#undrunk

No, the real pain came from the months after. The 1am texts and the secret touches. Because with those came the silly pictures and the late night talks as he laid in your bed. With it came the desperate want for more. Even when you knew it wasn’t possible.

So you laid in bed, staring at the ceiling as the tears streamed down your face, knowing you had no one to blame but yourself.

-

Despite the ache in your chest, there was one thing you could never say no to: a party. Maybe you should learn to stay away from them, considering that’s how you ended up in Bucky’s bed in the first place, but you just couldn’t; there was nothing like the sweet release of drinking your pain away.

At the very least, you could stay away from Bucky’s frat house. Or that’s what you told yourself.

Somehow, though, you ended up in the basement of the Phi Gamma Delta house, even though you specifically told Wanda not to let you anywhere near Fiji tonight. Not after your conversation with Bucky a few days ago.

Not after he had accidentally stayed the night, and you thought it meant more. Not after you had asked him to go to breakfast and he practically sprinted for the door.

But you hadn’t seen him yet, so that was a plus. There was always a chance he had skipped out on the festivities for the night. Maybe he had gone home to Brooklyn for the weekend, or maybe he was upstairs in his room and you could just -

Your thoughts were cut off by the cheers of the group of people around you, and you turned to see Sam in the middle finishing off a handle of vodka. In your experience, that could only mean one thing.

“Let’s play spin the bottle!” Sam shouted as the last burn of the liquor coursed through him. Having no reason to say no, you made room for yourself in the circle and patiently waited your turn.

Sam gave a dramatic look around the room, before spinning the bottle with a twist of his wrist. Everyone watched as the glass slowed, anxious to see who the first person to kiss the frat president would be tonight. To your surprise, the bottle came to a slow stop on you.

You looked up with slightly panicked eyes. Even in your inebriated state, you could recognize that kissing one of Bucky’s brothers probably wasn’t the greatest idea. But then you remembered the look of absolute terror on his face at the mention of more. And Sam was moving across the circle to you, and Steve - Bucky’s best friend - wasn’t saying anything and so you came to the conclusion that you did with most things: fuck it.

When Sam’s warm lips met yours, you felt… nothing. No spark, nothing beyond acknowledging he was a good kisser. It lasted less than 10 seconds before you were pulling away and spinning the bottle yourself.

Which is how you ended up kissing half the people at the party: Peter - everyone’s favorite pledge, Natasha - your chemistry lab partner, and Scott - who you had never met before but was as funny as he was a good kisser, just to name a few.

The game continued until it dwindled down to a handful of people and you switched to another drinking game. One which you were losing terribly and it showed in your glassy eyes and drunken babble.

The last thing you remembered was the feel of strong hands on your hips, the soft plush of a mattress, and an ache between your thighs.

-

A beam of sunlight burned across your face, enunciating the raging headache you had after going to bed without Advil or an acceptable amount of water. You could have sworn you closed your blinds, but figured you must have opened them up at some point during the day before.

It wasn’t until you reached for the bottle of water you usually kept on your nightstand and grasped air instead that you realized you were, in fact, not in your own bed.

You shot up before groaning at the rush of dizziness to your head. Slowly, you blinked until the room came into focus, and assessed the damage of your night.

You were naked, so that wasn’t a good sign. You remembered sloppy kisses and hushed whispers of are you sure? And at least whoever it was was just as drunk as you were, so there was no harm done in your mind.

That was, until you realized who you had spent your drunken night with.

Broad shoulders gave way to a freckled back and narrow waist. The tuft of blond hair was a mess, like he - or you - had run hands through it, a lot. You knew there was no one else you could be, but when he rolled over, his long lashes fluttering awake, it was confirmed.

“Steve?” you hissed, still in shock. “What the fuck happened?”

At the unmistakable sound of your voice, his eyes snapped open, and he nearly fell to the floor.

“Y/N? Fuck, fuck! Bucky is gonna kill me.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” you scoffed, and you wanted to crush the little bit of hope that creeped into your mind. No, he had made it clear there was nothing more than sex between you. But off course he wouldn’t want his best friend to sleep with the same girl. Bro code or whatever.

God, his best friend. This was worse than Sam, who he’d only known a couple of years. This was his other half since they were practically in the womb. You couldn’t have chosen a worse rebound.

Wanting to forget the mess you had just made of your life, you quickly pulled on your clothes while Steve watched with wary eyes, though he didn’t say anything else about Bucky.

“Are you okay?” You heard Steve’s timid voice as you were about to pull open his door. The motherfucker was such a sweetheart, and you couldn’t handle crying on top of everything else right now.

