haunt them. They want to please, but long to be pleased. They’re dramatic and self-sabotaging, they can’t help it⸺its the universal curse of their sensitivity.

Authors Note: Giving Igby the love interest he deserves!!! (one that is age appropriate and doesn’t lay a hand on him!). also! i made this gender neutral but this is my first time writing this way so please let me know if i made any mistakes!!

4.5k words

Igby hated being a fucking drug dealer.

The money was fine, the freedom was liberating and questionable, but the people he met fueled him full of disgust and annoyance. It had seemed that every person he had come in contact with was stupid and unworthy of such carefree lifestyles. A part of him wondered if it was jealousy. How could these people live their lives while he was on the run from his? It was unfair. However, it wasn’t like he could stop⸺he needed this; he needed the place to stay. Russel wasn’t his first pick, but it was the only one he currently had.

Run around, deliver drugs, and get a sometimes vacant spot on a stained couch that held onto an odd odor and sticky substance. It was the deal of a fucking lifetime⸺increasingly better than anytime spent at boarding schools and military academies.

As the sun followed his deliveries closely, it hovered over him⸺almost judgingly. Staring up at the building, the boy could feel a scowl twist upon his face as he squinted against the glare of the burning star in the sky.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

The building stood tall and glamorously, mocking anyone who passed it⸺casting condescending glances at those who couldn’t even afford to stand in the lobby. It was destined to be filled with rich people with reckless habits and internal madness. Just fucking peachy. Sending a fleeting glance to the people entering and exiting the building, the boy worked to smooth his jacket down in hopes to blend in with the proper fucks surrounding him. Rolling his neck as his frustration of the day settled between his shoulder blades⸺he caught sight of you. Your upper body lazily dangling out the window seal.

The sun formed around you like a halo, the glare too harsh to make out your features, but its rays caught onto the smoke from the cigarette hanging from your mouth. Pulling the burning cancer from between your lips, you tilted your head at the boy standing directly under the blazing light from the sky, “Are you Iggy?”

A loud scoff passed his lips as his eyes rolled toward the back of his head. Annoyance seeped through his skin as he threw his hands up⸺a wide, fake grin on his face as his words dripped with mocked enthusiasm, “Yeah, yeah, that’s fucking me!”

From the window, you let an amused grin stretch across your face at the boy's dismay. He couldn’t see your reaction⸺every time he tried to look up at you, the sun would blind him mercilessly. However, his frustration was clear as he kicked a rock and muttered the name to himself with disdain, “Iggy, yeah fuck you, fucking Iggy.”

“Come on up!”

Igby looked back to where your silhouette once was, only to be met with the light reflecting off your now closed window. Gone without a single trace of existence⸺not even smoke lingered, it seemingly disappearing with you. Letting out a huff, the boy pushed past the people on the sidewalk and toward the building, sending the doorman a brief glance as he entered the complex. He tried to stay neutral as he caught sight of every expensive piece of furniture in the lobby as well as the prestigious population that the large building held. However, as he entered the elevator, he became suddenly aware that he’d be trapped in a moving box with the very people he had spent so long running from. A smirk slid onto his face as he made eye contact with a woman in the elevator⸺she looked like his mother⸺only uglier.

The older woman tried to look away, but his hazel eyes bore into the side of her face, his smirk unmoving. Giving the boy a side-eyed glance, the resident of the building shifted uncomfortably and edged closer to the door⸺ready to get off on a floor that wasn’t her own. The action sent a gleeful spark into Igby as he stepped forward as well, he was getting off on his rightful floor, but it was entertaining to see the woman stumble over her next move. As the elevator doors slid open, the boy stepped off and turned to the woman who watched him with wide eyes. Grinning madly, Igby waved his fingers at her, “Don’t worry, I’ll get off with you next time.”

As the doors shut with a horrified woman behind them, the boy laughed wickedly⸺tormenting people would never get old. Licking at his cracked lips, the boy was pulled away from his entertainment at the sound of an apartment door opening behind him. His eyes fell onto you as you leaned your back against the threshold of the door and crossed your arms over your chest. Your eyes scanned his features, analyzing him so closely that he felt annoyance tug at his chest. He hated being observed. He hated being perceived. The feeling it gave him brought a soured expression to his face. Quirking up an eyebrow, you scoff lightly to yourself, “Jesus Christ, you’re just a kid.”

