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As autumn deepens into a raw, wet winter, Sean becomes everybody's favorite. Everyone else is scrawny thin, still wiry with muscle but pared down to blood-and-bone essentials - two shows a day and sometimes three, concerts and showcase performances and one-offs on German or Spanish or Austrian talk shows, hours of dancing, and it's impossible to keep any weight on. Every time they turn around, EJ's shoveling something into his mouth, potatoes and bakery-hot bread and Billy's porridge in the mornings - anything high-calorie and high-bulk he can get his hands on. He's still painfully tiny. Billy is the stoic Scot, too small to hold much heat on his own but sending Dom off to Orlando when Dom tries to wrap around him and tuck his hands into the small of Billy's back, under his shirt. Orlando's all long legs and arms and still too rangy, even without the fear of having your eye put out by a random pointy elbow, and Dom himself can only hope he's going to fill out some, eventually, although the hope of a few more inches in height is fading with his twenty-first birthday just past.
So Sean, built broad and deep and golden - body still heavy with lean muscle even as his face gets more drawn, still putting off heat like the Florida sun - Sean becomes everyone's favorite. It never surprises Dom to find EJ tucked against Sean's side, under an arm, while the van hurtles toward another appearance, or wrapped around Sean while they shiver outside a radio station waiting for a car to pick them up, or even curled asleep into the protective curve of Sean's body in a hotel room at night. Sean has become everyone's favorite, but EJ has first dibs, and Sean's always kind of been EJ's favorite, anyhow.
So it's an unexpected delight to turn around and find himself with an armful of EJ on a cold Munich street when Sean gets tired and impatient and fussy over waiting, stalking off to find out what's taking the van so long. Back in Germany means a vague air of familiarity to Dom, the tones and cadences and scents of his childhood, but it also means the third country this week, and everyone's tired and irritable, and standing on a street corner in December isn't helping.
"Jesus fuck," EJ mutters, worming his way into the front of Dom's coat like he belongs there, and his icy fingers tucked into the back of Dom's waistband aren't helping, either. No wonder Billy always sends Dom off to molest Orlando when Dom's looking to share body heat.
"Language," Dom tuts, and "Fuck me, mate. They make mittens, you know," but he folds EJ into the navy material, wrapping his arms around the smaller frame, hands still in his coat pockets.
"Lost my mittens," EJ says and sniffs wetly, pulling a face. He's catching a cold from Orlando and Dom will probably have it next, and tea, Dom thinks. Need to find some decent tea and some honey and maybe some whisky to put a slug or two into the steaming mix. He wants to feed EJ honeyed tea and gingerbread and maybe some cider, and he imagines the breath on his neck above the collar of his jumper sweet and spicy instead of bitter with too many cups of coffee. He tightens his arms around EJ's waist, heavy coat a barrier between his hands and EJ's body.
"I thought Sean kept an extra pair of mittens on him," Dom says, because everyone knows how bad EJ is at keeping up with things like that.
"Lost those, too."
"It's not like you were hatched in Florida, you know. Or even California. Doesn't it get cold in Idaho?"
"Iowa," EJ says, only mock-irritated because this is a game they've played before, and Dom can feel the body against his loosening, cold-knotted muscles uncoiling.
They stand in silence for a minute before EJ says, "Fucking cold, all the time," not even bothering to put much heat behind it, and Dom ducks his head to press a quick kiss behind his ear.
"I know," he says and buries his nose in dark silky hair, breathing in.