You were so close to just leaving without a word; that would have been easier on everyone. But damn Steven Rogers, so charming without even trying. You walked back to his bed where he had sat watching you, and gave him a quick kiss. It was a thank you and an apology and a let’s never talk about this again all in one, and he seemed to understand.

Pressing your ear to the door, you made sure no one was in the hall before you slipped out of his room. It would be your luck if Bucky was coming out of his room across the hall at the same moment you were leaving his best friend.

Thankfully, the hall was empty, and you couldn’t hear the usual chatter that came from the frat house, so you figured they must all still be sleeping off their hangovers. You pulled out your phone and ordered an Uber, figuring your best bet was to wait outside on the steps for the few minutes it would take to pick you up. You were so engrossed in your phone you didn’t hear the clatter of plates in the kitchen or the abrupt stop of voices.

When you finally reached the bottom of the stairs, you felt eyes on you, and you looked up to see Bucky staring at you from the kitchen.

You couldn’t have predicted how much it would hurt to see his face, even after only a few days. You also couldn’t have expected the gut-wrenching feeling that came with him cooking breakfast… for someone else.

Not just anyone else, Dot, the beautiful redhead from Chi Omega that you had always been insecure about, even before Bucky.

Flashes of walking in on your ex-boyfriend buried between her thighs had you stumbling back, and Bucky could do nothing but watch as you made your way to the front door. You could even hear the snicker of Dot’s voice just before you slammed the door shut behind you.

-

The great thing about having your own apartment is you could get wine drunk every night of the week and no one was there to judge you for it.

So every night for the next week, you poured yourself a glass before you started on your homework, and were happily tipsy by the time you took a shower and fell into bed. Some may call it a problem, but they weren’t around to know.

You got so used to the feeling that by the time Thursday night rolled around and you had nothing to do but drink, you went a little overboard.

After the first glass you didn’t even bother with any etiquette, instead drinking straight from the bottle until it was empty and you were hungry. You started a pot to boil while you uncorked another bottle, and had half of that down by the time your pasta was ready to be cooked. Trying to maneuver a pot of boiling water proved to be difficult with a bottle of wine in one hand, so you tried to set it down to give yourself room to work, but ended up knocking the handle of the pot, spilling hot water across your arm in the process.

Though it stung, your pride was the thing that took the most damage as you pressed a cold washcloth to your forearm. You slid down to sit on the tiled floor, bringing the bottle with you, and only when you drained the last of the liquid did you allow yourself to feel your emotions.

It started off with silent tears, hurt from the shards of your heart, and gradually your drunken mind spiraled until all you could feel was seething anger at the way Bucky had treated you.

How were you not supposed to catch feelings after Bucky was in your bed practically every weekend?

There were even nights where he came over just to study - although you supposed those always ended in hookups too. But he called you beautiful as he pushed into you, brushing your hair from your face and leaving delicate kisses across your flesh. He made you feel more than any other reoccurring hookup. You couldn’t believe you were the only one who felt the spark that always buzzed beneath the surface of your relationship.

Letting your anger and uninhibited brain fuel you, you grasped for your phone, dialing the number you now knew by heart.

The line rang once, twice, before he picked up, and at first all you could hear was the chatter of other people. He yelled something, muffled by his hand over the speaker, before you heard the sound of a door shutting and he finally spoke.

“Hello? Y/N?” He sounded relatively sober, which did not bode well for you. It was a lot harder to argue with someone when they weren’t as drunk as you were - and that’s exactly what you were looking for.

“James Barnes, you motherfucker.” You tried to sound confident and put together, but the tell-tale of slur coated your words. “You fucking suck, dude.”

“Why are you calling me?” You could hear the agitation in his words, and that made you even angrier.

“To tell you that you’re the fucking worst, James. You need to know that. I need you to know that.”

“God, Y/N, how drunk are you?”

“I’m not -” you hiccupped, giving yourself away even more. “I’m not drunk. You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not the one that’s wasted on a Thursday night. Jesus.” Surprisingly, you couldn’t hear any judgment in his tone - just disappointment. And maybe that hurt worse. What right did he have to be disappointed in you? You weren’t his anything.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that. Just don’t.” Your voice wavered and you could feel the tears coming again. “How could you?”

A deep sigh, like he knew this was coming. “How could I what?”

“You could have picked anyone but her, anyone but Dot. You know how I feel about her, and you fuck her? It’s like you don’t even care about me.”

“It’s not like that -” You cut him off, not wanting to hear whatever lies he spouted.