He would have let it go. Truly, if you had been the first, second, even third customer of Russels, then he might’ve been able to let your comment roll off his back. However, you weren’t the first or second, and you sure as hell weren’t the third⸺you were the last fucking delivery of the day, and his thin layer of patience had been ripped from him when he made contact with a woman who knew his perfect fucking brother.

“You’re one to fucking talk,” The boy snapped as he pushed past you into your apartment, letting his shoulder connect harshly with yours. His eyes naturally rolled as he caught sight of your rich people furniture, and your rich people art, and your rich people decor. The air was stiff with precision, and the room looked untouched; as if ghosts were the only ones who paced the apartment. The only indication that you lived there was the glass of water and ashtray that idly sat on the window seal, as well as your jacket that barely hung onto one of the perfectly placed floral couches. He turned to look at you, and with the sun's glare being outside, he could finally take in the features of your face. Huffing out a bitter burst of air, the boy shook his head, “What are you? Fucking fifteen?”

“Seventeen.”

Igby watched as you shut the door, noting to himself that you were the same age, but making no effort to inform you of that fact. Instead, he let his face screw up into a distasteful look. You had a delighted look on your face, one that only rich people could perfect when they felt notorious. It was unnerving, but what you said next only further irked him.

“The last few people Russel sent were junkies in their late thirties trying to be featured in his next ‘phenomenal’ project⸺so excuse my surprise to see someone youthful, and sober, for once.”

You now stood in front of him, eyeing his yellow and red striped scarf before allowing the pads of your fingers to reach out and feel the fabric. He wanted to rip the piece of clothing out of your grasp, but you had beat him to it, lightly placing it back against his chest before turning around and walking toward the window, where you lit another cigarette. Scoffing lightly, the boy trailed closer toward you as you opened the window, sitting on the seal just as you had before when he saw you from the sidewalk.

“You’re telling me that the seventeen year old rich, spoiled junkie didn’t like when fellow junkies entered the posh and prissy castle?” Igby hummed in question, mocking curiosity as his eyebrows raised and sarcasm shone brightly in his hazel eyes. His tone brought a spark to your chest and a jump to one of your eyebrows.

Blowing smoke out the side of your mouth toward the window, you let your knee bounce involuntarily before smirking with a nod, “Uh-huh.”

Sending you back his own sarcastic smirk, the boy began to dig through his bag for his intended reason for meeting you in the first place. Pulling out the crumbled brown paper bag with your name lazily scribbled on it, Igby held it out for you to take. He watched closely as you ripped it open with ease, throwing the tube of cocaine and baggy of heroin to the side as you clung onto the bigger bag of weed. Opening the Ziploc bag, you brought it to your nose and smelled the drug that made the everlasting headache dull, a relieved smile ghosting your features before your eyes locked onto Igby. At the sudden eye contact, the boy looked away, cursing at himself for staring at you for too long. But he couldn’t help it. The way you reacted to the smell reminded him of his time at the academy, when he’d sneak smoke sessions with the other troublesome kids. He remembered the liberating sensation of the high, and your response to just the smell felt like looking in a mirror. They were so obviously two kids with bigger feelings and conflicts than what met the eye⸺too bad; neither would ever be willing to admit it.

Stabbing the nub that was left of your cigarette into the ashtray, you close the window and held the bag of weed up for the boy to look at. Once his eyes shifted from the drugs to your face, he could see a suggestive smile coating your features, “What do you say, Igby, you wanna smoke with me?”

His name falling from your lips made his stomach turn, but not because it sounded perfect or romantic. No, because earlier, you had called him Iggy. Meaning you knew his name the entire fucking time, and you were just being annoying. The thought made his eyebrows crease with frustration, and his lips curl into a scowl. His reaction only further intrigued you; it had been a long time since you received such large reactions to your harmless mischief. Maybe that was why you had asked him to join you. Maybe you missed having someone actually respond like a human being rather than a porcelain statue of perfection. Your suggestive smile leaned toward a teasing gesture as you tilted your head, “What? You don’t smoke?”

