You're cold and I burn / Band Of Brothers Winnix

Bitter

He felt Nixon's presence, as soon as he entered the room. 6 months without him, after spending over two years side by side, nearly every day, as he concluded, hadn't obliterated the feeling he got, whenever he and Nixon were in the same room. The way his heart beat faster only knowing they were in the same space. He felt his body releasing the tension of anxiety he always was caught in, when he was in a room full of people. Which was odd.

He had been a Major in the army. Men had respected him, no matter the rank. The Easy men still did. But he struggled in his civilian life.

At home, he immediately had taken over the farm and released his father from hard work. He had been eager to learn and to work all day. Eager to think about the lands and bills. To not think about him!

His family, his mother especially, had noticed the change in him right away. That the war had changed him. He never talked about his experiences and after a few weeks, they stopped asking. He caught himself flinching whenever a loud noise went off or when someone tried to sneak up behind him. Once on a very cold day, he had smacked his father on the ground, after he had placed a hand on Winters shoulder. He had not noticed it because his thoughts had drifted off to a cold night in Bastogne. He had immediately got off him and apologised. Tears had streamed down his face and his father had told him to calm down. It had stayed between them, both not wanting to worry his mother or sisters and indignant about the openly showed feelings, since they both were the type men with holding their feelings close to their chest.

His mother had been worried that he might be lonely, so she had invited her friends over. With their daughters. Every Sunday.
The dutiful son he was, he had made small talk with these ladies. But he had kept imagined Lew standing right next to them grinning and watching him blush and stumble over his words. Later that nights he had dreamed about dark hair, plumb lips around his length and he woke up, trembling and crying. He hated Sundays since.

After the fourth sunday, his mother had asked about the girls at dinner. He had expected her to ask eventually. He knew that they all expected him to finally settle down and have his own family. Little did they know. When Betsy, daughter of his mothers oldest friend, had been talking to him, he had never looked further than her face. Her brown eyes had reminded him of Lew's, and he had imagined looking into Lew's eyes while she had been talking about her job and family, and he only had smiled back at her politely. Or Susan. Her cleavage had shown more than he would have imagined if he cared. But he had not even felt the urge to look.

They all had chatted to him mainly for one reason, as he had found out later from his sister. The following weekend was a town dancing event and the single girls were looking for a partner.

He had barked out a laugh. The poor girls could be glad he would not ask one of them out. He was as good at dancing as a bear was driving a bicycle. He was tall and had long legs, but these legs were not made to dance. Lew had witnessed that first hand. He still could hear him shouting "How can a gentleman like you not know how to dance?? Were there no ladies asking you out for a town dance??" Later that night he had pulled Winters in his arms and they had slowly swayed to a melody Lew had hummed, his heart hammering in his chest because it had been the first time they intentionaly had been chest to chest.

The day his mother had asked him about the girls, had been a bad one. He had been dreaming about Lew the night before, and the shadow of that dream had been haunting him all day. He still had felt the lingering kiss and touch of him and no work had been able to distract him.

She had asked if he knew about the dancing event and if he would ask one of the nice girls out.
He had stopped picking at his dinner, he barely had been able to eat real meals these days and felt a wave of sudden anger rising within with every further word she had said. When she had mentioned Betsy, he had lost it. In retrospect, he knew that his reaction had been too harsh. His mother only had been worrying about him, as every mother did. But on that day, he had lashed out. His voice loud and harsh. His mother, as the rest of the family, had flinched, when he had shouted that they should stay the hell - yeah he even had cursed, another thing that had changed after the war - out of his life.