“Don’t bullshit me. You even cooked her breakfast. I thought you didn’t do relationships, huh? Or is it just that you don’t do relationships with me?” Finally, the dam cracked and you were sobbing and you heard Bucky sigh again, like you were a nuisance, like he had better things to do.

“Listen, Y/N, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re hurt, that you caught feelings, that you thought there was more. But I told you from the beginning that I didn’t want a relationship. More than once.” The truth of the words stung, but he wasn't done yet. No, Bucky had to make sure every piece of your heart was irreparable. “I’m not going to keep explaining myself to you, not when you’re acting crazy like this.”

“At least your best friend doesn’t think I’m crazy. And he was a better fuck anyways.” You were grappling for any way you could hurt him the way he had hurt you but he was a brick wall.

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

Crazy. The word bounced around in your thoughts over and over, even after the call had ended. You stared at the kitchen wall, thinking about where everything had gone wrong. Where you had gone wrong.

Because this was your fault, and that was a hard pill to swallow. Bucky was right, he had been honest with you from the beginning, and you had held onto unfounded hopes.

In that moment all you could wish was to go back in time - to stop from getting drunk that first night. To stop your spitefulness and your anger. To stop from ever falling in love with him.

-

The next morning you woke up, still on the kitchen floor, with a splitting headache and dried tears coating your face.

You thanked the gods you didn’t have a class on Fridays as you stepped into the shower, feeling the ache of last night slowly wash off you. It was after that you decided, staring in the mirror at your sunken cheeks, that you would make a change. You would get your shit together.

You started with an apology to Steve, one he deserved long before now, then took the time to delete the pictures of Bucky from your phone. The ones that were private and you had kept for when you needed something to take the edge off of missing him. The thought filled you with guilt now, as you pressed delete and hoped he had done the same on his end. Then you texted your friends you had neglected the past couple months, the ones who tried to warn you and who had gotten sick of your own self sabotage.

The last thing you did was type out a text to Bucky, apologizing for your behavior, for the way you had treated him, and wishing him well. But you couldn’t bring yourself to send it, so it sat undelivered in your phone until you could finally bring yourself to delete the entire text thread.

You knew you should delete his number too, erase any temptation, but it was just something you couldn’t bring yourself to do.

The urge to text him and explain yourself took a while to go away, especially when you found out that Bucky wasn’t lying about nothing happening with Dot, that she was there because her sorority sister had needed a ride home that morning, and she just so happened to catch Bucky in the kitchen.

You beat yourself up for that one, though you knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. There was never anything more for you and Bucky, regardless of who he did or didn’t sleep with. That was the hardest part to get over.

But you did it.

You stopped going to frat parties, too, deciding that part of your life was over. You threw yourself into your studies and before you knew it, May was approaching and you were just a couple weeks from graduation.

Preparing for one last hoorah with your friends, you met Wanda at your favorite bar downtown - dressed up for the first time in a while, and drinking more than a single glass of wine with dinner since that phone call with Bucky.

Who, speak of the devil, walked in just as you were grabbing a tray of drinks off the bartop. You locked eyes, but quickly hustled back to your table as you saw him attempt to push through the crowd towards you.

You thought he had gotten the hint, because you only saw him in quick glances from across the bar after that, until you made your way to the bathroom, brushing Wanda off when she offered to come with you.

Unfortunately, there was only a single stall that was annoyingly occupied, so you leaned back against the wall and waited.

You were scrolling through Twitter, contemplating going full Maddy from euphoria and banging on the door, when you felt a presence beside you. You knew without looking up exactly who it was.

Slowly, you slipped your phone in your pocket and turned to look up at him.

He was devastating. Just as charming and handsome as you remembered, and it was a struggle for a moment to catch your breath.

“Hi,” he whispered, and you wondered if maybe he was thinking the same thing about you. You could only be so foolish to hope. “I’ve missed you.”

You felt your heart skip a beat, and you wanted to shove the feeling down but suddenly his hands were cupping your face and he was just a breath away.

“I was an idiot, to say the least, and I’m sorry it took a few months of missing you everyday to realize that.” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. It felt like a fever dream - awful and amazing all at once. “Could you give me a chance to not be an idiot?”

What you should do was tell him no, that you had moved on, that he didn’t mean anything to you anymore.

But you had always been a terrible liar.

Instead of falling into his arms like you desperately wanted to, like the you of six months ago would have, you pressed a kiss to his cheek - a forgiveness and a dismissal all in one - and walked back to your table.

After exchanging goodbyes with your friends, you sent one last look Bucky’s way before heading home.

-

It had been a few days since you’d heard from Bucky, and it hurt more than you cared to admit.