“No, I do⸺with friends. Never with my drug dealer, though,” Igby’s voice, you noted, always held onto a relish of sarcasm. You wondered if he liked the taste of it, if the sarcasm tasted bittersweet against his tongue. At his words, you let your eyes fall briefly to your lap, causing the boy to gleam with pride. The very smile that he hated, the one that all rich people perfected when they felt notorious, was now slapped onto his own face, “What’s the matter? Rich girl can’t buy any friends to smoke with?”

“You’re not my drug dealer. You’re just the delivery boy, Russels gone through a few of them.” You couldn’t let him have it; you were both too stubborn to not have the last word. Too stubborn to not have superiority over the other. It was rooted deep in your veins and embedded into your bones. The children of wealthy parents⸺always prepared to kick someone off a pedestal with a smile on their faces. Oh, how the nasty cycle of generational responses continued onto the children, “And I do have friends.”

If what you had said bothered Igby, he didn’t show it. Instead, he brought his finger up to his mouth and tapped on his lips as he scanned the area of your empty apartment. He hummed lightly to himself before his eyes landed back on you, his finger leaving his face to point at you and the rest of the room with a condescending smile, “Really? I don’t see any.”

You smiled⸺he had just insulted you and claimed you had no friends, and you smiled. If he had been anyone else, you would’ve never let him stay in your apartment this long. He would have been just like the other delivery boys that Russel had sent, the ones that never made it past the threshold of the door and never got more than a few sentences out before you’d reach for your drugs and slam the door in their face. But Igby was entertaining to you; his reactions felt theatrical, and his burning annoyance was delightful against your boring and cold apartment life. The bite of his words left you wanting more, only leading to you instigating more from him⸺refusing to let the easy banter die.

“That’s because you haven’t met my best friend, Hugh. He’s the apartments doorman⸺total gossip but does more cocaine than a rockstar. I’m sure if you say pretty please, he’d snort it out of your asshole. You seem into that.”

There was a faint recognition in the boy's eyes as he recalled passing the said doorman on his way into the building. The older man who looked one harsh wind away from disintegrating into thin air. Sure, your words were vulgar and explicit, but Igby still found it funny. Not enough to laugh, but enough to let the right side of his lips lift humorously. You stared at his lips momentarily, a powerful emotion glowing in your chest at the reaction before glancing out the window. Suddenly standing up, you moved around the boy who followed you with his eyes, watching as you began to put your jacket on, “Look, are you coming or not? I’d like to smoke before the sun’s gone.”

He didn’t want to. Truthfully, he found you annoying, even more so now that he knew you did it on purpose. However, he hadn’t smoked in what felt like forever. You’d think living with a drug supplier would lead to an unlimited source, but Russel had landed a hard smack to the back of his head, refusing to give away any for free. Besides, you had already paid⸺it was free⸺how could he possibly say no?

That’s how you both ended up on the roof of your apartment, trying to stay warm against the nip in the air. Igby stood with his body leaning over the ledge, watching the people walk below, his left leg bouncing as he shoved his face further into his scarf. You sat beside him, facing him as you straddled the ledge. One leg grazed the rooftop while the other dangled over the side of the building. If you had begun to swing your legs, you could easily kick the boy in front of you, but if you did, you’d also risk losing your balance and sending yourself plummeting toward the cement in front of your apartment. You tried to work quickly in rolling the joint as your breath became more visible.

Glancing at you briefly, Igby sniffed before speaking, pulling his face away from his scarf so you could hear his words against the wind, “How does someone like you even meet someone like Russel?”

“Someone like me?” Your eyebrows jump in question as your eyes lift to meet his while bringing the paper to your lips to moisten the side. Haphazardly, he watches your tongue touch the paper before looking back at the people on the sidewalks.

“Yeah, I mean, I can almost guarantee you didn’t meet in the millionaire row at the fucking–Kentucky Derby–or whatever you waste your money on.”

You smile to yourself as you continue your work, shaking your head while recalling your first encounter with Russel, “I went to one of those art exposés, or whatever the fuck they are. He was there; he had a featured piece or something. Everyone kept saying how amazing it was⸺it looked like everything else in the damn place. He overheard me shitting on it and told me I was a small-minded imbecile who didn’t have the capacity to understand such large-scale art pieces.”

