Danny used to say that where someone decided to get a motel room in Dell told you all you needed to know about them.

At least the establishment takes snow removal seriously. Through a combination of plowing and spreading what must have been a square ton of rock salt, they’ve kept their parking lot completely clear. Lance doesn’t have to dodge a single patch of ice as he walks from the lot inside the building, past an early-twenties clerk who doesn’t look up from her phone, and straight to the stairwell.

When he gets the phone from his pocket to confirm the room number from Niall’s text, he sees that Niall has sent a few impatient messages since that one. Lance only skims them, grimacing, before he drops the phone back into the pocket of his pea coat. It’s his own coat, rescued from the backseat of the Mercedes. Actually, everything he has on now is his own—an undeniable pleasure, though he’ll probably always have oddly fond memories of wearing Johnny’s clothes. Lance is a little ashamed of how important clothes are to him; he knows it’s shallow, but he feels so much better when he’s wearing his own, carefully chosen things.

Right now, that just means dark jeans, leather ankle boots, and a sky-blue cashmere sweater under his coat. He brushes his fingertips over the styled curls at his temple, absently; clothing wasn’t the only thing that he was reunited with in his luggage. The citrus pomade was frozen solid, and thawed to a grainy kind of texture, but a conservative application has still given his curls just the right amount of separation and a subtle sheen.

Niall is on the third floor, in a room close to the stairs. So, Lance is at the door to his room less than a minute later, still unprepared for what he’s about to do. But determination, and a reminder of Robbie’s hands cradling him back against his chest while he was lost in Lance’s body, steels Lance’s resolve. He knocks.

Niall answers the door immediately, his hair flat on one side, his reading glasses on and slightly askew. His ears are a little crooked, which means glasses need constant fine-tuning—a fact that Lance used to find charming.

“Good God,” Niall says shortly, “it took you long enough.” He pauses as he looks Lance up and down, and then his scowl softens to a wry smile. “Oh, Angel, did you stop somewhere so that you could get cleaned up for me? I appreciate the gesture, but you could have done it here.”

“That’s not—” Lance’s words don’t quite get past his mouth. Startled, he swallows. It’s been so long since he’s had something to say and couldn’t get it out.

Or has it? Yes, he’s had an easier time with words since he was a child, a child who used to feel the truth roaring at him to be spoken, but was so afraid to speak it that he didn’t say much at all. In the years since, he’s learned to talk, sure; too well, he thinks, sometimes. He’s had no problem charming people—guiding them to think of his ideas as their own. But that’s not the same as what he wants now, which is to give Niall a piece of his mind straight-out, no games.