Although you had wanted to forgive him and move on that night at the bar, a part of you held back. You wanted to make sure it wasn’t a result of him being drunk and lonely. And unfortunately it seemed your suspicions were right.

You’d spent the days since then with your phone always in arm’s reach, hoping he would call, but on the third day of nothing, you had accepted your fate.

Just as you were about to run a bath and block out the world for a little while, there was a knock at your door. Your heart jumped into your throat, but you shoved it back down along with the lingering hope that it would be Bucky on the other side.

Preparing yourself for anything, you swung the door open to the one person you wanted above all else - Bucky Barnes, weighed down with… grocery bags?

“Uh,” you weren’t quite sure what to say, and the sheepish smile on his face was one you had never seen before.

“Can I come in?” He asked, lifting up the bags. “These are pretty heavy.”

Wordlessly, you stepped aside, and he set the bags down on the counter. When you peaked inside them, you were surprised to find an array of breakfast foods. You sent him a questioning look, waiting for some sort of explanation.

“I spent the last few days thinking about how I could prove to you that I was serious. Probably have about 50 unsent texts. After everything, I thought I could start with breakfast. Low stakes, and you don’t have to decide anything right now. Just let me be here with you.”

Although you had decided the moment you saw him on your doorstep, you let him cook you breakfast. You let him open up in ways he never had before. You let yourself fall more in love with him, knowing he was doing the same with you.

There aren’t a lot of things about life that Y/N will openly admit that she regrets. She believes that she should live life to the fullest, and that has landed her in some pretty sticky situations. She doesn’t truly regret them, though. She doesn’t look back on them and wish that things had gone differently, mostly because the experiences that she’s gone through have made her who she is.

There is one thing that she wishes she could go back in time and undo, however. The one single night in her life that made everything take a full one eighty and sent her entire world spiraling.

It’s something that she’s tried her hardest not to think about since it happened, but when she got his stupid wedding invitation in the mail, with a picture of him that she took when they were still “seeing” each other, all the memories came washing back.

The moment she saw his smile brighter than ever, from the day they went to the pumpkin patch and he was so giddy to have something to decorate for Halloween that his dimples were popping and his smile was so big that it was almost contagious. The memory hit her like a truck, and now she’s sitting with her back against the counter, trying her best not to let the tears fall, because the second that they do, she knows that she won’t be able to get them to stop until there are no more tears left for her to cry. 

As the seconds pass, she begins to think about how much she fucked everything up, and it’s suddenly like she’s right back to that night.

<i> “Y/N, come on, we’re gonna be late!” Harry yells from the other side of her door. She texted him not even twenty minutes prior telling him to let himself in the door once he got to her place.

“Harry, you just got here!” she responds, looking in the mirror as she applies a layer of mascara. “Plus, I’m almost done, go sit down or something!” She hears him sigh dramatically before trudging off to sit on the couch until she’s done, or at least that’s what she assumes that he’s going to do. Knowing him, he’ll just go stand in the kitchen. She chuckles lightly at the thought, he’s such a weirdo she says to herself as she places the applicator back in the tube of mascara and screws it shut.

Standing, she takes a look at her outfit. The black material of the dress falls to her mid-thigh. The form hugs her curves nicely and the cut of the top shows off just the right amount of cleavage. She smiles at her reflection before slipping on a pair of silver heels and grabbing her purse, slipping her ID and her phone inside.

She saunters over to the door, and right before she twists the knob, she takes a deep breath. Tonight, she’s going to try to finally take things to the next level with Harry, and she needs to summon all of her courage to try that. They’ve been sleeping together for months, but Harry refuses to acknowledge that they’re anything more than friends. It’s tiring, and Y/N really needs to know if he’s worth holding onto or if she needs to let go and find someone else that will give her more than a fuck.

She twists the handle and swings the door open before making her way to him. Like she assumed, he’s sat on the couch, legs spread in a way that would look obnoxious if any other man were doing it. She doesn’t hesitate to stand between his legs and look down at him. He meets her gaze for just a moment before letting his eyes travel down her body. His tongue pokes out, running across his bottom lip. Her eyes follow the movement, watching as the skin becomes wet with his spit. It takes everything in her to will her mind away from other things that make his lips shine like that.

She opens her mouth to ask how she looks, but he circles his hand around her wrist and lightly tugs her down so that she’s sitting on one of his thighs with her side pressed against his chest. He dips his head to place a kiss to her lips, molding them together as he breathes in the scent of her vanilla perfume that she frequents whenever she wants to smell good but not have it be too overwhelming. He smears his lips across hers, fitting her bottom one between his two as he pulls her closer and deepens the kiss just a bit. 