The boy listened closely to every word you said, your words tangling together to paint the picture of a memory in which he wasn’t a part of. His eyebrows knit together as he looked back at you. He was quick to notice the red tint at the tip of your nose and how your hands shook slightly from the cold. He didn’t understand how this story could possibly be true, but you didn’t look like you were lying. That morning, when Russel had given him the rundown of all of his customers, you had been the one Russel wanted Igby to take the most care of, claiming that you were his most valuable customer and told Igby to tell you that he sent all his love⸺Igby had yet to relay the message and still hadn’t planned on following through with the action. As you continued, it only became more unclear as to why Russel would ever send you ‘all his love.’

“He ended up inviting me to the afterparty, saying that maybe if I spent my time with those in tune with their creative side, then maybe, I could see the truth of the art. He was totally full of shit. It was just a bunch of junkies kissing each other's asses and repeating the same mantra over and over again⸺but the drugs were good, so I stayed. I told Russel that the whole art thing was shit, but he kept inviting me back⸺eventually started dealing me the drugs when I couldn’t attend any more of the parties.”

You finished your story with a nonchalant shrug, never lifting your chin from your chest, even when you could feel him watching you. Squinting slightly, Igby shifted on his feet, “Why would he keep inviting you when you kept shitting on his work?”

“Because I roll the perfect blunt,” You hold up the finished product with a playful and youthful grin on your face. Quirking his eyebrow, the boy smirked as he reached for it. As he took the joint from you, your fingers brushed together⸺both of you acknowledging that your fingertips had gone numb against the cold. Analyzing it briefly, the boy couldn’t deny your statement. It was perfectly rolled, unlike any of the ones he had let Sookie roll when they had smoked together. He could still remember his disdain when the blonde handed him the skinniest joint he had ever seen.

Putting it on the side of his mouth, the boy leaned back to search his pockets for a lighter, however, you had beat him to it. One hand flicked the lighter on while the other rose to shield the flame from the wind. Instinctually, the boy leaned forward, allowing the fire to light the end of the joint.

At the sudden closeness, you were able to see the faded freckles that littered across his nose, as well as the flecks of honey that decorated his irises. He looked young, and he looked beautiful with rosy cold cheeks and a slightly quivering lip. His eyes flicked up from the flame to your face as well, the both of you silently observing and collecting remembrances of the other's features. Even as you lowered your hands, the two of you stayed close in proximity, favoring the warmth that radiated between you.

It wasn’t until the sun peaked through the taller buildings and directly into your eyes that you pulled away from him. Rubbing at your nose and sniffling softly, you watched as Igby took the first hit, “What about you? How does a fellow rich kid meet someone like Russel?”

“What makes you think I’m rich?”

You roll your eyes as you reach forward and let your fingers grip onto his scarf, raising it into his eye line and slightly waving it as your main source of evidence, “It’s a dead giveaway⸺unless you stole it or something.”

“Maybe I did.” He smirks humorously as the smoke pushes through his nose, handing you the blunt as he spoke.

You take a hit of the joint, inhaling deeply before holding onto it, allowing the drug to spread through your body in a warm, tingling sensation. The feeling causes you to roll your head back before blowing the smoke into the sky, your shoulders no longer tense at the release. Letting your head fall back into place, you met Igby’s newly sparkling, intrigued eyes⸺you smile lazily, “I doubt it.”

The joint is once again passed into his hands, “And why’s that?”

“Call it intuition,” You shrug with a small smirk as he takes another hit. Truth was, it was all in the way he wore the scarf. If he had stolen it, he’d showcase it or even treat it a little better. Instead, Igby placed it on his neck out of habit and oftentimes forgot it was even wrapped around his neck. It seemed he only ever remembered it when you had it in between your fingers.

The boy watches you closely before exhaling, flicking at the joint softly before handing it back to you, “I met him through Rachel⸺I lived with her for a while.”

At the confession, your eyebrows pull together, trying to scan through your time spent with Russel and see if you could remember a Rachel. As the girl's face becomes clear in your mind, you begin to wonder what a kid like Igby was doing living with a twenty-something-year-old dancer. At the sight of faint recognition in your eyes, Igby rubbed his cold hands together, “You know her?”

