Fangirling, Swedish style

Setting: post EG, New York/Brooklyn.

Characters: Old!Steve and Bucky

Prompt: Every day, Steve goes to the New York Harbor (or whichever harbor the ww2 troops returned to) in order to see if Bucky has come home yet. While he's there, a nice (if slightly unkempt) young man joins him on a bench and listens to his story - about his life, about how he's waiting for his best friend to come back from the war, about how he's been secretly in love with him as long as he can remember. He doesn't know how much time he has left to live, but he hopes that he'll see his love return from war so that he can confess his feelings. Steve's hopeful, despite everything (his age, internalised homophobia), because even if his confession is received badly, more than anything else he misses his friend and wants to see him again.

As he tells his story, his companion listens quietly, asking occasional questions:

"Aren't you worried about his reaction?"

- I've spent enough time worrying. At my age, you've got to take any and every opportunity given to you, because there's no telling how much time you've got left.

"Why haven't you said anything before now?"

- Fear. Worry. Our friendship meant so much to me, but my worries have turned me into a liar. I hate lying, and lying to him? Unacceptable.

"Have you loved anybody else?"

- Nobody holds a candle to him. Nobody.

As they sit there, the sun sets, no ship returning with triumphant troops in sight. The chill of the harbor starts getting to Steve, and the young man offers to take Steve home. As they sit in a car driving through the streets of NY, Steve's looks at his wrinkled hands, and hopes. Hopes that Bucky returns alive, that Bucky returns to him so that he can apologise for waiting so long, hopes that Bucky won't recoil and leave.

In the morning, he'll go back to the harbor, and wait for his friend, his Bucky, his love.