When she whines into the kiss, he pulls away from her mouth, looking at her with hooded eyes. “You look absolutely fucking gorgeous,” he gushes, squeezing her closer to his body. “My girl is so pretty, I can’t even believe it.” Y/N’s cheeks heat up at him calling her ‘his girl’ and there’s nothing more that she wants than to really be his. 

Clearing her throat, she stands up as she pushes all thoughts out of her head. She doesn’t want to work herself up too early in the evening and then psyche herself out before she can even get the full courage that she needs to bring up the idea with him. She reaches for his hand and he gladly lets her take it in his own, squeezing it lightly before she pulls him up off the couch and over to the door. 

“Come on, Harry,” she mocks his tone from when he yelled through the door earlier, “we’re going to be late!” He chuckles lightly, shaking his head as he willingly follows behind her. 

He pulls his keys from his pocket and clicks the button to unlock his car. Once he hears the click of the doors, he pulls the passenger side open and ushers her inside the vehicle. After she’s safely inside, he shuts the door and walks around the car, slipping in himself before starting the car. 

“Are you not drinking tonight?” Y/N asks, finding it just a bit peculiar that he’s driving to a club when he hasn’t done so… ever. He always has someone else drive him because he always gets wasted when he goes out.

“Nope,” he states, shaking his head. “I want to remember tonight.”

The words have butterflies erupting in her stomach, but they also have it twisting into knots. There’s an unknown about why he wants to remember tonight. Is there something that he plans on doing that is too good for him to forget? Or does he want to end things and doesn’t want to forget to do so? 

She inhales shakily, pushing the thoughts from her mind as she sees the club come into view. Harry parks and opens her door for her, taking her hand and leading her into the building. 

Once they’re inside, he drops her hand and speaks directly into her ear so that she can hear him over the music, his breath making her skin prickle. “I’m gonna go get us drinks, yeah? Go find somewhere to sit,” he pauses for a few seconds, placing a hand on her waist. “Or go dance, know how much you love to do that.” She can feel his smirk against her skin, and it makes her melt as she stands there. 

When he pulls away, she makes her way towards a table near the corner, knowing that Harry will want a bit of solitude when they decide to just sit down and have a drink or two together. She takes a seat and pulls out her phone, wanting to look busy so that nobody would come up to her and try to talk. The only person that she wants to talk to right now is Harry.

A few minutes pass and she begins to grow just a bit bored. She knows that he had to go order them drinks, but it normally doesn’t take this long. 

When she looks up, scanning the room to find him, she sees something that makes her heart fall and her stomach clench in the worst way. He’s leaning into a tall blonde, his hand on her lower back to hold her closer to him just like he does with Y/N. The sight makes her sick, but what makes it even worse is the way that he laughs and his eyes light up more than they ever have when looking at Y/N, her heart cracks. 

Her first instinct is to go over to him and interrupt, but she doesn’t have any right to do so. He’s not hers. As much as she wants him to be, he’s not, and that’s something that she has to live with.

So, instead of going up to them, she puts her phone back into her purse and goes onto the dance floor, finding someone to dance with and not wasting any time in molding their lips together. It feels wrong, kissing someone that isn’t Harry, but he doesn’t want her, so she’ll just have to do everything in her power to forget about him, even if it’s just for the night. 

After a while of dancing and drinking things that she probably, definitely shouldn’t be drinking, she meets his eyes across the room and the look on his face makes her realize that kissing strangers while he was flirting with someone else probably wasn’t the best idea.

He just shakes his head before walking out. His head is hung low, and if it wasn’t for the low lighting that she swore had to be playing tricks on her, she would have thought she saw tears streaming down his face.

After she got home that night, she tried to text him, but all she got was a green message instead of a blue one. He blocked her.

All she had left of him were the memories that he had left and one single text message that she had received from him before he blocked her.

Thanks for letting me know that you didn’t want what I did, it’s what I needed to let go.

When she falls asleep that night, there are tears streaming down her face and her pillow is soaked beneath her.

Oh, how she wishes she could go back and erase every time she’s ever gotten drunk. That would solve a lot of things. If she hadn’t ever gotten drunk around Harry, they never would have started sleeping together. Which means that she never would have fallen in love with him, she never would have gotten jealous of him flirting with someone, and she definitely wouldn’t have kissed the first person that she laid eyes on to get back at him.

If she could just get undrunk one time, she wouldn’t be looking down at the wedding invitation that’s now stained with tears, wishing that it was her standing next to him in the engagement photos.