“Yeah, I know her.” You recall the older woman sitting beside you at multiple different afterparties, yelling over the music and the noise about how evolved the expression of dance was and how influential it could be if the world weren’t so narrow-minded⸺like you. After nearly four different occurrences of the same conversation, you found that the only way to shut her up was by handing her a joint or a tightly rolled hundred-dollar bill with white residue on it, “How’s the bitch doing anyway?”

“She overdosed.”

You paused mid-inhale, your eyes locking with Igby’s brown ones as your body burned at the new information. Awkwardly pulling the joint from your lips, you shift on the ledge, your foot now heavily caressing the ground of your rooftop, “Is she..?”

“She’s alive.” For the most part. Igby couldn’t find it in himself to tell you that Rachel was a heartbroken ghost of a woman in a dying body. Not when your neck turned bright red at his words. You nodded somberly, handing him the joint before rubbing your hands against your thighs⸺a teasing smile ghosting over your features, “So you just brought that up to make me look like a bitch, huh?”

“Trust me; I don’t have to make you⸺you’re doing well enough on your own.”

You faked a laugh and gave the boy a wide, still fake, smile, “Alright, Igby.”

He caught sight of the way your face screwed up at his name. Obviously, finding it a little foreign to the tongue, even when you were lightly taunting him. And because of the pattern of people who mocked him or asked him what the fuck was up with his name⸺he decided to make the first move to avoid the dreaded conversation in the long run, “Are you going to ask me about it?”

“About what?” You look away from the setting sun and into Igby’s eyes, as he takes a hit, his eyes already trained on your face.

“My name. Don’t you want to know the story behind it or something?”

Your eyebrows pull themselves together as he blows the smoke out of the corner of his lips, letting the wind carry it out and away from you both. Crossing your arms in an attempt to warm up your hands, you shake your head, “Is it a funny story or something?”

“Oh, yeah. Just another story of how much of a disappointment I am to my family. Hilarious!” A grin had been slapped onto his face as his words dripped with fake enthusiasm. His eyes sparkled against the sun, a glimmer of dread disappearing before it had even properly introduced itself to you. The statement made you pause, finding yourself alerted by the similarities of your coping skills.

It was as if he had held up a mirror to show you how you looked every day. Dropping hints of unsettling family trauma with wide grins and humorous tones. But it was the eyes, it was always the fucking eyes. The window to your soul or whatever the fuck it was. They were always the one indicator of your truest emotion, shining dimly before being forced back underwater. You both had gotten used to pushing it away. Many didn’t see your emotions when it was present⸺no one considered you valuable enough to make eye contact, so your emotions went undetected. Everyone just assumed you took everything as a joke, unaware of how deeply your emotions crashed into your soul and bared a weight on your life.

But you saw it in Igby. You saw the dread that the statement brought before humor replaced it. You saw a little piece of him chip away as he said a mournfully honest thing with a laugh⸺as if he had this very conversation so many times that he was well rehearsed in turning it into a joke.

You saw it. So you decided not to pry for the haunting family stories, and you decided not to poke fun at his name so he wouldn’t need to continue on with act one of his neverending play. Instead, you took a hit of the joint, blew the smoke directly into his chest, and shrugged nonchalantly, “Eh, pass.”

Taking what was left of the joint out of your fingers, the boy's eyes jumped from it to your face. His stare was hard, heavier than it had been the entire afternoon⸺as if he was trying to dissect any microexpression that may have lingered. He also found himself waiting for you to change your mind. Neither came. Your face was smooth, and your decision was final. Maybe it was the effects of the weed finally catching up to him, but the longer he stared, the wider his captivating grin grew. It was only a mere second before a giggle pushed past his lips.

The sound caused your eyebrows to rise; you hadn’t expected the high-pitched noise. And maybe you had begun to feel the effects as well because soon your smile grew wide on your face until your own giggles easily escaped your lips, intermixing effortlessly with Igbys. And as the two of you continued to laugh, the chill of the air became warm with the unfamiliar sense of companionship.

Oh, how things would never be the same.

┗━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━┛ ┗━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━┛

PART TWO

#ch; igby slocumb #movie; igby goes down #kieran culkin #igby is so me GODDDDD i miss this movie #the fic is so good too <3 the 4th part kinda killed me #he deserves to be happy :(

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