Bad Habits

chapter ten: ocean eyes

a/n: angst, fluffiness, mentions of smut and Stucky content. no, it's not a continuation of last chapter necessarily. my brain was just not in a smutty place, but you get some hints of what you missed. There will be more chances in the future...

May, Four Years Ago

Lilly flies through the townhouse, wisps of hair falling out of her braid as she practically runs down the hallway. She expects to have to bang on Bucky's door for him to let her in, but it's cracked open. The beat of some hip-hop song that he's obsessed with reverberates down the hall and mimics the pounding in her chest. Sam called her about an hour ago, but she missed it. They were busy shopping for her dorm at NYU, her mom over the moon about her daughter's admission to any school but especially one so close. His voice was frantic, going on about something to do with Steve and leaving.

"Bucky," she pants as she enters the messy room, searching for him amongst the chaos of dirty clothes and books, little pieces of paper sticking out as he makes notes or marks his place.

It takes a minute to find him, sitting against his bed on the floor. His phone is gripped in his hand and his eyes are bloodshot, tears shiny on his face. Lilly can't help but wonder if he got something else from Hope. He's been going to her more and more often as the year has gone on and she's let it slide. Bucky was stressed from exams and admissions criteria, the board at Columbia giving him hell for the number of days he skipped class and the courses he barely scraped by with a passing grade.

"He's leaving us," Bucky mumbles, looking down at the phone as he turns it in his hands. The screen is cracked and Lilly doesn't remember seeing it that way before. He must have broken it recently, maybe when Steve called.

"I know. Peggy too."

Lilly drops her body beside him and leans on his shoulder. Instead of pushing against her, craving her warmth and comfort, Lilly feels Bucky scoot over slightly.

"But it's not for another three months, and you know that you've always wanted to go to California. Peggy makes him happy, Buck. It's good for him."

When he looks up at her finally, her heart shatters seeing the tears in his eyes.

"Am I not enough?"

His words are slurred but it doesn't make them hurt any less. After years of going back and forth with one another, Lilly and Bucky officially started to date about two months ago. She knows she could never replace the love that Bucky has for his best friend and knows the desperate desire to feel loved and be loved in return.

"Baby," she cooes, holding his overheated face in her hands. "You are more than enough. It's not personal. We've been telling Stevie to do something that he wants to do and not what his father wants. Now he has that chance."

"But I need him, Lil," Bucky sniffs as his lip starts to tremble. In all her years of knowing him, she's never seen her best friend this distraught. "I can't do this without him."

Her fingers card through his short hair as tears stream down his face and he buries himself in her, soft sobs wracking through his body. Lilly feels moisture on her cheeks and realizes that she's crying too, wondering if it's actually her who will ever feel like she is enough.

Now

In a moment of deja vu, Lilly finds herself waking up once again tangled in Bucky's sheets. Her eyes flutter open to the intricate patterns drawn on the high ceilings above her as she stretches her legs, flexing her toes under the silky sheets. There's an ache between her legs and a soreness in her muscles that was absent when she went to bed, if you can even call it that. It was more passing out of exhaustion, her mind muddled with alcohol and the high of being stuck between Bucky and Steve once more. After Steve gave her a mind blowing orgasm on the couch, the three burned through a few bottles of wine and a bottle of bourbon. Little flashes of the night previous run through her mind and Lilly buries her head in the oversized pillows as heat flows through her body.